On the Olympic Peninsula

Made a last-minute decision to get a car & drive out to the Olympic Peninsula on Saturday. Sure is pretty--and I love that we can make a last-minute decision to do something like this! (And that we can come home to a big town with things like taco trucks...)

Anyway, didn't have a ton of time out there, but we did a nice little hike to see Sol Duc Falls, pictured above. Can you see me? I'm the thing in the black sweatshirt by the fence. (Nice photo, Emily!)


Just a quick photo log, then, of our 1.5 day vacation:

Had to wait for the ferry. Good time to make phone calls.



Traffic


Nice day for a boat ride


Spent the night in Port Townsend, a super cute little town.




And although deer are everywhere, this one was particularly close to the sidewalk...


E's photo


Crazy fun little store there: Groceries and Jewelry. And wine and beer. And lots of Japanese snacks and candies. And Operation fruit-flavored snacks?


We stayed in the Palace Hotel, which was cool, though our last-minute approach kept us out of the prettier rooms with the high ceilings and all that...

Next day we did a lot of driving and a little hiking (?) in Olympic National Park:



This lowland forest is right up against where the rain forest starts. That's a longer drive, but we bought an annual pass to every national park and federal recreation area (!), so we're planning to go back soon.

More photos at Sol Duc Falls:


Here's the picture I was working on when Emily took the one up top:


Didn't want to overdo it with pictures here, but if you want, there's a few more in a set on Flickr.

Okay. Vacation's over; Monday morning. Back to work.
Cheers.

Brilliant

What an incredible career. An unfortunate end, but a real gift to the world.

Loved the guy at the Indian restaurant down the street telling me about how big MJ is in rural Nepal...

And this piece from an Iraq war vet talking about MJ in Baghdad is excellent.

More videos? Okay!

ABC:


dance moves:


Had another clip up, but was unsure about the montage approach, and just read an appraisal that raised further misgivings...

Anyway, more videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/michaeljackson

Oh the memories.

Via the Times.

I guess copyright and such prohibits my putting it here, but if you want to watch the extended version of the Thriller video, it's on YouTube.

Another good one: Rock With You.

---

And as I mentioned on Twitter earlier, Hulu has all of season one of Charlie's Angels, so that's a nice option...
Times (of course) has a nice write-up too.

Man, this seems like a lot to think about for one day, let alone one blog post.

Updates: Relay Team, Knickers, Flowers

Don't you just love farmers market season? Mmm.

Anyway, grabbed some relay photos from facebook (thanks, Jon):

Ben & Nick


Emily


Sara

There's also an official picture of Jon at the finish line.

Speaking of official things, turns out that they were keeping track (?), and they say that my favorite team came in 5th! Woo!



Does this shot of the knickers work for you?

We rode out to Redhook again--didn't really plan on it, but it was such a nice day, you know?

Tried to get a good action shot of Emily, and I'd say I came close...


And how about these flowers? Still looking good after almost two weeks!


Happy Tuesday, reader!

Flowers and Such

As those of you who've befriended Emily on Facebook or Twitter know, she got these flowers the other day:

From Flowers on 15th, which is local, so that mostly makes up for the odd website (if you sell pretty things, shouldn't your site be pretty?) and the odd phone call ("Send them to Providence Archives"
"what's an archive?")

Good flowers, though.
Side view:



In other Emily news, she ran in a briefcase relay with some friends. And they came in 7th out of like 40+ teams! (We think: no official record.) Still hoping I'll get pictures (didn't get any good ones myself) of them dressed in "business wear" for the race...

But she also ran the 5k, as you can see here. And as you can see from the official results, she's improved since we ran that 5k last fall.

Way to go Emily!

[Update 15:51]
Team photo!

Emily, Nick, Ben, Sara, Jon

No "business wear" shots yet, but maybe soon?

In other running news, the seniors at Seattle U streak every spring, and apparently my office window had the best view:

Huh.


In unrelated news, we tried some St-Germain on Uncle Vinny's recommendation:

Verdict: yum! Tastes like flowers! (In a good way.)

Okay, back to grading.

At least it's nice out, so I can grade in the park.

Happy Sunday, reader.

Strings and Screens and Greens and More

Spent our night Saturday with some friends in Fremont. They decided to host a "salon" at their house:
"An evening to hear about what we all do during the day. A semi-formal presentation by two of our peers on their day job, intense hobby or a combination of both. Hopefully educational as well as intriguing: a chance to learn as well as listen."

Ethan Thompson, a PhD student at the U of Washington talked about string theory (um, yeah).


And John Snavely talked about his job "envisioning the future" (?) for Microsoft. Also showed this video:

Somewhere in between cool, unrealistic, and a little scary, no? But how cool is that phone that projects an arrow on the floor to give you directions?


In other news, some ROTC kids repelled down the side of my building last week:

[Some overlap with Twitter here--apologies to any of you who object to cross-posting.]


And I bought some "bicycle knickers":


I had a salad the other day:

Endive, apples, walnuts, and goat cheese--delicious!

And we saw Neko Case, who was absolutely amazing.

No shots of the show, but here I am waiting excitedly...

Speaking of excitement, I have some full days of grading and Spanish lessons coming up, so I'll say goodbye for now.
Cheers, reader.

Yes Yes Yes: You'll Like Glee

Did you catch the pilot of Glee recently? We loved it. (Watched it twice, truth be told.)
Too bad we have to wait for fall for any more episodes.

But in the meantime, I've cued the full episode to one of the great musical numbers, which Alessandra Stanley described in the Times as follows:

One of the funnier scenes has Will taking his troupe to hear the reigning champions and get a look at the competition. They are dumbfounded by what they find at a nearby school: a razzle-dazzle Broadway-style song-and-dance number to Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.” That scene is lifted from “Bring It On,” but it’s the mismatch of choreography and song that makes it funny.

The Longest Bike Ride Ever

...at least for us.

Rode out to Woodinville. 20 miles one way! Here's a map:

View redhook ride in a larger map

And when we got there? Dinner at Red Hook Brewery.

Here's the photo Emily's looking at in the photo on the map:


Speaking of Emily, she was just named Chair of the Seattle Area Archivists. Huzzah!

Oh, and here she is with a large pine cone:


Cheers!