So I accepted a job at a small local software company called Microsoft, and today is my last day at U.S. Bank. One of my usual moves is to book a trip in between jobs, and I've pulled that off yet again. I'm actually leaving for Guyana while Lydia's parents are still visiting which is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Because I'm going on a trip, a new horrible covid variant has appeared and is ravaging the world, making travel uncertain, and generally just making my life a little more sucky. Friggin' covid just will not go away, tell you what.
I need a covid test in order to enter the country still, so I drove out near the airport to get one from the county health department.
A few towns over in Woodinville they have decided that they are going to be home to every winery in the universe. This is a bit odd because all of the grapes are grown out on the east side of the state, so why this became the spot for fancy drunkards I'm not so sure. Doug and Linda were pretty much in heaven.
Dusted Valley Winery
One place had a fig tree out front which I thought was super cool. I don't think I've ever seen such a thing before, nor would I have thought this was the correct climate.
So it's my last day of work, it's the day after Thanksgiving, I'm entertaining Lydia's crew, and the bank's IT people screwed up my offboarding and never sent me any boxes to mail my computer stuff back. Plan B though was actually pretty fun for me. They told me to dump all my stuff at my local bank branch. It was kind of amusing because one of my responsibilities was to measure the points bankers get when they open new accounts and the like. So it was a lot of fun to tell the bankers at this branch that's what I did and scare the crap out of them about being watched.
Anyway, goodbye U.S. Bank. I learned a lot and I had some great relationships with my team at the headquarters in Minneapolis but this Microsoft opportunity was just too good to pass up. The cost of living is quite a bit higher here so I was sort of anxious to get a local job for that reason as well. I was also working on central time which could be a bit of pain while living on the west coast.
Back to my underground lair. I've begun to contemplate the similarities in the words hospital and hospitality. So many of these events are quite boring and both mentally and physically taxing, and one of the only things keeping me going is a fun event on the horizon that I actually want to see. Tonight was just such an event: Trevor Noah!
The tunnel clubs usually have pretty good food spreads.
It's difficult to take pictures of people in this scenario but you get the idea. I appreciated how international his act was. I remember it had some really good bits about different languages which is right up my alley. I actually stopped watching the Daily Show after he took over... maybe he should quit that and just do stand up?
