Ryan Prins' Blog

I’m glad it’s the weekend.

This past week was pretty busy. If it wasn’t work, I was out doing something else after work and my time at home was pretty limited. Even though I only worked 49 hours last week, it felt like more. I’m pretty sure that’s because the commute home from Redmond sucks. I mean, on Halloween it took me 1h 15m to get to Jamie’s place, which is up the street from me, by taking back roads through Bellevue, then getting on I-90, then I-5. It was pretty slow, but all one needs is patience to tough it out.

As work goes, it has been busy. I’ve been using TimeSnapper to record what I do all day and I’m spending my day in Word, Outlook, Visio, and Excel. On a side note, I love the new Office system. The updates took some getting used to, but I couldn’t imagine using the 2003 system anymore. I’ve been working with two guys on getting our project’s functional specifications out the door on time and it’s been proving to be a learning experience.

So far I’ve submitted seven document for review and sign-off and only one has been approved, our Test Plan. The rest have required some serious re-work and at times it has been quite frustrating. It hasn’t been frustrating because they need re-work as much as it is that I become frustrated with myself that I didn’t do better in the first place and I hate feeling like I’m letting anybody down. Our third round of docs, sign-off e-mail sent Friday, will probably get rejected, but I think that they are getting better in quality.

Like my first sentence said, I’m glad it’s the weekend. I can sleep in, and just do nothing. Well, not nothing, but not work related stuff. I’m sure that next week will be a 40+ week again, but I don’t anticipate it to be more than 50 hours since we only have one spec due this week.

So, with that said, it’s time to get back to enjoy the last afternoon of this weekend.

Well, the past week that I have had was quite busy. I went to Minnesota, attended a wedding for my cousin, had two family dinners, went to Fort Snelling, the Minnesota Zoo, found two geocaches, flew back to Seattle, attended a Mariners’ game, and went to the DC United/Real Madrid soccer game. Needless to say, I’ve had a busy week. Read more…

After a weekend of golfing at Bandon Dunes it is back to the reality of work for me. But, the trip will be one this is not soon forgotten.

The drive down to Bandon Dunes is not for the weak. It took me 7.5 hours to get down there and that included only two stops along the way. One to eat, and one to use the restroom. But, really the drive went by really fast (relatively speaking). I was listening to the radio until south of Tacoma then I had come Nolo.com podcasts to listen to (like 25) and that took the rest of the journey down to my destination. So really, it wasn’t that bad of a drive. It’s really like 3 roads the entire way, so it’s kinda tough to let lost.

I could write about each day and hole, but that would be long and boring for most of you. But, I’ll just say this… the course are unreal. They are not terribly challenging, given the right conditions, but it is the conditions that make these courses what they are. The first two courses we played, Pacific Dunes and Bandon Dunes are pretty close to the Pacific Ocean and the wind was probably one of the biggest challenges on these courses. But, I’d also have to say that the fairways and greens are some of the fastest and bumpiest I’ve ever seen, let alone played on.

The greens were really fast and it was like trying to land a golf ball on a piece of plywood. It was just crazy firm. When you got to putting, it was like you didn’t need much force at all to completely putt your ball twenty yards off of the green. That became frustrating quickly, but you adjusted to it over time.

The last day we played Pacific Trails. This course was off of the ocean coast and was a little bit more wooded than the other links style courses we had played on the days before. It was also equally fun, but just as challenging as the other two we had previously played.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a weekend. If I had to do it over again, I’d wear sunscreen the first day (and every day) so that I didn’t get burned to crisp like I did this time. But, really, it was a good weekend of golf, now it’s time to heal my burn and to take a break from golf for a little bit and let my body heal from the punishment the sun put to it over the past weekend.

Flickr Photoset: Bandon Dunes Golf Weekend

It’s been a while since I have had a post of any sort of substance here. However, this post probably won’t count as one of much substance either. It’s more a medley of scattered thoughts and happenings… and even at that it won’t cover everything. I guess I’m just too lazy to write much here anymore. So much for me and my attempt to write three times a week! I guess I’ve just moved on to other things… maybe they’re more important, maybe not. But, I still think it’s fun to keep this site around. It’s like my little sandbox on the web and I can write messages in it… or something. Read more…

Last year was one of big change for me as I predicted last year. I graduated from UW with a B.S. in Informatics and enjoyed the ceremonies in June. I looked for a job. I was hired by Avanade in their Delivery Management Practice. I turned 23. I saw the Dave Matthews Band at The Gorge. I went to Vegas for the first time. I went to Canon Beach for the first time. I got my first car. I got a new camera and a new lens. Lastly, but definatly not least, I made some great friendships and am still surrounded by great friends and family.

Now, I’m not one for making predictions, but I think that this year will be a year of opportunity and there will be challenges along the way. However, through it all, friends will be there and I will still be connected to them, more then ever.

So, with that, I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2006!

Figure it’s about time for my two week update. I know you’re all just dying to know what I’ve been up to. If I was me, I’d want to know too. Er, or something… right? Read more…

Well, today was one of those days where a bunch of little incidents really added up to something interesting. The day started off by Trevor letting me know that I wouldn’t be carpooling with him today. Well, I kind of expected that since he was under the weather the past couple days. But, I wished him well and then fell back asleep. Then, on my drive to work, there was hardly any traffic. I think that was to make up for what was to come later that evening. Read more…