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Archive for March, 2009

Weekend Photos

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

Some shots from the trip to zoo.

A happy Zach.

Nate did not like this 18mo old that kept trying to kiss him. He wasn’t happy as you can tell.

Nice feathers.

They seem happy to have some sun.

The photos were a tad hazy. For some reason, circular polarizers on my canon 70-200 tend to get a film on them if I leave the filter on the lens for a long (ie days) time. Not sure what is up – I probably just need to keep the filters off until I need them – a small nuisance.

On Saturday I fly off to Dublin. Nothing too exciting planned in Dublin. The fun will be a 2 day side trip to Salzburg, Austria at the end of the week. Then I return home the following weekend.

Posted in Friends and Family | No Comments »

Don’t run red lights if your rushing to the hospital.

Monday, March 30th, 2009

http://www.wfaa.com/video/featured-index.html?nvid=345766&shu=1

Unbelievable how insensitive this police officer was. Absolutely no compassion or common sense.

Posted in General, Hiking | No Comments »

Our Corner Store gets Hit

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

This sucks.

http://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=15252

It appears two men robbed and assaulted the teller at our corner store. We watched the helicopter fly around around neighborhood for a half hour and watched cop cars cruising the streets…but so far they haven’t found the assailants.

Hopefully the teller is OK…he was taken to the hospital.

Posted in Friends and Family | 1 Comment »

Spring has Sprung

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Well kind of…it is Seattle…that just means cloudy and showery. Actually, the mountains have been getting snow dumps – on the order of several feet in the last few days.

So what has been going on? Last week was the opening game for the Seattle Sounders FC – our new MLS team. We have season tickets so we went to the opening match with 35,000 other fans. It was very cool.

A rare shot of us without the kids.

I’ve started doing research and meeting with contractors for redoing our back patio and putting a cover on it (mainly so my mother in law can smoke without getting we). I want to replace the red brick with gray pavers or concrete and then cover it with a pergola topped off with a smoked-color polycarbonate roof. Oh, and paint the wood white to match the house trim. That’s the plan in a nutshell.

Saturday night is our next Sounders game. On Friday afternoon we are going to a very nice lunch at the The Met with some co-workers as I lost a bet and this is the payoff. It should be fun since the Met has good food and good drink.

Next week I’ll be prepping for my trip to Dublin and Salzburg (the latter is a quick 2 day trip for pleasure). While these trips are fun, it’s tough to leave the family for so long but fortunately Steph will have lots of family help while I’m gone.

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Snowing Again

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Wow…this one is a surprise. The weather mentioned possible snow for the Kitsap but absolutely no hint of snow in Seattle. Well, it’s snowing moderately with a temp of 33 this morning – with a half inch already on the ground.

Ok…make that over an inch on the ground and still coming down. Temp has dropped to 32.

Probably got around 2 inches…now for the action photos!

Steph built an awesome snowman.

Zach having fun.

Nate getting a little chilly. Thanks to Mike and Emmy for the snow suit – it’s lasted for 2 kids!

Group shot.

A winter scene in West Seattle.

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Rainy Run

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

This morning we had a 90 minute training run…in the pouring rain over at Marymoor Park in Redmond. Once you get moving the rain isn’t too bad – it’s the standing around waiting for all runners to show up that is cold and wet. The run was good – I felt good (except for some harsh chafing). My new shoes worked well also. For the first time, I wore a hydration belt (http://www.fuelbelt.com/fuel_belts/4_bottle.html).

They are actually pretty comfortable. This is the first time I felt like I kept myself hydrated. I filled them with gatorade.

I got some cool shots of the kids yesterday – Nate was being a goof.

Goofy kid.

I think he’s eyeballing me.

Zach playing with his trains.

As for new daddy toys, I picked up a smaller travel tripod (carbon fiber) – a Feisol ct3441s – it’s Blue.

The specs are pretty impressive. 17.1″ closed weighing just over 2 pounds. The legs are thicker than I wanted but I wasn’t prepared to sink money into a Gitzo. The Feisol generally gets good reviews.

Here is the attached ballhead made by Photo Clam (a PC36NS – I think). It seems very solid. The motion is very fluid and it’s simple to work with. It will definitely work well with my gear.

And finally – standing up. This thing is tall. Really tall. Pretty amazing for a travel tripod.

Posted in Friends and Family, Photography, Running | No Comments »

Funny Picture

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

The other night Nate had one of those 20 month old moments…you know, crying for no reason for 30 minutes. Anyway, it wore him out and he fell asleep on the couch. I captured this photo of Nate right before trying out for the Stray Cats.

That is one tired boy.

Of course, I need to throw up a photo of Zacher playing around the house…what a ham.

Zach posing for the camera.

After a snowy weekend we’ve had some very cold weather in Seattle – lows in the 20s and highs and 30s and 40s. But, on the good side, we’ve had some very clear weather. This morning I captured this panorama on my way to work.

View of the Olympics from West Seattle (click to see larger image).

We are supposed to get rain this weekend. No other plans but to go running.

The first Seattle Sounders FC game is on Thursday and we have season tickets – can’t wait.

Posted in Friends and Family, Photography | No Comments »

Long Run and New Camera Bag

Monday, March 9th, 2009

This weekend we had a planned 80 minute run for Team N Training. We met at Golden Gardens (in North Seattle) at 8am. On the way up the temperature dropped from 40 degrees to 36 degrees and it started snowing. Fortunately, the snow stopped for the duration of the run. I ended up running for 90 minutes which was probably about 30 minutes too long since I was just getting over a nasty chest cold.

As for the snow, it snowed some on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday…just a little each day – enough to cover everything with a thin layer. Tonight the temps are supposed to drop down to the mid 20s (already 32 outside) so things should be nice and frozen in the morning.

I also picked up a new camera bag. I had the following requirements:

* good balance between weight and size

* carry a laptop

* carry my camera body with a 70-200 f/4 lens, 17-55 f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8, flash unit, accessories, ipod, and plenty of other little storage.

* meet carry-on requirements

* provide a tripod holder as an option

I first picked up the Tenba Shootout small backpack. What a little beast. This thing had some girth. It was pretty thick, heavy, and not very comfortable for me. On top of that, my Dell D410 (small) laptop did not fit into the laptop opening. So I returned that bag.

It was now between a Kata R103 and a Crumpler (either the Sinking Barge, Customary Barge, or Whicky and Cox). Glazer’s Camera had the R103 and the Sinking Barge. Both were very comfortable. The R103 met all of my requirements whereas the Sinking Barge lacked enough camera space. So I went with the Kata R103.

I’m very happy with the bag. The camera gear I listed above easily fits in the bag – I could even add my 12-24mm f/4 if needed or I could swap out the 70-200mm for my 300mm f/4. Laptop and power brick easily slip into the laptop holder. It has plenty of accessory pouches (FYI, one is hidden inside large lid) for stuff like charger, cables, ipod, headphones, etc. I still have room remaining for other small items and I could even fit a paperback book in there.

As for the rest of the weekend…it was pretty quiet. Since the temp never went above 40, we stayed indoors for the most part. Nate went to the camera store twice with me, whereas Zach was happiest at home with mommy.

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Weekend with AJ and UM

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Auntie Jan and Uncle Mike are visiting this weekend…we’ve had a load of fun. They arrived at dinnertime on Friday night. Saturday we headed up the Space Needle – first time for all of us on the needle. We took tons of photos (including a cool panorama). We had lunch across the street at a sports bar where UM had a large Kobe burger, fries, and a bowl a chili. But that wasn’t enought…nope, he stole Nate’s burger bun. Nate cried.

We were planning to go out for a grown up dinner last night but Steph went down with a stomach ache. She pulled a Mike! Fortunately, it was nothing serious and she was back to herself by 8pm. We played board games and we all agreed to let Jan win so she wouldn’t whine.

Today we had breakfast at Charlestown Cafe and then headed over to Kubota Garden. Kubota is a very cool Japanese garden in South Seattle. For the afternoon we relaxed at home, had a fire, and I cooked up a New York Strip Roast..yummy.