Boy did I feel dumb

On Saturday's in the fall, we have soccer games. As you might recall, I am the coach for both my oldest son's and daughter's soccer teams. But swimming season has also begun, which they both participate in as well. And as you can guess, there was a conflict this weekend. It wasn't really tough to overcome, but I screwed it up.

Warm ups for swim meets usually start at 8 am. Back that up for finding parking, getting to the pool, getting the stuff you need to entertain yourself and your non swimming kids, eating breakfast, and dragging kids out of bed that means that a swim meet day starts just about as early as a work day.

The boys soccer game was in the middle of the first day of the swim meet (I forgot to mention that, didn't I - some are two days), so we took two cars and I would go to the soccer game with out my son, since he was swimming. No problems here, I left the pool right on time and got to the field on time for soccer warm ups.

The soccer game was a great game. The boys really worked on playing their positions and it payed off. We were playing on a dirt field and I don't think they like it very much, but maybe this game will help them overcome that. I called my wife after the game and found out that the swim meet was done and she was going shopping to find a birthday present for a party our youngest was going to.

We were supposed to be at the girls' field at 1:30 for a 2 pm game. Heather didn't think that there was enough time to buy birthday stuff and eat lunch at home before we had to leave, so we decided to meet at Chipotle. I was supposed to go home and get my daughter her soccer gear and meet them there. This is where things started to go down hill.

I get home without incident and took off my soccer cleats before going inside. With this being fall soccer in the rainy North West, cleats get muddy or help pick up the cut grass, depending if you are playing on dirt or grass. My wife frowns (rightly so) on either of those substances in the house. My daughter's soccer stuff was right where she told me it would be and I zipped back out to Chipotle. It turns out, I left my cleats at home. Mess up #1.

I went to Chipotle and they weren't there yet. I found them shopping still and finished out the trip with them. I took the booster seat so that I could take my daughter to soccer and asked if she wanted to change in the bathroom in the restaurant. She wanted to change in the car. Mess up #2, but I didn't realize it at the time.

We had a nice lunch and I though I needed to leave at 1:20 to get to the field, which was pretty close. Everything went smoothly and we got the field just before 1:30. My daughter changed in the car and we walked out to the field. I walked up to the other coach and he said he wasn't the one we were playing and asked if we were at the right field. I thought I would wait for people to show up, but by now it was 1:35 but the kids and parents are timely.

I checked my Google Calendar reminder and learned that I was at the wrong field! Mess up #3. And there was only a slight chance that I would make it to the other field before 2pm. We run back to my MINI and as I'm driving, calling the team parents. Unfortunately, the roster I carry around with me only has home numbers (mess up #4). Luckily, one of the families also list their mobile number on their home answering machine. I called her, but she had dropped off her husband (without mobile phone) and daughter at the game. She was closer to the field than I and offered to return to let them know that I really was on my way.

We got to the game at about 1:56 and sprinted to the field. The parent's told me they were all warmed up and ready to go. I assigned positions and put the girls on the field and the ref came to me and asked if I had a pinnie for the goalie. I did, but they were in the car. Mess up #5. I sprinted back to the car and grabbed a jersey. On the good side, I don't really think that the game started late (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

The girls game was great and the ref was really good (It is nice to have a ref that cares at the younger kid's games). The ref was probably also a good role model because she was a teenage girl still playing soccer.

So, amidst my mess ups, which count 5, there were some good points. My son's swim meet went very well and both soccer games went well. In the end, all's well, that ends well, right?

Before and After

Before, originally uploaded by beau.raines.

Today, we changed out the chandelier in our dining room. The one that came with the house just wasn't our style. I'm no design expert, but I think it falls into the Rococo style and that just isn't our thing.
It was quick to take the chandelier down and assemble the new one, but the chain was a pain in the neck. Heather wanted to do the chain links and they were tough. I think that is what happens when we go from a brass chain to a nickel chain.

After, originally uploaded by beau.raines.

I wired it quickly (without shockng myself, either) and we were back in business. I think that the new one looks much nicer than the old one.

Running on Sunday!

It was sprinkling and overcast at 7 o'clock this morning, but I went anyways. There weren't as many people out as last Sunday. I ran 2.7 miles today.
It is almost ingrained into my schedule - run on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday!

Running, day 3

Today, I ran 3.455 miles (thank you again, Gmaps Pedometer).
I found a better route on Mercer Island, where I can run most of the way on a trail with some lighting and no cars. I only have to run about a third of a mile on unlighted streets in the shoulder. What an improvement.

Buh bye, Writely

Google recently acquired Writely (if I were a true journalist, I would specify the date and the amount of the purchase) and under the cover of darkness two nights ago, released a new service Documents and Spreadsheets. This new service combines Google Spreadsheets and Writely documents all into one portal.

I really like Google's venture into the web based applications with Spreadsheets and Writely. I think that they provide some great opportunities for collaboration - I've used them to publish soccer team rosters and some required documents for games. It makes it easy for the other coaches to have the same set of documents that I do, with out having to email them back and forth. Think of disk space savings, when we all look at the same document online.

Some changes

1. Consolidated user interface - all in the Google blue and white scheme
2. One web portal for all documents
3. The ability to tag documents has been added to Spreadsheets. I really like tagging and find it to be superior to folders. I bet I could write a whole blog posting on that. Maybe...

This is cutting edge, the web based Office 2.0 applications and I think that this evolution of the Internet will be pretty neat. There have been several articles on ZDNet about the ubiquity of Internet access, offline access to web based apps, and more. This is the future.

Lunch of champions

Been on the phone since 7:30 this morning.

Feeling athletic

Let's see. My last post was October 3rd, a week ago. My to do list has the task "Going commando blog posting." I have some catching up to do.

We just moved the kids to a different swim team, King Aquatics, for a variety of reasons (none of which will be covered here). This has resulted in a significant number of schedule changes and revisions to how we live our lives.

I am coaching my kids' soccer teams (yep, soccer and swimming) and for a week, swim practice conflicted with soccer practice. Heather would take the kids to swimming and I went on to practice. On the day of the first afternoon practice, I got ready for soccer (cleats, socks, soccer shorts, spandex shorts under the soccer shorts for comfort, and a t-shirt). I was half way to practice when my wife calls that Alec had forgotten to pack his swim suit. Pack his swim suit, you ask? The kids were picked up from school, having supposedly already gotten their swimming stuff ready. Unfortunately, turning around and going home wasn't an option, because they would be late for Chase's practice. So, the troubleshooter I am, I offered up my spandex shorts to Alec to stand in for his jammers. Helen, how does that fit into re-wearing rules?

They decided to try out that plan and I did a last minute lane change and took my shorts off in the Fred Meyer's parking lot to hand them off to Alec. So, for those of you who don't play strip poker or aren't keeping track, now I was down cleats, socks, soccer shorts, and a t-shirt. Everything was covered and decent, but less comfortable. Plus I had that fear and I would kneel down to tie some little girl's shoe that I would be exposing myself to them. And then, I was worried about how late the boys practice runs and I just lost one layer for when the sun starts to set and a chill sets in.

Luckily for me, there were no indecent exposures and it didn't cool off too much. Luckily for Chase, she wasn't late for practice. Unfortunately for Alec, the shorts were too big for him. Unfortunately for Alec, the board shorts that were recovered from the lost and found, were still too big for him.

Another change that has come with swimming for King is morning practices. Now, at first glance, it doesn't seem to be a big deal because this year, school starts really late. Except that it is a 25 minute drive to the pool and then however much time (averaging 8 minutes) in the locker room and practice is at 6 am. So, now on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am on Mercer Island just before 6 am. Heather comes shortly after with Chase and the rest of the crew, but do the math. 6am Mercer Island. 5:25 departure from house. 5 am wake up with time for my morning chores. Earlier if I continue on to work and have to be presentable.

So, I've decided to turn that morning time into running time. This is where more of the athletic feeling comes in. This week, I ran on Sunday (at home, not Mercer Island) for 2.2 miles. Today, I ran 2.7 miles. It is a great way to fill that time in the morning! I'm not opposed to running in the dark (it is strangely reminiscent of my time in the Army, running before the sun comes up). However, the roads on Mercer Island are twisty, narrow and have tiny shoulders, if at all. I need to acquire some more reflective materials and find some convenient routes there.

I plotted out a route (thank you Gmaps Pedometer - a google maps mash up for route measuring) and unfortunately, I neglected to look at the elevation gains. I found a nice route, except it was far too steep for day 2 of getting back into running.

I plan on continuing this and hopefully I can get back in shape! I'll keep you posted.

Hot Starbucks cups

See the find print? Her nipples are showing. Hot.

It's a scary world

The news lately has been full of bad news about school shootings lately.

The Guardian Unlimited provided a list and here is the excerpt of the last six weeks. Six weeks, can you believe it?

- Oct. 2, 2006: A gunman took about a dozen girls hostage, killing at least three of them, at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County, police said. The shooter was among the dead, and a number of people were injured.

- Sept. 29, 2006: 15-year-old Eric Hainstock brought two guns to a school in rural Cazenovia, Wis., and fatally shot the principal, a day after the principal gave him a disciplinary warning for having tobacco on school grounds, police said.

- Sept. 27, 2006: Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colo. Morrison, sexually assaulting them and using them as human shields for hours before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself.

- Aug. 24, 2006: Christopher Williams, 27, went to an elementary school in Essex, Vermont, looking for his ex-girlfriend, a teacher. He couldn't find her and fatally shot one teacher and wounded another, police said. Williams also killed his ex-girlfriend's mother, according to authorities. He shot himself twice in the head after the rampage and was arrested.

This isn't a case for gun control - we've got restrictions placed and they aren't working. But whatever it is, it is a little scary.

But this is the world in which we live - Domestic terrorism, wars, child abuctions, and more unpleasantry - but regardless of that, we still need to do what we need to do to be happy, safe and productive. That's what helps us all drive on in this world.

Red flyer

How could I not buy this bottle?

The return of moblogging

When Blooger went beta, moblogging was a feature that was lost. Recently they announced that it was back. This is the test of its return.

It will be nice to post (and pics, too!) from my phone again

--

Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

Edit: Um, I got burned by the fact that my Razr will make a long message into two text messages. Unfortuantely blogger only recieves it as one message. I had to edit this post and retype about half of it. Oh, well. It is still good for a pic and brief text!

Resurrection Weekends

Those that know me really know I like to listen to music.

Back in college, when I was going to sleep earlier than my room mate, the music would still be going. I'd fall asleep to KMFDM's Money that I'm afraid it might trigger that same response today. I don't own that album out of that fear.

We would also set one particular track of the Warlock Pinchers on repeat and head down to the Dining Commons. We lived on the eighth floor and you could hear it from the bottom. We were some of those people that contribute to people wanting to leave the dorms.

I've been using a computer for years and when streaming audio first came out, I couldn't understand why someone would want to listen to music on their computer - they should be listening on their stereo. Better amplification and speakers and all that.

Then, I started working and bandwidth (in the Army) was precious, so they encouraged us to not use streaming media. I started then to rip music to my computer. Not alot, but enough to keep me satisfied during the day.

When I first worked for Dreyer's, my cinderblock office had no windows and no radio reception. As I write this, I also recall that my office had a lake (the Clean Out of Place room shared a wall with me and on Wednesday mornings, it would leak under the wall into my office). My Army experience came in handy here, I would deftly mop it up... But back to music. At Dreyer's I started to rip more and more music. Then things like mp3 players started coming out.

Now a days, my entire music collection is digital. Everything has been moved to computer (able to stream to the stereo) and I'm a big iTunes/iPod fan (even being a Windoze user). My iPod holds my entire collection (and there is still about 20GB free for future additions) and I buy all my music on iTunes now.

It is rare that I go someplace without my iPod. I've got iPod integration (ice>Link Plus) in my MINI, I've got iPod speakers on my desk and a docking station to run it through my home audio system.

I hardly listen to broadcast radio any more. Except for Saturdays. The local alternative (or whatever the genre is called), The End, has resurrection weekends.

This morning, I've heard 88 Lines about 44 Women, Dancing with Myself, Holiday in Cambodia, Never Say Never. The Smiths, They Might Be Giants, Blondie. Just great music. A lot of the music lives on my iPod, but just the weekend's show putting it all in one place makes listening to the DJ's blather and the ads worth it.

It's a new season!

The weather is changing in Seattle. It has cooled off and has rained for most of the week. But that isn't the season I'm talking about. Plus, it looks like it will be nicer this weekend.

The new Fall TV season kicked off this week.

So far, there are really only two shows that I want to watch: Robot Chicken on Adult Swim and my guilty pleasure of Desperate Housewives. I might watch Gray's Anatomy, too, as long as it isn't on too late (like it was last season).

In previous years there have been more good TV shows. Alias (with the exception of the last season), X Files (with the exception of th last season) come to mind. I'm glad that there are fewer this season, because the time investement will be less.

And thank goodness for Tivo, I can watch it when I want.

If anybody has suggestions on what I should watch, comment here!

My pirate name

Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It took a while to find a good name, but here it is.

Some of the name sites were just plain dumb. This one took an indepth look at your personality and gave you a name.

My pirate name is:

Iron Roger Bonney

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

It worked!

On Sunday I posted about tracking a friend of mine down. It worked. On Monday, I got a response.

I need to do a better job keeping up with people. Writing a note once every ten years just doesn't cut it.

So here is to breaking the cycle - I wrote him last night!

Today was International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Ahoy, mateys.

Shiver me skivvies, this posting is a bit late, but just the same.

Today was International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Pirates are cool. I hope ye were able to work some of the old pirate lingo into your day today.

Check out the official site here and make sure you mark it on your calendar for next year, September 19th, you scallywag, lest I make you walk the plank.

It's a good thing I can touch type, it is hard to see wearing an eye patch.

Mint Chip Ice Cream

A while back, I got an ice cream maker and I've been slowly trying out some recipes.

Vanilla - two thumbs up
Guiness Stout - thumbs down, bad recipe
Lime and Mint sorbet - okay (much better with rum)

On Sunday, I made Mint Chocolate Chip with a Williams-Sonoma recipe that I got from the Contra Costa times. The recipe was pretty specific about how to know when the milk and cream had been warmed enough (small bubbles forming around the edge and ripples in the middle of the pot). The recipe called for a cup (that is a lot) of mint leaves and when my wife saw the bunch of mint I had cut she asked if I was cutting back the mint to prevent it overrunning our garden.

Last night, I got around to eating some. The little tastes I while I prepared it were nice, but it didn't seem anything special. When I scooped it, I actually said out loud (I was alone), "This is different." Most of the other homemade ice cream gets really hard, this still had the soft, creamy texture of real ice cream. It did melt a little faster, but when I tasted it, OMG, it was really good. The mint taste was quite nice. It was a little sweet because I think the newspaper has some problems transcribing fractions on to the web ( -1/3 really means 1/3, don't assume the 1 got lost from 1-1/3).

I melted chocolate chips and let them harden about 1/8 inch thick and cut it into chunks for my inclusion. Heather said that she really liked them and they had a Ben and Jerry's feel to them. It really was a comment, although I had to take it in context, being a Dreyer's employee.

I learned some great methods with this and for recipes that require egg yolks, I'll most probably repeat it.

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream is in no danger, but over the life time of my ice cream maker, I've packed out 2 gallons.

Getting back in touch

This morning, I was making blueberry muffins and my mind wandered back to college days. I do know why, the recipe I was using was given to me in college by a friend of my mom's. My roommates and I put together a recipe book and most of the time, we cooked dinner together.

I keep in touch, loosely, with Erik (one of those roommates), but kind of lost track of the other, Alex.

I decided that I would track him down...

It was much easier than I thought, because he has published a few academic papers, so a Google search on his name turned up him and somebody in Austin. It was easy to figure out which one was the right one and I sent him an email.

I told him some of the things I had been doing, told him about my MINI, told him about my blog. I stopped, because it began to sound like a personal ad and I'm already taken and not looking.

So, yes, Alex, if you check, this blog entry is about you.

Hey, we went there!

An article from today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Borracchini's Bakery robbed

This is where we went to enjoy cake with some of Heather's friends for her birthday. I'm sorry to hear about this kind of a situation, although it is neat to read that 4 hostages escaped.

It seems that the world, even close to home, is getting more violent.

S'mores, in the microwave?

I was doubtful, but it really did work! I had proposed ice cream for dessert and it was soundly decried, being "too cold." So, we were thinking of other ideas and Heather came up with s'mores.

We only had mini-marshmallows, so they weren't going to be roasted on any skewers (maybe toothpicks, but there would be roasted fingers, too). And, however blasphemous it may be, the only chocolate we had were chocolate chips.

Heather came up with the idea of making them in a microwave. I was dubious, but we tried it out. Since we were playing it all by ear, Heather asked the kids how long they thought it would take and their estimates ranged from 30 seconds to 1 minute. 18 seconds is all it takes!

They ended up quite yummy and so I decided I would capture the method here. Who needs a campfire when you go camping now! Just bring a microwave. Who needs a s'more maker at a girl scout meeting. Just bring a microwave.

Step by step instructions

1. Take a graham cracker and break it in half and place it on a microwave safeplate.
2. Arrange mini-marshmallows on one half of the broken graham cracker.
3. Arange chocolate chips on top of the marshmallows. I maintain that the expanding marshmallows help melt the chocolate chips. I tried to make sure that I get chocolate chips between the marshmallows.
4. Microwave for 18 seconds. Your time might vary depending upon your microwaves power rating. Observe it so that the marshmallows don't over expand and make a mess. I perfer a crisper graham cracker, so don't microwave it. They become more chewy if you do microwave the cracker.
   
   
5. As soon as the microwave is done, place the top graham cracker on. The marshmallows cool quickly, so they won't be as melty.
6. Enjoy!

ZUG: TSA and security checks

This whole site is really funny, but here is a funny article (if you can call it that) about the TSA and Security Checks.

This guy has got gumption!

And the toll road one is funny too!

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."

Cedar Butte

Last weekend, we made another attempt at hiking to Cedar Butte. And this time, we made it!

We started out on the Iron Horse Trail and there were a lot of mountain bikers and since it was an old logging road or railroad grade, Heather didn't think it was real hiking.

The trail was a general incline up and Parker was getting a little impatient with it all. It wasn't like it was steep or anything. We stopped and ate the lunch that Chase made for us - nutella or peanut butter sandwhiches. I was lucky and got a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. Just before we stopped for lunch, I came to the conclusion that a slight navigational error let us walk past the trail head and we needed to back track some.

Using the guidebook's descriptions as a reference and the topo map I had, I entered the coordinates of the trailhead in my GPS and we set off back down the trail. My GPS told me that we were at my waypoint about 10 feet from where the trailhead was - now why didn't I do that the first time?

Evidently, when we had passed it the first time, Heather had said, "I wonder where this goes?" But look at it, the markings are so slight... And the trail was very narrow; the brush on each side of the trail was always touching us. It looked like the trail hadn't been used in a very long time, the brush was so thick.

This trail was uphill and it was steeper than the first trail. But we put Parker in the lead and he moved at a good clip. The trail had some steps built into the steeper parts and moved us through the brush, always heading up.

At about 1300 feet, the low shrubberies thinned out, but Parker was ready to keep going. We had to stop here to put some moleskin around a hotspot developing on the back of Heather's foot, but that didn't stop us for long.

There were a final series of switchbacks to the "summit" (if you can call it that). Two surprising things occurred as we got close. First, Parker said "we must be close to the top, there are no more trees." How about that for the powers of observation of a four year old? Secondly, we heard people talking. After walking all that way, on a trail that didn't look used, there were poeople on top.

Parker lead the way up and was greeted by cheers and clapping from the people who were already there. I bet they didn't expect to see a 4 year old hike leader.


After eating some snacks and enjoying the view, we headed back down. We dallied in Boxley Creek for a while and then headed to the car, where there were cold cokes waiting for us.

It was fun to get out and go hiking - it was relaxing to get into the outdoors. It was great to actually make it this time.

My picture set on Flickr.
Somebody has put together a webpage about Hiking Cedar Butte.

Dinner tonight

For all the new parents in my family, No, it is not a bowl full of infant excrement. But it does look like it.

I am making Chorizo and Shrimp Quesadillas with a Smoky Guacamole and the guacamole is more of an avocado puree, with a little sour cream and chipotle peppers (giving it the smoky taste) in it. I've made it before and the sauce was nice, but chipotle peppers come in adobo sauce, and I thought, "well, if the peppers are packed in the adobo, why don't I put a little of that in too."

Now, we all know why the recipe just calls for the peppers. It still tastes good and you could use it to gross out all the new parents you know.

Rested, finally

I've been exhausted for the last week and tired longer than that. And I know that my co-workers have been pulling long hours and have to be tired, too. This weekend is the first one in a long time where I won't need to work. I'm looking forward to it.

The trip to the Bay Area was fun, but tiring. It was a lot of work and then when I got back home, I put in a lot of hours catching and finishing up. On top of all that, all week long, I didn't sleep well. One night, I went to sleep with a headache and woke up with the same headache the next morning.

We had talked about making a summer camping trip this weekend to the Olympics, but it's just not going to happen (obviously, since this is Saturday morning that I'm writing this). We'll go hiking tomorrow, but everything is going to be mellow.

We went to the swimming pool last night and when we got back, we watched a movie. After it was done, Heather and the kids stayed up and watched TV. I went to bed. I slept until 6:45, then went back to sleep for another 30 minutes. For me, sleeping to 7:15am is pretty late (sad to say, but it is true).

But I feel rested. Finally.

This could have been us!

Amtrack train derails near Tacoma

I'm glad that no one got hurt in this accident, only 6 days after we went over the same tracks.

I bet that there are going to be delays from this one. But Amtrak won't be that concerned; they don't guarantee on time performance.

I overheard an attendant telling another passenger that "your guess is as good as mine" when asked about delays. How do you think that would go over?

Imagine, if you will, the moments immediately after the derailment.

Passenger picking themselves up off the floor, "What was that giant crash? Why is our car tilting to the side?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

No more trains for us.

My very earnest mother just served us nine....

CNN.com - Pluto gets the boot - Aug 24, 2006

Tears in the fabric of reality. Now there are only 8 planets in the solar system?

What about the kids (and grown ups too)? How are they going to remember their names? The nemonic device no longer seems to work right. My very earnest mother just served us nine.....

Nine what? That doesn't make sense. We're going to need a new device to remember them.

What's next? Deciding violet isn't a color in the rainbow? Goodbye, Roy G. Biv!

Random thoughts and recent learnings

1. Excel is not a very good database. It is a great spreadsheet, though.
2. Caffeine makes the world go round.
3. When iTunes adds Podcasts to your iPod, it plays them in the order they were downloaded. This can be problematic when you are catching up on podcasts after being gone for a week, or longer.
4. iTunes doesn't share network connections with itself, so I had to manually download several podcasts (see above).

Oh, and evidently because I've migrated to the beta version of blogger (more integration with Google Accounts), comments can be made by beta version users, "Other" or "Anonymous." Old skool blogger accounts might have an issue with making comments. I apologize for the difficulty - so migrate to the beta!

Taking Amtrak

Last week, I had a business meeting in Oakland and we made a family vacation out of it. There are three new babies in my wife's family, so we took this opportunity to see them. To keep costs down, we took Amtrak. Boy, was that an adventure. And I think something that we won't repeat.

Going there

Our train was scheduled to leave downtown Seattle at 9:45 am Friday morning. We made it out of the house with plenty of time to make it to the station. With out incident, we found the station and, with the help of a baggage cart, got all our luggage into the station. I parked the car in a local garage and we were good.

I went back to the station and tried to get our tickets from the ticket kiosk. No such luck. I had to stand in line and get them at the counter, evidently because of a coupon code we used. Heather was in the process of checking our bags and discovered that my bag was a few (maybe 10) pounds over the 50 pound limit. I dumped a bunch of my work shirts, pants and 3 shoes (not pairs, but shoes) in a box we were bringing and got under the limit.

As we got all our bags checked, they announced that "due to a service interuption, service to Portland will be by bus." It turns out that the train never made it to Seattle. Not a good sign - I was planning on being on several conference calls after we boarded the train and working on things I had to present at the meeting (I had heard that AC power was plentiful). The bus was the bus, but I used up most of my laptop's battery and my bluetooth headset started to die.

A few hours later, we got into Portland and waited for the train there. As it got closer to the the scheduled departure, two lines formed in front of the door to the tracks. As departure time arrived, two train employees came to a desk on one side and meekly said, "Please form one line." Kind of hard to do once you've got over 100 people and luggage already in two lines. Then they assigned people to cars, by hand! Once we got to the assigned car, another attendant assigned us seats, again by hand. We were given a hand written 3x5 card showing our seat numbers. Because it was all by hand, it was a slow process.

Once we got on the train and settled in our seats, another attendant came by and re-wrote the seat card with our destination and how many seats in each row were occupied. It threw the attendant for a loop, because the seat numbers we were assigned got tucked underneath something and she had trouble grasping that there were 5 of us. Once we got that sorted out, I discovered that there was not plentiful AC power.

The kids were generally happy on the train - not the novelty of the train, but the fact that they could get up and wander around and that the seats were spacious.

My phone eventually died as did my laptop. The lady who "had" the AC outlet had recently broken her foot, so I went to the lounge car and picked up some food for her, and this formed enough of a relationship that I was able to drap my phone charger and then my laptop power supply over her chair and into our row.

As I worked off and on and into the night, I eventually fell asleep and woke up with the same freight train next to us. Eventually, I learned that we went nowhere during the night and were stuck behind a broken down freight train. After sitting there for several hours, we headed out.

We made it to Emeryville at just before 5 pm, 9 hours late. When getting our checked baggage back, the box (with the shirts and gifts for new babies) wasn't to be found. While Heather was taking care of that, I walked over to Avis and found that it closed at 1:30 pm (shorter hours on a Saturday). We were supposed to be there at 8 am, so it shouldn't have been a problem.

Amtrak called us a taxi to take us to our hotel and told us that we could work with customer service to be reimbursed for it, but that we should wait until the end of the trip, in case there were any more delays and additional costs.

The train delay also caused us to miss the scheduled family events on Saturday, which kind of sucked.

On Wednesday, I called Amtrak to see about upgrading to a sleeper car for more privacy and AC power. It would have cost an additional $700, over twice what we had already paid for our tickets. The kind lady also told me to expect up to 4 hour delays on our return trip. So, instead of an 11 pm arrival, we were looking at a 1 am arrival. I wasn't looking forward to that.

Going Home
We had to return our rental by 6 pm and our train wasn't until 10:12 pm, so we had some time to kill in Emeryville. We checked our bags, returned the car and walked over to Bay Street. There, we ate dinner and saw Monster House. The kids liked it and it was a great way to kill time. We walked back to the train station and only had about an hour to wait for the train.

The return train ride didn't seem so shocking, maybe because our expectations were already low. We did have to stop in Klamath Falls for about three hours, so we got off the train and wandered around. Klamath Falls has a nice county museum with interesting tidbits of local history. It looks like it was based upon people's collections - geology, Native American history, local politics, the Japanese internment and World War II (I didn't know that the Japanese used ballon bombs and repeatedly bombed the west coast).

It also turns out that the parts that were in the night and on the bus (for us) on the south bound trip were very pretty. It was nice to see parts of the North West and California off the interstates.

We got back to Seattle some time before 2 am (it kind of didn't matter anymore) and headed home. It was nice to finally sleep 1) flat on my back and 2) in my own bed.

Benefits of taking Amtrak

1. Very large and spacious seats - larger than first class on an airplane
2. Low cost - what we paid for train tickets would have only gotten two of us there on a plane
3. You can get up and walk around - there was an observation car, a lounge car, a dining car a kid's play area...

Disadvantages of taking Amtrak

1. Very slow - driving is faster
2. They are always late - 4 hour delays appear to be the norm and our experience showed that up to 9 is possible.
3. They will substitute a bus for a train - it sucked to be the guy going from Seattle to Portland and was looking forward to his first trip on the train and got the bus instead

For us, these disadvantages outweighed the benefits. I can see it being great for retired people with lots of time to travel and see the sights. We won't be doing that again.

Trends I've noticed

Using Google Analytics, I've begun to see some trends in how my blog attracts readers.

1. I have a dedicated readership (most of my readers are returning readers). Thank you!
   
2. They are spread throughout the US
3. When I post something, I get more visitors and page views

So, just to give you a teaser of what is to come, we are all travelling right now and we took the Amtrak train. And it was quite an adventure.

For me, this is a work trip, and I really haven't had much of a chance to blog. So, I hope you'll accept this and wait for the whole story.

My house is for sale

Okay, it is an alarmist title, but it brought you here. Our old house is for sale.

Redfin - Property Details for 5047 BRONCO CT

It is being sold at a loss and the photos in the listing are the photos we listed the house with. That is our patio set in the backyard pictures and it is in Washington right now. I wonder if there are any rights to the images that the our agent would hold. I wonder if the yard still looks like it does in the picture. I bet it doesn't.
Reviewing the listing, you'll note that the washer, dryer and refrigerator are all going with the seller. We left all of those in the house. Hmm. Maybe that is how she is going to make up her $20,000 loss. Nah, they were nice appliances, but not that great.

On a side note, Redfin is a very cool realtor site. It has a map interface (I think Microsoft's mapping solution) that highlights listings that meet your search criteria. That is the way I like to search now that map data is readily available on the internet. It is only limited to the Seattle area and the Bay Area, but those are the areas I'm most interested in.

Gonna party like it's your birthday.

My wife Heather's (as opposed to my other wives?) birthday was this weekend and after years upon years of her guessing what was going to happen, I was successful in keeping it a secret. Maybe it was just years and years of making her think all my plans were transparent and then flipping it.

We started out my going to the Herbfarm in Woodinville for dinner, just the two of us. Now, that is a dining experience - Garden Tour (and cute pigs) before hand, menu and wine pairing presentation by the Chef and Sommelier. They grow many of their own ingredients and everything that the purchase is all locally produced, sustainably farmed and really, really good. The theme for the night was basil and the tomato aspic and essence of corn soup were super. All told, it was a 5 hour experience. And a very nice one at that.

On the drive there, Heather kept trying to guess where we were going. Somehow, she came up with dinner at a winery (close) and a Morrissey concert (since we were kid free for the evening). Speaking of kid free, one of our friends watched the kids for us (that was a nice birthday gift in itself) as our regular babysitters were unavailable.

It was late when we got back home, so we went to bed.

The next morning, Alec and I headed out to the store and got some locally purchased berries and flowers (from the closest grocery store, a QFC) and made madelines and berries for breakfast.

We then went on a picnic lunch at Lake Sammamish State Park and went paddle boating. Okay, she did guess that one when we drove into the park (damn that sign!). Paddle boats are fun, but boy are they an inefficient boat. With five people in them, wakes from big boats and the current (and probably the wind, too), it was some work getting that boat around.

We then went to Borracchini's Bakery (read about it in Roger's blog) and had a few of Heather's friends meet us there. While this was a surprise (and telling one kid part of the events and another kid other parts, helped spread disinformation and doubt), I did have to spill the beans because there are only so many surprises I can get away with. Also the fact that both of our butts were wet from the paddle boat didn't help make us any more presentable.

That was enough surprises for the day and while I had thought about going out to dinner someplace in Seattle, since we were already there, she (and I) were ready to go home and just take it easy.

When we got home, we watched a French movie, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, which was pretty good and had the typically French (non-Hollywood) not so happy ending. There are some twists and turns (no plot spoilers) that take the viewer for a bit of a ride, but it was creepily enjoyable.

Happy Birthday Heather!!!

Talk about hot boxing!

Baking cookies in your car, can you belive that!
N.H. Woman Bakes Cookies on Dashboard
That has got to be the best smelling car after baking them.

So, that really won't work here in the NW - we've been having great weather. Now there is a reason to complain about it cooling off, no cookies in your car.

Restoring faith in mankind

Tuesday night, neither Heather nor I felt like doing anything for dinner and it kept getting later and later. At 9:10 pm, I presented Heather with some Chinese take out menus and started to place an order. The lady taking the order warned me that they closed at 9:30 and if I wanted to order, I'd have to be there to pick it up in 10 minutes.

So, while still placing the order, I slipped on my shoes and headed out the door. It wasn't a big deal; the restaurant is only 6 minutes from our house and it was one more opportunity to get out and drive my MINI.

I got there and had sometime to chat with the hostess. She said that this restaurant posts a 9:30 closing, which means (at least from their point of view) that they leave at 9:30. That's a little different from most other restaurants. She was also impressed by the fact that I really was there inside 10 minutes. She said that most people don't actually make it on time when they are closing. She said that it was nice and it started "restoring her faith in mankind."

I don't know if my punctuality has faith restorative powers, but if you are telling me dinner is ready in 10 minutes, I'll be there.

No eels in my ice cream

Check out this article - it does require free registration with the NY Times.

Creamy, Healthier Ice Cream? What

Can you believe that? Protein cloned from the blood of an eel-like Arctic Ocean fish, the ocean pout. Not in Dreyer's Ice Cream. Not in my ice cream.

The ice cream I make at home is all natural stuff. That I buy from Safeway.

I really like Slow Churned Ice Cream. It is rich and creamy and delicious.

Does this need a fine print disclaimer?

My muse

Heather has become my food muse. She suggested making Lime and Mint sorbet, to be the foundation of a mojito sorbet.

And it is good.

The sorbet took a long time to freeze up - I think I might not have cooled the simple syrup enough - it was about 45 degrees. Evidently, that wasn't enough.

I'm just waiting for her next casual idea.

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.