Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
We enjoyed last year's Seattle Times Pictures of the Year presentation so much, we made sure to go again this year. Not only are we glad we did, but we remembered to get there early enough to grab good seats. In fact, we sat very close to where we did last year. The highlighted photographers this year were Steve Ringman and Erika Schultz.
Every year we travel to the Los Angeles area to celebrate New Year's. As usual, we left a couple days after Christmas and returned on January 2nd. We stocked up on warmth and sunshine, and have since returned to cold and overcast on some days, colder and clear on others.
What's not to like about the sound of ginkgo leaves with wind blowing through them? I also enjoy their shape and how that adds to the look of the trees.
Having spent our last night in Kelso, we decided to swing through Cape Disappointment State Park again to see some of the things we missed the first time through, after which we went home.
After having spent several days going to state parks, we decided to try hiking in the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument since we've heard enough people say that the trails are still accessible. The weather was supposed to be nice, so we were hoping that we would get some good views of the mountain. This was also a longer hike, so we were thankful the forecast had no rain.
Another morning which started with a trip to the breakfast room followed by checking both the weather and if anyone knew what would be open or closed due to the government shutdown. We settled on a hike which was in a state park, bypassing federal parks and making use of our state park pass.
With the government shutdown, there has been lots of conflicting information about what will be open and what will be closed. We decided to go with a trail which didn't require a pass, figuring it would be OK, so we packed up and headed up towards Mt. St. Helens to hike the Hummocks trail.
This year Melody and I decided to head south for our vacation, centering the trip around Mt. St. Helens. The trip was planned thinking that there wouldn't be much rain, but ends up we did some rearranging of our itinerary to accommodate the weather.
I've had an interest in genealogy for quite a while. It started with an informal gathering around a table, and while I consider myself to still be a novice, I'm getting better at doing the research. I enjoy learning about the process, and see it as a puzzle to solve.
We're now on the train home from Portland. The second half of the week was no less busy than the first half.
The reason for coming to Portland is so I could go to a conference, which meant that was most of my week. I did get a chance to get out a bit, however, and Melody did quite a few things during the week.
I'm in Portland this week so I can go to OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Conference. Melody came along so she could do some sightseeing while I'm at the conference, which I guess is only fair since for three years (two in Europe, one in San Francisco) she was in a conference for the better part of a week, time I spent playing tourist.
The Chicago Sun-Times made news by laying off all 28 of their full-time staff photographers. It's not surprising that a lot of people have begun to rally behind the photographers, especially since the paper is counting on the remaining journalists to become mobile photographers.
Monday was Opening Day for the Seattle Mariners, but even though they were playing in Oakland, Safeco Field held an Open House where people could get into the stadium for free to wander around and watch the game on the new video screen. Great idea, well executed.
Earlier this week two people were killed and two others are at Harborview (still in comas from what I gather) after being hit by a vehicle at the intersection of NE 75th and 33rd NE. When I first saw the SPD and SFD tweets, I could visualize what had happened, as well as the probable direction of the vehicle. I used to live about a half block to the north, and very often crossed the same way as the victims. It's quite a dicey intersection. The story has been covered pretty thoroughly by the Seattle Times, including an update describing the event in detail.
Every year the Seattle Times gathers what they think were the best pictures they published. The 2012 Pictures of the Year collection covers a wide array of topics, but was just a launching point for the discussion held at the Downtown Branch of the Seattle Library where the Times talked about a couple of the year's big stories.
Melody and I went to see Tom Douglas speak at the University Bookstore the other night. Most of his dozen properties are restaurants, but one is the Dahlia Bakery; he was at the bookstore to promote the new Dahlia Bakery Cookbook. As can be expected he was very personable and entertaining. He recently won the James Beard Award as Best Restauranteur, and that day had found out he was the Puget Sound Business Journal's Executive of the Year. Tom started with some remarks and then took questions from the audience. It was the latter part where he really showed his people skills, and was interesting because was able to circle back and touch on the topics in his remarks.
It's been a year of passages for my family. This past weekend we said goodbye to my Aunt Ida, who was healthy for almost all but the last couple weeks of her 95 years. Uncle Mas, Aunt Ida, Norman, and Kay lived not too far from us in Downey (my Uncle Easy's place was on the way). Because of the proximity, I ended up visiting them pretty often. Auntie was always very welcoming.
A couple years ago I rented an ultra-wide lens and had a great time seeing Seattle Center in a new way. I saw a used one go up for sale at a very good price, so I bit the bullet and got it, just in time for us to go to Vancouver. I ended using the lens well over 95% of the time.
Our last full day in Vancouver picked up where we left off on the previous day's walking tour, then we worked our way towards Granville Island for lunch, followed by exploring the shoreline.
