Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:06:46 GMT
My in-laws offered to watch the children for the weekend, so Cynthia and I were able to spend Friday and Saturday nights in Portland. It was nice to have a break. We haven’t spent any time in Portland in almost two years, and we were surprised how much things have changed. The area around Powells has really been built up recently, with a bunch of upscale chain stores and restaurants, and (more importantly) lots of parking. Since Powells has always been cursed with a lack of parking (and a lack of space in general), the changes in the neighborhood definitely count as an improvement to me. Even if they *do* include a P.F. Changs.
We made it out of Powells this time for $100, possibly our cheapest trip ever. If you’ve been there, then you’ll know what I mean.
I’m currently reading a copy of Altered Carbon that I picked up at Powells. It’s going well so far, but I’m not convinced that it’ll make it through to the end.
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Posted in Personal | Tags portland, reviews, weekend | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 21 Jun 2004 14:26:15 GMT
It seems like we haven’t really been home on the weekend for months. This weekend wasn’t any different–Friday night, we shipped the kids off to say with my wife’s parents, and we all stayed with my parents on Saturday night.
As I’ve mentioned before, my parents moved to Lummi Island a year and a half ago. Lummi is the east-most of the San Juan islands, it’s a nice place to spend a quiet weekend. I spent most of my free time out on their boat. Saturday night, we checked a couple crab pots (two small crabs, both thrown back), and then cruised around Sucia and Matia before heading back home. Sunday morning, Dad and I went back out for shrimp off the coast of Orcas Island. We caught a few dozen spotted prawns, and spent an hour looking for rock cod hiding a few yards from Orcas. We had a pair of bald eagles watching us the whole time. Definitely not a bad way to spend the morning.
We eventually headed back to shore. Gabe had a good time helping us clean and cook the shrimp–we had him help pop the heads off the shrimp while we waited for the water to boil. He kept saying things like “ha–I got you monster!” right before ripping their heads off. He’s a very entertaining child.
On the drive home, we spotted a Mustang lined up for takeoff at Bellingham’s airport. Apparently there’s one that lives in Bellingham now. It’s amazing the things that you miss out on once you move away from your home town. Still, it’s nice to be back in Bothell.
(written while waiting for SpaceShipOne to get to altitude. CNN’s doing a decent job covering it)
Posted in Personal | Tags sanjuan, weekend | 1 comment
Posted by Scott Laird
Mon, 24 May 2004 00:40:07 GMT
The whole funeral thing has thrown me off stride a bit at work, and I discovered that I’d left a few things undone that needed to be done before I’m planning on being into the office tomorrow. So I headed into the office for an hour or so this afternoon.
Of course, it’s never quite that easy. I brought Gabe with me to the office, and he’s busy asking me about everything on my desk, and I’d made it 5 minutes down the road before I realized that my laptop was still sitting at home. Then, when I got to the office, I realized that I’d lost my office keys somewhere (they’re probably under the bed in my parents’ guest room), so I had to get the security guard to let me in. Amazingly enough, I was able to get and and get work done.
The fun thing about big office buildings is that they never run the air conditioning on the weekends. As I mentioned once or twice before, I share an office with a rackload of Cisco gear, including a Catalyst 6500, a 7505, a 7200, and a bunch of smaller stuff. I’d realized that it gets hot in here before, but never quite how hot–it was at least 95° in here when I walked in. It was sweltering. Ten minutes after walking in, I asked the 7200 what temperature it was reading, and it claimed that it was 96° F at the inlet. Since it’s in an open rack, that’s probably not that far from the truth.
Posted in Work | Tags weekend, work | no comments
