An actual clear day in Olympia

We visited Gary's parents in Olympia last weekend. Gary's sister Linda, niece Tabitha and nephew Gabriel were around, after having returned from Sydney. It was a fun weekend and a small family reunion of a sort.

Surprisingly for Sarah, we could actually see Mt. Rainier from the back yard. Most of the previous trips to Olympia have been cloudy with little to no evidence of being able to see the mountain from the backyard.

Olympia Playlist

We are heading up to Olympia, Washington to visit Gary's parents, sister, niece and nephew over the weekend. I thought we might need some traveling music, so I put together a playlist. There is a theme, see if you can guess it.

Artist	Title	Album
Sittin In The Rain	The Underdogs	25 Years Of Kiwi Rock Volume 1
Kentucky Rain	Elvis Presley	2nd To None
Rain King	Counting Crows	Across a Wire - Live in New York - MTV Live From the 10 Spot
Box Of Rain	Grateful Dead	American Beauty
Southern Rain	Cowboy Junkies	Black-Eyed Man
No Rain	Blind Melon	Blind Melon
Naked in the Rain	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Blood Sugar Sex Magik
After the Rain Has Fallen	Sting	Brand New Day
Box of Rain	The Other Ones	Bridge School Benefit 2002
Feels Like Rain	Buddy Guy	Buddy's Baddest: The Best of Buddy Guy
Another Song About The Rain	Cracker	Cracker
Louisiana Rain	Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers	Damn the Torpedoes
Rain When I Die	Alice in Chains	Dirt
Rain	Madonna	Erotica
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35	Bob Dylan	Essential Bob Dylan
Be The Rain	Neil Young & Crazy Horse	Greendale
Rainy Days and Mondays	Cracker	If I Were a Carpenter
Rain Shower	Olu Dara	In the World: From Natchez to New York
Pocketful Of Rainbows	Elvis Presley	Jerry Maguire
Save It For A Rainy Day	The Jayhawks	KFOG Live from the Archives 10
Still Rainin'	Johnny Lang	KFOG Live from the Archives 6
Rain	Patty Griffin	KFOG Live from the Archives 9
A Little Fall Of Rain	Frances Ruffelle, Michael Ball	Les Miserables (1985 Original London Cast)
Pencil Rain	They Might Be Giants	Lincoln
Rainy Day Blues (Featuring Jonny Lang)	Willie Nelson	Milk Cow Blues
I Can't Stand The Rain	Commitments	Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Who'll stop the rain	Bruce Springsteen	New York City Night June 26, 1993
After the Rain	Ottmar Liebert	Nouveau Flamenco 1990-2000 Special Edition
It's Rainin' Again	Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers	Playback CD4: The Other Sides
Rain	The Cult	Pure Cult: The Singles 1984-1995
Purple Rain	Prince	Purple Rain
Iko Iko	The Belle Stars	Rain Man Soundtrack
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain	Willie Nelson	Red Headed Stranger (remastered)
Red Rain	Peter Gabriel	Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats
Rain Jam	G. Love & Special Sauce	The Electric Mile
Easy As The Rain	The Little Willies	The Little Willies
Rainbow	G. Love & Jack Johnson	Thicker Than Water
The Sun And The Rain	Madness	Total Madness: The Very Best of Madness
Pouring Rain	Fishbone	Truth and Soul
Rain	Rusted Root	When I Woke
Looks Like Rain	Grateful Dead	Without a Net
Shadows In The Rain	Police	Zenyatta Mondatta

How does a key break?

One benefit of living in a condo with a good security set up is that you need keys to get into the hallways or elevator. One drawback of this is that if anything goes unexpectedly, you are in trouble.

Well, my key broke... snapped in two the other morning. No real warning here either... they pattern for this key has one big notch in it, some might call it a weak spot. So I was locked out in the morning, after returning for the gym... with Sarah already having left for work... with no way to get to our front door....

Luckily a neighbor was home who saved me.
Honestly... when does a key snap in half?

Busy week of shows

We have had a busy week of going to shows.

On Tuesday we went to our first show of the season at the Hollywood Bowl: Carmina Burana. It's a very commonly used dramatic classical work which appears in tons of movies, tv shows and commercials. We kept getting the name wrong (carmono burano, cabana banana, Carmen Miranda, etc), my favorite version of the name was "Captain Banana".

We sat up higher at the Hollywood Bowl than we had before and noticed that you can see both the Hollywood Sign and the Ford Theatre from the cheap seats, quite a nice view. We had a great time at the show, but the strangest part was that right at the beginning of the main piece there were a few clouds in the sky and it actually rained lightly for about 10 minutes. Amazing... the absolute last thing we expected. It never rains in July here.


Then on Wednesday we went to The Drowsy Chaperone downtown at the Ahmanson. It's a "musical within a comedy".

Neither of us had a good idea what to expect and had not read up on the story. We really had a great time though and enjoyed the play thoroughly. A hilarious musical with some good songs also. A little bit for everyone, highly recommended.

Our fancy and comfy new chair!

Our fancy and comfy new chair! We wanted something comfy and bright, and we ended up with a yellow chair.

we looked all over the place, up, down and around and got ourselves a new chair for our main room. It was delivered last week.

After covering the furniture places near us, we ended up driving WAY down, "behind the Orange Curtain", to the only Room & Board store in Southern California, in Costa Mesa. The store is great, prices are competitive, the selection is broad and to our liking, and you can change fabric easily and for little additional cost. At some places we wanted to change fabric the cost doubled! Madness. They deliver for cheap also, which meant only one drive to Orange county required, sweet!

a published photographer

Most of the photos I post onto Flickr I give a Creative Commons license to, which basically makes them free to use by anyone, they just need to attribute the photo to me. I figure if someone can use a photo I took for something interesting, more power to them.

Recently one of the photos Sarah took of the gates out in front of the Palace of Versailles was used in an online article at www.nowpublic.com

Sarah is now an officially published photographer!

• Now Public article on the restoration of the Palace of Versailles Golden Gates.


• All the photos of the article

trip to cambria

We went up to Cambria & Paso Robles over the weekend with friends Ryan & Nate. The central coast area has lots of great wineries, specializing in zinfandels, of which we liberally sampled. Hearst Castle is just up the road, and there was an organized bike ride which I joined on Saturday; 50 miles up and down highway 1. The weather was perfect for riding, but 100+ degrees in Paso Robles when we were at the wineries.

We stayed right on the coastal Moonstone drive in Cambria. The views from the hotel were great as were those from the beach boardwalk. The sunsets were amazing, all us tourists would be outside to check out the colors in the sky, typically with a glass of the local wine in hand. As you can see below I have mastered the self timer feature on our camera to get a nice shot of Sarah and I with the sunset in the background.


Nate had a new camera and was trying to get some real nice shots of the sunsets, venturing down on the rocks for the best view. They had to do battle with the other photographers on the rocks to get the best shots. It looked like the tide was coming in, we stayed on the boardwalk.


I put a few more photos of our trip on Flickr.

A Chorus Line

We went to A Chorus Line at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA on Friday night. It was a good show, we watched the movie (with Michael Douglas) a few weeks ago, the stage production is better. Anyway, the signature song "Singular Sensation" is about the most addictive song which you can be exposed to, it just gets stuck in your head. And the Finale is pretty famous also.

I found a video of the finale being performed on the 2007 Tony Awards on youtube here. I thought I would share the love and get the song stuck in everyone else's heads also. enjoy.

the economic stimulus has arrived!

we got our economic stimulus check in the mail the other day. Let me tell you this is going to help us make ends meet and bring the economy out of the slump it is in. Wowee, almost $32.

Leadership and creative problem solving by the feds as usual.

modernica warehouse

We went to the Modernica warehouse sale over the weekend, looking at furniture. It was kind of a madhouse. Sarah's co-workers had clued us in to the sale. They had tons of stuff, their big seller are these fiberglass chairs in any color under the rainbow, as seen in the picture.

Bill & Mindy got married

Last weekend we went to Bill & Mindy's wedding (Sarah's uncle). It was in Lake Elsinore at Mindy's brother's lakefront house. Wonderful setting and a beautiful sunny day.

Here is Mindy coming down the 'aisle' escorted by her kids. We had front row seats, which granted us a great view of the back of Bill's head, the ceremony was charming and personal.


The reception was at the same place. All the relatives came for the wedding, there was a nice spread of drinks, BBQ and a tasty cake. A 2 person band played all the hits, allowing Francine & Martha to dance. Francine, being a former hippie, still dances like one.

Memorial Day in DC

We went to Washington DC for Memorial Day weekend.
The weather was just about perfect, sunny and mid 80s each day. We were a bit scared, imagining the horribly hot and humid weather DC is known for.
We saw lots of monuments and museums. Went to a Nationals and an Orioles game (we drove to Baltimore for the day). Baltimore has a pretty good Aquarium, close to the Camden Yards, fyi.

We learned a couple things:

• There are lots of lines in DC. You gotta get used to lining up & standing for a bit.
  
• The Metro works pretty well there, we went all over on it. It appears to be the same infrastructure (train cars, gates, etc) as San Francisco's BART.
  
• Memorial Day weekend is when the annual biker rally takes place in DC. There are thousands of bikers and Harleys everywhere around the mall. It is not quiet since "loud pipes save lives".

Here I am in front of the Washington Monument.


And here we are at the brand new "Nationals Stadium" to see the Brewers vs the Nationals. They are called the "Nats" for short, which really just sounds wrong.

the decision is final

we bit the bullet and got a new couch last weekend. It was delivered this week. We finally decided on a dark brown one - thanks everyone for the input.

We went with Plummers as the store. They have pretty good stuff, generally in a style that we like, and their prices are pretty good. We did see some nice pieces of furniture from other places for the same price as a nice used car, some day maybe.

It's pretty nice having the room to stretch out, we were kinda cramped on the loveseat before.


the old couch is on craigslist as we speak, act fast if you need one.

a workout toy & weekly ride around Griffith Park

I got a new toy recently, REI was having one of their annual sales and i got a Garmin Forerunner 305. This is a GPS enabled workout computer, used for runners and cyclists. It tracks your route, speed, gps coordinates, heart rate and all sorts of other stuff. Its got all kinds of features and toys. The part i find most interesting i the mapping feature, so you can see where you have been.

Basically since we have lived in LA, I have gone on a weekly ride around Griffith Park with the 'East Side Posse". These are riders loosely affiliated with with the AIDS LifeCycle ride and use this as a weekly training ride for the annual 7 day, 545 mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I come along for entertainment, one day I will do the big ride, for now I donate to a few of them, it's a great cause, contribute to someone, it will make you feel good. They start the ride on June 1st.

This new workout thing tracks all sorts of stuff, and when you are done you sync with the computer & you can upload & share your rides. Here is the route I take from home through the park, 23 miles round trip with 1800 feet elevation gain.

View Larger Map

Some stats about the trip. The overall time is a little distorted, we stop to make sure we don't lose anyone, and i ride over to meet up with everyone,and we drink coffee afterward... its a social ride, not a race.

Total Time (h:m:s)	3:01:24	8:11 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s)	1:37:29	4:23 pace
Distance (mi )	22.16
Moving Speed (mph)	13.6 avg.	39.4 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)	+1,932 / -1,897
Avg. Heart Rate	143 bpm	Zone 3.8
Temperature (°F)	57.2°F avg.	57.2°F high

which is the couch to beat?

we finally decided that our loveseat couch is too small. we need a couch for grownups.

picking out furniture always seems to be a torturous process, deciding on style, size, shape, pattern, color, cost. and the couch issue is kind of like when i was looking at getting a new bike; what i like and what i would like to spend seem to be 2 very different things. I wish i just had cheap taste, we could pick up a new couch at the Living Spaces monster store and be done with it. But that is not the case.

So we gotta decide. we like leather, we've got an idea of size & style, sorta. Now color and price seem to be the biggest stumbling blocks. Maybe technology will come to our rescue. I took some photos and did a cheap & dirty job of superimposing different colored couches into the room. Comment on the options below:

"pick all new other furniture" is not a valid suggestion, we're only getting a couch right now.

Dark Brown


Light Brown


Beige / White


Black

paris part II

A follow up to the original post about our Paris vacation. We got all the photos sorted through, here is a selection.

At the Arc de Triumphe, surrounded by the largest traffic circle in the world. Crazy drivers, but it looks pretty good in the light of the sun setting.


Here we are in the Musee D'Orsay, with out iPod headphones on, listening to a little commentary on the place. The building was a train station before becoming a museum 20 years ago. The collection is overwhelming, the building impressive.


Sarah in front of the massive Monet Waterlily paintings which surround two separate rooms in the Musée de l’Orangerie in the Tuilleries garden.


And all the rest of the photos on Flickr

Little Armenia

I went to go pick up my car for service today at Hollywood Ford, which is basically in Little Armenia in Los Angeles. There are many Armenian immigrants in LA, Glendale has I believe the largest Armenian population of anywhere other than Armenia. What I failed to realize was that today is the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, and the official march was in Little Armenia.


On the commemoration day, people decorate their cars with Armenian flags. Sadly, the first time I saw this I had not idea which country's flag this was and figured some big soccer match or something must have been won and people were celebrating. Now I know.

The Armenians have done well in Los Angeles, here was a big Rolls Royce Phantom decked out in Armenian flags... probably a $300,000 car. I hope those flags don't scratch the paint.

road bikin'

After having an old road bike in a non-working state for months, I finally bit the bullet and got a new (to me) road bike. The old Cannondale had done me well for a long time, but pretty much everything was starting to wear out, and the minor eccentricities of it had started to grate on me.

You can spend as much as you feel like it on a bike these days, and being of a frugal mindset, i wanted a good deal. I monitored craigslist and ebay... and eventually got this Scattante (performance bike's in house brand) with nice 10 speed ultegra components and everything. All I had to to was battle rush hour LA traffic to get there.

So that's the new ride. I will probably take it out for a good distance jaunt this weekend.

paris part I

Our trip to Paris was great!

we tried to see all the main sites, and do a good job of following the "must see while in paris" lists. We walked ourselves tired each day, got to know the Metro system fairly well and shivered in the non-Socal weather. There will be a Paris part II posting later, when Sarah gets back from the germany/work part of the trip.

some of the highlights were going to the palace and gardens of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower (of course), the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsey (probably our favorite museum of the trip), Sacre Couer Basilica, the Arc de Triumphe, the Pompidou Centre, Cathedral of Notre Dame, St. Sulpice chapel and too many more to keep track of.

The collections of the museums in Paris are just stunning. For example; in most museums, of they even have a Van Gogh painting it is a star of their collection and is called out in all materials. At the Musee D'Orsey, there is an entire gallery of Van Goghs, 4 of which would be considered some of his key works, included in about every article written on him. Kinda blows your mind.

I had collected and downloaded a bunch of audio walking tours and audio guides of things in Paris for our iPods before we left. I had done this before for some walking tours in Sydney, and I thought it might work well for Paris. It really is a nice way to be a tourist.

1. It's cheaper & faster than getting audio tours everywhere you go.


2. You look less like a tourist, but you do look like some sort of aloof american who wants to listen to their iPod more than see the sites.


3. The walking tours bring you to places you may not have visited.


4. It gives you some additional flexibility when touring: you can go in whatever order you want, people can navigate at their own pace... all good stuff.

Some of the tours we enjoyed were:

• Rick Steves audio tours - free! for both France & Italy


• Tourcaster - the Rick Steves guides were a bit more polished, but there is a far larger selection of the tours on Tourcaster... and they are worldwide. These are what I had picked up for Sydney.

and fyi - the Paris Playlist worked well... Sarah was less excited about the Jimmy Buffett inclusions, but overall it was good.

paris playlist

We leave for Paris tomorrow. For the trip i decided to make a playlist for our iPods. I tried to find typically "frenchy" music. It was kind of fun, hunting around. I bought a few songs off Amazon, now that they offer DRM free mp3 songs. Some of the songs we already had, and Les gave helping hand. I also drew from a couple of similar playlists I found;
* Postcards from the Trail
* The Best Trip Ever

I've got a whole pile of stuff in here, I tried to be a bit eclectic, but still include music which was familiar. So here we are, the playlist for Paris.

#	Artist	Title	Album
1	Madeleine Peyroux	You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go	Careless Love
2	Edith Piaf	La Vie En Rose	La Vie En Rose
3	Shawn Colvin	You And The Mona Lisa	A Few Small Repairs
4	Pink Martini	Veronique	Hang on Little Tomato
5	Eartha Kitt	Under the Bridges of Paris	That Bad Eartha
6	baguette quartette	en douce	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
7	Diana Krall	Let's Fall in Love	Live in Paris
8	Paris Combo	Touriste d'une Vie	Motifs
9	Nat King Cole	Mona Lisa (2003 Digital Remaster)	The World Of Nat King Cole - His Very Best
10	Pink Martini	Sympathique	Sympathique
11	Toots Thielemans	Sous Le Ciel De Paris (Live)	Chez Toots
12	Paris Combo	Reflet	Motifs
13	Feist	1234	The Reminder
14	Toots Thielemans	Ne Me Quitte Pas	Chez Toots
15	Edith Piaf	L'Etranger	La Vie En Rose
16	georges brassens	je m'suis fait tout petit	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
17	Lee Phillips	Mona Lisa - Grant	KFOG Live from the Archives 11 (Disc 1)
18	Diana Krall	Maybe You'll Be There	Live in Paris
19	Camille	Le Festin	Ratatouille
20	Jimmy Buffett	Last Mango In Paris	Meet Me In Margaritaville (Disc 1)
21	Toots Thielemans	La Vie En Rose	Chez Toots
22	Eartha Kitt	Je Cherche Un Homme	Something's Gotta Give
23	Toots Thielemans	Moulin Rouge (Live)	Chez Toots
24	Count Basie	April In Paris	Verve's Grammy Winners
25	jane birkin	elaeudanla téïtéïa	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
26	Louis Armstrong	La Vie En Rose	The Essence Of Louis Armstrong
27	Madeleine Peyroux	J'Ai Deux Amours	Careless Love
28	Diana Krall	I've Got You Under My Skin	Live in Paris
29	Ella Fitzgerald	I Love Paris	The Complete Songbooks: The Cole Porter Songbook- Disc 2
30	Paris Combo	High, Low, In	Motifs
31	Jimmy Buffett	He Went To Paris	Meet Me In Margaritaville (Disc 2)
32	polo	la fée clochette	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
33	Toots Thielemans	For My Lady	Chez Toots
34	Paris Combo	Etoile Pâle	Motifs
35	Grateful Dead	France	Shakedown Street
36	sanseverino	mal ô mains	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
37	Nat King Cole	Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup (2003 Digital Remaster)	The World Of Nat King Cole - His Very Best
38	Madeleine Peyroux	Don't Wait Too Long	KFOG Live from the Archives 12
39	Etta James	There Is No Greater Love	Blue Gardenia
40	Diana Krall	Devil May Care	Live in Paris
41	mathieu boogaerts	ondulé	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
42	Edith Piaf	J'Ai Dansè Avec L'Amour	La Vie En Rose
43	Pink Martini	Dansez-vous	Hang on Little Tomato
44	Madeleine Peyroux	Dance Me to the End of Love	Careless Love
45	Eartha Kitt	C'est Si Bon (It's So Good)	That Bad Eartha
46	Madeleine Peyroux	Careless Love	Careless Love
47	Geno Delafose and French Rockin Boogie	Bye Bye Mon Neg	Putumayo Presents: Zydeco
48	Pink Martini	Autrefois	Hang on Little Tomato
49	Paris Combo	Aquarium	Motifs
50	Charlie Parker	April In Paris	Bird: The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker
51	barbara	si la photo est bonne	Putumayo Presents French Cafe