Updating Twitter Feed

So I'm trying to update my Twitter feed gadget in the right column. Make it more fun and active instead of the plain old text. Installed 2 I like. Probably let them simmer awhile to see which I like best.

Suppose I should post a picture of the house with all the lighting! Never did take a picture during the snow storms of last week! I think Dad might have one, have to check and see.

Full Commuter Train

Train to work this morning was standing room only. Doesn't help only 3
trains in the morning and icy roads. One more day till the long weekend.

Signs!

New signs at Seattle Center. Now don't they look familiar!

Seattle Center

Walkin around the Seattle Center looking at their new signs. Stopped
by the the fountain. Amazing how many tourist there are in Dec!

Walking Tour

Yesterday I spent the morning walking around downtown with my design consultant. We were doing site inspections to make sure the sign locations we picked on a map would actuall work with no obstructions. It was pretty chilly so I was glad that there is a Starbucks on almost every corner! ;)


After 4 months the project is actually starting to feel real instead of just a bunch of paper work! We got architiect renderings back earlier this week. Wish I could share those but best not to for now.

Morning!

The morning sunrise from Kent Station!  Good way to start the day, expecting rain by noon though.

The Planning!

Yes, it's that time of year. Time to dust of the boxes of Christmas decorations, inventory all the wreaths, bows and strings of lights; sans knots because last year was the year you organized! No? Yeah, me either. So I guess some time will be spent unwinding & unknotting.

As you can see the Engineer is in full effect. Planning down to the last foot of roof space! Griswold Family Christmas! Now the choice of standard mini icicle lights or LED? Power savings with the LED but more expensive and not as 'warm'. And yes I'm actually doing the energy calcs. Estimating 2000 actual lights plus some misc yard fauna! You just have to have a plastic Santa! Or maybe the very cool snow globe with moving figures inside!

Friday Funnies

Couple of YouTube videos that had me in tears! Enjoy!

Sneezing Panda

Jar of Dirt!

My office view in SD

Katie was nice enought to send a picture and note from wintery South Dakota:

 

This is what the first Blizzard of the year produced... SLUSH!  It is awful- the kind that seeps through your shoes into your socks.  There is NOTHING worse than wet socks...  I can't wait until it freezes into ruts, it will be fantastic!!!  =)  You can't tell from this picture but it is still coming down... it isn't quite sleet but not rain and it is COLD!  It is hard to believe that I wore capris and flippers to work on Monday!  Gotta love South Dakota!  I was kinda hoping for a good snowball fight but I guess I will have to wait.

Umbrella View

Monsoon season is finally here! This is what I like to call the 'umbrella view'!

Voting

Did the voting thing! Most people in WA vote mail-in absentee so my
polling place had no line. And being in the Burbs helps also.

Last Starbucks

So today is my last 'daily' Starbucks, I will no longer be getting a Starbucks everyday. Need to trim the spending and the calories! I'm getting fat! Wish me luck!

Holloween Greeters

The greeters for the Halloween Trick or Treats last night. Expecting a lot of kids to come by but not as many as showed up. Had to make an emergency run for another couple bags of candy or we'd have been out by 7 pm! The Bear's ghost costume worked great for just being a pillow case! Ya gotta like simple. The Griswold Family pumpkin on the other hand took 2 hours to carve! The pattern that came with the little 'Dracula' stand was way to intricate to cut all the way through the pumpkin so I had to do the shave technique. It turned out really well, too.

Pumpkin Carving

Carved the Griswald family pumpkin last night. Getting things ready
for the little 'trick or treators'. Have to go buy candy soon. Never
know how much to buy. Want to have enough not so much extra that I sit
around and eat it.

??

Saw this on the corner of western & lenora. An umbrella blow inside
out. Would seem to be more approate for Chicago than Seattle. It does
make the place interesting.

Original Starbucks

Have another meeting with the Pike Place Market folks. Down here while all the vendors are getting ready for the day. Stopped into the original Starbucks to grab a mocha before the meeting.

Monday Mornings!

Witnessed a head colision this morning! No one was hurt severlly
thankfully! Great way to start the week!

Pike Place Market

Who would have thought that all those visits to Pike Place Market as a tourist that one day I would be working directly with the people that manage it!

Had a meeting with the facilities managers yesterday to discuss the City's new parking project! So I had a few minutes before and after the meeting to wander around. Its after the tourist season but still full of people and the shops had plenty of fruits, vegetables, and seafood!

Stay tuned for post from the visit to South Dakota and Skydiving adventures of last weekend!

Paper Folding and Coffee!

So today I had gotten my coffee and sat down to go through some emails when this guys sits down near me and starts folding a piece of paper. I sat and watched awhile and then figured out he was trying to fold what looked like a complicated paper boat! its to bad he didn't finish it while there I was going to ask him if I could take Guntheer's pictures with it!

Oyster Run 2008!

Did the last motorcycle rally of the summer this past Sunday, called the Oyster Run. It’s a one day bike rally in downtown Anacortes, WA. It basically consists of some 30-40 thousand bikes descending on a very small fishing town about an hour north of Seattle. The town closes off a few blocks of the main street and it’s lined with bikes and people for pretty much the entire weekend even though its officially a one day event.

The drive from Covington should normally take about an hour and half if you take the I-5. We took back roads that totaled 140 miles plus a ferry trip at Mukitleo to Clinton and then drove across the bridges at Deception Pass. With the back roads and ferry time it took 3 1/2 hours to make it up there. Which is great since the journey there and back are usually more fun anyway.

Good times! Traffic driving out was too bad but when we left Anacortes we sat in bumper to bumper bike traffic for a good hour!

Bikes get priority at all ferry terminals which makes the wait that much less! And today is a good day to have priority! During this rally they usually fill the bottom car deck with bikes, about 140 per trip!

View of the bikes from passenger deck

View of the back of the ferry. Short 20 min trip!

View of Deception Pass Bridge from Pass Island 'vista view stop'

Plaque explaining how Deception Pass got its name

Main drag in downtown Anacortes! Wall to wall bikes and people! Weather was perfect, about 74 degrees!

Inside the Brown Lantern Ale House. Every place was packed. Couldn't drink to much :(

Picture from the outside of the bar

Driving out of town was mass bikes with a few vehicles here and there. Tons of people just sitting on their lawns watching the impomtu parade of bikes.

Traveling friends!

So, we have a new traveling friend from the East Coast! Hope to see many pictures of her travels up and down the eastern seaboard!

Room-o-rator!

Does someone in your meeting have a bad stomach problem that is constantly shared with everyone? Did the cycle freak forget to take a shower before the meeting?

Solve all your conference room olfactory issues with the new and improved Room-o-rator for 3 easy payments of $49.95!

Yeah, I really have no idea. I walked by one of the big conference rooms on my floor and saw this in the door. Yes there as a meeting going on and someone doing a lot of talking.

Fremont Oktoberfest 2008!

Met Kris and Valaree at Fremont's Oktoberfest on Friday night. It was going on all weekend but since it was Kris' B-day they thought it would be cool to go. It was a great time! We got these little souvenir 5 oz mugs that we used for tasting all the delicious micro brews they had. I think they had 30 some different Breweries there.

Deschutes Brewery brought their own little rolling keg to dispense the tasty samples. Their Mirror Pond is really good.

Of course it wouldn't be Oktoberfest with out a Miss Buxom contest, sponsored by the Tap House Grill.

Tried the Laughing Buddha. Not a fan of the Ginger pale ale. icky!

Kris holding Guntheer and two mugs. Let the drinking begin!

There's a job I need!

The best of the night was New Belgium's Giddy Up! Of all things it tasted like coffee! Better than ginger!

It was a hard night for Guntheer. Being the life of the party everyone was offering him their drinks. He finally had to say, No.

And of course with many beer go many cigars! Gonna taste that in the morning, or maybe not because of the burnt cigar taste buds.

Salmon Fishing!

Went Salmon fishing with Steve and his Dad, Ken this past weekend out at Sekiu, WA. Great time as always. Didn't catch as many salmon this year as last but still tons of fun!

Ken's boat is docked and Steve and ken in the background. We were getting ready to go out this morning.

Took Twinkie along as it was an adventure out of the City. This is a view from the parking lot over the dock out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

On board Ken's boat. motoring out to open water. Ken's boat is great and the little cabinet is just tall enough to stand up in if the weather turns bad. He had it custom made so you could. Lots of room for 4 guys to fish and have plenty of moving room while bringing in the 'big one'!

Now, how scary is that! Salmon are as ugly as Halibut!

The catch of the day on Sunday. Caught 2 nice ones on Saturday but had to release them. They were Chinook or 'king' and were out of season. these are Coho, 'silvers'. Two 10 pounders, and one 15 pounder. Good eats, I guess.

Here is the link to an online album with more pictures.

Happy construction

Saw this banner on one of the many construction projects going on
downtown. Smile be happy, I guess. Not sure what they are trying to say.

Stay tuned for updates on weekend fishing trip!

Looking Around

Went looking around on Monday, since it was Monday and I really didn't want to be at work. Found a nice little garden area that was still in bloom. But not for long though.

In my wandering I finally got up close to this very odd sculpture! I've seen it from below and it was odd, but right next to it! WTF! Its little men with ladders for heads and other little men with head ladders walking on other little men's ladder heads! I'm sure it suggests something about climbing the corporate ladder or something.

Weekend Ride

Weather was great for riding in the mountains this past weekend! We drove out to Roslyn, WA and drove around Keechelus and Cle Elum Lakes. Nothing better than a warm summer day driving around a mountain lake!

Great picture of some of the mountains during the ride!

Of course Twinkie was along since it was a exploring adventure. Here we are enjoying Keechelus Lake. You can get to this just off I-90. Great little place to stop and have a picnic if you are doing a long haul on the interstate.

Against my better judgement I decided to get into the picture with Twinkie! All leather ed up for the day's ride. I would have rather been in the water! They even rent paddle boats if you are so inclined.

Here you can see more the park next to the lake. Its a perfect place for an afternoon picnic. Lots of shade, comfy grass. You can still here the traffic from the interstate though.

And can you believe it! In the middle of no-where's vill, someone carved a mushroom out of an old stump! It was a great place for it! It was very exciting!


Along the way we stopped in Roslyn, WA. A very small little town just north of the the interstate. For those who don't' know, the T.V. series Northern Exposure did some filming there. The mural pictured above is in the opening credits where the moose is shown walking down the main street of town.

Also the local bar/cafe in the show, The Brick is located here also. Stopped in for a drink! They have an old running water trough right below your feet at the bar for spitting! Icky, but cool all that the same time. Caught the last bit of the UW vs BYU game while there. Not many happy people.

Picture along the side of the road on the north end of Cle Elum Lake. Very beautiful scenery! During the drive we saw lots of land for sale! Pretty soon it will be like Lake Chelan. Busy and over crowded.

The ride home was very peaceful.