August 25th, 2008 - Vegas, house hunting, more Vegas

Three weekends ago I found myself in Vegas, teaching and generally lending a hand at Blackhat Training. It had only taken me about an hour after landing before I remembered why Vegas is not my favourite place in the world. Nevertheless, I somehow managed to stick it out all the way through the following weekend. The Blackhat Briefings and Defcon were definitely worth it, with lots of interesting talks, lots of old friends I hadn't seen in a while, and even some new friends who I hope to meet again soon.

I returned to Seattle first thing the following Sunday (note to self: Alaska Air's check-in counters don't open until 5am) to find that our apartment lease is coming up for renewal. Generally unhappy with our current neighbourhood, and wanting to find something a little more ... house-like, Tiffany and I set off on a quest for a, uhm, house. Amazingly, we found one! Photos will follow once we actually move in.

Being thoroughly tired and done with Vegas for a while, it makes perfect sense that I will be returning there tomorrow morning. Oh yes.

August 4th, 2008 - Lessons from Italy

Tiff and I got back from our adventure in Italy last weekend. It consisted of two lovely weeks with sunshine, wine, limoncello and proscuitto e melone. A small sampling of the mountain of photos we took can be found in my photo gallery.

The first week was spent in Tuscany with my parents, at the lovely Podere Vesta outside Siena. I would count this as possibly the most relaxing week I've had since I left University.

The second week involved Tiff and me driving what I'm sure is the smallest vehicle Chevrolet have ever put their name on - a Matiz - up to Venice, and then down to Rome. A few valuable lessons were learned:

• In a Matiz, if you turn off the air conditioning, you instantly gain the ability to go up hills.
• Italian roads do not necessarily have lane markers. Even if they do, they don't count.
• Using your indicator is a sure sign that you're a tourist and don't know what you're doing.
• When arriving in a strange town late at night, bring a printout of the hotel location. Google Maps will not save you.
• Road trips are fun. For short bursts.

Venice definitely won us over more than Rome. It had a more relaxed atmosphere, and it was easy to get away from the tourist hotspots and just relax. Rome featured many more sights to see, but suffered greatly from being one great big tourist magnet.

Nevertheless, Tiffany and I enjoyed ourselves a lot, and even found our new favourite restaurant: La Stelletta. It's a couple of blocks west of the parliament building in Rome. It serves amazing food, has friendly and extremely professional service, and isn't as horribly expensive as most other places. If they had a website, I would link to it here.

I'm currently in Las Vegas. There'll be more on this later.

July 8th, 2008 - Turning 27, various independence days, Leavenworth, Singapore, and some rafting

About a month and a half ago, I turned 27. Reactions have been mixed; from "Oh dear, you're getting old" to "Boohoo, just you wait until 30 hits you". And, of course, there have been the occasional "You should probably start thinking about settling down and having kids now, eh?". Thanks for that...

Anyway, enough of me being negative about my age. Let's move on to the fun stuff. Like Norwegian Constitution / Independence Day!

Being roughly 7,000 kilometres from Norway (thanks Google Earth), the 17th of May celebrations that I was used to from my childhood were somewhat beyond reach. There was no reason to feel gloomy, as Seattle has its own Nordic neighbourhood! Ballard, which lies just across Salmon Bay from downtown Seattle, hosts its own parade every year. It's roughly the same concept as the 17th of May parade in places such as Bergen, except instead of Buekorps, there are cheerleaders. Oh, and lots of "kings" and "queens" of various societies and high schools. Check out my photos to see what it was all about.

In a sheer fit of desperation to get away from stress, Tiff and I decided (ok, Tiff and our friend Savannah decided) to drag our friends Rob and Savannah up to a cabin near Leavenworth, WA. Leavenworth is a Bavarian themed town on Highway 2 east of Steven's Pass. It's a bit of a strange place, given that you don't really expect a whole bunch of Bavarian themed signs and houses to turn up in the middle of Washington State. Highlights of our stay included: finding a dead mouse, finding a dying mouse, eating breakfast at Sandy's Waffle Haus, getting lost up an unmarked road, having to turn around when the unmarked road turned out to be covered by snow (in June), and running like scared little girls when we heard something growl in the dark near our fire pit. For photos, go to the usual place (my gallery).

Uhoh, this post is turning epic. That's what I get for not updating for two months. Between you and me, I blame the guy who wrote the interface for my blog. He really had no idea what he was doing, and probably didn't pay very good attention when being taught about effective Human-Computer Interfaces and Usability.

Oh wait, that was me.

Then what happened? Well, my brother and his girlfriend Janet decided to get married. In Singapore. Which was actually rather fantastic, as I've been looking for a good excuse to go see him in his equatorial homestead. Naturally, I brought Tiffany with me, and (obviously) my parents were present as well. We had an absolutely fantastic time, thanks in part to Janet's wonderful family, who couldn't have been more welcoming. Of course, we're now threatening to come visit again. Photos can be found here.

Oh right, there were several independence days. The American Independence Day is always embraced by a few favourite American passtimes: drinking beer, attempting to remember the words to the national anthem (or if you're a jazz singer, the right bloody notes), and blowing stuff up. I mainly enjoyed the latter. Some pretty photos from our vantage point in Gasworks Park can be found here.

I suppose I should also mention that I went rafting this past weekend. It sounded like a great idea to start with, until I realised I had to sign a great big waiver stating I wouldn't blame anyone if I happened to die in the course of the activity. When we finally got on the river it turned out to be a whole load of fun, and not anywhere near as death-defyingly scary as I had expected. Granted, we chose an easy river for beginners, so I'm not going to make any claim that rafting is always as fun and un-death-defying as our experience. I didn't take any photos, as taking a digital SLR on a rafting trip is commonly known as Really Silly Idea. Instead, you can find some "official" photographs and some taken with a disposable waterproof camera at Rob's Picasa page (photos courtesy of River Recreation and Savannah Klunder).

And that, I believe, covers the past two months of my life. Just in case you thought that was all a little too much excitement, and that I'd be doing boring stuff for a while, Tiff and I are off to Tuscany on Saturday. We'll be meeting up with my parents, and staying outside Siena for a week. Then we thought we'd go be tourists in Venice and Rome. After that, I'm off to Las Vegas for Blackhat Training, Blackhat Briefings, and Defcon 16.

Phew!