Josh & Megan

I spent last weekend at the UCLA voice conference with a co-worker. It was a great conference and a wonderful excuse to go see friends. It was great to stay at the Hotel Angeleno, a very art deco with a modern twist, funky, boutique hotel. I’ve included some photos of the lobby.

I must say that all of the food I ate this weekend and seeing friends were the highlights this weekend. I wish that I had thought to take pictures of some the gorgeous cocktails and steaks I ate! But the best food I had all weekend had to be the lobster mashed potatoes! That’s right large hunks of lobster in my creamy, buttery potatoes! I also could eat the self serve frozen yogurt with toppings from Yogurtland all day and night. I am very sad that this chain has not made it to Washington yet.

It was soo much fun to see my friends. I’ve included some beautiful pictures we took at the Getty. Which is now in my top 5 favorite museums! It was great to spend time with them in Santa Monica and to hang out at their house and play with their dogs. I am also seriously jealous of the Nespresso Cube machine. I think I have spent over 3 hours online and in stores researching a pod espresso machine for my house.

I’ve been researching DIY tube guitar amplifiers for quite a while now. A few months ago I put together a small chip amp using a kit from Minty Amps, but that only confirmed my need for a bigger project. Fortunately my Mom, Bill, the boys and the girls got together and bought an AX84 tube amp kit for my birthday. The project has become a nice distraction from my school work, and over the last week I’ve drilled the chassis and started soldering together the eyelet board. But alas, production screeched to a halt yesterday when I found an incorrect resistor in my kit! Thankfully Chris at Doberman Amps was really nice and is sending me the correct part, but I doubt I will get back to work until after my trip to Ashland.

Last weekend we took our annual group camping trip, this time to Manchester State Park. The park is outside of Port Orchard, so Meg and I had to catch a ferry over on Friday night. We thought we had it timed pretty well, but we actually just barely made it (last car on!). We got into camp right at sundown, but thankfully Bob and Katie had arrived quite a bit earlier. Not only did they have some hot dogs for us (foolishly we thought we’d have time to grab some fast food before the ferry), but Bob helped me get the tent up before we lost all daylight. That night we tested out a new s’more innovation of mine: the pre-chocolated graham cracker. Before we headed out on Friday I melted up some gourmet chocolate, spread it on the crackers, and tossed ‘em in the freezer. Delicious! I think the thinner layer of chocolate made for better melting, and they were far fancier than your standard Hershey’s s’more.

The next morning (my birthday) saw some not-quite-done doughnuts from our stove, and some delicious bacon and eggs from the Baker’s stove. After breakfast we decided to head into town to check out the sights; Port Orchard is a quaint coastal town after all, right? Wrong? I was probably more surprised than I should have been by the sheer abundance of pubs, and relative dearth of interesting shopping opportunities. The upshot was that the farmer’s market was in full swing, and while we didn’t buy anything, we did see some interesting characters.

Back at the campsite we had some pie irons for lunch and then a quick afternoon snooze before Dave and the boys showed up. The remainder of the afternoon was spent hanging around, and trying to keep the boys out of, the fire. For dinner I grilled some scrumptious kalbi short ribs over the fire, which we followed up with Megan’s mouth-watering mini birthday cheesecakes for dessert. To round out the night, what better than a rousing game of Settlers of Catan? (Bob and I fought for the lead most of the night, and then Katie came out of nowhere to take the win)

The next morning we woke up bright and early(ish) to clean up camp, eat some more delicious bacon and eggs, and head back to civilization. A pretty good camping trip I must say, I just wish we were able to get out more often.

I intended to write this post over the weekend during my “down time”, but it turns out I didn’t have as much of that as expected. School is going well, though the professors are doing their best to frighten our wits out of us with talk of expectations, EALRs and GLEs (oh my). It’s a bit challenging to get back into “school mode” after freelancing from a while, and I’m still pretty exhausted after a day of lectures, but I’m acclimating. My one disappointment is that I don’t really feel like I’m in grad school yet. The combination of summer quarter quietness and not really having a campus “home” is a little strange, but I’m hopeful that my cohorts and I will build a community off campus in which we can commiserate.

Well, it’s been a while since I last blogged, but it’s not for want of topics. I started this blog well before I was to start school in the hope that by mid July I would have my updates down to a science so that whole school thing wouldn’t grind me to a halt. Unfortunately school starts in a week, and I clearly haven’t perfected the mechanically systematic update schedule of my dreams. But fear not, I’m not suggesting that I give up. To make up for my recent blog silence I’m going to condense my unwritten posts to a series of bullet points.

• Working at Boeing
  Despite my self declared “temporary retirement” I’ve found myself working more than I ever expected. Since early May I’ve been consulting for an aerospace company called TechSAT, working mostly with Boeing on their behalf. I’ve found myself doing everything from software development (light lifting only) to small hardware projects, to phone support to PDX to get a 747’s data loading network properly configured. Kinda crazy…

• Death Cab for Cutie & Decemberists Concert
  Meg and I roadtripped down to Bend to catch a couple of my favorite bands at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. On the way down we stayed with my grandparents Caldwell in Kalama. In Bend we stayed with my aunt and uncle and celebrated my Grandma McCormick’s birthday with some of the family. The concert was fantastic, despite some serious thunderstorms just before. Sat in the beer garden, drank local wine, rocked out. On the way back up we stayed with some friends in Vancouver and had a delicious home cooked meal (mmmm, four cheese macaroni).
  

• Student Teaching at Timbercrest
  At the end of May I went to Timbercrest Junior High in Woodinville to interview with a potential teacher mentor for my student teaching. Turned out great (despite the school being in the middle of nowhere) and I’ll be teaching 9th grade English and AP English for the forseeable future. Downside – school is too far for a 50cc scooter, so I’ve had to put that plan on the back burner.

• Beerfest
  Went to the Washington Brewers Festival and had a beer-fueled blast. Visited my pal and client Joel from Two Beers Brewery and tasted some fantastic Washington microbrews. This is definitely going to become a father’s day tradition for us (may even take my dad some time).

• Avenue Q
  Went to see Avenue Q at the Paramount with Meg. It was ridiculously awesome, like Sesame Street for the post college crowd. Bert and Ernie would be proud (or Ernie, at least).
  

• Fremont Solstice Festival
  Naked bicyclists, insane crowds, muggy weather, scrumptious foods, cool crafts, and a creepy clown in a van…
  

• Redhook Brewery Tour
  Headed down to Woodinville to do some wine and beer tasting, but after a pint of beer with lunch at the Redhook pub and 2.5 more pints during the tour there was no room for wine, but plenty of room for a good nap. For anyone who hasn’t done it I would highly suggest the Redhook tour, $1 gets over 2 pints of beer and a souvenir glass. A great way to kill an afternoon (or a weekend).

• July 5th BBQ
  Had some friends and neighbors over for a great 5th of July BBQ. Finger-lickin’ kalbi short ribs and chicken satay on the grill, followed up by Meg’s homemade shortcake and whipped cream topped with fresh berries (our neighbors Kevin & Amanda brought over the best fresh picked strawberries EVAR!)

So, i found this cool link to create a collage on my friend’s blog. Here is my collage based on my answers. I’ve posted the questions and the site below.
Instructions:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favourite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name?

What a busy month this has been so far. Last weekend, our good friends came up and the boys hung out at our house, devoured delicious Indian takeout and played Wii. Meanwhile, Rose and I went to the Seattle School of Midwifery auction. It was a lot of fun and I must say we bid on many more things than we should have. I came home with a 90 min acupuncture gift certificate and a package deal complete with 3 hours of house cleaning, a coupon for a dozen mighty o donuts, a facial and massage and a pass to a spa in south lake union! Josh was supportive of my crazy spending, but he did have a good point in that it was silly to get the acupuncture thing b/c our insurance covers acupuncture! Oh well.
We also went on another bike ride on the Burke Gilman, this one from a park in Kenmore to a park in Bothell. (I would post some pictures, but Josh is the only one who knows how to do that) It was awesome! The one crazy moment was when I almost got hit by a golf ball from the golf course next to the trail! I thought cars and bikes were the only things I needed to watch out for….
This weekend we are taking a road trip. We will start our journey on Friday with a sleep over in Kalama with one set of Josh’s grandparents, then go to Bend, OR on Saturday to see the other set and to see The Decemberists and Death Cab for Cutie in concert, go to Vancouver WA to see good family friends on Sunday and trek back home to Seattle on Monday. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully not too exhausting!

Megan and I visited our favorite Indan restaurant Cedar’s on Brooklyn last night, and from the first step in the door I could tell that something was off. At 7:00 on a Friday night I expected Cedar’s to be brimming with energy with people waiting in every corner of the small entryway, but instead I found myself seated immediately (pleased, but confused). Throughout our meal Meg and I agreed that the place felt a bit different, from the extra puffy naan to the silence where once there was vibrant Indian music (though the chai was still spot-on). Don’t get me wrong, the food was still good, but it wasn’t the experience we’ve come to know and love. As we left Megan noticed the one change that I had silently feared, Muhammed was missing, as we’re the pictures of his family that once adorned the walls.

For those of you who have never been to Cedar’s Muhammed is(was) the ever present proprietor, and for many the face of Cedar’s. Muhammed could be seen nightly taking reservations, answering phones, and generally running the restaurant every day. As a frequenter in my college and post-college days Muhammed knew me by name, often I was greeted as “Mr Josh” and given a free desert at the end of my meal. Unfortunately it appears that that time has come to an end. I found confirmation on Taste of India’s website that Cedar’s as we knew it is no more.

after 19 years, Mr. Mohammed Bhatti has sold his Cedars Restaurant to new management effective April

I hope that the new owners will find a way to bring back some of the vibrancy that the Cedar’s from my college days held, but this may be a sign that we need to start branching out and give some other Indian restaurants another try (suggestions?)

Josh has been dying to bike for quite some time now. However, the thought of biking in Seattle fills me with terror. I have serious qualms that the saying about bikers, “It’s not if you get hit, it’s when” will come true. But, Josh and I have made a serious commitment to getting fit this spring and walking and occasional trips to the gym just aren’t cutting it. So, about two weeks ago we made the decision to get bikes. In fact, I told Josh that I would look at bikes and consider things on a Saturday and by Monday, I was soo excited that I convinced him to buy the first bikes we tried out at Recycle Cycles in the U-District. I got a Raleigh brand hybrid and Josh got a Diamondback mountain bike. Mine is white and gold and has a super cushy saddle, and Josh’s is silver and black, not so cushy saddle.

Well of course we never do anything half way, so by the time we left we had bought a bike rack for the Jetta, helmets, u-locks, bikes, and an adapter for my bike so that it would go on a bike rack. We also had a large shopping spree at the REI sale and got a bike computer, a jersey for me, padding bike shorts for Josh, gloves for both of us, and a repair kit. Another great find was a camelback hydration system and backpack for 20 bucks at Costco; it is the greatest!

As soon as we bought them, we took them to Gas Works park and biked the Burke-Gilman trail to Ballard and back. We both loved it! Although I wasn’t so good at stopping and got a major bruise/contusion on my right upper leg! We also tried biking around our neighborhood but that wasn’t as successful as I don’t want to ride on the streets and the sidewalks are too narrow and rutted. Last week we also successfully took the Burke-Gilman from Matthew’s beach to U-Village and back (about 8 miles). So slowly but surely we are starting to ride!

And no Dave, we are not ready for any races, scavenger hunts or cross city rides, but we’ll get there!

Saturday I made my yearly pilgrimage to Bellingham to praise at the alter of the penguin. My Linuxfest cronies Chris and Nick came along again, as well as newcomer Bob, who only fell asleep once. I’ve been attending Linuxfest since college and it’s become a kind of restorative treatment for me. Every spring I drive up north to harvest swag and commune with the geeks, it renews my excitement about open source. This year we attended an interesting session about natural language processing with Python, and a slightly less interesting session on basic shell scripting with bash. Overall it was a pretty good year, and the swag was rather abundant (Nick and I finally got our hands on the stuffed SuSE lizards that manage to evade us last year). If you’re at all interested in Linux or open source software I would highly suggest checking out Linuxfest (last weekend in April at Bellingham Technical College), there’s always something eye opening (even if it’s only seeing the übergeeks hiding from the daylight).