Josh & Megan

Josh and I just got back from a lovely long weekend celebrating our 5th anniversary and the end of Josh’s graduate studies. I wish it could have gone a few more days! We took The Victoria Clipper up Friday afternoon and stayed for 3 nights at The Empress. It was a beautiful hotel in a great location. Friday night we had a wonderful meal at Cafe Brio.

Saturday we shopped and walked all over Victoria, including a long hike up to the local “castle.” Castle Craigdarroch is an estate from early pioneers; it’s lovely but not what I was thinking when I pictured a castle. It did have an incredible view!

We continued our awesome food adventures with breakfast at Mo:le and lunch at Blue Fox Cafe. We then explored the shopping district where I bought a new hat and a dress. After a break from walking at the hotel, we went to dinner at a local brewpub called Canoe. The beer was cold, as was the breeze coming off the marina (which we had a gorgeous view of from the patio).

On Sunday we watched the water ballet of the local ferry boats – which was hilarious – and then went to the Royal BC Museum. The museum featured an exhibit called “Treasures” from the Royal Museum in London. It was full of great artifacts from ancient to modern cultures. I really liked the Egyptian, Japanese, and Roman collections. They also featured the Frazier Chess collection, which was used as the chess set in Harry Potter. We had lunch at the local fish and chips place on the wharf. It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as Ivar’s. After walking along the waterfront, checking out a street market and relaxing at the hotel, we went to a bar called Sticky Wickets. Monday we went to Willie’s bakery, the oldest bakery in Victoria. The croissants were excellent! Unfortunately it was time to head back home.
As you can see our trip was based around good food and shopping! Two of my favorite things!

If you know me at all, you’ll no doubt be familiar with my bent for obscure hobbies (gas lantern restoration, anyone?), so it should come as no surprise that I’ve taken up what I euphemistically refer to as “found object luthiery,” or cigar box guitar building. I’ve tried my hand at many diy audio projects in the past (see tube amp), but I’ve always sought to build a guitar from scratch (scratch like wood, not like parts). When first I caught wind of the cigar box guitar revolution a few years ago, I filed the idea away interesting alternative to “real” (read “expensive”) luthiery.
When Make Magazine ran an article on cigar box guitars (CBGs) about a year ago, my interest was rekindled and I began gathering information in earnest. Unfortunately, my graduate studies and student teaching proved quite adept at thwarting any attempts at what one might call hobbies. It wasn’t until this June that I found the time and energy to build a CBG of my own. Thanks to a couple of cigar boxes that my mom found in an antique shop, I’ve now built two playable instruments and caught the bug in a big way. I started with a mandolin, followed up with a 25” scale four-banger, and I’m now on the hunt for more boxes to fuel my new-found obsession (hint hint).

Well, I technically finished it during spring break, but let’s not nitpick. I must admit, part of me didn’t really expect this thing to turn out at all, let alone as well as it did. This was my first time working with vacuum tubes and line level voltage, so I was constantly flinching, imagining massive arcs of blue electricity leaping across the turret board and thick smoke pouring from the transformers. Fortunately, nothing of the sort occurred, and my only real setback was a complete lack of sound when I first turned it on (turns out, you shouldn’t route signal to ground :) ). Overall I spent about 6 months drilling, painting, soldering, desoldering, resoldering, sawing, gluing, desoldering, resoldering, and screwing together an amp that has turned out to be AWESOME! I’ve got to give a shout out to the guys at AX84.com, who graciously answered all of my annoying newbie questions – the boards there are full of some of the most brilliant, friendly, and helpful amp builders on the net. My Mbox doesn’t like Leopard at the moment, but as soon as I get it working I’ll record some samples of this monster.

So, it’s been a while since last I’ve posted – I’ve been a bit busy. It’s not that there haven’t been plenty of things I’ve wanted to blog about, but between student teaching, classes, and my required blogging for school, I just couldn’t work up the creative energy to write anything worth reading (not that I normally think my posts are terribly interesting, but still…). Since last I posted here I spent a full school year student teaching 9th grade English, and just recently received my real-life honest-to-God certification, yay! Though many have expressed concern for my mental health, I truly love working with those awkward, spastic, goofy freshmen. It may be that I’m a bit of a weird spaz myself, but I really connected with those kids in ways I never expected, and even the most challenging of days (and there were many) were peppered with moments of success, vindication and joy. Currently I’m taking some classes to finish out my Masters degree and hunting for a teaching job (few and far between at the moment). Though this last year has been the busiest and most challenging I’ve yet faced, it’s also been one of the most rewarding and has confirmed without a doubt that I’ve found my true calling in education.

a couple of my crazy kids posing as crazy Mr. C

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?