Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays and I like being surprised, so Troy made dinner reservations at an undisclosed location. He got all dressed up and even wore a tie, which told me that this place had to be pretty fancy. We got on the 70 bus and started to go south through downtown. I figured we were going to either Seastar, Ruth's Chris, or The Pink Door. As we continued to stay on the bus, it eliminated the chance of any of those places. Finally we got off the bus and started walking. We turned the last corner and then I saw the awning for the restaurant. He was taking me to "The Met", that's The Metropolitan Grill to those of you not very familiar with Seattle. It's probably the most famous place in the city to eat steak. I had completely forgotten about it and was really impressed that Troy finally managed to surprise me, for probably only the second time ever (the first being when he proposed.)

The Met is a pretty nice place. The most expensive bottle of wine you can get there would cost you $2,995. All the waiters had suits on, but the other people eating there weren't as dressed up as we thought they'd be, so it felt more relaxed. We had our coats checked so we wouldn't have to stuff them next to us in the small booth. To start out with, I ordered iced tea and a baby spinach salad. Both of us thought the salad was excellent. It was a big pile of baby spinach leaves topped with jack cheese, crispy bacon bits, mushrooms, almonds, and honey mustard vinaigrette dressing. I figured at a place like The Met that a $7 salad would be fairly small, but it was actually quite a bit of food by itself, so Troy and I basically shared it. The bread was average, but I thought the rye was really good.

It took a while for them to make our steaks, but we didn't mind waiting. I ordered an 8oz filet mignon cooked medium-well with a baked potato and Troy got a 14oz top sirloin cooked medium with a baked potato. Unfortunately we think they switched how we wanted them cooked because my came out with solid red throughout most of the steak and Troy's was almost well done, especially on the outer edges. So, I had to have mine cooked a little longer. Both our steaks still tasted really good though and were very tender.

To make up for my steak being cooked wrong, the waiter brought us free crème brûlée (which normally costs $8). We were so stuffed after our steaks, but I was determined to eat most of the free dessert. I've discovered recently that I really like crème brûlée, so I was happy to have a chance to eat some. We almost finished it and man, were we really really stuffed. I felt pretty uncomfortable on the way home and was so glad to be able to lie down for a while after that awesome meal. Definitely one of the best Valentine's meals I've ever had! I'd love to go back someday, but probably won't for a while.

Several months ago I found out The Lion King was going to be playing at the Paramount Theater, the same place we saw Phantom of the Opera a few months ago. I told Troy I really wanted to see it and so he bought tickets as a Valentine's present for me!

We went to see it last night and it was pretty good. It's very similar to the Disney movie, but with added fluff and extra songs. The opening scene with all the ensemble at the presentation of baby Simba was pretty impressive. There were actors on stilts portraying giraffes and they had huge elephants on stage too. The small animals like Timon and Zazu had people carrying them around as puppets, which was distracting and made it hard to focus on the puppet. We were also pretty far away, so it was a little hard to get into the show really well. The costumes were really impressive though and the set design was cool. I can't say much for the child actors that played young Simba and Nala, but the rest of the actors, especially Zazu, were good.

The touring production seems to be similar to the Broadway version, but is scaled back somewhat. According to Wikipedia:

"The tour version is very similar to the original Broadway production; however, certain scenic elements which rise out of the stage floor (such as Pride Rock, the stampede, and the grasslands) were converted to less costly configurations for the touring productions. The sun during the opening is reduced in size for the shorter-lasting tours. Stage sizes are also smaller, and the volume of music as well as the number of instruments, is decreased."

Still, I'm glad I finally saw the musical version and it was pretty cool going to the Paramount again. But if you're expecting it to be as good as the movie, you might be a little disappointed. It's definitely worth seeing once though.

The parking lot at work borders a train yard. There's something kind of neat about the simple shapes and bright colors of freight.

We've posted more pictures of sunsets from our window. Our view is just amazing.

Another cool sunset from our apartment.

I was tired of being embarrassed by my old web host so I changed web hosting companies this weekend. The host I'm using now, Host Gator, powers their servers with 130% wind power. Yeah, they actually put electricity back into the grid. The blog is hosted by Blogger, but the photo gallery is now hosted by HostGator. They also offer more capacity at a lower rate with better support, so I'm happy I switched so far.

Seattleites seem to really care about the environment and the latest example of that was the pizza we had on Friday night. The top of the box was covered with environmental facts and included a note about how the pizza company is trying to be green.

I think it's cool how treating the planet respectfully is on the minds of so many people here. Eventually we'll all get so used to things like conservation and composting that it won't have to be advertised and will just become a part of normal American life. But in the mean time, I'm happy to buy pizza from a company that is doing their part (and also makes really good pizza).

I've been wanting a new desk for a long time because we've been dealing with an old, crappy, fake wood desk that's been falling apart for years. The corner was completely chipped off, the cabinet door wouldn't stay shut, and the thin piece of cardboard on the back side of the desk had been beaten up significantly. The keyboard tray was damaged during the move. The desk also had several warped spots on the main surface because of liquids, and it just looked cheap to begin with. I wasn't thrilled about taking it with us when we moved here, but we didn't want to be without a desk and didn't think we'd purchase one that soon.

Over the last few months, we've kept our eyes open for small desks we liked, but didn't find anything for a while. Then we decided to try looking at Crate & Barrel and found a desk that we really liked. So we listed the old desk on Craig's list to give away for free and had a response within 30 minutes. Two guys came and took it off our hands, so we didn't have to take it and dump it somewhere ourselves, which was nice. They seemed really appreciative that we gave it to them for free. I guess one person's trash really is another's treasure.

After that we went to get our new desk from Crate & Barrel, and it barely fit in the car. It was almost 100 pounds and was very hard for me to help carry, but we finally made it up to the apartment. Troy put it all together in about an hour and now the desk and the whole corner area looks a lot more open and nice. And it matches the rest of the furniture we've bought. It's pretty cool having a new desk.

Yeah, people really like espresso here.

Even though moving here cost us some money, we are able to deduct most of that cost ($3,264 to be exact) on our tax return. This will save us about $800 in taxes, which is really nice. We had the option of deducting the actual cost of our gas or the number of miles (2,673 to be exact) times 19 cents a mile. It was by far better to chose the latter option. We couldn't deduct our meal expenses, but that wasn't that much money. The bulk of the expense was paying for Mayflower to move our stuff, and after that hotel costs along the way. Not sure why the government is willing to absorb those kinds of costs, but we'll take the deduction.

Sign at Crate and Barrel:

Troy is a contemporary compact sofa for real life. Coming in at just six-and-a-half feet wide but a full three feet deep, [Troy] sits big in small spaces. Firm but plump, Troy's upholstered in a rich microfiber that stands up to high traffic.

I'm just six-and-a-half feet wide but a full three feet deep - yep, that's me - firm but plump.

I've had to go to Federal Way, which is a suburb 20 miles south of here, and it's always foggy every time I drive down there. I'm sure the sun comes out on occasion, but it's kind of strange how different the weather is just 20 miles from here and that it's even less sunny there than it is in the city.

This is one of those list of city rankings that doesn't really mean that much, but Seattle was ranked as the most wired city in the country.

Since 2007, Forbes has measured cities' wired quotient by computing the percentage of Internet users with high-speed connections and the number of companies providing high-speed Internet. Since many urban residents access the Internet by wi-fi, we also measure the number of public wireless Internet hot spots in a particular city.

There seems to be a lot more graffiti here than there was in Dallas/Fort Worth despite how much less run-down the inner city is here. I think the Metroplex has strict graffiti enforcement laws, however the laws here don't seem that lenient either. The city has a graffiti report form online that people can use to notify the city so that property owners can be notified. Graffiti doesn't bother me much, but it can make an area seem unsafe or neglected and encourage even more vandalism, so it's good to get things cleaned up.

We were walking through the mall this weekend for the first time in a while. I saw a stand with bus route information in the middle of the mall, which I thought seemed a little strange for a suburban mall. I wouldn't expect to see that kind of thing in Texas.

The neat Troy Laundry building across the street has been emptied out of all the newspaper holders. I assume the building has been sold and will be redeveloped somehow. It's historically protected, though, so at least the facade will remain. When I walked by recently I could see inside and took a few pictures:

We had our first earthquake this morning around 5:25AM. It was 4.6 magnitude and about 22 miles to the Northeast of us. I didn't feel anything though and there's no reported damage.

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Troy met me downtown after work today and we went to Pike Place Market just for fun. It was really sunny today and not as cold as it has been recently. It was really nice being able to look out at the beautiful Bay and see the sun setting. The market wasn't busy at all either. In fact, today was probably the least busy I've ever seen it. We didn't bump shoulders with anyone or get run over by kids. We were a little hungry, so we got a salmon pâté piroshky from Piroshky Piroshky. The market is one of my favorite places in Seattle, it's just such a neat place.

Since Seattle is close to salt water (though technically about 100 miles from the ocean), there is a lot of good seafood here. However, the one type of food that dominates the landscape isn't seafood, but Thai food. There are more Thai restaurants here than any other type of food.

I didn't discover Thai food until a couple years ago, but in that time it has become one of my favorite kinds of food. Pad Thai is the dish I started on and it's pretty safe if you like noodles, vegetables, a little bit of sweetness, and a little bit of spice. Since then, I've had a variety of Thai dishes, most of which have seemed somewhat healthy, with a good mix of vegetables and the option to not include meat. I like Thai food and am glad that there are so many different Thai places in the city.

Troy & I have been hanging out with friends from church about once a month for a while. We've gone to a wine tasting, a hike, a pumpkin carving, and several other things. We have a fairly big group of 20 and 30 year olds at the church and it's so big (probably around 25 people or so) they need leaders to help plan and organize things. So we volunteered this year to come up with fun activities for the group to do every month.

So, for February, we're going to be hosting a Super Bowl Party for our church group to attend. We rented out the community room downstairs, which has a big HDTV, three couches, a pool table, a dining table and chairs, and almost a full kitchen. I'm pretty excited about the Super Bowl itself too, but since we're hosting, it may be a little bit harder to actually pay attention to the game. I'm not sure what food we'll have, we haven't quite figured that out yet, but hopefully everyone will bring something, either a drink or food item. Troy mentioned making cheese dip, so we'll probably do that. I'm looking forward to it, it'll be the first time we've hosted such a big party.

I had gotten pretty used to it being dark outside after work, and used to walking home from the bus in the dark, and walking around the neighborhood in the dark. However the sun has been setting noticeably later than it was just a month ago. It's really nice to have more daylight in the evenings and it means that spring is coming sometime not too long from now.

I guess the economy has been bad everywhere lately. The local economy has generally been pretty strong, with unemployment rates trailing the rest of the country for the past 5 years. However with firings by Boeing, Microsoft, and Starbucks, along with Washington Mutual failing, the local unemployment rate has risen precipitously.

Sometimes I have to go to job sites at work, but normally I can anticipate this. Last week, however, I unexpectedly had to go to a job site by myself, and I had taken the bus to work that day, so I didn't have a car. The company has a fleet of vehicles, so I asked to borrow one, but apparently they had to do some kind of driving background check first. With that option eliminated, a co-worker let me borrow his Prius, which I was thankful for.

The next day, I had to go somewhere again, but drove to work so I'd be prepared. Getting reimbursed $.55/mile was kind of nice, but I can't plan on driving my car to work every time I might need to go somewhere.

This week, I had to drive somewhere again, and since I submitted my papers for the background check earlier, I was able to borrow one of the company's Toyota Priuses. I don't know if anyone had driven this car after it was picked up from the dealership because it only had 623 miles on it. It was cool to drive the nice, clean, new company vehicle, though the "How's my driving" sticker made me drive extra-conservatively. I think it's funny that I've now driven three different Toyota Priuses in the past year, when I've only driven one of any other model of car. It's a nice car and I'm glad to have been able to drive it when I needed to.

Taking the bus to work has had its moments of inconvenience, and having to borrow a co-worker's car last week was one of them, but now that I can borrow the company's vehicles, it makes it easy to keep taking the bus to work.

The night before we left to fly out to Fort Worth for Christmas, we ran into someone we know from church at the airport. Then, last weekend, we had to make a late night run to the store and we saw another person that we know from church. Less than a year ago, we didn't really know anyone in this city, so it's kind of neat that we've been running into people lately.

When we were in Fort Worth for Christmas, several people asked us when we'd be back to visit again. Well, we probably won't be back during the summer or any time soon, possibly more than a year from now. We've gone back twice in the last 5 months for one thing. For another, we have several other rather expensive trips planned over the next year, which will use up a lot of money and vacation time. Anyway, just thought I would mention that since people were wondering.

One of the small differences I've noticed here is that all the milk jugs come with a cap that screws on instead of a cap that pops on. The pop-on style cap was the common kind of lid in Texas and the kind I prefer. It seems that there are more problems with this screw-on lid, including spills when pouring, and it also seems that more milk dries around the edge and sometimes falls off. I remember as a kid having some problems with the pop-top lid, but I think it's a better design overall and I miss it.

On Sunday, we went to church and then watched both football games. I'm glad the Steelers won, hopefully they'll win their 6th Super Bowl in a few weeks. After that we went to the grocery store, made taco salad for dinner, and watched an old movie from 1966, The Battle of Algiers. It was really interesting, but not really my type of movie. I'm looking forward to getting our next Netflix rental, Season 3 - Disc 3 of Frasier.

Yesterday we rolled out of bed at 9 and went walking around Capitol Hill and downtown looking at furniture stores for a new desk. We also went to a furniture store in the Ravenna area north of the U District, but didn't find anything we liked. We ate lunch at a Thai place called Djan Dinning in Wallingford and it was really good. The food was excellent and the atmosphere was nice and cozy in a previously-owned house.

Then we went home for a while and I cleaned around the house a little bit. Then we walked to REI to try to find something for Troy to get with his giftcard my parents gave him for Christmas. They had mostly clearance stuff and not much selection, so we'll go back again in a month to look.

And that was the rest of our three day weekend. Nothing that exciting, but it was nice to eat out at some new places, walk around outside, and enjoy the nice sun.

A light rail station will be built on Capitol Hill, less than a mile from where we live. All the tenants moved out and, for some reason there was a delay before construction starts, and all the storefronts were turned into art exhibits. It's a really neat street scene to walk by and see all the different exhibits, especially at night. It's really cool that they were able to set up all this art for people to enjoy. Click the picture to see a few pictures of parts of it.

I sprained my ankle over a month ago and it's still not completely back to normal. Every now and then I'll step on it a little funny or sit on it a bad way and it'll get stretched again and start hurting. I guess I need to be more careful. I just thought it would have healed by now.

It has been pretty cloudy this past week even though the weather had been forecast to be sunny. Yesterday looked like much of the same, with low clouds/fog in the morning, but by afternoon it had burned off and it was clear and sunny! It was a very nice day and I'm glad we were able to get outside and enjoy it.

We're under an air stagnation advisory here. I don't know why. The air stagnates in Texas, but we were never advised of it when we lived there. I guess the advisory is so that people won't start any fires outside or something, and maybe the air quality is a little lower than normal, I guess.

We have a three day weekend because of MLK Day on Monday. We weren't sure what we wanted to do this weekend, but we came up with a few good ideas. Saturday morning we went to eat breakfast at a restaurant that my Dad heard was good, The Dish. It was pretty small inside, contrary to the gigantic food portions. We sat at the counter and could see into the kitchen, which was pretty cool. I got a ham, cheese, mushroom, and onion omelette that came with roasted red potatoes and a choice of an english muffin, a scone, or toast. Troy also got an omelette, but his had italian sausage, parmesan cheese, onions, and spinach. He also got potatoes and toast with his. On top of all that, he also ordered a blueberry pancake that was probably about 8" in diameter. I'm surprised we actually ate most of our food. It was all pretty good and not too expensive by Seattle's standards.

After breakfast, we went to University Village and walked around. It's been really foggy and cloudy the last several days, but it's gotten really clear and sunny today. University Village is basically an outdoor mall with all kinds of small shops, stores, and Starbucks, of course. We walked around the Crate & Barrel and I found a ton of stuff that I like, but won't be buying any time soon, unfortunately. Then we got some hot tea from Starbucks with one of my gift cards I got from work.

Then we drove to Kerry Park to see what the view was like since it's been sunny today. It was still kind of foggy in the distance though and the sun was at a bad angle, making everything silhouetted. After that we went home for a little while and cleaned up the place, then went for a long walk to the waterfront and through downtown. We were planning on seeing Slumdog Millionaire tonight at the Harvard Exit theater on Capitol Hill, but it was sold out when we got there, so we just went home. We might watch the Netflix movie we have and play some video games.

Tomorrow we'll go to church and then watch the championship football games.

I tried to make a pecan pie last night, but it didn't turn out too well. It was extremely wet inside when I took it out of the oven after cooking it for the amount of time the recipe said. We cooked it almost 40 more minutes to see if it would be any less wet and now it looks overcooked. We just ate some of it and it came out in globs and is just overall gross. I guess I won't be making a pecan pie ever again. I have no idea what I did wrong...

We're pretty close to I-5 and took this picture looking north while walking across. The traffic is often congested on the northbound part, but the express lanes (northbound in this case) usually aren't that busy.

My parents gave us a neat magnetic photo holder for Christmas that I hung up last weekend. We have several wedding photos still lying around so we stuck those on there for now. We'll probably buy some other photos to hang sometime, since we have a ton of pictures of us hung up everywhere. But, anyway, it's kind of neat.

One of the neat things about Seattle is that there is a lot of public art. I found the colorful sculpture below on Mercer Island (technically not Seattle) and thought it was pretty neat. I edited the picture to heighten the contrast and highlight the color.

There was some fog coming off the water last night. I thought it looked kind of neat, so here's a picture.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct runs between Downtown Seattle and the Waterfront, but it's an old highway and there's a 1 in 20 likelihood that an earthquake could shut it down within the next decade. After years of discussion and inaction, local politicians have finally decided to replace the viaduct with a tunnel. There were a number of options proposed and this is one of the most expensive ones, but it should make the area by the waterfront much nicer.

With the snow and then the flooding, the major interstate highways, I-5, and I-90 had been closed recently, but they're back open now.

It's kind of crazy how often the interstate is closed around here. I-90 is often closed at Snoqualmie Pass, where it passes over the Cascade Mountains. There can be heavy amounts of snow there and sometimes avalanches that close the roadway. It's hard to believe that sometimes people are physically cut off from the eastern part of the state by land. Of course these closures have no impact on us, since we have no need to go outside the city, but it's amazing the impact that the weather has on the transportation infrastructure.

I like my new job more than my old job, but one nice perk that I had at my old job was that my desk was by a window with a view. And then while I was working from home for six months, I could look out our apartment window. But now, at my new job, I sit away from the windows, which have blinds over them anyway.

I've missed seeing the sun this winter, but that's more because I don't have a window at work than because the sun never comes out. It's been cloudy a lot lately, but according to Lesley, who works in an office building with a lot of windows, the sun has been coming out often. And, this week's forecast shows clear days for most of the week.

I guess I need to make a habit of walking by the windows or taking breaks outside because I do miss seeing sunlight.

This is the 500th post on our blog. That seems like a lot of posts. Of those, 101 posts include pictures, and 94 refer to travel that we've done.

We were posting a lot when we first moved here and thought that the posting might slow down after we'd been here for a few months, but we've remained pretty consistent at more than a post per day over the past year.

We've tried to keep things interesting with posts about things we've done, local news, various observations, along with pictures and videos. We've also found a good balance for us so that we enjoy writing regular posts and uploading pictures without making too big of a time commitment or feeling obligated.

Hopefully we can maintain momentum over the next 500 posts and keep things interesting. Thanks for reading.

Washington is one of the states with its own minimum wage that's higher than the federal minimum wage - $2 higher, in fact, with the latest increase to $8.55/hour. It took me a while to find out that we have a state minimum wage here, but it probably contributes somewhat to the higher cost of living here. There are plenty of arguments for and against a minimum wage this high and I don't really want to get into all that, I just wanted to mention it, since there's not a state minimum wage in Texas.

There are a lot of high elevations and steep streets here. I found a cool page that lists the highest elevations and steepest streets in Seattle. Queen Anne Hill, which we can see from our window, is the 4th highest point in the city. The steepest street in the city is a 21% grade, which seems pretty darn steep, but the steepest street in San Francisco is a 31.5% grade. That's a lot steeper than the streets in Dallas and Fort Worth.

We've mentioned lately how we've had a lot of snow. That's melted away for the most part, but Spokane, in eastern Washington, has gotten more than 6 feet of snow the last three weeks.

Spokane has received more than 78 inches of snow — about the height of Michael Jordan — since mid-December. That's far above its average of less than 50 inches for an entire winter. Normally about 16 inches would have fallen at this point. The local record for an entire winter is 93.5 inches set in 1949-50.

Roofs have been collapsing under the weight of the snow, streets are clogged with ice and slush and locals are starting to refer to this as Sno-maggedon.

All the melting snow, combined with several inches of rain the last few days, is causing a lot of flooding and mudslides in the surrounding areas. Fortunately since we're in the main city, the flooding won't affect us at all. Most of the flooding is near the mountains and to the north and south of us. Amtrak service has been canceled too.

Throughout Washington, 62 highways are closed, including all passes in the Cascade Range.

The state has closed down a 21-mile stretch of Interstate 5 in Lewis County. The closure stretches between Exit 68 at Highway 12 and Exit 89. The closure area includes Chehalis and Centralia. It could last up to five days.

In December 2007, floods closed a large stretch of I-5 in Lewis County for four days.

The NWS says 22 rivers in Western Washington are at or above flood stage and major flooding is expected on 19.

The weather has just been really crazy lately. It's also been really windy and the last two days my building has been making creaking noises. Anyway, we shouldn't have any trouble in our immediate area and we don't have any plans to travel very far on the freeways any time soon.

We used to use Jumpcut to upload and edit our videos. The service was extremely helpful because it allowed us to edit our videos and there is nothing else like it on the internet. Unfortunately, Yahoo has chosen to abandon the service.

So, now, we're without an easy way to edit our videos. If we just want to upload single clips, YouTube works okay, but for combining clips, adding titles, and adding music, we don't have anything that works well. An alternative would be Windows Movie Maker, but it's the most unreliable program on our computer. So, anyway, don't expect any more videos soon.

After waiting almost two months, Troy and I were awarded tickets to two events in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics. We're going to the men's individual 5,000 meter speed skating final on 2/13, and a men's preliminary hockey game on 2/16. It would have been nice to see the luge or another event I haven't already seen a hundred times like I've seen hockey, but it'll still be pretty cool. Tickets were pretty expensive though, so it's probably a good thing we didn't get all the events we requested.

Now we need to start looking for a hotel and figure out what else we want to do in Vancouver while we're there. I can't wait!

Over the past few months I've lost almost 10 pounds. I'm not sure what to attribute that to, but I'm sure that walking regularly and eating healthier has helped. I'm still in a healthy weight range so it's not really a big deal, but I guess it's better to be losing weight instead of gaining it.

Winter is the worst time of year here. The sun is set for more than 15 hours per day and even when it's up I haven't seen it much behind the clouds. The snow and ice we had earlier made things difficult for a lot of people, too.

The weather patterns here are interesting. It's been pretty windy here this weekend, with wind coming from the south. In Texas, wind from the south meant that warm weather was coming, but this wind wasn't bringing warmer weather with it. Local weather forecasts are interesting here, too, since the weather is appreciably different on the Olympic peninsula, at the Cascade foothills, and at the mountain passes. Each weather forecast mentions the snow level, which is at 500 feet now.

It kind of feels like we've turned a corner, though. There's still plenty of winter left, but the days are getting longer, the snow has melted (mostly), and the weather is in the 40s and getting up to 50 on Wednesday.

We had some pretty bad snow and ice here, which was made worse because Seattle didn't use salt to melt the ice. However, based on how much the city was shut down during the last couple weeks, the mayor has decided to use salt in the future:

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced this morning that the city will reverse its decade-old policy and use road salt to melt ice in future storms.

It's been 10 months since we moved to Seattle and in that time we've taken around 8400 pictures. Some of them were pretty good and we were even able to sell a few of them. Here are 10 of our favorites:

Vote on your favorite below and feel free to suggest others in the comments.

Happy New Year 2009! Troy & I rang in the new year with sparkling apple cider and had an awesome view of the fireworks at the Space Needle from our apartment! We bought some red wine for tonight a few days ago, but since I caught Troy's cold yesterday, we figured we'd save it for some other night. Right now we're playing our new video game my parents got us for Christmas - Burnout Revenge. We'll probably stay up a little while longer, but I'm getting tired.

2008 was a good year for us. We moved to our new city, got really good jobs, and made some new friends here. It was a tough year for our families though. Hopefully 2009 will be a better year for everyone.

Here are some pictures of the fireworks. We also took some video, but who knows if and when we'll post that.

Seattle had a sad sports year. Mike Holmgren finished his 10 season tenure with the Seahawks, finishing just 4-12, one of the worst teams in the league. The Mariners only won 61 games compared to 101 losses. The Washington Huskies did not win a single college football game, while the Washington State Cougars went 2-11. And, the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City after 41 years of being in Seattle. This article on ESPN.com sums up everything pretty well. It's too bad all our sports teams had to be so crappy our first year here.

Seeing as how we've taken quite a few pictures over the past few months, we decided to put together a 2009 calendar. We made one for ourselves and sold a few online. Calendars are still available if anyone wants to order one. Visit our calendar page to view the pictures and place an order.

Here's a few pictures from our Christmas trip. It was fun making Christmas cookies with my Mom and sister. Seeing all the family on Christmas Eve was nice too. We also went to a Stars game on Saturday night against the Ducks. I probably won't get many more chances to see Mike Modano score a goal, so I'm glad he scored the game-winning goal in OT when we were there.

One thing I really noticed on our Christmas trip to Texas is how fast everyone drives. The speed limit on most freeways is 60, but most drivers were doing 70 or faster. People tailgate all the time and cut you off. I like to complain about how people here drive so slow, but I guess it's better than driving insanely like they do in Texas and feeling like your life is at risk. I wish these places weren't so extreme, somewhere in the middle would be nice.

When we left Seattle, Lesley thought that our suitcase was over 50 pounds, which I was told is the weight limit above which the airlines assess extra fees. We emptied out a few things to make sure we could bring it without having to pay extra (in addition to the $15 bag fee). It turned out to be 36 pounds with everyone's gifts included. However, with all of our return gifts (which included several books), it was exactly 50 pounds. So, I'm glad we left the hair drier at home.

It was snowy and in the 20's when we left Seattle. It was in the 30's when we arrived. On Friday it was 83ºF in Fort Worth.

We definitely did notice differences in the air, aside from temperature. We kept shocking each other with static electricity, and there was a lot of dust in the air, in addition to allergens that bothered Lesley throughout the trip.

Prior to our trip, we spent hours planning a schedule of who we would see and when in order to figure out when we'd be able to do the things we wanted and see the people we wanted and to help us spend a fair amount of time with both sets of our parents. It didn't work out as well as we'd hoped, since some people who we had hoped to see were at work during the day on Monday and Tuesday. Still, we were able to see everyone and eat and do everything we'd wanted to. We ended up seeing both sets of our parents equally and for about 4 hours more than we'd planned.

We were able to spend the night with several different people, which was nice because we didn't get tired of any one person and we were able to spend more time with some people, like our grandmothers and Lesley's sister. We were able to leave our suitcase at Lesley's parents' house and just brought our backpack and duffel bag with us each night. It wasn't bad, but became a little bit of a hassle.

We especially enjoyed eating out at various places and spending quality time with our family and friends. Lesley's parents took us out to a hockey game. We looked at Christmas lights in Dallas with my parents. We went with our friends to see a Beatles cover band perform.

It was great to see everyone again and do some fun things. We don't have any immediate plans to come back, so I'm glad we were able to do so much this week.

We just got back to our apartment after spending the last week in Fort Worth. After a delayed outgoing flight, there were no problems with our flight this morning, aside from the fact we had to wake up at 5:10 (3:10 pacific time) to get to the airport. It was a busy week with a lot of driving around and seeing different people, so we're both very glad to be back home where we can stay in one place and relax. At least until we have to go back to work tomorrow.

We've been in Fort Worth for three full days and we have three full days left. It's been nice to see everyone again. It seems like we haven't been gone long and not much has changed, but it doesn't feel like home anymore. It was exciting to see everyone at first, but now it's almost routine again. The first day seemed the slowest and since then, the days have gone by faster. It's fun to do things with our families that we have always enjoyed and I'm looking forward to the things we have planned for our last few days, which will pass quickly.

Here's a short video of the snow falling the evening before my birthday. It fell pretty heavily for quite a while.

The roads were pretty bad before we left and with the snow that Seattle continues to get the roads are probably still pretty bad, especially since the city doesn't use salt to melt the ice:

The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."

I'm sensitive to environmental issues, but at the same time, it sure was a pain that the roads were so impassible. Anyway, it's just kind of interesting that the city doesn't use salt even though it would surely help a lot.

Macy's downtown has a neat winter train display that we videoed. Here's a clip:



Sorry for the low video quality.

Another reason I'm glad we're not in Seattle now is because our neighborhood was hit with another power outage. I don't think we have anything critical in the fridge, but apparently Seattle is still dealing with some winter weather that I'm happy to be avoiding.

Before we checked out of our hotel, yesterday, I was notified that our flight was delayed from 1:20 to 2:15. Then, shortly after that, we found out that it was delayed to 2:40. After seeing that several other flights were canceled, I'm glad it was just a delay rather than a cancellation. Due to the holiday travel and the delays, we expected the lines at the airport to be incredibly long, so we left the hotel around 11 for our 2:40 flight. Checking in, dropping off our luggage, and going through security took less than 30 minutes, though, I was impressed. So, then, we had a long wait in the terminal.

We ate lunch at the airport and watched a plane at our gate. It left once and returned to be de-iced again. I think it left and came back again, too, but it finally left. We heard several cancellations announced, including all of Alaska's and Jet Blue's flights, but fortunately our flight wasn't canceled or delayed further. I consider ourselves very lucky that we were able to leave. After some anxiety about the weather and wondering whether we'd get to leave, it felt great to get off the ground.

My parents picked us up from the airport and I was very happy to see them again. It's nice to talk on the phone with them, but it's no substitute for being in person. And I got to ride in their new Prius. Lesley and I had some food to eat with my mom and then we chatted in the living room. We got to bed a little late, and I had forgotten how tiny my old bedroom is, but I was happy to be visiting my parents' house again.

I had to adjust to this job for the first few months that I worked here. I didn't know anyone and was mostly just assigned individual tasks to work on rather than being given the opportunity to take ownership of things and work with others to get things done, like I had at my previous job. However, I would say that phase has ended and I've involved myself more and things are going better.

Again, my position is new and not pre-defined so what I do will evolve over time as I find the best things for me to work on. A few weeks ago I was mostly doing web development for a particular project. That project has slowed down lately and I've been doing a lot of work for another project, which involves upgrading the lighting controls for a customer in order to help them turn their lights off when they're not needed in order to save electricity. I've been communicating with the customer, answering questions from the electrician, and identifying and requesting the data that we'll need to have provided for the interface that I've also been developing. I've also been working on helping our group coordinate better and protect and prepare ourselves better by developing standards and backing up some of our project data.

What's been most interesting to me as I've adjusted to this job is how much my previous job has influenced me and helped me here. The familiarity I gained with information technology at my last job has helped, but what I've really noticed is how my last job taught me to be assertive and take initiative. I've been given almost nothing to do here and almost everything I'm doing is because I've looked for it and started to do it. The lessons from my last job are what have really helped me to find things to do here and just start doing them. I think if I came straight to this job right after college, it would be totally different for me than it is now and I wouldn't be doing nearly as much.

I think it was good for me to leave my last job to come here, though, because as I've said before, this job and this company, especially, fit me a lot better than my old job, and I'm optimistic about the opportunities I'll have here. Right now, I think everyone's happy with what I'm doing, including me.

Our flight was scheduled to leave today at 1:20, but has been delayed until 2:40 due to high cross winds. Lots of other flights have been delayed and even canceled. I don't know what we'd do if our flight were canceled. We've heard on the news that lots of people are stuck at the airport and won't be able to get on another flight until Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully our flight will take off at 2:40 with no problems. We'll leave the hotel soon to take the shuttle to the airport and wait there for 3 hours until our flight. Hopefully security won't be too bad...

With more snow on the way, we decided to stay in a hotel tonight. We finished packing and getting everything together and left the apartment around 2:45 to catch the bus. It was very cold outside and started snowing more while we were waiting. We had to wait about 30 minutes because the bus was late. I was beginning to wonder if it would even show up. It was almost empty when we got on, but got really crowded by the time we went through downtown. A bunch of other people were also going to the airport and so all of us had our bags and suitcases in the isles. There wasn't much room on the bus at all. It seemed to be snowing pretty heavily, so I'm kind of surprised the bus was able to make it all the way to the airport with the snow and bad roads. We finally arrived at the airport around 4:20 and then we waited for a while to catch the shuttle to the hotel.

We finally arrived at the hotel after 5 and found an illegal, but very choppy, feed of the Cowboys-Ravens game to watch. We walked in the snow to get some food from Taco Bell and then finished watching the game.

We're really glad we got down here today instead of waiting until tomorrow. We'll probably leave pretty early in the morning just in case the security lines are long. I'm already not very fond of this holiday travel in the winter. So far it's been a big hassle.

It was really snowy the past 3 days here in Seattle. Here are some pictures of the beautiful snow everywhere:



We also took some video, but who knows when and if we'll post it.

The snow stopped falling yesterday and was compacted by feet and tires turning it into ice this morning. I wasn't sure whether I'd go into the office today and after seeing the buses running way behind this morning and hearing that all the school districts were closed, I decided to work from home today. I walked with Lesley to work and it was a little slippery, but not unsafe. It was nice working from home again.

However, another storm is expected Saturday night and Sunday. Considering how the recent storm caused 100 bus lines to be canceled, we didn't want to be stranded away from the airport for our flight on Sunday. So, we decided to stay at a hotel room near the airport on Saturday night. This is a slow time for hotels but the one we chose was almost full for some reason. So, anyway, now we should be able to make it to the airport in plenty of time and hopefully the flight won't be delayed.

I was awoken in the middle of the night Wednesday night by thundersnow. It's not very common here, but neither is regular thunder and lighting with rain.

It snowed basically all day. Since the roads weren't getting any better and people were leaving, I figured it'd be in my best interest to leave work early rather than wait until the end of the day when the buses might have a harder time getting around. Around 1:00, a lot of the bus routes on steep hills were closed. I checked online and it looked like the buses that go by work were all running 30 minutes late and that one of them was about to show up. So, I left work and walked through the snow to the bus stop. There weren't many cars out and there was a lot of snow on the ground. Like 4 or 5 inches, maybe, except for on the roads.

After about 10 minutes of waiting at the stop with a couple other people, a bus went by, but it was going back to the base and didn't pick us up. After about 10 more minutes another bus came by that said it was going to the terminal, but it stopped and picked us up. I didn't know where it was going exactly, but knew it would take me closer to where I needed to be. There was a Metro Transit driver on the bus (in addition to the one driving the bus). He said that his tire chains broke off and wrapped around the axle so his bus got stuck. I'd heard stories of buses jackknifing and sliding down hills, so I'm glad where we live is relatively flat.

It actually worked out really well because the bus I was on took me downtown and it got right behind the 70 bus, which goes right by our apartment. I was able to transfer to it and make it home without having to walk far.

I got home less than 5 minutes after Lesley did, because she left work at 2:00 and took the streetcar home. I had to do some work from home this afternoon, but I'm glad I made it home without too much trouble. It took me maybe an hour and 10 minutes, including the time I waited for the bus. Unless the roads get significantly better somehow, I don't think I'll try to make it in to work tomorrow, which is fine with me because I have some experience working from home.

I was at work the other day and someone mentioned getting some Frango. I had no idea what they were talking about. Apparently it's a brand of chocolate that Macy's sells in the Pacific Northwest states. It was first made in 1918 by Seattle's Frederick & Nelson department store. Apparently people go crazy about them here, so I tried some of the chocolate at work and it was really smooth and tasted good. They come in all kinds of flavors too, like dark, mint, toffee, coconut, and raspberry to name a few. It's fun to learn all these things that only locals know.

I'm at work right now and it's been snowing all day and it's still snowing. 3" of snow has fallen in downtown Seattle and there's more than that here. Supposedly snowfall like this isn't common. The buses are still running, supposedly, but they're so behind schedule that they're not tracked. The buses are having a lot of problems going up and down hills but fortunately my way home is very flat. I hope they're still running (and running frequently enough) when I'm ready to leave.

If I didn't take the bus to work, I wouldn't have been able to show up today. The roads are covered with snow, so it's impressive that the buses were mostly running. They were all running late, though, as you can see below.

I didn't think it would actually happen, but it snowed overnight and we have 2-3 inches of snow everywhere. It's still snowing too. I made it to work fine and walked on all the crunchy snow. Troy is going to ride his usual bus to work. The buses have chains on them, so it should be fine. I don't think it normally snows this much in Seattle proper, so this is really cool. I wish I didn't have to work so I could take pictures and video of it. It's a winter wonderland here in Seattle!

We're leaving Sunday to visit our family and friends in Fort Worth, Texas. It's been about 4 months since the last time I was there but it feels like longer to me. I'm looking forward to being back with family and seeing friends, though I'm dreading the holiday travel aspect of it. We'll arrive on Sunday and leave the following Sunday, so we'll be there for a while, though I'm sure it will pass quickly. We're planning to spend the rest of this week wrapping presents, eating our perishable food, and packing.

We've had many cold days since we moved into our apartment. But during all of those times, the temperature was comfortable. But, finally, after many months of not having to use our heater, we had to turn it on Monday night. We've had the coldest weather since we moved in and it was finally cold enough to remove enough warmth from our unit and make it uncomfortable.

It was kind of fun to finally get to turn the heater on. The thermostat to turn it on isn't accurate, though, since we had to turn it up above 75 ºF to get it to turn on, even though it was below 70 ºF in the room. We're only using the heater in the bedroom (we have two) because we put a bookcase in front of the heater in the living room. Anyway, hopefully it will be warmer when we get back from Texas.

We were supposed to find out this week if we were awarded any tickets to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Unfortunately, the notification has been delayed because CoSport has been allocated additional tickets to distribute to countries other than Canada, which includes us. So they're going to run another lottery process in order to allocate the extra tickets to everyone who requested them. So, I guess it's a good thing that we now have a higher chance of getting the tickets we requested, but it sucks having to wait until the week of January 5, 2009 to find out.

It snowed Saturday evening for several hours. There wasn't much accumulation, but some of it stuck. It stayed below freezing on Sunday so by now the snow that's still there has turned into ice. Most of the roads are fine, but there are some patches of ice on some roads. I thought about driving to work Monday, but wasn't comfortable with the road conditions. I took the bus instead, which has tire chains on it, and found more snow on the ground near work than near our apartment. The sidewalks were a little slippery but I made it in okay. It's supposed to snow more on Wednesday and not get above freezing until Friday. I'll probably take the bus every day for the rest of the week and we might not do any more driving until we leave this weekend.

I've been wanting to watch Frasier since we moved here and so we recently rented the first disc for Season 1 and Season 8 for our last two Netflix rentals. I liked it when it was originally on the air, but didn't really ever watch it religiously. I was also a little young for it when it was in it's prime.

The show is set in Seattle of course, and it's really neat watching the show and hearing them mention other cities and places around here. I like the title screen where they show the Seattle skyline, sometimes with an elevator going up in the Space Needle, fireworks, or a helicopter hovering over the city.

It's been fun watching some of it recently and I especially like the end credit song: "but I don't know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs... they're calling again... goodnight Seattle, we love you!" I wouldn't mind owning it on DVD someday.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, either by phone, card, email, or Facebook and thanks for the gifts, too.

We spread my birthday out over both days of the weekend and Lesley basically let me do whatever I wanted. I mostly wanted to do stuff that I like doing that I don't normally get to do. We walked to a couple art galleries on Saturday afternoon. It was a little windy and cold, but I enjoyed the walk. We went to the Photographic Center Northwest, which I'd been to before and enjoyed, but I didn't like it as much this time. I'd also heard a lot about the Frye Art Museum, which was definitely worth visiting, but I was a little underwhelmed.

Lesley had been asking me for weeks where I wanted to eat dinner and I couldn't figure that out. There were a few places that sounded decent, but I decided to go to a place with live music, because we rarely do that. We made our reservation for before 7 to save money on the cover charge and the jazz didn't start until 8. We were the first ones in the restaurant, which served Mediterranean and Italian foods. We started with some baked feta cheese with pita bread, which was very good. Lesley got a gyro and I got moussaka, which I'd never had before. Mine was okay, but Lesley's gyro was really good (I got to eat the leftovers for lunch). Before the band came out, it started snowing outside. The band had a vibraphonist, pianist, double bassist, and drummer. They were all very good musicians, but it wasn't really my favorite kind of jazz. Still, I enjoyed it. We stuck around for a couple hours of music and when we left it was still snowing. We took the streetcar most of the way home (it's free this month because of its 1 year anniversary). When we got home, I got to eat some of the super-delicious, sweet, moist, tasty yellow cake that Lesley made for me that morning.

On Sunday, my actual birthday, we weren't sure if we'd go to church because of the snow on the ground, but we made it there without any problems. After church, we had a quick lunch (with cake) and Lesley gave me a new wallet, which I kind of needed. Then we took the bus out to the U-District to see an independent movie. We saw Happy-Go-Lucky, which was pretty good. After that we ordered some pizza and watched the football game between the Cowboys and Giants. The outcome of that game was very satisfying, but not enough to overshadow the rest of the weekend, which was very good.

I've never had much of a Texas accent. For a long time I tried to hide what accent I had so that people wouldn't think differently about me because I had one. Sometimes it surprises people to hear that I'm from Texas and not hear an accent. I guess they think that everyone from Texas talks like a Texan. I do have a slight accent, I think I just hide it more in a work environment. I don't say "y'all" very much, but I've said it a few times recently. Nobody has seemed to notice, but it seems like the kind of thing that people wouldn't expect. I don't know what I've gained by losing my accent. I think people like accents. So, I might start letting my accent out a little bit more, I don't know, I'm just still not sure how I feel about it.

This past Friday night we went to my company Christmas party at a nice hotel in downtown. Almost 60 people were there, half of which were all my co-workers. It started at 6 with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. All the food and drinks were free, which was really nice. They had carolers and a small band playing all night too.

Dinner was served around 7:15, and included 4 courses of food from the local restaurant Lola. There was a winter salad served with apples and nuts, then a fried cod with leek course. After that was medium cooked steak strips with kelp and potatoes and cranberries. Everyone seemed to be complaining about the undercooked steak, but it looked fine to me. Then they brought out dessert and everyone received a small portion of crème brûlée, a coconut pie bite, and a tiny rich chocolate cupcake.

It was all very good and we both had a good time talking to my co-workers and enjoying the nice atmosphere. Parking was also free, so that was nice to do instead of walking in the freezing cold and wind.

Today is Troy's 25th birthday! Happy Birthday to Troy! Now I can give him crap about being a quarter of a century old! And he can finally find out what I got him for his birthday.

For most of my life, I barely knew that snow tires existed. They weren't something you ever heard of in Texas. However, I have been hearing them lately. They make a much different, louder sound than regular tires, kind of like the sound of driving on gravel. There hasn't been any snow in the city, but the mountains have been getting snow, so I guess some people have needed them. Anyway, I just think it's kind of neat to hear them around.

We've been having daytime temperatures in the upper 40s for the last couple weeks but it looks like it will get significantly colder over the weekend:

A storm bearing a threat of snow and some of the coldest temperatures seen since 1990 is expected to arrive Saturday evening in the Seattle area and declare winter is here.

Any snow and ice will probably be limited to the outlying areas, which are generally at higher elevations. Monday's forecast calls for temperatures in the mid 20's. So, for the first time since we moved in, we might actually have to turn on our heater.

As Troy mentioned, we bought a fake Christmas tree while in Oregon and saved money on sales tax. It's a 7.5' Douglas Fir tree that came with white lights already on it. It's sort of nice we didn't have to bother trying to put on lights evenly, but I'm not sure what we'll do when I get sick of white lights. The lights are well tied around each branch, so it would be difficult to take them off and probably even harder to get them on. I guess we'd just have to add colored lights on top of the white ones and have both on the tree at the same time, unless we leave the white ones unplugged, but you could probably still see them unlit.

We looked at several places for a nice tree skirt, but they were all so cheaply made, yet fairly expensive, and tacky. We finally bought a cute tree skirt from Macy's on sale. It's white with a red border and has holly on the outside edge too. We bought 6 boxes of ornaments with about 9 ornaments in each box. We got red, green, and frosty white ornaments, some in different shapes, and some with glitter. We also put our ornaments we made last year on the tree, as well as our first Christmas ornament we got from our friend last year. We also tried to find a tree star that would light up, but the one we found didn't fit the tree well at all, so we went back and got a plain silver one that doesn't light up. I think our tree looks pretty nice and it's cool since we finally bought our own Christmas decorations.

Before we moved here, we thought we might move to Portland instead. We liked both cities and sometimes I wonder what things would be like if we had moved to Portland instead.

We ended up in Seattle because Lesley got a job offer here. I don't know how long it would have taken for each of us to find employment in Portland, but Portland's economy is not as strong as Seattle's.

We've been fortunate here to have met a lot of people at our church and we'd probably miss out on that in Portland.

Lesley loves the view from her office of the Olympic and Cascade Mountain Ranges, including Mount Baker, Elliot Bay, the city skyline, and Lake Union and there just aren't as many landmarks to see in Portland.

Since Portland is a smaller city than Seattle, we'd probably run out of new things to see and do sooner if we lived in Portland. There would definitely be a lot fewer sporting events for us to attend in Portland. Portland has its share of thriving neighborhoods, but I'm not sure if they compare with the vibrancy and character of Seattle's neighborhoods.

On a day-to-day basis, though, I think we would enjoy living in Portland. For one thing, it's easier and more enjoyable to walk in Portland. Portland is flatter than Seattle and has a great public transportation system, with light rail, streetcars, and buses. As I've mentioned, there are a lot of obstacles that make it harder to walk here. Even if we lived elsewhere in Seattle, there are steep hills, busy streets, a freeway, bodies of water, and other stuff that discourages walking.

Another benefit if we lived in Portland is that we would get to see more Cowboys games on local TV instead of only getting to see the Seahawks.

Overall, though, I'm happy living in Seattle. I look forward to visiting Portland more but don't regret not moving there.

Troy and I were on our usual walk last night and we were just walking along on the sidewalk when I suddenly stepped on slightly uneven ground and rolled my ankle inward and sprained it. It's pretty sore and it hurts even while I just sit here. I can't really walk on it either. Hopefully it will be better by the time we leave for our trip.

One of the best things about our apartment is the awesome view we have. A few days last week, the sunsets were so beautiful that I just had to take a few pictures and share them. I love being able to see the Space Needle and the Olympic Mountains every day, along with the sunset on most days. Sometimes I still can't believe we live in Seattle, it's great.

Click below and scroll down to see more sunset pictures from 12/4 and 12/5.

Here are two more pictures of Pike Place Market. It's now decorated for Christmas, along with the rest of downtown.

Downtown Seattle has had its tree lighting tradition at the Westlake Center for 20 years. It sounded like a big deal, so we made plans to watch the tree lighting and the lighting of the Macy's star. There was also the Macy's Parade Friday morning, but it started at 9:00, which was too early for us to want to get up for. We watched some of it on TV and it was really similar to the Seafair Parade.

So, anyway, we started walking downtown around 4 and it was really really busy. There were people everywhere shopping and eating out. It was so busy that we could hardly walk through some sidewalks. Every Starbucks we walked by had long lines too. All of downtown is decorated with lights on most trees and decorations on buildings. The Sheraton hotel has some ginger bread houses on display that I've heard are really cool. There's also a little miniature mountain village with trains on display at one of the Macy's windows. Even Pike Place Market has its own Christmas tree and light displays in the shapes of fruits.

The tree lighting started at 5 and thousands of people gathered around the Westlake Center. There were live choir performances of Christmas songs and the mayor gave a short speech about the LED lights on the Christmas tree that save a lot of energy compared to regular lights. It was almost time to light the tree when the microphones and sound system stopped working. Eventually the host figured out a way to get the crowd to start counting down to light up the tree. It was really neat watching it light up and then watching the huge Macy's star light up. There were supposed to be fireworks also, but they were called off due to high winds. It sucked that they had technical problems, but at least the tree and star still worked.

Click here for photos:

We get an electricity bill every two months. I don't know why it's not every month, I guess because energy is so cheap ($0.0376 / kWh), Seattle City Light (the same energy provider everyone has) doesn't bother making us pay every month.

When we received our first bill, we were using about 9.73 kWh per day. We weren't using any climate control, so I guess a lot of that was for the refrigerator, lighting, cooking, and laundry.

Since then, we've been trying to conserve energy by turning up the fridge temperature, turning the lights off when they're not being used, and turning off the surge protector for the computer and TV at night.

And, our efforts have paid off, so to speak, though with our bimonthly energy bill dropping from about $24 to about $21, there's not much of a literal payoff. Still, our use has dropped about 33% from what it was when we first moved here to about 6.53 kWh per day.

When we were back in Texas and using climate control almost daily, we were spending a lot more money, with energy prices being much higher. And we were consuming more energy as well, but not as much as I expected. With the heavy use of the air conditioner in the summer, we were using up to 18 kWh daily. The good thing was that we were able to get clean, renewable wind energy. However, over the whole year, we averaged only about 9.5 kWh per day, which is a little less than what we used when we moved in here. Here we're using the washer and dryer inside the apartment and since we used the community laundry room in Irving and since dryers use a lot of electricity, we actually used more energy than our electricity bill indicated. We also had gas heating for our hot water.

I haven't been able to find specific details on the energy sources used, but Washington uses a lot of clean, renewable hydroelectric electricity. That, combined with the fact that energy here is ridiculously cheap, means that there's not a huge incentive to cut energy consumption.

Still, we're continuing to find easy, effective ways of wasting less energy and we hope the habits we develop will help others to find ways to save energy and serve us well in the future.

We've posted before about how we've been driving less, but we finally figured out how much less we've been driving. We buy gas for our car once every three weeks. Since we arrived here in February, we've driven only about 3,300 miles and are on pace for 4,500 miles for the 12 month period after arriving here.

When we lived in Texas, we each had our own car and totalled around 17,000 miles over the previous year. That means we're driving about 1/4 as many miles as we used to. Even if you factor in our drive up here from Texas, that's only about 7,000 miles on our car for a full year.

Excluding our drive up here, our reduction in driving has prevented roughly 9,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the air. The amount of CO₂ emissions we saved is equivalent to the amount produced by an average home's electricity use in over half a year. It's nice to do our part to help the environment.

We're planning to share some videos soon from Thanksgiving, Portland, and a couple other things. The videos would have been posted already, but Jumpcut, the free service we use to edit and publish our videos, has not been working for us. We used YouTube for our Kerry Park video because we had just a single clip to post. Normally, though, we like to upload several clips of video and use Jumpcut to shorten and combine them with music and captions. When Jumpcut is working, it's easy to use and very helpful. We contacted their support people and hope to hear back this week, otherwise we'll have to figure out another way to share our videos.

We've been talking about taking a day trip to Portland or Vancouver, Canada for months. We kept deciding to save the gas money and do something else closer. With the long Thanksgiving weekend and with gas below $2 per gallon we decided to drive to Portland this weekend.

We left pretty early and after almost 3 hours we arrived in Oregon. Our first stop was Multnomah Falls, about a half hour outside of the city. The falls were awesome and the area was beautifully green and misty. After that, we drove into the city and stopped at Escape from New York Pizza, where we ate possibly the best pizza we've ever had.

We had found a free parking spot in the area so decided to just leave the car there and take the convenient streetcar and light rail to Washington Park, where we went to the Oregon Zoo for the first time. Lesley likes zoos and really wanted to see the critically endangered Amur Leopard, however in the three times we stopped by the exhibit, it never appeared.

After the zoo, we took light rail back downtown and walked through the Portland Saturday Market, which had some neat crafts and stuff. After a brief walk along the waterfront, we walked back downtown and had dinner at Thai Peacock. It was very nice to be able to sit, drink, and eat.

We then walked through Portland's Pearl District, which, despite being one of the more walkable areas in the city, was pretty deserted for a Saturday night. We got some hot, black tea with honey and sugar and then walked back to the Northwest District, where our car was parked. After a short stroll, we got in the car and drove over to Hawthorne Street to check it out.

Since Oregon doesn't have sales tax, we wanted to pick up a couple things before we left. We bought a tree and a few decorations and the money we saved by not paying tax made up for about half the money we spent on gas. Speaking of gas, we had to refill on our way back, so we exited when we saw a sign and the gas station was like two miles from the freeway. Then, the signage said to keep going the same way on the street to get back to the freeway (as if the street looped back to the freeway) and it did, but it was literally 5 miles to get back to the freeway.

Anyway, it was a fun trip. Portland is a pretty neat place. Here are some photos; we'll post the video soon hopefully.

December is the darkest and rainiest month here on average. The average rainfall for this month is around 5.5" and on the shortest day, the sun rises at 7:54 am and sets at 4:20 pm. I have training at work this week except for Friday, so I'll be staying here until 5 every day and will be lucky to see the sun at all.

It was really clear outside a week ago this past Sunday, so we went up to Kerry Park close to sunset to take some video and pictures. Enjoy! Click the image below and be sure to scroll down on the page after it loads.