Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Every parent goes through milestones, and without a doubt one of them is watching your child graduate from High School. Last night Kellen went through his graduation ceremony from Puget Sound Community School, and while I naturally have high regard for him, it's great to see his classmates do, too.
I needed some small gifts for this month so I went to an old standby, cutting boards. They're relatively quick to make, offer lots of possibilities for variation, and usually end up looking pretty nice.
Mariners fans are used to Ichiro Suzuki getting hits, and it seems he does so every game. Of course he doesn't, but one doesn't get 200 hits every season without putting together some impressive streaks. Ichiro just ended a 27 game hitting streak last night, the second-longest streak in the Major leagues this season.
A couple years ago we had some flagstone installed for paths in our front yard. That fall we planted groundcover, each smaller than the size of a quarter and about a foot apart. We weren't sure how well they'd do, but it was a relatively small investment.
Today was the first day of the Meadowbrook Farmers Market, so Melody and I went to take a look. It's not far at all from the house (less than 3/4 mile).
The latest set of blooms we're getting in the Seattle area is wisteria, which has unmistakable blossom clusters and a penchant to climb. There are several specimens on the walk between work and the house.
Part of the purchase and sale agreement when we sold part of our land to our neighbor (so he could split his lot into two) was that he would replace the existing fence. I was home from work today and heard (de)construction sounds which seemed close enough to be in our yard. Took a peek out the window and the fence was being torn down.
Sam Maloof passed away last week, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. To those who appreciated his furniture, he was best known for his rocking chairs. To those who were further interested in his methods for building furniture, he was famous for his freehand technique on the bandsaw, sculpting with the tool. Fine Woodworking also set up a tribute page.
Melody and I don't go out to see many movies in the theater, but I took a couple days of vacation last week and on one of those days I went downtown to the Cinerama to see Star Trek. Since I went to a matinee there was no line and the theater was less than half full, even though the movie was released less than a week before.
When Melody and I met to walk home after work last night, she noticed that there was a line of people at the Häagen-Dazs near where I work. Ends up the people were waiting for free ice cream, so we got in line (which wasn't all that long) and we each got our free scoop.
We're at the time of year when the first cherry blossoms have come and gone, and the rhododendrons, dogwoods, magnolias, and lilacs are blooming all around the area. Our rhodie in the back yard and lilacs are very showy now. Some of our annuals are blossoming now, too (red flowering currant, columbine, blue star creeper) and our osmantus are at the tail end.
For walking to/from home or doing projects around the house, Melody and I fill our iPods with podcasts and listen. I've mentioned Coverville, Grammar Girl, and Escape Pod before, but there are several others which always make it onto my playlist. Today the standouts were an episode of Coverville and this week's Only a Game.
Kellen and Tynor's school has a showcase every year, and this past Friday was the 2009 PSCS Student Showcase. All the senior projects were on display and several students got together to perform or give demonstrations.
Yet another article appeared in last Saturday's Seattle Times about the Japanese American internment during WWII. This time, Kimiko Nagaoka Mukai received her degree from Seattle Pacific University, over 65 years after she was forced to leave the west coast. She was awarded the degree during her 90th birthday party. SPU has identified seven other Japanese American students who were also forced to leave and has been reaching out to their families.
This past weekend the Seattle Times had an article about how the Iraqi-bound 34th Division honored Japanese-American members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd was a Japanese-American unit of the US Army during WWII which highly decorated, while many of the soldiers had families in internment camps at the time.
Melody's sister Celeste was in town for several days, so we went over to Spokane for the weekend to visit family over there. Celeste lives in Austin, TX and had originally planned to come over the Christmas holiday. However, the weather was bad enough that she postponed the trip until this month when the weather would be better. We always enjoy having her visit and spending time with her.
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.
