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jeffy at 12:31am on 21/06/2009
jeffy at 12:31am on 21/06/2009Where'd this past week go? Well...
Last Sunday I went hiking with a friend to Annette Lake (1700 feet of elevation gain in 3.5 miles, then back down. Still snow and ice on the lake.)
Also Sunday B and I went to see "Summer Hours" ("L'heure d'été" for you Francophones) which was quite good in a quietly thought-provoking way (all about the ways that stuff passes down through families). Not a lot happens, but it happens in a way that feels almost documentary. Followed that up with a lovely meal at Coastal Kitchen.
Monday we drove to Bend, OR to visit my sister-in-law and her brood of young children. On these visits I generally take the role of rug rat entertainer so B and sis can visit. As the girls get older this becomes more physically taxing. Their primary entertainment now is a zip line (wire strung between trees with a pulley-suspended handle one dangles from while zipping from one end to the other) which is more fun when Uncle Jeff is there to boost you up to the handle (if you're the youngest) or catch you before you smash into the far tree (if you're going backwards (a refinement I introduced)), or just want to be caught), sometimes both (which required running back and forth between the trees in advance of plummeting little girls. We also took a long "walk" which the girls decided they would bicycle on. I foolishly chose to walk anyway which meant repeatedly running to catch up with them before they charged off ahead again. This was much easier than it would have been a few months ago! Lots of fun. (Seriously, they're a gas and their one-year-old brother was fun to play with too.)
Stayed for two nights of that and drove back on Wednesday night.
Thursday morning I had to report to my local WorkSource office to be instructed in how to apply for unemployment (which I had already done), and search for a job (which I'm in the process of). To add insult to injury I had to be there at 8:30am. Blech. And it was basically pointless. After driving back home I was planning to blow off the committee meeting I had for Sightline, but B talked me into driving (the bus wouldn't have gotten me there in time and we rented a car for the week for the Bend trip). It was a meeting.
Afterwards I decided to go to BikeWorks to see if I could get a new bike. Found the place with some navigation assistance from B and R via phone. Kent was working on a bike out in the sunshine and wasted no time in finding an old Nishiki frame and fork that had just come in that day which met my requirements, now all I need are wheels and drivetrain and stem and handlebars and brakes and...
Friday B and I went to an artist friend's place in West Seattle to pick out pieces for his upcoming show at the Sightline offices. Had fun hanging out and looking at art and talking about video (his latest medium) and watching cool stuff on vimeo.com.
B and I proceeded to SoDo with stops at Daniel Smith, Rejuvenation (which we had never heard of, but looked cool from the street and turned out to be even cooler than it looked. Wish our ceilings (and budget) weren't so low), and some commercial paper place whose name I can't recall.
Later back at home we did a run to Staples for one of B's projects, then to Up Front gallery where we caught the beginning of the auction-ending festivities and talked to a bunch of folks.
Even later went to our NWEI Sense of Place class for a couple hours.
Saturday sat around the house poking at the internets until this evening when we had a "Map Your Neighborhood" disaster preparedness meeting at a neighbor's house.
Waaa!
Last Sunday I went hiking with a friend to Annette Lake (1700 feet of elevation gain in 3.5 miles, then back down. Still snow and ice on the lake.)
Also Sunday B and I went to see "Summer Hours" ("L'heure d'été" for you Francophones) which was quite good in a quietly thought-provoking way (all about the ways that stuff passes down through families). Not a lot happens, but it happens in a way that feels almost documentary. Followed that up with a lovely meal at Coastal Kitchen.
Monday we drove to Bend, OR to visit my sister-in-law and her brood of young children. On these visits I generally take the role of rug rat entertainer so B and sis can visit. As the girls get older this becomes more physically taxing. Their primary entertainment now is a zip line (wire strung between trees with a pulley-suspended handle one dangles from while zipping from one end to the other) which is more fun when Uncle Jeff is there to boost you up to the handle (if you're the youngest) or catch you before you smash into the far tree (if you're going backwards (a refinement I introduced)), or just want to be caught), sometimes both (which required running back and forth between the trees in advance of plummeting little girls. We also took a long "walk" which the girls decided they would bicycle on. I foolishly chose to walk anyway which meant repeatedly running to catch up with them before they charged off ahead again. This was much easier than it would have been a few months ago! Lots of fun. (Seriously, they're a gas and their one-year-old brother was fun to play with too.)
Stayed for two nights of that and drove back on Wednesday night.
Thursday morning I had to report to my local WorkSource office to be instructed in how to apply for unemployment (which I had already done), and search for a job (which I'm in the process of). To add insult to injury I had to be there at 8:30am. Blech. And it was basically pointless. After driving back home I was planning to blow off the committee meeting I had for Sightline, but B talked me into driving (the bus wouldn't have gotten me there in time and we rented a car for the week for the Bend trip). It was a meeting.
Afterwards I decided to go to BikeWorks to see if I could get a new bike. Found the place with some navigation assistance from B and R via phone. Kent was working on a bike out in the sunshine and wasted no time in finding an old Nishiki frame and fork that had just come in that day which met my requirements, now all I need are wheels and drivetrain and stem and handlebars and brakes and...
Friday B and I went to an artist friend's place in West Seattle to pick out pieces for his upcoming show at the Sightline offices. Had fun hanging out and looking at art and talking about video (his latest medium) and watching cool stuff on vimeo.com.
B and I proceeded to SoDo with stops at Daniel Smith, Rejuvenation (which we had never heard of, but looked cool from the street and turned out to be even cooler than it looked. Wish our ceilings (and budget) weren't so low), and some commercial paper place whose name I can't recall.
Later back at home we did a run to Staples for one of B's projects, then to Up Front gallery where we caught the beginning of the auction-ending festivities and talked to a bunch of folks.
Even later went to our NWEI Sense of Place class for a couple hours.
Saturday sat around the house poking at the internets until this evening when we had a "Map Your Neighborhood" disaster preparedness meeting at a neighbor's house.
Waaa!