The weather yesterday was cool and overcast, great hiking weather, so we set out to do a hike in our book. Unfortunately, the road was closed (a problem we've had before), so we stopped nearby where a lot of other cars were parked. We didn't know what trail it was, but we figured we'd try it out and turn around if we didn't like it. Not too far along the way, we saw the name of the trail: Mailbox Peak. That hike was also in our book, but we decided not to do it because it's pretty difficult, as the sign at the trailhead warned us. So, not wanting to hike to the top of Mailbox Peak, we followed along another trail, which appeared to have been used by vehicles at some time. It was a quiet trail and went over some mountain streams. The surface was rather rocky, but it wasn't very steep. It was a decent trail, but nothing too exciting, so after about 30 minutes, we turned around and went back to the car.

The Space Needle was lit up orange-ish the last two nights along with a vertical beam of light. We didn't know why, but found out that Microsoft did this as part of their marketing campaign to announce their new search engine, Bing.

Well it's a scorcher today. Temperatures outside are actually above a comfortable room temperature, topping out at 86°F. That's only 14 degrees less than triple digits. Why on my way home today, I even started to break a sweat! Good thing I didn't pass out from heat exhaustion.

Sarcasm aside, the temperatures are close to record-breaking, and since a lot of people don't have air conditioning, I can see how a heat advisory might be necessary. Still, we've managed to keep our apartment around 80°F without air conditioning and the heat outside is much more comfortable than the 100°F summers I lived with for most of my life.

I thought this article from the Seattle times about a proposed weather radar station was interesting. The current radars are located in Portland and on Camano Island, but the Olympic and Oregon coast mountain ranges prevent those radar stations from seeing incoming storms. Severe weather forecasting would be much improved with an additional radar on the Washington coast, according to this excerpt:

Much of the weather service's change of heart can be traced to several major storms that battered the region over the past several years, Cliff Mass (UW meteorologist) believes. The worst hit in early December 2007, with hurricane-force winds on the coast and drenching rains and floods in Southwest Washington that killed several people and shut down Interstate 5 for days. A coastal radar could have provided some advance warning for areas hit hardest by heavy rainfall, Mass said.

The National Weather Service is finally seeing the importance of a new coastal radar and has asked for $7 million in the 2010 US budget. I'm surprised it's taken so long to gain this much support for what seems like a much-needed additional radar. I always thought it was strange that the radar images weren't that great when checking them for storms.

We used to eat Mrs. Baird's bread when we lived in Texas, but they don't have that in Seattle. So we've tried several kinds of bread here, including the generic Safeway and QFC brands, neither of which stay fresh for very long and don't taste that great. Then we decided to try a local brand, Franz. We won't be going back to any other kind of bread, because the Franz bread we've had has been so delicious! We've tried the potato bread and the milk and honey bread and both are really soft and moist and stay fresh longer. They're smaller loaves than the generic brands, but it's definitely worth the extra few cents. And lately we've found it on sale for $2 a loaf! I'd have to say that Franz bread is better than Mrs. Baird's.

Today we went to eat donuts at Mighty-O Donuts that I mentioned we had last weekend at the Folklife Festival. Their donuts are cake-like, which I think I prefer over the other kind of donut. I got the French Toast and Cinnamon Sugar and Troy got the Topless Chocolate (basically a devil's food donut without any icing) and a regular glazed. I especially liked my French Toast donut. We'll have to go back again and get some different flavors next time.

After that, we decided to go see some short films that are playing at the Seattle International Film Festival, which runs from May 21 to June 14. SIFF is the largest film festival in the US. This year there are over "268 features and 124 shorts from 62 countries over 25 days, with 31 World Premieres, 45 North American Premieres, and 13 US Premieres." So we walked to the SIFF Cinema in the Seattle Center to see "The World of Possibilities", which is a series of 8 unrelated short films. Here is a summary of the package according to the SIFF website:

The challenges of life around the globe are illuminated with fascinating portraits of people and places in pursuit of personal goals.

We were asked to rate each short film and somehow our ratings affect which ones eventually get nominated for the Academy Awards. Most of the short films were under 15 minutes long and were very interesting. We especially liked one called Andong, a story about a young Filipino boy who's obsessed with watching tv and begs his mother to give him 20 pesos in order to buy a lottery ticket, for which the prize is a color tv. The story follows the boy's attempts to find money and his troubles with his younger brother. It's a really cute movie.

A few of the other short films were unimpressive, and one had pretty bad dialogue, but overall it was very entertaining and I'm glad we were able to see some independent movies during the SIFF. On the way home, we stopped by QFC to buy a few groceries, including filet mignon steaks, potatoes, and asparagus for lunch tomorrow.

After dinner, we went rollerblading at Alki beach, which was really nice. The weather was great all day, with highs in the 70s, but it was especially nice once it started to cool off around 7, which is when we went rollerblading. It was pretty cool seeing the beautiful Seattle skyline while rollerblading too. I'm looking forward to eating our nice steak lunch tomorrow.

We have our event tickets for the winter Olympics in February, one of which is on Saturday and the other is the next Tuesday. Unfortunately, we have no idea where to stay for 4 nights. I'm pretty sure all the major hotels in and around Vancouver are already booked solid. Even the ones that might have a some availability would cost an exorbitant amount of money - we saw a Best Western for over $300 a night. I don't really want to drive to and from Vancouver and go across the border every day either. Maybe we can find some hostels or something. I'd also like to just take Amtrak up there and back so we don't have a car to mess with in what will probably be a very crowded downtown Vancouver.

Anyway, I saw this article in the Seattle Times about the ticket sales and thought it was interesting. Here's an excerpt:

Because of high demand, most [prospective buyers] received only a fraction of the events requested, and many fans were shut out altogether. That prompted protests from Americans, particularly in Washington state, where about 40 percent of the total U.S. ticket requests originated from. Many U.S. fans had believed that proximity to British Columbia would translate into a larger share of the ticket pie for Americans.

I thought this was interesting too:

Because of record-high ticket demand in Canada, the original 48,000-ticket U.S. allotment for individual (non-travel-package) buyers was only about 3 percent of the Games' total 1.6 million tickets.

That makes me feel lucky we received half the tickets we requested. We just need a place to stay...

Lower Queen Anne is a Seattle neighborhood close to us and pretty close to downtown. It's also adjacent to Seattle Center, so we spent some time in Lower Queen Anne on the same day we went to the Folklife Festival.

Lower Queen Anne is a pretty dense neighborhood, but seems to have quite a few parking lots. There aren't really any houses, mostly apartments, town homes, retail, and more office buildings than most Seattle neighborhoods have. Most areas of the neighborhood have apartments no newer than the 70s, but there are some new town homes, and there are a few major grocery stores. There are several restaurants and bars to serve residents and people attending special events going on at Seattle Center. Though Lower Queen Anne isn't as much of a cohesive, self-contained village as other neighborhoods are, it's considered the 9th most walkable neighborhood in the city and seems pretty livable, if not especially remarkable.

In our time there, we walked around a lot of the neighborhood, including many of the streets that we hadn't had reason to explore before. We also spent some time sitting at Counterbalance Park, named after the counterbalance system that used to help trolleys up and down Queen Anne Hill. Lower Queen Anne is pretty close to the waterfront, too, so we walked along the water in the afternoon. Later on, we stopped in Easy Street Records and bought a CD and we also picked up a book at Twice Sold Tales. We ate dinner at one of the many Thai places in Lower Queen Anne (unfortunately we picked the wrong one to go to, as it wasn't very good). Overall, we had a pretty good afternoon exploring the neighborhood. If we moved to another neighborhood, I would consider living in Lower Queen Anne because it's close to downtown and has a lot of things within walking distance.

This past Sunday we went for another hike, this time to Twin Falls near North Bend.

It just happens to be the hike of the month on the Pacific Northwest Hikes website, which we frequently use to read summaries of hikes. So that may explain why it was so busy, along with it being Memorial Day weekend. It's a relatively short hike, only 2.5 miles and about a 1300 feet gain. It runs along a pretty fast moving river and then starts to climb to the different levels of the waterfall. At the top are two distinct waterfalls, the twin falls.

Anyway, it was pretty busy on Sunday afternoon, so I'm sort of glad it was a short hike. We like hiking in solitude much more than with tons of kids and people in the way all the time. But, it was still a really nice hike with lots of natural beauty to look at.

The Northwest Folklife Festival is a big deal here. Here's the description from the official website:

One of the nation's largest community arts festivals, the annual Memorial Day weekend celebration invites everyone to play, dance, sing, learn, taste, and participate! Participants enjoy hundreds of performances and interactive events.

And a description from Wikipedia:

It brings together an estimated 250,000 visitors, 1,800 volunteers, and more than 6,000 musicians, dancers, and other performers. Admission is free, but donations are encouraged. The first festival was held in 1972 and has since grown to become the largest free festival of its kind in North America.

We spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon there and had a pretty good time. Like any festival, there were lots of booths and food stands. There were also musicians and performers everywhere. We arrived around 11 and had a half dozen mini cinnamon sugar donuts from the Mighty-O Donuts stand. Then we walked around and checked out some of the booths, then we ate lunch - Lesley got a gyro and I had cilantro salmon, which was actually pretty good, despite there being no line to order. We sat while we ate and listened to a bluegrass band. After that, we checked out a few of the crafts booths and almost bought a mirror. As the day went on, the festival got really busy.

Later on, Lesley got some roasted corn on the cob and then we stood and listened to a band with lots of xylophones. The music was actually really cool and probably the highlight of the festival for me. The last thing we did was buy an apple dumpling with caramel sauce and cinnamon covered ice cream, which we enjoyed on our walk home. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to going back next year.

Here's a video of the xylophone music I liked:

A thunderstorm rolled into the area while we were watching the Mariners game last night. We heard a crack of thunder and then a few minutes later we saw lightning for the first time since we moved here! It was so exciting. We saw lightning three times in a span of less than 10 minutes and heard the accompanying thunder. It cleared away not long after that, but it was nice while it lasted.

In other news, the highs after today will be in the upper 60s and 70s with mostly sunny skies for the next week! I'm looking forward to the great weather this Memorial Day weekend. Time for some hiking, relaxing, and exploring another Seattle neighborhood!

Edit: This is a video of the lightning we saw hitting the Space Needle from our apartment.

Seattle has many distinct neighborhoods with their own history and culture. Recently we spent the afternoon in Fremont, Seattle's most artistic and uniquely eccentric neighborhood.

There is a rocket in the middle of downtown, indicating what residents consider as the Center of the Universe. We spent most of our time not too far from the rocket, in downtown Fremont. We started the day with lunch at Costas Opa Greek Restaurant, which is situated prominently near the center of Fremont. We started with pita and hummus, then Lesley had the gyros, and I had a plate of many different types of food. It was good, but I ate too much, which slowed me down throughout the afternoon.

We relaxed under the Aurora bridge, watching boats go by and pass under the Fremont Bridge. Then, we checked out some unique shops in the neighborhood and spent plenty of time browsing through vintage junk and local t-shirts. Since we went on a Sunday, the Fremont Sunday market was going on. There were antiques, local art and accessories, and a lot of counterculture people. We also spent time walking along the Burke-Gilman trail, which is a popular trail, especially for biking. Before we left that evening, we had some sushi at Chiso Sushi.

There were many unique things to see in Fremont, like a troll and a Lenin statue. There are lots of houses in the neighborhood to the north, which aren't as quirky as downtown. Overall, though, the neighborhood has a uniquely artistic character that makes it one of Seattle's most interesting neighborhoods.

Quick Fremont facts:

• Population: 10,389


• Population density per square mile: 10,760


• 2008 Median Home Price: $483,475


• 2008 Median Condo Sales Price: $280,500


• Cars per capita: 0.6


• 14th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle

Sources:
1. Seattle Metropolitan Real Estate
2. Walk Score: Seattle's Most Walkable Neighborhoods

Last Sunday, my cousin's husband, Ben, arrived and we had dinner at Red Fin sushi restaurant. I'd been there before and knew it was good, but this time it was really good. There are several pieces in each roll and they're not that expensive, maybe $6 to $10 each. Two rolls were definitely enough for me. We also had some really good Malbec-Merlot red wine bottled by Three Rivers Winery. We've been looking for it ever since then at all the grocery stores we pass by, but haven't found it.

My cousin, Laurie, arrived Friday afternoon and we went to eat at Red Mill Burgers and it was as good as always. After that we drove to Alki Beach and around West Seattle for the nice views of the city. The weather was really good and Mount Rainier was easy to see, which was nice to show off.

Saturday was a full day. We met them at Pike Place Market for the annual Seattle Cheese Festival. We made sure we got there early before the big crowds showed up so we wouldn't have to stand in long lines. There were so many different kinds of cheese to try. It was all completely free too, so that was very nice. I bought myself a t-shirt with the Cheese Festival logo on it.

Ben and Laurie bought some grapes and assorted berries from a fruit stand and then we went down to the waterfront to ride the ferry to Bainbridge Island. We had perfect weather all day, sunny with a high of about 75, which made it very easy to see the surrounding mountains, including Mount Rainier. Since there's not much to do on Bainbridge Island, we just rode the ferry right back to Seattle. We were kind of hungry, so we stopped and got some piroshkies and some mac n' cheese from Beecher's.

Then we went to the Space Needle to see the nice view. We were able to use our annual passes and get all of us to the top for free. We pointed out where our apartment is and where I work. It was pretty busy, so we didn't stay too long. After that, we stopped by Kerry Park for another great view of the city. After that, we went to the Ballard Locks and drove through a few neighborhoods, including Ballard, Wallingford, the U district, and Fremont.

We went to Volunteer Park and went up in the water tower and stopped by the gigantic tree. Then we ate dinner at the Icon Grill, which was excellent. We started the meal with artichoke gruyere dip, which was to die for. I had the fried chicken with mashed potatoes and Troy had the mushroom ravioli. We all shared a side dish of their famous macaroni and cheese, which was also incredible. We also shared some red wine and some carrot cake for dessert. We were all stuffed! Ben and Laurie were very generous and paid for our food too. I can't wait to go back to Icon Grill sometime.

It was nice to spend some time with my cousins, since we don't see them that often, and when we do, the rest of the family is always there. Since we were outside all day Saturday, we all got a little sunburned, but other than that, it was a really fun weekend and I'm glad the weather cooperated very well. I'm looking forward to them visiting again someday soon.

After not getting to hike much at either of the first two trails we tried, we headed toward another one. This one wasn't blocked my water or by snow, but was very busy. There were three waterfalls along the trail. A lot of people turned around after the lower falls, so it was much more enjoyable when we weren't sharing the trail with so many people. The waterfalls were neat, and though we were warm when we started, it cooled off as we went along. Overall it was a pretty good hike.

After our first attempt to hike was obstructed by a washed out road, we drove in the direction of a nearby hike listed in our book. Of course nearby is a relative term, it took a little while to get out there. And it was closer to the mountain pass, so there was some snow on the sides of the road. Then, when it came to turn off toward the trailhead, the road was blocked with a little bit of snow. We contemplated just parking there and hiking up the road, but decided to try an alternate trailhead, which was also blocked by snow. We found a third trailhead that wasn't totally obstructed, but after encountering patchy snow on the trail, decided it wasn't really that fun to hike on snow, even though it was kind of neat that there was still snow around in May. So, here are a few pictures of snow near this hike.

We wanted to take advantage of the great weather this Saturday, so we left pretty early to hike about 60 miles away from Seattle. Our book noted that sometimes the road is closed, but the turnoff for the hike is before the closure. So, when we saw a sign saying that the road was closed ahead, we didn't think too much of it. After a few miles, though, we saw that the road was closed before our turn. The road had been washed out, which apparently isn't too uncommon here in the Spring. It was pretty cool to see, so here are a few pictures of the road overrun by water along with pictures we took of the scenery after we turned around on the way back to the highway.

I don't know if we've ever posted about how unusual the names of places are here. Cities and towns in this area are named with Native American words and it's often not clear how to pronounce them. This is common in a lot of places, but the pronunciation of these names just seems more difficult to interpret. For a sampling, here's a list of nearby place names:

• Yakima


• Poulsbo


• Puyallup


• Tukwila


• Mukilteo


• Snohomish


• Enumclaw


• Snoqualmie


• Cle Elum


• Sequim


• Wenatchee


• Alki


• Skykomish


• Fife


• Stillaguamish (River)

Last night I made my very first apple pie from scratch! Well, mostly from scratch, I used a pre-made crust. I hadn't really thought about it much before, but we live in Washington state, where more than 60% of commercially sold apples are grown in the US. So I figured I should make an apple pie. It's probably my favorite fruit pie.

I used 6 apples, 5 Golden Delicious and 1 Granny Smith. It took a while to peel and cut them all, but it was definitely worth it. I mixed all the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, and salt and mixed it with the apple slices. I just used the pre-made Pillsbury pie crust since I didn't want to spend the time making my own crust. After baking it for 40 minutes, it was ready to be eaten.

Unfortunately two of the apples punctured the crust as it was baking, so it didn't look at pretty, and some of the syrup leaked out onto the bottom of the oven, that we now need to clean. But oh my gosh, did it taste good! It tasted like what I've had at restaurants, except better! The crust was surprisingly flaky and soft. We ate 3 slices last night, right after it came out of the oven. I'm sure it will all be gone by tomorrow night. I love apple pie!

As the housing industry continues its economic slump, house builders are finding that smaller homes are selling well in some markets. In fact, after significant increases in the average size of a new home, the average home size fell last year for the first time since 1994. These smaller homes are especially popular in Seattle as well as in Portland.

I've noticed that houses in general here seem to be smaller on average than those in Texas. Also, upscale neighborhoods here have lots of nice homes, but fewer and smaller McMansions. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but I'd speculate that since Seattle is a more dense urban area than many others nationwide, people here are used to things being more compact and build homes more appropriate for a city than for a ranch. It seems to be a cultural thing, and I get the sense that many people think of larger homes and McMansions as being tacky, whereas I rarely got that sense when I lived in Texas. And, while I'm speculating, I'll speculate that a higher cost of here makes smaller homes more attractive, too.

Anyway, I always find it interesting when Seattle is mentioned for being different from other parts of the country, and thought I'd offer my comments on smaller houses being popular here.

As I posted before, my cousin's husband will arrive in town this Sunday and he's invited us to have dinner with him that night. Not sure where we'll eat.

My cousin gets in next Friday and we'll see them both over that weekend. I'm excited about showing them our apartment and doing fun stuff in Seattle! We might try a new restaurant with them next weekend. I was thinking the Icon Grill, Dahlia Lounge, or Lola (although I have been to Lola once before). I've heard the macaroni and cheese at Icon Grill is really good, so maybe we'll go there. I made a list of the major things they need to see, most of which are viewpoints or involve being outside, so hopefully the weather cooperates!

I know we've posted about this a couple times before, but I have to post about it again, because seriously, we run into people here all the time. We live in a city, where there are tons of places to be, so how does it end up that we're in the same place as these other people? We don't know that many people, at least I don't think we do, so I don't know how it keeps happening.

Anyway, here's a list of all the different times we've seen people we know around town (and outside town).

• Walked past a friend downtown, shortly after we moved here


• Saw a guy from church at the airport


• Saw a friend and her mother at the grocery store late one evening


• Ran into a friend at Target one night


• Walked by another friend on our way up to Capitol Hill one Friday night


• Ran into our friend (who we had seen at Target) and her husband (whose sister we had seen at the grocery store) at the Space Needle


• Ran into another guy from church at the downtown library


• Saw a guy from work who I ride the bus with in La Conner (65 miles away from Seattle)


• Saw another person I know from church downtown

This past Saturday we were invited to go play Whirlyball in Edmonds with a friend from church and some of her fellow civil engineering associates. Whirlyball is a mixture of bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball. Each team has 5 players, who drive around in bumper cars and try to score goals by using a scoop to pick up the wiffleball and shoot it at a 15" hole at the height of a basketball goal. You're not allowed to use anything but your scoop to pick up the ball, unless it gets smashed and has to be fixed by hand, or if it falls in your car. You also have to stay buckled the entire time.

I'd never played it before, but Troy said it was a lot of fun the two times he played it with his co-workers at his old job. We decided to go since we didn't really have any other important plans. We carpooled with our church friend and arrived around 1:45. We played probably 6 or 7 games at 15 minutes each or almost three hours until 4:30.

It took a while for me to really get the hang of driving the car, which didn't have brakes or a normal steering wheel. I also had a hard time figuring out how hard to swing my hand when trying to shoot and I ended up throwing the ball at the ceiling a few times. During the last game though, I just sat at mid-court usually by myself and waited for passes from my teammates. Then I would go down to our goal and I made 5 straight shots, one of which was backhanded from directly underneath the goal. I was pretty proud of that one. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we got to go with our church friend. Unfortunately, the belt buckle bruised my right hip pretty badly and both Troy and I have a few other bruises on our legs too. It was worth it though.

In the previous 6 times we've gone to Safeco Field to see the Mariners play, they have lost each game. However, at the game we attended Friday night, despite trailing 6-1 early on, the Mariners came back to win at the bottom of the 9th.

On my way home from work, I met Lesley and her coworker and husband for dinner across the street from the stadium and we went to the game afterward. It was great weather for baseball and it was an exciting game to see. It was nice to hang out with people and I'm glad we went.

After spending the day out and about on Saturday, we didn't do much on Sunday, but I managed to drag Lesley out of the house for a relatively short walk. We went to the Mercer Slough Nature Park in Bellevue. It was also mentioned in our book. It was a pretty flat hike through a wetland aera. Not the most exciting, but it was nice to get out and we took a few pictures. It's great having this warmer spring weather that allows us to go for a hike on a weekly basis.

Just for fun, we thought some people would be interested in knowing what we ate last week for dinner every night:

• Monday - a big salad with a roma tomato, cucumber, carrot shavings, and croutons, blueberry muffins later that night


• Tuesday - salad with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, carrot shavings, and croutons, ham sandwiches cooked on the stove with Cool Ranch Doritos


• Wednesday - pan cooked chicken strips with potatoes and asparagus


• Thursday - salad with a roma tomato, cucumber, carrot shavings, and croutons, salmon and asparagus


• Friday - beef and broccoli with rice

It wasn't really a typical week with three salads and a lot of vegetables. Although, it's definitely easier to eat healthy here since the fruit and vegetables are so fresh. We also had grapes as a snack a few nights.

The tulips were so beautiful last year when we went to see them for our anniversary that I wanted to go back again this year. So, Saturday morning we left early (around 8:45) to go see them. It was actually raining fairly heavily when we got there after driving for a little over an hour, so we decided to eat breakfast first in the nearby town of La Conner. We ate at the Calico Cupboard Cafe again and the food was excellent. I got some hot apple cider (which I've realized I love to drink), which was really good, and a ham and cheese omelet with fruit and toast. Troy got the breakfast sampler which is just one large pancake, eggs, and bacon. We also got one of their "famous" huge cinnamon rolls to take home.

After breakfast, the sun came out and the weather was much nicer. So we went to a few tulip fields and took several pictures. I wanted to see the orange tulips again, but we never found any. We bought a bunch of 10 pink tulips for $4.50, which is a real bargain compared to the cost at Pike Place Market of $10 for 12 tulips. These are much fresher too.

After looking at tulips for a couple of hours, we drove through Anacortes just to see what was there, which wasn't much. Then we drove to Deception Pass and stopped to hike around there for a while. We got lost on the trail we were on since it wasn't marked that well, but eventually found our way back to the car.

Then we drove south on Whidbey Island, and stopped at Coupeville for dinner at a small bar and grill, which wasn't nearly as impressive as breakfast was. The next stop was Fort Casey State Park, which is a place my dad mentioned he'd be interested in going. We saw some wildlife there, including rabbits and deer. Otherwise there wasn't much there, but it did have an impressive view of Puget Sound and a neat lighthouse. Unfortunately the lighthouse was in the process of being repaired, so it didn't look that great. As a side note, I'd be interested in visiting and photographing all 25 lighthouses in Washington state someday.

After Fort Casey, we drove the rest of the way to Clinton, a small town on the eastern edge of Whidbey Island, to take the ferry to Mukilteo. It was pretty cool and a little weird driving the car onto the ferry. It was only about a 20 minute ferry ride, so it didn't take long to get to Mukilteo. As we were pulling into the dock, we could see the Mukilteo lighthouse, which looked really pretty with the sunlight hitting it.

We made it home around 8:30, where we ate our cinnamon roll, which measured about 5" cubed. It was really good. We had a really nice Saturday and can't wait to go back to the Calico Cupboard to get another cinnamon roll!

We bought a new desk a few months ago and our old monitor didn't look that nice with it. We had been wanting a new monitor anyway for a while, but were waiting for a good deal. Finally, last week, NewEgg had a 24" widescreen LCD monitor on sale with free shipping. Up until now, we'd been using the monitor my Uncle gave me as a high school graduation present along with my old computer. It was a good old monitor and worked perfectly for 8 years. We put it on Craig's list for free and eventually gave it to a college student. Hopefully he gives it a good home.

It's really nice now though, having this gigantic monitor. The screen is huge, but there's no more bulk to it like the old one. And the desk looks really nice with it now. It's much easier to have multiple programs open at the same time. The colors also seem to be even brighter than before. It can display HD, but we don't have anything HD currently. This monitor should last us for several years.

The company where I work partnered with a non-profit organization and invited all employees to help clean up a local greenbelt this week. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to participate, but after seeing some great weather in the forecast last week, I figured some time outside (while still getting paid) would be good, and signed up to help out last Monday.

I went with about 15 other employees to meet with members of the Nature Consortium, which is in charge of the project to restore several acres of land near the Duwamish river. I don't know the full story, but the area has been overrun with invasive plants and so the Nature Consortium is trying to restore it to how it used to be before human settlement.

We started by potting some baby trees that were loose in a bucket. They were going to be planted, but apparently it is too late in the season to plant them so they'll be saved for next year. Then we mulched the side of a hill, which was probably my favorite part, though it was also possibly the hardest. Then we had to dig up some invasive blackberry species and remove some ivy, which can add a lot of weight to existing trees and cause them to fall over in strong wind.

It was 4 hours of hard work, but I really enjoyed it. The weather was great and it's really cool that my company sponsored this community service activity.

Link light rail between downtown Seattle and Tukwila will begin service on July 18th! Here's an excerpt from this article from the Seattle PI:

Link initially will run between Westlake Station, at the north end of downtown Seattle, and Tukwila International Boulevard. The service is scheduled to extend to Sea-Tac Airport in December, with buses set to connect the Tukwila station to the airport in the meantime. Service is scheduled to run to the University of Washington in 2016.

It'll be really exciting to finally have light rail in Seattle, especially as a faster way to get to the airport. It's taken way too long for Seattle to have light rail, but it's finally almost here!

View Places We Go in a larger map

We thought it would be neat to post a map that we've marked up to show the places we go to frequently. We go to most of these places once a month or more, some at least once a week. You can do a lot of cool stuff with Google Maps. Just click on the icons and it'll tell you what it is.

After our hike on Saturday, we went to our first Mariners game of the season with a couple friends. The Mariners are doing pretty well so far this year, but they still lost to the Tigers 2-0. Our seats were in the upper deck behind home plate. The temperatures were in the 50s, so it wasn't nearly as cold as the first game we went to last year, which was nice. Hopefully they can win when we go to the game on May 1st with my co-worker...

We walked all the way home, after walking all the way to the game earlier, and it was a long walk (about 2 miles each way). That means we walked more than 8 miles total on Saturday and man, we were both really tired. My lower back was sore.

The weather was nice this weekend, once again, so we went for a hike. This time, we headed out to Redmond Watershed Park and Preserve, which is one of the hikes included in the book we have, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Seattle.

The trail was well maintained. There were some spots of mud, but it was nowhere near as muddy as the trail we took last week. Unfortunately, the trail was also used by horses, so we had to watch out for their droppings. There also seemed to be a lot of flies, probably because of that. But, when we got to the part that was closed to horses, we didn't have those problems. We ended up walking more than 4 miles, but there were no major elevation gains, and it was very pretty, as hikes around here tend to be.

This past Tuesday, the 14th, was our 2 year wedding anniversary. It's pretty hard to beat what we did last year, which was go to the Tulip Festival (posts 1, 2, and 3) and stay overnight at a bed and breakfast. But we still had a good anniversary this year. We went to eat Italian food at La Rustica in West Seattle. It's right next to the shoreline, so we had a good view from our table. We walked outside a little bit after dinner, but it was a little cold and windy, so we went back home after a few minutes. We exchanged gifts at home. Troy gave me a Sounders mug for me to drink out of at work and some tulips and I gave him some clothes.

Last night we went to see the musical CATS, by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is the second longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassed by Phantom of the Opera in 2006. CATS played a total of 7,485 performances on Broadway.

It's based on the book of short stories by T.S. Eliot called "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," which I remember reading when I was in music class in middle school. So I went in knowing there wouldn't be much of a plot, just a lot of songs about individual cats. I thought it was really entertaining, with great songs and costumes. We got fairly cheap seats in the lower level on the far right side and we had a fairly decent view since our seats were on a little raised platform that was probably added to sell more seats.

It was a nice 2 year anniversary and I'm looking forward to spending many more years with my husband.

Buildings are being demolished on Capitol Hill for the construction of the new light rail station. A few months ago, these storefronts were in use as a temporary art gallery. It's a shame to see these old buildings go down after they had contributed so well over the years to such a vibrant neighborhood. However, light rail definitely will be a good addition to the neighborhood.

Here's the picture of the original art exhibit:

Adjusting to life here would be a lot more difficult without the internet, especially these links, which are some of our favorites:

News and Blogs

• Seattle Times - The online website for Seattle's remaining daily newspaper.


• Seattle Post-Intelligencer - The PI stopped printing recently, but still has an online presence. I normally prefer the Times' online layout and content, but think the PI's online content has improved since they stopped printing.


• Seattle Transit Blog - I care about transit, but not quite as much as the many writers of this blog do. This blog is a great resource on the state of and plans for the local transit system as well as transit news on a local and national scale.


• Vintage Seattle - Decades-old pictures of Seattle cityscapes and landmarks (and motels) posted daily. I've learned a lot about the city's history from this blog.


• The Southlake - Blog with news about the neighborhood we live in.


• hugeasscity - Think of it as Seattle Planning Blog if the flippant name bothers you. It covers urban planning issues in Seattle and does a good job at it.


• SeattleScape - Another planning-related blog, which isn't updated as often, but still has good quality posts.


• Seattle Times Sounders FC blog - A great blog with news and write-ups on the Seattle Sounders.


• GoSounders.com - Another Sounders blog, written more informally.


• Snow Leopard Trust Blog - Devoted to protecting the endangered Snow Leopard, this charity is based in Seattle and is one of Lesley's favorites. The blog covers news about what the charity is doing and information about snow leopards in the news.

Transportation and Local Resources

• Seattle Area Traffic - Freeway traffic status map, which tends to be more complete and reliable than Google Maps.


• King County Metro Transit - Bus schedules and other transit information.


• One Bus Away - I use this often at work to find out upcoming arrival times for the bus.


• Pacific Northwest Hikes - Fantastic resource with a great search tool for identifying and planning hikes.


• Lost in Seattle - Real-time search engine showing Seattle businesses on a map whether they're currently open.


• Recent Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest - We live in a seismically active region and this map shows recent earthquakes.

We hadn't really had a chance go for a hike yet this year until yesterday. It was a little cool outside, but it wasn't raining, so we went for a hike at a trail that was closed last year when we tried to hike there. The trees were starting to bud and plants were starting to grow, so it was nice outside, even though the trail was a little muddy. We hiked farther than I expected to, about an hour each way. It was great to get out and hike. I can't wait to go on more hikes and longer hikes as the weather continues to get better.

When I was living at home or visiting home, my parents made cinnamon swirl muffins every week. They were really good and I never got tired of the taste of those fresh-baked muffins with cinammon mixed in and cinnamon sugar on top. However, I haven't had them in I guess a year or so, since Lesley and I haven't been able to find them in any store here. So, recently my parents surprised us by mailing us a couple boxes of muffins to bake. We had some other desserts and food sitting around so we didn't make the muffins when we first got them, but we did over the weekend. They weren't quite as good as I remember, but I think we can do a better job on the second batch we make. It was nice to have the muffins again.

We've been watching Mariners games on FSN since the season started. Unfortunately the price of our cable package, which is now at an introductory rate, will go up from $30/month to $55/month, so I don't know if we'll keep it. But for now, it's fun to watch the Mariners games on TV for something to do.

The Mariners' home opener next Tuesday against the Angels is sold out because it's Ken Griffey Jr.'s first home game back with the Mariners. We're going to the April 18th game against the Tigers with two friends from church. Then we're going to another game on May 1st against the A's with my co-worker and her husband. I'm looking forward to going to baseball games again, they should be fun!

I recently mentioned that two snow leopard cubs were born in the Melbourne Zoo a few weeks ago. They've been named Tashi and Gobi, both names with Tibetan origins. Here's a link to a video posted on the Snow Leopard Trust blog that shows the new cubs in the zoo with comments from the zoo keeper. The cubs are so cute!

As I mentioned, the weather this weekend was great. Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of it and ended up having a very good weekend.

On Saturday, while Lesley was at a baby shower, I walked down to Olympic Sculpture Park. I hadn't been there in months, but going there Saturday reminded me how much I enjoy it. Aside from having my favorite sculpture anywhere, it's a neat place to go for a stroll. I didn't spend much time experiencing the sculptures, but instead walked down to the waterfront and made myself comfortable on one of the benches. A lot of people walked, skated, and rolled by as I sat enjoying the cool breeze, warm sun, and view of the bay.

Afterwards, I headed home to eat lunch and, not expecting to find much on TV, found the Sounders game. The game was televised on a channel that I don't have, but since they were playing a Canadian team and we get CBC sports, I was able to watch the game and enjoy another Sounders victory.

Later that day after Lesley got home, we went to Washington Park where we enjoyed the few flowers that had already bloomed while trying to avoid stepping in mud. Afterwards, we drove to Fremont (one of Seattle's many vibrant neighborhoods) and ate by the window at a Thai restaurant while we watched people out enjoying the neighborhood and the weather.

On Sunday, I began the day a little early with a walk over to the church parking garage. Since the church is worshipping at a temporary location now, they have someone distributing parking passes at the garage we use and I do that once a month. I love the 25-minute Sunday morning walk over to the parking garage, and with Sunday morning's sunny weather and relatively warm temperatures, the walk and time spent outside was especially nice.

After church, we enjoyed a Palm Sunday brunch with around 14 other people from church in our age group. The food was great, and I had really enjoyed socializing and discussing some upcoming activities.

At home that afternoon, I had a nice phone call with my grandmother and Lesley and I had a good chat with her parents via the webcam.

Afterwards, we walked to Pike Place Market and along the waterfront. Both areas were busy with tourists and are still favorite places of ours. We then went to another tourist attraction, the Space Needle, to use our season pass. In line, we unexpectedly ran into some good friends and enjoyed the good view from the top with them.

It was a great weekend, and even though we had to go to work the next day, Monday night felt like a continuation of the weekend, as we headed to the U-dub campus to enjoy the impressive display of cherry blossoms. While there, we ran into another couple we knew, and offered to take pictures of each other against the scenic backdrop. Lesley and I walked back through the campus and along the Ave before having some pretty good sandwiches for dinner.

It was a great three days, thanks to the weather, flowers, and the people we spent it with. Weekends like this make me feel like I'm living in a remarkable place.

I went to my friend's baby shower on Saturday and had a good time hanging out with all the girls there. She's due on my Mom's birthday, May 12th, but it couldn't be soon enough for her. The party was at her sister-in-law's house and probably about 15-20 people were there. I only knew like 3 of them, but it was still fun. She got a lot of cute baby clothes, including a really cute Mariner's shirt/skirt combination. I gave her some receiving blankets, some cute pink baby hangers, and a few pacifiers.

We also played a few games. One of them was a game where we were all given a long streamer and we had to tear it to the length we thought it would go around her perfectly at her biggest point. My streamer was a little short, but I figured it was better to be short than long! I won two tickets to the movies, which was pretty cool. Anyway, I had fun at the baby shower and look forward to seeing the new baby girl soon!

It seems like winter has been dragging on. It rained incessantly earlier in the week and has still been kind of cold. However, yesterday was beautiful and it looks like we'll have some good spring weather for the next few days. I'm really glad to see that better weather is coming up.

We booked our flights with Qantas to travel to Australia this fall to see our friends in Melbourne! We're leaving Friday night, September 25th and will arrive in Melbourne Sunday morning the 27th. We'll stay there until Monday October 5th, when we travel to Sydney for a few days. Then we leave Sydney on Saturday, October 10th and arrive back in Seattle the afternoon of the 10th, due to the time zone difference. We will connect in Los Angeles both times.

I've never been on a plane for longer than about 5 hours straight, so we'll see how I do on a plane for 15 hours! Each seat on a Qantas flight has a TV in it so you can watch movies and stuff, so that should make it a little less boring.

I've been getting really excited just from looking at stuff to do there! It'll be a really long, awesome trip. I can't wait!

The Sounders have become a pretty big deal in Seattle. The NY Times wrote a short article about the Sounders and their popularity in Seattle. Here's a quote:

The new Sounders opened extra seating for their first game, on March 19, and 32,000 people came. The league’s commissioner, Don Garber, said he was moved to tears.

The article talks a little about the fan reaction and soccer's history in Seattle.

The past couple weeks at work have been a little different because I've been spending a lot of time at a job site instead of in the office. There's a project that I've been involved with for several months but recently it became necessary for me to go to the project location to test and complete a few things and better manage the remainder of the project.

I've been more tired at the end of each day than normal because I've been up and walking around rather than just sitting at my desk. It's also been different because I haven't been taking the bus.

I've learned a lot from this project and it's been challenging and rewarding to get these last steps taken care of. There were quite a few things that could've been done better, especially at the beginning of the project, which contributed to it taking longer than it should have. But, I'm glad to have been able to get things done.

This project along with another project that concluded a few weeks ago used to take up a lot of my time, so now I'm not really sure what I'll be doing next, but it will probably be back at the office.

I can't believe it's been 8 years since I bought my Mazda Protegé in March 2001. It only has 72,000 miles on it, an average of only 9,000 miles per year. I've had a lot of good times with my car over the years. One of the oldest memories I have is when I ran it into a square hitch on the back of a car in front of me. Unfortunately that was when it was less than 3 months old and it's had that blemish ever since.

I also used to drive it to and from Abilene when I was in my freshman year of college and I remember listening to music like Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin, which I rarely listen to any more. My Mom would always ask if I went "Zoom Zoom" all the way home, since that was Mazda's slogan. It also snowed one time when I was in Abilene and I took several pictures of my car in its first snow.

I remember driving Troy and the rest of our small group of friends around town just to goof around. I also had a pair of green dice hanging from the rear view mirror for the longest time.

I remember when I bought new Pirelli tires and when my parents gave me a new stereo and speakers for my car. It was much much better than the factory system.

I remember when I found the side of it scraped by someone in the parking lot at my first apartment in east Fort Worth. I think I also backed it into a yellow pole at my apartment, but that was easily buffed off.

One time Troy was replacing the battery and he lost one of the screws somewhere in the front of the car. We were at our apartment in Irving and there are speed bumps in the parking lot, so I drove over a few at a slow speed hoping it would fall out. Troy followed behind me on foot and kept looking for the screw, but to no avail. Then I had the idea to drive faster over the last speed bump leading up to our parking space and the screw fell out.

And then, probably my favorite memories of it were made when we drove it all the way to Seattle and stopped at some great places along the way. We crammed so much stuff in the trunk and back seat of my car, it was crazy. Once we arrived in Seattle, we had to get new Washington plates and put them on.

My Mazda has been a great little car for a long time. I haven't had any major problems with it and have really only had to pay for oil changes and the normal maintenance items. We have no plans to replace it any time soon. In fact we'll probably keep it until it basically falls apart, which hopefully is a long time from now. I love my Protegé and look forward to making more memories with it in the future.

Over the past few weeks, we've been attending a small group meeting with people from the church we go to. We meet weekly at someone's home and each of us talks about how things are going personally and then we read a Bible passage and discuss.

We're currently meeting in Pioneer Square, one of my favorite parts of the city, so I've enjoyed being able to go there regularly. I've also really enjoyed getting to know and socialize with other people. The discussions that we have related to the passages can be interesting as well.

Anyway, we've enjoyed our weekly small group meeting and it's been worthwhile.

My cousin and her husband are coming to visit us in May! He will be here for a conference the week of May 11th and she'll be coming in to meet him on the 15th. So we'll get to spend a few days with them over that weekend. We'll definitely show them our apartment and our view, as well as show them around our city. We can also take them up in the Space Needle for free with our annual passes. They'll be the first people from my family to visit us, even before my parents in July, which is kinda funny. It'll be nice to spend some time with them.

Last week, new Major League Soccer club Seattle Sounders FC won their inaugural game 3-0 in front of a sold out crowd. Last night, they won again, 2-0, in front of another sold out crowd. We were fortunate enough to be able to go to the game last night and had a good time.

We participated in the March to the Match before the game, walking a few blocks to the stadium with a throng of loud fans.

The crowd at the first game was impressively passionate and the crowd tonight didn't disappoint either. It's much more fun to enjoy a game when the crowd is into it. Unfortunately, our section seemed to be less interested than many others.

Real Salt Lake was playing pretty well, but we had more scoring opportunities than them in the first half, and went ahead 1-0. In the second half, Real Salt Lake played better and had quite a few chances. However, Fredy Montero scored his third goal in two games to put us up by 2-0. Celebrating the goals was a lot of fun and it was an exciting game overall.

I can't wait to go to another game and sit in a more passionate section. Hopefully the W's will keep coming, too.

We're going to our first Seattle Sounders FC game (against Real Salt Lake) this Saturday at Qwest Field. Last week we watched the first Sounders game ever, and it was completely sold out. It looked like the fans were having a blast, so hopefully the crowd is just as loud this time. We took some pictures of the stuff we bought to wear to the game. I'm sure we'll post pictures from the game afterward.

With suburban sprawl reaching into the foothills of the Cascade mountains, the previously natural habitat for black bears has been taken over by roads, houses, and people.

In 2008, state wildlife officials fielded 881 calls about bear sightings in King County alone, and sent officers out on 260 calls. That's up from the year before, when officers received 679 sightings and responded to 202 bear calls.

This article in the Times talks about how a service dog is being used to chase these black bears away in their quest for food so that they learn to stay away from populated areas.

We were running errands tonight in Tukwila and were just about to walk out of Target when we ran into our friend from church! Totally random! She's the (pregnant) one we had dinner with when we first moved here and the one that sent us Texas BBQ after taking care of her dog Benji. We just happened to be there at that exact moment when she was at the front of the store. I think she asked us what we were doing there and I don't think we ever really gave an answer. We should have said we were there to buy toilet bowl cleaner, which was the truth! That would have been funny. Anyway, it's kinda crazy how we've run into so many of our church friends in just a few months in totally random places. It's a small world after all I guess.

It's been a while since I posted, so I figured I'd write about what we did so far today. This morning we road the bus up to Capitol Hill to eat bagels at Noah's. We don't normally buy drinks when we eat out, but we had a coupon for 25% off our order, so this time we bought a watermelon strawberry Nantucket Nectar drink.

I ran out of bus tickets today, so we stopped by QFC to get a new ticket booklet, then headed downtown on the 49 bus. After the bus made it's last stop in downtown, we walked the rest of the way to Qwest Field so we could go to the Pro shop. We wanted to buy some Sounders gear for the game we're going to next Saturday against Real Salt Lake. Unfortunately they didn't have much selection for women's apparel, especially long sleeved shirts. We ended up buying me a white t-shirt with the Sounders logo on it and Troy got a green long sleeved shirt. We also bought a scarf that looks pretty cool.

After that, we walked back to downtown and the waterfront where we took a few pictures of the Olympic Mountains. Then we stopped at Pike Place Market to eat at The Confectional, a place that sells mini cheesecakes. We tried the plain cheesecake and it was good. I want to try the raspberry white chocolate or the caramel next time.

We ran a few errands downtown and made our way back to the apartment. I put a roast on this morning in the crock pot for us to eat tonight, so I'm looking forward to that. Overall, a fun day so far.

Since we're at such high latitudes, the position on the horizon where the sun sets shifts significantly between the seasons. In the middle of winter, it sets far south, behind the buildings in Belltown that we can see from our window. Yesterday, for the first time this year, the sun passed north of the Space Needle. It will keep setting farther north until, in the middle of summer, it will set behind the north part of Queen Anne Hill.

The first ever Sounders FC soccer game is tonight. Tickets for this game sold out and were reselling online for $85+ per ticket. We couldn't get tickets for the game so we'll be watching.

One of the most common internet searches that brings people to our blog is "how expensive is it to live in Seattle?" We've talked about this before, but figured we could do some deeper analysis than what we've offered before.

The short answer to the question is: go to Sperling's BestPlaces Cost Of Living Comparison, enter your current salary, and compare your current city to Seattle to see how much your salary would need to increase to maintain the same lifestyle. Overall, the cost of living in Seattle is 32% more than the national average. We've found the difference to be less, but we've also made adjustments in our lifestyle to minimize the higher cost of living here. Keep reading for a more detailed analysis of how expensive it is to live here.

Job Market

The first thing many people interested in moving here would want to know is how the economy is doing. Seattle has a strong, diverse economy, compared to the national average, with major area employers including Boeing, Port of Seattle, Alaska Airlines, and Microsoft. The unemployment rate in Seattle was 6.3% in December 2008, compared to the national unemployment rate of 7.2%. Seattle is one of the most-educated cities in the US, with industries including aerospace, computer science, and biotechnology.

Housing

The median home price in Seattle is $591,000, which is 172% higher than the national average of $217,200. Trulia has a real estate overview of the city. As a compliment to the city, some people would say you get what you pay for. Seattle hasn't been hit as hard by the housing bubble as other cities, though home prices have still fallen some. Speaking from experience, the high cost for renting here impacted us more than any other increased expense. Also, based on my observations, while houses here are more expensive than in other places, they're also more modestly sized on smaller lots.

Also, from what I've observed, most condos start at around $300,000, though some start in the mid $200,000s. Also, apartments in the inner city without income restrictions start at around $1,000/month + parking costs. I'm sure rates start lower farther from the center of the city. To get a better idea of what you'd have to pay for housing, you'd have to do a more specific search.

Food

Food here costs 11% more than the national average. There is also more tasty, local produce here than in many other parts of the country. Still, since we've moved here, we've been paying a lot more for groceries than we did in Texas, partially because they're more expensive here and partially because we've been buying more groceries instead of eating out because eating out costs more here too. As we mention here, there just aren't as many places to eat for cheap, and it seems like the places here that are labeled as "$" cost as much as the places labeled as "$$" in Dallas/Fort Worth.

Utilities

The WhiteFence Index has details on utility costs in 21 major cities and the costs for utilities in Seattle are below the median of these cities. It estimates an average utilities bill of $274 and even breaks down costs by categories - phone, electricity, natural gas, etc.

From an anecdotal perspective, electricity costs here are lower than what we paid in Texas. We're paying a quarter of what we were paying in Texas per kilowatt and we're actually paying much less than that - like $10/month - because we don't have to run air conditioning (in fact, we don't have it). However, water costs are higher at about 35 hundredths of a cent per gallon. The two of us pay around $65 per month for water. Cable TV seems to cost more here, too, with basic cable costing $55/month through Comcast. We pay about $40/month for DSL internet, which also seems like a lot. Of course different companies offer different levels of service so utility costs will vary.

Transportation/gasoline

The price for gasoline in Seattle tends to be about 10% above the national average with gas prices in the area being among the higher gas prices in the nation. However, due to higher density than many cities and a well-used public transportation system, I would estimate that people in Seattle drive less than people in many other cities, so the monthly cost of gas here is possibly lower on average than in other parts of the country.

Taxes

Different places assess different taxes in different ways, but overall I'd say the tax burden here doesn't seem too bad, since Washington is one of the seven states that doesn't have personal income tax. Sales tax in Seattle is a bit high, ranging from 9% - 9.5%. Property Tax $10.17 per $1,000 of home value, which is 23% below the US average of $13.28 per $1,000 of home value. Overall, taxes here don't seem bad to me.

Summary

There is no single answer to the question "How expensive is it to live in Seattle?" because expenses are different for everyone. Many things do cost more in Seattle than in other parts of the country, but how much more depends on you and the choices you make. The higher cost for housing will be the most immediately noticeable for many people, but other things like food and gas cost more as well. To get a better idea of what it would cost for you to live here, you might want to start by looking for a home you might want and see how much it costs. For us, the cost increases were minimized because moving to Seattle allowed us to make lifestyle changes (selling a car and driving less) to save money. If anyone has any more questions, we'd be happy to answer in the comments or by email.

One of our two local daily newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print operations today. The owner of the PI has been looking for a buyer and decided to go to an online-only version.

The PI has a great article about its history, tinged with the feeling of mourning that many of its employees and readers must share today.

I've always been kind of ambivalent about having two newspapers here, not really sure and kind of confused about which one to read. However, both have been struggling lately, with the Times laying off quite a few people over the past year. The end of the printed PI will probably be a good thing for the Times, at least in the short term, and it will be interesting to see how the online PI plays out.

In any case, it's a historic day for the city, and not really in a good way. Lesley brought home the commemorative section from today's PI. It's the end of an era for the city and a sign of things to come in many cities as print media continues to struggle in response to the popularity of the web.

When I started work, I enjoyed being able to ride the bus, but wasn't totally comfortable with it at first. However, now that I've been taking the bus to work regularly for six months, I've gotten comfortable with taking the bus and enjoy it more than ever. Here's why:

1. Having time to read - I've always had a hard time finding time to read at home in the evenings or on weekends, so I haven't read much. However, I do really enjoy reading. When I take the bus, I have 30 minutes available before and after work and have been able to read more books over the past six months than I had in the previous few years.


2. Being able to walk - I love to walk but, like reading, it can be hard to fit in time and a reason to go for a walk from home. However, I get to walk every day when I take the bus. If I don't want to walk far, I can take a route that goes by where we live, or if I want to walk longer, I can take another route and have a 10-15 minute walk home in the afternoon. There's another route that takes me by Pike Place Market and gives me about a 20 minute walk home. It's a great time to get outside, see the city, talk to people on the phone, and get a little exercise on my way home.


3. Environment - By not driving, there's an extra half ton of greenhouse gases that our car didn't release into the air.


4. Money - Over the past six months, I've saved about 1000 miles of wear and tear on our car and about $100 in gas. Not a ton of money, but it adds up.


5. Less stress - Seriously, people here drive so slow and are always in the way. That just doesn't bother me on the bus.

In fairness, riding the bus isn't perfect and it's not for everyone. Here are a few of the things that annoy me about it.

1. It's slower - It takes about 40 minutes to get to work by bus, including walking time and I can drive to work in less than 20 minutes. I don't see the extra time as wasted, though, since I can spend it reading or walking. But, it is nice to shorten the time spent in transit. Sometimes I'll drive if I'm running late and some days if I just want to get home at the end of the day I'll wish I'd driven.


2. I can miss it - This doesn't happen nearly as often anymore, now that I've found One Bus Away, but I sometimes try to catch the bus from work and don't give myself enough time and end up missing the bus. Usually this isn't a big deal, but it's especially frustrating if I'm working late when the buses don't run as often.


3. I don't get it all to myself - When I first started riding, it was always full and I always had to stand. However, after gas prices dropped, seats opened up and I can always find a seat. Just, sometimes, it'd be nice to have the whole row to myself.

One neat thing about living in the city is that there are a lot of things nearby. For example, there are 8 hotels within a half mile walk from where we live. This means that if anyone wants to come visit us, they can have a place to stay within walking distance.

Here's a list of places 1/2 mile away (or less), ordered from roughly the most to least expensive:

• Pan Pacific Hotel Seattle


• Residence Inn-Seattle Downtown


• Springhill Suites Seattle Downtown


• Holiday Inn-Seattle


• La Quinta Inn-Seattle Downtown


• Best Western Loyal Inn Motor Hotel of Downtown Seattle


• Sixth Avenue Inn


• Eighth Avenue Inn

There's a lot to see from atop the Space Needle. With mountains in practically every direction, one of the best skylines in the country, shimmering Puget Sound, historic Queen Anne Hill, and Lake Union, most people probably hardly notice the South Lake Union neighborhood. However, after living in it for more than a year, I've gotten to know it more than is possible from a 520 foot high view.

I took the picture below from the Space Needle looking east and decided to literally highlight various things in the South Lake Union area.

Use this color code as a key:

• Purple/fuchsia - residential


• Pink - hotels


• Green - parks


• Red - churches


• Orange - miscellaneous (news media, research centers, etc.)


• White - roads


• Yellow - arterial roads

A few weeks ago, we saw something from our window that we didn't want to see. A new crane has gone up and has blocked our view of the Space Needle a few times. But what's worse is what the crane means - a 13 story building for Amazon will eventually be there, probably completely blocking our view of the Space Needle.

I knew this day would come, but I didn't think it would be so soon. Hopefully nothing will be in the way when my parents visit this summer, so they can still see the view as we've seen it all this time. They just barely broke ground on the building's foundation, so it should be a while before we actually lose our view.

I started my new job in downtown Seattle exactly a year ago today. Time sure does fly. I've gotten to know my co-workers pretty well and enjoy talking to them. I'm still walking to and from work every day, which really saves time and gas by not driving. It's nice living so close to work. I really have a great view of the city and Puget Sound - although we lose more and more of our view every month with buildings being built.

One of the tricky things about taking the bus is timing when to leave home or work so that you can make the bus on time without having to spend much time waiting. I've posted before about MyBus.org, but since then have found an even better resource for Seattle transit users: One Bus Away.

In addition to being available via phone and text message, the interface for One Bus Away allows you to search for where you are, click the nearest stop, and click to bring up real-time arrival information for that stop. The interface is clean yet informative and it's a great way to see how much time you have before the next bus arrives, although I always have to remind myself that it's just an estimate, since the actual arrival time could be a couple minutes earlier or later than indicated.

My parents will finally be visiting us this summer for a week, we're so excited! They will be arriving on July 23rd and staying through July 31st, the day after my 26th birthday. I know my Dad already has a list of things he wants to do so we won't have to come up with all the ideas. They've been to Seattle a few times before and loved it, so it should be a lot of fun.

We'll have a few suggestions for places to go eat (Red Mill Burgers is a must) and parks to go to, like Gas Works park and possibly Seward Park. I know we're going to a Mariners game too.

We're also planning to go to the Olympic Peninsula for a few days, so that will be really fun since we haven't been there before and it's really pretty over there. I think we'll also fit in a trip to Mount Rainier and maybe Deception Pass.

It'll be nice for them to finally see our apartment and where we live and what's around here. I know they'll also want to watch the sunset from our apartment, ride a Ferry boat, and go to Pike Place Market. We're pretty excited about them visiting and doing fun things in Seattle with them.

This post is for our friends in Australia!

Two snow leopard cubs, one male and one female, were born in the Melbourne Zoo recently. They are the first cubs born in the Zoo in 20 years. I think it's cool that they were born shortly after our friends moved there. I found out about it because I subscribe to the Snow Leopard Trust's blog.

Seattle is getting a new Major League Soccer team, Seattle Sounders FC and there has been a huge response to the team locally. Sounders FC already has more season ticket holders than any other MLS team. I really wanted to go to their home opener, but tickets have sold out even though seating capacity for the game has been expanded twice, up to 32,400.

I'm not a huge soccer fan, but I've become a casual fan since several of my friends are big fans and I went to a university with a great soccer program. I thought it'd be cool to get to go to the first-ever game, and I really wanted to go, so it was surprising and disappointing to find out about the sell out.

Fortunately, this game should be on TV, so I'm planning to watch it, and have already purchased tickets for the next home game on March 28. With such a large fan base, it should be a lot of fun.

I didn't used to like wine at all, but after trying several different kinds the last two years, I've grown to like it more. I used to only try white wines, but recently Troy wanted to get a red wine, so we got one and it was alright. I don't really have any idea what labels are best or what's a good wine for the price or anything.

I'd like to learn more about wine and so we recently bought a book from Half Price Books all about wine. It talks about the grapes used for different kinds, how to taste it and drink it, where wine is made and how, and what wines go best with certain foods.

Going to some wineries in Washington would be fun sometime. I'd also love to go to Napa Valley someday.

Every city has a few buildings that stand out and each interesting building is usually surrounded by lots of buildings that just don't get noticed. I've at least noticed most of the buildings in our neighborhood, but sometimes I'll look at one for the first time.

There's a building nearby that's about three stories tall and two of those stories are made up of dull wood paneling. This ugly building doesn't add much to the neighborhood, but it's kind of interesting in some ways, like: what were they thinking when they covered so much of it with wood? I used a retinex effect to bring out some of the contrast in this photo. The large surface wood surface area is kind of unusual and it's kind of neat how the diagonal pattern interacts with the horizontal roof line and clear sky. One neat thing about living in a city is that there are plenty of buildings like this that have their own undiscovered charm.