Archive for Seattle
July 19, 2007 · Filed under Doggs, Photo Album, Seattle, Smackimus
My friend Kevin mentioned yesterday that he and his wife conducted a focus group session to evaluate which 
posts on this blog suck and which don’t. According to this fair and balanced study – which sought the input from a wide range of audiences, including two sexes (which is the maximum number) – posts containing pictures of Mack are more popular than posts about Dutch guys. I am certain the study is legitimate because it included a graphic. It is a little known fact, however, that graphics can sometimes be misleading. Assuming I was misinterpreting the graphic, I sought clarification. Surely the entries about Dutch guys intersects with the set of popular posts. The response I received was as follows:
Sorry to disappoint, but she does say that the set of entries about Dutch guys doesn’t intersect with the set of entries she likes.
It has something to do with you not being as cute as Mack.
Well, give the people what they want, I guess.
Photo
June 9, 2007 · Filed under Beene, Doggs, Seattle, Smackimus
It’s raining today in Seattle. I know, we’re all in shock, too.
Two good things came out of it, though.
First, we are heading down to Ballard with some friends from up the street to hang out at Portalis, imbibe, and watch the bike race. The rain today is a good thing because the rookie Cat 4-5 race is going to be spectacular. I’m putting $5.00 on some douchebag deciding he’s going to win the race by launching his attack mid-corner while he’s still in the middle of the pack. That will be totally cool to watch.
Second, we got to try out the rain coats we just bought the dogs.
June 5, 2007 · Filed under Photo Album, Seattle
What does a nice, romantic evening have in common with putty knives? Nothing.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
Michelle and I had a wonderful weekend. We went to sleep a little early on Friday. This was somewhat 
unplanned. We ordered a pizza which we ate on the porch, and as the sun started setting, we decided to turn in early and learn to play our new board game, Power Grid.
Ok. This requires an explanation. We are not geezers. Neither are we six years old. (Power Grid is intended for audiences age 12 and up) Michelle, when in need of a pick-me-up, likes to beat me at a game and seemingly has a Karnak-like ability to guess the who-in-the-where-with-the in the little brown Clue envelope. Clue, however, is a terrible game to play with two players (especially when you always lose). Next up: Monopoly. While this game can be played with two players, it takes very long and paying two hundred dollars for prime New York City real estate is simply too unrealistic for my highly developed mind. It also gets tiresome on day 15 of the game and we’ve each managed to buy one monopoly and put one house on it. Just wait until you land on my monopoly! Rent went up from $4 to $6!
Back to Power Grid. I think the author of the instruction manual suffered from an odd combination of Tourettes and Narcolepsy, since it was simultaneously impossible to follow and intolerably boring, so we never made it past the section that explained how to set everything up to prepare to play the game. This truly is something to behold. We are quite certain whomever wrote the instructions also made the information label on the side of the box. We have no clue what it means. Our best guess is that between the hours of two and six, we should electrocute each other by plugging the cord coming out of our asses into any nearby outlet. If you are 12 or over, do not stick your finger in any European 220 watt outlets that we all keep handy here in America. And remember to set your alarm for two hour intervals.
Having passed out from sheer boredom, we both woke up – still sitting upright in bed – at around 12:30am. We put the game away and went to sleep.
We got up around 9:00am on Saturday. This didn’t happen naturally. There is nothing natural about having a Great Dane – who has no doubt spent the last 15 minutes staring at your sleeping face – grow tired of waiting for you to feel her dull and empty stare and suddenly shove her snout into your jawbone. Until you understand the intricacies of what kinds of objects and odors are preserved in giant floppy jowls you will never understand what this is like. And I really don’t wish that upon you.
Naturally, I screamed. I screamed like a 6 year old girl with blond ringlets and pink ribbons in her hair. This had the added benefit of waking Michelle up.
Read the rest of this post »
June 1, 2007 · Filed under Cycling, Seattle
Here’s the funny thing about cycling: I go out of my way to find the biggest and hardest hills I can, and I start to talk excitedly about how “good” the climbs are. “Good” in this application is taken to mean hard, steep, and long. Then, when I actually ride these “good” climbs, I suffer like a pig and find all I can do is try to keep my lungs from popping out through my eye sockets. I am increasingly certain this can in fact happen.
I found a site called MapMyRide. When I say, “found” what I really mean is “VeloNews posted a Site of the Day which happened to be MapMyRide and I clicked on the link and when the web site loaded, I saw it was cool.” I used a similar technique to “find” the Google on the Internets.
Anyhoochiemama, I played with this site, and it is awesome. I highly recommend that you sign up (free) and use the site even if you don’t ride, but partake in any activity which involves a route, such as walking, hiking, or Embrioing.
Naturally, I mapped the regular training route that Michelle, Jim, and I have painstakingly put together. Since I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, this took about an hour and a half. (I was really freaked out about doubling back on the route since the little green line looked wavy when doubled up, so I redid all the parts of the route that had doubled up sections and made sure the little green line stays neatly on opposite sides of the street in those areas. That was another solid 35 minutes.)
Here’s a screen shot (no, Paris, that is not the same as a money shot):
Coolest part of this tool: there is an elevation option which shows the elevation of the route and displays a neat little profile along the bottom of the map. To my delight and surprise, the little elevation tool told me I’m not a ninny and that the 36km route has a total elevation gain of 1500m (that’s almost a mile, for you Americans out there).
Check the route out here: MapMyRide.com
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posts on this blog suck and which don’t. According to this fair and balanced study – which sought the input from a wide range of audiences, including two sexes (which is the maximum number) – posts containing pictures of Mack are more popular than posts about Dutch guys. I am certain the study is legitimate because it included a graphic. It is a little known fact, however, that graphics can sometimes be misleading. Assuming I was misinterpreting the graphic, I sought clarification. Surely the entries about Dutch guys intersects with the set of popular posts. The response I received was as follows:
