Someone favorited one of my photos on Flickr!

My first photo was marked as a favorite today on flickr. This is quite exciting.
Brassy1 was the person who favorited it! Heather suggests that it was his work in the first place since he is from Vancouver, where the picture was taken.


Thank you!

Smoking Cheese

I've been at home long enough to get caught up and started cooking again. Yesterday, I tried to smoke some cheese. I had a block of cheddar and fresh mozzarella.

I wasn't that pleased with my first attempt - most of the cheese melted into a 1 inch thick pancake and when I took it off, it wasn't that smoky tasting. After it cooled, they took on more of a smoky flavor but it was too subtle. I like a bold smoky taste.

It was also convenient to do it this weekend because all the windows are closed as it has cooled off in the Northwest. Like I predicted, there are already complaints of being too cold (a week ago, it was about being too hot). With the windows closed, the smoke stays outside!

Feedback is always welcomed

A few trips ago, I had a miserable experience getting home. In addition to that, I had several miserable customer service experiences and some great ones. Not to complain, but to comment, I wrote a letter to United.

I am writing because I had mixed service levels from your gate and ticketing agents and the attendants on a recent trip. On June 30^th, 2006, I was scheduled to fly from SFO to LAS and then to SEA. My originating flight, 1524 was delay arriving and then departing to LAS. When we left there were approximately 10 minutes for me to make my connecting flight on Alaska Airlines fight 677. Unfortunately, the plane was further delayed flying into Las Vegas and I missed my connection by 20 minutes.

Firstly, I’d like to recognize the great service I received from United. The flight attendants on flight 1524 were excellent because they knew the flight was running behind and let the connecting passengers off first, holding the others back. There were two gate agents in Las Vegas, Nancy Rogers and Sue Mathis, both of whom were very helpful. Although I didn’t use it, I received a voucher for a hotel and was put on the first flight out of Las Vegas. There were a few things that made my situation tricky – it was the Fourth of July weekend and so flights out of Las Vegas were hard to come by and my connecting flight was on Alaska and we had to get my ticket from them. In the morning, Sue booked me standby from SFO to SEA, helping me get home.

Unfortunately, I also got some pretty poor service from gate agents, primarily at SFO. Evidently many flights were overbooked and the gate agents were telling people to go home and try again tomorrow. I was flabbergasted by this. Because I was flying standby on such a rough weekend, I waited for 3 flights in SFO and got to see this same behavior from different gate agents. In fact, there was one gate agent who immediately told people to go sit down and wait and when people who wanted to give up their tickets would express that they wanted to talk to him – he actually called the police! The same behavior of telling people to go home and wait occurred at the customer service desk in SFO also.

When I finally got to Seattle, my bag wasn’t there. I can understand why that happened and have no complaints about that. When I spoke with the baggage people in Seattle, I was quickly helped and told what I needed to do. It was great customer service. A few days later, my bag was delivered to my house, all intact.

On this trip, I noticed that the United employees outside of the security areas and on the planes were very polite and helpful. Once you were inside the security area (when you were in the airlines ‘control’) the employees weren’t very helpful. I’m sure that there are examples of employees demonstrating great customer service and can understand the stress of late planes and overbooked flights to some extent, but that is when you need to be working your hardest, demonstrating your best service!

I’d appreciate it if Nancy and Sue could be recognized by their management team and their co-workers for their great service.

Sincerely

Beau Raines

I submitted it through the online customer service part of their website. A few days later, I got the following response:

Dear Mr. Raines,

Thank you for contacting us. It's always good to hear from Mileage Plus members.

Given the circumstances you describe, your complimentary comments about Ms. Nancy and Ms.Sue are especially appreciated. I will make sure their manager is aware of their efforts. Thank you so much for recognizing their services to you.

Now I will apologize to you for services not properly provided to you by united. Our employees should provide professional service. But, you report that our customer service staff let you down, which resulted in your disappointment with our service. Your comments are important to us and will allow the appropriate management to provide feedback directly to the employee. And to further add to your inconvenience your bags were delayed. However, I would like to apologize and enclose a travel certificate toward another united flight.

Your business matters to us, and I encourage you to travel with United again.

Regards,

Mikel Joseph
United Airlines Customer Relations

This letter was a pleasant surprise! It was pretty nice of United to do this. While my experiences might have chased me away from United, this display at least keeps me open to the diea of using United in the future. It is nice to see a company that is open to feedback like this.

On that same note, your feedback is welcome on this blog too!

Does anybody know how to repair this

Does anybody know of a fix for this? This is the connector for my iPod remote. The outer casing of the wire is coming detached from the base of the connector. I think that it was not quite fully seated when the connector housing was molded on because it has always been pulling away from this side.

I'm looking for something like a flexible epoxy to close it up of some kind of latex coating I could use to cover the gap and protect the wires underneath.

Thanks!!!

Oaktown and Vegas

Thursday in Oakland
It was the fifth spare the air day of the year (so far, 3 and 4 occurred while I was in the Bay Area) so public transit was free. While it was cool, since public transit was my way of getting around on this trip, so much for buying BART ticket for the week. I took the time to figure out what 4 round trips would cost me and buy that ticket in advance. I only paid for BART twice the whole time!

So, I took the 51 down College to Cal just to check out the old stomping grounds. I walked around and it was great to see the old things. Unfortunately, the light wasn't really good for photography, so I didn't take may pictures. I did take the obligatory Campanile photo.

• Evan's Hall is painted an ominous gray color. It still looks like some central control building from Brazil or 1984.
• Le Conte is being renovated
• Wheeler Hall still Wheeler hall.

I stopped at Top Dog for dinner and King Pin for a jelly filled donut. Talk about reliving the old days. The lady at King Pin didn't know what kind of jelly it was, she just pointed to the red goo filling contraption. I bought one anyway and was hassled by the homeless panhandler as I left the food court. However, unlike panhandlers of yore, when I said I didn't have anything to give, he mumbled something under his breath at me.

After that, I headed back across campus and caught the BART at Berkeley station and went back to the hotel.

Going home - Friday
Friday was yet another spare the air day. I checked out of my hotel and headed to work. I squeezed a lot into that day and left the office about 15 minutes later than I wanted too. But I wasn't concerned, because I had 1:30 to get to the airport and still be early. Well, fate was not on my side and there were BART problems (trains out of service and switching problems). Trains were quite delayed.

A train came into Rockridge, but it was going to hold there for 10 - 15 minutes. After about 12 minutes, I started to get worried about making my plane (no repeat of the last trip) and started to try to find alternate means of transit, at least to the next station where I'd transfer to a line free of delays. Just when Myla offered me a ride, the train operator said that they'd get started. I was happy because that got me to MacArthur, were I'd change to another line that shouldn't have been affected by the delays.

Well, I did get to MacArthur and on my train, but it was delayed too. By the time I got to the Coliseum station, I had 45 minutes to get to the airport for my flight. That didn't seem to bad, because the airport is only 5 minutes away. Well, lots of people had the idea to take public transit too and I had to wait until the second bus came.

I got to the airport with 28 minutes to spare. My bags were late checked, but I didn't care, I was going home. I got on my plane and flew home and luckily, my bags were there waiting for me!

The weekend
At home (or at swim meets) in the heat of the Northwest. The kids both did very well and qualified for the A Champs swim meet. We swam at the King County Aquatic Center, which hosted the Goodwill Games in 1990 (I think). They beat many of their old times and had a blast.

Monday
I'm in Las Vegas for a meeting with our Sales Team that handles a large club chain. I provide them Supply Chain support and am going to give a presentation at this meeting. And now, I'm going to watch a movie (The Girl Next Door), it was up in my Netflix queue and Heather isn't interested in watching it.

Good night!

Bork

More ink

I love Mom

Tattoos at swimming, killing time.

Our shuttle isn't running today...

So, I'm on Day 3 of my trip to the Bay Area. The work day has been quite full with the project we are working on and all the meetings that I'll attend in person instead of calling into and ad hoc meetings that people call, taking advantage of me being in Oakland. (Now that is a long sentence). Evening 1 and 2 I went to dinner with friends; it was great to catch up and spend enjoyable time with them. Tonight, I hadn't made any plans. I left the office about 7 pm and went down to Ben and Nick's for a pint and dinner. I enjoy pub food and a nice beer. I had a Rubicon Amber which was nice.
But there was an emptiness.
I ate dinner at a small table by myself - after being married for almost 10 years, I don't really like being alone. When I travel, I end up working really late. Now I do work late, but not every night, not like when I'm traveling. It is like I just fill up my time working. I've got such great kids and a beautiful wife to spend my time with that when we aren't together I'm at a loss for what to do. Although I miss my family, it is a nice (but poignant) reminder of how special they are to me.
After dinner I took BART back to my hotel only to find that the shuttle to BART wasn't running and not able to pick me up. Well, all I had planned tonight was to go back to my room, check my email and catch up on some forums (all very exciting), I decided to pass on their offer of a taxi and walk back to the hotel. It turned out to be about a two mile walk, which was enjoyable.
I did check - the shuttle will be running tomorrow.

Bork

Bork

Bork

It feels like a long time since I last posted. It's only been 7 days, but it feels that way. So, some quick catch up:

Cooking
I smoked another salmon. This time I used my grandfather's brine recipe and OMG was it good! This was an example of the second time around coming out much better. I've caught the bug. Next time is going to be smoked cheddar and mozzarella.

I made more ice cream. Total production YTD - 6 quarts. This was an example of when the second time didn't come out so well. And neither did the third time around, for that matter. I made a Guinness Stout ice cream (I've had the recipe for several years now, but no ice cream maker until Father's Day). The taste is okay (Heather likes it with Chocolate syrup and almonds) but the texture is wrong. I think the egg yolks cooked funny when I was making the base. They curlded and it made a nasty custard goo.

I then made some more Vanilla ice cream, but evidently I didn't let the tub get cold enough. The ice cream never froze up and got to the right consistency. I hope it hardened okay in the freezer.

I made a Gutsy Pepper Gazpacho from Cooking Light Saturday evening. I liked it quite a lot and it was nice. It fit the day, a warm one, which was kind of a gamble with the cold spell from earlier this week.

Movies

House of Wax. Dumb. If people had a little common sense, horror movies never would happen. Don't poke around people's houses. Don't go into places that have closed signs on the door. When the scary truck comes to your campsite, time to pack up and go. Oh, yeah, and Paris Hilton can't act. And she can't sing either (she doesn't sing in the movie, but she just released an album). I wonder what is next.

Punch Drunk Love. Strange. Adam Sandler can act in a role other than big dumb guy. After watching House of Wax, this was a strange one to watch. As Adam's character (look I'm on a first name basis with him) looks at his world, some times it was hard to tell what was real and what was his imagination.

Wedding Crashers. Pretty funny.

Travel
16 days ago, I was writing an entry from SFO waiting for a stand by flight home. I write today's entry from my hotel room in the Bay Area. No, I haven't been stuck here ever since (haven't you read the other posts?), but I am back. I'm here for the week. I'm sure more will be blogged about my week.

I went to dinner tonight with Mark and Anne. It was great to see them and catch up, since I hadn't seen them when we lived in the Bay Area (I'm not good at keeping up with my friends, but I'm trying). We walked up and down College Avenue in Rockridge (twice, once for dinner and once for dessert) and had an enjoyable evening.

That's all for now. Good night!

Misguided priorities or tempted by vixens

Tonight, we had a brief meeting with one of the kids' swim coaches for a feedback session on the season. Great feedback was given and while the kids were in practice, I decided to walk to the library with Parker. There, he'd read some books and I'd quickly update my task list and calendar (as I am implementing Getting Things Done - GTD).

Heather said that she would meet me there, but I didn't realize that she meant she, too, would leave swimming only minutes behind me.

She showed up and looked for some books with Parker and came to me. "You know, we are right across the street from a Pub (the Issaquah Brewhouse, again). We've got 30 minutes, thats enough time for a pint and some onion rings!"

Here I am thinking about how I could get some more work done, when there was drinking to be done. Needless to say, my wife is always right and we went for a pint.

Multimedia message

The weekend continues. This is the woods not far from our house.

We're officical!

I'd have to say this has been a pretty nice weekend. I definitely went on a moblogging spree!

Heather and I finally took the plunge and became official - we got our Washington state driver's licenses. We both had been studying the online knowledge test and went to the North Bend licensing office - it was the closest and I didn't think they'd have long lines. I was correct, we got their just before 2 and we were immediately seen. We just gave them some personal information, showned them our California licenses, paid our money and they took our picture. That was all. All that studying for... Easy...

We stopped by the Factory Outlets in North Bend (see earlier moblog posts) and then checked out the Snoqualamie River in Fall City. We waded in the river some and two guys took the kids out in their raft a short ways. The kids had a blast.

This morning, I made madelines (had to run to the store for sugar) and smoked salmon. This was the first time I'd ever used a smoker and it was super easy. I'll be making more stuff with the smoker, for sure. I've got a recipe for smoked tomato soup I'd like to try and my grandfather has a great recipe for smoked salmon.

We did watch the World Cup finals, which was a lot of fun, too.

A great weekend all around!

Bork

Fired up the smoker this weekend

It tastes good too! This is my first time smoking (fish, that is).

Preening

North Bend Outlet Mall

Guess which outlet we stopped at?

Roadside assist

Yes, the fuel guage is on empty. I'm waiting, maybe in Issaquah, maybe in Newport.

Rouge Nation

So while one of my friends is brewing his own beer, I discovered a new eaterie in Issaquah.

Tonight was the bi-monthly Issaquah Art Walk, which we enjoyed after swim practice. While the Art Walk was nice and there were many businesses open supporting the event, it wasn't all that. The art was okay, but what was really nice was all the people in downtown Issaquah. It was nice to see a downtown, after hours, with lots of people. There were three bands - none of which were memorable musically.

After we had enough art, we went to the Issaquah Brew Pub. I thought that this was just a local brew pub, maybe serving some local micro-brews, but I was mistaken. This was one of the Rouge Micro Meeting Halls, dining establishments owned by Rouge Ales. Their list of beers was nicely presented in a notebook with information about the beer. They had several different types of stout. It was one more place where the alcohol list is longer than the food list.

I had their Chipotle Ale, which I really liked. Heather enjoyed the Chocolate Stout, which was really good. They had a dessert which sounded really good, a Chocolate Stout Float. Unfortunately, with a glass of wine from the art walk and the beer with dinner, Chocolate Stout Float was not for me.

They also served Kobe beef burgers and Rouge River Blue Cheese, two things I've heard great accolades, but never had before. I had a Kobe Bacon Cheese burger (no Rouge Blue cheese) and it was very nice. The beef was very flavorful.

I'm really looking forward to going back there. I'm meeting my friend Roger and his wife Gina for lunch on Monday not far from there and I was so tempted to change our lunch spot to the Issaquah Brew Pub, until Heather reminded me that a beer lunch was probably inappropriate.

Fourth of July

I had an enjoyable Fourth of July with my friends and family. It had a bit of a rough start and I had to do about three hours of work, but the time was well spent as it made my work day today much easier (as well as many other people's across the country). I'll do my best to make sure that you'll be able to get your ice cream!

Wade joined us from Ellensburg and we went to Ray's Boathouse Cafe for lunch. It was a very nice place, although the route we took (following the nav system, not the restaurant's directions) took us through most of the industrial areas in Seattle. We got seats on the deck and after some musical chairs, the adults had the views of the Sound and the Olympics started to peak through the distant haze. It was truly beautiful. There was a house on the point across the water and all through lunch, the flag posted by their house was nicely blowing in the breeze. Unfortunately, by the time lunch was done, the flag didn't wave so fully.

I asked the host where we could walk along the water and he directed us to check out the locks separating Lake Washington and the Sound. They were impressive! Firstly, it is a Corps of Engineers facility so it was emblazoned with Engineer castles all over. There was even one designed in the flower bed! On top of their being locks and a visitor center, they have nice flower gardens and a beautiful park. Being the Fourth of July, there was a band in the park playing patriotic tunes. It was really nice. We got to watch the locks get loaded (quite a manual task, I was surprised to see) and then fill with water. They filled fairly quickly and the operators said that it was running slowly because of the baby salmon swimming out to sea.

After that we went to get ice cream and luckily, they had the right brand, at least for the flavors we bought. They had bulk tubs of some competitor (a local brand) and our 56 ounce containers for a better flavor variety. Heather had an italian soda, which was good, because I got to watch how it was made (I bought raspberry syrup the day before and the sodas I made just weren't right). Her's had cream in it, something I had never seen before. Obviously, I didn't pay that much attention, because both she and Wade had seen that before.

After the locks, we thought about going to Gasworks Park to a festival and to ultimately watch fireworks, but the parking looked to be horrendous (based upon how far people were walking) so we called Roger and asked if we could come over. We weren't inviting ourself over, he had mentioned it when I was talking to him earlier in the day, trying to firm up some lunch plans. So we stopped at a QFC and Heather went in to get some "good" beer and she delivered. Newcastle Brown, Bass and Crazy 8 Ball Stout, all winners.

We found our way to Roger and Gina's new house (thank you nav system, this time) and were greeted by several dogs (more dogs than kids) and a bunch of their friends. We all had a lot of fun and it was neat to see how our kids acted in a social environment like that. Chase was quite the social butterfly, Parker really liked Cinnamon (Tad and Chloe's little dog) and Alec really dug the 92" projector and Xbox 360 Roger had setup in the basement. The setup was totally bad-ass!

We moved the furniture in and out of the rain a few times, drank beer, and Roger grilled tri-tip, burgers, pork, egg plant and more. Alec threw me the frisbee once and I slipped down the hill that Rog's front yard is on chasing Alec's throw. It was quite funny, I watched my beer shoot up out of the bottle as I went down, but I didn't drop the bottle. I socialized, played some Halo 2, played some hackey sack (it mush be the soccer coaching that translates into the skills with the sack, Rog). It was a great time.

There were fireworks which we 'watched' from Roger's front yard which the kids enjoyed greatly. We had to leave before the pyrotechnic display concluded, which really disappointed Chase. We drove away, after making a quick phone call about siting the po-po and all three kids promptly fell asleep.

All in all, it was a great day!

Happy Birthday America

Thanks to all those that are serving our country, helping ensure that we are a free country and can have whatever beliefs we want.

Running

No my friends, this isn't a post about how I've started to run again. I'd love to be writing a post about how I've working running into my daily schedule and I've registered for 5 and 10k's this summer. But this isn't about that.
This is about me running on empty.
I've been on the go since Saturday June 24th. The kids had a swim meet that weekend in Tacoma. It was an hour drive from our house and warm ups were at 7 am. It was an outdoor meet and dumb ole me sat in the sun for a few hours. The kids did okay, but they did have fun.
After the meet, we checked out the Tacoma Narrows.
I got home and found my wife watching the UFC marathon on Spike TV. So, we watched that until we fell asleep.
Day two, warm ups started at 7:30. Big woop, it was still an early wake up. Again, the kids swam okay and we went to Steamer's which had been recommended by several people at work. After this, we went to another swim meet and were there until 9 pm. I was exhausted then.
Monday morning rolled around and I couldn't get up. It was the last day of school and the weather was really hot, so we went to the pool and I was going to BBQ hot dogs. Well, there were some problems with some systems at work and I didn't leave the house until I was supposed to be at the pool, and I still had to buy hot dogs and stuff. I bought stuff for dinner, but didn't buy plates or ketchup or other accoutrements for hot dogs. Kind of a sad dinner, but the kids had fun at the swimming pool and we were there late again.
I still had to go home and pack for my trip (didn't mention that one yet). I had a trip originally planned for Tuesday through Thursday, but that afternoon we decided that I would stay and extra day, through Friday. This was a trip working with a consultant, so I was going to work as long hours as I could, so I could milk every last bit out of the consultant.
I started out exhausted so it was challenging time. I did get to go to dinner with my sister-in-laws and their husbands and then the next night with Myla (everybody else stood me up or had sick kids to take care of). But it was tiring and I'd get back to the hotel and work on that system issue I mentioned before (no resolution yet). I missed my family and realized how important they are, because I just fill the gap with work and how sad is that?
Wednesday night I had nailed down what Friday's schedule looked like and started to try to change my return ticket. No luck on Southwest. Evidently a lot of people like to travel for the Fourth of July. I got some assistance from Karen, our admin, and she was finally able to find me a flight home. It took her a lot of work, but she found me a flight from SFO (not Oakland, where I was originally planned to depart from) to Las Vegas and then to Seattle.
I was happy that things were under control for Friday and set out to work on my Friday projects. It was very fruitful time and we determined that I didn't need to return to the Bay Area on the 10th.
Well, when I got to SFO (very easy on BART now), my flight to Las Vegas was delayed. There were mere minutes for me to make my connection, but we were even later when we got to Vegas. There was nothing out of Vegas and by 1 am it was mostly arranged that I would fly back to SFO in the morning on a 6 am flight and try for something out of SFO. I had to be back in the airport at about 4:30 to prep for my flight (had to chase down some paperwork) so there was no point in me going to a hotel for just a few hours, so I slept in a corner in the airport.
When I woke a few hours later, there were about 4 other people asleep in the same hallway.
I went down to the United desk and the first guy in line was a Marine, asleep on the tile floor, in parts of his dress blues.
For whatever reason, I've been selected for Special Security Screening; although they really do go through all your stuff, you get to skip to the front of the line. Did that a few times and then I got back to SFO. In SFO, I'm supposed to try standby flights or be confirmed on a Sunday flight.
So, I've been waiting for three flights now out of SFO, I'm tired and unshaven and the coffee I bought dripped on my shirt and pants - the only ones I have for who knows how long.
SFO has a Swatch shop, which when I saw it made me think of my college roommate Erik. He has a large Swatch collection, so I whipped out my camera and took a picture of it. I'll post it here eventually. The two girls running the store started talking about why would some one take a picture of their store. So I explained that I was doing it for my buddy.
United has seriously overbooked their flights and now I'm just counting on people missing their connections for me to take their place. It almost happened on my last flight, but they showed up at the last minute.

I need to go walk to the next gate and wait there. We'll see what happens. The wi-fi is through out the hotel, so I can get on again later, but I hope I don't have that opportunity!

Multimedia message

P takes pictures too.

Guess where we are?

You guessed it! P and I are waiting at swim practice.

When technology fails

I am traveling for a few days and am going to rely heavily on Remember the Milk and Google Calendar and SMS notifications.

I didn’t get my reminder for my flight 3 hours in advance. Don’t worry; I did make it to the airport on time.

Beginning to get worried, I sent myself a test event from my phone. It was sent back, saying that my cell phone wasn’t registered with Google.

I decided to blog about this experience and the first time I tried to make this posting (from my mobile phone) the mo-blog posting got kicked back.

I wondered if something was wrong on Cingular’s side. To check what was being sent via SMS, I sent myself a quick email, planning on checking it when I got to my hotel. And then it was time to get on the plane.

When I turned my phone back on in Oakland, there was an SMS notification waiting for me, reminding me of the phone number to call for the shuttle to take me to the hotel. Luckily, I wasn’t reliant on this, because had already printed out the email with that information.

I had a conference call shortly thereafter and I got reminded about that one too. So SMS notifications were working. But when I got to the hotel room, their wired internet service wouldn’t assign me an IP address.

Argh. I’ve really come to rely on this technology and this is unfortunate. I almost didn’t set my alarm this morning, planning on relying on my SMS notifications. Good thing I didn’t. One of the lessons I learned in the Army (which is still holding true): communication gear will always fail in the moment that you need it.

Finally, the internet in my hotel room is working. My apologies to those who read the partial post from my phone. I can't tell where it will stop when I moblog!

-

Am I slipping into a pit of 'work at home' disrepair

I didn't shave today. I don't think I shaved yesterday. And maybe the day before that too.
I didn't shower yesterday. I didn't shower today, either, and that was after going for an early morning aerobic walk with my wife.

But I worked a lot today and completed some tasks prior to their deadline. I started working at 5:45 am.

I'm not sure if this is right. But being funky is better than being in a funk. Maybe.

Google Spreadsheets

Google just released a web-based spreadsheet application. When that happens, I blog about it.

This time, I'm not so hot on what Google has done. I mean, it is a great web application, but there are several (two come to mind) really great local PC based spreadsheets.

Users can drop their current email clients and calendar applications and move to Google's respective apps. I don't think that is the case with spreadsheet. Sure, its in beta, but it just doesn't do it for me.

One of the nice things that it offers is online collaboration. That's a nice feature, but the people you are collaborating with have to have Google Accounts. Now, I can't imagine why anybody wouldn't have a Google Account (unless they are an employee of a rival IT company), but there are still those that don't.

You can't make charts with Google Spreadsheet. Yet.

And for hardcore spreadsheet users, they are already well versed in the in's and out's of their spreadsheets already. I couldn't figure out how to calculate an interest payment.

My recommendation stick with Excel or OpenOffice. This is a nice tool to play with, maybe make quick and simple spreadsheets. It isn't an Excel killer, but it is one more app in the productivity suite...

Assorted thoughts for the day

On Customer Service...

Yesterday, I blogged about Remember the Milk. Well, because of the order I did things, it didn't work the way I expected the first time. I posted to the help forum and within 10 minutes there was a response from one of the founder/designers. All this with a free service. Now that's customer support. Oh, and yes, we identified what was going on and most of it was my fault. Check it out - it is great.

On consumer recalls and bonus packs...

They suck. We are going on a trip this weekend (travel swim meets now) and I ran out of contact lens solution on my last trip. Well, I found a bonus bottle in the gigantor pack from Costco. For a moment, I was happy. Then I read the package a little closer; it was the Baush and Lomb solution that was recalled. I didn't pay much attention to the recall because it wasn't the kind of solution I used. Good thing I paid enough attention to it. I don't want to use that stuff in my eyes. Some kind of bonus, huh?

Remember The Milk

I've migrated my personal email to a great web based application, gMail. I've stopped using Outlook for my personal calendar (inter-twined with my work calendar) and started using Google Calendar. But this post is not about those.

I've found a great task list manager application, again web based.

Remember The Milk

It lets you create multiple lists, prioritize, tag, set due dates, everything that a task list should do. You can send tasks to other people (as long as they are members, too). It will remind you in a variety of ways, including Text Message, Email, Instant Message (in almost every protocol). And on top of all that, it has a slick web interface. It will also export your task list to lay on top of any calendar that supports the iCalendar standard.

And it is all free.

This has allowed me to move my task list (both personal and work) out of Outlook.

With it all being web based, my task list is at any computer attached to the internet, be it at the library, one of the several in my house or...

There are some really great apps out there on the web and this is counted as one of them. Check it out. Manage your life.

The rule of lost things and maintaining cooking faith

Today, we stopped at Target to return a skirt (my wife's, not mine, you weirdos). Target has a dollar section, which really made the kids happy, since they could buy crap for a dollar. I was about to make a crass comment about how junky it was and I discovered some cool Napoleon Dynamite window clings, sticky notes, pencils, etc. But I digress.

Among the $1 crap, they had Hawaiian floral printed dog collars and leashes. We bought one for each dog.

Two days ago, we had tried to take a walk, but couldn't find the dog leashes. Our dogs (like everybody else's') can't talk, but boy did they communicate their disappointment in us. No, they didn't pee all over our house, but they hung their heads and looked at us with their big brown eyes. Sad eyes.

Target, the great place that it is, also had a deal on a stainless BBQ grill, so I'm getting a new grill for Father's Day (funny, I just typoed and wrote Farters Day, hmmm). As we were making room in the back of our car, to get the grill home, we found all kinds of things, including the dog leashes.

This just is another proof of the fact that lost things always reappear when they have been replaced. It happened with our Tivo remote control, too.


Saturday night, I made a dinner from Martha Stewart Magazine. What I made looked very similar to what was pictured in the magazine. However, the shredded pork had almost no flavor. It was dry and bland and very disappointing.

As Heather and I were reviewing the recipe to try to figure out what was wrong, we discovered
that I failed to properly follow the directions. After braising the tenderloin, I was supposed to broil the shredded meat with the braising liquids. I dumped all those out. Fresh cilantro, cumin, onions and chicken stock. All the flavorful things.

Heather was glad that it was me that screwed up. The recipe looked pretty good, if you followed the directions. She was glad that Martha didn't let her down and that she could still trust Martha's recipes.

The multi-media experience

I really only watch four TV shows - Alias, Lost, Desparate Housewives and Robot Chicken. For whatever reason, the Alias episode from three weeks ago wasn't recorded because of some higher priority show on our Tivo.

As the series is coming to an end (it was the fourth to last episode) I knew I had to see it. I bought it on iTunes.

I've used my laptop and watched iTunes purchased TV shows, DVDs, and shows downloaded from my Tivo. It works, but it isn't the same entertainment experience as watching on our TV.

I'd never done it before, but I decided that I would hook up my laptop to the TV and sound system. It took a while of rooting around for the right cables (needed 1 mini-jack to RCA and the Laptop's TV Output to RCA cable and then one more RCA cabe) but it worked!

The sound quality was just as good as over the TV and the iTunes video quality was pretty good. There were only a few instances when you could actually see some distortion. It was totally bad ass.

It will never cease to amaze me what you can do with computers.

'Naked Guy' ex-student dies in jail - May 20, 2006

CNN.com - 'Naked Guy' ex-student dies in jail - May 20, 2006

I knew this guy. Not personally, but I traded jokes with him and a homeless guy just before he got arrested the first time. The homeless guy had the better joke:

What's the difference between a New Yorker and a dentist?

One roots for the Yanks and the other yanks for the roots.

I'm not sure that he is an "icon" of my days at Cal, but he definitely got some notoriety.

It is sad when people take their own life, especially people my own age (although WTF about the assault and battery?).

He once told me that he "like to go with the flow." I'm not sure what he meant by that with all the free expression he was trying to make.

This can be my eulogy for the Naked Guy.

Lost Easter Eggs

I usually don't find these kinds of things, but last night when I was watching Lost, I saw an ad that just didn't seem right.

The ad made a reference to making a "better future" and referred to the Hanso foundation. I followed the URL (www.letyourcompassbeyourguide.com) in the ad and it took me to an interesting page. It worked last night, during the episode, but not tonight. Hmm.

The page simply a compass needle that would follow your mouse pointer. There was a hyperlink that would take you to another page.

There was some mumbo-jumbo quasi unix shell stuff that asked the question "Are you one of the good ones?"

If you answered no, you were taken to the Hanso Foundation webpage.

If you answered yes, you were taken to what looked like a backdoor into the Hanso Foundation user accounts. I don't remember the URL...

I stumbled upon an Easter Egg... I poked around and then found some references to a book that didn't speak too highly of the Hanso Foundation, Bad Twin published by Hyperion Books. I looked for that on the web and I found it and it refers to the last writings of the author Gary Traub before he went down on Oceanic Flight 815.

What I find surprising is that I actually found all this. I don't usually catch these things. As I've been trying to reconstruct what I did last night, I've discovered that this is part of some interactive online game... I found a blog at TV Guide that refers to this...

Now isn't all this interesting?

Freakish medical conditions

This evening Heather was watching House and called me over as she was repeatedly pushing the rewind button on the Tivo remote.

She wanted me to watch the brainstorming session, when House and the other doctors try to figure out what mystery ailment is causing their patient problems.

"Acute myocaridal infarction?" - Evidently their patient has someting with their heart.
"No, ER ruled that out. Retest."
"Wolf-Parkinson White Syndrome?"

Heather jumps forward on the couch. "You've got one of those freakish medical conditions that they talk about on House!"

Yes, I do. I'm a freak and proud of it. I belong to a select group of the population (.1% - 3%) that has extra conduction paths in their heart which could, for no good reason, make their heart beat like a bad techno song. And yes, eventually the heart could get tired and decide to stop. Then bad things set in. Like death.

It is always interesting when I get an EKG. Because it is an electrical problem it shows up on the EKG and the techs are always really concerned about it (I guess abnormal EKGs are uncommon). I've had doctors ask if they can use my EKG in professional discussions because they haven't seen it before.

I'm asymptomatic, so don't worry yourself too much. It was identified before I joined the Army and that didn't stop me. And if my time comes, well then, its my time.

You can learn more about Wolf-Parkinson White Syndrome here.

Picnic dinner!

Today the weather was great in Seattle. It started out a little cloudy but then it got into the 80's. I ate lunch today with my friend Roger and we ate outside at a mexican restaurant.

I had planned on making polenta and grilled sausages for dinner, but it seemed to warm to eat that, so I asked Heather if she wanted to have a picnic after the kids' swim practice. She was up for it and so we had KFC for dinner on the lawn in front of the community center.

It is starting to cool off now as the sun goes down. This was just a great day!

Don't mess with Texas

It's real life fight club!

Texas Teens Accused of Filming Brawls

And these kids are eligible for life in prison? For making violent films of willing partcipants?

Matches from long-lost hiker save pair in San Jacinto Wilderness

Can you believe this. A couple gets lost and stumbles upon the gear of another hiker who got lost a year ago - and was never found - assumed dead. They also found his journal. Creepy.

It turns out that his old gear ended up saving them.

Matches from long-lost hiker save pair in San Jacinto Wilderness

Yeah, I was a Boy Scout and I really believe in be prepared.

That's why at my Engineer Basic Course I was humping a 80 pound rucksack in our field exercises and could have gotten away with much less.

That's why when we go hiking as a family I always carry more than I need to. If I end up getting stuck in the woods, dammit, I'm going to be comfortable when they find me.

These people got lucky.

Vegas, baby, Vegas

Well, the trip really wasn't like that, but I spent two and a half days in Las Vegas last week. I was there for a conference on Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID), for which I am managing our pilot at work.

The convention was at the MGM Grand. This was convenient because the hotel has a check in desk at the airport and will include the cost of the shuttle on my hotel bill. I also discovered that they'll have a bellman take my bags to the shuttle for me (expects a tip), who will take me to the hotel (expects a tip) and have baggage handlers bring the bag to my room for me (expects a tip). I'm cheap and not too keen on the expected tips. I can drag my bag around and I don't need someone to carrry it for me. There are times when I want that to happen and I'll ask someone to do it for me. So, for those who are wondering, I tipped the bellman, didn't tip the driver and snatched my own bag before the baggage handlers could bring it up to my room.

My room was in the West Tower which was pretty trendy. The hallway was super long (unfortunately, no picture) and the room was totally bad-ass. All muted grays and reds, lots of glass (the desks, the sink, shower and bathroom door), TV built into bathroom miror and more. The bed's headboard was a cool red leather and you can seee the light on the side of the bed (there is only one, just mirrors on the corner there). It was swank and modern.

The opening speaker was Monday night and I went down early to check in and orient myself to the convention center. The convention center is all the way on the other end of the hotel and it took my about 20 minutes to walk there. It wasn't until the second day that I found a shortcut, avoiding most of the casino floor. Before the speaker started, they were playing music in the convention hall. I thought it was strange and actually use my note pad to write down what songs were playing.

1. Naked Eye - Luscious Jackson
2. Song 2 - Blur
3. Odelay - Beck
   

I enjoyed the music, but I thought that this was pretty strange music for a convention targeted at mid-level and executive supply chain managers and technology companies. But hey, I guess they wanted to recognize the youthfulness of the RFID industry.

The first evening kicked off with appetizers and cocktails in the exhibtion hall and that is always fun when you don't have to pay for alcohol. I decided that I didn't want any of the beer or wine that they had and asked the bartender to make me the cocktail he likes to make. He offered up a Tequila Sunrise and that was what I drank. I would have imagined that there was something else, more interesting that a bartender would like to make, but who am I. I just like cocktails (and I like to make them too, so I supposed I am qualified to ask for something like that).

On the second night, I went to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. It's a cool French restaurant with bar seating around an open kitchen. It would take the sous-chefs about 5 minutes just to garnish the plates. It was beautiful watching them prepare the food. And oh my god is the food good. It sucked being there alone, because I had no one to share with. I had a smoked salmon appetizer, several nice pieces of lox with dilled creme fraiche and for dinner, a filet of John Dorry with chorizo and fava beans. It was so good. I chatted some with a journalist who works with John Dvorak (at the RFID conference) and a doctor who was at some other convention with her husband.

The MGM Grand has a large pen with several lions. I guess it makes sense, being that they have that lion roar at the beginning of the MGM movies. On the last day, I decided to run by with my camera. I got there right after feeding, so there was quite a crowd, but the big lion was right up at the front of the pen. So, I did the journalist thing and held my camera over my head and snapped some photos. It looks like he is sizing me up for dessert, doesn't it?

The convention was really informative and I didn't just stop at every vendor (I learned my lesson from last time, I don't want all the "follow up" calls). On top of that, I found it to be re-energizing. I've got some ideas to take back to our steering committee so that we can decided upon some options on how to continue to explore RFID (and spend money). This is what I think I liked best about this conference.

I flew out of McCarran International airport, on my way back to Seattle, but I had a few hours to kill in the airport. That airport offers free wi-fi access! How great is that. So, I posted my pictures to my flickr account, responded to some work email, and exchanged a few emails with my friend Laura. My battery started to die, so I didn't get to start writing this post.

So, hopefully this is a better travel-blog - not so painful for me to write and not so long for you to read.

Coca-Cola Blak, or should I say, bleeck.

Coke has a new product that was advertised prominently on Safeway.com. I tried to buy it a few weeks ago, but they were out-of-stock (the delivery guy told me that he had been delivering lots of it lately). Finally, after some traveling where I wasn't the one buying groceries, I got my delivery of Coca-Cola Blak.

Coca-Cola Blak is supposed to be a carbonated blend of coffee and coke. I like the two separately, so I thought I'd give it a try. I imagined the two tastes to be complimentary. I was excited when it was delivered and I wanted to share it with Heather. She wasn't ready for a snack, so I let it cool in the fridge for a while.

Before opening it, I reviewed the ingredient statement. Coffee extract was the sixth ingredient, behind the usual cola ingredients. It also had sucralose and aspartame in it, which is a surprising turn off.

I drank it from the bottle (evidently missing out on the coffee-like froth advertised in the press release), and was not pleased. It doesn't have a nice coffee taste. It tastes like over-brewed French press coffee, where the coffee flavor and all the bitterness of the beans has been extracted. Contrary to my thoughts, the two tastes don't go together.

I'm going to try another (to enjoy the coffee-like froth) (doubt it), but that means that two Coca-Cola Blaks will remain in my fridge. If you'd like to come take one off my hands, let me know!

Multimedia message

This not the way he started the day. But look at that smile!

Ex-Disney dancer is Playmate of the Year | Reuters.com

And this is why we all love Disneyland and DisneyWorld so much.

Ex-Disney dancer is Playmate of the Year | Reuters.com

I can't wait until the next time we go, who knows what burgeoning talent we might see!

beau.raines - Our New House in Washington

I've been asked several times for pictures of our new house. Finally, I've made an album. The layout isn't the greatest, but here it is! Enjoy.

beau.raines - Our New House in Washington

Muppet Personality

You Are the Swedish Chef

"Bork! Bork! Bork!" Your happy and energetic - with borderline manic tendencies. No one really gets you. And frankly, you don't even get you. But, you sure can whip up a great chocolate mousse

The Muppet Personality Test

Dude, this is so sweet and I didn't even try to throw the rating.
The muppets are cool. I've got Muppet Stamps from the USPS that are so cool.

The problem with working from home

I've been working a lot from home lately, but today I went into the office. I had the front door key, my key card and I thought I knew the code for the alarm. With that description, you'd think I work in a vault, but that is only what you need if you are the first one in. Since I was the first one there this morning, I needed all three.

Luckily for me, I was only the first one by 30 seconds or so. Otherwise, I would have gotten to met the Kent Boys in Blue. From lack of use, the code for the alarm had decayed in my head. I had all the right digits, just not in the right quantities. My co-worker had her code (on a card in her purse) so she quickly entered the code before we had a run in with the 5-0. Wouldn't that have been a "welcome back to the office" surprise!

What's your pimp name

Halloween costume , 2004. Yes, this picture was taken at work.

Your Pimp Name Is...

His Majesty Dazzle

What's Your Pimp Name?

King Kong ain't got nothing...

We watched the new King Kong last night, or should I say, King Long. Holy cow, that movie is 188 minutes long. And boring. And you watch half of the movie before the giant ape is even seen.

I never saw the original, so I can't speak to it's verisimilitude.

There was too much CGI and it wasn't good. King Kong was nicely done and when it fought with dinosaurs, the physics and motion seemed good.

We had to stop the movie because one of the kids had to go to the bathroom, at which point, there were 67 minutes left in the movie and they hadn't gotten King Kong back to New York City.

I fell asleep shortly after King Kong started tearing up NYC and woke up for the credits.

This movie wasn't very good.

Life Lessons from Maxim Magazine

Our kids got punching balloons for Easter and our littlest one was bouncing his like a basketball and said “Girls can’t play basketball.” We’d really like to raise our kids without those sexual stereotypes.
Well, it just so turns out that in the first issue of Maxim that my wife subscribed to for me (yes, it is addressed to her – she is so cool) has a small article about the new Adidas_1 basketball show and has one of their staffers playing some one on one with Swin Cash, who is evidently and WNBA star (I don’t watch much televised sports, still).
Bottom line, she runs him up and down the court and their little game ends with her on top 11-1.
It was perfect to show our son that girls can play basketball.
Dads: get a subscription to Maxim for the valuable life lessons for your kids.

Blog Tracking

Last night, I set up website tracking with StatCounter to see what kind of readership my blog has. In the last 8 hours, my wife checked it out and some one from the UK loaded my Week in Review.

What was really cool was that the tracking told me that he left by searching for 'calendar sync outlook' on Google. Maybe my prostelitizing worked and there is a new Google convert out there.

Big brother is watching!

The Week in Review

There have been several things that I've wanted to post about during the week, but I was spent from my gigantor travel blog. I didn't expect it to become the monstrosity that it was.

So, I'll catch up with a Week in Review.

Monday
iTunes had a 4 track + video She Wants Revenge live album and since I really like the band, I purchased it. Let me just say, save your $4.99 and go buy lunch at Taco Bell. It's not that the music was bad, it was just identical to the studio version. It was recorded live someplace in LA, but it didn't have any of the live feel, no sounds of the crowd, no "You rock, LA," none of that. Great band, but if you already have these songs, there is no need to get this.

Tuesday
The kids are on spring break, so I stopped work early to go with my family to the DoubleTake exhibit at the Experience Music Project. I always enjoy going to art museums and have gone to several with the kids. The art work is from the personal collection of Paul Allen and the art is paired (or grouped) in a way that asks the viewer to compare and contrast the artwork. It was a really neat exhibit and made you think about different works of art.

This also was the first exhibit that I've been to with an audio commentary. At times, I wasn't sure what I thought of it. Basically, in the exhibition room, there were all these people with a thingy stuck to their ear and hardly any whispered discussions of the art. In the end, I think it was nice, because there were so many different pieces of art that the commentary helped bring focus and attention to the things to compare and contrast.

Afterwards, we ate at a nice Vietnamese restaurant, Huong Bihn, in the International District in Seattle. It was really good. I think it was the first Vietnamese place I've been too.

Thursday
Google Calendar was released. I've been waiting for this for a while. I am a huge fan of the company Google. They make some of the greatest most flexible tools available. I imported my Outlook Calendar into it and have been using it side-by-side (because sync'ing isn't available yet).
Heather has wanted to be able to see my calendar and now we've got a good tool to do that. I also created a calendar for each of the kids to better keep track of their boatload of events.

I totally recommend Google Desktop Search, Gmail, Google Earth, Google via SMS and Google Calendar. Heck, Blogger is even a Google tool. Leave me a comment if you'd like me to share my calendar with you.

Friday
The end of the week is here. We got a lot of work done, but at the same time it was a frustrating week. I tire very quickly of people who are out of the loop and don't follow their own project's progress and then say how they are going to run to various Executive VPs because their isn't enough capacity when they change the scope of the project at the last minute.

Today was a rough day because Heather wasn't feeling well and Chase threw up more times that I can remember during the day. Three times in our bed. Not in a bowl on our bed, but on the bed itself. Sucks.

The day ended on a high note, when Alec went out to get the mail. The first issues of Maxim, Stuff and Blender that Heather got for me. Woo-hoo! It's gonna be a fine weekend!

Sunday in Vancouver

Forecast: I don’t know, but it is raining.

Everybody woke up this morning around 8:30, which was surprising considering how late the kids stayed up. I went across the way to Starbucks again (can you figure out my morning routine while traveling?) and then we had a lazy morning in the hotel room, getting ready to go out.

We checked out of the hotel at about 11:30 pm (only 30 minutes before the check out time) and headed to Dim Sum. Heather found what was reviewed as the Best Dim Sum place in Vancouver, but it was also not in a very good neighborhood. Several of the reviewers made comments about their car getting broken into. Luckily, but not for us, this restaurant had a parking garage. Not for us, because our Expedition is 6' 5-3/4" tall and the garage was listed as 6' 6". We found some street parking, after driving around the block a few times.

The Dim Sum was good, though there were more fried entrees than steamed entrees. It was really good, but we didn't get as many steamed dishes as we wanted.

The rain stopped before we left Dim Sum and headed to Gastown to check out a dinosaur exhibit and a live history of British Columbia, BC Live. Both exhibits were interesting and it was funny how they portrayed the Americans (both gold rush miners -drunken - and the president - buffoon) and the Queen of England (ditzy). It was humorous and informative on the history of BC.

I fed the meter a few times so that we could check out the sights in Gas Town. For the first time in a long time, I was hit up by panhandlers and some dude lit up a spliff while walking down the street. Gas Town is home to a Steam powered clock, which is kind of interesting. Gas Town is also home to many tourist shops. I had been quite pleased with us not buying any touristy crap, but that was shot down in the streets of Gas Town. I think we stopped at three tourist trap stores and bought stuff. It was good to try (note the use of try) to use up our Canadian dollars (I think I've got $12 CA in my pocket now and only $2 US - what is up with that?).

It was about 4:30 when we finally left Gas Town and decided we would do one last thing in Vancouver - eat - before we headed home. Heather found a really cool restaurant, Feenies, whose chef was an Iron Chef winner. I'll start by saying that it was a very cool restaurant and worthy of it's own separate posting (especially if I blogged about the Stanwood Grill).

Feenies was a hip and trendy bistro. All the staff was young and cool and there was a birthday party party for a bunch of 20 or 30 somethings. The decor was colorful and modern and the wine rack built into the wall had a clear glass back, so you could see through from the bar to the dining room. It must be a popular place, we walked in at about 4:50 and they had to check their reservations pretty hard to be able to squeeze us into a restuarant that had only one other party in it. We were told we could have the table until 6:30 - we took the table knowing we weren't going to be that long.

Prior to 5:30, they still serve from the afternoon menu. They are pretty adamant about it, there was another party, who got there about 5:10 and really wanted to be served from the dinner menu. They ultimately stalled until 5:30.

The food was excellent. Heather had a red and gold beet salad with lobster. It was really, really good. I didn't know that she was such a fan of beets - I'll have to make them more often. I had cured salmon with pickled shallots, creme fraiche and brioche. It was really good. We were warned when we ordered that they were appetizer sized (remember the Byte Bar and Cafe, Erik?), but we ordered anyway, knowing we had a long drive in front of us. The kids had a sausage dog and a nice angus burger.

This place (and probably its big sister), Lumiere, are places to visit again. If I end up in Vancouver again or pass through, I'm stopping there. Five stars. Two thumbs up. Little man jumping out of his chair. Totally bad ass restaurant. Eat here.

We headed out of Vancouver about 6 pm and headed home. The drive south was uneventful. We had about a 15 minute wait at the border. All my documents (recall, I had birth certificates for all, Heather's passport and my expired official passport) were in an envelope ready to hand to the border guard. We got up to the crossing and she extended her rubber gloved hand and asked for ids. I handed her the envelope and she pulled back her hand like I was giving her a poisonous snake. She wanted them out of the envelope, with which I complied.

She wanted to know where we went, if we were all US citizens and where we lived. Easy questions. She asked if we bought anything in Canada. Duh, of course we did. "Touristy souvenirs," I said.

"Any alcohol, tobacco, tylenol or codeine?"

I stalled out there. Heather had some flu-like symptons and I bought Sudafed - the wrong stuff for her symptoms - at the Safeway across the street. "I bought Sudafed."

It seemed like she was thinking for a while, making me sweat it out. "Your okay," and handed back my packet of ids.

We made it back!

About 9:00 we got back into our neck of the woods and decided to stop for dessert at Claim Jumpers in Redmond. I've never been to a Claim Jumpers before, but I had been told that the food and desserts were "good and huge portions." Our service sucked - we waited a long time to be asked what we wanted, when the waiter got to us, he was all excited that he had an easy dessert only table. Chase, Parker and I got our desserts so long before Heather and Alec got theirs, that the kids were able to eat half of their brownie. When Alec's ice cream pie finally came, it was half melted and the waiter said something about losing Heathers pie, so they upsized hers to the larger on. Except, they only offered one size.

My carrot cake and Heather's deep dish apple pie were disappointing. The apples had no flavor and the carrot cake was bland and so-so. The kids brownie was really good, though. And even better on Monday night.

Claim Jumper's did not impress me. I probably won't go back.

About 10:20 pm we got home. Overall, it was a great vacation and enjoyable. I saw lots of MINI Coopers, people watching was great, the break from work was needed and we had fun. I posted a bunch of pictures on my flickr account (I actually used up my free uploading space this month - I might have to upgrade), so check them out, too.

I hope you enjoyed this travel blog - it turned out to be much longer than I intended!

Saturday in Vancouver

Today's Forecast:
High 55
Low 42
Precipitation: 90%

Saturday started off being a mostly cloudy but nice day. While Heather and the kids were getting dressed, Alec and I headed across the street to one of the local Starbucks to bring back coffee (I won’t drink hotel room coffee). I paid cash, and when I exclaimed, “Oh, cool. The two dollar coin,” I probably displayed some of my tourist-ness.

We headed out a little before 10 am (we are on vacation) and went to Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe for Breakfast. We easily found parking a block away, used my $2 coin to pay for parking and walked up the street to the restaurant. There were people clustering in and out the door, so we felt okay about where we were.

It turns out that they don’t take names, but just form a line. The girl at the door told us it would be about 15 minutes for my (home) Party of Five. We hung out on the sidewalk waiting our turn; smaller parties were seated quickly. About 10 minutes into our wait, another party with five people in it came. As our kids would range on the sidewalk, when the ?manager? came out, he looked at the other group and asked them if they were the group of five that was next. We spoke up that it was actually us and were seated shortly there after. I’m not so sure about this line thing instead of names.

Sophie’s is a funky little breakfast spot with an outdoor patio. The walls are covered with old records, baseball pennants, metal lunchboxes and toys. It as the typical breakfast menu of eggs, pancakes, waffles, eggs benedict (my choice), but no kids menu. It was recommended as a good place to take kids, but I think that was due to the funky décor. They did give us crayons to color with, though.

Heather ordered French Toast, Parker and Chase, waffles, Alec, Kit’s breakfast with bacon, eggs and two pancakes and I got Eggs Benedict. The food came quickly but wasn’t notable. The sausage that came with Heather’s French Toast was a very fine grind and had a different flavor. Neither of us found it very pleasant.

Overall Review: Sophie’s is a funky breakfast spot, popular with the locals, but the food isn’t so great. Eat there for the funky décor, but that is about it.

After breakfast we drove to Stanley Park – kind of like the Golden Gate Park of Vancouver. It was a nice park, lots of people biking, running and roller blading. We didn’t stop and drove through the park. People in Vancouver seem pretty fit and fashionable.

You could see across the water to the shipping docks in North Vancouver. There were brilliant colored piles of sulfer and shipping containers. We didn’t stop, so I didn’t get any photographs, with the exception the one I took while driving.

From the park, we headed to Granville Island, basically a giant public market. We wandered through there, ate a snack and I was able to take lots of photos of the foods on display. Every time we’d walk through the vegetable markets, I’d get waylaid by the colorful displays.
Parking was free, albeit harder to find.

We took a roundtrip on an aquabus. These cute little boats take people all over False Creek. It is a pretty neat little public transit system.

Overall Review: The market was just another public market – lots of stuff to buy but nothing unique. It was great for people watching, a bite to eat and photography. The aquabus was a neat way to see the waterfront and not too expensive. The micro tour was worth it.

We went to the Capilano Suspension bridge after that. We didn’t have any coin of the realm left, so Heather went to try to get change. Parking would have cost us $3 CA, but I found a parking receipt with time still left on it, so parking was free there too! Admission was steep and as I charged $60 CA, I was asking myself what exactly am I paying for? Sixty bucks to walk across a gorge on a suspension bridge? I’m cheap, so I wasn’t so thrilled. The park ended up being pretty nice and very well done. There were boardwalk trails through out the park, photo spots and all kinds of catwalks and suspension bridges through the trees. There were very nice displays of the history in the area. Heather doesn’t do well with heights and especially heights near our kids, but she did well with them.

Overall Review: Expensive, but worth it. Nicely done park and display of history.

We left the park at about 5:45 or so and decided to head to Shannon Falls in Squamish. A quick check on the GPS showed that sunset was around 6:58 pm, so we’d be able to get there before dark. The drive to the park was on the Sea to Sky Highway. It has an incredible view of the sound and the mountains and the road was very curvy. It made me miss my MINI. It would be fun for a long, international rally.

We drove in about 6:30 and the park closed (the sign said they locked the gate) at 7 pm. Heather checked the map and saw that the falls were pretty close to the parking area, so we decided that we would stay. Again, we had to pay for parking, but this time it was only $1 CA for an hours parking. You’ve got to pay for parking everywhere here!

The falls were very scenic and I was able to get photos before the sunset. I didn’t see how high the falls were, but I’d guess that they were in same area as some of the falls in Yosemite. This particular park had lots of trails too for day hiking.

Overall Review: Pretty nice place. Cheaper parking and it seems like a great place for a day hike.

It was just before 7 as we left Shannon Falls and decided that we needed to look for someplace for dinner. The navigation system showed that the Howe Sound Brewery was pretty close. That was the choice for dinner.

As we drove through the little town, towards the sound, we drove past lots of closed restaurants. There was hardly anybody out and we got worried that the brewery might have been closed. The Brewery is also home to a nice hotel. The pub was off limits to people under the age of 19, so we headed into the restaurant to eat. It was nicely decorated and the menu looked pretty nice.
We were seated and very promptly the kids were brought plates of vegetables – pretty nice thing for them – and a packet of things to color. Points for being kid friendly.

Heather ordered the warm seafood salad from the specials and iced tea and I ordered a Santa Fe Chicken sandwich with a side of ale and cheddar soup and ale. At the last minute, we added an appetizer of yammer jammers, yam french fries. They were probably the best part of the meal.
Heather didn’t really like her salad, some of the shrimp were canned and her iced tea was a fruity tea, which she doesn’t like at all. We ended up trading beverages, so I got to drive the curvy road back (which is enjoyable). My sandwich was bland – pretty far from Santa Fe, I should have guessed and my soup was forgotten.

Overall Review: The food wasn’t worth the trip from Vancouver, though the scenic views of the mountains around the sound make up for it. The food was surprisingly inexpensive.

As we left the restaurant, it started to rain (remember the forecast), and it rained all the way back to the hotel. We got back at about 9:30 and got ready for bed. Heather and the kids watched TV until it was quite late and I read some. I ended up forgetting to take out my contacts and when I did, I dropped one (but I didn’t realize it until the next morning).

Crossing the Border

The drive was uneventful until we got to the border where traffic piled up a bit more. We lucked out and the border guards opened a new lane, which we were the first ones into. We pulled up and the guard asked us a few questions:

“How many people are in the car?”

“Five.”

“Where are you from?”

“Washington.”

“May I see id for everyone in the car?”

I handed him a packet of birth certificates, Heather’s passport and my expired official passport.

“Why do you have an official passport?”

“I was in the military.”

“Past tense?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

‘Vancouver.”

“What’s in Vancouver for you?”

“We are going for the weekend.”

“Do you have anything that could be dropped off in Vancouver?”

I’m thinking to myself, I’ve got kids, they could lose their own heads if they weren’t permanently attached.

“No.” Ohh, living dangerously.

“Enjoy your weekend.”

He sent us on to our way in to Canada.

Heather said that this crossing was much more serious and had a lot more questions than when she drove to Alaska.

The border crossing on I-5 (Canada 99) leaves you in Surrey, one of the communities around Vancouver. The roads to Vancouver all take you through city streets, through neighborhoods.
With all the darkness, it doesn’t really seem like there is a city in front of you. As we found out, there are also a series of hills that hide Vancouver from you. We passed under the river and the city was before us – we could see some tall buildings finally.

We drove into Vancouver and drove past a Dollar store. Heather commented that is was such a great deal – really it is like an 89 cent store (there’s that joke again, but this time from Heather).
We found our hotel and checked in. It’s a nice hotel, clean and well apportioned. Priceline calls it a 3 star, it is a fine hotel, nothing special to it. We have to pay extra for parking in their garage (6’ 9” tall, funny not 2.07 m tall) and our Expedition just fits in.

It was about 9:45 when we got in our room and promptly went to bed.

The Stanwood Grill

The Stanwood Grill is in (you guessed it) Stanwood. While we were on the freeway, the Nav System said it was only 4 miles away, but once we got directions it was more like 7 miles. Lesson Learned: Navigation system gives locations in straight line distance and directions in road distance. We stuck it out and drove to Stanwood.
Along the way, we saw several old barns. If the lighting had been better, I would have stopped to take pictures, as I really like old barns.

Downtown Stanwood is cute and we quickly found parking, although the Stanwood Grill looked like it was a pretty big draw for the Stanwood-ians. We were quickly seated, the kids got kid’s menus and crayons (Alec got both a real menu and the kid’s menu!) and started checking things out.

The Grill had several steaks, chicken and some shrimp dishes and a few pasta dishes. I was torn between the Smoked Salmon Penne and the special Sweet Chili Grilled Prawns. I went with the Prawns; Heather went for the Prime Rib. Heather horned in on this Big Beautiful Blonde I was eyeing and ordered their Seasonal Beer to drink. I guess that meant I was driving after dinner, which is always okay with me, so I had their Lemonade. Fresh squeezed Lemonade, which was quite good.

Both Heather’s dish and mine came with a salad; we ordered the ranch dressing. It was a homemade ranch dressing, so it was the more runny kind. It was great – which is why I maintain that Ranch dressing is what makes Americans obese. I got six Prawns, garlic mashed potatoes and a small pile of sautéed green beans and zucchini (not fond of zucchini). The were spicy and good, although not quite filling. Heather was surprised by the size of her “small” prime rib which was tender and served with a very nice au jus and creamy horseradish. I did get to sample quite a bit of it, which helped round out my meal.

The Stanwood Grill also had a very nice cocktail menu – a Vanilla cosmopolitan, a nice looking coffee liqueur and cinnamon drink to name a few. But since I was driving, I only got to look.
The kids got macaroni and cheese, a cheese burger and chicken strips. We almost don’t have to give them the menu – they kind of always order the same thing.

We left the Stanwood Grill as the sun was setting, only to find that the way into downtown was blocked by a freight train hooking up. With a little exploring, we found our way to the overpass over the train tracks and were on our way.

An International Vacation

For the weekend, we are going to Vancouver, BC. Yes, a vacation and an international one at that. We are staying at the Plaza 500 Hotel, right across the street from Vancouver’s City Hall. Heather, the Queen of Priceline, got us the room for $45 dollars a night, (though I’m not sure if that is $US or $CA – that will be he recurring joke through this travel blog)! The sign on the door, although dated 1999, says the standard rate for this room is $325 (I’m pretty sure that is Canadian).

I prepared the kids a packing list and the night before, they laid out their clothes so that Heather could review them and make sure they picked outfits and not just two pairs of pants, three t-shirts and shoes that didn’t all go together. So, when the kids got home from school they were ready to go.

I took Friday as vacation and hardly worked at all – maybe responding to 5 emails and only took 1 phone call. I’m proud of myself for letting the rest of them ring. So during the day, Parker and I packed his clothes, packed the car and knocked over a bank for some Canadian currency. What a deal that is; $75 CA cost me only $68 US – the dollar does go further here. Now, I haven’t tried to buy anything yet, so I don’t know if things are more expensive or not.

I’m taking my GPS with me (maybe gets me more dork rating) and I’m going to keep it on all the time and keep track of where we go. Hopefully, I’ll be able to tie places and photographs together and make a nice “this was our trip.” We’ll see how it goes.

We left the house at 4:19 pm and headed out with Heather driving. As we got north of Seattle, where I-405 joins I-5, we got bogged down in traffic. We continued moving slowly north and eventually we drove further than the commuters. Someplace around 6:30, the kids started getting whiny for something to eat and Heather started poking around in the Navigation system for someplace to eat. We decided upon the Stanwood Grill.

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time
(as judged by notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped)

A pretty funny and long listing of April Fool's Day Hoaxes. I have to say that the Europeans as a whole (especially the British and the Russians, both whom I would not have expected it from) have a pretty damn funny sense of humor.

What's amazing that none of the recent internet shenanigans are listed there, most of which I find really funny.

Enjoy!

Breakfast o' Champions

Spring Soccer

Spring soccer is upon us!

Today was Alec's first soccer practice and Chase's was last week. I'm an assistant coach on Alec's team and will most likely help out with Chase's team. I really enjoy soccer and especially like watching kids learn and develop skills.

I look forward to soccer season every year and here in Washington, they have a Spring league and a Fall league. Woo hoo! Soccer twice a year!

This is going to be fun!

Recorder rehersal

Tonight, Alec performed in the 4th Grade Recorder Rehersal. His class performed Round about Morning which was composed by MC Handel and arranged by somebody else.

It turns out that most of the songs of the night (one for each of 5 classes plus 2 all as one) were composed by MC Handel. I wonder if he is like MC Hammer or something like that.

And for your listening enjoyment, Alec's class performing Round about Morning (mp3).

They did a very nice job. The recorder can be a challenging instrument upon which to cut one's teeth. So, that's not a very good comparison, but you get what I mean.

If you want, I could also post Ode to Joy!

Technical Notes: I recorded this with my camera, a Casio Exilim, in a wave format and converted it to an mp3 using MP3 Wave Converter.

Happy April Fools Day

Check this out. This has got to be a joke - but they say "love is just another search problem" and you know there is some truth to that.

Google Romance

Happy April Fools Day