Day Hike

Sun!?! Quick, everyone outside!

The last few days have been very sunny here in Seattle. So sunny, it's enough to make you think that winter is over. However, as others have noted, this seems to happen every year in February and we'll be complaining about the cold and rain again soon enough. But, as procedure dictates when the sun shines in Seattle, you drop whatever indoor activities you have planned (for us, wedding planning) and head outdoors. So, on Saturday, we headed out for a day hike with Tonja's cousin Luke and his wife Anna who live up in Bellingham.

The hike was a trail along Boulder river and was about an hour and half drive from Seattle. The trail was a little wet and muddy in spots, and there were a few trees down, but all in all it was a nice 8 mile hike on a very nice warm spri...winter day. A few photos:

mmm...moss and ferns.

One of three waterfalls along the trail.

The trail...in all it's glory.

A good place to get lost. If one is into that kind of thing.

Apparently, Tonja and I are coordinating our hiking apparel these days.

And that was our hike. I tried to get a group photo, but it turned out very washed out from the sun. I guess I'm not used to factoring in the sun with photos any more. But, it was a good hike and great fun hanging out with Luke and Anna. The overcast conditions have returned today and the rain is not far behind. But, it was fun while it lasted.

Rust

In a cheap effort to break my one blog posting a week slump without writing anything of great length, here's a few photos that I took at some point over the last year. They feature one of my favorite subjects: rust.

Strangely, I'm always fascinated by the many shades of browns and oranges and the interesting patterns one can find in a rusting piece of metal. Tied in with the fact that rust is a constant reminder that nothing lasts forever, it just seems to make interesting photos. Even more poignant when those rusting pieces are found in a natural setting.

Back to the Bar

No, contrary to what the title indicates, I'm not hitting the bars at 11 in the morning on a Thursday. I finally got back to finishing up the trim pieces on my basement bar. Last we left off the bar looked like this:


As you can see the front edges look a little rough. So, I decided to trim it out a little bit. I picked up four 2 inch wide pieces of pine trim and boxed the corners. This not only covers the edge of the plywood, but also hides a few other inconsistencies between the front and sides.


After spending a lot of time trying to get the corners perfectly square, I gave up and went for mediocretly square. I figure after a few drinks no one will notice anyway. I next moved onto masking the vinyl a little bit, so I could paint the trim:


And finally, I painted up the trim with a couple coats of matching black paint, which resulted in this final look:


You can't tell a huge difference in the photos, but it does look a lot cleaner in person. I also painted the inside of the bar to clean it up a bit.

So, basically that leaves installing a shelf on the inside. And I'm also debating about getting some type of adjustable feet for it. The floor of our basement isn't very level, and since this is likely to remain in basements, I think an ability to adjust its levelness would be helpful. Nothing worse than watching your drink slide off the bar. Cheers.

February Already?

Wow, it's February already. I guess I should post something.

We've been traveling the last couple of weekends. Last weekend, we (Tonja and I and our friends Tina and Jon) headed to Denver to visit some college friends (Doug & Eiko, Nate & Angie and Joe & Katie). Doug & Eiko and Nate & Angie just recently welcomed their first sons (Chris and Johnathan) to their families. (How about I throw a few more names into this paragraph?)

A fun trip for sure. It was great to see everybody and get to meet the little guys. It had been a year or two since we'd visited. I took some photos, but none of them were very good. So for photos, check out Doug and Eiko's blog. Group photo here.

And of course we found some time to sample some local brews at Wykoop Brewing Company. I very much enjoyed their St. Charles ESB and Patty's Chili beer. (yes, it tastes like Chilis, but it's not spicy)

Also, we ended up renting a car for the trip. Jon wisely convinced me to upgrade since we were going to be spending some time in freeway traffic. So, we ended up cruising around in a dark purple Cadillac CT-S, similar to this. It was rad. First time I'd driven a Cadillac.

Tonja and I also made a trip to Vancouver, BC a couple of weeks ago. I've started a blog post about that trip, but haven't finished it, yet. Maybe that means I'm trying to write too much if I can't finish a blog posting in a sitting. Oh well.

More later...