I went to the doctor on Monday because the pain in my right chest was hurting so bad. It really hurts when I cough, which thankfully is less frequent now that I'm over the H1N1 flu. But it also hurts to simply breathe in deeply, when I laugh, and even when I get up and move around or stretch.

The doctor said I injured my ribs and cartilage from coughing so hard last week. He gave me anti-inflammatory pills for the swelling and codeine for the pain. I took one of the codeine that night and did I ever regret it the next day. My stomach didn't like it, even though I took it with food. It made me nauseous all morning and I had to go home from work at 10. The doctor said I should be feeling better in a week, but it will just take time for it to heal itself.

I just can't believe I coughed so hard I injured my ribs and cartilage. What will happen to me next? And when will I be well again? Being sick/injured the past 2 weeks has been terrible.

Note: This post follows Will we ever move back to TX?

As I mentioned previously, I don’t know if we’ll ever move back to Texas. We do have family in TX, so that's an important consideration, but it just doesn't seem that anywhere in TX could offer a comparable lifestyle of driving very little, walking a lot in the city, and hiking in nature.

But, who knows what the coming years will bring. If we were to move back, it would likely be to Dallas or Austin. While there are some nice things about living in Texas, there are several factors that currently make us wonder if we could be as happy in TX as we are here:

• The weather would keep us indoors - Weather in TX is much more extreme than in Seattle, especially in summer. While the wet weather here discourages us from hiking sometimes, it usually doesn't keep us inside. In TX, we'd have to forget about the Saturday afternoon summer hikes that we love. And actually, just forget about doing anything outdoors comfortably on a summer afternoon.


• 
  We'd have to drive more - We drive our one car 6,000 miles annually and don't have to drive to work or to many places we often go to. We might be able to overcome this if we lived in downtown of a Texas city and could walk or take a bus to work, but no urban area I'm aware of competes with the shopping and dining available in downtown Seattle and the nearby neighborhoods that we can walk or bus to.


• 
  We wouldn't be able to enjoy walking as much - While downtown areas in TX are walkable, they're more often surrounded by freeways and large arterials with limited places to cross. Sidewalks are often narrow and the buildings ignore the streetscape leaving nothing to look at but strips of grass and limestone walls. And, most areas outside of downtown areas just aren't really designed for walking unless you want to walk along a busy arterial road and walk across acres of parking lots to go into any retail store.
  
  While Seattle does not compare to world-class pedestrian cities like Melbourne or San Francisco, it's still a good place to walk. The signalling and siewalks are adequate and we can get around in most areas comfortably on foot.
  
  I'd be concerned about being limited in a Texas city to only having parts of downtown and small areas in a couple other parts of town that would be enjoyable to walk through. I don't want to have to go to a strip mall just to be able to walk somewhere other than a residential neighborhood or busy arterial street.


• There's less to do outdoors - There are fewer parks in Texas cities than here and much fewer places we could hike outside the city. While I'm sure there are some state parks and other areas in TX that we're not aware of, there are just so many excellent outdoor options within 60 miles of us right now.


• The natural beauty does not compare - It's not Texas' fault that the Pacific Northwest is so beautiful. Texas has its own, more subtle type of beauty, but it can't compete with the forest, mountains, and water near Seattle.


• 
  We don't want to see the air we breathe - Seattle's air isn't always pristine, especially on hot summer days, but the smog in Texas is considerably worse. I just don't like being able to see what I breathe.


• There's less to do nearby - While Seattle looks like one of the more isolated cities in the county on a map, there are actually lots of things to do nearby. Outdoor destinations like the three National Parks nearby, the Oregon coastline, and islands in Puget Sound are in a different league from attractions like Enchanted Rock and Inner Space Caverns in TX. And San Antonio and Houston just can't compete with the Northwest cities of Vancouver and Portland.


• 
  We'd have to readjust to the culture - An area's culture affects everything from what is eaten to what is said to whether car dealerships have 8 state flags and only 1 national flag. A culture is hard to explain, but is better understood through experiencing the myriad ways in which a culture is expressed in its environment. So, since it's hard to get into specifics without thoroughly explaining and potentially misrepresenting the respective cultures, I'll just say that the culture here fits us better.

As time goes on, our perceptions, preferences, and priorities will evolve, but right now these issues are all relevant to how we want to live our lives and they discourage us from wanting to move back to Texas.

The more time we spent with family in Texas last week, the more it felt like we had never left. Indeed, it's hard to believe that we've now lived in Seattle for more than two years. And, at times during our trip, it was hard to believe that we had lived in TX for the 24 years that we did.

Interestingly, I still knew things in TX really well. I keep up with the news for the most part and still know my way around the Metroplex really well. Texas is still my home, even if it just my home away from home.

Of course our families would love for us to move back to Fort Worth, or at least to somewhere within a few hours drive of them, and we're regularly peppered with questions about when or whether we'll return. I've given that a lot of thought, but still don't know how things will turn out.

We had our reasons for moving away in the first place, but of course when discussing important family issues like raising a family and things like that, there may be some reasons why we would consider moving back. But, while we do miss our families now, we are very happy with our lifestyle and have no plans to move back to TX. The bottom line is that we just don't know what will happen in the coming years as circumstances change. However, there are some significant reasons why it would be very difficult for us to ever move back to Texas, which I'll cover in a separate post.

I used to check the weather forecast often and used it to set my expectations for what the weather would be like. However, the forecast has been wrong so many times in Seattle that I've learned not to pay much attention to it anymore.

While the forecast in TX was often not accurate more than a few days ahead, sometimes the forecast for Seattle isn't accurate for the next day. Too many times I've been expecting nice weather and then have been disappointed with a day of rain.

The weather patterns here are complicated and are affected by the water and the mountains. Often there is a big difference in the weather between where we live and 20 miles in any direction.

So, because of all that, I think I'll be better off not paying too much attention to the weather forecast.

I've been sick with the flu for over a week. I caught it while I was in Texas last week and started to feel bad the Thursday of our trip. I had trouble breathing and was coughing a little, so I thought it might be allergies. I took a Claritin, but that didn't do anything for me. I woke up Friday and felt significantly worse. I started to get a high fever of almost 103 and I felt terrible.

I was sick the rest of the trip and the flight home was awful. It was easily the worst I've ever felt on a plane. My ears started to hurt so bad on the decent into Seattle, I thought my head would explode. It was difficult to sleep much at all. We took a cab home instead of riding the light rail, since a cab would be faster and easier.

I crashed on the bed and couch for three days. My entire body was sore and it hurt when I coughed. I continued to have a high fever until Monday, but I still felt miserable and was really dizzy and light-headed. I couldn't even go to work until Wednesday. Even then, I still probably should have taken Wednesday off. I felt so tired and weak and had no energy. I was coughing up stuff and had an awful headache. Thankfully I can just sit at my desk and do most of my stuff without much physical exertion.

I probably won't feel back to normal for several more days, as I continue to build my immunity back up and get my energy back. I'm still coughing too and don't have much appetite. This is definitely the worst I've felt in at least 5 years.

But the worst part about being sick was the timing. It couldn't have come at a worse time. I was really looking forward to spending time with my sister, her husband, and my niece on Friday. We were going to go to the mall and out to eat lunch, then back to her house to see Evie's room. I'm still upset I couldn't see her again and hold my niece one more time. It also would have been nice to be able to hug my other family members that came by to visit Friday night. And, I couldn't really do much with my parents either. We did a day's worth of stuff on Thursday right before I got sick, but that was it. The rest of the trip I laid on their couch and watched movies.

I don't normally get sick like this. I hardly ever get colds any more and I haven't had the flu in at least 10 years. It's just really disappointing that it ruined the rest of our trip. Hopefully I'll start to feel a lot better by this weekend.

Living so far away from our family, the time we get to spend together is limited by the cost of flying and the number of available vacation days we have. So it's even more important to take advantage of the time we do get to spend together.

To minimize cost, we typically visit for a full week, rather than making multiple shorter trips. But that usually uses 5 days of vacation time from work, so it's hard to make more than one visit per year.

There's also the consideration of what we'll actually do with our family. It's hard to find things to do that several people can participate in and enjoy that provide an opportunity to spend quality time together.

Eating together and playing games seem to be good activities. Trying to walk somewhere often doesn't work if we can't walk side-by-side and comfortably talk. Sitting and drinking tea and talking works well for a little while. Going to sporting events works okay, but it's hard for the people on the ends to be involved in a conversation. We have to come up with enough activities so that our visits don't become boring.

But, often it's hard to come up with a full day's worth of activities to spend with the same group of people. That's why in the past we'd split up days - we'd spend a couple hours with my parents, a couple hours with Lesley's parents, some time with my grandmother, some time with Lesley's sister, maybe all in one day. We'd go a full trip and stay at a different home every night. This helped to make the days more active so that we weren't just sitting around bored, but it also made the trips more hectic with all the travel and nightly relocation.

That's what prompted our idea to visit with my parents in Austin. Since we'd be on vacation in a different place, we'd have plenty to do over a solid few days, and much of what we did provided quality time with each other. And, once we got back, we had planned to visit Dallas with Lesley's parents and to break up our time with them by visiting my grandmother and Lesley's sister, so we thought that would work well.

Lesley being sick interrupted our plans somewhat, but overall it seems like this approach was less hectic and it feels like we got a more substantial amount of quality time with each set of parents.

So, we may try to do trips like this in the future. The main concern will be finding enough to do with one group of people over a solid period of a couple days. We won't always be able to visit another city with someone (though we'd be open to it) and finding two solid days of activities in Fort Worth with either of our parents might be difficult. Still, it might work out better than staggering our time with everyone so as to spread it out over the duration of our visit.

Maybe there's another way that we could be planning our visits that we're not thinking of. It's definitely a challenge to plan these trips, but each time we plan one we learn a few things to help us make the next trip more effective and more enjoyable.

After our time in Austin, we returned to Fort Worth for the second half of our week in Texas.

That afternoon, we went to visit my grandmother. We had some dessert and tea and talked for a couple hours. After that, Lesley's dad picked us up and we went to see Lesley's sister and her daughter. We got to spend a lot of time with them and Lesley really enjoyed holding her niece. I held her, too, which was kind of weird because I haven't held a baby since my brother was a baby. Lesley's mom made a nice lasagna dinner for us, too.

The next day we had another good Tex-Mex meal outside on the patio, this time with Lesley's parents at one of our favorite places, Uncle Julio's. We shared the fajitas, which are always excellent. We then went to Dallas and walked around White Rock Lake for a while. The air was fairly cool, but it got to feeling warm after a while in the sun. While the weather was pretty good, the trees were not yet ready for spring, as many of them had not yet started growing new leaves.

We had some time to kill before going to a Dallas Stars game that evening, so we drove around Uptown Dallas a little bit, which is one of the more trendy and walkable parts of Dallas, and then went to Victory plaza near the arena. Many of the restaurants there had gone out of business, but there were still people hanging around the plaza and watching some of the big outdoor screens.

Lesley's dad was able to get us some free food at the VIP lounge in the arena before the game. There was a buffet of salad, potatoes, and several kinds of meat. There were also several kinds of dessert, which we got to try. There was a lot of food to eat, so that was pretty cool, and the brownies were very good. The game itself was fairly entertaining, though the Stars let the Flyers come back to win after an early lead.

The next day, Lesley woke up feeling sick. Interestingly, my mom had started feeling sick on the way back from Austin, so we figured that my mom might have gotten the flu in Austin and that Lesley might have caught it from my mom in the car ride back to Fort Worth. The plan for the day was for Lesley to spend time with her sister and for me to visit with my grandmother again. But, since we weren't sure whether I might be sick and just not yet showing symptoms, we didn't want to get my grandmother sick, so I ended up hanging out with my dad and brother, who weren't sick.

My brother was getting a ride back to school north of Dallas. We stopped for Italian food on the way and then had to spend some time fixing an issue with my brother's computer. Around that time, my brother started feeling sick, too. Anyway, I knew traffic would get bad on the way to Fort Worth if we left too late, but fortunately we left in time to avoid having any traffic problems. Lesley had just watched The Dark Knight on her parents' new HDTV and when I got there we watched another movie. For dinner, we got Cousin's Barbeque, which is my favorite BBQ place in the universe. The brisket was extremely tender and flavorful and the okra was remarkable, as usual. That evening, some of Lesley's extended family decided to risk exposure to illness and stopped by to visit.

The next day was our last in TX on this trip. We watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off and hung out at Lesley's parents' house before heading to the airport. The weather outside was almost 40 degrees colder than the day before and about 30 degrees colder than the temperature in Seattle. Unfortunately, Lesley felt pretty sick that afternoon and was pretty miserable during the entire flight. I had been looking forward to taking light rail from the airport for the first time, but since Lesley wasn't feeling well we decided to take a taxi, which was much faster.

We had a good time in DFW. We all wish Lesley and my mom and brother hadn't gotten sick, but it was nice to get to hang out with everyone, to have good food, and spend time in Dallas. We'll likely be visiting again around Thanksgiving or Christmas.

We went down to Austin last week for the first time in a few years. Austin's about 3 hours away from where we grew up in Fort Worth so we thought it'd be fun to go there to spend time with friends and with my parents before returning to Fort Worth to spend time with other people in our family.

We got up at 3:55 am on Saturday to make our flight. Seattle's new light rail doesn't run that early, so we had to pay to take an airport shuttle. The freeway was pretty empty but the airport was surprisingly busy.

We flew into the Denver airport, which was very busy, where we grabbed a mediocre fast food lunch and caught our next flight into Austin. We arrived in Austin at around 2 in the afternoon and the weather was beautiful - clear skies and 70 degrees.

Our friends picked us up from the airport and then we walked around the University of Texas campus and went up to the UT Tower for a view of the city. We're all pretty laid back people, so we spent a good amount of time hanging out, playing a game called Wits & Wagers, reminiscing, and watching online videos.

The next day we went to Round Rock donuts, which was featured on a TV show because of a very large donut they sell. The regular-sized glazed donuts I had there were very good. We drove to Zilker Park afterward in some incredibly bad traffic. There was a city-wide garage sale going on, so we checked out some of the antiques and things in there, before heading to the park. Lesley wanted to stop on the way to eat at Schlotzsky's Deli since there are not any locations in Seattle. We rented canoes at the park, and though canoing was a little difficult, it was a lot of fun to do that for about an hour. Afterward, we rode a little train around the park to look at all the kites involved in the kite festival that was going on. Then, walking on our way back to the car, we stopped for some Tex-Mex and margaritas at Baby Acapulco's. It was our first Tex-Mex since July and it was a great Texas experience to sit and eat outside to have great Tex-Mex and margaritas. We had a really good time hanging out.

The next day, my parents and brother picked up Lesley and I and we went to eat some home-style cooking at a local restaurant for lunch. After that, we went to the top of Mount Bonnell to check out the view and walk around in the nice weather. It's one of the highest points in the city and is comparable in elevation to some of the high points in Seattle. After that, we went to the Mayfield Park and Nature Preserve, where several peacocks roamed around the grounds.

Later that day, we went to the LBJ presidential library, which had a lot of information on LBJ's presidency. That evening we had some Texas barbecue at the Salt Lick. We explored Austin a bit more, including famous 6th Street.

Unfortunately, the weather the next day was wet. We went to the Texas Memorial Museum, which had several fossils and geodes and other cool stuff. For lunch, my parents tried Thai food for the first time. We visited the Texas Capitol building afterward and then while my dad and brother went to walk at a park, my mom and Lesley and I went to the Harry Ransom Center at UT. There was a really cool exhibit on filmmaking, which explained the job of the major roles in making a movie (e.g. producer, cinematographer, etc) and had old scripts, costumes, and other artifacts from famous movies. Later that day we went to see Austin's bats and walked along the river. Unfortunately it was rather breezy and cold and the bats were a little underwhelming. However, afterward we all went to Mellow Mushroom for a pizza dinner, which was very good. We played a game of UNO that night back at the hotel. The next day we left around 10 to go back to Fort Worth.

I had a really good time in Austin. I got a much better feel for the city than I ever had before and gained a better understanding of how it considers itself weird. The heart of the city had fewer chains and more character than DFW along with hints of radical political ideology. While the development pattern was rather typical for Texas, the river, hills, and trees seemed more central to the city's identity and lifestyle than geographic features in other major TX cities. Anyway, I had a pretty good time and would be interested in going back someday.

We've had a couple thunderstorms since we moved here, but the storms here are so much shorter and less impressive than what we used to get in Texas. We've missed the crack and rumble of thunder, which convey such power and excitement through the downpour of rain.

So, to try to provide the experience we missed, we purchased a Thunderstorm CD.
And, while it provides the sound of a Thunderstorm, for the most part, I miss feeling the thunder, seeing the lightning, and smelling the rain.

Troy got an email advertising a really good hotel rate for a hotel in Portland and for a hotel in downtown Vancouver. We're trying to decide which city to go to for a weekend trip. Both are great deals and we like both cities, so which one do we choose? We've been to Vancouver recently for the Olympics, so would we want to go again this soon? We also might be going to the Oregon coast this summer, so we'd pass through Portland at that time too and probably spend a day there. Either way, it will be a fun weekend trip. It's nice to be within a three hour drive of such awesome cities.

We're getting ready to visit Texas for the first time since July of last year. This is the longest we've gone without a visit back to Texas.

On our return visits, we've typically spent pretty much all of our time visiting family in Fort Worth. This time we're doing it a little differently and flying to Austin, where we'll stay with a couple friends. Then, my parents are coming down so that we can spend a couple days on vacation in Austin before returning to Fort Worth to spend time with Lesley's family.

I've been busy looking up places to go and things to do in Austin. I'm looking forward to hanging out and having fun with my folks in a different place than normal. And it will be nice to go back to Fort Worth and eat at some places that we've missed. We'll also meet our niece for the first time. So, it should be a fun trip and I'm sure it will go by quickly.

The TV I got for my birthday in 2006 is already messing up. It's a 32" Magnavox tube TV. The past few months it has just gotten worse and worse at the top of the screen. At first it was just a few lines, but then the image started to look inverted almost 1/4th of the way down from the top of the screen. There's also solid black now for the first 3/4" from the top.

It makes it really difficult to play my video games. Watching regular TV has gotten almost unbearable. Now that football season is over, the Olympics are over, and we don't have cable any more anyway, it shouldn't be too big a deal. But eventually even watching movies that are in widescreen will be affected if the TV gets much worse. It also has never really handled changes in light very well and sometimes gets briefly discolored if the screen is too bright for too long.

I'm afraid we'll have to splurge and get a new TV sometime this year. I'd really like a flat screen HDTV that will last a while. It's just hard to spend $600 or more on something we don't really use much. We'll see how much worse our current TV gets before we buy anything and maybe wait until next football season.

What does it mean when a sign says this: "Slower Traffic Keep Right"?

1. Go the same speed as everyone else


2. Stay in the left lane indefinitely, if you want to


3. Get out of the left lane unless you're passing someone


4. Speed limit 55


5. a, b, and d

The answer if you drive in Washington State is apparently e. At least that's what it appears to be any time I spend an extended amount of time on the freeway.

Eric and I left work to go to Qdoba for lunch yesterday. We walked through the Westlake Center like normal, but when we got to the doors on the other side of the mall, we noticed a huge crowd of people outside.

It was a celebration for the Vancouver Olympians from our state, including J.R. Celski of Federal Way who won two bronze medals. We didn't have time to stop and watch, but as we walked by I tried to see if Apolo Ohno was there. He is by far Washington's best-known winter Olympian and is also from Federal Way. It turns out he wasn't, he was busy doing tv appearances in New York and LA. I would have been upset with myself if I had passed up a chance to see Apolo in person.

Here's an excerpt:

The Olympians were generous with their time, signing autographs and posing for snapshots for more than an hour after Mayor Mike McGinn proclaimed "Washington Olympians Day in the City of Seattle."

McGinn's proclamation praised the 14 state athletes who competed at the Vancouver Games, winning six medals — two silver and four bronze.

Anyway, I just think it's cool that the Olympics were so close to Seattle this year and that we have several successful Olympians from Washington state.

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Alki in West Seattle is a popular place to go on any sunny day. This walk takes you alongside the water for a great view of the city and the skyline, then a view across the water towards the Olympic Mountains. There's also a beach and several places to stop and eat or have a drink.


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Recently we saw "Heritage Dr Pepper" at the grocery store, which is Dr Pepper made with real sugar. The can has a neat heritage design on it, with the old logo of 10, 2, and 4. The only place I knew before where you could get Dr Pepper with real sugar was at specialty grocery stores like Central Market because it is normally only bottled with real sugar in Dublin, TX

So we got a 12-pack of Dr Pepper with real sugar. I like the regular Dr Pepper with the corn syrup better myself, but apparently a lot of people like it with the real sugar for some reason. Anyway, I just thought it was neat that we could get Heritage Dr Pepper all the way up here in the Northwest. I don't think 12-packs like what we got are even available in Texas.

Note: This post comes from my Walking in Seattle blog.

Discovery Park is a popular place to go for a walk on a nice sunny day. While there are numerous trails, the Loop Trail provides an enjoyable and relatively easy 2.8 mile journey through the park.



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