Flying, Hiking, and Easter -- Oh my!

This past Saturday, I took the opportunity of Tracy's last free weekend in Seattle (can you believe that!) to use my Christmas gift from her -- an introductory flight at a local flight school. I had been waiting anxiously to use this, hoping for a calm, sunny day to enjoy a nice easy ride through Western Washington. Unfortunately, the day came and the forecast was for 15-25mph winds and rain. Just my luck.

However, the real weather turned out to be just fine (at least early in the day when I went). Before I knew it, I was in the pilot's seat of a Cessna 172 (4-seater) with the instructor by my side. He taxied out of the parking spot toward the runway, and then let me take over the throttle and the lift control (whatever that's called). The only thing I didn't do during takeoff was control our direction, but that's alright -- it was still very cool.

Once airborne, everything was very smooth. Whatever wind there was didn't create much turbulence at all, and I got sucked in to flying pretty easily. We stayed up for about half and hour before he landed the plane and gave me the rundown of what it would take to get my actual pilot's license. Not this year, of course, but it's certainly something I'll keep in mind for the future. It's a lot like sailing, so I see no reason why I wouldn't enjoy it.

Since we were already halfway to the mountains, and it stays light out pretty late these days, I suggested we continue on and do a day hike. We headed up to the Mountain Loop Highway, a relatively nearby road with the highest concentration of hikes in Washington. Just as we got to the Lake 22 trailhead, it began to drizzle, and I made a bet with Tracy that it'd be snowing during our hike (even though I didn't totally believe it, since the top of our hike was only at 2400 feet). Sure enough, though, about 2/3 of the way up it began snowing heavily, accompanied by rain. The snowpack got very deep, very fast, and by the time we hit the lake there was a good 5 feet on the ground, the sign of a very good snow winter for us. The lake itself was frozen over, and near whiteout conditions existed, but we could hear avalanches falling on the other side of the lake. It was a pretty cool scene.

Plans for Easter day were pretty mellow. We met up with Tracy's family for buffet brunch at 2pm at Ivar's, on the Seattle waterfront. The place was *packed*, and had tons of good food. Surprisingly, I was the first or second person to stop eating, even though I had 4-5 plates of food. I have to hand it to her family -- they certainly do eat well! After brunch, I thought a nice geocache outing in Discovery Park would be a fitting end to a great weekend, and allow us to walk off some of those calories. Dillon and Kendell are budding geocachers and were quick to pick up the necessary skills. We came away with two new finds, and about 5 miles of up-and-down walking through the park. Somehow, going to bed at 8:30pm seemed like a great idea!

(On a side note, Sadie's been in the vet all weekend with pneumonia, but her health has been improving steadily and we're hoping to pick her up tomorrow night!)

Another Foster Dog

I spent the first part of the weekend in Las Vegas for my friend Tim's bachelor party, but to be honest, I can't remember a thing that went on there ;-)

I got back Sunday morning and in the afternoon, Tracy and I went down to the dog shelter just to take a peek at what dogs were available to foster. Now the Chong and Goldie have moved out, there's a definite canine absence the I'll probably be looking to fill. Little did I know I'd be coming home with a foster dog!

She's a 6-month old Black Lab/Border Collie mix whose name is "Lady", although we're trying to come up with a more creative name (so far, it's "Sadie"). She was advertised as being very high-energy, and definitely in need of obedience training, but to be honest, we haven't seen a bit of either. If anything, she's been very timid and well-mannered, as well as quite cuddly. What I've seen in my fostering experience, though, is that often they're like that the first day, but then when they get comfortable, they show you another side. Granted, living at the shelter is enough to drive any animal insane, especially one with a less-than-ideal upbringing like this one. Apparently, her former owner was an "idiot", the words of the shelter employee, and didn't know the first thing about raising a puppy.

People always ask me how long she'll be with me, and it's hard to say. She's available for adoption right now, so if a caring family shows up and wants to adopt her, she could be gone tomorrow. On the other hand, if I want to adopt her, I'd get priority. There's everything in between, from a week or two to a few months. We'll just have to see how things go. For now, I've been extremely happy with how things have gone. Now let's see if she's been covering up any bad habits!

For more pictures of her, here's an album, and a link to her profile on the animal shelter web site.

Demolition, Part II

Has it really been a month since I last wrote something in this blog? Geez, I've gotta get out more! Right on cue, I'll be headed to Vegas this weekend for a friend's bachelor party, in two weeks I'm going on Snooze'n'Cruise with the WYC, and then in a month it's back to Vegas for vacation with the fam. In between, I hope to take a flying lesson, attend my first baby shower, and who knows what else!

What I really wanted to write about, though, was *last* weekend's event. Besides playing ice hockey for the first time in years and helping Chong and Goldie move out, I took aim at one of the walls in Chong's room, where a malodorous aroma had been brewing for quite some time (yes, water damage again!). So I called up my friend Tim (of bachelor party fame) and he helped me pull the wall down. It was lath and plaster, so it came down in small flakes and several slats of wood, creating quite a mess! As always, pulling the wall down (which took maybe an hour) was so much more fun than cleaning up the mess.


(Here are the "before" pics")

It's hard to guess just how much a plaster wall weighs. I didn't really take into account how I was going to dispose of the few hundred pounds of debris that was generated, especially given my poor little car that dreads dump runs. Fortunately, I got the garbagemen to take heavy load of it last weekend, and they're getting another dose of it this week. Let's hope it works again!
(Here are the "after" pics")