Christmas, 2005

For Christmas this year, I did something I had never done before: spend the holiday apart from my family. Given that I had taken two trips to the east coast in the past two months, and hadn't really accrued any vacation time at my new job, I figured this might be a good time to experience Christmas in the Great Northwest, though it certainly would've been nice to share it with the fam. It turned out to be one of the mildest Christmases ever, with temps nearly reach 60 degrees (record highs for Seattle).

Fortunately, Tracy's family (also in Seattle) welcomed me warmly into their household for the weekend. And aside from the fact that we moved Christmas up by a day, it wasn't really so different from what I am used to. Whereas some families celebrate by everyone opening all at once, the Silberfeins and Tylees open only one at a time, with a captive audience. So, after about 2-3 hours of this, we had made it to the end, and spent the remainder of the day lounging around in pajamas, eating a wonderful meal featuring a roast and salmon, playing board games (Apples to Apples and Scene It!), and watching a movie (Love Actually). There were also 5 dogs (including one puppy) roaming around, reminding me of years past when we a golden retriever running around the house.

As with most other years, my family was very generous in their gift-giving. Among the gifts were flannel sheets, a garbage disposal, panniers for my bike, a GPS interface cable for my computer, a backup hard drive, and various clothes and books. Tracy got me an introductory flight lesson at a nearby flight school (very excited!), and the Tylees got me a Lowe's gift card. As always, I felt very included in their family, and am very grateful for having me over this weekend.

For lots of pictures from the weekend of dogs and people in pajamas, click here.

Snowshoe Holiday Party

About a month ago, I was in Second Ascent getting my bike tuned, and I saw a flyer for the Mt. Tahoma Trails Association (MTTA), a mostly volunteer-powered organization that operates a set of trails and 4 huts near Mt. Rainier. Each hut sleeps between 8 and 14 people, and is available for reservation at the low, low cost of $5/person (covering a permit fee). I thought this would make a great option for an alternative holiday party, with big common spaces and snowshoe-only access. So I called to check availability for December 17, the last weekend before Christmas. To my surprise, I was able to reserve the biggest hut, which slept 14. I then set out on the daunting task of finding 13 other brave and hearty souls to accompany me, knowing that I was pushing up against other Christmas parties, shopping, and prior travel plans. Eventually I reached out to friends of friends, and the day before we were to leave, I got my 14th confirmation.

The weekend-that-couldn't-arrive-soon-enough finally came, and the forecast was for bright sunny skies and brisk and windy conditions. For a few weeks now, high pressure has presided over western Washington, meaning little or no fresh snow in the mountains. Making matters worse, there was a recent temperature inversion, which meant warmer temps up high, melting some of the good early-season snow we had. No matter, if we had to hike, we'd hike.

We went up in four cars, three SUVs and Tracy's little Toyota. We made it almost to the parking lot (with chains), but slipped on the last leg and had to get a ride up in another car. One of these days I'll figure out how to make chains stay on the tires and actually help us! When we got ot the trailhead, there wasn't a whole lot of snow, and it was old, crunchy, and icy -- certainly not anything that made us want to break out our snowshoes. So we hiked the first two miles of the 4-mile jaunt before deciding that we might as well make use of our snowshoes after all. They weren't really necessary, but it was good to "break the ice" with my new set ;-)

The hike was relatively easy, and we made it up to the hut around 4pm. WOW. What an amazing setup. There were two floors, and the upstairs was filled with sleeping pads. The downstairs had a fully-stocked kitchen, some couches, a water filter, and a propane fireplace to keep the place toasty. This came in handy, as the winds outside picked up to about 40mph! The privy, unfortunately, was about 40 feet outside the front door, but at least it provided views of Mt. Rainier while you were inside. In fact, there were beautiful views in all directions, as the hut seemed to sit out on a ledge in the shadow of the big mountain.

Tracy prepared a splendid dinner for us, consisting of spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and italian bread. Afterward, we spent the rest of the evening socializing and playing games like Mafia and Apples to Apples. What a great crew I brought along! They were from different social circles, but you couldn't even tell. Besides Tracy and me, there were Kendell (Tracy's step-sister), Theresa (EPA) and her friend Joseph, Kim(EPA) and Chris (her boyfriend), Aimee(sailing friend) and her three friends Scott, Joe and Mark; John and Steph (friend of mine who I met through Liz) and their friend Abby. After most people had gone to bed, Chris and I ducked out for a midnight snowshoe jaunt under a full moon and starry sky. We noted several different animal prints, probably belonging to fox, wolf, rabbit, and any of various rodents.

The next morning, Theresa took the lead in the kitchen and prepared pancakes for everyone. We were all so happy with the accomodations that we didn't want to leave. Unfortunately, Tracy and I had to hurry back to get her to the airport for her residency interview in San Diego. Even so, the trip went off without a hitch, much to my suprrise. What a weekend!

To see all of the pictures from this weekend, click here.

Seahawks game

Today, Vince and I attended our first (for both of us) professional football game at Qwest Field, between the Seahawks and 49ers, courtesy of a Big Brother/Big Sister ticket donation. It was scheduled to be a blowout since the local team was 10-2 and the visitors were 2-10. It was exactly that, as the Seahawks coasted to a 41-3 victory. Even so, it was still a nice experience -- albeit a cold one -- since we seats quite close to the field and the game moved along a lot faster than it seems to on TV (the commercial breaks didn't seem as long). Will I go see another one? Probably not, unless someone gives me free tickets again. While it was nice to see the Seattle fans get excited about their team, I had no emotional attachment and started looking at my watch in the 3rd quarter. Vince definitely seemed to have a good time, which was more important.

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas

Today, I finally got my act together and purchased my first Christmas tree (yes, this is a big deal). Needless to say, there is no way I would ever get an artificial tree, especially when the there are at least three places to get a tree within a 5-block radius of my house. So, I enlisted Chong to accompany me to what normally is a farmer's market to pick out a beautiful-smelling grand fir. Actually, "grand" isn't really the proper adjective, since it's more a dwarf of a tree (probably only about 6 feet). I was hoping to leave some space in my living room for Goldie to run through, so I erred on the small side.

After a run over to Fred Meyer for a Christmas tree stand, some lights, and ornaments, I came home to decorate my new purchase. Though it certainly has its bare spots, I think it came out looking just fine!

Thanksgiving Weekend

This past weekend was the annual weekend of gluttony, and the food did not disappoint. Tracy and I headed to Boston on Wednesday to meet up with Devin and Tyson, and then we drove that night down to CT for 4 days.

Thursday morning we woke up to 5 fresh inches of snow (what a treat!). I relished the opportunity to shovel (read: get some exercise before the big meal), and get some fresh air. Dinner was served around 4pm, with Grandma, the two aunts, Uncle John, Devin, Tyson, Tracy, myself, and of course, Mom. The food was particularly good this year, highlighted by some juicy white meat turkey and potato-pumpkin soup. The rest of the menu included stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread, sweet potato casserole, salad and green beans. Dessert was the usual: apple crisp, apple pie, cranberry cobbler, and pecan pie. Needless to say, those were excellent as well.

Friday got off to a rough start. My wonderful cat of 19 years, Cuddles, was quite sick and needed to be taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, her body gave out on her and she had to be put down. So sad to see her go. Dinner at Rossini's and a night of Apples to Apples helped take my mind off of it.

On Saturday, after a day at the mall, Mom threw a surprise party at Brix, in Cheshire, to celebrate Cari's completion of her PhD program. Unfortunately, I had to cut out a bit early to attend my 10-year high school reunion, where it was nice to see some familiar faces and catch up with some old friends. People hadn't changed nearly as much as I was expecting, though many of the guys were a lot heavier and with a lot less hair :-).

On Sunday, Brooke, my niece, was baptised down at Trinity Church in New Haven, followed by a very tasty reception at the Sobolewskis in Cheshire. Again, I needed to leave early in order to head back to Boston to make our flight back to the Seattle. All in all, a hectic but very enjoyable weekend!

Throughout the weekend, I searched for some geocaches around Cheshire with Tracy. We were eventually able to find both of the ones we were looking for.

Click here for all the pictures from the weekend.

Home Improvements

This blog has been a long time coming, so forgive me for its out-of-dateness. As many of you know, I have been hard at work on a house project -- putting in a patio, along with a deck and a door out to it. I started the project back in late September by planning out the dimensions for my porch, and buying and cutting a bunch of wood. Perhaps stubbornly, I did as much of this project as possible with rental tools, namely a miter saw and a power drill. This added an additional level of logistics to the whole thing, but it in the end it all worked.

The deck turned out to be relatively straightforward. It could mostly be put together with a pen and paper, and then just hammering and nailing where you were suppsoed to. The door was a bigger challenge, and people warned me about this. It involved first taking out a wall (where there used to be a door), with a very odd tool called a sawzall, which is designed to cut *into* a surface. I also need to take out a window, which as I learned, was put in there very securely by the previous owners. Once I did all this, I went to put the door in, and wouldn't you know, it was the wrong size.

Now, I usually double check measurements on things, especially before taking a drastic measure such as cutting a whole in my house. However, this time I figured that at least two sets of QA eyes had checked it -- both at the factory and at Home Depot. Apparently not. Not only was it the wrong size, but it was too big, meaning I couldn't even fit it in the hole. So, for nine long and windy days, I left it on my new deck, outside the hole, while I put a tarp in the opening. Then, finally, Home Depot delivered the correct door. Getting this one in was no easy task, but eventually I got it in there, caulked, and operational. It still needs an exterior light, some molding, and a coat of paint, but the hard part is over. I'm almost ready to focus on the actual patio now!

Special thanks to Tracy for helping me through the door fiasco. This certainly wasn't a project for one person, and quite often it took both two minds and two sets of muscles to get it right. For more pictures, including before and after pics, click on this link.

A surprise for Tracy

November 13, 2005 was Tracy's 30th birthday. To celebrate the occasion, I teamed up with one of Tracy's friends from afar (Michelle, who lives in CT) to plan a suprise scavenger hunt that led to a party at Tracy's favorite restaurant. Not knowing any better, Tracy made things more difficult for me by basically spending the whole weekend in my presence, giving me very little time to work out the logistics or plant the clues, let alone have any face time with only Michelle, who was on the west coast this week.

Fear not, the event went off nearly flawlessly -- permit me to recap. I had sailing class from 9:00-1:00, so that left Tracy to meet up with Michelle at the ferry dock around 12:30. While the two were at lunch, Michelle slipped clue #1 to the waitress, who delivered to to Tracy. This pointed them to Rosita's where they met up with her friend Emily. Unfortunately, Adam didn't do his homework, and Rosita's didn't open until 4pm. So the crew moved over to Tacos Guayamos for a margarita. Emily then delivered the next clue, to drive over to my house to pick up a GPS and camera, as well as the next clue, which led them to my boat. Waiting for them in the boat were a bag of Cheetos (Tracy's favorite snack), and a clue that directed them to go to the locally famous Interurban statue in Fremont, where Tracy's family (minus Kate) were waiting. Kate is attending law school in Spokane, so it was with great surprise that she was waiting for Tracy at her next stop -- Zoka's Cafe. After having a coffee there, the next clue led them to REI, where Tracy was to pick up my birthday gift to her -- a new set of skis (she didn't know exactly what she was supposed to pick up, so it apparently took a little while).

While Tracy was doing the hunt, I was taking advantage of the mostly free afternoon to get the rest of the clues ready. I had picked up a sign at Fred Meyer, some flowers to place at Safeco Field, and her ice cream cake at Cold Stone in Fremont, and was heading down to Safeco Field to plant a clue when disaster struck. The Seahawks had a home game that was just getting out and I was pinned in traffic with an ice cream cake in my back seat. By this point, Tracy and Michelle were on their way from REI, so I needed to detour them...but to where? I called Marcy and suggested that I drop off the flowers/clue there instead, before hurrying over to Mt. Baker Rowing and Sailing Club to post the final clue, a "No Trespassing" sign. I was in traffic for so long that I actually needed to call Michelle to have them pull over. However, as with most things, everything worked out just fine. The ladies found their way to the Tylee house, and picked up the flowers and proceed to Mt. Baker, where they found the sign and a clue that pointed them to Tutta Bella.

At Tutta Bella we had a fine party waiting for them. 15 people in all, and a tasty meal followed by some (soft) ice cream cake. No worries, though. I think Tracy had a great time, and hey, maybe 30 ain't that bad after all! For all the pictures, follow this link.

Snowshoeing Stevens Pass

As promised, here is a recap of our snowshoeing adventure. Tracy, Janice, Goldie, and I were planning to go to an area off of highway 2 called Tonga Ridge, which began around 4,000 feet. It was supposed to be a great early season snowshoeing area, before the road got too snow-covered to be passable. Tracy's Corolla did a fine job until her low clearance became an impediment. Unfortunately, the early-season snow we've had prevented us from actually reaching the trailhead, and we had to park a few miles short of it. Good thing Tracy bought those chains before we went!

Conditions were ideal. The snow began as a light coating and quickly reached depths of a few feet. We weren't the only ones with this idea, as we saw 3 or 4 other snowshoeing parties and some snowmobilers as well. The weather started out cloudy, then it began snowing lightly before the sun came out. That ended pretty quickly, though, with the snow returning in earnest. Our hope was to find a geocache hidden at the trailhead parking lot, but after a modest effort, we were only able to get within 200 feet of it, and the snow was so deep it made finding the cache nearly impossible.

On our way back, Tracy had the brilliant idea of building a snowperson. Because the snow was very packable, it made it nice and easy to create big boulders, and before we knew it, we had our creation. Given the size of its hips, I decided to declare it a snowwoman, and we decorated it accordingly. All in all, we hiked about 3-4 miles round trip (Goldie hiked about 10-12), and it was hard work! This was my first trip with my new snowshoes, and they worked well for the most part. Guess we'll have to go again sometime soon (and maybe even spend the night in a snow cave or yurt).

If you would like to see all the pictures we took, click here.

Getting into a groove

Now I am three weeks into my new job, and I'm beginning to get into a rhythm. I've been trying to bike into work as much as possible -- it's about 10-15 minutes shorter than the bus -- but the recent rainy weather has made it difficult or unpleasant. The job continues to go quite well, as I've gotten to know the people at work better and they've gotten to know me. I definitely bring a different perspective to the table, and I think that's a good thing.

I've been making an attempt to keep politics out of this blog, but Tracy has encouraged me to post a link to this poltical spectrum questionnaire. Any guess where I came out? (hint: -4.50, -4.21). Elections results are in, and for those of you not in Seattle, our monorail was shot down (after being accepted 4 previous times), and Washington state is the newest smoking-free state, though most people concede that the 25-foot outdoor rule is a bit much. We also voted against repealing a 9-additional-cent gas tax, so here's to increased highway congestion!

For some funny stuff, I was forwarded several funny photos by a guy at work. Here are a couple (entitled "Not My Job" and "Not Right Now, Kid"). If you'd like to see more of them, follow this link to the first one, and just keep hitting Next.

Not really much else new to report here. Tracy's turning 30 this weekend, so I'm sure that'll be a stressful time for her. We went out with her parents tonight for a very nice steak dinner, where Tracy and I shared a 40-oz. porterhouse, mainly to see what such a big piece of meat looked like.

I promise to post my home improvement projects progress in the next few days. I've been diligent about taking lots of pictures, so hopefully y'all will be as impressed as I was that things actually worked out (for the most part). Tomorrow Tracy and I are going snowshoeing with Goldie and another friend, so you just might have to put up with more outdoorsy pictures in the meantime!

Lunch on Bainbridge, and Mt. Si

This weekend I treated myself to two of my favorite activities: sailing and hiking. Oh, and I managed to attend two Halloween parties on Saturday night.

Saturday, I invited my friends Holly and Adam B. (and his friend) on L'attitude for a trip over to Bainbridge Island for lunch on the waterfront. After striking out at a Thai restaurant (which for some reason closed for 30 minutes in between lunch and dinner...just our luck!) we we over to The Public House, which was basically an organic pub. The food was delicious, and the sailing was just as good. I made it back in time to go to my former roommate Jonathan's Halloween party in Magnolia. He and his girlfriend Laura went all out in their decorations, including a full-fledged haunted house in the basement with motion-sensing props. Most impressive!

Sunday I was hoping to go sailing with a different set of friends, but nobody was able to commit, and so Tracy, Goldie, and I decided to summit nearby Mt. Si instead. We got a late jump on it, so it was a race against time (which was an hour shorter due to daylight savings ending). Needless to say, there was a "chance of rain", but it stayed dry the whole time, and we were even treated to some grand views from the 4,000 ft. peak. We hurried down, but still didn't make it before it got dark, and we had forgotten to bring headlamps. Lack of daylight savings takes some getting used to, I guess!

The new job, including a trip to the zoo

Another post, by popular demand...

I started my new job this week at a company called Groundspeak (see link to geocaching.com in an earlier post), and it's been a very fun ride so far. The company is made up of only 11 people, but they've been fabulous to me. It very much has the feel of startup, with hardworking people often engaging in complete randomness. Video games are a popular topic of conversation, though as you might expect, I get rather quiet when this topic comes up.

This morning, instead of going to the office to work, I went to the Woodland Park Zoo on a work assignment. My goal was to map out various zones (and other interesting points) on my GPS, for use on a top-secret project. So, there I am at 10:00am on a workday with all the stay-at-home moms and their toddlers, plus a field trip here and there. It was supposed to rain, but turned out to be mostly sunny and quite windy (par for the course for Seattle forecasters!). Unfortunately, I didn't have too much time to be a regular sightseer, and instead spent most of my trip focused on the GPS. Mission accomplished! I think I could get used to this job...

Port Townsend by boat

This past weekend, four friends (Terry, Heike, Aimee, and Chris) and I decided to sail up to Port Townsend, a quaint artsy town about 30 miles NW of Seattle. We set out Saturday morning for an anticipated 8-hour trip up to PT, with plans on getting back on Sunday evening. The wind and weather forecast was not particularly favorable for sailing, with light wind on Saturday and showers on Sunday, but that didn't stop us.

On the trip up, we managed, to actually sail for about two hours before having to turn the engine on for the rest of the way. Fortunately, we didn't experience any rain, though we heard that there were severe thunderstorms in Seattle. We arrived at Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend around 6pm. After a lovely venison burger for dinner and some pool at a local brewpub, we headed back to the boat for a good night's sleep. Overnight, the wind picked up and howled through the marina.

The next morning we woke to 20-25 mph winds and showery conditions. It also happened to be the Port Townsend Kinetic Festival. What is this, you might ask? Apparently it is a 7-mile race over both land and water for homemade, "perpetual motion", self-powered vehicles. The entries were varied and unusual looking. People definitely got creative with their engineering, and pictures don't really do it justice. Unfortunately, though, in order to make it back to Seattle against a strong wind, we couldn't watch the race (though we pitied the poor people who had to contend with tall waves, whitecaps, and cool temperatures).

We launced around 1pm in very heavy wind and almost immediately got turned to a different route due to impassible waves and strong winds. We ended up motoring for a few hours before daring to open up the sails, and once we did, we made little forward progress in the challenging conditions. Rains and wind squalls came and went, as we seemed to be right on the edge of the front. The bow was getting hammered by the waves, and sea spray often made it back into the cockpit. To the west, the sun was setting beautifully, but in all other directions, ominous clouds loomed overhead. At 7pm, without about 15 miles left to go, we decided to turn on the motor for the remaining 3+ hours back to the dock. Fortunately, the wind and waves calmed down, and we were treated to a starry night toward the end.

For more pictures from this trip, click here

Backbacking Mt. Baker

This past weekend, Tracy and I spent a few days backbacking on Mt. Baker. For those of you not familiar with this mountain, it is the second tallest mountain in the state, at about 10,800 feet, up near the Canadian border and North Cascades National Park. Like its more famous sibling Rainier, it is an active volcano, waiting to blow its top at any moment.

The trail we hiked was called the Skyline Divide, and it was a ridge trail, meaning steep drops on both sides and few (if any) water sources. It was only a 2-3 hour hike according to the book, but because there was an established site for camping near the top, and because the weather was spectacular, we decided to turn it into an overnight.

On the way up, we took our merry time and passed numerous dayhikers. We stopped for lunch on aptly named "Lunchbox Hill". From there, we followed a ridge down and then back up to around 6,000 feet, where we set camp. Conveniently, there were beautiful 360-degree views of Mt. Shuksan (a nearby 9,000' peak), Canada and the Coast Range, Puget Sound, Vancouver Island, and of course, Mt. Baker to our south. Even more conveniently, this was the end of wild blueberry season and Tracy and I stocked up on about half a cup each. So sweet and so good!

As we cooked our dinner -- some freeze-dried Beef Stroganoff which was really quite delectable -- I realized the flame from the stove didn't seem as strong as it should be. Sure enough, we were out of fuel (STUPID ADAM!). Guess we weren't going to be eating that warm blueberry oatmeal the next morning after all! No matter. We had some hardboiled eggs, salami, cheese, and of course, Snickers to get us through. The views of the sun setting over the far-off mountains and a pink Mt. Baker made it all worth it.

The sleeping situation turned out to be less comfortable than we were hoping for. Another large group with 3 tents beat us to the desirable campsite, and they seemed reluctant to share with us. So we were relegated to a slightly-sloped lichen covered area. Also, it was on the chilly side, with overnight temps in the mid-20's. Lastly, the onset of fall meant that the sun set around 7pm, hardly a normal time to go to bed. Nevertheless, we eventually conked out.

We awoke the next morning just before sunrise, at around 6:45. Anything not directly covered by the tent was caked in frost, and the ground was frozen solid. Within an hour, though, all had melted as the sun made its way over Mt. Shuksan to the east. Tracy and I forced down some lukewarm wild blueberry oatmeal, packed up our gear, and set off for the car.

Rather than drive directly back to Seattle, we continued up the Mt. Baker highway to the end of the road -- Artist's Point -- more than 5,000 feet up. Frankly, it paled in comparison to our previous day's views, but it took much less work to get there!

Our last stop was at a geocache along the Nooksack River about 10 miles from the trailhead. For those of you who don't yet know, I have just accepted a new job at a company called Groundspeak, who maintains the geocaching website. Essentially, there are thousands of "treasure chests" hidden in the world, and our job is to take a GPS and find them. The one we found was filled with various trinkets -- a smurf, Korean coins, a Simpsons keychain, etc. -- and we left an additional misting fan. Very cool!

If you like what you've seen so far and would like to see the rest of the pictures, follow this link. Feel free to leave some comments by clicking on the "comments" link below, and thanks for reading!