Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Another day has passed, and it's hard to believe our trip here is more than half over. We stayed inside the store for the bulk of the day so we were spared the heat.
Kellen, Josie, and I made it safely to CA on Sunday and even though it's been only a few days, we've been pretty busy. So far the weather has been in the 80's/90's, and has been pretty humid, not unlike what we left in Seattle. Last week it was cooler in Southern CA, but this week it's a few degrees cooler at home. Figures.
Even though I haven't posted about Project 365 in a while, it's still going on. I haven't been able to completely fill the past several weeks due to either Kellen or Tynor (or both) not being available to upload photos, but hopefully I'll be able to back-fill either later this month or early September.
The Seattle Times' food blogger (and former food critic) Nancy Leson wrote about Batter Blaster Pancakes (warning: site plays jingle when you first go there). What's different about them? You spray batter from a can onto your griddle! Nancy agrees with Consumer Reports that they're actually pretty good, especially compared to other mixes you can get.
What better food during the hot weather we've been having than ice cream? As things ended up, Melody and I got ice cream the past three days, each at different places. We can certainly recommend all of them.
I wasn't sure whether to write this entry in my work blog or my personal one, and in the end decided it fits here. I saw a link on John Gruber's Daring Fireball to Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham, a programmer and programming language designer. He's part of Y Combinator, an investment group which specializes in the early stages of startup companies doing software and web services. His theory is people operate on two kinds of schedules: manager's schedules are broken into hour-long segments, while maker's (programmer's) schedules need half- or full-day chunks.
Melody and I expected hot weather in Spokane and Newport a couple weekends ago, knowing that even though Seattle was hot, it would be worse on the other side of the Cascades. While we had a respite when we got back (and even a little rain), the temperature is back up.
Today is Walter Cronkite's funeral. I can't help but think that it's a passing of a journalism torch, which in a way he inherited from Edward R. Murrow, who recruited him to CBS. But who has the torch now?
Another day, another notable anniversary. Today marks 40 years since Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon (seen in partial eclipse in the picture to the left, from 2/2008). One could say that was the culmination of the engineering and sweat that was launched when JFK issued his challenge of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth" in his special message to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961. However, it was also the start of what some still consider the glory days of space exploration.
We just got back today from a quick trip to Spokane to see Melody's family. In addition to Irene, Neal, and Barbara, all the Knoepfel family from IL were there, and it was great to see everyone.
Yet another anniversary today, as the Looff Carrousel at Spokane's Riverfront Park turns 100. We happen to be in Spokane for this weekend, but this is probably the first time we haven't made it to Riverfront at some point. However, it sounds as if Melody's relatives made it there earlier in the week and got t-shirts.
Melody and I are heading east to Spokane this morning to see not only her relatives and friends there, but to meet up with the Knopefls from IL, who are there this week too. We've been fortunate enough to have seen them all within the past couple years (Brian and Frances last year, Kevin, Joanna, Jenny, and Hans the year before) but don't want to miss an opportunity to see them again.
All of our Project 365 pictures for the first partial week and the first full week are posted. We're still working out a good way for Tynor to send his pictures to me, which is why there aren't any week 2 photos for him yet.
This must be the month for notable anniversaries. Ten years ago today the first pitch was thrown at Safeco Field, the new home for the Seattle Mariners. I had only attended one Mariners game in the Kingdome, but it definitely didn't fell like a ballpark. Most years I've been to at least one game at Safeco, and it feels right, with the open air and great views all around. Even when high against the upper railing behind home plate (nose bleed territory) we could still see everything that was going on.
Farmers Market in Los Angeles is celebrating its 75th anniversary this week. Seattle is understandably proud of its own Pike Place Market (which will celebrate its 102nd anniversary next month) and I've been there many times, but I don't remember ever going to Farmers Market. It is, however a landmark in the area.
Even though we fill up the car perhaps once a month, we need to do more planning than you would think at first. For example, this past weekend we were thinking that the car was pretty low on gas and we should fill it up, but we're planning on going to Spokane next weekend. We decided it was low enough that we should fill it, and it'd still be close to full by the time we leave. But that's not where it ends.
If you like expanding your musical horizons beyond what's on the radio or want to learn new connections between various songs and artists, the iTunes Weekly Rewind is a great podcast. Every week they take a look at some of the songs which have been playing on the radio, on TV, in movies, even in ad spots. But more than just giving a name and artist to a song you heard just fleetingly, they also use songs, artists, or events as springboards to not only go into depth, but to point out both what influenced an artist and whom that artist influenced. There are a lot of music geeks out there, and these guys rate right up there. As they should, since they're on the team which compiles the iTunes Essentials collections.
Kellen decided he wanted to document his 20th year by doing a Project 365, where he will take one picture each day and post all of them online. I asked what he thought about Tynor and me doing it along with him, and he said it would be great. So we can look at all of our pictures side-by-side, I've also set up a Fujimoto Project 365 page, optimistically labeling it as 2009-2010; I figured we may do it again sometime in the future.
Being July 4th, I thought it would be appropriate to post a photo of fireworks. This was taken in 2003 at Gas Works Park in Seattle. You can just make out some of the original gas works machinery at the lower left, and just some of the tens of thousands of people in the park on at the lower right.
There are many great science shows around, NPR's Science Friday being one of them. However, I find WNYC's Radiolab to be more of a must-listen because of they way they are able to find an over-arching story from seemingly disparate interview clips or even show segments, for the extra content they inject into the podcast, and how they are willing to go beyond science towards topics such as art.
