Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
For several years our neighbor (to the west) has been thinking about changing his house, either expanding it by adding a second story or by tearing it down and building a larger house in its place. Then last year he and his wife drove by a house on a golf course in Federal Way and decided that's where they wanted to live.
Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday. Jean (Melody's mom) and her husband Ron came over on Thursday for dinner and we all went over to Keith and Bev's house on Friday.
When we lived in Sunnyvale, CA we were not very far from the Wolfe Road exit off I-280. We noticed there was a big ado on Wolfe so we put Kellen (about 1 year old at the time) into the backpack, grabbed cameras, and went to be typical gawkers. At first it was hard to tell what was going on with the traffic pattern, but then we saw the tail of an airplane.
If you enjoy science fiction and aren't listening to Escape Pod, you really should. It's a weekly short story anthology with a wide variety of themes and styles. The host, Steve Eley, reads many of the stories in addition to providing intros and commentary, but guest readers are not uncommon. It was Steve's blog entry about going on hiatus for a few weeks which prompted me to write about Escape Pod. I noticed last week that a new story hadn't gone up, so I went to check if something was up, and indeed there is.
This weekend was a busy one, starting and ending with pears (and apples) while going to a couple parties in between. As I write, one last batch of applesauce is reducing on the stove, so I guess it's not over, yet.
Thought it would be a good time to summarize where things are with my mom and hopefully fill in any gaps.
Last night Melody and I went to a two-piano concert by Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman at Benaroya Hall.
Like my dad and my kids, I enjoy doing Sudoku puzzles. You could even say I'm a big fan of them. It's OK to interpret that as being a Sudoku nerd.
We met up yesterday with the Prosser family at the Woodland Park Zoo. We lucked out with the weather (only a few sprinkles) so we did quite a bit of wandering. It was a great way to spend the afternoon!
Every time we drive to Spokane we go by the Wild Horses Monument near Vantage, WA (where I-90 crosses the Columbia River). One year I decided to hike up to take a look. The time of day was just right to have a near-silhouette and the clouds were also cooperating. There are several horses in the sculpture, but as a whole the piece is actually incomplete. The artist had planned to have the horses spilling out of a bowl, like a cornucopia, but the funding still isn't available.
Since Alexander Limi (one of the original developers of Plone, a content management system with which Melody works) was in town, a bunch of Seattle Plone people gathered tonight for some bowling at Garage Billiards in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Melody and I went along, and although she was the only person from where she's working (Web Collective), there were several people she knew from the business next door (ONE/Northwest).
It's tough being a sports fan in Seattle. As I'm writing this, he UW and Washington State football teams, the Seahawks, and the Oklahoma City Thunder (nee Seattle Sonics) have three wins - combined. That's out of 25 games. Needless to say, they're all at the bottom of their respective divisions. (In full disclosure, right now the scoreboard shows the Seahawks are way up at halftime.)
Last weekend Melody and I went to a lunch downtown to celebrate the 500th client for PRESS, which is a real estate referral service. We became clients when we bought our home in 2002 and it worked out well for us. Jim Stacey referred us to a great agent, loan officer, and inspector, and then tagged along at the inspection to give us yet another point of view of the condition of the house. Since then, he's been a good sounding board for us when we've had questions about home maintenance or even doing a short plat with our neighbor (a topic for another post).
I consider myself a grammar geek because I like to take at least a little time to make my writing grammatically correct while not sounding stiff. I obviously have my good days and bad days, but either way, it's something I enjoy doing. I sometimes find myself re-reading email over a half dozen times before sending, moving a phrase here, selecting another word there, going between looking at the overall structure and scrutinizing individual clauses. After doing all that and sending the message, I notice that paragraph I forgot to delete which contains just a single unfinished sentence fragment.
We thought it would be fun to try making fish tacos for dinner, and they turned out really well. Sear-roasted mahi mahi (with ground pepper and lime juice), cabbage, tomatoes, avocado, cheese, and salsa on soft corn tortillas. They actually didn't take long at all to make, probably 30 minutes of cooking and toppings prep, including making the tortillas. They must have been yummy, since they were so messy!
We met up with Melody's cousin and his family on our trip to Spokane in 6/2007. This zip line is in Lincoln Park which is down the hill from Rockwood Manor (where we usually stay). I was very lucky to get so close to matching Hans' movement as he went across.
I know it's trendy to drive less, but we've been racking up far fewer miles on our cars over the past several years. By how much? Let's just say we're planning to go down to one car, but some background is in order before I talk about that.
