I'm not dead...

My wife mentioned last night that my last blog entry was in May. I knew it had been a while, but I didn't realize that it had been that long. Sure, I make updates on twitter, but 140 characters a few times a day just isn't the same as a full blown blog posting.

So, this blog will be a summary of what I've done since the middle of May and hopefully, I can turn some of the entries here into more postings. I do wish I'd write more, as keeping a journal keeps the mind sharp.

For the first few weeks after my messenger bag was stolen, I had a loaner laptop from work. It was a beater - the screen frame was cracked on both sides and it ran hot. Sure, it was a laptop and got me by, but it just wasn't the same. Thank goodness for my backup and documents in the cloud, I was able to continue work and finish out the quarter for school.

When the school quarter ended, I was officially on summer break. Being in an Evening MBA program, that really means that I was back to just working as the draw on my time. I've been trying hard, and not often succeeding, to not replace my school time with work time and actually enjoy some of my free time.

With both the kids and me on vacation, we had house guests at the end of June. My wife's sister and brother and some portion of their families came to visit. We did some of the touristy things around Seattle. The weather was excellent for their visit and the day we were on Alki Beach, the Light House was open for tours. It's not open often, so we were lucky to be able to check it out. We went to Mount Rainier and had another beautiful day there - it was one of those perfect days when the skies are clear and you can see all around. The new visitor center was open and there was still snow on the ground at Paradise. The bad thing was that it was so bright: clear day, snow to reflect the sunlight and I'd not yet replaced my sunglasses. Thanks to Heather for the picture.

The kids' year round swimming season concluded and the summer recreational season occurred during the month of June and July. Again the kids did very well, both with swimming and just peforming at swim meet after swim meet. Kid 1 and 2 both qualified for Pacific Northwest Swimming Champs and Kid 1 had the highest cumulative points at all dual for the summer league and broke a club record! They're great swimmers and its a good thing considering how much time we spend at pools.

We've had a number of car related issues, number one being the break-in (after a swim meet). Someone let the air out of two of my tires (at a swim meet), which I did not realize until I was several miles away on the freeway with two totally thrashed tires. I'd decided to replace the MINI's runflats with non-runflat tires, for performance and cost reasons, and this was the worst case scenario with not having a spare. The tires wouldn't take air (I did have a compressor) and so it required a flatbed to carry the MINI to the tire shop. It took far longer than it needed to, as the insurance company's roadside assist couldn't find a flatbed they had contracted with. You can read what Heather had to say about it. The final car issue (note to Fate, I said it was the final one) was that my wife was crashed into in a parking lot (after a swim meet). We're still dealing with the damage caused by the uninsured driver, but we're finding (and has been the case n all of the dealings this summer) that our insurance company, USAA, is pretty good.

While my car was in the shop (new tires and some engine work), I worked from a few coffee shops in Seattle and had some great picnics with my family. We went to Greenlake Park one day for lunch and then dinner at the famed Dick's Drive In (Again, hanks to Heather for the picture.).

It was cool to go to Dick's because Sir Mix-A-Lot sang about it. It was cool to eat dinner at the park with my family and play tag and watch the hoola hoopers. But Dick's was not a good burger. Or fries.

To make things right, the next day, lunch was at Red Mill Burgers and was much better.

I'm still replacing my stolen things, but I'm getting there. As you can see by the photo credits, most of the photos here were taken by Heather. I've not yet replaced my camera and the iPhone, while a great phone, is only a mediocre camera.

I've continued to use Ubuntu, and have added some computers to our network. Now my backups are more robust and I can actually backup or get my files from anywhere I'm connected to the Internet. I've been learning about nfs and running a server. There are a few more fun pictures of my computers and Ubuntu on my flickr account.

Rancid released another album at the beginning of July. I really like punk and really like the fact that Rancid sings so much about the East Bay and Berkeley where I did my undergrad studies. Kid 1 and I went to their concert when they came to Seattle and had a fun, though he fell asleep during the show (two long swim practices in the morning don't make a late night easy). It was fun to debate whether or not this was his first real concert - I still maintain that American Idol on tour just doesn't count.

I've not done a lot of cooking lately, but I did make two batches of ice cream recently. I made a sweet cream and chocolate covered bacon ice cream and a mint chip ice cream (I needed to make some thing more normal tasting) and they've both been quite refreshing with the weather we've been having lately.

Thats all for now, there are several things that I'd like to expound upon here and make full blown posts out of and I'll try to get to that later. I hope you are enjoying your summer too!

My weekend with Kid 3

This weekend, Heather and Kids 1 and 2 had a swim meet. Kid 3 and I stayed home, partially because it is easier on him and because I had an MBA small group meeting in the middle of Saturday.

So, he and I got to spend the weekend together. It was mixed, as he came to the team meeting with me (I was the first to break the bring your kid to the group meeting), but we got to enjoy ourselves too. But most importantly we had beautiful weather while we were out and about.

We got to our meeting location early, so we played frisbee in the parking lot of Building 34 at Microsoft's Redmond campus. After the meeting, we played frisbee more in the parking lot and decided that we needed to find a park, not a parking lot.

I thought that there was a Burger King in Redmond (Google Voice 411 proved me wrong) so we drove back to Issaquah and got food to go there and then headed to Tibbet's park. We played frisbee, watched kids play baseball and then Parker played on the playground and I read a case study. Kid 3 eventually decided he had enough; he was getting hot wearing a black shirt.

We had a lot of fun and Heather called and said that we should eat dinner outside. I stopped at Safeway and bought steak, shrimp, asparagus, sweet potatoes, red onions and portabello caps to grill. After I had cooked everything, I got the validation of a lifetime, Heather said, "You overdid it with the vegetables." Can you believe it, too many vegetables? And what she doesn't realize is that I only cooked half of the vegetables I bought! There is a pork tenderloin in the fridge for tonight.

As it started to cool off, my arms were itchy. I thought at first that there were bugs out, but I actually got a light sunburn on my arms. Is spring really here?

Sunday held another half day of swim meet for Heather and the other kids. So, Parker and I made muffins and then made lists of what we should do. After he made his own Remember the Milk list, we realized that we needed to brush our teeth.


He joined me in the master bathroom and we brushed our teeth together. He brought his timer (pretty good for a 6 year old) and we brushed for 2 minutes. At the end, he said, "That was a long time." Maybe he doesn't use that timer all the time. But even more funny, he decided that we needed to write down on our lists that we brushed our teeth!

I had some reading to do and then we played Wii (he did check it off his list) and we headed out to do some errands (on my list). We drove to the outlets in North Bend to buy some soccer shorts to replace some that I got in college and Heather decided were dated, too short and just plain ugly.

We decided that we would eat lunch there too. Kid 3 was impressed that there was a Taco Time, Burger King and McDonald's all in the same place. I took advantage of that - he got chicken tenders from McDonalds, I got a cappuccino from the McCafe and then I got a burger from Burger King.

The unsnobby coffee from McDonalds is crap. They don't even steam the milk by hand. They have a machine that froths the milk and dumps the milk and coffee in the cup at the same time - all comingled and not a good cappuccino. It is cheap, but not good.

At Burger King, I decided I would have a Steakhouse Burger - the new Angus burger with onion crisps and A1 sauce. The guy behind the counter asked if I wanted the Classic or the Loaded version - has it been around long enough to be awarded "Classic" status? I wanted the lower calorie one and Kid 3 dumped his McDonalds drink on the floor of Burger King. We took my sandwhich and went across the street to the outside seating at McDonalds (and free refills on spilled drinks).

I saved $5 on shorts, $1.20 on gas (with my $ 0.10 per gallon discount at Safeway) and it only cost me $3.50 in gas to go there and back; less than one gallon in my MINI, and we got an enjoyable drive out of it too.

Kid 3 added to his list "Go to a lot of stores" after we got home. He sure knows how to make a to do list look as if he'd been productive!

All in all, it has been a fun weekend. I've spent a lot of time with Kid 3, a lot of time working on school and enjoyed the nice weather! I hope that you are able to take advantage of the good weather as well!

It's been three weeks

Three weeks since I've been to the gym and I broke that stretch this morning. I'd been meaning to go all week and just didn't feel like getting up.

It wasn't really my motivation that got me going this morning - it was the fact that my neighbor across the street said that he had been working out in the morning and it really started his day right. I knew what he was talking about and wasn't going to let broken arms, early morning work calls or travel stop me anymore.

I'm back on the bandwagon. You can find me now, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at the Pine Lake Club!

On another gym related note, some lady tried to steal my MINI this morning. Well, try and steal are probably slight exaggerations, but she took my keys! The gym is repainting and all the things on the walls have been removed. This includes the key hanger, so everybody put their keys on the counter below the wall. And evidently in a pumped up state, MINI keys look similar to Lexus keys.

The funny thing is I was starting a set on a machine over by the keys and I noticed that mine weren't there. As I walked downstairs, she came back in and said, "It would help if I got my own keys." I found my culprit.

We laughed about it and I didn't really want to trade her for her Lexus.

It's been a helluva week

This week has been a rough one. I'm no longer feeling exhausted, but we'll see how the weekend fares with 3 swimmeet sessions.

On Monday, I had a training event that I needed to attend at the local office, an infrequent occurance for a remote worker. As I left the meeting, I saw there were 8 missed calls on my phone. Something was up. It turns out that my daughter broke her arm on the playground at school. My wife had scheduled last minute doctor's appointments for her and was quickly directed to the Emergency Room at Seattle Children's Hospital. I was in Kent, she was on her way to Seattle and our oldest was at swim practice on Mercer Island. I waited for swim practice to end and rounded up our oldest and met Heather in the ER.

Chase's elbow (well, the upper arm right at the elbow) was broken and she was going to need surgery and some hardware to hold it all together. There were more pressing (emergent, in medical-ese) surgery cases, so they put her in a splint, scheduled an appointment for Tuesday afternoon and sent us home for the night.

We left the hospital late and once we got home and Chase mostly comfortable in bed, I worked late into the night to catch up from being out of the office all afternoon.

I was too tired to go to the gym Tuesday morning, so I didn't. I spent the morning re-arranging my day, moving my afternoon appointments to Wednesday. Tuesday was one of those days that I had planned to spend most of on the phone making follow up calls. Heather was at a PTA luncheon and the hospital called to see if we could come in a few hours early. We jumped at that opportunity, with the hopes that we would get her surgery done earlier. We arranged for a friend to take our youngest and pick up our oldest after school and we were off to the hospital.

We were admitted and promptly taken back to a waiting area. And we waited. There was no cell phone coverage either. Finally at about 4:30 pm (pretty much our original schedule), Chase went under the knife. Her procedure only lasted an hour, during which Heather and I ate at the hospital cafeteria. We were paged to come back to the waiting area and we did and waited. Evidently, Chase was sleeping off her anesthesia and after a few hours, they took her to her recovery room, where she and Heather would stay overnight.

I ended up leaving the hospital at about 8:45pm to go take our kids off our friend's hands. Once I got the boys in bed, I worked late into the night to try to keep my head above water at work.

Chase had asked me to come back to the hospital in the morning, so I had it all planned out. I would go drop our youngest at pre-school and then go to the hospital, stay for a few hours until I had to leave to pick up at pre-school. Seconds before I was going to shut off my computer and start executing that plan, Heather IM's me and says that they will be leaving soon.

Chase and Heather returned home and we quickly turned around to go to literacy day, so she could show off a book she had made in class and a neat PowerPoint presentation about the desert.

As I was returning from the pre-school pickup, my MINI lurched and had a loss of power. The check engine light came on and we limped home. I was able to schedule an appointment, unfortunately for next Tuesday. What was truly problematic was that I had a 6 am flight Thursday morning to go to Oakland. I arranged for a shuttle to take me to the airport and was set for the next day.

My shuttle arrived promptly at 2:50am Thursday morning. It was really quite early and we made 5 other stops on the way to the airport. I got to the airport on time, in fact early, but I was already exhausted and this didn't help any. Usually, when I travel, I stop at Starbucks (the first one on the B concourse) and buy coffee and a scone. I got there before they opened. So, I took a nap and waited for them to open.

I had a full day in Oakland and got a lot accomplished. I didn't get too much email, so on Friday there wasn't much catching up that I had to do either.

My shuttle back home only had me, so it was much faster and I only got home a few minutes later than had I been driving.

Friday I was still too beat to go to the gym. Even though it was only two days ago, I can't remember what I did. There was a swim meet and I do remember that there were lots of calls to our consultants that resulted in, "Can I call you about this on Saturday."

Saturday was another early morning, because we had a swim meet. I only got two loads of laundry done, some work and some reading. I think the best part of the afternoon was giving Heather a nice full body massage. She thought I had been practicing!

So, here I am on a Sunday, again at a swim meet (yep, 3rd time in a weekend). I've been catching up on blogs (pre-writing a few and staging them as drafts, so they are ready to publish during the week). I am about half way through Freakonomics and looking forward to dinner with one of my college room mates who is in town for a conference.

I'm definitely not caught up on rest, but I'm getting there.

This posting spans months

I've been doing a lot of traveling so my free time hasn't been in blogging, but catching up on the parts of my life that I can't take care of while I am in a plane.

As I'll confess further down, I am not totally caught up yet either, but I need to get these thoughts out of my head on on to the blog.

I've been to Oakland, DisneyWorld, Las Vegas (only one of those was vacation - and it was mostly business and a little vacation) and on a Ralley with the British Car Club here in Seattle.

The kids and I went on a Ralley sponsored by the British Car Club, but heavily attended by Puget Sound MINI, the local MINI owners club. We drove all over the Tulip fields and Anacortes and La Connor trying to figure out clues and not miss turns (both difficult to do with a 10 year old navigator). We didn't come in first (it was going around the traffic circles 10 times that cost us - not really) but we had a lot of fun. I've got pictures, but haven't posted them yet.

I went to a conference on Radio Frequency Identification in Orlando and took my whole family and we spent a few days at Disney World and on the beach. My sun burn is finally peeling off , the blisters on Heather's feet are mostly healed and I haven't gotten the photos posted yet either. It was nice to have vacation and the kids got to skip school for it too!

I've been to Oakland for a day trip on 4 days notice and finally earned a free flight on South West to anywhere they fly!

I spent a few days in Las Vegas with one of our sales teams and had a productive meeting - we are going to meet the teams aggressive sales goals and a good time, too: steakhouse dinners and the Blue Man Group. On my flight there and back, I sat in the first row of the cheap seats, the one with no under seat storage. That part was a little strange, but the added leg room was nice. I had to stand up mid-flight to get something out of the overhead storage and I looked back.

Normally, I sit towards the rear of the plane and can see forward through out the flight - and I see lots of activity. This flight was different. Everybody was quiet, some asleep, even though it was only 4pm. There was even a lucky guy with the feet of the lady sitting next to him on his lap - she must have been his wife or so the flight attendants supposed. Every one must have been sleeping off Las Vegas.

My oldest son has started to email his girlfriend and that has turned into instant messaging - he even IM'd me while I was in my meeting! My youngest son has started to read Dick and Jane on his own.

I'm home for a few days and then back to Oakland again. They recognize me at the off airport parking I use - I didn't even need to give them my coupon to get he the discounted rate! So there it is a few months rolled up into a few short paragraphs.

Ran out of gas

Saturday was going to be a one post day, but something happened today that warrants an extra one. You can read Heather's recounting on her blog.

As the title implies, we ran out of gas this morning. We had a swim meet in Kitsap and had to leave our house at 5:55 am in order to make the Fauntleroy-Southworth ferry.

The kids got up with out complaint just after 5 am and got ready. We were only a few minutes late leaving our house and I noticed that the fuel gauge was already on E. I wasn't worried about it, because I hadn't heard Heather talk about how low on fuel she was.

About a mile from our house, I felt the car stutter. Only after it happened the second time, did I realize what it was and put the car in neutral.

We coasted to a stop on the side of the two lane road. Because I was wearing shoes, pants and had a jacket (Heather was in a nice short skirt and sandals - going to a swim meet, rememeber), I walked home to get a gas can and to drive for gas.

I flipped the collar on my pea coat up and headed out into the dark, foggy and cold morning. As I started up the main street into our development, the fog was settling on the sidewalks and getting icy. I had to walk on the grass, because I could get better traction there.

It took a while, but I found a gas can and took my MINI to the gas station.

In my rush, I filled the gas can too quickly and it splashed out. I wiped it off as best I could, but I already smelled like a gas station attendant. I didn't want my car to smell that way, so I unrolled all the windows. At 45 mph and 28 degrees, there is quite a wind chill.

I got back to Heather and the the kids and started pouring the gas in. I must have chosen the slowest gas can we had at home - it had no air inlet. So, I stood in the lane of traffic for about 3 minutes while filling the car.

After taking my car back and filling up Heather's Expedition, we ended up missing the ferry. We drove the long was around (across the Tacoma Narrows) and ended up about 40 minutes late.

We didn't miss all of the warmups and I got some exercise this morning. All's well that ends well. Hopefully we take the ferry home. That will be enjoyable.

My kids are well trained

I was working and my youngest came running into my office a few minutes ago. "Daddy, Daddy, come here. We need to show you something." I could hear excited voices coming from the family room.

I go over there and they have paused the Tivo on a screen from Ben 10, a show they watch on Cartoon Network.

Yes, that is MINI Coopers on the screen! How is that for a sighting!

When we go for a drive, they always call out the MINIs that they see. They are no longer faked out by the new Volkswagon Beetle, either.

What great kids I have.

Opera MINI browser on a phone

As a MINI owner, anything mini catches my eye. As a tech geek, anything techie catches my eye.

Opera (the alternative browser people) have a version for mobile devices, Nintendo devices and now a Java based one that will run on my phone. How cool is that! Plus, I also like coffee, so java catches my eye too.

So, this browser is supposed to pre-process web pages in order to optimize them for viewing on the small screen. It also folds long lists, again to make them better to view on the small screen.

My phone already has a browser, but it doesn't really connect to the Internet, just some dumbed down and cleaned of any formatting version that Cingular provides. That browser doesn't really get me anything other than headline news and weather. So, I've been looking for something like this.

The browser seems a little slow to load initially, but then responds pretty well. I'm not looking for the greatest internet experience, but one that fits in my pocket anywhere I go. I know there are limitations on the cellular network and such a small screen.

I tried it out and went to the mobile version of Remember the Milk (my phone browser won't take me there). It worked! I was able to view my tasks and everything. It didn't do so well with the full featured AJAX version of the page, but hey, I'm on the phone.

It is great that this kind of processing power (and research too - preloaded with Wikipedia search box) can be packaged in such a small device. This is one step closer to ubiquitous Internet access. Now I need a better data plan on my phone!

The Opera Mini browser is available as a free download and a link can be sent to your mobile phone.

Coming home to the snow in Seattle

My trip home wasn't uneventful, but I got home and that made me happy. The office in Glendale is pretty close to the Burbank (aka Bob Hope International) Airport, so I was able to get there quickly. I had some time to spare, but I couldn't remember my T-Mobile wi-fi hotspot account user name, so I responded to emails off-line.

About thirty minutes before the flight's departure time, people started lining up. Normal practice on South West, but I was flying Alaska. It was weird. And then, in another display of strangeness, they announced that they would load the aircraft from the rear to the front. It makes perfect sense. I was sitting towards the back of the plane, so I got to get on quickly - all those people in line had to step aside.

The airline also announced that our "non-stop flight to Seattle would make an intermittent stop in Sacramento to refuel." Evidently, the winds were high and we needed to take off on a short runway. With the plane as full and heavy as it was, we wouldn't have made it with a full tank of gas. It delayed our flight by about an hour. It sucked, but there were some advantages. Fewer crazies on the streets when we got here.

Listening to the news, I expected it to be a real challenge driving home. It was 19 degrees outside and my MINI needed snow brushed off and the windows scraped. The driver side door handle had frozen shut, so I had to crawl in through the passenger seat. I was happy because I found a watch cap in my trunk and the seat heaters were warm!

The interstates were all clear, but wet - obviously salted or some thing done to keep the ice from forming. As I got closer to Bellevue on 405, there was sometimes a build up of ice between the lanes, but people drove appropriately. It was no big deal.

Once I left the interstate, it was a different story entirely. I don't think the roads in Issaquah or Sammamish were salted, plowed or otherwise. There really were cars just stopped in lanes, abandoned. I even saw a car with tire chains abandoned on the side of the road. I had no issues driving, stopping or turning - my MINI is front wheel drive and that makes a world of difference.

The roads were icy but not undriveable. I can see that school buses would have difficulty and school was canceled again (text message received while I was on the airplane letting me know school was canceled today).

It is supposed to snow more tonight and record lows are supposed to be broken. Ah, this is really winter! I like looking out my window and seeing snow covered bushes, lawn furniture and mountains. I like this.

High Performance Driving Course

This Monday, I spent the day at the tracks. No, I wasn't gambling away my hard earned ducats on the greyhounds or the thoroughbreds, it was high performance driving. Not racing, mind you, but a great educational experience in a controlled environment.

Pacific Raceways, in Kent, is home to the ProFormance Racing School. There a talented staff, under Don Kitch Jr., teaches people the fine art of "driving a car, not just to be passengers in a motor vehicle." Being a member of the local MINI owner's club, Puget Sound MINI, I was able to participate in a club event at the school. Sure, we got a great deal -thanks to North West MINI, the local deal, but the event was MINI's only. There were 28 MINIs and that was a blast to be with that many other owners.


The morning was spent learning the capabilities of our MINIs and commit some actions to muscle memory, so that, in an emergency situation, we can react, just the way we've been trained. We did several exercises to learn High Vision (to see both the near and the far) and how the car handles under ABS braking conditions. The slalom and ABS braking aren't something that you get to practice every day, but man, do these cars handle well and stop quickly. There was another exercise where we were supposed to use the anti-lock brakes and avoid a cone in the roadway. It was funny to hear the instructors say, "These cars can just avoid the cone at these speeds," (60mph).

We then spent some time practicing emergency avoidance through lane changes and coming off the shoulder and another exericse of braking into a turn. Both of these are scenarios that you could find your self in just while driving around town.

The morning was great and we walked away with a better understanding of how our cars react and how to keep them under our control.

The afternoon was even more fun. We were paired up with an instructor and he drove two laps around the track, describing the reference points, the braking and turning points and the apexes of the curves. We then switched and I drove, at a low speed, around the track while the instructor provided more instruction. We were in two groups and the instructor then went in another car while we visualized the track.

Then we got out and drove. This time, we were wearing helmets with mic and headphones so we could stil talk to each other. First was a lower speed and all the while, the instructor was giving feedback. It was so much fun, just driving as fast as I could. Keeping to the line makes such a difference, because how fast you get on the straightaways is directly related to how fast you exit the curve.

We did 3 of these lapping sessions and it was so much fun! The fastest I saw I was going was 110mph and I passed several other drivers. I got passed, too, so it all evens out in the end. It was great working the shifter as low as 2nd in turn 3 and up to 5th coming out of turn nine. I never made it into 6th gear. Passing was only allowed on the straight aways and only when an instructor waved us past - all in controlled situations.

It was such a blast. I don't look at turns the same way anymore and I know I'm a much more competant and comfortable with the way my car handles.

I'd recommend the ProFormance Racing School. It was a fun learning experience (any count of how many times I said fun?).

My 6 year old daughter thought I went to a race and she asked, "Did you win your race?" The youth soccer coach in me came and my answer was, "I learned a lot and had a whole lot of fun." "When are you going back." "Soon."

February MINI drive

On Saturday, Alec, Chase and I went for a drive with Puget Sound MINI. It was a lot of fun - we started in Auburn and tooled around some curvy roads there and then took some backroads through some small towns, through Tiger Mountain and ultimately into Issaquah to XXX Root Beer (one of the last in the country).



It was a lot of fun to get to meet other MINI owners and see their cars. The drive was fun, because I got to see new parts of Washington and as it was a clear day, the views of Mount Rainer were great.

I recorded the route with my GPS and saved it with photos in Google Earth. Check it out! Playing the route isn't the same as driving in a MINI, but you get the idea of where we went. There are pictures embedded as placemarks along the way.

Big O Tires

My MINI developed a slow leak in the right rear passenger tire. No worries, though, they are run flats. Today, after my kids swim practice, I stopped by Big O tires to get it repaired. They worked for about 40 minutes, and some of it was pretty hard work, because run flats are difficult to get back on the wheel - and didn't charge me a dime.

I expected to pay a little for the repair, something like $10.

I was impressed. They made a Big O customer out of me.


Wal-Mart wouldn't do that for me. In fact, Wal-Mart once did nothing to a tire, because they couldn't repair it. They gave me back my car with a flat tire and thought nothing of it - because they couldn't repair the tire. They didn't even offer me the option of buying a new tire. I got to Wal-Mart after their shop had closed but before the cashier had gone. And I couldn't do anything with my car.

Dinner with Friends

On Friday night, we got a baby sitter and my wife and I went to dinner with some friends who were in Seattle selling a house. It had been almost 5 years since we had seen Erik and Kelly, so we had some catching up to do.

We went to Union on First Street in Seattle and it was quite an enjoyable dinner. While we were definitely there to eat dinner, we were really there to spend some time and catch up with Erik and Kelly. I was quite happy with the lack of presssure to keep dinner moving and how informative they were.

We got a five course sampler and each course, as it was presented to us, was described to each person. A very nice touch.
So, we had:

• Steak Tartare with pumpernickle crostini
• Sweet Corn Soup with a seared Sea Scallop
• Duck Muscovit with roasted figs
• Sea Bass with Chantarelle mushrooms
  
• Huckleberry Crisp

All of it was excellent and I was pleased to find that they had 3 different Cabernet Francs to choose from. Cab Francs are hard to find, even in restaurants with large wine lists. We enjoyed one from Domaine des Corbillieres of the 2002 vintage.
Dinner was delicious, but the chatting was better. I got to show off pictures of our kids that, to my wife's surprise, I had on my phone and saw pictures of their baby, their dog Ronin (a totally bad ass name).

I also learned that I can fit four grown adults in my MINI - I gave them a ride to their hotel, instead of making them walk the six (or nine) blocks. I also learned something - all the people that have said that they think a MINI is cute, that is just their way of saying "badass."

I am still impressed with how quickly we can get from our house to downtown Seattle. On a Friday night, it took us less than 40 minutes to get all the way to the restaurant, including finding parking. There is no way we could have done that in the Bay Area.

Boys Day

Today, my wife and daughter did a girls-day and went shopping for dresses for the upcoming wedding. So, the boys and I, we had a boys day. First, we went to Blockbuster and returned some of the movies we had rented.
While we were there, we asked the girl behind the counter where to go for a milk shake. She suggested a burger joint in the same shopping mall, so we went over there and ordered three shakes. Being in the ice cream industry, of course, I asked who made their ice cream. The guy behind the counter said, “It’s just soft serve,” pointing at the machine in the corner. Milkshakes are supposed to be made with real ice cream! It wasn’t like the milkshakes were bad, they just weren’t a great milk shake. Soft serve isn’t real ice cream, unless you are buying the stuff that my company makes. How is that for a shameless plug. The kids still had a good time. Boy thing number 1 – eating.
When we came back to my car, we found that my car had made a friend. We hopped in and did something else that boys do – we drove. We had to drop of a digital cable box in Redmond, so we took the back way – a winding road and had a blast driving. On our way there, a red MINI Cooper with the Union Jack roof graphics fell in behind us. It was an older couple and when they drove past, we waved at them and he honked and she waved at us. Owning a MINI gets you into a friendly club.
We got home and decided we would go for a walk and explore (boy thing number 3) some of the trails in the area. We walked for a long time and found two playgrounds, heard things in the woods, found something that appears to be bear scat. Our new neighborhood is cool and there are all kinds of trails to walk on. We were not far from people’s back yards, but it felt like we were deep in the woods.
After we got home again, boy thing number 4 – we played video games. After a while, we decided that my wife wasn’t going to be home any time soon, so we started setting up the stereo (boy thing number 5) and then ordered pizza (boy thing number 6). We drove to Fall City to Sahara Pizza to pick it up and then drove home. I’ll go there again, for both the pizza and the drive.
My wife finally did come home, but no dress for the wedding. I guess that means there’ll be more boys days in the future.

Mini mileage

Can you believe this? 510 miles on one tank of gas! My mini cooper is so cool!

I have a MINI Cooper

I am super-excited; yesterday morning I bought a 2002 MINI Cooper S, with the John Cooper Works. My super wife found it on Craigslist. The car is silver with a black top (I guess it pays homage to my Oak-town roots?). And boy does it drive.
Yesterday evening, I was so enjoying driving that I missed my freeway exit and had to quickly tour some of Renton.
There are enough windy roads around here that driving alternate routes will be a blast.
So, after 9 years of driving automatics, I’ve got a manual transmission (with 6 gears, no less) to get back into the swing of. I’ve had my share of embarrassing moments (I stalled during the test drive), but the best was at the metering light. It was just me, a long freeway entrance ramp and the metering light. I thought to myself, “Well, why not. When the light changes, I’ll just hit it.” And the light changed and I let the clutch up and stalled out. That was yesterday. Today, it is all coming back to me.
I’ve also noticed that Washington drivers drive slower than California drivers. Being a California driver, I have to make a conscious effort to drive not at what is natural for me, but with the flow of traffic here. Now having a stick, I have also come to the conclusion that on top of the better fuel efficiency, having to shift into a higher gear reminds me of how fast I am going – thus making me more aware of my speed.

I had a MINI

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, the company which employs me, has launched a new product, Dibs. As part of the marketing support for the "Next little thing in ice cream," they decked out a MINI Cooper as a cool marketing propaganda too. I am proud to say that I drove it and spread the good word to the commuters in the Bay Area.

I had children chase me on the street. People I knew didn't recognize me because they were too busy staring at the car.

The next day, I took the long way to work and drove on some of the rural back roads. I took Marsh Creek from Antioch into Clayton and then Walnut Creek. It was a driving dream.

So this MINI is a 5 speed manual, so driving was actually fun! The way the car handles on the curvy roads and accelerates from a stop just made me happy. I so want a MINI.

Keeping the keys in my pocket was so natural, it was just like they belonged there.

I had a MINI, even if only for the day.

Thanks Cady for letting me take your Dibs car.