Seattle Christmas Party

I started my new job at Microsoft and while my job seems to be permanently work from home, I wanted to take Lydia to check out their headquarter campus in nextdoor Redmond, WA.

Pretty much all of the buildings seem to still be shuttered due to covid, but we had a nice stroll around anyway.

We had friends over for our annual Christmas party. It was our first outside of St. Louis, so we weren't sure if people would come or enjoy themselves but it all worked out well. The white elephant gift exchange is always good for a laugh.

The kids these days are always begging to play Atari at parties so I had that sucker set up and ready to roll.

Craigslist and Atari Surgery

I've got another trip coming up this weekend. This time its going to be to Atlanta. Hopefully this time I'll have a chance to do something other than hang out in a computer closet.

My latest interest is buying and selling things on craigslist. You should definitely check it out if you haven't already. Its pretty much a big online garage sale, and I love garage sales! There are pages for most cities of a decent size, and if your town doesn't have one, then you aren't cool. I'll do my best to remember everyone when I'm rich from selling crap to strangers. On another note, check out the personals section. You'll be delighted to see how many really creepy people live in your area.

I've been messing with my atari the last couple of days. One of the controller ports was acting weird, so I've been trying to fix it. I opened it up and have been operating on its insides with a soldering gun. So far I think I've done more damage to it than good, but its a learning experience either way.

Whats even more fun than driving 45 minutes to and from work everyday? If you guessed fight to stay awake while you wait 15 minutes for a really long train to go by in the middle of nowhere, then you were right!

New Atari

So I stopped by my favorite auction house on the way back from work yesterday. I figured that the fairly heavy rain might deter some people, and that maybe there would be more space to move around and maybe some better deals. I was wrong, the regulars at this place are pretty hardcore. Most of the people there will hang out for hours, regardless of whether or not theres anything around that they want. Its like TV for country people I guess. This time a couple friends stopped by to see their first auction. I think that they were entertained, probably as much by the crazy people there as by the cool stuff. I ended up getting a nice Atari 2600 with several games for cheap. I was pretty excited about it. I ended up getting it to run after messing with it a bit.

Today our department had a little Christmas party at one of the office lady's houses. It was nice to see everyone in a more casual setting. Ive only been at work for two weeks now, and I feel like I am fitting in pretty well and getting along with my coworkers. Which reminds me, the atmosphere at the office is a lot more casual than you might expect. Everyone pretty much wears jeans to work everyday, and I don't think Ive seen anyone wear a tie so far. I hear everyone wears shorts in the summer. Definitely my kind of place.

Ive talked to a couple of people about the Jesus Camp preview on my last entry, and they were all as afraid of it as I am. This clip is a compilation of some of the really crazy stuff a little girl says in the movie. One of my favorite parts of the whole movie is when this little girl prays over her bowling ball to make a strike. Compelling. Enjoy.