Alex Polson's Personal Blog

Sari got her nose done and I got my eye-brow done again. I was told by the guy that did it that my previous piercing was done very poorly. It should never have been done right above my eye but more to the side of it (like it is now). Let this be a warning to all potential piercers that live in Bellingham, WA: DON'T go to Kalamalka Studios on Meridian. They're horrible and I'm not the only one that thinks so.. Bad Kalamalka.

A man who used the "Grand Theft Auto" made me do it argument is going to jail, but a civil suit still looms. A media circus looms, too.

I did a presentation on this very subject my last quarter in college. Hopefully they won't hold the game developer responsible.

"One always looks neat, in a hat made from meat." -Mark Twain\n 'nough said.

How on earth this story got past me I don't know. This story is about a month old now but for those that haven't heard...\nApparently a woman was "dining" at a San Jose Wendy's when she found a little more than beans and ground beef in her chilli. To her dismay she found a finger tip and a fingernail in it as well.I have three questions for this woman:How did you get the finger from the bowl to her mouth without noticing it on her spoon?And (more importantly) how in the hell did she manage to get both finger and nail in the same, small bowl of chili?Highly suspicious. I'm told that the woman has been known to make false accusations at companies to, presumably, get some nice settlements.

This morning I got on the bus to work, as usual, and sat across from a middle-aged woman... and her dog. This was not the unusual bit, however.\nI opened up my book (again, as usual) and tried escaping to the magical world of Harry Potter. To my dismay the escape didn't last long. About half way through my bus ride I realized that somebody on the bus was crying. I looked up from my book to discover the woman with the dog reading her own novel and openly crying; not just tearing up, mind you, but full on crying, presumably at the story she was reading. Unfortunately I wasn't brave enough to look at what she was reading. I like to think it was a tragic romance novel.To be clear, this post is not meant to poke fun. I think it's great that she was comfortable enough to display her emotions so openly in front of several complete strangers.

I've been wanting to get a digital camera for quite a while now. Because of school and not working full-time, though I really couldn't justifythe prohibitive cost of a camera that I would actually enjoy. When I finally graduated and got a job I decided to take the plunge.\nI ended up buying a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20 based on my father's recommendation (he has one of the previous Lumix iterations). This is definitely a purchase I am happy with. The 12x optical zoom is great and that it has image stabalization is very handy.Though I haven't had a chance to play with all the features of the camera here are a few sample shots that I took of our cats Tigger and Lola:

Only a job that I truly love could motivate me to get out of bed at 2:45a and work. Ah the joys of being on pager duty (for the first time I might add).\nThe truth is this has been the worst of it which isn't really that bad it's just that it's now almost 5:00a and I'm still making sure things are okay.What can I say? This is love. :)

For my birthday last September I got the wonderful news that my good friends Matt and Marlowwere going to have a baby. As I've been going through several life changes lately I hadn't seen them since I got the news. As luck would have it we finally got in touch with each other this week and hung out for a few hours and caught up.\nThough she would probably kill me if she knew that I was posting for all to see this is a picture that I took at the end of the visit.She's due on March 9th. My prayers go out to them as the get ready to welcome their new daughter Harper Shawn...

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted last. It looks like November was the last time. A lot has happened since then. I think now that things have started to settle a little bit for me it's time for an update.\nFirst of all there's graduation. Yes, after six years of being in school I've finally graduated with a degree in Computer Science, a minor in Mathematics and a Web Programming certificate. All this stuff ended up being a ridiculously high 250 credits or so. It was certainly worth the time and effort though from there it was time to enter the real world...Next on the list is the job hunt. Well, lucky for me a few weeks before graduation I had gotten an interview with Amazon.com. Three phone screens and five onsite (yes, five, though they were all the same day) interviews later I have started there. I've now been there about six weeks and couldn't be happier with it.The environment is entertaining and above all challenging. My first day (week/month) was very overwhelming. There was, as you can imagine, a ton of information to learn. Even after six weeks there is still a ton of information to learn. In fact it seems like the more I learn the more I discover to learn. From what I've been told at about the four or six month mark is when most people just click with the environment. I'm not quite there yet.One more major thing to report... Sari and I have started renting a house in the Ravenna neighborhood in Seattle. It's about three blocks away from University Village which has a QFC with a Bruegger's Bagels (the best bagels and sandwiches), a Jamba Juice (my favorite alternative to the Starbucks next to work), an Apple store (this could get me in trouble) and many other assorted goodies. There is also a Kidd Valley (great burgers and shakes) a short walk away. I never really have to wander far from home to get the things I "need".Unfortunately for the moment Sari is still in Bellingham as she's finishing off school. She'll be done in June though, so it won't be too much longer that we're apart.I also want to apologize for the lack of updates over the last several months. The lack of having my own space to do my own thing has pretty much destroyed any motivation that I might have had to do the things that I want to do. It's strange how my mind works.With any luck I'll get off my butt and start posting a bit more often. I would really like to start showing off some pictures that I've been taking. It may be a little bit longer before that is a reality but, with any luck, it'll be sooner than later.

I posted a while ago about joining the beta of a game called World of Warcraft. The testing went very well and as of a week ago the game was released. I was lucky enough to be among one of the first 200,000 to play the game upon release. You read right... 200,000. 250,000 were sold all around the world on the first day of release. As a result the game servers were packed.\nThe first two days were crazy. You couldn't go anywhere in the virtual world without running into hundreds of other players. Because of the demand for the game the server's would frequently grind to a halt causing all sorts of problems. Blizzard started with about 41 servers in the U.S. alone but quickly added 34 more servers to balance the load. Although there were a few hiccups at launch all the problems seem to be sorted out for the most part and it has been a very enjoyable and exciting gaming experience. Considering the host of problems that have plagued the launch of MMORPGs in the past I'd say that this has been an incredibly successful launch.\nBlizzard's tech support has been working on the game around the clock to make sure that every player has a great experience. It seems they've done it again.\nHere's a review of the game to get an idea of how great it is.