EMERALD CITY STYLING

Season Wrap Up

2009-03-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

Well, the joke goes that the Seattle winter officially ends just in time for July 4th. But this winter has not been a typical one here. The primary reason is that we got snow and lots of it. It all started back in December, right before Christmas when Seattle received about 15" of snow over two or three days. We were lucky that our flight to LA got out on Christmas eve. We were delayed by two hours, primarily because they had to evacuate the plane at the gate next to ours because the de-icing chemicals had gotten into the ventilation system and made several people sick. We did not know this at the time, but later learned that it was on the national news so we put two and two together and realized why all of those emergency vehicles were blocking us from departing from our gate.

Anyway, getting back to the weather, it is worth noting that Seattle rarely gets more than a dusting of snow that typically turns to rain and melts withing a few hours. The city shuts down for just a few inches of snow, so you can imagine the panic that set in as the snow began to accumulate. For us it was like a typical snowstorm back east, but for Seattlites, it had been about 10-12 years since they had seen this much snow. So it was time to close offices, leave the car in the garage, and break out the cross-country skis to get around. Unfortunately, getting so little accumulated snow on a regular basis alleviates the need for snow removal equipment and things like, say, rock salt and snow shovels. As a result, sidewalks were terribly icy and after a day or so, driving on anything other than highways was like maneuvering on the lunar surface (I would imagine). We were thankful to escape to the warmth of LA.

We have also had a couple of more days in February and early March where we've had an accumulation of snow, but nowhere near the December dump. But, the interesting thing is that in my perception we've also had more sunny, clear days this winter than usual. Since I have a sample size of two winters, I'm clearly not the best judge, but I just don't feel like we've had the extended stretches of gray that are typical of Seattle winters...but, we still have all of April, May, and June.

Unfortunately, all of the snow did not translate into a great snowboard season. In part it was because the mountains just didn't get a steady dose of snow and in part because we did not make it up there as much as we hoped. However, we had one phenomenal day at Stevens Pass. It had snowed 16" the previous day and we got another 10" to 12" while we were up there (no snow in Seattle, though, thankfully). It made the trip home a bit tough since after we dug our car out, we sat, inching our way out of the parking lot for 45 minutes only to be told that the road was now closed. We now had to wait out avalanche control along Route 2 for two hours, but we made the best of it by parking the car and finagling two seats at the bar. We did make another trip up the next weekend, only to have Dave catch an edge and tweak his bad ankle on the first run of the day. Oh, well, we'll just have to wait until next season for more of this...

March Madness

2009-03-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

Well, the big NCAA dance begins today and Seattle sports fans are confident that the local UW Huskies can make a long run in the basketball tournament. However, for many people here in Seattle, there's bigger news. So indulge me as I talk about one of my favorite things. As you may have heard, Seattle sports suffered through a terrible 2008 during which the Mariners lost 101 games (dead last in the league), the Seahawks were far from stellar (4 wins), the UW football team was winless (0-12), and the beloved NBA Sonics just up and left town for Oklahoma City. But 2009 brings new sports blood to the northwest corner in the form of the newest Major League Soccer team, the Seattle Sounders, which opens its season today.

Now this is a pretty big deal in Seattle. As a recreational player and follower of soccer both in the U.S. and globally, I've been quite impressed by a couple of things. First, the extent of the participation in rec leagues here in Seattle. I play in the Greater Seattle Soccer League, which has six open divisions, five over-30 divisions, three over-40 divisions, three over-50 divisions and, get this, one over-55 division. With eight to ten teams in most divisions, that's a lot of soccer. The other thing that amazes me is how many people follow international leagues like the English Premiership and German Bundesliga. My soccer team, sponsored by the Lock & Keel pub (owned by our sweeper), boasts ardent, knowledgeable fans of Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, and Arsenal (I'm the lone supporter of the Gunners). Also, seven blocks from our house, the George & Dragon pub usually has standing room only on Saturday and Sunday mornings, with folks packing in to follow their clubs and have an English breakfast. Anyway, what this all means to me is that Seattle seems to have a strong fan base to support a thriving MLS club.

But before we chat about the 2009 Sounders, let's take a trip back in time. You see, the first incarnation of the Seattle Sounders played in the NASL from 1973 through 1984 and actually had a decent amount of success. My memory of the Sounders comes primarily due to the fact that I was a big Cosmos fan in those days and the Sounders lost to the Cosmos in the Soccer Bowl (NASL's version of the Super Bowl) in both 1977 and 1982. The 1977 game was decided by one of the worst goalkeeping blunders of all time. After folding in 1983, the Sounders did come back as a semi-pro team from 1994 through 2008, winning four championships over that time. There are even a couple of players from this squad that are now on the roster for the new pro Sounders.

It's amazing that we have Drew Carey to thank, in part, for the new Sounders. About a year and a half ago, he and Mr. Microsoft Multimillions, Paul Allen, purchased the rights to the franchise here. They seem to have brought in a great management team and supposedly have sold more than 20,000 season tickets. That's more season tickets than the Mariners sell. And so, they take the field tonight against the New York Red Bulls with a Sounders team that includes Swedish star Freddie Ljungberg (an Arsenal mainstay for most of the 2000s) and Kasey Keller (longtime star goalkeeper for the U.S. National Team). I'm excited to get out to see them play, but won't be able to do so until they take on the LA Galaxy on May 11. I'll be sure to give you all an update after that game to let you know about the Sounder stadium experience.

I Love My Neighbors

2009-03-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

A new post will be coming soon, but here's a short story to tide you over:

We have a little market three blocks from the house called Marketime which is a pretty well stocked small, independent grocery. Recently, I've been witness to a man in the store, a rather large man, who lumbers with a purpose while shopping. Then, while checking out he states to the cashier in a somewhat aggravated voice bordering on shouting:

"I would like you to place my items in two plastic bags. I would also like a receipt so I can have a record of what I am purchasing."

After the transaction, he then proceeds to rip up the receipt, making certain the cashier can see him, while stating, "I am now ripping up the receipt into many pieces and throwing it in the trash can."

I've seen this happen twice, but apparently it has been a regular occurrence recently and the cashiers have shifted from being totally scared for their lives to more of a feeling of cautious whimsy.

Thanks to this man for my weekly dose of entertainment...until he snaps at some point and we hear, "I am now strangling this cashier for giving me incorrect change."

Surprise?!?!

2009-02-22T15:21:00.000-08:00

Given that this blog was on hiatus for nearly a year, there are tons of things we have waiting in the wings to bring loyal readers up to date and more fun stories to share regarding our little corner of the Northwest. But excuse me for this post as its setting brings us back to the NJ home of our hero. Lisa and I spent Thanksgiving 2008 there and while it's always great seeing the family and catching up with friends in the area, this weekend had a highlight.

Now Thanksgiving fell just close enough to the date that marked two score years since my birth to tempt my wife and my mother to plan a surprise party, but would they go through the effort? I first had an inkling when my mother, far in advance of the Thanksgiving weekend, said that we would be going out to a family dinner the day after Thanksgiving to celebrate my birthday. Silly girls. Did they really think they could pull one over on me. But I needed to be sure, so put my evil plan into action. Now going through the effort of planning a party for someone is a great gesture, but if they were planning something, I would have no choice but to repay this effort on my mom's part by being as difficult as possible.

I started about a week before Thanksgiving, asking my mom if we could move the dinner to Saturday since I wanted to meet up with some friends on Friday. Mom may have gotten a bit flustered, but she was up to the task. "Uh, I don't think that's going to work, your brother has to drive back to Virginia on Saturday." Well played, Mom. Now at this point, I still wasn't positive that they were planning a party, so I also started quizzing my friends as to what they were doing over the weekend. Strangely enough all had plans on Friday night, some better constructed than others. I was growing more certain. So it was time to push Mom some more. Dinner was scheduled for 7PM. Could we push it up to six or even five-thirty so I could meet some friends for drinks afterwards? But this was just another speed bump for Mom who deftly and flawlessly delivered some excuse about my aunt being unable to make it up before seven or something like that. Kudos. I'd have to kick it up a notch.

Time to push another button, so I started to work on Lisa. A few days before we left Seattle, I started griping about being unable to plan dinner with friends due to the family dinner, however, I referred to the dinner as a "party". Lisa's poker face was solid, but not flawless. Was this the tell I was seeking? I was growing more certain.

The day after Thanksgiving arrives and we're getting ready. But something strange is occurring. It's almost seven, we're now running late for our reservation, but Mom is not pushing everyone to finish getting ready and head out the door. Critical break from character, Mom. Now I'm positive that this is a surprise party, so I have the car trip from their house to the restaurant, about 10 minutes to be as big a pain in the ass as I can.

Me: "Where are Kathleen and Lou?"
Mom: "They're meeting us at the restaurant."
Me: "I had kind of a late lunch, can we just stop at McDonald's for a snack instead of dinner?"
Me: "How long do you think this dinner will take, I still want to try to meet up with some friends?"

And so on...

We arrive at the restaurant and I see my friends' cars scattered throughout the parking lot. So now it is the moment of truth. Do I act surprised? No, that would be disingenuous, plus I'm not that good of an actor. I had thought about so many entrances, including going the route of RT's dad, Buz, who actually had a shirt made up that said "Surprise!!", which he wore under a sweater and unveiled upon entering his surprise 60th birthday party just as everyone was screaming same. I instead walked into the room with my phone held up and snapped a picture of the crowd as they cheered and snapped their own photos. I wish I had a better shot of this, but my photography skills were sorely lacking at the moment so I didn't capture the surprised looks on their faces.

A great time was had by all, and I feel bad for testing my mom and not being surprised. I really did appreciate that she and Lisa went through the effort to put together a great evening. And I can't wrap this up without a shout to Battle-sis, who actually fought for hours with fondant to make a great cake. I'm really hoping in ten years, we can just plan it together. It was really too much work on my end.

"Wait...did you say WEST of Seattle?"

2009-02-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes when telling someone from the other coast about the area here, I'll start with the phrase, "Well, to the west of Seattle is..." At this point I almost always get a strange look and I know exactly what's going through the listener's head:

"Hmmm, he must have misspoken. Seattle is a Pacific port city so it must be as far west as you can go without being waist deep in Pacific Ocean. Yes, he must have misspoken. I'll correct him."

"Are you sure you meant 'west' of Seattle?"

Well, for those of you that know the area or have already looked at a map, you can ignore the next paragraph. Now everyone has seen the waterfront skyline of Seattle on Grey's Anatomy, but this is actually the Puget Sound, more specifically Elliot Bay, that fronts the city. In reality, to the west of Seattle, prior to hitting the Pacific Ocean, there exists, in no particular order: a bay, a sound, a mountain range, a national park, an 8,000-foot peak, an Indian reservation, a rainforest, and the setting for the Twilight movies. What's most amazing to me is that all of this sits within an area of only about 3,000 square miles, roughly the combined size of Rhode Island and Delaware. It's the Olympic Peninsula.

The reason I write about this is because we've been out there, but have so much more to explore that we figured an introduction was necessary for those that are uninitiated. I recently read an article about how two buddies crossed the Olympic Peninsula, 110 miles east to west, on foot and inflatable raft in five days, through Hayden Pass, which is about 5,400 feet. Kudos. We have no inclination to do this. However, between all of the aforementioned things the area has to offer, plus over 100 hikes, we can keep ourselves busy there for a while.

Our first jaunt to the peninsula was last September for a relatively short hike to the top of Mt. Zion. We had to find a hike that was somewhat close, relatively low impact per Lisa's request, and allows dogs. We packed a lunch and headed out. Although the day was sunny when we left Seattle, there was intermittent cloud cover in the mountains, but we forged ahead. The clouds hung around, so the payoff at the top was not what we had hoped, but Fozzie had a blast. He would sprint ahead a hundred yards or so up the trail and then back to us, repeating this all the way to the summit. His payoff at the summit came in the payoff two other dogs that came with the three hikers we met at the top. The dogs spent their time chasing each other around the clearing and into and out of the surrounding trees. After lunch, we made our way back down and headed home. All told, we drove for about three hours and hiked for about three hours.

So now we have a great list of things to do on the peninsula, from hiking, to visiting the rainforest, and even visiting the Pacific Ocean, which amazingly enough, we've not done yet. More on the Olympic Peninsula to come.

The Yearlong Sabbatical Has Done Us Good?

2009-02-15T10:26:00.000-08:00

Hi loyal blog viewers. And I know that there are several of you out there that have not given up on "Emerald City Styling" and still check every couple of weeks, clinging to the fleeting hope that this blog had not become extinct. It is you loyal few that will get the greatest charge now that you're here and no longer have to see that photo of the Canada/US international boundary marker at the top of the blog. This is our gift to you since after a year long hibernation, we're back, baby!!

I really have no idea how long I'll keep it up, and as loyal readers know, Lisa is not to be counted on for more than a post per decade. I make no promises, but frankly, we keep this blog more for ourselves than for the masses, so please enjoy while it lasts. On the bright side, we do have a lot to write about since this blog dropped off the face of the earth, so watch this space.

[8.2] O Canada

2008-02-22T15:55:00.000-08:00

Time to update our loyal readers on the Pacific Northwest travel log. As you may recall, in January we tripped up to Vancouver, BC, so it's probably time to document that here. We'd heard good things and neither of us had been there before. Since this is the closest venue to see a professional hockey game, Lisa was a champ and got tickets for us to see Dave's favorite team, the NY Rangers, take on the Vancouver Canucks. So we made a weekend out of it. We left at about 1:00 PM on Thursday, which was also game night. Yahoo Maps told us it should take us about 2.5 hours so we drove leisurely, stopped for a late lunch and hit the Canadian border at about 4:15 PM. We passed into Canada at 5:45 PM--please note that there is no time difference, we just got held up at the border for 1.5 friggin' hours. Apparently, the post-holiday sales at the Washington outlets, combined with the strong Canadian dollar brings shoppers down from BC in droves and causes mayhem at the border heading back.

So, by the time we found our hotel (after a minor directional misstep), checked in, and got to the game, it was roughly midway through the first period. Apparently, the Rangers' shots suffer from the same deflation as the US dollar since they produced no goals and our heroes embarrassed us with a 3-0 loss. Didn't they know that we drove for 6 hours and 15 minutes to see this game? The couple sitting next to us were also Ranger fans that had flown up from Portland in an even greater waste of time and expense. Well, we still had a whole weekend to enjoy Vancouver...(?)

I'm going to cut to the chase here: The weather was absolutely miserable all weekend and put a major kink in our plans to explore the area around Vancouver. In the few spots where the sun peeked out, it was clear that Vancouver is a great city, nestled between the ocean and the mountains. Unfortunately, many of the nearby attractions are outdoors and the weather was not great for sightseeing.

On Friday, we spent a bit of time walking around and getting the layout of the city, ducking into a bar here and there for a drink, and then bagged it an went to a movie. We also booked tickets for an improv comedy show that evening. In the evening, we walked down to the waterfront and took a mini-water taxi across the river to Granville Island where theater was. After dinner at a nearby restaurant, we caught the show, which was somewhat disappointing, and then had a few drinks at a bar, before cabbing it back to the hotel.

Saturday, much to Lisa's pleasure, was shopping day. As a conservative estimate, she looked at two million pairs of leather boots. She was in her glory because there were many more options that fit her much better than the boots she was able to find in Seattle. She has a theory on this that you'll have to ask her to explain. After a long, cold, rainy day of shopping and a few cocktails here and there, we headed back to the room and relaxed for a while before going to the restaurant in the hotel for dinner.

Before heading back on Sunday, we drove a loop around Stanley Park, a big park on the Northwest side of city center that offers some great views of the city skyline and the surrounding areas. On our ride back, we breezed through the border crossing in about 23 seconds and cruised for most of the way, until....have you been paying attention? Yes, until we then hit outlet country and guess what? More shopping. This was not as bad though since I was able to pick up a few things for myself. I was also able to entertain myself more easily than the day before, when my main form of entertainment was thinking up as many adjectives as I could to describe the boots that Lisa tried on (Beautiful!! Elegant!! Saucy!! Hooker-ish!!).

And so, we wait for better weather, when we can go to Vancouver and tell you all what we really think of it.

[7.1] Family Encounters (Part 2)

2008-02-05T22:53:00.000-08:00

It's almost March, so I guess that means it's time get you all up to date on several trips and visits that surrounded the holidays before spring comes and more people start visiting. Time has been pretty scarce for blogging as we've been doing quite a bit of traveling on the weekends. But I will have some more time for the next couple of weeks as ankle surgery this week has sidelined me once again. This is my second time under the knife to try to fix this ankle and now that I'm up to four sizable scars, I'm hoping that I'll be relatively pain free.

Anyway, time for some catch-up so this will likely be a long post. Let's start in November. A good portion of Lisa's side of the family converged on Oregon for Thanksgiving. Lisa's sister's family secured a condo in central Oregon, her mom flew in, and after we picked up Margaret and her granddaughter, Riley, in Portland, we had the whole female part of the Hayes family. We had a fun trip down Wednesday night, driving through the Cascades in the dark of night.

Lisa and I were in one car and Margaret and mom were in the other with Riley. We brought our walkie-talkies in case we lost cell phone coverage which lead to a funny story. We used the walkies and somehow Margaret's unit became stuck so that Lisa and I could hear their whole conversation. Luckily, they stayed away from any criticism about Lisa or myself. When Lisa tried to wave to get their attention, mom responded, "She's so silly. Why doesn't she call us on the walkie talkie if she needs to tell us something?" We finally got to a decent cell and were able to call Margaret to tell her to fix the walkie. While the trip down was in the dark, our ride back offered some great views of Mt. Hood. Slowly we're conquering all of the mountain passes in the great Northwest.

Rebecca, with a bit of help from everyone else, put together a great feast despite the handicap of a foreign kitchen with limited utensils. A most excellent bird and other fixings were served, all of which were documented in photos by Marissa, our niece. Marissa and Brianna also hit the non-alcoholic sparkling cider hard. Fozzie hit the leftover turkey hard. The next day, we were able to secure a racketball court to play some wallyball in a futile effort to lose the several pounds we each gained the previous day.

We all headed back to Portland on Friday as Albert/Rebecca and family were heading back to NM and mom, Lisa and I were headed back to Seattle. But before we went our separate ways, why not one more meal? So Margaret's son and his family joined us for some sushi before we got back on the road to Seattle. The trip back was was marred by our first encounter with the Washington State Troopers. Apparently there is about a 15-mile stretch on I-5 that is considered to be under construction and Lisa was going a bit over the speed limit.

Once back in Seattle, Lisa, mom, and I had a full day planned on Saturday since I had to hop on a flight to China for work on Sunday. So we first headed down to Uwajimaya, a big Japanese grocery in the international district. Lisa and Mom stocked up for the next day when they hung out at home for some cooking and bonding. After the store, we decided to do something ultra-touristy and take a Duck tour. For those of you not familiar, Duck tours are given by bus drivers that drive old, converted amphibious vehicles from the armed services. So the tour is half on land, half on water. Complete with canned jokes and music from the drivers, you really can't get more cheesy. But they're very fun nonetheless and rather informative. We managed to capture mom on film having quite the time.

Of those of you that have already visited, many have asked us where the "Sleepless in Seattle" house is. You know, the one down on the water. Well, our Duck tour was very informational and worth the $25 if only for the fact that we now know where the house is. It's on the west side of Lake Union, only about a mile or so from where we live. So there you have it.

You would think that was enough of Lisa's family, but not quite. Margaret seems to find herself up in Seattle once every few weeks, so she made it to our party in December, and then in January, we got a call from her to meet at the Cheesecake Factory in Tukwila as she was in town for business. She, Lisa, and I also headed to LA to visit their grandmother and a bunch of other family toward the end of January (mentioned in the last post about our snowboarding adventures) and had a great time, albeit a busy one trying to fit everyone in for at least one meal. Many thanks to Mike and Jen (and Maverick and Flo) for putting us up for the weekend as we breezed in and out.

The three of us had fun-filled meals on Friday (Aunt Trisha, Uncle Doug, Mike, Jen), Saturday (Mike and Jen), Sunday afternoon (Paul's b-day at Ed and Nancy's) and Sunday night (traditional Japanese meal prepared by mom). Sunday night, we also found out that it was requested that we drink a rather large bottle of sake. To no one's big surprise, Margaret, Lisa, and I were up to the task.

And that brings us to the end of family time with Lisa's side of the family, for the time being.

[8.1] On the Slopes

2008-02-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

Since the winter began, we've been trying to take advantage of the proximity of quality skiing and snowboarding. There are three resorts within two hours of our house and a few more within another hour or two, so it's quite easy to get out for a full daytrip and enjoy some quality snow. And when I say quality snow, I mean 160 inches of base to date. That's more than Colorado has gotten. For a little taste, check out the pics.

It has however, been a bit difficult to get out to the mountains, primarily because we've been away most weekends. But we've managed to get to Crystal Mountain and this past weekend, we got up to Stevens Pass on Superbowl Sunday. We're also heading to Bend, Oregon this weekend for some more riding during Winterfest down there (so look for that update next week). This could be my last time out this year since I've scheduled another surgery on my ankle, which still gives me problems. My skills on the snowboard continue to improve pretty quickly. In fact, the only photos Lisa was able to catch of me are those on the chairlift or at the bottom of the hill. I'm just that fast.

An interesting thing about all of this is that we've gotten only about an inch or two of snow in Seattle total. However, there have been several avalanches that have closed the passes heading up to the mounains. In fact, one of Lisa's co-workers got stuck at Snoqualmie this past weekend and missed half of a Superbowl party.

In between our trips to the local mountains, we also managed to get away for a day of snowboarding with Lisa's brother, Mike, on our recent trip to Los Angeles --you can see him carving it up in the first video. Unfortunately, we gave my parents a fright because on the day we were there, an effort was underway to rescue three snowboarders trapped in an avalanche, which got broadcast on the news back east.

[8.0 or '08] New Year's Resolution

2008-01-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

We're back, baby! Happy New Year! After a busy end to the last year and whirlwind beginning to this one, we're finally settling back into the routine and that can only mean one thing...more blogging. I can't promise too much in the way of rapid-fire posting, but since it's been more than a month, we figured that we owe a post for the one or two people who actually read this thing. So we'll update you first on the New Year's activities and then work backwards to clean up a few loose ends to close out 2007 as far as the blog is concerned.

We returned from our Christmas trip out east prepared to celebrate our first turn of a new year in Seattle. But before that, we squeezed in our first snowboarding in Washington and our first mountain appearance of this season. We met up with Michele, a co-worker of Lisa, and Michelle's husband, Carl, and headed up to Crystal Mountain. The resort is about 2 hours from Downtown Seattle. While Michele and Carl took lessons, Lisa and I hit the mountain. However after one run and a trip to the top of the mountain, the binding on my snowboard broke. I tried to fix it at the top of the mountain, but could not so we had to head down to the repair shop. We took this run a bit slowly since I was not quite stable with my faulty binding. After waiting for a repair, it was actually almost time for lunch so we took a quick run and then headed for a bite. We had more luck in the afternoon and got in a bunch of rides. The weather, however, had created white-out conditions on one face of the mountain, so we were a bit limited in where we could go. Fun times, nonetheless. Fun, that is, until we almost found ourselves with enough venison to keep us in meat for a year. On the drive back home, we just barely avoided a large buck that had bolted across the road. Luckily, with my evasive driving and only a very minimal deer-in-the-headlights moment from the buck, we avoided disaster.

For New Year's Eve we met some friends for cocktails and then headed to dinner at Brasa, a restaurant downtown. We had and excellent meal, complete with acrobats performing overhead. Our meal ended right before midnight and we passed on our complementary glass of champagne from the restaurant to head out to the street to see the Seattle New Year's tradition of fireworks set off from the space needle that you can see in the first photo above. And what is New Year's without getting into a bit of trouble? Not much fun, so Lisa decided to break a few laws as you can see below. I hope that she wasn't soliciting.

Lisa has started a bit of a tradition in our home, making sukiyaki for New Year's Day dinner. We actually had a full-on Japanese menu with gyoza and shishamo (broiled sardines) for breakfast that day as well. And for the sake of Lisa's mom, yes, everything was delicious and we ate our sukiyaki the traditional way. I keep asking if this is part of a new year's resolution to start cooking more for me, but she just laughs, so I don't think that's the case. So, a Happy New Year to all once again and hopefully it won't be too long before we get to post about items of note from November and December including Lisa's mom's visit, our Thanksgiving in Oregon, our Christmas back east, and our trip to Vancouver.

And we promise to keep you updated on all things Seattle in 2008.

[7.0] Family Encounters: Part I

2007-12-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the hiatus from the blog for the past several weeks. I've been traveling quite a bit and Lisa has been too busy watching Fozzie--and, I suspect, trying to turn him against me--to post. Over the past three weeks, I've only spent about four or five days at home, with trips to Mexico and China for work and few days in Oregon to celebrate Thanksgiving with a good chunk of Lisa's family--more on this later.

So I guess first of all, I still owe you a few paragraphs on my parents' visit to Seattle. After all, it's been almost two months since they were here. The first thing of note about my parents' visit was the weather. It was the worst stretch we've had since we arrived here and we saw nothing but rain for the four days that my parents were here. This led to a never ending stream of sarcasm from my dad about the loose definition of "70s and Sunny" in Seattle.

The parents spent four days here and we kept them busy for most of that time. We took them on the 10-cent tour of the city on the first day where they got to see Pike Place market, the waterfront, and the downtown area. We went up in the space needle (my first time as well), but a storm passed through while we were up there, resulting in less-than-spectacular views. Luckily, they have a full panoramic photo so that you can see what is actually out there when the weather is clear.

Saturday was the highlight of the weekend as we headed east over the Cascade mountains to a small mountain town called Leavenworth. They have an Oktoberfest celebration every year here for each of the first three weekends of October. It took a bit longer to drive up than I anticipated and thus we missed the ceremonial keg tapping which is conducted at 1PM each Saturday during Oktoberfest by the Mayor of Leavenworth. The town was hopping with tons of folks enjoying the local shops, restaurants, and yes, beer gardens. We're already planning for next year and looking to get a room so that we can celebrate and not have to worry about the two hour drive home after hoisting a few steins.

Sunday we saw the Gold Rush Museum, which was quite interesting and told the history of the gold rush in Alaska and the role that Seattle played as an outpost for the throngs of speculators that headed North in search of riches. One point of note is that one of the few people to actually make a small fortune and hold onto it during the Yukon gold rush was John Nordstrom. He used his claim money to start a shoe store in Seattle. I think by the last name you can tell what happened next. Lisa and I then put my parents on the Underground Tour, which we had already done (see this post to read about our tour of the underground) and decided to have a drink while we waited.

Monday we decided to drive up to Everett and take the tour of the Boeing jumbo jet plant up there. The assembly plant is 472 MM cubic feet, making it the biggest building in terms of volume. Each door to the plant, there are six, is the size of a football field...that's pretty big. They assemble only wide bodies there so there were several 747s (still the largest passenger plane from Boeing) on the plant floor in various stages of completion. Unfortunately, they don't allow pictures inside the plant, so I lifted one from the website. If you get out this way, I would recommend a trip up there. It's quite impressive.

I think we tired my folks out, keeping them on the run for most of the weekend. I just hope that they were tired enough that they fell asleep on the plane just before their departure and thus could not see the glorious weather that came in just as they were leaving and which stayed the rest of that week.

[6.4] Yup, These Are My Neighbors

2007-11-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

Lisa and I were able to experience our first real festival in our Fremont neighborhood on October 31. If you've been following the blog, you've seen pictures of the Troll under the bridge that brings a bit of fame to our little corner of the world. Well, apparently every year on Halloween, or Trolloween as it's called around here, a group of folks have a big event to bring the Troll to life (and no, B, that's not a sexual metaphor). Well we had no idea what to expect, light-hearted party or full-blown voodoo ceremony. As it turned out, it was a bit of both.

Lisa and I headed down there that evening and were surprised that the police had blocked off the street. Apparently this might be more than a few zealots chanting at the Troll. As we neared, we saw a crowd of people, maybe around 500 or so, encircling a stage that was set up in the street, in front of the Troll. About half of the folks there wore some kind of costume, which Lisa and I had forgone. The "show" had already begun. We staked out our spot up on the hill where the Troll makes its home, throwing caution to the wind and counting on one of two things, either a) the Troll was not coming to life, or b) if he did come to life, he was a kind and benevolent Troll.

The show consisted of several warmup acts such as a fire eater, sword swallower, fire twirler, and two really poor singers. Lisa was ready to go, not really being entertained, or more to the point, not having enough alcohol in her system to appreciate the goings on. After the acts finished, we heard loud drums off in the distance--down the street. The crowd around the stage parted and a parade of drummers and dancers emerged, all clad in tight black body suits painted with skeletons. It reminded me a bit of the scene in King Kong where the natives call Kong with their sacrifice of the young blond. This was entertaining, but alas, failed to bring the Troll to life.

After the ceremony, the drummers and dancers led the parade of revelers from the Troll, down 36th street, and into the center of Fremont for more revelry. As we checked out the folks in the parade, I was a bit disappointed by the costumes. The creativity was nowhere near the level that you see in the Halloween parade in the Village in NYC. There were a couple of people that put serious work into their costumes, but they are tough to describe, like the guy who wore a "V for Vendetta" mask with an afro and a smoking jacket. Next year this will take place on Friday night, and we promised ourselves that we would take part in the festivities by dressing up and by having a few drinks before the show.

[6.3] Back East, Again

2007-10-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

Good day, loyal blog-ites. I first have to apologize for the sparse frequency of posts recently. We've been quite busy. However, while this has meant a gap in posts, it also means the posts should be coming fast and furious for the next few days since we've got so much to clue you all into. When we last left our heroes, Lisa and Dave were awaiting the Vlady-parents. After a few fun-filled days with them, there was a treasure trove of blog material. However, I'm going to hold off on that post until I get the pictures from Mom. After the parental visit, we headed back east for a wedding, which is documented below. Future posts will also include Trolloween, the comedy club, and our "meet the neighbors gathering", so watch this space as I hope to cover all this material before spending a week in Mexico starting on the 12 Nov for work.

Anyway, back to the wedding weekend. Lisa and I made a whirlwind trip to York, PA. We flew in late Friday night to Harrisburg and headed back out Sunday after the wedding. Mark, Lisa's friend from her east coast ski club was to marry his sweetheart, Lucy. We were, according to the invite, supposed to witness "rock and roll history as Mark and Lucy swap spit for the first time as husband and wife."

But before the wedding itself we have cover the locale, York, PA. I learned that York served as our nation's capital (actually, I might have known that once back in 7th grade Social Studies but hey, c'mon, that was 25 years ago). We stayed in a great old hotel on a main drag in downtown York and got to walk around a bit on Saturday before the wedding. Lisa went to get her nails done and I walked out to meet her. Well, about half way through my walk I met Evangelist Bill, as I call him. He shook my hand, and proceeded to shake my hand while walking for two city blocks. In that time he also asked me if I was prepared for the afterlife, said a prayer with me, and made me promise to recruit servants from the west coast to work for the Holy Spirit. I'm working on it, Bill. So far I've recruited our two cats and the afternoon barrista at Lighthouse Coffee Roasters around the corner.

Two other notable things about downtown York. There are posted signs that say "No Cruising -- You will be ticketed if you pass this sign more than twice between the hours of 8PM and 3AM." You know you live in a pretty boring town if there's a "no cruising" sign. And then we walked into a Rite Aid to pick up a few things and saw one of the most disturbing things ever. The video below is pretty raw since it was taken with my phone, but take my word for it, I'm not voting for Hillary if her election means more of these on the market. I've not been this freaked out since the first Chucky movie.

Anyway, on to the wedding. It was held at the Valencia Ballroom, which was pretty cool in itself. It was where the big bands used to play back in the 1920s -1940s. We knew it would be a slightly different affair when the string quartet played "White Wedding" by Billy Idol among its classical pieces pre-ceremony. Lucy and Mark swapped spit, with a little "ass grab" by Mark for good measure. The wedding party was introduced and each entered the ballroom to their individual songs. Rock on. After we got the DJ to play a string of danceable 80s stuff and disco, we wore the varnish off the floor.

We didn't know that many folks at the wedding, outside of the other ski club representative, Bruce, with his wife Mara. Mark and Lucy represented the third ski club wedding in less than a year, following Bruce and Mara in December and Lisa and myself in May.

So a great time was had by all and we end with congratulations to Mark and Lucy as they head off to Tahiti to start a great life together.

[6.2] The PGA We Ain't

2007-10-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post today as Lisa and I are heading back to the east coast for Mark and Lucy's wedding in York, PA. Thus you'll all have to wait for the much anticipated description of my parents' visit this past weekend. For now, just a couple of quick tidbits on my trip to Myrtle Beach with the boys. This is primarily for Scott, who used his move to Phoenix as an excuse to bail on this year's trip. If Alan had his way, we'd have sent Scott text messages constantly throughout the weekend telling him what a good time we were having.

Thanks to Mike for finding us another great house right on the beach (photo to the right is of the sunrise from our deck overlooking the dunes)

Congrats to Alex for putting together three great rounds of golf and not giving anyone else a chance at individual honors

Congrats to all of us who played three days of football on the beach, before and after golf, and managed to avoid any hospital visits

Earle continued his long history of really random injuries by ripping the skin off of the bottom of both big toes

"Old School" play once again rules at the pong table...although any play by a bunch of guys approaching 40 has got to be considered old school

Kudos to Tommy for only two club throws in four days---and for getting out of this mess

Honors to JJ for worst travel experience by being stuck at Newark for 6 hours waiting for his flight to Myrtle to leave

And thanks to my team for putting the team competition pretty much out of reach on day 2

See you guys next year in Ireland...

[6.1] East Coast Update

2007-10-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hey, all. Apologies for the delay and lack of posts for the last two weeks, but East Coast things were afoot. We've got lots to catch up on including our weekend in NJ, my trip to Myrtle Beach, and my parents visit to Seattle so we'll take this in manageable chunks. We flew into Newark on Friday and after dropping off our things at my parents house, we headed into Hoboken for dinner with the gang. Some highlights of the dinner:

Watching the bug-filled Yankees/Cleveland game while waiting for our table
Finally meeting Jack's new girlfriend, the lovely Monica
Preparing Monica for her introductory meeting with Jack's parents that Wednesday
Getting our Hoboken updates
Sharing stories of Earle and Kelli's visit to Seattle
Hearing about Tommy's escapades of that day (his "luncheon" for work caused him to show up late for our 8:30PM dinner reservation as there was some Patron involved)
The always excellent fare at City Bistro

And what trip back to Hoboken would be complete without an after dinner drink or two at Ted n' Jo's?

The next day was Auntie's surprise party, which was the premise for our trip to NJ. She was mostly shocked, but she was a bit tipped off to at least part of the surprise. Earlier in the morning, we were telling my eight-year-old niece, Hope, what to say when she called to wish Auntie a Happy Birthday. After all, Auntie did not know that the family was coming up from Virginia. We ran through several dry runs and reinforced to Hope that if Auntie asked where she was to tell her that she was at home. Well, apparently Hope drove that point home on the call, telling Auntie several times during the call that the whole family was at home in Virginia. Auntie was a bit suspicious. But even if she had some inkling that Brian, Jen, Hope, and Justi were coming from Virginia, she had no idea that Lisa and I were making the trip from Seattle.

The whole day was a blast, particularly having the time to spend with our two year-old nieces, Justi and Hailey. After the birthday lunch at Bella Notte we headed back to the parents' house for some more family time. Just look below to see how comfortable Lisa looks with Justi.

[6.0] Goin' Back to Jersey

2007-10-05T05:28:00.000-07:00

Short post today as we're headed east this weekend for Auntie's birthday. If I'm not mistaken, she's 29...again. I'm writing this on Friday, but she doesn't know we're coming in for the party, so it's being posted on Saturday after the shindig.

After the party, Lisa heads back to Seattle on Sunday and I'm hanging around NJ for some family time and a couple of meetings for work. Then on Thursday the gang and I head down to Myrtle Beach for the weekend for our annual golf trip.

One other point of note. Once again, Fozzie has, not surprisingly, become more popular than me. It happened in Hoboken all the time. We'd be out for a walk and people would come up and say "hi" to Foz and have no idea who I was. Well, I forgot to mention it in the Soapbox race post, but at the race, a girl in her 20s walks up and says, "Oh my god, it's Fozzie. Hi, Fozzie." I had no idea who she was until she explained that she worked at Great Dog, the day care facility that I'd been using for Foz. Then there's the dog park where people say hi to Fozzie and maybe manage a slight nod in my general direction. He's a rockstar. And my complex grows.

[5.2] Camptown Races...Doo Dah!!

2007-10-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

We finished off a big week--we've already been to Oktoberfest and had the Vegas trip--with Fozzie, Lisa and I headed out to Fremont Avenue on Saturday for the Red Bull Soapbox Race that made a local stop about three blocks from our house. The event is held on a fairly regular basis around the country and encourages creativity and engineering, but this is not your Boy Scout event to earn a merit badge, this is serious stuff. Mostly adult teams compete and have to build a vehicle that is gravity-powered and weighs no more than 176 lbs. In addition, teams are rated on the look of the vehicle, the speed, and overall creativity, which meant most teams did a short skit before launching the cart into the course. I think there was some alcohol involved prior to some of these skits. Needless to say, this event had it all: Thrills, spills, and a flying pickle. The course was also outfitted with video screens and speakers so one could follow the action throughout the whole 800 meter course (you can see the Seattle Sonics Sasquatch entry on the screen). And just to lend an air of credibility to the proceedings, judges included Olympian Amanda Beard, Seattle Sonic Nick Collison, and how can you have a soapbox derby without Sir Mix-a-lot as a judge.

The event started with the pace car taking off. The only motorized car in the race, the pace car was the Red Bull NASCAR entry. It was followed over the next 2.5 hours by 37 entries that ranged from the hysterical to the ludicrous to the outright pathetic. I'll start with the winning team, who recreated the best TV show of all time featuring a large, black man with a mohawk. That's right, the A-team. Their opening skit had B.A. Baracus (the caucasian Mr. T in this case) and the rest of the team foiling evil doers. Then Murdock jumped into the "van" and sped to the bottom of the hill. There was a local newswoman at the bottom interviewing each contestant. The A-team's response when asked how it went? "I love it when a plan comes together".

The course was a bit difficult for some of the teams to negotiate. After the team's skit, each was required to send the car and driver(s) down a ramp and into an immediate 90-degree berm before the long stretch down Fremont which was broken up by two "S" turns along the way. About six or so teams failed to make it past the first turn. The train below was one of the successful ones. The team from Anytime Fitness was not. They lost a wheel coming down the entry ramp, but that did not deter the driver as you can see.

There were fast cars (you can tell how fast each car was going by how blurry it is) such as "Stifflers Mom Presents: Miss Red Bull"...

And not so fast cars...

I failed to get a picture of "The Crapsters" which was a large toilet bowl with the driver inside, dressed in all brown. Their skit consisted of shooting toilet paper off rolls into the air. Now that's creativity. But I leave you with my personal favorite, the team from Arizona that comprised a zookeeper that always wanted to ride one of the zoo rhinos, but is discouraged by his superiors, so this was his answer:

[5.1] Vegas!

2007-09-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Dave & I went to Las Vegas for a few days on business (me) and pleasure (Dave). I've never been much of a gambler so Vegas has never been a "destination spot" for me. We landed around noon on Sunday and headed to the Bellagio hotel. We decided to walk down the Strip to see if there were any shows that still had seats left. "O" is playing at the Bellagio but was sold out. I told Dave we should see Celine Dion since she's ending her 5 year run soon but he wasn't interested. The Venetian had seats left for the Blue Man Group so we bought two. There was a brief discussion regarding which section we should sit in. Starting from front to back, there were seats available in poncho, none in front orchestra and then more in back orchestra. Dave picked two seats in poncho (more on this later). After securing our evening's entertainment, we went to the Stratosphere to ride the roller coaster. I wasn't sure what the ride was, but has heard it was fun. There are three rides at the top of the Stratosphere: Insanity, Big Shot, and Xscream. We bought tickets for Insanity and Xscream. The Insanity ride is nothing spectacular--it would probably be in the kiddie section of a typical amusement park. What makes Insanity so special is the fact that the entire ride takes place about 110 floors above the ground. The ride edges out over the top of the building so we can see all the cars that look like tiny dots below. I'm not sure we will do that one again. It was probably one of the scarier rides I've ever been on. The second ride was the Xscream. After Insanity, it was a piece of cake. We scoffed at Xscream and its pathetic attempt to scare us. All it did was zoom out over the edge a couple of times. Dave & I were in the front to get the best view.

Our next stop was the Blue Man Group. Turns out Dave had seen Blue Man Group more than once. I've only seen a few clips on television. The poncho section is the closest to the stage. I got a little nervous when I realized there were actual plastic ponchos on the back of every chair. I got even more nervous when I watched people put them on and completely cover themselves including wearing the hood. White crepe paper is passed out to the entire audience who come up with all kinds of clever ways to "TP" themselves. The act goes through A LOT of paper at the end. It was a great show. Next time we go to Vegas we'll have to book O ahead of time.

Monday night Dave wanted to gamble so we went to everyone's perennial favorite, Blackjack. Dave did well but I barely broke even. The gambling bug hadn't struck yet. I went to bed but Dave went to meet his good friend, Mike. I didn't see Dave again until the following morning--and he smelled like booze and cigarettes. Tuesday night we gambled some more. We played Blackjack, Caribbean Stud Poker and Let it Ride. I ended up Tuesday night about $275 ahead. The urge to gamble was getting stronger. Dave flew home Wednesday morning with a massive hole in his wallet. I played blackjack every chance I got on Wednesday. I wrote a little cheat sheet on what to do when I got an 11, A's and 8's, and when to hit a 12. I called my dad for more tips on doubling down and splitting. The morning seminar let out early -- I was up to $800 by lunch. When I started losing I forced myself to go peruse the shoe store. (Let me tell you, there were several pairs of $600-700 shoes that wouldn't look appropriate anywhere other than wrapped around a pole). The afternoon seminar was horrible and I was forced to leave after the first break -- up another hundred. My coworker met me for dinner at 7 pm -- I was up another two hundred. All in all I made about $1,100 in a little over 24 hours. When it was finally time to go I felt like Fred Flintstone--Bet! Bet! Bet! Bet! Bet!!!

Until next time.

[5.0] Eins, Zwei, Zuffa!!

2007-09-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Hey, all. Sorry about the break in delivering the best of the Northwest, but we've been in Vegas the past few days. Forsaking the advice in the latest Vegas tourism campaign, we'll fill you in on all the frivolity in the next post. But this stanza is dedicated to the beer drinker's favorite time of year, Oktoberfest. Last Saturday, we attended the Fremont Oktoberfest with Lisa's friend from work and her husband. Luckily, both were savvy beer drinkers. [Apologies in advance for the photos in this blog as they were all taken with a camera phone as the dolt author of this blog forgot the camera]

While Fremont's celebration fell a bit short of its namesake in Munich, it was far superior to the Wallingford Wurst Festival that we attended a few weeks prior. First of all, there was beer, and lots of it. This is a critical element of any Oktoberfest celebration and this one did not disappoint. Fremont does something a bit different, though, that was a bit of an annoyance. Fremont's Oktoberfest is more of a tasting festival, so instead of the traditional BSOMS (Beer Steins of Massive Size) associated with Germany, we receive a small mug of only about 4-5 oz in size. You can see one in the photo of Lisa with the bratwurst. Revelers were encouraged to try samples of many different beers. Having the small mug gave one access to about 70 or so microbrews...Ach du lieber! There were beer gardens where you could sit and enjoy a full beer, but the selection was limited.

The people-watching was fun, but there were far too few people sporting lederhosen. I vowed that I would purchase a pair in time to "authenticize" next year's event. The winner of best costume goes to this gentleman who sported a blond wig with braids and a t-shirt with a design of the torso of a german beer girl. The thing that made his outfit though was not the image of ample cleavage on the front of the shirt, but rather his hairline. Though the picture is not great, you can see said hairline on his back about three inches above the collar of his shirt and a few inches below the bottom of the wig. We had to avert our eyes and these lovely ladies provided a much better view, er, had on much more authentic costumes.

Unfortunately, as our flights to Vegas were early on Sunday, we missed many of the events on this penultimate day of the event. I missed playing in the Beer Pong fundraising tournament. And there were several other events that seemed like they would be a blast:

The Brew-Ha-Ha 5K: A road race that included the Beer Belly Division for men over 200 lbs and women over 160 lbs

Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving Contest: Self explanatory

Street Scramble: A neighborhood scavenger hunt

More fun coming up this weekend with the Red Bull Soapbox Derby. Look for an update of that next week.

[4.0] Lisa Breaks Her Silence!

2007-09-18T22:38:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! I am finally breaking my silence to fill you in on my view of all things Seattle. It has been an interesting 8 weeks thus far. I've learned that it's okay to walk from place to place even if the destination is over 3 blocks away. I've learned that commuting by bus isn't as horrible as I've always imagined. I've learned that it's possible to arrive at work before 9:15 am. I've learned that Dave looks great wearing spandex shorts!

That's right--Dave has finally succumbed to the call of the bicycle and has been riding with me. As he mentioned in an earlier post he is planning to buy a road bike. I think he is tired of losing sight of me as I pull away on the climb back up Fremont Ave. I've joined a very large cycling organization here called the Cascade Bicycle Club. This club sponsors the annual Seattle to Portland ride (AKA the STP) every July. My sister, Margaret, and her friends do it every year. I'm hoping Dave & I will be in good enough shape to ride next year. It's 200 miles over the course of 2 days. I haven't ridden 100 miles in one day (AKA a century) in a very, very, very long time. I've been riding with the club pretty regularly since we finally moved into our place in Fremont. It's a great way to learn new areas. In fact, there are places that I know how to get to by bike that I'm not sure I could find by car.

Today I became an official Washington resident. I marched right into the downtown Seattle DMV and took number 266 so I could wait alongside every other person unlucky enough to need a new driver license. The number when I sat down was 215 so I thought I was in for a long wait but it wasn't that bad. There were several discarded magazines laying around so I was able to catch up on Britney Spears' custody battle and Lindsey Lohan's DUI troubles. $45, an eye test and an hour later, I was the proud recipient of a temporary license. There was one terrifying moment when I realized WA requires height and weight on the license. Since I didn't see any scales around ....

Dave promised that I would write about Margaret's visit over Labor Day Weekend. She showed up. We drank. We rode bikes. We went to dinner. We drove around the city and took pictures. It was great. Thanks for coming. Oh, and thanks for taking one of the TV's. We have two more that could use a good home. Dave installed a new flat screen in the master bath. Apparently, it's kinda loud if you're trying to sleep. Guess who gets up at 5:30 and guess who doesn't?

Okay--I think that's enough for my first post. I'm struggling to come up with things to write. Besides, I need to save something for the next post. Hopefully, it won't be in two months but no promises. We're still busily working on getting the house in shape. Dave's parents, Ray & Phyllis, are visiting in October. My mom is coming in November. Dave conveniently forgot to mention that when he was listing who was coming to visit in a previous post. Perhaps, it was his subconscious?

Toodles, lah

[3.7] East Meets West (Part Two)

2007-09-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

[Update on Lisa's first post: No progress. She promises to do it this weekend. I'm skeptical.]

Earle and Kelli blew back through town late in the week after a few days in Portland and a night at a B&B across the Sound near Olympia. I picked up Lisa at work and the four of us (plus Foz) enjoyed a picnic lunch at a sculpture garden on Puget Sound, right near our old apartment.

Always prepared, E&K had a bottle of wine from a winery visit in Portland, but we were not sure of the open container laws. So we wrapped the wine in a paper bag and poured it into opaque plastic cups while constantly swiveling our heads to see if the bicycle cop was about to cruise past us again. We spent most of the time enjoying the day and our lunch while E&K shared the stories of their adventures the prior few days. We learned that E&K were "retiree magnets", but these folks love Kelli and her stories.

Thanks to E&K for the visit, we hope you can make it back soon.

Quick wrap on the rest of the weekend: Earle and Kelli left Thursday afternoon after lunch and on Friday after work, I met Lisa and her co-workers for Happy Hour. Lisa may have had one appletini too many. She did not, however, have enough to prevent us from going on a 35-mile bike ride on Saturday, which took us over Lake Washington and around Mercer Island, which is a small, upscale neighborhood in the middle of Lake Washington. I'm tired of trying to do these rides on my mountain bike and will be buying a road bike this week. After the ride (and a nap), we headed out to the bike shop to look at bikes and then to a local Wurst Festival. The festival was more of a mini-fair and there was little wurst to be had and even less beer, so we said, "this festival is the wurst" and left to have dinner elsewhere. On today's agenda, we're going to have a Dim Sum brunch with some folks we've met here, and then some shopping for blinds. I know you're all dying for an update on the blind situation.

[3.6] Happy Birthday Justine

2007-09-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

September 13th, 2007: Happy B-day Justy! Life's so much better once you get that first year under your belt, isn't it? Enjoy your party this weekend. We miss you.

Love,

Uncle Dave & Auntie Lisa

[3.5] The Sunshine State

2007-09-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

[Update on Lisa's first post: No progress (poking it to see if it is still alive). Back to the living blog]

It was overcast this morning. I mention this because it is quite the rarity thus far. I figure that we've been here in Seattle for almost two months, so that is a sufficient amount of time to undertake a preliminary update of the local weather situation, as always, for your information.

Every time I speak to Dad on the phone his first question is "How's the weather?". We'll get to my standard answer shortly, but first, I mention this because it's an intriguing phenomenon. I don't think there are many places in the US where everyone is hung up on what the weather is doing on a regular basis and the weather defines the area. Sure you get the hurricanes in the Southeast and the random blizzard that dumps feet of snow up North; these surely elicit curiousity from many people. But outside of Seattle, I'm not sure people are that consumed by what the weather is like, outside of maybe Phoenix in the summer, just because temperatures there more resemble those of a slow cooker as opposed to a major city (word from Dave and Linda and Scott is that 115F - 120F were pretty common this year). Darnit if people aren't just curious what happens when the temperature is 30 degrees more than your body temp.

Anyway, I bring this up because my typical response to my father is "75 and sunny". Now I harbor no illusions that I'll be spitting out this pat response come November, but the fact is, summer is absolutely amazing here in Seattle, especially for someone coming from the sauna that is the east coast summer. In two months, it's been clear sunny skies for about 85% - 90% of the time. We've had one day where it rained for a sustained period of time (that day cleared up and was sunny in the late afternoon) and about three or four days where it's been cloudy most of the day. Sometimes we'll get an overcast morning like today, but it will end like this (see right). And the locals are all complaining about how crappy the weather has been this August/September so I'm really curious how much better it can get.

Now again, we're just preparing ourselves for the Seattle "winter". Six months of gray, misty days that last from November through March. But hey, if that's the price for the amazing summer weather that we've been experiencing, sign me up. One of the local radio stations back in NYC used to label the "10 best days of the year". Days with low humidity, manageable temps, and glorious sunshine were so designated. We've had conservatively 25 of those since the begining of August. Now I know this is not LA and in a few weeks, I'll have constant drizzle to slap my face and remind me, but I'll relish it for now.

Finally, check out the average annual rainfall in Seattle versus other cities. Seems we have much lighter, albeit much more frequent, rain here. Check back for my next two month weather update in November. And then deeper into the winter, we hope to be enjoying lows of 35 - 40 degrees while those of you back in the NE are wading through feet of snow in sub-zero temps.

[3.4] East Meets West (Part One)

2007-09-10T11:23:00.001-07:00

[First an update on Lisa's first post: No progress. We now return you to the blog]

It's tough to say who our first visitors were in Seattle. With so many folks clamoring for the right to lay claim to that title (at least we'd like to think people are clamoring), we may have split the rights:

Scott (old friend of Dave) wins "First Out-of-Towner To Visit", but we were not in our new home yet.

Margaret (Lisa's sister) wins "First Seattle House Guest", but she only came up from Portland and we anticipate many visits.

But this weekend, Earle and Kelli, long time friends and carousing companions from the old stomping grounds in Hoboken, paid us a visit. We will give them the title, "First Guests To Plan A Visit". They were actually the first people to commit to a Seattle visit, having planned to be here anyway for the wedding of Earle's friend from college, Kaiser. Kaiser, now also a Seattlite, is a former big man and all around gunner for the b-ball team that Earle and I played on in NYC, the Bob McAdoo All-Stars. As I understand it, JJ, the team's founder, player, coach, and social coordinator is struggling to keep the McAdoos in the NY Urban Professionals League due to aging, failing bodies and the fact that the Seattle area leagues keep plucking players.

E&K had wedding activities on Friday and Saturday, but we met up on Sunday morning and as she usually does, Kelli had our itinerary planned out in advance. We would have brunch, then go on the Seattle Underground Tour, and then head back to our neighborhood for a few pre-dinner cocktails while we decide on a place for dinner. So after a delicious brunch at Cafe Campagne down by the Pike Place Market, we walked over to Pioneer Square for the tour. Lisa and I had seen the tour advertised and it interested us as well. It is 90 minutes and gives a good history of Seattle. The bulk of the tour, however, weaves the group through the underground sidewalks of downtown Seattle. The story, in brief is that originally Seattle streets down by the waterfront were not far enough above sea level, which caused problems back in the late 1800s with water/mud in the streets and sewage problems at high tide. So they basically raised 30 square blocks of the downtown area by around 12 feet. This means that most of the older buildings have their second floor now at street level and the old sidewalk still exists underneath the current one. The picture of E&K above shows them below one of the skylights that looks up to the current street level. Fun tour, but it was time to head back to our neighborhood where we gave E&K the grand tour of the house and lavished some attention on the animals.

Since Kelli is allergic to cats, we made our stay brief and wandered downhill for dinner and drinks, not necessarily in that order. Earle wanted to see our local British-style pub, so we flattened our butts and filled our pints at the George & Dragon, a very authentic pub experience. They show the English Premiership and other soccer matches on the "telly" there and the replay of the USA/Brazil match was just starting, so we watched that as Kelli pulled out her trusty deck of cards and we played a game of "Oh, Hell". Not that it's important to mention, but I won.

After the G&D, we walked across the Fremont Bridge to a restaurant that we'd been hoping to try. Ponti's Seafood Grill is right on the water next to the bridge so we got a seat out on the balcony and enjoyed a great seafood dinner (thanks for treating, E&K). Unfortunately we lost Lisa after the appetizers as she had not been feeling well all day and walked home to lay down and wait for us. After dinner it was already late and I had to get E&K back to their hotel, so we walked back uphill, stopping at one point to enjoy some local Fremont shrubbery art. Apparently one of our neighbors got bored while trimming. Sort of looks like Easter Island meets the botanical garden meets the Three Stooges. Yes, we live in a neighborhood that is a bit "different".

Earle and Kelli are now off to Portland for a few days, but will be coming back through mid-week, so look for part 2 to this post later in the week.

[3.3] Have You Seen This Woman?

2007-09-06T09:10:00.001-07:00

I apologize if you've been looking for a post for the past few days. I was holding off mainly because there's been a bit of pent up demand for a feminine viewpoint of Seattle and I was hoping that Lisa would come through with a post to silence the cries of the masses. Readers have been clamoring with questions: "When will I see some black text?", "Did I miss Lisa's posts?", "Can Lisa actually write?", "Are you guys still married?"

She was charged with bringing everyone up to date on our Labor Day Weekend activities with our first Seattle house guest (spoiler alert: it was Margaret), but obviously that has not happened yet so please feel free to pester her via a comment to this post or a personal e-mail if you want the poop. Truth is, Lisa started the post, but has yet to finish it and put it up for your reading pleasure. So I'll just have to pick up the slack. I do, after all have a few more hours each day to write while she wastes time with trivial stuff like commuting and working. But watch this space and we'll try to get her to finish the post before our next Seattle house guests (Earle and Kelli) show up in a couple of days.

I don't really have that much to write about today since I don't want to steal Lisa's thunder and write about any of the fun weekend activities. I did manage to get a picture of the Cuban Roast sandwich from Paseo that I drooled about in a prior post. I don't know if I described it previously, but it consists of slow-cooked pork, very large and extremely tasty fried onions, romaine lettuce, jalapenos, and an awesome aioli. The pork, onions, and jalapenos are fried up in a skillet and dumped on the baguette with the lettuce and aioli. Mmmmmm...Cuban Roast Sandwich. I actually had to take a lunch break to go out and get this baby since I've been gainfully employed for the last week. While I still have some ongoing work with my former company that requires a day's work here and there, they contracted with me to do a short-term rush job that kept me busy for several days over the last two weeks. I'm just trying to earn my keep here.

For various reasons, we've been missing a few of the neat summer activities that Seattle has to offer such as Seafair (several weeks worth of various events) and Bumbershoot (several days worth of music and entertainment festival). But we have a number of exciting things in September and October including Fremont Oktoberfest, a soap box derby on the main street near our home, and Trolloween, where the locals (Fremonsters) dress up and try to bring the troll under the bridge to life. I'm imagining we'll get a few good photos of these events, particularly the last one. We stopped by the Fremont Arts Council that sponsors the event and took a shot inside so you get some idea of what we're expecting of Trolloween. The council is housed in a non-descript brick building on Fremont Ave. It's basically just a warehouse, but it's a world of wonderment inside where all of the colorful masks and puppetry that are used for the annual Solstice parade in Fremont are housed. I think that some of these make it out for the Trolloween parade. Watch this space for more details.

[3.2] Dog's Eye View

2007-09-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

Dave took the weekend off from blogging and Lisa has been MIA since this blog started, so it is I, Fozzie Bear, to the rescue, bringing you up to date on all things Seattle. Things have been great here in Seattle so far. I lost my big backyard in CT where I used to enjoy running around, but Dave has been good about taking me on walks and to off-leash areas. The walks are fun because I love checking out the daily news and there's a lot to check out in our new town as you can see in the picture. As for the dog parks, I've met a bunch of new friends like Raider, Bailey, Aristotle, and this dog that looks exactly like John Candy's character in Spaceballs (I'll try to get a picture of him next time). The Seattle dogs are more liberal and laid back than I am, but we get along well enough. They give me good tips about bringing my arch nemesis to his knees. Just look at how smug he is sitting up there on the back of the chair. You're going down, Nigel.

Seattle is more dog-friendly than the other towns in which I've lived. Lisa, Dave, and I went downhill the other day for a few afternoon cocktails. Most times this means that Lisa and Dave sit outside and have cocktails and I get tied up outside a railing and maybe if I'm lucky I get a bowl of water or if the stars are aligned, a treat. But Dave and Lisa took me to Norm's Eatery and Ale House. We sat outside, but I got to hang out with Dave and Lisa INSIDE the railing. When they got their drinks, I got a big bowl of water. Now this made the place cool enough, but then we saw a dog bringing his folks INTO THE BAR. Suffice to say, we WILL be going back to this place.

So, that was a fun day, but while the walk downhill was great, the walk home took a lot out of me as you can tell by the way I crashed almost immediately upon our arrival back home.

[3.1] 10 Things I Love About Seattle

2007-08-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

We're going to start a running feature on the blog. At the bottom of the column to the right of your screen, You will see a list entitled "Things We've Learned About Seattle:Good, Bad, & Pointless". Some of these will be more entertaining than informative, some the reverse. Some will be pretty obvious and every once in a while, we'll try to slip one by you and make something up. This is to help all of you better understand what it means to live in Seattle and to help us fill the space on this blog.

From time to time we'll post explanations, but we're more likely just to post one-liners that you'll have to interpret for yourselves until our explanatory column, if necessary, comes. For the first entries, we'll give a little background.

1. Seattle has a lot of coffee shops: When we were visiting Seattle for Lisa's job interview and trying to decide if we liked it, we walked about six blocks from our hotel down to Pike Place Market, and then walked back up, one avenue over. We counted 11 Starbucks (including the first Starbucks store). This does not include the Peets and Seattle's Best Coffee shops and others that dotted the walk as well. We have three coffee shops within three blocks of our home. It reminds me of an old Onion article. By the way, neither Lisa nor I drink coffee regularly.

2. There are also a lot of cyclists: This makes Lisa very happy. There's more lycra spandex around here than at a world gymnastics meet. And it's not all "good" spandex if you know what I mean. How some of these people ride regularly and retain their "shape" is beyond me. But from what we understand, there are more than a few people that commute via bike year round. Let that sink in.

3. Cars stop for pedestrians (especially those like Spandex guy to the right) and jaywalking laws are enforced: A two for one list item, and no, we did not find the latter out through firsthand experience. Both learning to stop for pedestrians and learning to cross with the light or at crosswalks have taken some adjustment for Dave.

Well, this has just been a tease. We've got more, so watch this space.

[3.0] The Center of the Universe

2007-08-27T14:42:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous post, we're pretty confident that we have moved into a neighborhood that we'll love. We now live in the Seattle section known as Fremont, which is widely know around the area as "The Center of the Universe". Modesty is a common trait among those of us here in Fremont. In the interest of brevity, I'll spare you a full description here, but if you want to learn more about it, the Wikipedia entry does a good job of briefly capturing the eclectic essence of the neighborhood. I suggest giving it a read to learn a little about the Troll (as seen here sporting a Murphy), the Solstice Parade, and the infiltration by Google. It seems to be every bit as colorful as my former Hoboken home.

The neighborhood is a mix of older houses (circa 1920), small apartment buildings (1970s maybe), and relatively new townhouses. While our neighborhood is primarily residential, we live about seven blocks from the commercial center of Fremont. There are a number of cool shops, great restaurants, and a pretty hopping nightlife in this area. The good news is that it is an easily walkable seven blocks to this area; the bad news is that the walk home is uphill all the way. This is how we're going to put our houseguests to the test, take them out to the area we've affectionately termed "downhill".

Now, the walk downhill (and back up) is not bad at all, but I'm imagining it will be a different story once the rain comes. Luckily, there is a great little market close by and there are a number of food options that are a much closer walk such as Persimmon and Fremont Classic. However, the crown jewel of these is Paseo. While we were house hunting in the area, we passed by this small nondescript storefront, partially obscured by trees, and bearing no sign. It was only noticeable due to the large crowd of people standing outside on the sidewalk. We later learned why. Part of the reason is that there's just not a whole lot of space in the restaurant, basically just the kitchen, a counter, and two tables. But the crowds come for the caribbean food. My current favorite is the Cuban Roast sandwich, which has just about the best pork I've ever tasted.

The nightlife is not as prevalent uphill where we live, with the only real option being the Buckaroo Tavern. I don't really know how to describe the Buckaroo, mainly because I'm intimidated to go in there. I'm intimidated not so much by the row of Harleys out front, not by the leather-clad bikers that hang out there starting around 1PM each day, but rather by the women that hang out there. They scare me. But I imagine we'll have to check it out since they have a couple of pool tables and it's been a filming location for several movies.

[2.1] The Wizard Of Foz

2007-08-27T10:56:00.001-07:00

We have not yet decided what Fozzie's territorial limitations will be within the house when we go out. We've been experimenting. The child's gate we used in CT is not a fit in our new layout. However, we've had the luxury of having boxes lying around after the move. We have lined and stacked those in every way imaginable to keep Foz in the office area downstairs. But alas, each time we arrive home, the boxes are moved just enough for a stocky pug/bull terrier to fit through and we have visions of Foz upstairs, jumping on the couch watching Animal Planet with a beer. We'll never know for sure because he always hears us come home and greets us with his tail between his legs, ears down, head lowered, and eyes looking up apologetically. But I have not noticed any beer missing yet.

Well, last night, Lisa was not to be outsmarted by the dog and engineered a barricade that actually was successful in keeping him downstairs. You can see it below. You can also see the holes in the large box that he chewed in his attempted jailbreak. I don't think it was Lisa's barricade as much as it was Nigel's gatekeeping.

[2.0] We're Home

2007-08-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

No longer do we have to use the word "temporary" in front of "home". For those of you unaware, we bought a townhome in the Fremont section of Seattle. Our stuff, all 12,000 pounds of it, arrived on Tuesday the 7th. We lost a desk and a few small things that were destroyed in the move. Fozzie was a bit unsettled by the whole process and hid in the bushes. Our next task, a monumental one that still has us toiling, was unpacking. Even with Lisa being "ruthless" in her keep vs. toss routine, we're still struggling to get things put away and it's two weeks later. And I hope Lisa harbors no hopes of getting her car in the garage before, say...hmmm, October, maybe.

Despite our lack of a microwave, refrigerator, and washer/dryer, we moved into the new place on 16 August. The washer/dryer came the next day, which made Lisa very happy. Unfortunately, we also learned that the refrigerator would be delayed another week, making Lisa very unhappy. We lived out of a cooler for the next week, which required my going to the corner market once per day to get a bag of ice or two. We kept the bare essentials in the cooler and used the opportunity to explore our new neighborhood, eating out most nights. We'll get to the neighborhood update in a later post, but for now suffice it to say that we are very happy with our choice of surroundings.

I spent the first week or two getting appliances and other necessities, unpacking, and moving things into place while trying to keep the garage relatively organized as our catch-all for stuff. Kudos to anyone that can figure out my organizational system from the picture. I also took a few breaks each day to explore our new neighborhood and those surrounding it. After the house was habitable and we were able to move around, I began to focus on my job search. Any networking opportunities that you as our blog readership care to pass along will be greatly appreciated. As for Lisa, she's been adapting to work--I'm going to try to get her to post an update on her job. She seems to be enjoying the newness of it and liking her co-workers and working environment. She's also become quite the adept commuter, learning the bus system here and buying what I believe is her first ever monthly bus pass. While this may be likely to end once she gets off the waiting list and has a garage space at work, at least she can claim a devout dedication to environmental matters in the interim. In the interim.

On Friday the 24th, blessed be GE, our refrigerator arrived. Lisa's life is complete. Doesn't she look happy? Either that or she's trying out for a modeling

gig on "The Price is Right". We celebrated by going out to dinner and bringing home about five forkfuls of risotto, just to put something in the fridge. The next day we nuked it in our microwave which had also arrived a day before the fridge. We are fully applianced and it feels good. We've actually also been able to settle in a bit. The pic below shows Nigel and I "settling in". If you look closely, you can notice that I've opted for the beat-poet-hipster-doofus-rebel-without-a-clue look. Nigel has chosen the "dead cat" look that's all the rage in feline circles. Gwen and Nigel are happy now that the couch is here.

[1.0] Welcome to Seattle

2007-08-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

We are at home in Seattle... well, sort of. Lisa headed west from CT for her first day of work on 16 July. I began my cross-country drive after dropping her off at the airport and after a brief swing through NJ for some final goodbyes. After two days, I hooked up with Roadtripper (RT) in Minneapolis. For a detailed account of the journey, click here to check out RT's blog (Days 102-108). After a trip back to CT to oversee the moving process, I joined Lisa in our temporary home on 1st Ave West in the serviceable Metro on First apartment building.

Our temporary home is located--for those of you ambitious enough to look at a map--in the Queen Anne section of Seattle, which is adjacent to the Downtown/Belltown city center. The apartment building is located three blocks from the Seattle Center, which is a main tourist area that houses the Space Needle. So basically our morning goes like this: Wake up, walk outside, look up at Space Needle. Also right here is the Key Arena where the Sonics (NBA team) play, but maybe not for long as there is a battle to take the team to Oklahoma City. I don't really care if they move the Sonics, but it would be nice if they build the new arena they're requesting and then bring in a pro hockey team. I'm not excited to drive three hours to Vancouver to get my hockey fix.

While the apartment itself is nothing special--other than it being a one-bedroom for the two of us, one dog and two cats--the location is great. From our balcony on the sixth floor, we have a great view of Puget Sound, which is a few blocks walk down the hill. In the background of the photos is the Olympic mountain range. That's one of the cool things about Seattle. It's flanked by the Olympics to the west, the Cascades to the east, and Mount Rainier looms large to the South. That means mountain views in most directions. You can check out the Olympics and Puget Sound in the view from our balcony to the right. This also has led Lisa to decide that we bought the wrong home. When we were looking, we had a few criteria:

Proximity to the city center and Lisa's job
Walking distance to a commercial area (restaurants, bars, dry cleaners)
Enough rooms to accommodate a guest room, workout room, office and our bedroom (a room could be multifunctional if space allowed)
Enough space to fit the dining room furniture (that hutch almost pushed me past my breaking point)
A fenced-in yard that was large enough to host a BBQ
Garage space for at least one car

The only thing we ended up compromising was the yard. We have a yard in our new place, but it's not fenced (yet), and it's not conducive to entertaining. So we did pretty well. But now, after living in the temporary apartment, our next house has to have a view. Lucky these are not that difficult to come by in Seattle.

Across the street from our apartment, Elliot Bay Park stretches for about a mile along the sound. Lisa discovered that this is an excellent place to begin bike rides, one of which took her all the way to West Seattle, where she managed to snap a photo with her camera of the Seattle skyline. It's not NYC, but there's not much that compares anyway. The park ends down buy the waterfront area and Pike Place market.

Foz and I have enjoyed the park for our afternoon walks. I think he likes getting back to city living since I have to take him out for walks whereas, in CT, he usually just got let out in the backyard. But he loves the park down by the water, and I tend to agree with him. It has a rather great view of Mount Rainier (it doesn't photograph that well, but you can make it out if you click on the photo and look directly above the two folks sitting on the grass). But we're coming to learn that there are great views from many places given the topography of Seattle, which is much more hilly than I imagined.

We've gotten used to everything being within walking distance, something I missed in my year in CT: the store, restaurants, dry cleaners, blockbuster, etc. The nearby restaurants are all reasonably good, save for a nasty BBQ experience...let's just say that Floyd's Place is out of the rotation. Buckley's has sufficiently satisfied the role of local pub. It's within falling distance of the apartment, has solid food and ale offerings, and a regular clientele that plays Playstation soccer against the bartender (He's unbeatable, so I'm wondering how attentive he is to his customers). Buckley's is also apparently the meeting place for the lesbian community before WNBA games at Key Arena. We have not yet made it to Chopstix, which is not an Asian restaurant, but rather a dueling piano bar.

Despite our affinity for our temporary neighborhood, we're looking forward to when the moving truck shows up with our stuff so we can move into the new place. Nigel is also looking forward to that as well; he's way into boxes and packing paper. Apologies for the long post, but the first few are likely to be long ones as we'll have a lot to share.

[0.0] Emerald City Styling Primer

2007-08-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Hey all. Thanks for checking in. We wanted to set up a blog to keep everyone back east and other family and friends on top of all the current happenings in our fantastically exciting lives in our new Seattle habitat. It's tough to speak to everyone enough to share all of the new happenings, so we figured this is a pretty good tool.

Let me start by pointing out our request under the blog title. We do strongly encourage you to take the utmost advantage of our hospitality and let us be your guide to the greater Puget Sound area. We already have so much to share with guests. We already have one Hayes and an Allen/Palan visit in September, and Vlady-mom and dad coming in October.

A couple of points regarding the blog. Dave's posts will be in Blue and Lisa's in Black so that we can speak in first person and you'll know who is speaking...er, typing. We'll not be posting everyday as some other overly ambitious bloggers do. Quite frankly, we'd rather spend the time getting out and experiencing our new hometown. Instead, we'll likely post once or twice per week to get you up to speed on the ride of our lives. Buckle up, keep all limbs inside the car, and enjoy the ride.