Lesley's parents gave us tickets to a Mariners game as an anniversary present, so this past Friday Lesley and I had the privilege of going to the game.

The visiting team was the Texas Rangers, so this game was between two of the three MLB teams that have never played in a World Series. Our tickets were in the lower level behind home plate and the section we were in was pretty full.

We didn't get to the game early enough to get one of the Felix Hernandez bobbleheads, but we were there to see J. R. Celski throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

This game happened to be Cliff Lee's first as starting pitcher for the Mariners. He was acquired in the off-season and has been injured lately, but he's been a very good pitcher, so we were excited to get to see him pitch. He pitched a very good game, but so did the Texas pitcher, and the game went into extra innings and stayed scoreless through the 11th inning. It was an entertaining game and the crowd was on their feet rooting for a Mariners rally.

The Rangers have done well at finding ways to lose games this year, but the Mariners outdid them. The Mariners had the bases loaded with only one out in both the 11th and 12th innings and failed to score. In one inning they hit into a double play, in the other they failed to bunt in order to execute a suicide squeeze that would've scored the winning run.

To add to the entertainment, Texas' manager argued with the umpire on a call and was ejected from the game.

And, near our seats, someone tried to steal someone else's bobble-head and was arrested for it.

To end the game, the Mariners had an error and then threw a wild pitch that allowed the Rangers to score two runs.

It was a deflating end to what had been an exciting game. Click here for ESPN's story on the game.

Anyway, despite the loss, I still consider the Rangers my second favorite team in baseball, and some of my friends love the Rangers, so I suppose I can be happy that they won. And I'm glad Lesley and I were able to go to a game together. Of the 9 Mariners games we've been to, this is the 8th time they've lost. Hopefully next time we can see a Mariners victory.

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

Seward Park is a large park on a peninsula extending into Lake Washington in the southeast part of the city. The trail around the perimeter of the park is a great place for a lake-side stroll.


View Walking Seward Park in a larger map



Click here to continue reading

We haven't been posting much on the blog recently because frankly, we haven't been doing much lately. Troy was sick with something last week and had a sore throat. And we haven't been able to walk as much or do much outdoors like hiking because of my plantar fasciitis. I'm looking forward to my foot healing completely so we can start our season of hiking soon.

Lately Troy has also been busy with church meetings and other things. This past Monday I went to hang out with Eric at his new house, which was cool. Friday we're going to our first Mariners game. We have been watching the Sounders games on TV lately. Too bad they haven't been playing that well.

It's hard to believe it's almost May, where did the first four months of the year go?

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

People don't normally think of the industrial area in Georgetown as a good place to walk. An area with warehouses and other light industrial uses, it is criss-crossed by a grid of streets that are often traveled by large trucks and sometimes not served with sidewalks. However, if you know where to go, you can stay on the sidewalks and walk along some quiet residential streets and get a feel for this unique part of Seattle. Also, this time of year many cherry trees are blossoming, so let's go for a nice walk in the industrial (and residential) part of Georgetown.


View Larger Map



Click here to continue reading.

We had our best weather in 6 months this past Sunday, with a high near 70 and clear, sunny skies. The summer is just around the corner and I can't wait to go to some of the festivals in Seattle in a few weeks. The Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market and the U-District Street fair are both the weekend of May 15th. The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) runs from May 20th-June 13th. And the Northwest Folklife Festival is Memorial Day weekend. I love going to festivals here because of all the good food, music, and having fun outside in the awesome weather here.

Troy and I celebrated our three year wedding anniversary on the 14th. We took the bus to eat dinner at La Carta de Oaxaca in Ballard. We both got margaritas and the carne asada plato. We shared guacamole and chips before the meal. It was all very tasty, but could have been hotter when they served it to us.

After that we went to have cupcakes at Cupcake Royale. I had a carrot cake cupcake and Troy had a vanilla coconut cupcake. We were both very full after dessert.

Troy gave me Up on DVD and a new body pillow that I've been wanting for a while. He also bought pretty flowers - yellow and purple tulips and purple irises. I gave him The Sting on DVD.

My parents gave us tickets to the Mariners-Rangers game on April 30th, so that will be fun to go to since I've been wanting to go to a game.

We went to see The Ghost Writer Saturday afternoon at the Harvard Exit theater on Capitol Hill. It was an entertaining thriller; definitely nice to see a movie in a theater since it had been so long since we last did that. It's been a good anniversary. Hard to believe we've already been married three years and been together almost nine.

Over the past few weeks I've been participating in a weekly Saturday morning walking group.

The church we attend has several community groups, including this one. Each Saturday, the group gathers at 8 am and splits up to do an hour-long walk or jog. I've really enjoyed having reason to walk in different parts of the city each week, including Washington Park, Myrtle Edwards Park, and Ballard. It's also been really nice to walk with and get to know other people.

Typically I've enjoyed sleeping in on the weekends and I never thought I'd enjoy waking up early on a Saturday, but participating in this group has been a worthwile and a great way to start my Saturdays.

Plantar fasciitis is a fancy term for pain in the heel of my foot. My left heel has been hurting for a couple of months now. I tried replacing my normal walking shoes and then I went even farther and got shoe inserts for more padding. I've been trying to stretch it when I wake up and before I go to bed every night, but it's hard to do that consistently. It hurts more if I'm on my feet for long periods of time, which makes it difficult to continue doing as much walking as we do. A coworker of mine gave me a small massage ball than I can use to try to massage the muscle/tissue there, but sometimes that seems to hurt more than help. I guess I'll eventually have to go to the doctor to get specific shoe inserts to make the pain stop.

I've been wanting a new cell phone for a few months and so I finally made a plan to go to T-Mobile and get one. My old Nokia phone is at least 3-4 years old, perhaps more. It's so old that it has an antenna sticking out of it. There wasn't really anything wrong with it, although sometimes the ring tone files would get corrupted and my phone wouldn't ring properly when I was receiving phone calls. It was as if it was on silent or something when it wasn't. Some of the outside was starting to peel off and look pretty bad.

I knew I wanted a slightly better phone than the free ones they offer you after you've had a 2 year contract (which we have). I was willing to pay more for something that had more memory and a better camera. So this past weekend we went to T-Mobile and I got a new cell phone, the Nokia 5130 Xpress Music. I love it so far! I like the red and black colors and it also has almost 2GB of memory that can store music, so it's a small MP3 player too. That works great for me since I only really listen to a few artists these days. Probably my favorite thing about it is that I can set any song I want as my ring tone. Right now it's the theme for Star Wars. Yes, I admit that's pretty nerdy. I just wish I could have a different song for the different people that call me. It can also record video and has a better camera.

While we were there, we also changed plans and pay $10 less a month. We actually get 50 more minutes with this new plan. There was no two year contract requirement, but the catch is that we have to pay full price for new cell phones. But over a two year period, saving $10 a month more than makes up for paying full price for my new phone. So, I'm happy with the deal we got and having a new phone to play with is pretty cool.

We spent this Saturday visiting the University District. Though farther from downtown than some of the neighborhoods we've visited previously like Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Lower Queen Anne, it's one of the oldest and densest neighborhoods in the city. The 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific exhibition was held on the University of Washington campus.

We live a relatively short bus ride away from the University District and we started our day out with brunch at Ugly Mug Cafe. Lesley had a breakfast croissant and I had a California BLT, which was easily the best sandwich I've had in Seattle.

It was a sunny day but there was a cold morning wind. We headed north along University Way (known as "The Ave"). In addition to hosting the U District Street Fair that kicks off the summer festival season, the Ave is lined continuously with retail and restaurants. It's a mixing bowl of international foods, from Indian to Mediterranean to all types of Asian foods, mostly inexpensive enough to attract plenty of students.

We enjoyed strolling along the active street all the way through the U District, meandering through the U District Farmers Market, which is one of the best farmers markets in the city and had lots of food that we wanted to buy and take home with us. We then visited the Kirsten Gallery. This gallery was surprisingly large with a peaceful backyard garden and a variety of painted, printed, and sculpted art for sale at reasonable prices. This was one of several enjoyable places we stopped this day.

We continued on, past the towering and historic Blessed Sacrament Church to another historic building, the Seattle Public Library's Univeristy Branch, a Carnegie Library. We continued walking and realized that we were getting a bit hungry, so we stopped and shared a falafel.

We walked on the other side of the Ave for a while, stopping in several interesting shops. We stopped to look at wall posters, spooky gargoyles, some amusingly tacky crap, and some Asian imports. After this we decided to visit the University of Washington, enjoying the view of Mount Rainier and stopping to rest for a while at Drumheller Fountain.

We then grabbed some tea and stopped at a park (technically outside of the U District). The last thing we did was eat some very filling Indian food before heading back home.

The U District is a part of town that I often don't think about but is one of the more eclectic parts of the city. Despite being kind of a college neighborhood, after our visit I came away impressed and hope to spend more time there in the future.

Quick U District facts:

• Population: 16,355


• Population density per square mile: 9,844


• 2008 Median Home Price: $489,900


• 2008 Median Condo Sales Price: $400,000


• Cars per capita: 0.2


• 8th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle

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

I mentioned in my last post about work that I was working in a temporary department and there haven't been any changes since then. I had been taking on small projects for other departments, but that has mostly ended, except for one project.

For my one freelance project, I am developing an Excel-based tool that will be used by offices nationwide. I reviewed the existing spreadsheet, identifying its deficiencies on with feedback (complains/suggestions) from others. From there, I worked to improve the existing spreadsheet making sure to get regular feedback, which has been very positive. The tool has come a long way from where it was and is almost ready to be rolled out.

Overall, though, most of my time over the last several weeks has been focused on my temporary job, mainly on a single project. I've really enjoyed working diligently on getting the pieces of our project lined up, including working with our web development subcontractor, and coordinating the project. I've also learned more about the types of things that I don't enjoy as much.

I'm not sure how this temporary position will work out - whether it will become permanent, and then what kind of role I would have. I am looking for more chances to have ownership of projects and processes that will allow me to work with and lead others. I'm not sure whether I will fit best in a role in my current temporary department, another position in this company, or a position with another company, but I am looking forward to finding more career development and professional growth.

The baseball season started this past weekend and the first Mariners home game is next Monday. I'm looking forward to going to a few games this year. I'd like to see one of the inter-league games against San Diego and maybe a game against the Rangers. I've heard the Mariners are going to be even better this year than last year since they signed Cliff Lee who is a really good pitcher. Last year they finished as one of the most improved teams compared to the previous season.

I wish we still had cable so we could watch the games on TV. It was nice having the games on almost every night last summer. We didn't necessarily watch every pitch, but it was comforting to me to have them on since I grew up with baseball so much. It's ingrained in my personality. I wonder if one of my teams will win a World Series any time soon...

Early this morning while I was at work, I heard a big crash and thought it was thunder. It turned out to be the facade of the Icon Grill collapsing on the sidewalk. I can see Icon Grill right out my office windows and the whole sidewalk was a mess. The bricks came crashing down from the top of the building and injured 3 people. Thankfully no one was killed. There was rubble everywhere; it looked like we'd had an earthquake. Here's a good video about it on King 5 News: Icon Grill facade collapses

I wonder when Icon Grill will open again. I guess I didn't have any plans to go there any time soon. It's just crazy, I've walked in front of it so many times. That facade could have come down at any time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Go the same speed as everyone else


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


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


4. Speed limit 55


5. a, b, and d

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

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

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

Here's an excerpt:

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

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

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

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

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


View Larger Map



Click here to continue reading.

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

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

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

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



Click here to continue reading.

A year ago we bought a season pass to the Space Needle for a pretty cheap price. Since then, we've gone up quite a few times to enjoy the view. It was nice to be able to see the view from up top throughout the year as the seasons changed and at various times of day. Unfortunately, our pass expired this past week, so we probably won't go up any time soon. But, that's okay, we got our money's worth out of our season pass and enjoyed seeing so much of the city from up high.

View from Space Needle on Vimeo.

We did a lot of cool things during our second year of living here. Probably the most memorable things we did, didn't even happen in Seattle. We visited Adam and Sofia in Australia! It was my first time to be in a foreign country. We had so much fun hanging out with them and exploring Melbourne, Sydney, and the southern coast.

We also just visited Vancouver, Canada for the first time and saw two events during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Vancouver is definitely a place we want to go again some day to explore more thoroughly.

Probably the biggest highlight that happened in Seattle was when my parents and grandma visited us in late July for the first time since we moved here. We went to Mount Rainier and the Olympic Peninsula. Unfortunately it was terribly hot when they were here, but it was still great to spend time together and show them around the city.

My cousins also came up for a short visit in May. It was cool hanging out with them and going out to eat at some good restaurants.

We attended several sporting events, including a Seahawks game, a few Sounders games, and the WSU-SMU college football game in Pullman. The Sounders games were especially fun because last year was their inaugural season and we have some of the best fans in all of US soccer. The Sounders were really good last season too, going into the playoffs.

We did a lot of hiking last year and finally hiked one of the most popular trails in the Northwest - Mount Si! We had awesome weather and it was so clear at the top that we could see Mount Rainier. It was a good work out, although a little difficult for me to make it down the last 2 miles with my knees getting tired.

On a more personal note, our new church opened its doors just about a month ago. It's nice to have our own space again. We slowly lost our view of the Space Needle from our apartment. And my sister got married last summer and just had her first baby about two weeks ago!

We're looking forward to year three in Seattle!

We posted our favorite places to eat in Seattle last year and after another year our favorite restaurants haven't changed much. Here are the things we love to eat in Seattle.

1. 
   La Carta de Oaxaca - A newcomer to our list, I loved this place after my first bite. This is not Tex-Mex, it's the style of food eaten in Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, and it is very good. Mole is a popular dish, as well as carne asada and tosadas. The meat has a good flavor and it all comes together to be very tasty. I can't wait to go back.





2. Red Mill Burgers - Our favorite place to eat last year, we still love to eat here. The burgers are moist and well-flavored and while they can have a little too much lettuce sometimes and be a little drippy, they're put together well overall. Having a burger with some fries or onion rings, and maybe a shake, makes it a great meal.


3. 
   Noah's Bagels - We may love Noah's bagels more now than we did a year ago. For one thing, we've had better luck at getting still-warm, freshly made bagels. They're absolutely fantastic when warm, but are still very good at any time. We've started getting super onion bagels lately, but we still like asiago and the occasional sesame, normally with plain cream cheese.





4. Pagliacci Pizza - The best pizza in Seattle. Unfortunately, we haven't been eating it as often lately, largely because of the price. But, it's definitely a treat when we have it - the cheese is good and well proportioned and the crust has the right amount of crispiness and chewiness.


5. 
   Djan’s Thai Restaurant - We've tried several Thai places, but Djan's is probably still our favorite. They have great noodle dishes and curries, though our last couple meals there haven't been as good as our first several meals were. We're hoping that the quality will return to as great as it was, but even if it doesn't, it will still be pretty good.

As of today we've been living in Seattle for two years. This past year has been a lot different from the first year, as the sense of adventure has dissolved into a routine, and satisfying, lifestyle.

We've had a lot of consistency since we moved here - I've been at my job for a year and a half and Lesley has been at hers for almost two years. And we've been living in the same place and going to the same church since we moved here.

We've become integrated into the culture and familiar with the city and there's no longer the same sense of excitement we had before.

Overall, we're pretty satisfied with living here. We like living in a city and being able to walk so many places as well as having plenty of opportunities to get outdoors. And, though winter is the worst time of year here, fortunately it hasn't been too bad this year.

On our way to Vancouver, we went to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Calico Cupboard! We weren't sure if we wanted to stop since we didn't know how bad the wait at the border would be, but we stopped anyway because we were hungry and couldn't pass up a chance to go there since it's more than an hour away from Seattle. I love the apple cider there! We thought we might have left a little late in the morning, but we ended up getting to the border by 10 or so and there was no wait whatsoever. I was really surprised.

When we got to Vancouver, we had to kill time before we went to the place we were staying. So, we went to the VanDusen Gardens for a little over an hour. They were ok, but I'm sure they're much prettier in the spring and summer. We had rented a room at someone's house that we found on the internet, so we weren't sure what to expect. But, our hosts were really nice people - they made us fresh hot breakfast every morning and they made us steak dinner the first night. It was like staying at a bed and breakfast.

The first few days in Vancouver were mostly spent exploring downtown and going to the speed skating event. We tried to eat some Chinese food, which there is tons of in Vancouver, after the speed skating event was over around 3, but all the ones we knew about were closed until dinner at 5. Hopefully we'll have a chance to have Chinese food next time we go to Vancouver. We did have sushi one night, which Vancouver is also famous for. It was decent, but nothing that great, I'm sure a different place would be better.

Vancouver also has a public market called Granville Island, which is very similar to Pike Place Market. There are all kinds of shops and places to get food there. Unfortunately it was swamped with people who were in town from the Olympics and was busier than it ever gets in the summer. We'll definitely have to go back some other time maybe during the week when it's not so busy.

We went to several parks in the city, including the awesome Stanley Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in North America. In fact, it's 10% bigger than Central Park in New York. We walked a few miles along the eastern seawall facing the main part of the city and could see the Olympic Cauldron and the rings on the water. We didn't spend nearly as much time there as we wanted to, so it is yet another thing we'd like to go to again some day.

On Monday, we took a ferry to North Vancouver and spent a few hours hiking in Lynn Canyon Park. The weather was much better than Saturday, so that was nice. After the park, we went to eat at Nando’s. We first had Nando’s when we visited Australia last October and I loved it. So I researched whether they had any locations nearby and found three in Vancouver! Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as what we had in Australia. The sauces were very different and the fries weren’t as good. It was decent though, and brought back fond memories of hanging out with Adam and Sofia in Melbourne.

We also explored the western part of downtown, mostly along Dedman Street. There were tons of restaurants and stores in that area, including an Italian restaurant where we had our Valentine’s dinner, Ciao Bella.

It was a nice trip, but a little too short. We didn’t try to do as many things as we would on a normal trip, due to the amount of additional people in the city for the Olympics and slower public transportation. We completely avoided museums and the aquarium. I’m looking forward to going back and exploring the city more thoroughly. Fortunately it's less than 2.5 hours away from Seattle.

Here are two videos we took of the Vancouver skyline from the south side of the city:

Vancouver Skyline on Vimeo.

Mountains and Vancouver Skyline on Vimeo.

We went to two Olympic events when we were in Vancouver. The first one was the men's 5,000 meter speed skating at the Richmond Olympic Oval. The event started at noon on Saturday, February 13th and was the second medal to be awarded. We rode the light rail to Richmond and arrived pretty early so we would have plenty of time. The weather was bad most of Saturday unfortunately, with windy, cold, and rainy conditions. We waited outside in line to get through security for probably 30 minutes, so I was happy to finally get inside the Oval.

I was in awe when we came up the stairs to our seats and could see the ice and all the flags for world countries hanging in the rafters. We were going to see an Olympic event! It was really amazing to watch. There were a lot of fans from the Netherlands, which apparently has a history of having great speed skaters. They were all dressed in orange, so they were easy to see in the crowds. There also weren't nearly as many seats as I thought there would be, it only seats 8,000 fans.

There were 14 pairs of skaters with an intermission in the middle. They started out with the slower pairs, but they still seemed fast to me. Each skater had to skate like 10 laps around the rink, I don't remember exactly. It was really exciting toward the last few pairs of skaters because each time they would just destroy the time set by the previous number one spot. As expected, Sven Kramer from the Netherlands won gold, with an Olympic record time of 6 minutes and 14.6 seconds. A Korean won silver with a time of 6 minutes and 16.95 seconds. Russian, Ivan Skobrev, won bronze with a time of 6 minutes and 18.05 seconds. It's hard to believe only a few mere seconds determine who wins gold.

One thing I didn't like was that we did not get to see the medal presentation. We only saw the flower ceremony. We would have had to pay even more money to buy a ticket to see the medal ceremony at BC Place. For some reason most of the events except the ones in Whistler are having the medal presentations at BC Place instead of the individual venues. So, I felt ripped off in that aspect.

The other event we went to was the first preliminary round men's hockey game, USA vs Switzerland at noon on Tuesday, the 16th. This took place at the General Motors Place (aka Canada Hockey Place) in downtown, normally where the Vancouver Canucks NHL team plays. This is the first Olympic games to use an NHL-sized ice rink. It's a really nice facility and only 15 years old.

We had really good seats, only a few rows up in the upper level and toward the end the USA would shoot at twice. Despite not really following hockey the past several years, I still recognized a lot of the USA players. I was disappointed though that Mike Modano wasn't on the team. I heard that they had decided to use a lot more younger players rather than the older, more veteran players like Modano. I did see former Dallas Star Jamie Langenbrunner play as the Team USA Captain. There were actually a lot more Switzerland fans than I thought there would be. There were also a lot of Canadian fans, who really cheered for Ryan Kesler, from the Canucks. It was a pretty clean game, no fights at all. The USA won 3-1.

Here's a video from the pre-game warm ups:

USA vs Switzerland Men's Hockey Warm ups on Vimeo.

I was a little disappointed we only went to two events. I wish we could have gone to more, especially short track speed skating or figure skating. It would have been really cool to see Apolo Anton Ohno win a medal. Still though, going to two events is probably more than most people will see in their lifetime. I'm very happy and lucky to have been able to go to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Here are pictures from Vancouver and the events we went to:

Lesley is a much bigger fan of the Olympics than I have been, though I have been watching the Olympics more in recent years. One thing I like about the Olympics is how they bring the world together. The Olympics are truly a world-wide set of events, and having the Olympics so close to where we lived seemed like a rare opportunity. So, we decided to go to the games.

Leading up to the games, I was a little concerned about how the enormity of the Olympics might add to the crowd and make the city too full of people to enjoy doing anything.

Fortunately, there was no wait to drive across the border. And, while the public buses were crowded, it wasn't any worse than when we visited San Francisco. It looked like most people just stayed downtown. A few of the streets downtown were closed to vehicle traffic and full of people, especially on the Friday of the Opening Ceremonies. There were lots of people there, but they all fit downtown without making the city too crowded.

The atmosphere downtown was very festive. Buildings were decorated to support the Canadian Team and there was Olympic-inspired public art. There were also several celebration sites, which people waited in line to enter. One of the centrally-located sites, the one at Robson Square, was very crowded and every few minutes someone flew overhead along a zip line.

Robson Square during Olympics on Vimeo.

There was also an official Olympics store downtown. The few times we walked by, the line to enter the store was 30 minutes or so, combined with a long wait to check out inside the store.

There were also some protests, though the only protest we saw was of a large group of people holding signs and chanting in a plaza.

One of the big attractions was the Olympic cauldron. On the first day we visited it, people filled the area around the cauldron, some of them climbing on barricades, sitting on shoulders, or pushing their way to the fence to get a picture of the cauldron.

Olympic Cauldron on Vimeo.

Olympic Cauldron at night on Vimeo.

Being in Vancouver for the Olympics was quite an exciting experience.

It's nice that we've been having such a nice winter here in Seattle. No snow, and not much rain the past 6 weeks. January set a record for warm weather and so far February is looking warm too. The high the next several days is going to be in the mid-50s, with sunny skies. It's nice being able to look out the windows at work and see the clear skies and snow-capped mountains in the distance. These streaks of sunny days remind me of how much I really do love living here.

We went to the Men's 5000 meter speed skating event today at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. It was a lot of fun and we saw a new Olympic record set by a skater from the Netherlands who had a lot of supporters in the stands.

Note: We had posted video of the last half-lap, but YouTube took it down due to copyright infringement.

I'm happy to announce that our little niece, Evelyn Victoria Smith, was born at 7:22pm February 11th! She weighs 6 lbs, 4.5 ounces. Mom, Dad, and Evelyn are all healthy and doing fine! Looking forward to seeing them in March! Troy and I are an Uncle and Aunt, how weird.

Goodbye, Space Needle, it was nice seeing you for so long. I hope the people in the Amazon building enjoy you as much as we did.

Note: This post was posted first at my Walking in Seattle blog.

Belltown is the densest part of the city outside of downtown and makes for a good place to walk. This route goes along the two most active streets in Belltown - 1st and 2nd Aves.


View Larger Map

Start at 1st and Virginia and head Northwest, parallel to Elliott Bay. This part of Belltown has the most shopping and, being close to downtown and Pike Place Market, is an easy starting point. Walking along either side of the street is fine, but the right side has several small parking lots that interrupt the streetscape.

The first parking lot you pass has a wall decorated with one of the larger graffiti-style urban art projects in Seattle (go here for pictures from the Hideous Belltown blog).

As you continue walking, you'll see lots of historic low-rise buildings and will pass more retail, including an Army/Navy Surplus Store. At Battery St, you'll pass over highway 99 and will have a view of Elliott Bay. On the other side of the street you'll see some more old Belltown buildings, including the Austin A Bell bldg from 1890.



Continue walking a few more blocks and turn right at Vine St. Vine St is a relatively narrow street lined with trees but without much for retail or dining. Vine isn't a major street, so you won't have a crosswalk or a traffic light when crossing Belltown's Avenues, so be careful. Pedestrians can legally cross any intersection, but some drivers may not know that. Unless you're doing this walk at a busy time of day, you should be able to cross easily during a break in vehicle traffic.

Turn left at 5th Ave and walk a block in parallel with the monorail. You'll arrive at Tilikum Place, a shaded outdoor plaza with a fountain, surrounded by a few places to stop and eat.



Feel free to stop and rest or continue and walk southwest along Cedar St. At 3rd Ave, you'll see a large mural on your right on the building of New Horizons Ministries.



Belltown has a diversity of architecture to enjoy. The buildings on the eastern side, away from the water, tend to be shorter and are less likely to be inhabited by any street-level retail or dining. As you continue towards the water, you'll see more recent development and high-rise condo buildings. We'll turn left at 2nd Ave toward downtown.

2nd Ave is a 3 lane street with relatively few traffic lights, so it does have some fast-moving vehicles. However, the parking and trees insulate help to insulate pedestrians from the street, and curb-bulbs at intersections make it feel a little safer to cross the avenue. As you continue southeast, you'll encounter more bars and restaurants, especially once you get to Battery St.

Feel free to stop at any one of these restaurants or bars for something to eat and drink, or stop for a game of pinball at Shorty's.

A few blocks more and we'll end our walk at 2nd Ave & Virginia, just a block away from where we started.

Highlights: continguous urban streetscape, density, restaurants and bars, stop and rest at Tilikum Place, coffee shops, diverse architecture, wide sidewalks

Lowlights: a few parking lots, some dead spots without much to look at, can be rough at night, not much retail outside of 1st Ave, lack of designated crosswalks

Note: I've started a blog called Walking in Seattle to share local walking-related news and stories as well as suggested walking routes. I posted the walk below on my Walking in Seattle blog and am re-posting it here for anyone who might be interested.


This is a short and easy walk through the downtown retail core - a great way to see the shopping that downtown has to offer and end up at Pike Place Market.


View Larger Map

Start at 5th Ave and University St downtown near the 5th Avenue Theatre and head northwest. The theatre had a new sign installed on December 3, 2009. The new sign is similar to the sign that was originally on the theatre when it opened in 1926 except the current sign uses energy-efficient LED bulbs.



Feel free to walk along either side of the street, though if I had to pick, I'd opt for the right side to avoid the Red Lion parking garage entrance and an area in front of the hotel where tourists gather. Though 5th Avenue can be busy with vehicle traffic, it is lined with trees that help insulate you from the street, as well as glass windowed stores that draw you in. This initial section of 5th Avenue has an upscale feel to it, with Gucci and Louis Vitton. When you reach 5th Ave and Pike Street, you'll see the Banana Republic on the north corner of the intersection.



Turn right on Pike St. You'll see the Washington State Convention Center ahead. Turn left on 6th Avenue. There is more shopping on this block and some places to eat. Continue for a block to Pine Street.

At Pine Street, you'll be in the middle of it all. This part of Seattle makes it feel like a big city. It seems there are always people walking here at any time of day. At this intersection you'll see Pacific Place mall and the flagship Nordstrom.

Turn left on Pine St. You'll pass by more retail stores, such as the GAP. There are also several entrances to the underground bus and light rail tunnel around this area. On your right will be Westlake Center. At Westlake Center you can take the Monorail to Seattle Center. The Westlake Center also has an outdoor plaza, which has the 2nd busiest Starbucks in North America. Up ahead you'll see Macy's (formerly the Bon Marché).



On the South side of the street is Westlake Park, which is often used by skateboarders and homeless. Cut through the park or turn left at 4th Avenue. On any weekend, you'll likely find people at 4th and Pine holding signs protesting Israel or encouraging you to come to God. And you'll be lucky to pass through this area without getting approached by someone with a clipboard representing a charity. You'll also likely pass by a few buskers and shoeshiners,

Turn right on Pike St and you'll be facing the "Public Market Center" sign of Pike Place Market. As you continue the few blocks to 1st Avenue, you'll pass a few shops and cafes. Our walking tour ends here in front of the market, but there is plenty more walking you can do there.

Finish at 1st Ave and Pike

Highlights: shopping, things to look at, people, excitement, places to eat at the market, street performers, tree-lined 5th ave, ending at Pike Place Market

Lowlights: intimidating big city feel, loiterers, a few underused areas of the streetscape, can be crowded

Ever since we've moved here, I've wished for a convenient Asian food takeout place, but there just weren't any options around. Finally, a couple weeks ago, Citrus Thai opened between our apartment and downtown. It's kind of a dead, mostly-commercial area, so I was surprised to see it open for dinner. It happens to be pretty convenient for my walk home, so earlier this week when I got off the bus downtown, I called to order some red curry and pad thai with chicken. The food was ready when I got there and it was still warm when I got home. And, it was pretty good. I'm glad to have another food option nearby and am looking forward to going back.

Amazon's construction has now begun to block our view of the Space Needle. During the past week, the construction crews have continued to add more and more floors of steel beams. We think at least another 3 or 4 floors will be added to what you see in the picture. We had an awesome view the past two years. It's really too bad we can't take any more beautiful sunset pictures with the Space Needle. I'll miss it. I guess at least we still have a decent view of Queen Anne Hill...

Belltown has an interesting history. It was once the site of Denny Hill, which was flattened early on the city's history, and for several decades had car dealerships and parking lots, and was fairly underused. However, now it is a neighborhood with office buildings, condos, restaurants, and clubs. Lesley and I spent the day there Saturday, checking it out.

We started with breakfast at Bang Bang Cafe. We both had breakfast burritos, which were pretty good and relatively cheap. I also had some good coffee there. From there, we walked northwest along Western Avenue and stopped at Canlis Glass, which had some beautiful glass pieces in its gallery. We also stopped by another art gallery before walking back towards downtown along 2nd Ave and stopping for tea. We walked around a bit and explored the area.

There are a lot of old, small commercial buildings, apartment buildings, and closer to the water there are lots of new, luxury condos. There are several parallel thoroughfares through the neighborhood and each has its own character. Western Ave is a high-traffic street with lots of clean, new condos and not a lot of street-level retail. 1st Ave has the most street-level retail and is one of the more enjoyable streets to walk on. 3rd Ave seems to have the least new development and the most low'rise old buildings.

Anyway, we then went to Olympic Sculpture Park, which is one of my favorite things in the city. After all that walking, we were happy to relax in a couple comfy chairs inside to sit and enjoy the view. We walked through the park and I walked past Alexander Calder's the Eagle, which is probably my favorite sculpture of any kind.

After the park, we went to Shorty's to have a hot dog and play pinball. It had been a while since I'd played pinball and we both had a lot of fun. We needed to kill some time then until dinner, so we stopped by The Yellow Leaf Cupcake to get a couple cupcakes for later. We had some tea there and played a game of Connect 4 that they had sitting out.

We then went to dinner at Tilikum Place Cafe, which is near small Tilikum Place plaza. Dinner was good. Belltown is most popular for its bar and club scene, but we'd had a long day and went home after dinner.

Compared to other neighborhoods, Belltown has lots of art galleries, trendy restaurants, and bars. There isn't a supermarket in Belltown, but there are lots of small corner grocers. And, I thought there wasn't a whole lot of retail shopping throughout most of the neighborhood. It's different from other neighborhoods because there aren't any houses. It has also gained a bit of a reputation due to the bar scene, homeless people there, and drug problems. Still, it's a good location in the city, close to downtown, close to the water, and flat, and is probably the best place for someone looking for urban living in Seattle.

Quick Belltown facts:

• Population: 10,871


• 2008 Median Condo Price: $388,250


• Cars per capita: 0.3


• 4th most walkable neighborhood in Seattle

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

This January was the warmest on record in Seattle. We started to notice a few weeks ago how we haven't had as much rain and how it's been a lot warmer than last year in January. It's definitely been great with highs most days in the upper 40s and lower 50s. It's made the winter a lot easier to handle. The National Weather Service is predicting a warmer, dryer weather through the rest of winter and into early spring, yay!

Here's an excerpt from an article on Komonews.com:

The average temperature was 46.97 degrees -- toppling the record of 46.56 degrees set in 2006, and a full six degrees above the normal average of 40.9 degrees. In fact, it's even warmer than a typical March! (which has an average temperature of 46.2 degrees.)

Persistent El Nino conditions were a factor for most of the month, which typically keeps the Pacific Northwest in a warmer air flow. In addition, an unusually strong and stubborn area of low pressure parked off our coast for several days, streaming warm, moist air from the tropical Pacific into Western Washington.

January 27th's 35 degree low was the only day the temperature dropped to 35 or colder. There were only five days in the month with a low below 40. We also had 9 days at 55 or warmer with a four day string of 59, 60, 57 and 56 degrees between Jan 18-21.

Here's a video from Komo 4 News about the first service in our new church building yesterday:



Here's the article that goes with it: Article about First Church