Perils of Caffeine in the Evening

Sort of a lazy and unambitious weekend. Ambled around, did some errands, hit the gym, took some pics. Here are a couple from a walk Mrs. Perils and I took around Green Lake, near the house. On the left, some turtles hauled out to bask in the sun; on the right, a red-winged blackbird that I was attempting to photograph on a branch suddenly flew at Mrs. Perils and hovered in front of her.  I had already zoomed in on him, so when I swung to try to catch him as he did his dance with Mrs. Perils, I cropped her mostly out of the photo. We couldn’t tell if it was defending territory or was used to being fed by passersby (Click any photo to enlarge):

Stuff is growing abundantly all over the yard. Below is a monstrous rose bush that has grown from a lowly stick that my dad gave me to fly home with about 15 years ago. It has this glorious week of bloom, then spends the rest of the year sending out runners all over the place. On the right, our front yard:

In the back, we have a vegetable garden in progress. Below, our son, his girlfriend and Mrs. Perils lay some groundwork a couple of weeks ago:

And today we have a lot of things above ground and looking hopeful: beans, corn, spinach, arugula, elephant garlic, beets, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers:

One other thing - 35 years ago today, Mrs. Perils and I got ourselves hitched, proving that a Ball & Chain forged in Ohio is pretty impervious to rust.

Sort of neglectful here lately. We’ve had a spate of really nice weather, and I’ve been out enjoying it as much as I can. there have been a few bloggable events.

Do any of you follow Discover’s The Deadliest Catch (I don’t, really)? One of my clients (the same client that sent me to Adak, Alaska  a few years ago) operates longliners and catcher-processors in the Alaska crab and groundfish fisheries, and celebrated the 20th anniversary of their flagship vessel last week with a luncheon at dockside. Here is the ship, which I photographed a few weeks ago as I paddled my kayak in the Ship Canal near Ballard (Click any photo to enlarge):

I arrived at the luncheon just as the vessel’s captain was about to conduct a tour of the ship, and I hustled up the gangplank. I’d been on the boat before for a short tour and to work on some onboard computers, but a tour given by the 15-year captain was a treat. The Starbound is a catcher-processor, meaning that it has a full fish-processing factory below decks to process its catch. Below, left is the bridge, bristling with electronics both for running the ship and for looking for fish. First question: where’s the wheel? Jack Sparrow would be lost here.

Below, center is a typical crew quarters. Fully crewed, the vessel houses 110 people. There are two more bunks to my left, and this unit shares a bathroom with a similar unit. Since they work 12 - 14-hour shifts, I don’t imagine it’s that often that all 5 or 6 sailors are in the room at the same time.

Below, right is the laundry room. There are two more washing machines and a dryer or two behind me.

More pics - Below, left is the boat’s main engine. 9 cylinders (spare piston hanging in the left of the photo) and, I believe he said 750 hp. Next pic to the right is the deck facing the stern, where the net is hauled in if they’re fishing for cod or pollock. I think he said that each load from the net is 9 tons. The fish travel through a hatch on this deck down to the factory, where they start their journey to fish-and-chip land on the conveyor, next right. After they’ve been cleaned and fileted, they are flash-frozen in the ingots on the far right. The end product is a 150-lb brick of frozen fish ready for delivery to the wholesaler.

So, after I took those tricky photos (no trick, except to use the zoom) last Wednesday, we set out on an evening’s kayak paddle to venture up the Duwamish River, host to Harbor Island and various Superfund sites in Seattle’s industrial core.  We launched from West Seattle into Elliott Bay and a strong northerly wind.  Consequently, we had some challenging chop that didn’t dissipate until we were well upriver.  Still, we figured that things would calm down as sunset approached.  On-the-water photos were taken with my Canon A720 IS, not the new camera (Click any photo to enlarge).

Things calmed down on the lee side of the island, and we dawdled in the halflight before charging back into the bay, where the water had settled a little, but was still rollin’. Below, left, you can see Starbucks’ world headquarters.

More pictures in a slideshow here.

Once the weekend arrived, I played around a bit with my new Canon SX1 IS.  Here are a couple shots using macro mode:

Plus, I played around with the HD video capability. Since I have nothing here to view HD with, let me know what you think of this:

OK, I’ve got nothin’ else right now.

First images from my new Canon SX1 IS camera, which I picked up Tuesday afternoon. It’s a sub-SLR, 10-megapixel with a 20x optical zoom, the same size but a bit heavier than my old S3 IS. Most of the extra weight is concenrated in the lens.

I drove over to West Seattle after work Wednesday night to meet up with some folks for an evening kayak paddle on Elliott Bay (pics and narrative to follow). Prior to launch, I took the following photos of downtown Seattle, all from the same standing spot. The first on the left is a straight shot with no zoom. The next two use progressively more zoom, and the fourth is a crop-and-expand excised from the third. I think the distance to the Space Needle from where I was standing is at least 5 miles (Click photos to enlarge):

I’m looking forward to exploring some more of its features. You’ll be the first to know!

Not a very loquacious week, sort of typical when I’m in Wisconsin.  I did get to use my Wisconsin bike for the first time since November, but the weather turned on Wednesday and I was caught in a righteous thunderstorm on the way home from the gym I use when I’m here.  Lightning was crashing all around, and a woman in a van actually offered to give me a lift when we were both stopped at a light (yes, I stop for lights, even when Thor’s using me for target practice).  I was a block from my hotel, so I declined, to the disappointment of the knife-wielding gaggle crouching in the back of the van.  One cool thing - my hotel has a large, 2-story atrium with opaque plastic panels for a roof, and the combination of the din of the rain drumming on the panels and the lightning making the whole ceiling flash like a flashbulb was impressive.

Tomorrow, we’re being visited by an old high school friend (I shouldn’t call her “old”, I guess, if for nothing else than to avoid Mutually-Assured Derision) who’s making her first visit ever to Seattle. She’ll only be here for a day, so the pressure’s on us to make it memorable.  She’s in this photo of us dancing (!) at our Senior prom, in the white dress just behind Mrs. Perils.

I’m making two plans - one if she wants to see the usual stuff that tourists see: Pike Place Market, aerobatic salmon, etc, and one to check some more out-of-the-way things.

So I’m in transit now, eating illicit pizza at the Delta Sky Club in Minneapolis (the rule is no outside food, we’re supposed to be happy with their pretzels & cheesy bits.  But I wanted wine with the pizza, and I’ve prepaid for it with my Club membership).   Uncommunicative seatmate on the flight here from Milwaukee, which was fine, I needed the sleep.

But did I sleep?  Nah - I read a couple of articles in the New York Review of Books.  For some reason, airplanes are the only venue in which I read them, but they come once a month, and I fly once a month, pretty much, so it works.

OK, off to my Seattle flight.  Have a good weekend, everyone!

Sitting in the Charleston, SC airport for a flight back to chilly Seattle after 4+ days of walking barefoot on the beach (Click to enlarge)

Rode bikes, paddled kayaks and ate lots - too much, I’m sure - Low Country food, and had a wonderful time with brothers, sisters-in-law, one step-niece, one grand-step-niece and one aunt.

Here’s an amusing pic from a bike ride we took into Murrell’s Inlet:

Running for the gate. Perhaps more pics when I decompress.

Quick note, as I’m plunging into a frantic 2-day work week in anticipation of our departure for Pawley’s Island, SC on Wednesday. I got out on a soothing afternoon kayak trip, launching at Magnuson Park and crossing Lake Washington to explore the shoreline around Kirkland.

Here I am just before I launched, decked out in my fabulous GoreTex drysuit from Kokatat. It has rubber gasket seals at the neck and wrists, and the feet are completely enclosed in “booties”, which I protect with neoprene boots. It was expensive, but much cheaper than a funeral (Click any photo to enlarge).

I found a little wetlands park in Juanita Bay that I didn’t know existed before, and poked around in a couple of its byways. I found myself tailing a beaver (up ahead, making a “V” wake). Yes, it’s raining.  Try not to act surprised.

This looks dramatic, but the rain really didn’t last that long, and I had an invigorating trip back across the lake to Seattle.

The visit to South Carolina is our annual trip to the beach to mingle with my mom and brothers. Hoping for some warm weather, and for the fires in the area to be out.

I have a few photos from my mini-vacation to Alki/West Seattle Thursday afternoon. Alki is a large headland that juts into Puget Sound and forms the southern border of Elliott Bay, Seattle’s harbor. It’s where the first white settlers landed back in the mid-1800s. Much of the peninsula is bordered by a two-lane arterial and a bike/pedestrian trail.

I had paddled my kayak along its perimeter many times, but had never actually walked the path. It always looked so busy with bikes, skaters and runners from the water that I thought it wouldn’t be a very pleasant meander. Actually, however, there are separate paths for pedestrians and wheeled recreators, and it makes for a nice diversion, with some panoramic views (Click any photo to enlarge):

Along the arterial, a sort of gold-coast of high-end condos is supplanting what used to be a strand of funky cabins. As you can see below right, there are a few prominent holdouts :

A lot of the dwellings exude a level of playfulness.  I have a brother who would really fit the mailbox below, left:

This front porch was a sort of museum of nautical/piratical bric-a-brac. I like how, in this photo, the pirate head inside seems to be perched in the reflection of the palm:

View from the coffee shop from which I’m posting (click to enlarge).  I’m playing a little hooky this cool but fine afternoon, walking along Alki Beach in West Seattle.  See, I was working in the SoDo area just south of downtown and the baseball stadium, and I learned that the Mariners were having a game at Safeco starting at 3:30.  When I finished up at 2:30, I could have made one more client stop, or simply gone home to squeeze in a couple more chargeable hours.

But I thought, hey, traffic might be a little dicey (the stadium was between me and home), so why not just hop on the West Seattle Freeway and enjoy a walk along the water?  I’ve hiked about 3 miles, with another mile or so back to the car.  It’s only been 2 hours, but somehow I feel as if I’ve been on vacation for a couple of days.

More pictures and yakking later.  I need to live in the moment a bit.

My flight home Friday night was uneventful, although about a half hour late arriving in Seattle. When you’re bumping up against midnight, though, a half-hour seems a little bit larger than it does at noon. The sun was setting as we approached the Minneapolis airport, casting long shadows over the still-dormant landscape (Click any photo to enlarge

Despite the late arrival, I dragged myself out of bed Saturday morning to kayak with a friend on Puget Sound. Turned out to be a good decision, as this was our first real spring weekend. There was little to no wind, and the water was dead calm. Nice for us, not so for the gaggle of sailboats that were amassing for a regatta just off Shilshole Marina (below, left).

The fellow on the right has found a nice, private sliver of beach on which to sun himself, but his solitude comes at a price!

Saturday evening, we attended a charity auction for Washington Water Trails Association, a kayak advocacy group for whom I recently became a board member and treasurer. We’ve attended their auction the last few years, and it’s low-key and convivial, especially when compared to other charity auctions we’ve attended. Unlike some private-school auctions we’ve attended, where there was hilarious one-upmanship, and people were bidding $10k to host a girls’ tea-party, I didn’t feel embarrassed to place bids in this one. The downside: I won a few.

The items below were donated by two of my clients, one a bakery and one a manufacturer/distributor to the outdoor industry. The auction was Caribbean-themed - thus the palm fronds in the frosting on the cake:

Part of the festivities was a silent auction, where items are arrayed on tables, and you fill in your name/number to bid. There are hors-d’oeurve plates interspersed with the auction items. You’d think that would dissuade people from snitching the actual auction items:

Our table missed out on my client’s cake, but we managed to nab a pretty nice coconut number.  I left a slice or two for the rest of the table:

There were about 180 people at the auction, and the bidding seemed energetic and competitive, but the recession has affected non-profit donations across the board, and I’m not looking for a miracle when we get the final tally today.

Spring stayed over another day, and Sunday was even warmer.  People were walking around in t-shirts and shorts, and the sexes were once again differentiated.  I was riding my bike along the Burke-Gilman trail towards Gasworks Park when I espied a young woman in a Missouri t-shirt.  The words “Show Me” got as far as the tip of my tongue and, fortunately, no further.