Over the 4th of July weekend, we decided to take a trip up to Whidbey Island, for a few reasons:
- It is close, only an hour or so away (including ferry time), so it was easy on my back for travel.
- Our friends Shannon and Damon have an amazing house they built on the Island - and by that, I mean built by hand: “hammer, hammer, saw, saw”. It was great to see them and spend time with them, and their new son, Griffin (and their dog, Ebey). They are great college friends, who we do not spend nearly enough time with.
- Because we stayed with them, I knew I could rest as much as my back needed to; taking breaks regularly to lay flat, etc… and not feeling obligated to do too much.
- We happen to just really like Whidbey Island - artsy, beautiful, friendly, and close.
- And of course, get Molly away from the loud bangs of illegal (and legal) fireworks.
- In particular, Greg and Clodagh had called out, on a past trip, the wonders of Double Bluff Beach’s off leash dog park on Whidbey - a few mile long open beach for off-leash access. We wanted to get Molly into the water again.
- I have been cooped up in the house for a while now - I was looking forward to just getting out of here for a weekend as I move back into working more.
It was just what we needed - it fit all of those goals above, and we are really super-appreciative of the Arndt’s for hosting us. Molly had a fantastic time too - she got to run around their property, go swimming, get lots of fun new treats, and just be one happy (and tired!) dog.
Pictures - click for larger ones as usual:
People:
Dogs:
Arndt House:
Videos - might need to visit the actual blog post to view:
Related posts
Joelle and I made it back into town, very safe, but also, very sleepy. Will discuss more about the trip (it was great) once we get pictures online, but that’s a job for another day. Instead, I am just mindlessly catching up on a few things before heading for bed. Having the daylight savings time change the night we come back into town is actually good - it means only having to adjust one, so yeah us for scheduling this way!
Things I always need to catch up on when I come back into town:
- Microsoft Money - Balance the checkbook/credit cards/etc… (DONE!)
- Personal Email - we checked some while we were gone, so only 125 emails to read through, though must are junk (DONE!) (note: this does not include sending any to people, just reading)
- Work Email - monday. not going to get to until then.
- Blogs (Google Reader): 5000 articles to read through. A quick scan of things I don’t care about got me down to 200 or so to actually read. Will do that in the morning.
- Miles (MileTracker): Most useful program ever to track frequent flyer mileage. Our first flights came through already (SEA->EWR->TLV), but not the others yet.
- TV: Lots to watch. The DVR awaits!
- Sleep. Time to do just that!
Related posts
Again, information likely only interesting to me; the random selection of stuff I am bringing on the planes to read (Joelle will read much of it, but she also has her own book or so). If you remember from previous posts, I tend to like to bring magazines, so I can leave them behind at the airport, etc… without feeling bad. So I’ve been saving these up for a bit (and most are from free subscriptions from airline miles):
- Book: How to Be Good, Nick Hornby
- Book: Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
- Magazine: Conde Nast Traveler
- Magazine: MSDN the Magazine (yep, I am a geek, but it will be a quick flip-through)
- Magazine: Money
- Magazine: The Economist, February 9th edition
- Magazine: The Economist, February 16th edition
- Magazine: The Economist, February 23rd edition
- Magazine: Sporting News (not sure which date - I ripped the address label off and it took it away!)
- Magazine: Sporting News (not sure which date - I ripped the address label off and it took it away!)
- Newspaper: Seattle JTNews, February 22nd
- Newspaper: Seattle JTNews, February 8th
- Newspaper: Washington University in St. Louis Record
- Catalog: Crate and Barrel
As usual, you make the case of what this means about me!
Related posts
Back to the States from Paris, United offers a bit more variety as well:
- Alvin and the Chipmunks F/D
- Becoming Jane F/D
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age F/D
- Lions for Lambs F/D
- Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium F/D
- No Country for Old Men F/D
- Why Did I Get Married? E
Chicago to Seattle portion, which is our final routing, is back to one of the movies we may have already seen on El-Al. Oh well:
Related posts
More notes that is probably not interesting to anybody but me!
Our second part of trip is from Tel Aviv to Paris. I can’t tell for sure which movie we’ll see, but it’s some combination of the following, judging by our airline type:
- Enchanted
- Juno
- Life Or Something Like It
- T.V. series & Sport (whatever that means)
- Martian Child
http://www.elal.co.il/ELAL/English/AllAboutYourFlight/InFlight/InflightEntertainment/Movies/, and then select March (from Tel Aviv)
Related posts
Not sure why this interests anyone else, but I looked it up, so figured I’d post it for history sake… Movies for our flights:
Our first flight: a red-eye, is Dan In Real Life
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/films/co_grid_200802.pdf
The longer flight has more options, including Follow That Bird (one of my favorites from growing up) and Bee Movie.
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/entertainment/films/mca_grid_200802.pdf
Related posts
We’re heading to the Seattle Home Show later this afternoon with our friends Mike and Elisabeth, our usual partners in crime for this particular event. We haven’t always had a great need to visit the show, as it is mostly focused on remodeling, landscaping, building, etc… but it is always a great place to get ideas and advice (though often, the companies who can afford to participate charge more than I am willing to spend; it is the gotcha of these types of events). There are a few things I am looking for this time though:
- Electricians to bid on replacing the remaining 25% of our house which is still Knob and Tube wiring (all safe, but insurance companies seem to want to get you to get rid of the stuff, plus, our light bulbs burn out quicker than they should, which is just plain annoying). We’ve received one bid from an electrician who I have worked with in the past, but for something of this magnitude, we’d want a couple more bids.
- Insulation experts/weatherproofing. Our gas bill is higher than I would like, especially given that our basement is freezing. A bunch of this I can likely do myself, and it is on my list to learn, but some stuff (blowing in wall-insulation, for example), is clearly in need of professional assistance.
- Roof cleaning (gutters/moss/etc…) We’re in pretty good shape up there, but before next fall, I’d like to get a good cleanup done. Seems like I could do this myself, but Joelle has no interest in me getting on the roof; frankly, she’s right - I don’t trust myself that much either!
I am sure there are other services out there as well; one nice thing is that even though these companies are expensive, they tend to have pretty good promotional deals offered if you book at the show. I assume this is even more so during the last few hours of the event (which is when we’ll be there). If they haven’t hit their numbers, I assume they might be a little more willing to play "let’s make a deal!" Let’s hope so!
Related posts
(this post was written while I was flying and will be posted once I get online later- actual written time, 7:06 PM, Dec 11)
Sitting in the middle seat on my flight back (we got to the airport early so we took middle seats through standby in exchange for getting home an hour early), I realized quite a few things bother me about flying these days, so might as well enumerate them:
- Coach seats (at least on Alaska Airlines) has absolutely zero room for laptops. Seriously, it is so crowded to be typing on these things - the keyboard area is pushing into my stomach, the screen is folded over to be even able to fit, and the tray is at a very unergonomic height, so my arms don’t feel so comfortable. If I were a common business traveler, perhaps a smaller laptop would help - I’ll have to try bringing the work mac-book with me next time, as it’s much smaller.
- Whatever happened to dinner on planes? Especially when they fly from that key 6-9 pm hours. When exactly are you supposed to eat dinner if you need to board at 5:15 or so?
- No two TSA people say the same thing - one says to put your boarding pass away, the other says “reminder: we need to see your boarding pass”, the video playing says both at the same time! Plus, people take way, way too long taking their shoes on and off.
- Middle seats suck!
- Why don’t all planes have that movable headrest so you can make your own personal sleeping area? It can’t cost the airline more than 50 cents extra per seat once at airplane purchase time to put those in. Makes me want to fly Continental, the only airline I know of that has those.
- The food in airports is just not good. Granted they have a captive audience, but couldn’t someone come up with a decent, ubiquitous eating venue? Especially for vegetarians. McDonald’s and/or an awful caesar’s salad just don’t cut it.
- Finally, airlines - stop seating me next to talkers. Really. I am all about striking up random conversations with people in most situations. But there are two I want people to just shut up - airplanes and barbers (cut my hair, in and out, no need to find out my or your lifestory).
On a random note, I did run into the condo upstair’s neighbor randomly at the airport. It has been a good week for my goal of running into people I know at places - 3 or 4 different people at the Seahawks game on Sunday (including Pure’s CEO), and now this. Also found out 2 or 3 more people from high school have moved to Seattle, and I didn’t even know about it - weird; I usually know these things.
Related posts
(this post was written while I was flying and will be posted once I get online later - actual written time, 7:35 AM, Dec 11)
Taking another business trip this morning (I am writing this at about 40,000 feet, but will upload later), and failing to fall asleep on the ride down, I spent some time looking around at how and what people read while sitting on the plane (and trying not to be invasive).
It’s fairly interesting; there are some sleepers, lots of fiction books (though none I have ever heard of, save the ubiquitius Harry Potter readers - I mean seriously, haven’t you read them all yet?), a few people on their PCs, and surprisingly, no magazine or newspaper readers. I wonder how this would change for a flight at a different time of day - our flight did take off at 6:40 AM, after all. I’ll have to look around again later this evening when we return back (and yes, this makes a very, very long day).
That last fact shocks me; especially, as I love to utilize flights as a good opportunitiy to catch up on periodicals that I then leave behind in the airport in hopes that it gives someone else to read.
What I’ve read so far on the plane (and granted we’ve only been flying for an hour or so - I do read fast, after all):
- Alaska Airlines In-Flight Magazine
- Finished my copy of the Economist from this week (I usually read this as a back-and-forth over a couple of bus rides to and from work, but still had 15 or so pages to go)
- A few sections of the Seattle Times (that someone had left on their seat on the airport - THANKS!)
- Article that makes me happiest: Yeah for Northwest Airlines starting Seattle-London service; more traffic on the straight to Europe route should make us booking flights for going to Israel next year easier.
- Money Magazine (just came yesterday - it’s part of a series of magazines that Joelle and I signed up for since she had a pretty small amount of Delta Airlines miles that were going to expire unless we used them - not enough to get a flight, might as well get something for them)
- Hints to self - they mention looking at the Treasury Departments website to see if there are outstanding savings bonds in your name; I have never done this - I wonder if there are some that have been lost along the way.
- Hint #2 - look up charity’s and their financial statements online. I’ve never spent time investigating these, since I usually just go with organizations I am involved with.
- Seattle Jewish Transcript (and the Happy Hannukah insert) - By the way, the last issue and this one have had the first 2 of a 3-part series on Christian Evangelical movements and Jews (mostly focused on the so-called “Jews for Jesus”) - a couple of thoughts:
- It is sort of surprising there hasn’t been a letters to the editor backlash against the newspaper giving these organizations any press.
- I find it hilarious (and scary) to the effort that these groups go through to try and woo just one Jew. Seriously - why do they care so much?
- The articles are, in the end, quite fascinating. It’s probably the most interesting read they’ve had in there in a long time, so I, for one, am glad they are printing them.
My other reading material for the ride back (though I may need to pick up another reading material as well) is a book the President of Kavana recommended, but I haven’t gotten around to… hopefully it will take up the time it states, and thus, half of the flight: “The Ultimate Board Member’s Book: A 1-hour Guide”
I wonder what my reading list says about me?