Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Ljubljana (lyoob-lyee-AH-nah), Slovenia was quite a change from Bled. While we were pretty laid back in Bled, we ended up doing a lot of sightseeing in Ljubljana, although we took the opportunity to spend some time in coffee houses in the afternoons.
Bled, Slovenia was meant to be a less hectic stop on our trip, to give us a chance to recharge. The setting couldn't be better, with the clear lake set in the lush mountains and a penzion (inn) with the feeling of a small Alpine resort.
After Mostar, it was back to Croatia. Split is another coastal city, but feels much more urban. Many ships come here, as well as busses and trains. While it's used as a transfer point by many, there are also a lot of people who stay a few days in this resort-like city.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was in the throes of war in the early 1990's, but Mostar seems to be an up and coming tourist destination. It's pretty easy to find people who speak English, and those who don't know enough words to make communication not at all difficult.
Croatia is very popular with tourists, especially the Dalmatian Coast, anchored at the south by Dubrovnik. There are more pictures on the Dubrovnik page, including ones showing the great view from our room.
Planning this trip was very involved, but things came together pretty well. I'm lucky that Melody enjoys the research involved with such a task.
I'll be posting pictures and information about our trip to Eastern Europe in two ways. These blog entries will have some pictures but for the most part will have quick information about the city we're visiting and small stories describing our visit. This entry is actually being posted after we've been to a few cities, due to the lack of internet access. The first Trip Log entry is about our flight over, followed by our experiences in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina..
Stacia found a stash of photos from my Great Aunt Eiko, so I scanned them in. I eventually want to work them into pages for my family, but for now I'll put them into a post.
Yesterday marked the end of the Seattle Mariners' 2009 season, and even though they finished third in the AL West, this year was an unqualified success. New management made quite a few changes over last winter (and even more during the year) with the end result a team going from 61 wins in 2008 to 85 in 2009. All indications point to the clubhouse environment improving a lot and everyone (players, fans, media) enjoyed the season as it unfolded.
We're coming up on a quarter of the way through Project 365, and I thought it would be a good time to post some more pictures I found interesting.
It's hard to believe we've already been here almost a week, but so we have. We've hit multiple 100+ days, and will be more than happy with the 20°F drop in temperature when we get back to Seattle.
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.
