The Weatherman

Dropped by Lincoln Park this afternoon for a run and some pictures.

Overlooking the Puget Sound.

Quiet Path.

Grove of trees.

PEPS group got together today at the Children’s Museum in Seattle to celebrate all of the kids bdays at once. Here are some videos of the activities.

Video One.

Video Two.

Ready for cupcakes.

Yummy!

Play Time

Do you use Lincoln Park? Do you want it to stay beautiful?

Join me (and I’m sure many others) at Lincoln Park for No Ivy Day. See the details here. It’s on May 5th from 10am to 2pm and will focus on cleaning out English Ivy and Himalayan Blackberry.

Hope to see you there. Thanks to Beach Drive Blog where I noticed the original post about this.

These are not the typical red light runners, ie a fast car.  Nope, this is the Seattle bus system.  I am frickin tired of our buses running red lights.  I catch them all of the time making left turns against the red light.  This morning two buses skated through a right turn on a red doing no less than 15 mph - basically this is the inability to stop on a red before a right turn.

They are not above the law.  It’s time that our officers start ticketing these buses before someone gets hurt.

And yes, I honk at them every chance I get.

Check out SkyBus.  They will actually be flying in/out of Bellingham, WA.  Be sure to read their rules of flying, they are pretty entertaining.  Most things I agree with, except I think you should be able to bring food on the plane.

I found some cool websites discussed over on TechCrunch.  The first is a new travel site that is still in private beta called Yapta.

Another travel site?  What is so special about that?  You perform fare searches using the site and then bookmark fares that you find.  It will track the fare and keep you informed of fare changes.

If you purchase a ticket through the site, it will continue to track the fare for you.  If the fare drops, you can get a refund.  I guess this is always the guess, however we never know when the fare drops so most people don’t know to request the refund.  From TechCrunch, the  beta users have reported the following returns:

In beta testing with 275 users over the last several months, Yapta found that 34% of purchased tickets became eligible for a refund. The average refund was 16% of the ticket price, or $85. During the beta period that worked out to a total of $28,900 in aggregate potential refunds, or about $100 per beta user.

That’s not too shabby.  Once it goes public, this site is definitely one to check out.

The other site is Newsvine.  It’s a news portal combined with a blog portal.  You can setup your own Newsvine site (see mine at pabloa3.newsvine.com) where you can publish your own articles or seed Newsvine with articles you have read.

Also, both of these are local Seattle products.

Wow - Seattle in the Spring is incredible.  The leaves are coming out and there are lots of blooming trees.  We have three trees in our yard with an abundance of blooms (still researching what they are - maybe crabapple and Washington Hawthorn - but not sure).

This morning we took a walk along the water at Lincoln Park with Zach, and then we let him swing for about 10 minutes.  I took some pictures of the scenery and of Zach of course.

Yesterday we picked up a toddler bed for Zach - so last night was his first night out of the crib.  He was a champ.  It took a little longer to get him down since he wanted to walk around, but otherwise it was a normal night.  He’s also had two naps in the new bed.

Not much gardening this weekend - I did some mowing, planted some lawn seed in a few bare spots.  Otherwise I enjoyed it and relaxed.

Zach pointing at a doggie

Mom and Zach strolling at the Park
Looking north from Lincoln Park

Quiet morning stroll

Ok, so now I’m back.  On Monday evening, Steph and Zach dropped me off at the airport at around 5:30pm.  I easily made it to the gate as there was no line to check bags and no security line.  At the bar a very nice couple (the woman worked for Alaska Airlines) took pity on my flying story and bought me a drink.  So that was a good start to an otherwise crappy day.

My flight to LA was ontime and unadventurous.  Boy, do I not miss LA.  It’s brighter than the sun at night - the city is lit that well.  LAX sucks as a airport - not very clean.  Plus, at 10pm at night it’s very busy with many people flying but everything is closed.  I walked through 3 terminals and I could only get a bite to eat at Mcdonalds.  My flight to Washington DC was on time.  I slept most of the way there - probably about 3 to 3.5 hours of sleep.

I arrived in DC at 7:15am and I made it to our hotel lobby by 8:15am (that was the time we were meeting in the lobby).  I picked my coworkers who flew in from Seattle (different flight) and Dublin and proceded to our datacenters.  Overall it was a good work day.  I slept very well that night 

The next day I worked at the datacenter during the morning and caught a 3:40pm flight to Boston.  That was ontime.  We (me and 2 coworkers) got a rental car and proceeded to the hotel (Boston Park Plaza).  This is where I learned that Boston is one of the most complicated cities to drive in.  Yep, we got lost - ended up in Beacon Hill (very beautiful area).  We eventually found the hotel.  After checkin we went for dinner at Stephanie’s on Newbury.  Newbury St is the swanky shopping district.  All the storefronts are on the bottom floors of brownstones - so it was very east coast and very beautiful.  Dinner was very good.  Some of us continued on for a drink at a place called Abe Louie’s.

The next we met with a company in Salem, NH.  My first visit to New Hampshire.  It was raining and a bit snowy that day and a tad on the cool side (in the 30s).  We had a good meeting that day, and on the way back I made sure to go through one of the Big Dig tunnels in Boston.  The company took us to Sorrelina in downtown Boston - only 3 blocks from our hotel so we walked…in an absolute downpour.  I was soaked completely through which made for a slightly uncomfortable dinner.   The food was excellent.  My first course was homemade pasta (like rigatoni) with Kobe beef meatballs - excellent.  For my main course I had scallaps which came with brussel sprouts (I can’t stand brussel sprouts) and I actually ate them without gagging.

During the day on Thursday I learned that the Denver to Seattle portion of my flight was cancelled so rebooked on a flight from Boston to DC then on to Seattle.  That flight was ontime and got me home safely.  Steph picked me up at the airport and then we got Zacher at daycare.  He gave me a huge hug - that was nice 

This morning I was supposed to catch a 7:30am direct flight from Seattle to Washington DC. So, I got up nice and early (4:45am) and caught a cab to the airport. When I arrived the United representative at the entrace to the line asked what my destination is.

I told her it was Washington DC and she placed me in this special line. Over the next 10 minutes I learned, from talking with others in the line, that we were all headed to Washington DC…or not. It turns out the flight was cancelled - No Crew!

It took me almost 2 hours to get through that line, all the while, I was on the phone with Expedia (that’s who Amazon uses for corporate travel) working on a change of reservation. I’m currently booked on a United flight leaving Seattle at 7:08pm tonight for LA…yes, Los Angeles. From there I catch a red eye (leaves at 11:40pm) to Washington DC arriving at 7:16am.

It was tough for United to book people on alternative flights since there was no space available…I guess the airlines are busy with spring break.

Happy Easter Sunday.

We’ve had a good weekend.  Yesterday we started off the day at Alki Beach walking around with Zacher.  We then went to Costco before the afternoon nap.  Later in the day we went to REI, the mall, and Elliott Bay Brewing Company in Burien (we go to the West Seattle one about once per week).

I also redid half of the strip between the sidewalk and street - it was full of older lavendar plants and weeds.  I cleaned it out and replanted one  old lavendar plant and some new plants/trees (rosemary, purple leaf sand cherry, and a dwarf Canadian hemlock).

Today we had an Easter egg hunt for Zacher, cleaned house, and tooke a long walk with Lou and Zacher at Lincoln Park.  Tonight we’ll have Filet Mignon for dinner.  Tomorrow I fly to Washington DC - I’ll be there a few days and a few days in Boston.

Enjoy a movie of Zach looking for Easter eggs.

First, we went to Eugene two weekends ago and hung out with Jan and Mike.  We went to a park with a very cool playground that Zacher loved.  Here is a movie.

Deer near Jan and Mike’s house.

Grandma visited this last weekend.  We took Zacher to the Children’s Museum in Seattle Center.  He ran around for an hour straight - Nonstop!  He had a great time.  Here is a movie of Zacher playing at the museum.

Wow - no rain, let’s play.