Lopez Island

Well, in my last weekend before school starts back up, Jennie and I went up to Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands to get away from the city. It was fantastic. We couldn't even be stopped by the weather (unseasonably cold temperatures and snow in late march is just about unheard of). Thanks so much to Jennie's friends Bret and Michael for letting us stay.

Friday: I picked Jennie up from work after packing up the car and drove up to Anacortes where we caught the 6:20 ferry to Lopez. We arrived at the cabin with about 30 minutes of light left and settled in.

Saturday: Got up at around 9 and made breakfast. We caught the 11:20 ferry to Orcas and drove over to the East side of the island to Moran State Park. We parked at the base of Mt. Constitution (2407 ft) with the hopes of making it the 4 miles to the top. The weather was disgusting... raining (then snowing), cold... and we quickly got into 5 inches of snow near the top.With the ferry schedule in mind, we turned around about 3 miles in after finishing nearly ALL the elevation gain (it turns out that the last mile is relatively flat, which we didn't know at the time... oh well) The good news is that we made it back to the ferry terminal and Lopez island on the last ferry of the evening. Jennie slaved away at the stove making a great stir fry. Awesome sunset. Solid day.

Sunday: Super lazy day. Got up late, read all morning. Checked out the Lopez Village, a small little island village near the west beach of Lopez, and walked along the beach road. We returned to the cabin, packed, closed it up and bailed out in time to catch the 6:05 ferry back to Seattle.

Basically, go to the San Juan Islands. You will not regret it. Or maybe you will, but that'll be your fault for having such a bad attitude.

On the offensive

So, I've offended my first blog viewer/friend by inadvertently excluding him from one of my posts. I ran into him at the Rollerderby and failed to mention that little nugget of information. Of course, he informed me of this, made some threats off the record and forced me to make it up to him by honoring him in his own post.

So, Sebby, here's your post... looking good buddy.

Dinner Conversation

Scott: Hey man, I'm just going to borrow your ranch dressing since it doesn't look like you're using it... my salad is kinda dry.
Mike: Oh man, there's nothing worse than a dry salad.
Scott: Oh, I don't know... I think the situation in Iraq is pretty bad.

Roller Derby/March Madness

Holy effing crap. My new favorite sport is ROLLER DERBY. It's the perfect mix of awesomeness, insanity, and alcohol. I'm buying season tickets next year.

The evening started out with a line that snaked all the way around the building. It seemed like there were thousands of people there. When we finally made it inside, we chose to sit on the floor right in front of the crash barriers. This was a little worrisome but I was optimistic. PBR tall boys calmed my nerves. There would be many trips to the bar.

Since Jennie was out of town this weekend, I went with Tom and a couple of his friends, Phil and Neve.


Lacey, Jennie's friend (a.k.a. Carmen Getsome), skates (rolls?) with Grave Danger, one of the Rat City Rollergirl teams. They pretty much got destroyed by Derby Liberation Front (another RCR team), but it was still super fun to watch. And she was AWESOME. Oh yeah, also, she proposed to her boyfriend before the bout. He said, "are you serious?" (then yes, I think).

Grave Danger Bench


Derby Liberation Front Bench


I didn't know much about the rules of roller derby so it took me a little while to figure it out. It's probably just easier to link you to the wikipedia page that describes the rules if you're interested. Or you can just trust me that its awesome. If you have an opportunity to see it, you should.

Moving on... Friday was also awesome. Scott and I went up to Seth's place and watched the NCAA tournament all day. We got there at about 9am. Seth immediately made us all gigantic omelettes and cinnamon rolls while Scott whipped up a great batch of Bloody Marys. I'm not a huge fan of the Bloody Mary but Scott is a bit of a connoisseur. They were delicious. One of the most filling breakfasts ever was followed up by one of the better NCAA bball days in recent memory. We watched Duke barely escape Belmont, Western Kentucky beat 5 seeded Drake in OT, and San Diego beat 4 seeded UConn in OT. Of course, all of the basketball and beer consumption was exhausting, so Seth made us some sandwiches which were consumed with more beer, obviously.



Enough for now...

Camera

So, over the last few years I haven't taken too many photos. My old camera lasted me for a while but I felt like it only allowed me to take the most basic photos... anything taking a bit more skill or patience and the picture turned out crap. I've always attributed this to the camera but maybe, in fact, it's my own dumb ass. Either way, we'll never know, because, finally, today I purchased a new camera. I took the advice of a good friend and semi-professional photographer, Reid, and bought a camera that he recommended. Now I can share more of my life with my family and friends, and not just over the phone. I look at it as a nice investment. In screwing around with it this afternoon (hey, I'm outta school now, what the hell else am I going to do?), I took a few kinda cool pictures... mostly of the car, but a couple of others as well.

Disclaimer: I know virtually NOTHING about photography. I just want to HAVE pictures.

Reid taught me how to take "depth of field" photos. These are my attempts...





Anyway... more to come. Special thanks to Reid for helping me get this started.

First post

Well, here goes...

So, today I finished the last of my finals. Thank goodness that's over with (Yes! Spring break!). I have one more quarter to go, then the research starts.

What's on tap for spring break you ask? Well, March Madness for starters... Tomorrow, Scott and I will drive to Seth's place in Lynnwood and watch every single game available to us starting at 9-something AM. I plan on being hammered by 12 at the latest.

After a morning of recovery, roller derby Saturday evening. One of Jennie's coworkers is a Rat City Rollergirl. It should be a face melter.

Alright, it's late and I'm exhausted from a week of hell. More later...