I was working for Transportation Northwest, a research group under the College of Engineering until July 2011, when we suddenly lost our federal grant. My supervisor, Deborah Harper, was incredibly supportive during this period, despite being worried about her own livelihood… When I told her I had applied to a position at the UW that [...]

Here is the unattributed feedback I got after a staff retreat. Anthony is awesome. His steady nature is an asset to everyone. Anthony has a great sense of humor and is an incredibly well-rounded IT person. He either knows right away how to fix or improve something or he knows where to go to find [...]

I went home sick yesterday, which is pretty unusual; I take sick time so rarely I actually have over 250 hours of sick leave right now. When I came in this morning I found this nice handwritten note from my supervisor: Anthony, Sorry you’re not feeling well. But just a quick “Thank you” for putting [...]

City of Seattle: Urban things to do in any weather. Space Needle. Costs a lot to go up, but it’s nice. There is a restaurant up there too, but I don’t recommend that. Smith Tower. Much cheaper to go up. Arguably a cooler view than from the Space Needle too. Monorail. It’s only goes between [...]

So, you are a twenty-something who doesn’t want to think too much about saving for retirement. Welcome to the club! Here are the basics: Find out if your employer has a matching program. Meaning, if you contribute $100, they put in $75 or something like that. The $75 is free money that you wouldn’t get [...]

How to budget, never get another overdraw fee from your bank, never pay another ATM fee, live well and stay inside your budget. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out this amazingly simple system, so I hope to help you by passing on this info.   Step one, make sure you have [...]

Though I like doing techy things, I’m also a part time driving instructor. I got the following from the head instructor at the driving school I work for. It is quite the ego boost: Tony, During my debriefing with the trainees last week, we spent a lot of time talking about what they saw when [...]