Trail Work: Dungeness River

This weekend was my first time volunteering on a hiking trail. I've been using hiking trails in Washington since I was probably 2 or 3 years old, and I figure it is time to start giving back. The idea to volunteer last weekend came about at the end of March, when I spent 12 hours sitting on my ass, playing WoW and watching March Madness one lazy Saturday. At the end of that Saturday where I accomplished next to nothing, I signed up for this overnight trail work day in the beginning of May. I didn't realize it was Mother's Day weekend until a week prior... sorry Mom!

I woke up at 4:00am on Saturday morning, and was out of the house by 4:30am. I drove down around Tacoma, up through Gig Harbor and the trail head is just south of Sequim. I arrived at 8:00am for the 8:30am departure, which turned into a 9:00am departure when a few of the other volunteers arrived late due to a website time discrepancy. The view from the forest service road leading to the Dungeness Trail is amazing:



We had about a dozen people for the first day, and I was the youngest. There was a couple in probably their early 30s, and everyone else was 40+, most over 50 and retired. There was one other newbie, a 40-something mom who came out by herself for Mother's Day, to the bewilderment of her teenage boys. "You want to go out, sleep in the cold, with no bathroom, and work on trails for Mother's Day?!"

I wasn't really sure what to expect, this being my first time doing trail work. We each grabbed two tools from a nice arsenal:



The hike in to our work site was just over a mile, and I made the mistake of not wearing my work gloves--my hands were FREEZING by the time we got to the work site. I should have known better when I saw all of the frost on cars parked at the parking lot overnight. The crew leader had checked out the site on Tuesday and said the parking lot had snow all around the edges (which had melted away by the time we got there Saturday morning).

We spent about 30-45 minutes scoping out the washed out trail and options for a new trail. There were actually several different routes we could go, and the shared leadership was a really cool thing to be a part of. Some of the very experienced trail workers asked my opinion, and I had no idea, but said what I thought looked like a good route and then we would discuss the pros and cons of the different routes (and of course go with their expert opinion--but it was fun to at least talk about the different routes). We settled on a route that went way high up on the hill, mostly to avoid another wash out in the next few years. This meant more work, but work that will last longer.

My first problem to work on happened to be a patch of Devil's Club in the wettest part of our work site. I dove in and enacted vengeance on Devil's Club for all of the stings I've gotten over the years up at the cabin. Damn you Devil's Club!!

We broke for lunch, and in the afternoon I spent some of my time finishing the Devil's Club spot, then moved to working on clearing out the end of the trail of roots and rocks--filling in holes with rocks we dig out and generally leveling the trail as we go.

I was pooped when we got back to the parking lot and camp site. I took a picture of my boots from my work in the trenches, and then fell asleep in my tent as soon as my head hit my sweatshirt-converted pillow.



My nap ended in time for dinner, which was hamburgers provided by the crew leader. She also provided breakfast and two trail pass parking passes, which I can turn in for a year-long Northwest Forest Pass (hello hiking this summer!). We sat around the campfire for a few hours after dinner, telling stories and playing the game "What am I?" Kind of like 20 questions. We spent about 45 minutes trying to guess this one guy's "What Am I?" and eventually knew that he was a children's toy and that children play with his head and open up his head and there is more fun stuff inside...

Mr. Potatohead.

I slept like a rock. I really should have spent some time looking up at the stars, but I was running on about five hours of sleep and grubbing or moving rocks all day.

Sunday we decided to leave the muddy Devil's Club section of the trail alone, because the mud is up to your shins and it isn't going to dry out anytime soon. We did dig a trench, to flow water into one lane, which will hopefully drain out the section of water so volunteers can make the intended trail in the next trail work party. Instead of playing in the Devil's Club, we had some fun projects involving huge trees that had fallen in our new route.



Don brought a 6ft saw on Sunday, and I'll quickly describe the process. We scout the entire tree, which means climbing up the hillside a hundred feet to see if anything will happen if we cut where we are planning on cutting, and doing the same below our cutting spot. Sometimes the trees will fly up after cutting through it with a saw, depending on where other trees are applying pressure to the downed tree. This tree is relatively safe, because it is wedged between a few trees, and the base of it has already been cut for the old route, so not much pressure is being applied by the massive root section.

First step in the cutting process is to ax in a starting spot for the saw.



Two people then saw back and forth until the saw is fully into the tree by a few inches. Then someone hammers in wedges to the top of the cut, to make sure the saw can get out of the cut. When the wedges were placed into this first big tree we cut, I was told to get up on the saw and work with the other newbie to finish the cut. There is a dangerous side and a safe side to each tree cut, and I got the dangerous side. The footing was bad, and when the saw broke through, the tree would be coming my way. We struggled a bit to get started, but then we had a really good flow going and made quick work of the tree until the crew leader told us to stop and have Wayne finish off the cut from one side (which involves taking a handle off the saw and just letting him cut if from his side.



Four saw cuts from Wayne and the tree trunk fell to the ground, and a branch none of us saw whapped down right where I would have tried to escape to... I got lucky there! Everyone else was surprised by how close of a call that was, as usually the call to swap to a one-person saw is done much earlier, for safety reasons. Once the tree dropped, we had to make another cut. I got to sit out the first half again, but we swapped sides for the second half and I got to cut from the safe side, and also finish off the cut by one-manning the 6ft saw. They told me when I "hear the tree talking to me, get the saw out and go!" I heard the tree crack numerous times and got the saw out and got out of there, but nothing moved. They said they would have made fun of me if we were loggers, but since we're all just volunteers, they liked my cautiousness.



Eventually I one-manned through the entire tree and it just sat there. The wedges at the top, and the force from the lower part of the tree apparently held it up, so we had to kick it to the side to get it to thump down.

Lunch on Sunday was great. We completely lucked out on the weather this weekend, with just a slight drizzle on our way back to camp Saturday afternoon. The sun at lunch also attracted a butterfly, which seemed very comfortable both on me and my bagel:





After lunch we took a brief walk up the trial another 1000ft and came to a big land slide. I used the landslide to skid down to the river. I spotted a tree crossing the river and I thought it would be amazing to have a picture taken up there, but I'd never try to cross it.



Then on our way back Don gave it a shot, so I raced back to the beach spot to snap a photo, unknown to him!



Ballsy!

We spent the rest of the day cutting and moving more big trees, and finishing up tidying up the trail for hikers and horses. Our last project of the day had the entire team working together to push, pull, and man levers to get a big tree out of the middle of the trail and up over another downed tree.






Overall, an amazing weekend, and I look forward to volunteering again in the future on trails. It really is a lot of work, and we only worked on about 300ft of a 6 mile trail. Great weather for the weekend, great people, and we stopped early enough on Sunday that I even made it back to Seattle in time for dinner with Mom!

Juicy

This is a smorgasboard post of ideas that have crept into my mind recently.

I had a short conversation with a quasi-acquaintance of mine the other week down in Portland. She says that she doesn't find many things sexy. I countered with the fact that I find many, many things sexy. I don't think I mentioned it at the time, but I find her sexy:



Very sexy. Even with the MS-paint sunglasses.

I'm not sure why she doesn't find many things sexy. Maybe it is because she is sexy and her standards are higher. Maybe she is so busy with life, work and graduate school that she focuses her time and energy on those things instead of being sexied out all the time like me. Anyways, the conversation started when she saw an olde' style growler of beer, which she thought to be sexy.

I just got out of the shower and the idea of touching on some more of the "sexy" aspects of my life in this blog popped into my head. Schaubs had a really interesting post up the other week where he got pretty personal, and I really enjoyed reading. He's mentioned the same on my blog before, "blah blah mundane blah blah, oh hey! there's the good stuff, glad I kept reading!" or thereabouts. Now, Schaubs and I have never met, but we're blog-friends and I value his input and agree with him when he says that the more juicy (or sexy) aspects of this here blog are its strong points. The day-to-day rambling or chronology of what I've done just isn't really exciting to read, or to write.

That said, here goes some unsexy rambling on becoming old! (joy)

I'm not sure if this is normal, but I have a part of me that kind of wishes I was an old man. I wouldn't give up my youth for anything, but I'm kind of excited to eventually move into old age and have gained experience and wisdom along the way. Ideally, I will be in a position where I can pass that knowledge on to the next generations in a positive way. The struggle would be finding a medium to pass the knowledge on, where the younger generations would understand and be interested in what I have to say. I'm thinking after I retire from teaching, and contacting more people than my possible future grandchildren.

"The Simpsons" does a great job of portraying the dread a lot of families have when it comes to taking care of their elderly grandparents. I always loved visiting gran and grandma, primarily for the fact that they lived in Florida and California, respectively. We would put our time in with them, and then we would go to Disneyland or go roller-blading in the sun, or go to the beach. It is kind of sad to think I enjoyed the time away from them more than the time with them, for the most part, but what can I say, I was a kid.

I don't want to be the old man who yells at kids to shape up from his porch. I want (even though it isn't going to happen) to be the Johnny Cash or George Carlin who uses a relevant medium to get through to younger generations. There are popular elderly people on Youtube, who have used that medium to share their knowledge with the world, and I think keeping up to date on the technology world would be a great way to communicate. Writing is another medium that could work, and I would love to improve my writing to the point that I could weave a story together with a point of wisdom I am trying to impress upon the next generations.

And speaking of sexy... does anyone find a woman in a baseball hat and a long-sleeve baseball shirt (the ones with navy-blue arms and a white torso) not sexy? Assuming a good height to weight ratio, that shit is sexy every time.

Softball garb, or a girl in sweat pants. Check please.

Vancouver: 2/28/2010

The most amazing sporting event I've ever witnessed. Sums up my Sunday. I woke up Saturday morning with the bright idea of heading up to Vancouver either Saturday night or Sunday morning. I sent Schaubs an email, seeing if he was going to a pub to watch the game to meet up and he responded within the hour saying that he had family plans, but I had a place to stay if I came up Saturday night. Having never met him, that is a pretty cool and generous offering. Must be something in the water up in Canada, because everyone I met up there was nice. I ended up not needing the place to stay, because I got invited to a home game in Seattle Saturday night.

I left Seattle at 7:30am, trying to get up to Vancouver to find parking and a spot at a bar as quickly as possible for the 12:00pm game. I arrived in the city at 10am and spent about 30 minutes trying to find a free parking spot, which I miraculously came across less than a mile from downtown Vancouver.

10:30am was too late. Pubs had HUGE lines outside, and were already at or near capacity. Here is a photo of The Lennox Pub at 10:30am...



Just down the street from there is a wine and liquor store, again... 10:30am:



After walking around the city, looking for a pub and really just soaking up all the atmosphere, I find what looks like the best bet. I really want to experience the Olympic feel and excitement, and the only guarantee I have is the pre-game festivities. If USA wins the game the streets will be somber after the game. If Canada wins it will be unforgettable. So I root for Canada... actually, I also root for USA, the underdog. It is a win either way, really, and I'm just happy the two teams are playing in the finals.



I don't know the name of the pub (which sounds silly, and I didn't get any pictures of its name, which seems weird to me), but the line was only about 30 people deep, and I still had an hour before the game got started. Also, I could watch the game from the line if I didn't get inside in time, because they had TVs pointed out towards the patio. After waiting about 30 minutes, and watching the group of Canadians on the patio heckle any USA flag-wielders who walked by, the bald guy below showed up draped in a USA flag.



Every single other USA supporter laughed and shrugged off the Canadian hecklers, but this guy had a cowbell and balls of steel. He leaned over the railing of the patio and wrang his cowbell in their faces, shouting "USA! USA! USA!" for a good minute or two. I was scared for the guy's safety, but the Canadians didn't do anything. Bald guy called their bluff! It was all in good fun. About ten minutes before the game starts, the floor manager of the pub comes out and greets the crazy American guy, asks if he is alone, he says yes, and then the manager lets him skip the line and get in--I thought that was awesome, even if I got cut. As the Canadian national anthem is being played just before the start of game, the bouncer lets in everyone waiting in line.

The pub is completely packed, they have to be over capacity. There are no aisles for the waitresses to move through the crowd. Luckily, most of the pub is already drunk, so getting up to the bar for a pint is easy. The game itself is a blur. It is a great game, and I am starting to understand all of the intricacies of hockey, enough to appreciate the sport and the high level that this particular game is being played. The entire bar screams whenever Canada does anything good, so that helps me learn quickly. If Canada is a man down and they clear the puck, the entire bar shouts. If the camera pans to William Shatner or Michael J. Fox, the bar goes CRAZY.



The guys next to me are loving their spot. They have spoons and are clanging these hanging kegs every time something goes Canada's way. The entire game the pub is at a high energy, especially with Canada up 2-0. USA Scores to make the game 2-1. I'll be completely honest--before the game even started, I had a gut feeling that the game would go to a shootout. Even when the USA was down 2-1 with only a few minutes remaining, I did not think the game was over. The pub, on the other hand, started celebrating with about 10 minutes left to play on the clock, and the level of jubilation at any little thing Team Canada did positive was just insane. After every positive thing, it sounded like the team had won gold by the volume of the cheers. The first time I thought the USA might not make it to a shootout was when I snapped this shot:



The quality is terrible, but the photo sets the scene. 1:17 left to play in the 3rd period. 2-1 Canada. USA has an empty net. I have seen this tactic used quite often at the end of close hockey games, and although I'm sure it works occasionally, I have never actually seen the tactic work out for the empty net team. I think 90% of the time a team pulls its goalie, the empty net gets scored on. Here is when I thought Canada had the game in the bag.

And then the incredible happened. USA scored, and the entire pub fell silent. Oh. My. God.

Most patrons in the pub were feigning optimism during the 15-minute break between the end of regulation and the start of Overtime. "We've got this!" "Yeah." Without near the enthusiasm that they were spending on friggin' icing calls against USA five minutes earlier. People weren't sure how many overtimes there were, and if a shootout would happen after the overtimes or not. Most people thought the momentum would carry USA to victory.

And then Canada won.

And then the pub went ape-shit.

It was amazing.

I celebrated with the guys around me, then rushed outside to experience the streets as soon as possible. Shrike does a good job of describing the experience out on the streets on his blog, and I will try to do the scene justice, but I doubt I can put that experience properly into words. I was out on the streets way before Shrike, because he was actually at the game, so I got to see a lot of the build up, and also experienced the complete sardine-feel outside The Lennox Pub an hour after the game.

Easily the most happy people with smiles on their faces I have ever seen. The most high-fives I have ever seen. Strangers were high-fiving strangers, police were high-fiving strangers, I even saw a person high-five a bus-driver through the bus-driver's open window while he was stopped at a light. On the drive home I saw a car going 40mph on the bridge with a passenger high-fiving pedestrians... ouch! Easily the most car-honking I've ever heard.

My camera ran out of battery at the end of these photos, so I didn't get to capture the really good sardine experience, but here's an example of how many people there were. I took out my cell phone to snap some 20x10 photos in the middle of the bedlam. I held the phone above me and snapped a few pictures. It was so crowded I couldn't lower my arm and put the phone back into my pocket.

In the Works

A month ago, right around Veteran's Day, I realized a few things. First, as a substitute teacher, I didn't have to work on Veteran's Day. Second, I wasn't going to get paid for Veteran's Day. Third, I wasn't going to be able to work or get paid for Thanksgiving Break, the two weeks at Xmas Break, the week of Spring Break, or 2.5 months next summer... oh crap.

I am loving the free time of being a substitute teacher, but I'm also realizing that I need to start spending it more wisely--aka, using at least some of my free time towards finding a full time job next year. In addition to working towards a full-time gig for next year, I realize although I've had fun the last few months, I really don't have much to show for it. I met up for drinks with an old high school friend a couple of weeks back and when she asked what I've been up to, I couldn't come up with much outside of teaching and going to the gym (keeping my secret identity as a lvl 80 Blood Elf Priest a secret). I have a few projects in the works, which should hopefully keep me busy during winter break and on into 2010.

1) Photo a week

I joined up with Betty Underground a year or two ago for her photo project. Each week she would give the group a category and everyone in the group would take photos of what they thought fit into the given category. At the time, it was exactly what I needed. Now, I feel like I don't need a category to focus on, I just need to bring my camera out with me more often and get one shot I am happy about each week. I have been neglecting my camera the past few months, and when I go back through the archives, the posts with pictures really stand out and help me remember the times better.

Today it was cold--no snow, just 15 degrees this morning, which seemingly hasn't happened in Seattle in a decade or two. (I'd suggest clicking through for the real picture)



2) Poker

I'm thinking about starting up round two of the Summer Bankroll Challenge: Southern Hemisphere edition. Stay tuned for details. It looks like Dr. Chako and Waffle's favorite blogger, Blaargh, are both in.

I'll admit to being pretty lame and missing the WPBT this year. I have the money and the time necessary, but it would be tight and I would not feel comfortable losing any money at the poker tables, which leads to playing scared blah blah blah...

Playing more poker has caught my interest for a few reasons. One is to get better, specifically at NLHE ring games. I've always sucked at ring games, and I want to change that. A future goal is to supplement my substitute teaching income, but this goal is a ways in the future--have to be profitable first.

For the first time ever, I'm starting to keep track of my stats and number of hands played. I'm going to start out trying to get in 100 hands a night. This took about 40 minutes last night two-tabling 6-handed games.

3) Writing

The writing project may or may not get off the ground. There was some interest, and I still have some interest in writing the story, but I am more interested in the other projects at the moment.

4) Sports and Working Out

I love me some sports. I blame my athletic mother. I am still chugging along on my Pushup Challenge from last Thanksgiving, with 19779 push ups, 21232 sit ups, and 13981 frog squats completed. I definitely haven't stayed at 100 of each a day, but I do what I can. I've supplemented the push up challenge with visits to the gym as often as possible. My new kick is swimming laps, which is an incredibly difficult workout, doubles as a shower, and is a great change of pace from any other workout routine.

The Most Dangerous Game

The Most Dangerous Game is not hunting humans on an island, it is this fun new game I played last night. The game is a mix of Pictionary and captions. Everyone starts out with a piece of paper and writes out a phrase or a sentence for the person to their left to draw. Papers get passed, drawings get drawn, and then the paper is folded to only reveal the most recent addition (whether it be a drawing or a caption). Paper gets passed and the next person creates a caption from the picture, and folds the paper over to only reveal the newest addition. The game ends when you all get your original papers back (write your name at the bottom or back side).

I snapped a picture of a paper from our first round last night:



Hard to make out if you don't click through for the blown up size, so I'll recap the action:

The paper begins with "You have very little dignity."

Then someone draws what looks to be a baby with a lollipop, then the baby crying, and then the baby crying with no lollipop and a thief running away with the lollipop.

The next person writes the caption: "They capped lollipopman could fly. He could also cry like a little girl on a whim, but mostly he was blind to the world as it flew by him."

The next drawing looks like a happy caped person with a lollipop, with an arrow pointing to a crying caped person with a lollipop.

The next caption: "this popickle tastes like shit"

And finally a drawing of a smiling popsicle on the toilet.

Nice.

Out of all of the papers, I think this one was probably the cleanest, and it still ended up with a popsicle taking a poop. Others got really dirty, really fast, which makes it the most dangerous game to play if you are looking for good, clean fun... not going to happen with this game!

Mountain Photos

Here are a few two photos from driving to and from Everett over the past month. The first is in the morning looking towards the Cascades. The second is coming home this morning from a quick two-hour sub job, again looking East.

Fall Colors

The Seahawks were getting walloped, nobody was biting on the new Craigslist ad I put up selling the Ford Ranger, and it wasn't raining. Three strikes and I'm out... of the door and onto the ninja for some fall riding.

The colors were absolutely beautiful over on High Bridge Road. I'm colorblind, so the shades are all different for me, but I saw yellows, oranges, reds and greens in the leaves. I saw blue in the sky and the river, white in the picket fences, and more orange in the huge pumpkin patch east of Woodinville.

I may venture out again on the bike tomorrow if no new sub jobs come up. I grabbed a high school female phys. ed job earlier this evening, but I couldn't make myself keep it. I'm sure they prefer a female teacher, what with the locker room situation and all, and I don't really want to be "that guy" who tries to bend the accepted norms. And by "that guy" I mean waffles, or the guy who played in the Ladies poker event and won it.

Hood River, Walking Man Brewery and Bumbershoot

Quick and dirty, the weekend was a lot of fun. I rode down to Portland late Thursday night, arriving in Portland to Andrew on the porch at 2am drinking a bedtime beer. He informed me that we would be leaving at 7am to pick up his buddy and make our 8:36am tee time. I passed out.

Woke up early the next morning and cracked open my first beer at 8:45am on the course. Andrew's friend, Tim, shot a 49 on the front, while Andrew and I shot 53's. I had a really good back nine and won with a 99 to Andrew's 103 and Tim's 107. Sixteen of the eighteen holes had water on them, and we lost a ball on nearly every hole between the three of us, good times!



We drove the Samurai Suzuki out to BAM's family farm north of Hood River, and just so happened to pass through Stevenson on the way, which is home to my favorite brewery in the world, Walking Man Brewery. Andrew and I each had a sampler, chatted with the cute bartender, and got free home-brew Belgian White from on of the brew masters at the pub who just so happened to be sitting at the bar with us. It was goooood. I also found a Falstaff beer in their collection of beer cans, and I also found a Schaefer Beer emblem at a different pub later in the weekend, glad to see that guy blogging again:



We met up with the rest of the crew at the farm and I passed out on the living room floor for a few hours until we gathered up our stuff and headed down to BAM's shack on the river (not sure which river). I think I rode on top of the Samurai, but that seems improbable.

We played some Munchkin Quest, Citadels, Cribbage and Asshole all weekend long, including another round of golf in the pouring rain of the Columbia River Gorge. Did not play well. We also made another trip to the Walking Man Brewery on Sunday, which included another sampler and another few hours passed out on the living room floor with the dogs. Then another late night trip up to Seattle and an arrival at 2am in time to get some sleep and make it to Bumbershoot on Monday.



I left my phone in Ryan's car after getting back to Seattle, so I woke him up at 3pm on Monday, grabbed the phone and made for Bumbershoot. The first band I saw was Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. They were amazing, and I just purchased their CD on iTunes. Probably my second-favorite show at the festival. I met up with Josh there, and we walked around a lot trying to find the best show at the time. Not a ton of great music between Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears (3pm) and Metric (9:30pm). My favorite was the Portland Cello Project, ten cellists playing their own songs and covers of other songs, including "Hey Ya!" by Outkast. They were fun.

We caught a few songs of the Franz Ferdinan show on the main stage at Memorial Stadium, but neither of us were really into it, and wanted to save ourselves for the Metric show, so we headed to a pub and each had two Old Seattle Lagers, which were yummy. Raced to Metric, and were about 20-25ft from the stage. I jumped around like a baby on crack the whole show, and was in full motorcycle regalia. Four songs in the girls behind me finally asked me to take off my helmet, because they couldn't see. Josh donned the helmet and they didn't complain about it (maybe because he is a tad bit shorter?). Metric's show at the Showbox in June was a lot more electric and had a better crowd than last night's show, but the band still put on a great show and there were quite a few people dancing, it just didn't feel as intimate or dance-inducing being outside with no lights hitting me in the face (light in the face means jump!).

Stick and Move, Stick and Move

What originally was intended to be a few month stay at the parents house, back in August of 2007, turned into two full years. I moved up to North Bothell / South Mill Creek area yesterday to live with a friend from my teaching program. The two years with my parents went by incredibly fast, and I figure time will only speed up the older I get:



(you can ignore the video, but this version of "Landslide" is amazing)

I can't thank my parents enough for allowing me to live rent-free for the past two years. The teaching program would not have been possible, or at least I would be up to my neck in debt. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I'm excited to be living "on my own" again, but the perks of living with the rents' will be hard to give up (hot tub, free, pool close by, in Seattle). I'm closer to some friends and further away from others now that I'm up in Bothell. I also think there are more schools around this area, at least more school districts, but on the downside I don't have any experience working around here, and the connections that come with work experience.

My plan for the next few weeks is to sell myself as a math tutor to the schools in the area and volunteer as a math tutor to get the ball rolling. Hopefully a subbing job will fall my way if I have an active presence in multiple schools.

In weekly update news, I camped at Baker Lake last week, and attended a Mariner's game on Saturday night in some pretty nice seats:

Flip Mode Squad (Kat bet pic)

I've been listening to a lot of Mos Def recently, as I'm in the middle of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy five-set, and Mos plays the role of Ford Prefect in the movie. Here are some links to Mos on Real Time with Bill Maher if you're unfamiliar:





There are plenty of links to Mos Def's music on YouTube, but most don't let embedding occur. Busta Rhymes and Mos have a few collaborations, and I had a few Busta Rhymes cd's growing up, hence the Flip Mode Squad title. Also, the flip mode squad title has to do with this post being a little flip from the norm... usually I see that I haven't posted for a week and do a lame list of what I've done during the past week in chronological order. It sucks because I don't remember the fun details from seven days ago, and by the time I get to yesterday, where I actually remember the things that happened, I am ready to wrap up the post. Today I'm going to try a reverse chronological order list from now to last week. It doesn't sound much better from the normal list, but hey~

Today I had two great motorcycle rides. The first was a quick loop down and around downtown Seattle to drop off my substitute information to the Seattle School District. I got on the express lanes into the city and I was the only vehicle the entire four miles into the city--it was awesome. On the way back I took 99 up along the water and was treated to some amazing views.

Later, Jared and I finally got out on a ride together. He bought a Ninja 250 about a month ago and my bike has been in the shop the whole time he's had his. We rode over to High Bridge Road, but the road was closed four miles into it. We got a few curves in, and the back roads we took to get to High Bridge Road were a lot of fun. It was great to get out on the bike and not have it assplode on me!

Here are a few pics, and one that fulfills my obligation to post a glamor shot (ugly mug shot) of me and my bike, sigh.





I've spent the last two days volunteer tennis coaching at my old high school. Tryouts started yesterday and the varsity coach did not have any help, and he offered me the JV job if I wanted it (I coached in 07'). I was torn. I don't have a job, but I really need and want a teaching job first, and a coaching job second. Right now I have very few strings holding me in any one place, and I applied to a job up near the San Juan Islands. I wouldn't be able to take that job if I get it, if I coach. I was struggling with my options, not wanting to give a half-assed commitment to coaching, but also not wanting to leave the varsity coach hanging. It all cleared up today though, and he found another ex-player to coach the JV team, so I'm off the hook!

The past week has been pretty stressful on the job front. Besides trying to figure out exactly where I want to live, and if I want to coach, there is a camping trip scheduled to depart tomorrow that I've been flip-flopping on. The trip sounds amazing, but I feel like I should be spending the time job searching during this crucial time to get a job. One option is to just do the camping, or just do the backpacking portion of the dual-trip. Coaching was getting in the way until today's discovery as well. I was flip-flopping on a lot of things, and being quite flaky with a lot of my friends, and that sucked.

The more I worked it out today, the more I think a camping trip is exactly what I need. I just need to get out for a few days, clear my head, and focus on what it is I need to do and not worry about the rest. I hope to be enlightened at the end of the trip, which is par for the course after a hiking trip for me :)

Well now I've gone off track and I'm back to today--oh well, flip mode squad has been vanquished. I'll pour one for my homies and say that I played softball, racquetball and went rock climbing a couple times last week--in chronologically reversed order.

Ba-doop

This week was a lot of fun. Wednesday was a fun and productive day. I started out with a round of golf at Wayne, which has a great Monday/Wednesday morning deal of $14 for 18 holes. The backside is short, with four par-4's and five par 3's, which is one part of the cheap green fee.

I don't really consider this golfing prep for the Winter Gathering, but the more I hear about it, the more I want to make the trip down to Vegas. A spot at CK's place might seal the deal! We can toss the disc, it'll be grand. I think I was +17 over 14 holes, because I skipped a few holes on the backside to breeze past a clog of golfers. Averaging slightly over bogey for a round of golf is a great round for me, probably my best.

After golf, I visited five middle schools near where I'll be moving at the end of this week. I dropped off a substitute page with my picture and contact info, and a resume, and talked with a vice principal at one of the schools in regards to coaching opportunities. I was well-received at all of the schools, and I hope they'll call me up for subbing once the school year gets underway.

Wednesday night I threw a little shin-dig which involved six boxes of pizza and ended with me and three bikini-clad women in the hot tub trying to catch glimpses of the meteor shower through the clouds (we didn't have much luck). Good times.

Thursday was spent with Dr. Chako. First, we hiked Rattlesnake Ledge and had some good views, although a bit cloudy:



(Mt. Si, with the peak covered in clouds)

After our hike we hit Snoqualmie Casino and played some poker. I got reamed playing 4/8 and won one pot in an hour of 7-handed play, and I only won the blinds. Not only did I only win one hand, I had a lot of second-best hands, or best hands until the river, and then second-best hands. It was frustrating, and I am glad I set a stop-loss at $100 before I tilted the rest off.

I took a breather from poker and wandered the casino for a bit. The Snoqualmie Casino has a really nice setup, and as Dr. C pointed out, I think it is the first casino I've been in that has windows you can look out! The view is great north through the Snoqualmie Valley. I did a lap of the casino to see what games they spread, and I was looking for a Pai Gow table to waste some time at and hopefully not lose much money, and let Dr. C play more than just an hour of poker. I found a $3 blackjack table and played for about 20 minutes and only lost one hand. The dealer must have bust six times while I was there, and the whole table was loving it. I got out while I was ahead, and watched Dr. C go nuts on his last orbit at 3/5 no limit to just about double his stack.

We left the casino to get back to Seattle in time to play softball, but it started POURING when we reached Seattle, and we changed plans to racquetball instead. He whooped me in the first game, then I won the second game when he served to my forehand every point, then he won the third and fourth games handily. It is always fun playing with Dr. C, because I always learn a lot, and usually play up to him and get better--and then go whoop up on my friends the next week :)

This weekend was ECC/Spawnfest, a large ultimate frisbee tournament with some of the best teams in the world. One set of fields hosts teams from all across the world--Japan, Colombia and Australia were all teams I saw. At my set of fields were more local teams from Victoria to Portland. We went 3-1 on day 1, putting us in the bottom of the A pool. We lost our first game today to the #1 seed, and then lost our second game and headed back to Seattle.

Spider Meadows

If this post looks familiar, I did this same hike just under two years ago with my dad. This year, I intended to go up Friday and make it up to Lyman Lakes, but was ill on Friday. Instead, I made the trip up Sunday with a few friends for a long day hike. We ran into my original hiking buddies, Tom and Joe, on the way up the trail, and they thanked me for the recommendation!

The day hike turned out to be about a 13-mile hike, and we were all dog tired by the end of it. We recharged our batteries by stopping at Lake Wenatchee on the way back to Seattle for a beer and a swim.

Gone Hikin'

I did a day hike today with Tyler and Wheezy, and I'll be hiking Spider Meadows and possibly Lyman Lakes until Sunday. Adios!

500 and change

More pictures for Waffles!!!!111!!!1!! This post has a little bit of everything, heck, it is 4am, what else have I got to do?

Keeping track of post numbers is a bit frivolous, seeing how I have numerous blogs, and blogs that have been transferred between Livejournal, WordPress and Blogger. That aside, this is number 500, baby! There have been some mundane happenings this week for me, and knowing that the next post would be #500 kept me from posting. Funny that I finally get inspiration to post the big #500 at 2:36am on Friday morning... I'm fresh off a big downswing in poker and a break up, and I'm ready to make some changes.

Erin and I talked by the river and half-heartedly agreed to end things. I went into the afternoon discussion with full intentions of breaking things off, but I think the consensus we came to is that Erin leaves for Jordan at the end of September, and we'll go our separate ways then. I feel a bit weird about the whole thing. Right after the "break up", I actually felt a lot more attracted to her than the past month or so, and I'm not really sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we can have fun, but I don't feel responsible for all of the "bad" things about having a relationship (i.e. loss of freedom, having to do things, blah blah). With a few days since our talk, I've been feeling very lonely, and that isn't a feeling I was expecting. It feels amazing to be loved, and I now realize how much I love the security of being in a relationship, but this new realization makes me think I was more interested in a relationship than in a relationship with specifically Erin, and although it sucks to admit, it seems like a good thing to admit now than later.

In a possibly related note, I've become hip to Blues Traveler again, fresh off a 15 year hiatus from listening to the band:



I've downloaded four of their songs, and this band is amazing... anyways, back to the juicy stuff.

The "break up" is a catalyst for some other changes in my life. I will be moving out of my parents' basement in a couple of weeks, and there is definitely some anxiety along with the move. I'm moving in with a friend from the teaching program, who I don't know terribly well, but the living situation is hard to beat. His parents moved to Dominica, a small island SE of Cuba, and he is staying at their house near Mill Creek. The house is huge, and it is just us two sharing the 4br 3ba house, my rent being $450+util, which is equivalent to sharing a house with five others and having 1/5 of a bathroom in Seattle.

I've spent the last month pretty much being a worthless slob. I've gotten out and taken a few pictures, and I will continue to get out, but I've spent way too many hours sitting in front of my computer with gmail and facebook open, waiting for something to happen. I've made a few goals for August involving spending my time more productively (specifically on the job front). Another goal involves normalizing my sleep schedule. The heat wave Seattle has been in for the past few days has encouraged me to stay up late and sleep in until past noon, when the room warms up and makes it impossible to sleep. Last night I went to bed at 5am and woke up at 2pm today, mostly because I didn't have anything to do. I don't really like not having anything to do.

Speaking of the heat wave, two crazy things of note. First, I went down to Magnuson Park last night with my mom's cousin's foreign exchange student Peter, who was passing through on his journey of the US. Seattle hit 103 degrees, and Magnuson Park had cars parked all the way up to Sand Point Way. I've never seen so many cars parked there, there were literally five times as many cars as I think I've ever seen there before.

The second crazy heat happening occurred this afternoon right before softball. I rode my motorcycle to the UW Bookstore to possibly purchase a few middle school math books that could help my first year of teaching, or substitute teaching. I ended up finding a good book by none other than Danica Mckeller, or Winnie from The Wonder Years!



The reason I purchased this book is that her experience with math up until the 8th grade is the complete opposite of mine. I was amazing at math, and it came very easily to me. Most of my students won't have that same experience with math, and Danica's book expresses very real ideas of fear and frustration with middle school math. It is mostly focused for girls, but that works, because she gives plenty of examples on how to relate math concepts into terms that tween girls might understand, and I would never think to consider.

Flipping through the book, I came to a section on factoring, and Danica uses friendship bracelets and beading to explain factors. Say you are making a friendship bracelet and you have 16 onyx beads and 10 sapphire beads. In order to make a design or pattern for the necklace, you need to see how the beads can be divided. How many different groups can you make with the 16 onyx beads? Well, you could make 16 groups of 1 bead each, or you could make 8 groups of 2 beads each, or 4 groups of 4 beads each. How can we split up the 10 sapphire beads? Now which groups should we use to make the bracelet (this is up to you!) Guess what, you just factored!

Something feels a bit weird about a book written by a former child star, who graduated with a mathematics degree from UCLA, and is focusing on spreading the word to girls that being smart is sexy. I mean, the message is great, but also looking like this is sexy:





The fact that she relates the fear of a middle school math test to getting a bikini wax scares me a bit. If I have this book in my math class library, I'd like to place a bet on whether the girls or the guys will look through the book more (and no, she does not have scantily clad pictures of herself in the book, well... besides the cover's low V-cut).

OK, I got way off on a tangent there (not a co-tangent, mind you). What I was initially going to say is about the Seattle heat wave. When I left the book store and made it out to the parking lot where I left my motorcycle, which had been in the shade, I noticed that the Honda Ruckus parked next to me had its center stand melted into the blacktop of the parking lot. It was crazy! I thought maybe the Ruckus had been there a long time and nobody actually used it, because it was parked there when I arrived two hours earlier. Then I looked at my bike, and my side stand had punched through (melted through?) the black top. There was a hole about an inch deep in the black top, and I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get my side stand up out of the hole. I was actually pretty lucky, because I parked on a slight decline, and if the bike had tipped over a few more inches, it would have crashed down on top of the Ruckus. I was able to lift the bike's side stand back up through the hole in the black top. I never thought it would get hot enough in Seattle to have my steel side stand melt a hole through blacktop.