1 year!

The original reason for writing this blog was to chronicle the move from Boston to Seattle. Today is the one year anniversary of our plane ride out here! Crazy. So far I'm really glad we moved. I like Seattle a lot, and things are going pretty well right now: I'm learning a lot in school, keeping busy with my internship, and having fun with David.

The quarter is almost over, which is hard to believe- they go by a lot faster than semesters. I'm taking two classes over the summer, which hopefully will put me in the position to graduate in Spring '10, about a year from now. Over my break I'm going to go visit my brother in Anchorage for a few days. I've never been to Alaska and am looking forward to seeing it. It was kind of a last minute decision. I didn't get a good deal or anything, just realized that this might be one of the last opportunities I have to go there before he graduates in December. I wish David could come too but he has to work; we're pretty close to Alaska though so it won't be hard to go again.

Dinner and a Beer

Here's the draft of my personal podcast for class:

It's academic

I've been editing audio all day for my podcasting class; one project is a personal one on food and beer, and one is a group one on Seattle tourism. Here's my part of it:


Editing audio is easy but takes a lot more time than you would guess (unless you would guess that it takes a lot of time, in which case you are correct). I had some problems recording last week; I don't really know anything about equipment, so everything so far has been trial and error. I've recorded directly to file with portable recorder, into GarageBand on David's Mac and with Audacity on the PC though several different microphones (even stupidly bought one at Radioshack), all with little success: it sounds like I'm under water no matter what I try. However, I think I've got them to a point that I feel comfortable with, though they are still a work in progress. I was hoping to have everything finished by this weekend, but I need to re-record a few clips. I'm still in pretty good shape: have a group presentation for my other class on Thursday, which I am a little nervous about but feel that we're on our way to doing a good job. The assignment that I was most worried about was posting to the department blog, and I got that out of the way on Friday. You can read it here.

We went for a hike yesterday near Mt. Si with Devin and Catherine. It was nice to get out of town and into the outdoors; plus, Devin and Catherine are fun to hang out with. We couldn't make it to the top of the trail because there is still too much snow (well, technically, we could have, but it didn't seem worth it) but it was still a really fun day. My camera died before we even started the real hike (we had a false start with a lame "nature trail") but I did take a few pictures:


Finally, here's The Cobra with her idol:

IFBC

So... my first post in nearly a month: I've been pretty busy with school and my internship. The work isn't too hard, though it is challenging and keeps me on my toes. It's basically just a lot of stuff all at once.

This weekend was really cool: the folks at my internship organized the International Food Blogger Conference, so I got to attend it (well, work it). There were a lot of prominent food bloggers talking about everything from writing to photography to ethics and legal issues. My main responsibilities were set-up and maintenance (busing tables, brewing coffee, odds and ends, etc) but I also monitored/contributed to the Twitter feed during the sessions. I got some great stuff out of that which I can use in my classes.

One guy, who I will refer to as Inappropriate Twitter Guy, was interesting. He is a food blogger and sex educator (something tells me that it's less high school gym class sex-ed and more of something that interested adults pay good money for) and some of the stuff he said was a little weird. The other interns and I got a nervous laugh out of some of what he included the group on. As proof, here is his entire feed from the event:
-Great gift bags at #ifbc, though wouldn't it have been cool to include mojito peppermint lube: http://store.babeland.com/safe-sex-lubes/babelicious-lube?kbid=828
-someone finally talking about sex at #ifbc!
-On the plus side: easier access to men's restroom than women's restroom at #ifbc (but i'm willing to make men's coed)
-Overheard at #ifbc: Food porn is good, but real porn is better.
-Careful. At #IFBC, food porn session is talking about hand...shots.
-Did I miss the "porn" part of the food porn session? #ifbc
-Sex educator in me should applaud the pineapple at today's IFBC breakfast. One of the best foods for our sex lives. #ifbc
-FINALLY! Someone used "porn" with the right meaning. #ifbc
-(BTW, some porn people rock, too.) #ifbc
-In response to my pineapple comment, people at break asked other good sex foods, so I offer: kiwi and celery. #ifbc
-And...chocolate is an aphrodisiac...banned for women during Aztec times. (I think this is when the feminist movement really began!)

Umm... yeah. The rest of the event was great. As you might expect, there was plenty of excellent food, most of which was not designed for the animal-product adverse (there were some definite veg-haters in the room), so I pretty much just ate bread. Not a problem: bread is probably my favorite food in the world, and this was good bread. Still, I'm glad it's done and I can spend the week focused on school. I need to do the recordings for two podcasts, a ton of reading and some stuff for a group project focusing on a social media strategy for Habitat for Humanity. Plus, I really, really want to cook a whole bunch now.