Meet the Press for Idiots

Wait for it...

Monkey vs Robot

Monkey vs Robot. You'll be singing it all night. Thank me later.
(God I love the internet)

Best in the World: British Camouflage.

Keep looking. Look harder. Yep! There are actually two British soldiers in this picture. Can you spot them with their camouflage on?

I Want to Disco Now

Speaking of American pride...here's 3 minutes that you'll never get back. Synth pop just didn't flourish behing the iron curtain. Figure it's an antidote to the Obama video.

Sweet Home GoreObama

Hearing these two men gives me hope for America. It seriously brings a tear to my eye. They talk like smart men should talk. Like men that are powerful, capable of leadership, that are aware that America is diverse, and proud of it. They make me proud to have served in the Army of the United States of America. Worse yet, they make me remember what it's like to not have Bush as our representative to the world. I don't care if they run together, separate, just run. (Thx Cracks in the Facade)

Big Black Corporate

Hey look! It's me. I think. Maybe. I work in the Columbia Tower building in downtown Seattle. It's like the drunk guy at the bar - the one that always sticks his head into the picture of you and your friends. The Columbia Tower is the tallest building in Seattle, and easy to spot. So I'm not sure if I'm in this picture, but if I am - picture me waving.

Goat Invasion 2007

Goats are eating the brush off of the hill near Lincoln Park! That's head slapping wonderful. It's just one of those things that make sense. On the way home I spotted a herd of goats hard at work/dinner munching down a rather steep and overgrown hill just down from my house. There's a gal there, the sheppard I suppose, who rents her herd out for exactly this kind of thing. She's keeping them watered, but mostly fielding questions about the curious sight to constantly refreshing small crowd of neighborhood residents, like myself, stopping to watch nature in action. Adults appear to be more fascinated than the kids, but the kids are loving the farm in the backyard effect. From what I heard like they'll be there for a while, over night possibly to get the job done. Go goats!

Rain and Earth

The weather today is back and forth, sun and rain. Coupled with my new promise to myself to take more pictures I wandered around the backyard snapping away. Thought I'd share this droplet picture I took (a bit of a photographic cliche) of the clouds reflected on a leaf. More to come.

Get Well

Another awesome Craigslist ad:

get well balloon free, its slowly dying but good for someone you only slightly care about

How 'bout them Apples?

Atalanta (at-uh-LAN-tuh) Abandoned at birth by a father who wanted a son, Atalanta became a great heroine. Unwilling to marry, she finally consented to wed any man who could beat her at a foot race. Such was her speed that she would have remained happily single, but the Goddess of Love gave one of her suitors golden apples to scatter on the race course. These were magical, and Atalanta could not resist them. Stooping to gather them in, she lost the contest to her destined husband.

Zoomanity

Ever go looking for furniture and find yourself at the zoo? This was the first time for me too. We (We = my wonderful, smart, well spoken, attractive, excellent cook girlfriend, Lindsay - who jokingly says I never mention her as my girlfriend in my blog) set out in search of a good deal on a couch, but being picky and cheap nothing materialized. However, somehow I found myself driving by the Seattle zoo (officially called the Woodland Park Zoo) and out of nowhere I drove in.

Why not? What a perfect thing to do on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. We had a great time, ate some zoo lunch (hamburgers), saw a ton of really cool animals and got in some top quality people watching. Sure, we both had some ethical concerns about keeping such majestic animals in such unnatural settings, and we had a good discussion about it, but in the end hoped that zoos were being used for education rather than entertainment. Then we realized what a buzz kill we both were over intellectualizing the whole thing and went to look at the apes.

All the animals were amazing, but the Jaguar was my favorite, it was laying really close to the glass and made long eye contact me with. The gorillas were also awe inspiring. The female (pictured here in the foreground) had been at the zoo since 1968, and was on birth control pills to prevent her from becoming pregnant as she had a bad kidney. I'm guessing the first plan, to use the intern to use to slip the condom on the male gorilla at just the right time, didn't work out. Birth control pills are probably much safer for everyone.

Speaking of birth control, what's up with this lost kid sign at the zoo? What's that kid doing? ON all fours with one leg up in the air? The zoo must not be very familiar with human offspring. I don't know any kids that strike that pose with lost. Weird.

3 Day Weekend

It felt like a 3 day weekend. I got up this morning and had to do a double take to make sure that it wasn't Monday. What messed me up was going out on Friday with Lindsay's office crew for a late night of drinks and food. I had a really good time too. They're all quick witted, intelligent (and good looking) people. We had drinks at the 6/7 bar at the Edgewater, then off to a Typhoon under Pike's Place market for some sweet Thai food and a night cap drink at Zig-Zag's. Admitadly Lindsay had to drag me out of the house for this all, as I was in full lazy weekend mode, but it was all worth it. I snapped a quick pic at the 6/7 bar, looking back at West Seattle.

See the Space Station

If you want to see the space shuttle or the international space station (ISS) zip overhead you can learn when it'll be over your city, and where it'll be, on this NASA web site. Just punch in your state, and city and it'll tell you all you need to know. Cool.

How did I find this? There's an AP story on the wire (here) about a mom who's video baby monitor picked up images from the current space shuttle. Really interesting, but really weird at the same time.

Chromosexual

I learned a new word from another rider yesterday... "chromosexual."

It's defined as "someone who gets off by adding heavy, shiny things to their vehicle that make no difference to (or perhaps negatively affect) the performance or utility."

Usage: "He doesn't admit to the other dirt bike riders that he owns a Harley. He's a closet chromosexual."

Gone to Mexico

I'm bummed. The Mexican guy (Miguel) that I sometimes use to work on my house has up and gone to Mexico. Sure, it was a pain in the arse for him here, seeing as he was illegal, but I sure miss his quality of work. Now what? Do I go to Home Depot and get a guy from the parking lot? Not thrilled about that. Most likely what I'll do is get on my hands and knees and do it myself. Where's a guy find cheap help these days?

Which One is the Clown Car?

As we walked to dinner last night, along California Ave, here in West Seattle we spotted this (original) Mini parked in back of a Hummer. One heck of contrast. I love cars, but I can't for the life of me figure out what kind of sad, sad man drives a hummer. They're to automobiles what a tuxedo shirt is to fashion. Dear Hummer man, I'm here if you need a hug and someone to cry to about how you're not tough enough.

River Rafting Saturday

I've got sore muscles that I didn't even know I had. Lindsay and I went white water rafting today on the Wenatchee river, about 3 hours East of Seattle. It was a blast and such a great way to spend time with her, and outside in nature. I've been super busy at work lately and needed the back-to-nature distraction and this fit the bill perfectly. It was pretty darn cold, and when you got hit (not splashed, but hit/slammed/doused) with a wall of water you felt it's ice water temperature bite. By the end of the trip we were all smiles; smiles framed by blue lips. Tonight we're both getting the payback of being weekend warriors, with sore muscles. I wish I had pictures, but being in white water means lots of paddling hard, trying to stay in the boat, and no time to use a camera, but the pic above is our guide company, so we looked exactly like that. Rumor has it there are some pics taken by the guide service. I'll post 'em if I see 'em. If you're ever up here and want to do raft, just let us know and we'd gladly do it again.

Walking Tour #234

I don't know how I did it, but I was able to tear myself away from the Paris Hilton coverage and take a walk across downtown Seattle today. I was meeting Lindsay in the southern most part of town (for a ride home) so I walked, the mile to there. It was a nice day, about 73 degrees and sunny - typical for Seattle summer - and I had my trusty camera phone. Here are a few things that caught my eye.

Must be a heck of a club. Tight dress code. Looks like 2 things were removed from the NO list.

Just when you thought the government wasn't creative you see R2D2 as a mailbox.

Saw this big ole wall and thought it framed the puffy cloud well.

SafeCo Field (the sign probably gave that away) waiting for next M's game.

Workin' Hard for the Money

Everything ebbs and flows. The ying and the yang of life. After being out on the road on my motorcycle vacation last week I was slammed at work this week (hence not getting the trip narrative done yet). I was busy launching the limited edition Zune red MP3 player for Amazon, plus working on some high visibility UI (user interface) projects at the same time. Even though Monday was supposed to be my day off I came in to make sure the UI projects were as they should be, and that the red Zune launched ok. I worked till 8:30pm last night and was dog tired when I got home. You know what made it all worth it? A good fella on the Zune team emailed me a quick 'thank you'. No more than 2 sentences, but it made the difference. I believe in the do unto others rule and I thought about how he did a damn good job as well on the project and emailed his boss thanking her for all of the team's work, particularly his. This isn't just a love-in. It's a reminder to myself that I don't work hard just for the money, I do it because it feels good to accomplish something, to really do something. Mostly I learned that I a little thank you goes a long way.

Taking the Easy Way Out...for Now

Until I get my pics (and narrative) of the Hell's Canyon trip up, check out JP's collection of our pics here. Oh, and if you want to see how the high rollers take motorcycle trips check out my dream gig, The Long Way Down.

Back (But Tired)

I'm back from the motorcycle trip...but tired as all get out. I think the total mileage was about 1300 or so, and each and every one of them was great. I'll try and post a summary of all the interesting tid-bits (and the copious motorcycle shots) and snapshots sometime tonight or tomorrow. For now, here's a camera phone pic of Mt St Helens, where JP and I were this morning on the way back to Seattle. Beautiful isn't it? Even better then you got there via miles and miles of twisty backwood roads.