Category: family fun

The pictures can speak for themselves.

Mt. Baker from the Skyline Divide Trail

Mt. Baker

A ridge of Mt. Baker

Mt. Shuksan

Woodland Park Zoo Press Release

As the (African wild) dog days of summer begin to wane, it’s time again to look forward to Woodland Park Zoo’s annual fall Fecal Fest! Now’s your chance to purchase a load of that rich, multi-species feces known as Woodland Park Zoo Doo®.

My third trip to the Zoo for this garden accelerator, 8 bags full (the tall Kraft paper yard waste bags). Loading it (each bag weighs about 100 pounds), carrying it up the stairs at my house, and spreading it around was a wearisome task. My back is already stiffening.

But some next spring, I’ll reap the benefits. And it will be time to get more, anyway.

I had planned to put most of today’s harvest on the vegetable garden, but summer doesn’t seem to want to end just yet, whatever the calendar may say about it. So tomatoes are still ripening, and I’m not going to disturb that process.

Cruise Ship Profiles Cruise Lines – Orient Lines – Marco Polo

Adapted from the first to earn hard currency, the ALEXANDR PUSHKIN was employed in the service of the Baltic State Steamship Company to run between Leningrad and Montreal via ports in Western Europe and Britain.

This is the ship on which I crossed the North Atlantic in 1966, not long after she entered service.

It looks like quite a big ship, but even by the standards of the 1960s, she’s quite small. The QE II, buiit in 1969, is 70,000 tons to the Pushkin/Polo’s 19,000. The Queen Mary II, slated to enter service in 2003, will be 150,000 tons.
Continue reading “a blast from the past”

Obituaries (07/30/02)
BEARD, K. Anne K. Anne Beard (nee Hennessey), age 64 years, after a short battle with cancer. Survived by her daughter Sarah and relatives from the U.K. A past member of the Real Estate and Property Management community for over 30 years. A Memorial Service will be held at the Pinecrest Cemetery Chapel (2500 Baseline Rd., Ottawa) on Wednesday, July 31, at 7 p.m. A reception wil follow at the Pinecrest Cemetery Reception Centre. Donations to Ferne Animal Sanctuary, Warmbrook, Chard, Somerset, England TA20 3DH, e-mail: ferne@eurobell.co.uk
The Ottawa Citizen, Area Code 613

I’m not surprised to be omitted.

I was also delighted to discover they have archives of Lil Abner here as well.

went out this morning with 3 half-gallon berry buckets (half-gallon milk cartons with the tops cut off) and came back with 1 bucket and 2 children filled to the top.

I’m freezing a bunch of berries (like half of them) and will bake the rest in a peach or nectarine and blackberry crostada, a kind of open fruit tart/fruit pizza on a crisp pastry crust. Have I mentioned how I love summer fruit?

Sadly, the publicly-funded art walk along the Lake Washington shoreline on the NOAA Sandpoint campus is closed to the public for security concerns: has been since Sept 11. I guess you could still hear the eerie aeolian sounds from outside the fence, but it wouldn’t be the same is sitting in the midst of it.

So this afternoon found me at REI World HQ using my patronage dividend (less that $10: unemployment limits one’s spending on impractical necessities, which keeps me out of REI) on what we called an odometetr when I was a lad, but what’s now called a “cyclocomputer.” I want to more accurately measure how far I ride: $18 buys you 10 other pieces of information, like max and average speed, time, distance, blahblahblah.

While I was there, I sized a bike: looks like I’m a 54 cm kinda guy: sight unseen a 6 footer would be sold a 58cm bike or even a 60, but I’m glad I threw my leg over one to make sure. If you haven’t been around bikes all that much in say 20 years, you’re in for a shock. 24 speeds are one thing, but the whole notion of combined brake levers/shifters will surely have me eating asphalt. I do like the weight of these new bikes: they’re all but weightless. The ticket says something like 18 – 20 lbs, but pick one up and you can’t even believe that.

Could be my road bike

They had some other bikes in the $400 range (this Fuji is right around there, but they don’t carry that brand). Their own Novara brand bikes look fine but are pushing a grand, which even with gainful employment would be hard to swallow.

They do make you want to just get out and ride though: it feels like possibilities are opening up as you sit on one of these beasts.

the Chieftains

Went to see these lads again, this time with the whole clan. They played on a stage in the North Meadow at the Woodland Park Zoo for the ZooTunes series. Sadly, the setting sun was shining directly on the stage, so much of the first part of the show was visually obstructed by large umbrellas used as sun shades. By the time the break rolled around, things were more manageable, but they sounded great, regardless.

As usual, they had some guests with them, notably some practitioners of Ottawa Valley stepdancing which seemed like full-on tap dancing with traditional Irish rhythm. Unlike the more traditional style, with lots of leg kicks but no arm action, this was full-body dancing. Very impressive. There were also some traditional step dancers, including the required element of a willowy female dancer with long red hair, kicking up a storm. By the time all was said and done, there were more dancers than musicians, even with the addition of a bluegrass picker (Keith Little) and Patty Griffin, a singer they worked with on some recent recordings and whose tour crossed theirs here in Seattle.

All in all, an enjoyable show. Kids got a little bored, mostly because it was hard to see much from the lawn, but I thought it was great. Some great solo turns by Sean Keane and Matt Molloy, more singing by Kevin Conneff than the last show we saw, just lots to like.

200 miles in 2 days

The 2002 running of this was this weekend: I’m thinking of doing next years’, given I have a year to work up to it.