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!