Happy Thanksgiving!

Holiday traditions are a curious thing. When growing up/living with parents there are family traditions. Then when you are older and out on your own you try to retain some of the traditions of your youth, if you liked them, but then also try to add in some of your own creation. I can recall having some orphans over, usually fellow college student friends of my brother. I remember one fellow from Burma, he was so confused when my mother told him to lick his fork. We didn't have enough silverware for the meal and dessert for the number of guests we had and while his English was good it was a colloquialism that he'd never heard before. It was common practice to hear "lick your fork", so we didn't think twice about it, we all had a good laugh that day.

I haven't spent Thanksgiving with family since I left for graduate school in 1991. It always seemed too short a holiday to travel so far. I became one of the orphans we would have taken in. Some years there were a group of us who gathered and made dinner. Other years I recall traveling from Rhode Island to Connecticut, taken in by Kathy Howard's family, or taken in by the DeLima family either in Connecticut or New Jersey. And one year by the McKee's in New Jersey. It's one of the few days of the year that I just prefer being around people. I am eternally grateful for my adopted families back east taking me into their homes and family traditions, where I could share in the warmth, love and laughter as the dark, cold winter crept in.

Now one of my traditions is to try and go for a paddle in the morning. This morning Diane, Kristi, and I had planned to go out on the OC1 and OC2 belonging to Seattle Outrigger. When we arrived we saw Jack had made it down as well. The four of us took out an OC6, it makes you work a bit harder when there is only four, but the weather was nice, not too much wind. We headed east towards the 520 bridge. On our way there we saw a very regal bald eagle pirched on an old piling, perhaps waiting for it's holiday meal to make an appearance.

In a couple of hours Diane, Dave, and I will go to see a movie and follow that with a nice Chinese food dinner. We and Kristi, too, are going to a restaurant that has Peking duck, I guess that will be our holiday bird. It will be a restful day spent with good friends and good food.

I'm thankful for my family and friends, good health, employment, a nice place to live, and that I continue to have a good life. I hope you have a wonderful holiday.

Photo is of an orchid blooming at work.

YES, We Can!

Wow! I went to the Westin Hotel with my friend, Kyle, and met some co-workers to watch the election returns. It was truly historic. I thought Mr. Obama's acceptance speech was wonderful, humble, inspiring. Here it is:

Part One


Part Two


I'm more than a little tipsy and off to bed now. Hoping that Chris Gregoire wins the the election for Washington Stave governor again, but this time without the recount.




and one last ...

YES, We Can!

Wow! I went to the Westin Hotel with my friend, Kyle, and met some co-workers to watch the election returns. It was truly historic. I thought Mr. Obama's acceptance speech was wonderful, humble, inspiring. Here it is:

Part One


Part Two

Another reason outrigger is better than crew

Ya, we can see where we're going!



I think these guys are exceptionally stupid, they have a coxswain and they still don't know where they are going.

Plastics

Remember The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman.

I'm going a bit stir crazy

Part of the reason I haven't said much lately is that I haven't had too much to say. No amusing paddling anecdotes because I haven't been paddling since the Round Hat Island Race up in Mukilteo on September 13. Turns out I'd over done my shoulder back in July up at Gibson's, then did it some more a week later down at the Gorge. After the Gorge I took a week off to rest my shoulder and then back into it to train for the change out race end of August, and well then the last race of the season is in two weeks, I can muscle it through that and then recover. When it hurts enough that it's effecting your sleep, hmm, that may be a sign that you should have paid attention a little sooner. D'oh!

I went to an acupuncturist who is also a certified massage practitioner. He said that all kinds of stuff was out of alignment, ya, like I couldn't have told him that when I walked in the door. He moved things around some and did a little needle work. Then a few days later I went to my foot torturing massage person, Carmen. Damn, I thought she was brutal when she was working on my feet. Seems my neck and back were all a nasty knotted mess.

I'd hoped to be back on the water for a Sound Rowers race on Oct 11. Good sense, though hard to acknowledge, suggested I pass on that race. Then there was fun relay to be held in Tacoma on Oct 25. I decided to pass on that one as well. My back on the water date was going to be Nov 1, this Sat. I'd planned to go to our regular OC6 practice. Then I got an email that the Tacoma race was being postponed to Nov 1! Wahoo!

I figured I could do one of the four 2.6 mile laps. I've completed a 3 mile time trial in 31 minutes. I figure I can do a leisure 2.6 miles in 45 minutes and call it good. I'd found 3 folks to do the relay with me, Neil, Lise, and Janelle. Janelle has had a family emergency so we'll either do only 3 laps, have Neil or Lise do two laps, or find someone on the beach interested in doing a lap. I realize that I cannot do the first lap, I'd over do it trying to keep up with everyone else. And I cannot do the final lap, I'd try to finish hard since it's the end of the race. So, I am relegated to one of the middle laps. Sigh, at least it's paddling. And the quicker I'm off the water to sooner I can get a bowl of Bren's Chicken Long Rice!!!

To help kill some time before I can paddle again I voted today! I hope you have either filled out and sent in your absentee ballot or have figured out how you plan to vote so you are ready when you go to your polling location.

What does a VP do?

A kid named Damon Weaver from Florida had a chance to speak with Joe Biden when he was stumping in Palm Beach. Biden gave a nice easy to understand explanation for what the VP does.




And this was just funny.


more animals

This too.


see Sarah Palin pictures

Some Politics

The first video explains how a US President is elected in simple terms. It is finally understandable but it still doesn't make sense, not in this day and age anyway.



The second video isn't Joe the Plumber it's Al the shoe salesman calculating how much he would save in taxes under Obama's tax plan.



A link to Calculate your tax cut under Obama's plan


I think Sarah Palin is a little confused regarding which mascot is for her team. And she's being blasted for her wardrobe, it's right up there with John Edwards $400 haircut!

Some of My Other Summer Sewing Projects

In addition to the flannel shorts I was sewing up a few other things this summer as well. I made a tank top out of some fabric the mother had designated for a nightgown. It really looks like nightgown fabric, too. It fit pretty well, but I gave it to someone that would likely wear it more often than I would. She didn't mind the pattern. I thought it was perfect to test out new patterns until I got the fit dialed in. I made a t-shirt out of it as well, gave it to the same person. I realize that I need to go to curved neckline rather than a v-neck. I can't seem to get the change of direction to work properly. Grumble.

I also inherited a number of silk shirts, all of lovely rich colors. There was one that seemed very simply designed. I traced it out on the pattern tracing paper I have and whipped up this purple flowered blouse. I think it's a rayon blend, so it drapes very fluidly, similar to silk. The collar turned out wider than I prefered, a bra strap tends to show much of the time. I made a second one (no pic, though) from a similar fabric, same purple but with larger less frequent flowers. The collar turned out better on the second one. I made a third from a cotton weave, it's a much stiffer fabric compared to the rayon blend. It doesn't drape nearly as nicely, but I love the pale turquoise color. It looks a lot like a hospital scrub top.

After I finished my pink ducky shorts I had some fabric left over. My neighbor has a four year old daughter so I offered to try and make some pants for her. I borrowed a pair of simple elastic waist pants and traced them out. I simplified the pattern by eliminating the side seam, leaving only the inseam of both legs and the front to back center seam. There can never be pockets this way, though. Went together pretty quickly. But they are the reason I finished my blue duck feets shorts so late. J was very funny about the pants. First she didn't want to try them on and then we couldn't get them off her to be finished and finally she tried to lock Llelo in her bedroom so he could stay for a sleepover. I took Llelo up with me for the fittings, Gus isn't so fond of kids, so he was happier staying in the apartment. She adores Llelo and he seems perfectly happy to flop down next to her for tummy rubs and ear scritches. She tries to play fetch with him as well, but it gets complicated since her dog wants to play with Llelo or get in on the fetching, too.

After our outrigger capsize drill the first weekend in Oct I was chatting with some of the ladies about gear for winter paddling. I offered to stitch up some fleece hats. I copied a hat I found in a lecture hall at UCSC, chemistry class, way back in 1984. And whipped up these in a little over an hour. I still need to sew up some neck warmers as well, next on my list of things to do. That and a fleece pullover. I'm a little nervous about putting in a zipper, though.
For $5 you, too can have your very own fleece hat or neck warmer made expressly for you by me. Oh, and I think I have a pretty lame expression on my face when I am photographing my creations.

Pajama Shorts

I have a fondness for rubber duckies. Of all the fabric my mother collected over the years there are some pieces that she definitely bought with me in mind. Among them was a piece of cotton flannel, dark blue with bright yellow duck feets. Somehow I just knew that fabric wasn't going to be used on a new vest for my brother. About seven months before she passed Gus and I took a road trip out to visit. She sent me home with that piece of fabric and her old Singer Slant-O-Matic. As near as I can figure she got that machine around 1960. I remember her teaching me to thread and use that machine so very long ago. She also gave me a pattern for boxer-style shorts, the type I like to sleep in. I had all I needed to start sewing.

A local friend of mine, a sewing genius in my estimation, suggested I get a piece of fabric to practice on before cutting up the good stuff. I bought an old bed sheet at Value Village for $3 and proceeded to teach myself how to sew. After trying the pattern twice with some modifications to help refine the fit, to no avail, so I decided to ditch the pattern. I had an old pair that fit well but had been retired as they were rather threadbare. I got out my seam ripper and while watching a movie I deconstructed them. From those pieces I drew my own pattern. I also bought a piece of flannel so I could make sure I had it right before I cut the duckies.

Dang if they didn't turn out!!! The legs were, erm, generous if a bit short, but they fit. That was way back in Nov 2006. The seams were far from straight and I didn't know I needed to fold the fabric over twice to keep it from unraveling. The fabric wasn't duckies but it was cute, little starfishes.

Early summer I made another pair, a bit longer and legs not quite so wide this time. The seams were somewhat straighter and there was less unraveling. This print had little moons and stars. Turned out pretty well. In August I made my third successful pair. The flannel was awesome, small pink squares with little rubber duckies! I used a double needle and finally figured out how to roll the edges under for a more finished look.

Last weekend I decided I was finally ready, ready to cut the duckie fabric. I took a deep breath and began to cut, again modifying the pattern, a little longer this time. It was getting late Sunday evening, I just wanted to pin a couple of the seams. Then I thought, 'If I sew this one seam I can pin this other part'. Next thing I realized it was around midnight and I was nearly finished, very tired but I didn't didn't want to put it down with only the waistband to finish. At 1 am I had completed my, uh, masterpiece? I tried them on and they fit great. I thought they looked pretty good, too, but then I am partial to the duckies!

I think the mother would be pleased with how much sewing I've been doing. It was rough to get back into it after she passed, I think it took about a year. I know she was pleased to see my first pair of shorts. I had the chance to show her before she passed. I think I'm ready for the next generation: side seam pockets!

Miniature Earth

ok, when I said I'd try to post a couple of times per week I actually meant a couple of times per month. :)

I'll keep this one brief. I've seen some pretty cool videos on Best of YouTube. Here are a couple I particularly like. You can also subscribe to Best of YouTube as a podcast. Enjoy.

Miniature Earth



Crazy Upper Body Strength



Paul Hunt Gymnastics Routine 1988



And this one's just pretty, here's the Northern Lights

Old Connections

Have you spent much time on Facebook? You can easily get sucked in for longer than you imagined. It’s an interesting way to keep in touch with people and reconnect with folks you haven’t spoken to in many, many years. Case in point: A few weeks ago I got a friend request from a woman I knew in junior high school, we were Branciforte Bees together way back in the day! I was trying to remember the last time we spoke and as near as I can pin point it I think it we were juniors in high school. By that time we were at different high schools and had started to drift apart somewhat. Anyway, she lives in Poulsbo now! I was planning to be on Bainbridge Sunday for a potluck at a friend’s house and thought “What the heck, we should try to get together for a cuppa or something!”

I took the 10:35 ferry over, got off the ferry and looked around somewhat bewildered wondering how in the heck would I ever find her. I heard my name, my junior high name which I decline to share with you here ;) and recognized her instantly! The memories came flooding back. We both proclaimed the other hadn’t changed a bit. Perhaps regarding curves and figures, well, let's just say we don’t have our 17 year old bodies any longer, but our faces, wow, those haven’t changed.

Do you have any friends that you can go for weeks, months, years without speaking to and when you see one another again you pick right up where you left off? Katie is one of those friends. We were instantly comfortable together, talking about everything/anything, I found myself telling her things that I haven’t ever told anyone except my mother, there was just that wonderful ease of presence together. What a wonderful feeling. And then there is all that shared history as well. We chatted and laughed trying to fit all of the last 25+ years into the conversation right now. Then I realized it was past 3 o’clock and I really ought to make an appearance at the pot luck, I had brought a frangipani tart and everything.

I am certain that we will see one another again soon, and I can’t wait!

Change Out Race 8/30/08

There's lots that has been happening and I'd like to bring you up to speed. It would be far too much to post it all in one blog entry. I think I may post multiple individual entries on a given day. Just fyi!

Saturday August 30 was the big change out race that SSP and Kikaha co-host in Lake Washington. The course starts out at the SSP beach heading east towards Kirkland until we pass the point near the dog park, then we head south under the eastern highrise of the 520, along the Bellevue and the western coast of Mercer Island, under the western span of I-90, around the southern tip of Mercer Island, under the eastern span of I-90, back north under the eastern highrise of the 520, around the point and back to SSP. An easy 26 miles!

It’s called a change out race because we have a nine member crew, 6 in the OC and 3 in the escort boat. Periodically the escort boat will drop paddlers into the water and the OC will come alongside them, they grab the gunnel and heave their-selves into the moving boat as their seats occupants fling themselves out the other side to be retrieved shortly by the escort boat, another experience in heaving ones-self into a boat. We do this over and over until the race is finished! When in the OC you paddle long and hard, trying not to think about being tired or thirsty (we don’t wear our hydration packs during a change out, we keep bottles of liquids in the escort boat), or cramps, just paddle strong until your seat is called to jump out of the boat. Once in the escort boat I change my wet shirt for a dry one, put on my fleece, and start re-hydrating and snacking for the next go round.

There was one other women’s crew, they were from Kikaha. They started out strong, staying in front of us for the first mile or so until their first change. Their second crew was not as strong and we were able to overtake them. They were changing more frequently than we were, every 15-20 minutes to our 20-30 minutes. At times we were ¼ mile ahead of them, at others they were nearly even with us. Being that close made them hungry to catch us and made us hungry to stay ahead of them.

At the last two miles of the race we made what we thought would be our last crew change and Kikaha brought back their strongest crew, we could hear their yells, they were entirely too close for comfort! Kristen wanted Lianne and Minnie back in the boat NOW! They had only jumped out maybe five minutes earlier. Our finishing line up was Meilee, Lianne, Melissa, Jen, Minnie, and Kristen. Within a couple of minutes Kikaha’s voices faded to silence. The SSP women went on to beat them by over a minute. What an excellent race! It was awesome to have such close competition really keeping both crews motivated.

The full SSP women’s crew was (in alphabetical order): Jen, Lianne, Kristen, Meilee, Melissa, Minnie, Rives, Shelly, and Tanja. Way to go ladies!!! And big mahalos to Dave for being our male escort (boat driver) and Marth for coordinating our changes!

Now We Are Six ...

Gus is now six. Hard to believe he's been a part of my life for six years now. Oh, how my life has changed during his lifetime. He came into my life during a period of unemployment. My mother thought getting a dog was not a particularly good idea at the time but came to realize that Gus gave focus to my life when I most needed it. I'll admit that I nurtured him to be somewhat of a momma's boy, he loves me and only me, tolerates everyone else, but only because I insist. He's a wonderful dog and I'm so glad he's mine.

It was a surprisingly busy week at work so I didn't really have time to get anything for Gus' birthday. Since Friday is my not working day I plan to take them both down to Three Dog Bakery and get some nummy treats for them. Then maybe we'll head out to the dog park for some good runnin' & fetchin' and sniffin' & peein' all the things dogs love to do.

Here's a photo from Gus' first birthday. He wore that party hat for at least 20 minutes, until his doggy pals arrived for the party. He was even fetching that ball while wearing the hat.

And another

Since I'm back I think I need to not beat myself up if I don't post daily. I think a more reasonable goal may be to aim for two posts per week and if I make more than that I'll be pleased. Geez, look at the time (10:55 am) I gotta hit the shower and hit the road, off to visit a pal in the hospital recovering from surgery (he should be going home tomorrow) and then off to a birthday party for the little red-headed girl, she turns three today. Wow, three already! And I still have to wrap her present, a Curious George combo sticker book/coloring book. I hear sticker books are hot items for her age group.

I'd have had more time to write if I hadn't gotten caught up watching this video shot from an OC1 paddling down the Columbia River Gorge. I did a down wind run as well, this guy is a much better paddler than me!

Activation Energy

Hey all, long time no post! To ease back into it I'm going to give you a little chemistry lesson. For a chemical reaction to occur a number of conditions must be met, one of which is the activation energy must be overcome. Basically that means the components of the reaction will sit together quite happily co-existing until you dump enough energy into the reaction vessel to overcome the activation energy after which the reaction will speed merrily along. And here's a picture I found on wikipedia. I know there is a lot of ugly looking math on the picture, the take home message is that you have to get over the hump for things to move along more easily.

With all the whatever going on in my life I sort of closed in on myself a bit, go paddling, go to work (still only 4 days a week), play with the dogs, not write my blog. Even though I had lots of ideas that I wanted to put down. As more time passed between postings the harder it became to sit down and write, my activation energy was growing higher and higher until it felt insurmountable (insert pity party here). This morning I finally decided that it didn't really matter what I wrote so long as I tapped out something! Activation energy overcome the posts should be flowing a bit more freely now. And I have so much to tell you!

More details on the Gorge Games race in a later post but for anyone who gets Fox Sports News (FSN) they have an outrigger segment! I haven't re-watched it in super slow-motion but I think you can see the women's crew, I know you can see one of the men's crews (seats 5 Ernie & 6 Troy) in a red and yellow, borrowed, boat. Here in Seattle the entire Gorge Games coverage will be rebroadcast on Saturday. The outrigger portion was on the 4th day/episode, approx 20 min into the 30 min show.

The Good, The Bad, The Busy

Apologies, it's been far too long since I've posted. I've had a fair bit going on and been spending too much time in my head rather than putting what's in my head down. Lots going on lately since Lotus (and before). During the race my camel-back hydration pack rubbed my sides raw; the wounds are nearly healed, thankfully, just in time to rub them raw this coming weekend up at Gibson's! I stitched up a new pack out of fleece and bought some 2 inch wide webbing for the belt and made a fleece sleeve for that. Ok, just realized my mind is going in about 50,000 different directions at once and if I hope to get to bed at a reasonable hour I need to focus and try to reign in some order to my thoughts.

Fourth of July rocked! It was kinda more fluid in terms of planning than I had expected but it was all good. I'd hoped to go sailing with Scotty, but it was a bit too windy for my little sailboat. I ended up playing mini golf at Interbay with Diane, Dave, and his two daughters. It was lots of fun, they are always fun to hang out with, and I didn't suck nearly as badly as I expected. In fact, I got the second lowest score. Who knew! Scotty and I went up to have a wonderful supper at Mark, Nancy, and little Miriam's house. Grilled salmon, grilled and steamed asparagus, grilled and steamed corn on the cob, steamed kale with balsamic dressing, mmm mmm mmm. It was all excellent but the grilled asparagus was heavenly. They needed to get Mark's mother, Wynne, to the airport (flying back to Boston) so Scotty and I went down nearer my place, Magnuson Park, to light fireworks off. We found a very nice, large, empty parking lot and we having a lovely time when a parks guy rolled up and asked us to move along, we nodded and said sure thing. After he rolled off we proceeded to continue lighting stuff! A few minutes later he came back chastising us for disregarding his request to move on. We tried to find another part of the park where we could light stuff but he cruised by as we were packing our bags. We decided a total change of venue was in order at that point. We went over to Matthew's Beach and aside from the underage drinking that was going on and occasional fireworks lit amongst the trees it seemed like the perfect location. We went down to the water and had an excellent little show. The drunken youth even cheered! We scooted when a guy started lighting stuff behind us and it was falling over shooting firey balls in the direction of people. In all an excellent time! By the way, taking photos of fireworks is harder than you'd expect, but you can tell we had some fun!

We finally have sorted out our Gibson's crew for next weekend. Sabine from Seattle Outrigger will be stroking for us, we practiced with her last Saturday and I think it's going to be an awesome crew for the race. Anyway, following Sabine will be Lianne, Minnie, me, Chantelle, and Kristen will be steering. Our practice last Saturday was a 16 miler down nearly to the eastern span of the I-90 bridge. It was an excellent practice, a bit drizzley but perfect conditions otherwise. I need to get some sort of headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes. Sweat drips into my eyes and the burning was quite blinding. The new fleece hydration pack worked out just fine. I think it could use a few slight refinements but it should do me just fine this weekend.

Sabine and I will be carpooling up. Leaving around 9 am Friday, crossing the border (I finally get to use my new Nexus pass) and then up to the ferry at Horseshoe Bay leaving at 2:15. The boats will be on the 6:45 ferry so we will have a few hours to settle in and get some supper before we have to rig the boats. My neighbor Kyle will be looking after the dog boyz, thankfully. It's such a relief knowing she can take care of them and they will be in good hands.

The rest of Saturday was quite busy. I went down to Olympia to go through the last of the photos with Uncle Leonard and then a BBQ at Craig's house, a former co-worker. 16 miles is a very long way combined with lots of visiting and driving, I was pooped once I finally made it home.

Sunday I went for a nice easy paddle on my OC1 to try and loosen things from that long paddle. Finally got Steve out on his OC1, too. After the paddle we went down to Agua Verde for some lunch. One day I still want to try and paddle down there for lunch, it may happen.

Today was a day of emotional ups and downs. An offer was finally made on the Mother's house which has been on the market since last September. My brother made a counter offer which was accepted today! They want to fast track the deal and if all goes well the deal will close on July 25. Thank goodness. On the other hand things have been very slow at work for a lot longer than I have ever seen before, that anyone has ever seen before. The president of the company called a meeting for this afternoon which threw everyone into a dither, she never calls meetings and we have our regular staff meetings on Wednesdays. Until further notice we are having our hours (and pay) reduced by 20%. Projections are promising for September and October, but July and August are still looking very grim. I guess a 20% reduction is much better than 100% but it's going to be tough considering I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. Well, please think good economic thoughts in my general direction and if you have any data that needs quality third party validation please let me know, we have a full staff ready to do quality validation work to suite your needs!

Lotus was long!

We took three crews up to Lotus Iron Saturday. We didn't have enough women available to field a full women's crew so we had a mixed crew of Minnie, Rives, Melissa, Will, Todd, and Lianne steered her first race. Our men's blue team was Alan, Eric, Jesse, Clem, Kevin and Tom steering, the men's white team was Frank, Ernie, Patrick, Ed, Jason, and Troy steering. It was the latest race start I've ever had before, scheduled for 2 pm. In Canada the women's crews race together and afterwards the men's and mixed crews race together.

The race course was leaving in front of the Lotus Clubhouse across the Burrard Inlet north in to the Indian Arm, turn around Raccoon Island, then south towards Cates Park, then west back into Burrard Inlet to a turn around McBarge, and then a final eastward run back towards the Clubhouse. The race distance was posted as 17 km which converts 10.56 miles. I think it was actually closer to 19 km because my GPS read 12.1 miles at the end of the race and we really didn't do that much zigging and zagging around.

Two boats huli'd within 3 minutes of the start line. The wake across Burrard Inlet was substantial, there is a lot of big (huge) boat traffic along the Inlet. We may have been a little cautious but I'd rather be cautious and not huli during a race. Will and I worked out a system where Lianne would call out "Protect the ama!" and whoever was on the right side would switch over to the ama side, I kept calling the changes so the others wouldn't become too fatigued staying on one side too long and when things had calmed down Will or I would switch to the side we should be on. Once we were further up Indian Arm it was less bad but there were still moments of some pretty big wake. As we came upon Raccoon Island I saw a couple sunbathing, I'm not sure if they were completely naked but they definitely were from the waist up! I didn't call it out to the rest of the boat, didn't want to distract the guys (lol). On the other side of Raccoon Island there was a boat full of partying youth, I didn't see them but heard afterwards there were two topless girls, I just heard the guy hollar that we were dead last; not true there was another boat behind us! However, they did pass us once we were back into Burrard Inlet. We were getting tired by this time and had nothing left to try and fend them off. On our way to McBarge one of the chase boats was hanging nearby us and the crew which had just passed us. It was both endearing and a wee bit annoying that the guy was calling out to pull and twist, general pep-talking kind of thing. One part of me just wanted him to bed quiet, while another part of me actually pulled a bit better for the encouragement!

We were finally into the home stretch, tired and needing to make it that last bit, Lianne dipped the her steering blade in for a slight correction and the current ripped it out of her hands! Todd gave her his paddle and went for the spare paddle taped to the iako. We started to turn back for the blade when the guy in the chase boat offered to get it for us! We kept on towards the finish line and he passed off the blade to Lianne. With the exception of the start of the turn to go back those of us in the front would never have known there was anything different happening! Way to go Lianne! I was (and I think most of our crew was) thinking that the finish horn would happen a minute or so before it finally went off, but we had to keep paddling until we heard the horn. So tired, so tired, but finished!

Our men's blue team finished first overall/first open men's, at 1:24:17, the men's white team finished 11th overall, eighth open men's, at 1:39:00, and our mixed crew finished 19th overall at 1:57:40. I was in line for the BBQ plate lunch when I heard one of the race officials asking around for one of the SSP mixed crew paddlers. I called him over, he wanted to confirm that we had registered master category (35 and over). Yup, we were all over 35, we were masters. He then said we'd taken first place! Seems we were the only crew to register master mixed. HA! We went from last to first in a heartbeat!

Between the late start, long race, lunch, awards, and loading the boats we weren't on our way home until 6:45 pm. Talk about a long day. I finally got home at nearly 10 pm. Thanks to my neighbors for taking the dog boyz out for a few potty breaks today and feeding supper, too.

And OC1 on Sunday

As you may remember I was planning to paddle to Red Hook Brewery via the Sammamish River on Sunday. I heard enough negative feedback that I decided to scrap the idea and I believe I've come up with a much better idea. I/we can paddle to Agua Verde in Lake Union via Lake Washington and the Montlake Cut! I am totally down for margaritas and mexican food. I think the only place that has better rice and beans is Wahoo's Fish Taco and the only time I get that is when I'm visiting the Bro in CO (or SoCA, where I travel far less frequently than CO). Anyhoo.. I went to neither Red Hook or Agua Verde, saving it for another time. Anyone want to come along?

I did meet Lianne and her son, Kyle, to go for a nice out and back paddle from SSP. We headed north at a modest pace. We didn't want Kyle to fall too far behind and he wasn't feeling too motivated to paddle. He wanted to surf the wake left by passing boats.

I ultimately decided to paddle hard 10 minutes out and catch up with them on my way back. At my turn around point there were two people in kayaks out having a nice Sunday paddle. The guy decided he wanted to keep even with me. HA! As if my (not so thinly veiled) competitive nature would allow that!?! I dug in and pushed a little harder, but actually not that much more, and completely dropped him. I had brought my camera along in the waterproof housing so I stopped to shoot a couple snaps. As I was finishing he came up alongside me commenting on how my boat really moves. 'Damned right it does', I thought to myself. "Yup", I said to him. We chatted a moment and then I picked up the pace for the remaining 1.5 miles back to the beach, where I finally caught up with Lianne and Kyle. Turns out they headed back straightaway and surfed their way in. I'll post a pic once I get them downloaded.

14 Miles Saturday

We had ideal weather conditions for our Saturday morning paddle, warming but not hot and partly sunny but not too much. Since you should be paddling reasonably hard you really don't need the sun beating down on you, too. Our crew started out with Kristen stroking, then Meilee, Nancy, me, Rives and Lianne steering to get practice for Lotus Iron coming up on June 28. Can I just say 'I love following Kristen at stroke!' Her pace is comfortable, her reach is long, and her stroke is powerful. She is so easy to follow, she is also an awesome steerer. Too bad we can't clone her to have her sitting both ends of the boat! Minnie and Lianne are doing a fine job stroking, but they are still quite new in those positions. Over time I have no doubt they will really grow into those positions. Lianne is already showing a lot of potential at steering, too.

So, we paddled south past the 520 bridge and onward towards the I-90 bridge. We hit the 7 mile mark off the marina at Leschi. No chance of seeing our dragon boating team members, they were all up north in Vancouver for a huge weekend of racing. We took a nice easy turn and then stopped to swap people around. Lianne to stroke, then Rives, Nancy and I kept our places, followed by Meilee, and a somewhat tired Kristen to steer. Kristen hasn't sat anywhere but steering much at all this summer and that is a very different type of fitness.

The last mile or so were tough. We went 14.2 miles total and it felt like it. It was a good workout and it helped bring us another step closer to being ready for Gibson's.

After we got back to SSP Clem and I documented dings and wear spots on the three OC6s. We're hoping to get some rough time and cost estimates from the guy who is repairing our ama so we can figure out when to pull the boats for maintenance.

lake is getting warmer, sort of

We had only three people confirm for practice last night so we decided to opt for an OC1 practice. Funny, looking at all the OC1 paddlers we had we could have taken an OC6 out! There was Meilee, Lianne, Tom, Kyle, John, Kevin, me, and Bromley on the surfski.

We have enough women on the team now that we are going to have to do a time trial to select the crew for the Gorge race in July. Our time trial will be from SSP across the lake to Denny Park and back. Meilee, Lianne, and I decided to paddle the time trial course to get a little practice. I got to Denny Park first in just under 15 minutes, Lianne came in just over 16 minutes, and Meilee, who'd said she planned to paddle more leisurely, arrived in just over 17 minutes. As we were regrouping we saw John headed our way, we didn't realize he was planning to paddle the course with us as well so we waited for him to get to Denny Park before we headed back.

We decided to take a more relaxed trip back, paddling and chatting and working on technique. When we got most of the way back to SSP we met up with Tom and Kyle and Kevin and Bromley. There were a few bumps (small waves caused by boat wake) that we paddled and tried to catch! That was lots of fun.

Kyle, at 12, has already got awesome technique. Not surprising with an awesome paddler like Tom for a dad! Lianne has got some mad skillz, too. Tom was giving us some tips on how to fly the ama. I went over in fairly short order! The lake is not as cold as when we huli'd the OC6 a few weeks ago, but it certainly isn't as warm as a late August swim would be either. A little later Lianne was working on flying her ama and went over, but not quite as spectacularly as I did, she slid off her seat and didn't even get her hair wet! Right after that I went over again, too. At that point I decided that I'd probably had enough for the evening, but it was fun and worth it.

Saturday we have a big paddle lined up. We are continuing our training for Gibson's by paddling from SSP down to the I-90 bridge, the western side, and back. It should be about 15 miles! Looks like the weather should be pretty nice, too! I plan to bring my camera along and get a few snaps while we are out.

Google As Rice

This article was written by Managed Networks and it's pretty amazing. It puts the volume of information in to a perspective that I can actually wrap my brain around. Sorry about the funky formating, was a hack copy and past job and I'm just not savvy enough to make it pretty. I just thought it was really cool and wanted to share it.

Picturing Google: I never knew Google was THIS massive.

The blogosphere was amazed earlier this year when it realised the true size of Google. Think Google is the King Kong of search? Think a million King Kongs and you’re getting close. Google processes 20 Petabytes of a data a day. Don’t know what a Petabyte is? Check this out:

An MP3 is about 3MB. The Beatles recorded 214 singles- that’s close to just one gigabyte. 1024 gigabytes makes a Terabyte and 1024 terabytes makes a petabyte. Lost and confused? We were too.

Our poor mortal minds haven’t been so boggled by the ‘big numbers’ since a legendary wag fooled his elders out of ‘quite a lot’ of rice by using a chess board a few hundred years ago. We’ve used the same unit of measurement – grains of rice – to try to put Google’s electronic brain power into perspective.

Let’s relate a grain of rice to a byte. A byte is normally eight binary bits, eg ‘10011000’. It can also be written as a two digit hexadecimal number. In terms of data, a byte is generally used to store a letter. One byte = one letter = one grain of rice.

Bearing this new representation in mind, we can now look at a kilobyte (1024 bytes) as a small bowl of rice. It’s about half a portion, not enough to fill you up – and in data terms a kilobyte would only be a few paragraphs of text – not much to mentally stimulate you there either.

Next up is the megabyte, which is around the size of all the text on an average website, or a short novel. On the rice scale, a megabyte would be a 25kilo bag of rice; enough to feed over 420 people in one sitting, if you have enough chairs.

1024 times larger still is the gigabyte. Back in 1995, I bought a PC with a gigabyte of hard drive space, and managed to store everything I needed on there for the next few years.

To store a gigabyte of rice I’d have needed a bigger garden…. the size of two shipping containers to be more precise. And I could have treated all of those curry-loving Mancunians to a meal. The equivalent of finding a single word in a gigabyte of text is finding a few grains of rice somewhere inside those two containers.

Moving up the scale again we reach the terabyte, equivalent to 1024 gigabytes. I have a terabyte drive sitting in front of me – it’s the size of a small shoebox. But to search through all that data – even on my most powerful desktop machine – would take longer than my patience could bear.

To transport a ‘terabyte’ of rice we’d need to hire this container ship. We could use its contents to feed everybody in the EU.

Finally, we arrive at the mighty petabyte. At this stage, we’re well beyond the size of data that most individuals or small companies handle, and into the realms of some of our Enterprise clients. It’s the same as 210 of the largest container ships that have ever been built, EIGHTY bowls of rice for every person on the planet, or…

…what you’d need to cover central London in 1 metre of rice!

Remember, Google processes 20 petabytes of data every day; or if you prefer – over 4,000 gigantic ships bursting with rice, 1,600 bowls for everyone on the planet, or central London drowned in 20 metres of the stuff. This is spread over 72,000 jobs each taking an average of 7 minutes to complete. Their data processing capability is a big contributor to their position at the top of the online world, and also no doubt to their estimated £1million monthly electricity bill.

Google should never leave you feeling unfulfilled again!

Adventure Planning

I've been thinking about paddling the Sammmish River from Lake Sammamish to Lake Washington. I've learned how to measure distances more accurately in Google Earth. You can zoom way in and then use the arrows to move the map around. By doing this I've calculated that from Lake Sammamish to the boat ramp in Kenmore is 13.6 miles and to go all the way to SSP is a total of 18.7 miles. The river looks wide enough for the whole distance, too. You can faintly see red dots where I mapped out the river and then a while line finishing the route to SSP.

After lunch I showed the course to a co-worker and that opened a whole new can of worms. He pointed out that the river passes very nearby the Red Hook Brewery. We then spent some time pinpointing the brewery. By zooming in and looking around we located it. Then I measured it and came up with a distance of approximately 7 miles. Why, that's totally do-able! In fact I think I'll do it this Sunday. Have a nice paddle, stop, load the boat,and head in for some lunch. Not sure if you can make out the red dots for the shorter route, but they are there.

I mentioned the long course to a few club members and they seem keen on the idea. I'm trying to work out something with Seattle Raft and Kayak for trailering our boats to the launch point. SRK is located right next to SSP down at Magnuson Park. More details and pictures of the adventure to come.

I'm Not a Masochist, Really!

This is where we revisit the wonderful world of foot torture. Blah. I saw Dr. Irving again Monday. My feelings are that the various therapies, massage and prolotherapy sugar injections, have reached a plateau. My feet don't seem to be getting worse (yay!), but while they are better than before starting they don't seem to be showing much in the way of further improvement (boo!).

I've now had four injections in my right foot and one in my left foot. That last injection on Monday was very painful, I didn't kick the doctor though. It's now Wednesday and my foot is still sore from the injection. I'm writing this longhand while the bus is creeping along in the express lanes, on my way home to get the car and head off to Carmen's foot massage. Neither Carmen or Dr. Irving has brought me to tears, yet. But both have made me question my tolerance for pain (it's increased loads) or fondness for pain (ya, really not so much). But I keep going and asking these professional pain inflictors to inflict more pain and paying for the privilege, mind you. WTF?!?

I'm seriously wondering whether I should continue with these therapies. Dr. Irving suggested that it may take upwards of three months for the injections to completely do their thing. I plan to hold off seeing him for at least that long to see how things develop. Carmen, though, I'm torn. She works on more than just my footsies and the back work helps lots. For now I think we'll try every other week versus the weekly visits we have been doing and see how well that works out. Fingers crossed.

11.5 miles today

The plan is to race the last Gibson's race which is more formally known International Howe Sound Outrigger Race held at Gibsons, BC. This year will be both the 10th anniversary and final running of the race. The race is 18 miles long so we need to beef up our training. We are aiming for longer distances on our Saturday practices.

This morning Chantelle, Meilee, Nancy, me, Rives, and Kristen headed north off the SSP beach and up towards Kenmore and into the Sammamish River slough, which connects Lake Sammamish to Lake Washington. Up in the slough it's quite pretty, very peaceful. We saw 3 or 4 herons today, a momma duck with her ducklings, some geese with their babies, too. I thought I'd seen a raptor of some type but it turned out to be a heron way up high in a tree.

As we passed under the bridge in Kenmore we smiled and waved to Nancy's husband, Mike, who snapped a few pictures of us. I hope to get copies and post them. When we came back around Mike was now under the bridge at the boat launch snapping pictures from near water level. At that point we were nearly out of the slough and back into Lake Washington where Kristen went from steering to sitting stroke and Rives steered us back into port. Following Kristen as stroke was wonderful. She was a fantastically long reach and rotation. And she is so consistent about putting that barely perceptible pause at the top of the stroke allowing us to set up properly and really maximize our pull. Wow, never mind we were at the back half of an 11.5 mile paddle, it felt so easy.

It was an excellent workout. Thank you ladies. I'm thinking about planning an OC1 adventure exploring more of the slough. It's approximately 12-13 miles to Lake Sammamish from Kenmore. Might be fun to go with someone and leave one car at the finish so we can drive back. Next weekend we are heading for I-90!

Da Boyz is Famous!

One of the blogs I follow is called I Has A Hotdog and it's corresponding I Can Has Cheezburger where people submit animal photos and they are captioned and posted. Some are cute, some are odd, some give you a big laugh. I submitted a few photos of da boyz and when I looked this evening there they were!!



I really like this one, it hasn't been posted on the site yet, still in the voting section



Another in the voting section



Arthur was soo tolerant of the baby Gus puppster.



Guess I need to upload some more pics of da boys!

Drunk Humor

I had a foot massage tonight and it was especially ouchy which left me feeling not so creative with what to post. My friend Matt emailed me this joke tonight. It made me laugh out loud so I thought I'd pass it on.

-----------

Mike wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's get together Party. Mike is not normally a mixed drinks drinker, but the drinks didn't taste like alcohol at all. He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong.

Mike had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And next to them a single red rose!! Mike sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed. He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror.

Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick:

'Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make you your favorite dinner tonight. I love you, darling!

Love, Kim'

He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, fresh orange juice and the morning newspaper. The kids are also at the table, eating. Mike asks, 'Kids... What happened last Night?'

'Well, you came home after 3 A.M., drunk and out of your mind You fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door.

Confused, he asked them, 'So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me??'

They reply, 'Oh THAT... Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, 'Leave me alone, I'm married!!'

Broken Coffee Table $239.99
Hot Breakfast $4.20
Two Aspirins $.38

Saying the right thing, at the right time. . PRICELESS

What part of "I don't date married men" are you having trouble with?

The last batch of dating prospects seems to have fizzled out. I'd met a couple of guys and I think the feeling was a mutual 'eh'. No problems, just have to keep fishing.

I re-posted this past weekend. Had a guy answer who seems to be convinced that he is all that. He'd answered a previous posting and this time I said he's have to be more interesting or I wouldn't reply. He couldn't remember answering my post before but this time he was convinced that we were making a real connection and I should send him my phone number and isn't it great that I don't mind that's he's married! Uh, excuse me? married? Ya, sorry, I don't roll that way. My rational is this: If you'd leave someone for me what's to keep you from leaving me for someone else. He was adamant that his marriage is over. I asked him to send me a pdf of his divorce documents and then we could talk. It was more than a little odd that he kept emailing me for over an hour about what a great catch he is and how we'd be perfect together and he's being so honest with me ...

I guess I need to spell it out, don't I? And I realize that I may be preaching to the choir here, at least I hope I am, so here it goes. I have three minimum requirements, mind these are only minimum requirements there are many add on options. 1) Male (I know with the very short hair and the less than girly-girly actions may give other impressions but it's true, romantically I prefer the company of men). 2) Single (that means not married, not in a committed relationship, not but it's been over for a long time, not it's all over but the paperwork. Call me after you've signed on the bottom line). 3) Straight (ya, ok, this one is mostly just to make it more funny, but it is true, I'm looking for a guy that's looking for a girl).

So, these are the bare minimum requirements which need to be met for me to consider a guy as potentially datable. Extra marks are given for wit, intelligence, ability to make me laugh, like or have cats/dogs/or other pets, fondness for the outdoors and water. The list goes on and on. I guess the trick is finding the guy who meets my criteria while at the same time I meet his. Hmm, any suggestions?

Here are some photos of the guys I've e-conversed with and possibly gone out with once, just wanted to give you a cross section of that gets sent to me. I decided not to post any of the penis pics. One of these men is 26 years old. One of these men called me hot and wanted to have all kinds of sex with me. One of these men has herpes. One of these men is currently married. One of these men lives too far away. One of these men discussed his colonoscopy as dinner was being served. One of these men called me adorable (that still makes me smile). One of these men was nice enough but we both felt 'eh' about one another. I've met three of these men.