Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Melody was laid off from the University of Washington last May due to budget overruns in UW Technology (for whom I also work). It didn't take her long to start networking with contacts and before long she was talking with The Web Collective, an employee co-op which does web site development. She started working for them as a consultant in July.
There will be a Ten Grands Concert this Friday at Beneroya Hall in Downtown Seattle. As the name suggests, there will be ten pianists each playing a grand piano, all on the stage. They'll be playing a variety of music, both classical and modern. There will also be individual performances, but people definitely go to see all those pianos being played at the same time.
Twice a year a bunch of restaurants in the area participate in a promotion called Dine around Seattle, where you can get a fixed-price dinner for $30 and lunch for $15. While it's more than we would usually spend for a meal, the restaurants which are involved are normally much more expensive. We've found it's a great way to try places we normally wouldn't; we try to take advantage for at least one lunch during the promotion. Today we had lunch at Shea's Lounge at the Pike Place Market.
A few months ago I wrote about how we were working on a short plat land sale with our neighbor, and how we hadn't heard anything for quite a while. Days after that post we heard that things were proceeding and had to sign and have notarized the final set of plans to be submitted to the city. Things went back and forth a few times, and we wanted to make sure all the documents were in order. We signed the papers earlier this week and the sale closed the next day.
Seems we normally get one pretty good snowstorm every winter, with perhaps a second one. Some years we've gotten no snow. This year, however, has been truly different, with at least a couple times when we've had several inches on the ground, a couple other times when we've had an inch or so, and a couple others where the ground was at least white. The weather is warm enough now that even if it does snow, it doesn't hang around very long.
The greater Seattle area will be getting light rail service starting later this year going between downtown and SeaTac airport. An extension was approved to extend service north to UW, and that project starts this year with completion targeted for 2016. Sound Transit held a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony yesterday near Husky Stadium where the UW station will be. Of course, they didn't really dig into the ground...
There have been articles in the Seattle Times the past couple days about how the tall ship Wawona is being moved to dry dock to be dismantled. We were fortunate enough to have been able to tour the Wawona during the 2002 Seattle Tall Ships Challenge; I've added a Tall Ships page which includes pictures from that day.
Every now and then the planets align and we end up doing lots of stuff over a weekend; this past weekend was one of those. We had dinner with some of my cousins on Friday night, did lots of stuff in the yard on Saturday, hung out with some friends on Sunday, and had dinner with another cousin of mine on Monday.
Woodworking is a solitary hobby for me, as I suspect it is for most people. However, a group of woodworkers have recently joined up to work on a project together, the Sawmill Creek Collaborative Keepsake Box.
Spoke with my mom today and she said she went home from the hospital yesterday. She was in for quite a while, but most of the time was so she could have physical therapy several times a day.
Melody and I had Shabu Shabu for dinner last night. It's a little like fondue since everyone can put whatever kind of food they want into the pot, but instead of cheese (or chocolate) the liquid is a sort of broth (my mom used to do a fish stock, but I did a chicken stock last night). This picture is from 1987, and shows my dad getting ready. You can see several kinds of food on the trays and if you look closely, you can see a second pot on the near side of the table (there were several people at dinner that day).
Seems like almost everyone around here is getting sick. Both Kellen and Tynor are going through round two, while Melody and I weren't sick for that long and haven't had any recurrence, at least not yet.
This picture was snapped quickly with my cell phone, which is why the quality isn't great. The house is on the way when walking between work and home. If you look closely you can make out that it's a car pulling into a garage. What's different about that? The garage is only about 15 feet deep, so the car needs to parallel parking into it. When the door is closed it looks like a normal two-car garage.
Melody and I finished watching Planet Earth the other day. We had actually finished the series itself in December but just recently got around to finishing up the "Planet Earth - The Future", the companion series talking about environmental and conservation issues. If you haven't seen the series, the photography is just as exquisite as you've heard. The version available on DVD is the BBC one narrated by David Attenborough, rather than the version which aired on the Discovery Channel with Sigourney Weaver.
My mom went back into the hospital on Wednesday the 21st. From what I can tell she's still having dehydration problems, and this time it caused her to be dizzy and have problems with her equilibrium. She's doing better now, although she sounded a bit tired when I spoke with her earlier this evening.
As part of our multi-year landscaping project, Melody and I cover up a lot of weeds and sod. Our landscape designer recommended starting with a layer of compost, a double layer of cardboard, then a thick layer of wood chips. This has worked really well for us; the old weeds and sod are pretty well suppressed, and all we need to do is pile on more chips every now and then. Sometimes the hard part is making sure we have all the parts necessary to proceed.
I went to Costco tonight and picked up about a dozen things. I found a line which looked suspiciously shorter than the others - I'm always a sucker for those lines, even though it seems that many times they're slower than the other ones. At any rate, the guy before me was almost ready to start loading his stuff onto the belt when something happened that I had never seen before: I got pre-scanned.
Got home tonight at about 7pm and noticed the street light near our house was out. After I picked up the mail it dawned on me that our porch light was also out. Our neighbor to the east had lights so I figured this was one of those rare times it didn't turn on. However, it also didn't turn on when I flicked the switch. Our neighbors across the street, their neighbor, and the neighbor to the west didn't have power either, but all the other houses seemed to.
We're back in Seattle after spending the week in Southern California. It was a pretty whirlwind trip, but things went well. It was nice to thaw out with warm weather.
By the time this gets posted we had planned on being in Spokane with Melody's sister Celeste, but weather has changed plans. It would have been a slow drive over the pass, and we would have needed to turn around the next day and head back to Seattle. Instead, she'll sometime after the 1st, after travel is more sane.
