Being John Malkovich
The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing.
-- Gertrude Stein
Tuesday, November 30, 1999
One year ago: Research
Two years ago: Slackage
Today was our first day in our new offices! I was the first to arrive. We've moved from four reasonably-sized offices at the top of a highrise in Bellevue, to a large open room in an office park north of Redmond. This is a good change. It's our own space, done just for us.
 We even have our own furniture, custom-designed by Smed. (I think we'll use the term "smed," or better yet, "schmed" instead of desk, now. "I put that printout on your schmed, Kellie!") I'm glad we ended up choosing the mid-range options, not the most expensive! I do like the curvy front edge of the desks, and there's a handy  channel system at the back of the desk where you can hide cords and wiring. That's why rooms in design magazines always look so elegant -- they hide or remove all the cords and connections. I'll have my lava lamp (a ship gift for IE 5) on my desk as soon as I get a plug strip for the desk channel.
We've got a kitchen area, microwave, and dishwasher. Going out for lunch isn't as easy as it was in Bellevue, so I stopped at a grocery store (the same one where I used to go with Jack -- this new office is close to where he used to live) and stocked up on frozen food and snacks. I even bought a pack of fifteen mini-cinnabons to celebrate.
We got settled in, hooked up our computers, and started working. Chip had done a lot of stuff to the site over the weekend, adding search and rearranging things. I was very pleased when our new knee-chairs from HAG arrived. I was able to assemble them myself. (Coworker Kellie and I will be using them, while Chip, M--- and Arthur use the more expensive Aeron Herman Miller chairs. This is by our own choice -- the knee chair is better for my back.) No longer will I have to fight with my broken chair with detached knee-rest! Maybe I should take it up to Jack's place and use it there?
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Xeney linked to me in regard to James Lilek's Gobbler feature, which I pointed to in my weblog. There's something about his site that makes you find one part of it, then forget to explore the rest. I don't know how many times I'd been to the Gallery of Regrettable Food before following the links to the other sections of the site, and I don't quite know why.
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Much concern on local mailing lists about the WTO and what's happening downtown. I found the Historylink webcam, and the SeattleInsider local news site, and followed the reports. Since traffic isn't great in the evenings anyway, I decided to stick around the office for a while, eat dinner locally, and take in a movie.
Getting home in the evening will be something to deal with, I know that already! I'm farther from I-90 now, and that's the better bridge by a long shot!
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I left work, drove over to the Bella Bottega shopping center, and parked centrally. I didn't quite remember what places to eat were handy around there, so I decided to walk around the whole place and see what there was, since I had time before the movie. I ended up at Tom-Bo teriyaki, a modest teriyaki place, and had a very good chicken stirfry.
I concluded this long day by seeing Being John Malkovich, which I'd been wanting to see for a while. What a fun film! They take one oddball premise and run with it! A few times they threatened to examine serious issues of identity, but this wasn't really pursued. I liked seeing Orson Bean. What's he been up to? The office setting on the 7 and a half floor is delightfully bizarre. The puppetry is great, and slyly funny. The ending did peter out, but that's the toughest part of any movie to get right.
I drove home (bad traffic even after nine o'clock! yikes!) and saw some lights and activity in the street, several blocks down Pine from where I live. I didn't give it much thought, but later found out that the Capitol Hill riots were happening at that moment!
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