Good things

Good things come from Livermore (like my wife) but Wente Sparkling Wine is not one of them. It does make for a good mixer (try a French 75 or a Kir Royale).

End of the year hike

Just recently, I spent my REI dividend and purchased a couple of guidebooks for camping and hiking in Washington, and on New Year’s Eve, we went for a hike in the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park.  It was really convenient, less than 30 minutes from our house.
We stopped for white gas, soup and a topo map on the way there.  We got soup and fuel, but no map.  The guidebook said that there were trail maps, so I hoped for the best and just went with it.
We hiked from the Red Town Trailhead up to the Coal Creek Falls and then back again.  The weather wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either.  The skies were cloudy (contributing to dark photographs) and the temperature was about 45 degrees.  It sprinkled on us off an on and the puddles on the trail kept the kids happy.
We started out on the Red Town and Cave Hole Trails, both of which had the elevation gain at the beginning of the hike.  Since we were diverging from the “Easy” trail in the guidebook, I had a little concern that the kids might get too tired from the start.
We stopped for lunch a little past the Coal Creek Falls.  Since it was in the depths of winter (winter in the North West, that is) I brought my backpacking stove to make a hot soup lunch.  Since it was a little cold, the hot soup and hot cocoa were nice and reinvigorating.
After lunch we headed back, by way of the Quarry Trail back to the Red Town Trail.  There is a meadow that is being restored and the way it was described with the native flowers, it would be very pretty once it comes into bloom.
All in all, we hiked about 2.65 miles in about 3 hours, including our stop for lunch.
The park was really nice and there are many more trails that I hope we can explore.  Before next time, I’ll buy the topo map of the “Issaquah Alps” so I have a better map.  The kids all had fun, so it will be something we do again.  Our proximity to the outdoors is something that I really like about living here in Washington.

On the Battlefront

My son just bought Star Wars BattleFront with some of his Christmas money. I guess since they are on BattleFront II, the price was pretty low.
He is still on Christmas break and basically played it all day long. After I have gotten home and finished dinner and the dishes, we have been taking turns playing.
I have forgotten how much fun a good video game is to play. Every night since he has gotten it, time has flown by and I have had to make a concerted effort to ensure I go to bed in time to be able to get up for work (the kids are on vacation, but alas not me).
I really like the game - the game play seems realistic, tactics seem to work and the interface is pretty nice.
It also seems like a good way to spend time with my son, playing games together! Talk about quality father-son time!

Broken Arrows - the Movie

Check this movie out. It turns out that it is partially funded by Google. Evidently, the producer and the Google guys are good friends. Looks like an alright movie.
Yeah, I am a big fan of Google and things Google related, but I also like movies about hitmen and it looks like there is enough love story that my wife would enjoy the movie too!
Here is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about it as well.

Long time, no posting

It has been a while since I posted last (bar some quick mo-blogging) and have some updating to do.
Work Stuff
I’ve written that work has been up and down - it has been like a roller coaster.  I’d fallen behind on some key projects.  It was the kind of “behind” that would make me think twice about sitting down and reading a book on the weekend.  My team started a new status reporting process.  It was great – it helped me focus on the right things.
With the new-found focus, I actually made some headway on the projects that I was behind on.  I felt really good about where I was with them.
As the week before Christmas was winding to a close, I was feeling really good about the few days off.  No work to think about, I knew what I had to do when I got back – I was ready to relax for several days.  I finished up solving a problem that one of the plants was seeing – they were seeing a difference between our financial plan volume and the field forecast volume.  Unfortunately, it was due to an error that I made.  Everything I planned on doing that last day slipped out the door.  It really sucked and I lost sleep over it this Christmas weekend.
Cooking
All of us, the kids included, like Indian food.  I read a quick recipe for something Indian inspired, had most of the ingredients for, including homemade Garam Masala, so I tried it out. The food turned out just the way I wanted to, the color was right, the taste was right, it was perfect!  Heather and the kids were really hungry when they got home and they loved it.  This also happened on the same day that I made the great headway on the two projects.  It was a great day and I wasn’t sure which was better, my great day at work or the reaction to my cooking.
I’ve tried all kinds of new things recently.  I really like things with mint and during the holiday season, Peppermint Bark is prevalent.  So, I tried to make some (no recipe) and it came out pretty good.
My mom sent me a recipe for Truffles, which I really like.  I’ve never made them before and I gave it ago. Chocolate and raspberry go well together, so I bought some Chambord at the state run liquor store.  I made Chambord truffles, Kahlua truffles, mint truffles and plain chocolate truffles.  I ended up with a bunch of them and we gave them to the neighbors.
Heather found a Prime Rib dinner recipe on Martha Stewart.com.  I’ve never cooked a prime rib before nor have I made Yorkshire puddings (something else I really like).  I bought the prime rib at a local butcher, Fischer Brothers Meats.  It was one of the coolest stores I’d been in.  As I walked in, I was enveloped in the smell of smoked meats.  They had smoked salmon and beef jerky – and that was just where the line ended.  The serving line followed the meat counter and every step along the way there was more excellent meat.  I had to wait while they cut me some short ribs and I saw breakfast sausage.  Heather like that more than bacon with a nice breakfast so I decided to buy bought that too.  Then I saw the slabs of bacon – they would cut it to order for you!  It was a dangerous place to be. Recognizing that, I left with what I came to buy (the prime rib and short ribs) and the impulse purchased breakfast sausage.
Christmas
The kids woke us up at 7 am Christmas morning and the power promptly went out.  I’d like to think that across the state, other kids were waking up their families and turning on all the Christmas lights, which caused a power drain.  We pulled out candles and drove on.  About 9 am, the lights came back on, so we finally got our Christmas morning coffee.
Monday was a company holiday and I played chess with Alec, Go Fish with all the kids and went for a walk again.  Even though I had to work some, it was a very nice couple of days.

Sushi, stress & sunglasses

Things are good!

My sushi leftovers didn't kill me!

The last few days in the Northwest have been clear and this morning I had wear my sunglasses, the sun was so bright.

I'm looking forward to this weekend as work has been stressful and I've fallen behind. We've reset some priorities and that has been helpful. It will be nice to relieve some stress this weekend.

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This was from a mobile posting at my kids' swim practice. I apologize if you read this in it's incomplete form.

Living on the edge

For lunch today, I had leftovers from yesterday's lunch. That in itself is not unusual. However, yesterday's lunch was sushi.
It was boxed up and refrigerated very quickly, but it is still raw fish, and now day old raw fish.
It was still tasty.
If this should be my last posting, learn from the error of my ways.
Good day.

Turkey Sandwiches

I really like Turkey Sandwiches after Thanksgiving.  I think a lot of it has to do with the way I make them and the memories associated with that.  I make my Turkey Sandwiches the same way my Grandma did.
You start with one piece of Wonder Bread (and only Wonder Bread), with butter and another with mayonnaise.  The butter side gets cranberry sauce and the mayo side gets the Turkey and a piece of lettuce is placed between the two sides.
How do you like Turkey Sandwiches?

Opposable Thumbs

I quite like my thumb and truly realize why we are better than monkeys and apes because we have an opposable thumb. In order to help my wife make the mushroom gravy, I was finely chopping 12 shallots. About mid-way though the 12, I chopped my left thumb, right across the thumbnail and side of my thumb. I yelled some expletives (some I didn't even remember saying, Heather has since informed me), applied direct pressure and went to bandage myself up.
A quick wrap with gauze and a secure taping (entirely covering it, which is hard to do with only one hand) and I was back to chopping shallots. Well, I did wash the knife first.
Having my thumb all wrapped up made it more challenging to continue chopping, pick things up and open containers. Imagine my chagrin when I realized how important my left thumb was to unbuttoning my pants when I had to go to the bathroom. I've also learned that my left thumb is important to the way I tie my shoe laces (I end up wrapping one of the loops around my left thumb in order to tie them tightly). I almost asked my 6 year old daughter to tie my shoes for me.
I've also wondered how many emergency room visits occur on these big cooking holidays for sliced fingers.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and keep your thumbs out from underneath your knives. Especially if they are recently sharpened!

Kids these days

I am writing this from the Fall City library and it is funny. The same reason that I am here brings several of the youth of Fall City - the internet connected computers. Today, I went on a MINI road trip and the end destination was Fall City to meet my family for an event at the library.

As I got here early and needed to do some work, I just went in to the library, logged in and went to work. But there were also a bunch of kids here, ostensibly doing homework.

But they too, were drawn to the computers. Instant messaging was providing them a great deal of entertainment and chatting about who had asked who out and who grabbed who's butt. They were fooling around, laughing, knocking each other's heads together.

As I was sitting here watching kids be kids, all I could think of was how this would drive my mom crazy.

You are a hero until you drop the F bomb at the dinner table

Today I went to lunch with a high school friend of mine, Captain Dave Carrico. He just returned from being deployed for a year in Iraq. It was great to catch up with him, hear about his experiences in Iraq and just get another person's out look on life in general. We just chatted for about a two hours over lunch at a pizza place south of Fort Lewis. It was really cool.
The military has changed so much since I have gotten out, but at the same time, so much has stayed the same. They are making such great use of technology to keep American son's and daughter's alive. But no matter what, it still requires soldiers on the ground in order to accomplish the mission.
It strange listening to him talk - his speech patterns were so military and he was ending his period of active duty to go back to a cubicle in some tech company. Things that are so commonplace in the military (ending phone calls with "Out", the F bomb as an adjective, the 24 hour clock) that aren't used in the civilian world were a now a part of Dave. In fact, the title of this posting comes from some briefing they got in order to help them come back to the civilian work place.
After lunch, I dropped him back off at his afternoon out processing station. One more day and he'll be back on his way to the Bay Area.
I'm glad that he made it back safely and that his unit didn't lose anyone when they were over there. Citizen-soldiers like him make the world a better place for all of us.

Colors of San Francisco

Two weekends ago, I was in San Francisco for a friend's wedding. Sunday morning I walked around North Beach, the Financial District and the Embarcadero and took some pictures.
The day was perfectly clear with a blue sky - impressive for the end of October. Everything was light so nicely and the colors just stood out.
I've just signed up for a flickr account, so check out some of my photos!

Installing a microwave

This weekend, I installed a microwave. Wow, you think, I took a microwave out of a box and slipped it into a cut out in a cabinet. Well, it was not a simple task. Firstly, I failed to measure the depth of the cabinet. The microwave we chose was about ¾” too deep. After a few calls, I got some guidance to cut the wall board in the back of the cabinet to make the cabinet deeper.
The wallboard was quick and easy to cut, so I slipped the microwave into the opening, drilled the pilot holes and screwed it in. There was a bracket that was supposed to go in, over the top of the microwave and across the opening. Well, again, a failure to measure, the opening was 1-1/4” too narrow. Now, it was wide enough to fit the microwave, but it needs more space for ventilation. That called for removing the microwave and some more trimming.
I carefully measured (and re-measured this time) because I would be cutting the cabinet facing. I marked it and drilled holes at the corners and started cutting. I haven’t mentioned yet that we have oak cabinets and I was cutting by hand. Each cut was only about 16” long, but cutting oak by hand isn’t exactly the most fun thing. I was also using my keyhole saw because of the small cut I was making.
I put the microwave in again and finished it all up.
What I didn’t share at the beginning was that a week ago, I discovered the fact that it was too deep for the cabinet. So, in the course of installing this microwave, I put it in the cabinet about 8 times.

iTunes and Videos

Part II of Digital Living
I am on a trip this weekend; I’ve gone to San Francisco to go to a friend’s wedding. Because I was out of town so much recently, I haven’t caught up on watching the few TV shows that I am interested in. I remembered that I wanted to transfer the last episode of Lost from my Tivo just before I left.
Tivo To Go transfers are pretty slow; they take longer than the show to transfer and I didn’t start my Lost transfer in time, and at the quality we are recording them, an hour show takes 1.8 GB. I don’t have that much disk space on my laptop right now. So, when I got to my hotel, I purchased the particular episode from the new iTunes Music store. It only cost $1.99 and was only 143 MB.
While it easily fit on my disk, it wasn’t optimized for full screen viewing. When watching it in full screen, I would get that large pixilation effect and sometimes a stutter. When I watched it at double size (about 4x6), it ran very smoothly. Now, it wasn’t the greatest, but it balanced file size and picture size. I’m glad that I was able to watch that episode.
I continue to be amazed by the way that the digital world changes the way we live.

Buying groceries online

Living on-line has gone one step further for my family. This week, I purchased groceries on-line from Safeway.com. I have wanted to do it for a while, but this week the conditions were just right for it.
Work has been pretty hectic, the previous weeks were pretty rough and they culminated with a week long meeting at the company headquarters. I got back from this meeting and all I wanted to do was catch up on sleep, but we had things that we had to do. And there wasn’t time for shopping for groceries.
It was pretty cool. I was able to type in my shopping list, in my terms and it did a pre-search and returned results for each of my items. I could then refine those results and pick the item I was looking for.
Most of the items had pictures, so I could validate that they were the right one with what I would pick off the shelf. I was able to find everything I was looking for and it didn’t take too long (only about 20 minutes). Now, if you were just browsing, it would take a while – it works best if you know what you are looking for.
I selected a delivery time and waited. It was kind of exciting waiting for my delivery. I had ordered some frosting for some really good pumpkin muffins that my wife made and that helped build the excitement.
The delivery was a little late, because the maps of my neighborhood show a road that doesn’t go through as connecting. There were 3 items that they were out of stock on and my frozen things were still frozen (much more frozen than had I driven them home). I only got 3 produce items (1 orange, a bunch of cilantro and some shallots – none which really require “picking”).
I only have two complaints, both of which are really my fault. The first was the cilantro was bagged and tied shut. Four days later, still closed up, it started to get slimy. My fault for not taking it out of the bag. There was another item that I just picked the wrong size on. Again, my fault for not reading better.
Buying groceries on line will probably be something we do more of with all the activities that we are involved in. I really enjoy cooking, I find it very relaxing, and not having to get groceries will free up more time for cooking, among other things!
Your first delivery is free and they have a tiered pricing plan. Delivery for purchases over $150 is free, a four hour delivery window is $5.99 and a two hour delivery window is $9.99. Check it out!

Chip

I'm a little bummed. On the way to the airport today I got a chip in my MINI's windshield. I guess that it is bound to happen. Bummer.

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

G unit

I wonder if everything costs 50 cent?

The Seattle Times: Local News: Crash victim's insurer should have a heart

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2002560033_danny14.html

After reading this article, there are a few things that come to mind:
1. I thought that occurrences like this were why we have insurance.
2. I do agree that her insurance company should pay out.
3. I hope that my insurance coverage isn't like this.

Why we need wi-fi

I lead a training session at work last week. What a tangled mess of wires. See why wi-fi is such a great technology ? More and more collaboration is key in the workplace and wi-fi can help!

Too much fun for one day

This morning, the whole family ran in the Issaquah Rotary Run at the Salmon Days Fair. Parker wanted to run in the 5K, but was then too tired to run in the Kids 1K.

Later in the day, the Alec and Chase went across the street to play and he wanted to do something. Parker and I went to Krispy Kreme and got a donut. By the time we got home...