Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

This message on my screen this morning:

was tantamount to a Snow Day for school kids and teachers. It meant the server was down at a client site where I was pecking away at a programming project. Well, not really like a Snow Day where you turn off the alarm clock and snooze cozily as the whoosh of snow sifting against the window creates an insulating barrier between you and the world. I had plenty of other stuff to work on, but those items were not as deadline-driven, and it was fun to call a couple of clients and tell them I’d finished their tasks early as the day went on.

I’ve been taking off on my bike on these late summer evenings (hey, I’m an accountant - I know how to file an extension) to plummet down the hill from my house and cruise the Burke Gilman Trail, an in-city rail-trail that meanders past the University of Washington campus, then north along the Lake Washington shore. Large swaths of the trail are a bio-hoard of blackberries, and even at this late date, you can find rogue clusters of berries ranging from arrested-development-sour to incredibly-sweet to Mogen-David-fermented. The riders in the center are partaking of some of these late-season wonders. (One of the guys put me in mind, for the rest of the night, of Chris Farley disco-dancing in a bumblebee outfit.  Click to enlarge)

I ride about 7 miles along the trail to Matthews Beach city park, stop for a couple of minutes by the beach to observe:

then turn back home, with a stop at the gym to do my cycle of Nautilus machines.  I’m not sure what those waterfowl are - coots, maybe? - but I liked the pointillistic contrast of their beaks against their dark bodies and the water.