leaving normal

change of address

2008-08-11T12:14:00.001-07:00

This blog was always my blog. I tried to keep it focused on our plans, our progress and our happenings but it's always been my voice. My perspective. My grammar crimes. This next phase in our lives, we want a blog with both of our voices. Rather than continue the good fight here, we are going to mothball Leaving Normal and create a brand new spot for y'all to keep track of us.We have a new domain

martian attack averted

2008-08-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

We have a broad network of spies throughout the city of Seattle. Partially to stave off martian attack but mostly to capture pictures of our boat as it approaches its new home. One such spy - Alison (not her real name) - grabbed this bit of evidence whilst pretending to have lunch at a vegetarian restaurant in Fremont about 2 miles from where we'll launch her back in the water:

monday monday

2008-08-10T08:27:00.000-07:00

Got a call from the trucker yesterday as he was passing through Baker, Oregon. He would like to know where to drop off this fine vessel Monday morning. Now, there's all sorts of events that could happen in the next 24 hours to prevent that from happening up to and including:flat tirenavigational errorbanana peels on the highwaymartiansBarring any of those possibilities, the boat should be here

good news!

2008-08-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

After a cavalcade of fuck-ups and delays, things are finally going smooth and our boat will be here sooner than expected!Hahaha. Nooooo. Not really.The driver got pulled over in Arizona for blah blah blah whatever I don't care. Boat won't be here until Monday.I'll be patiently holding my breath until then.

more delays

2008-08-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently the knuckleheads that wrapped the mast (I wrapped the mast) did a crappy job of it and the truck driver that's down there picking it up has to re-wrap it. He's going to do his best to undo those clowns' (mine) wrap job and bundle it up with whatever he has available. He'll take off tomorrow morning. [sigh] You just can't find good help these days.

contents may settle during shipment

2008-07-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

She is no longer sitting here on jackstands. As of 9AM this morning, she's on a truck negotiating the Mexican roads between San Carlos and Tucson, AZ.I'm totally not nervous.(check out pics from Mexico here including the tasty surprise we found sitting inside the mast when we pulled it out)

goodbye $1.20 beer!

2008-07-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

We left San Carlos, MX at 10:00AM Friday morning. We slogged all the way back to Seattle by Saturday night at midnight. Rolled out of the car, stumbled down the dock and fell face first into bed. Woke up 10 hours later to my sister knocking on the door.The boat is still lying in San Carlos. The driver was sick so they couldn't ship until today. An email today let us know they will absolutely be

buenos nachos

2008-07-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

5AM.I've slept 30 minutes so far the previous evening and Christy is taking her turn napping on the bow of the boat on a cockpit cushion under a towel in the pouring rain. I'm down below finishing up making the sure that the boom and whisker pole sitting on the floor of the cabin below don't go "walkabout" and destroy all the great woodwork we now have.The truck is scheduled to arrive at 6AM. We

via con huevos

2008-07-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

We're still here on the surface of the sun. The signs all say Mexico but I'm not fooled.The boat? Ours.The mast? Pulled.Us? Hot. Tired. Sweaty.Take care. More updates to follow.

hola!

2008-07-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Here we are in sunny (*really* sunny) San Carlos, Mexico. It's 180 degrees in the shade. We're sitting inside the gringo bar Club de Capitanes finishing up some brilliant ceviche and I don't know how many Negro Modelos.We spent the morning helping the current owner rig the boat and get it ready for sea trial and survey. Which meant putting on some sails and running the engine up to

fourth of july

2008-07-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

So there I was, innocently standing on the deck of our houseboat talking to someone during our houseboat Fourth of July party. The next thing I know:And who is smiling down at me from the dock?So after crawling out and a furious chase up and down the dock and around the house a few times, I finally caught her."Your pants are going into the lake. If you'd like to be in them when they do, you

how could this possibly go wrong?

2008-07-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, we decided to truck our shiny, new (to us), beautiful (we think, haven't seen it yet) boat from San Carlos, Mexico to Seattle. To say that we're nervous about this is a galactic understatement. The logistics go a little like so: 7/6 Fisher drives our car from Seattle down to New Orleans to drop off his dog with his mom. Stay with me, it'll come around to our boat. 7/13 Fisher drives to

caliber 40

2008-06-26T15:14:00.001-07:00

She's a 1993 Caliber 40. She's bristling with cruising gear as her previous owners who spent their winters in Mexico aboard her are getting out of cruising. So this really is a "package deal". Life raft. Tender. Outboard. Full suite of ground tackle and sails. Electronics, albeit a bit dusty and old. Watermaker. Solar panels. The list goes on. And on.She's currently lying in San Carlos, MX.

offer accepted

2008-06-25T20:11:00.001-07:00

whiskey tango foxtrot?

2008-06-23T15:50:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I know. I totally went AWOL on ya'all. Ton's of stuff going in our world, the most important of which is.... we made an offer on a boat. That we've completely fallen in love with. And really want. It's beautiful. Well equipped. Rugged. Exactly what we want*.We'll keep you posted.(*andohbythewaysittinginmexico)

a brief buckeye interlude

2008-05-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

Hey kids, I have to take a brief intermission from the Bahamas sailing trip posts. We're taking off tonight for a whirlwind weekend tour of Ohio that includes meeting Christy's grandma, all 700 of her friends in Cleveland, the "other" Jason Anderson, a wedding, sailing Lake Erie, Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo.

our first offshore sailing experience, pt. 2

2008-05-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

(continued from here)getting thereOur plans to get to the Bahamas were comprised of a patchwork quilt of airlines with flights landing in and taking off from all sorts of cities around the US before depositing us into Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island. The keystone flight in this byzantine plan was from Denver, CO to Ft. Lauderdale, FL on Frontier Airlines. 5 days prior to leaving, Frontier

our first offshore sailing experience, pt. 1

2008-05-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

I don't have the time to do a full write up of our trip sailing from the Bahamas to the Virginia ("What happened to NJ?" you say? Well, that comes in the next blog post) so I'll throw out a few lists and facts as an executive summary and follow up later on this week with a full report.Here's a list of things Christy threw up the first 2 1/2 days at sea:one ham sandwichthree peanut butter

island time

2008-05-09T09:09:00.001-07:00

Our flight leaves at 11:45PM tonight. If Christy had her way, we'd be at the airport at 11:35PM. If I had my way, we'd be at the airport at noon. But once the last of three flights touches down in Marsh Harbour, time will be much less meaningful. We'll be on Bahamas time. Island time. Time for a nap on the beach time.Not for long, though. Once a weather window opens, we'll be hopping onto a 47'

bellingham crealock 37 the sequel part II

2008-05-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Crealock 37's are a known commodity in the boat market. They are typically well cared after boats and well outfitted. And there's enough of them sold to establish a reasonable range in market value. So we made an offer on the Bellingham Crealock with a price that we felt was slightly above market value given the number of hours on the engine and the general condition of the boat. The owner

he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

2008-05-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

More random thoughts on Australia because I can't be bothered to compose a coherent train of thought. You're welcome.I am continually amazed at how beautiful Melbourne is. The architecture is a suprising mix of modern and classic. And the green space. Oh man, what incredible parks these people have.The guy sitting next to me in the office has Beastie Boy's Intergalactic as the ringtone on his

where women glow and men plunder

2008-04-29T18:54:00.001-07:00

Some random thoughts on Australia: 1. Not to fret, people of Seattle. You aren't the only ones who've mastered the art of no-eye-contact-no-smiling. 2. Perhaps everyone here is too busy contemplating their architecture to smile. Melbourne is packed with really interesting buildings. No HomeOfficeDepotMax buildings-in-a-box to be found. 3. Public transportation is everywhere. Particularly

on a hippie trail, head full of zombie

2008-04-28T01:31:00.000-07:00

I took off from Seattle on Saturday afternoon. I landed in Melbourne, Australia Monday morning. Sunday, April 27th, 2008 never existed. This is only one of the many things I'm still fuzzy on. What day is it? What time is it? What season is it? When I walk across this street, what direction is the car that runs me over going to come from?I've been here for 10 hours and so far: no kangaroos,

on the road again

2008-04-25T08:39:00.001-07:00

I'm not a terribly important person in my company. Even in my mind - where I vastly inflate my importance - I still don't warrant business cards. My paychecks show up in the mail addressed to CURRENT RESIDENT. I'm a simple cog in the salt mine, toiling away on the front lines (probably because I mix metaphors and nobody likes that guy). But for some reason that I didn't see coming, I find myself

bellingham crealock 37, the sequel

2008-04-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Did we actually lay down in the berth on the Crealock 37 in Bellingham when we visited it the first time? No. No, we didn't. So back we went for another visit. This was also the visit to decide if this is a boat we want to pull the trigger on.As it turns out, it is. We are going to make an offer for it for a price that I feel is a skosh above market price given the condition of the boat and the

playing doctor

2008-04-13T20:19:00.000-07:00

Christy and I spent the weekend in a Medical Care for Long Distance Sailors and Wilderness First Aid class. It was taught by a local retired vascular surgeon. He was a fantastic teacher and led a brilliant class. He brought in pig bellies, excuse me, porcine models so we could practice slicing and poking and suturing and stapling. Here's a small sample of things we discussed:how to insert a chest

finally

2008-04-09T10:17:00.000-07:00

After several months in her slip with holes drilled in the deck and over a month on the hard in Ballard, White Cloud sails! After Kim's friends Brian and Nan came over to help tune the rigging, we took her out and about the Puget Sound."Aye, cap'n."Some celebration was in order. White Cloud is in the water and under sail!"Don't mind if I do."We saw the coolest rainbow that had settled right onto

crealock part II

2008-04-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

Christy's sister, McKenzie and her significant other Matt graciously agreed to run over to a boat yard in Annapolis to check out a tasty Pacific Seacraft 37 for us. As a side note, anyone looking for remote boat evaluation services should fly McKenzie and Matt to the boat with cameras in hand. They did a ridiculously thorough job photographing every last centimeter of the boat down to pages of

escaped!

2008-04-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

I finally made it out of LA after getting standby rejection on 3 different flights. That's a fun-filled 7 hours in John Wayne airport. I've got posts coming up on boat buying and actual sailing on Fisher's boat White Cloud. It's an exciting day here at Leaving Normal!You're all a-twitter, aintcha?

crealock 37

2008-03-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

Christy and I hopped on the motorcycle - after a long morning of trying to get the batteries charged - and ran up to Bellingham to take a look at two boats. The latter, a Pearson 424 was too big and too Partridge Family for us. It was a 1979 boat replete with naugahide (won't somebody think of the naugas?!) and a rough interior. Although it had a shiny stainless steel caprail all around the

bareboatin'

2008-03-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

We did our bareboat charter class this weekend. Wicked fun. We provisioned the boat Friday morning and practiced some docking-without-crashing maneuvers. Of the two types of docking, apparently this is the preferred method.We then pointed our J35C out into the Sound and beat into a south wind all the way to Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island where docked at the marina and holed up for the

huntingford custom pilothouse

2008-03-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

On our way down to Portland to hang with Christy's aunt and uncle, we veered off the route just a skosh to head over to Sequim and check out the Stan Huntingford-designed custom pilothouse.Lots of questions came about the boat and we need some answers before we can decide anything. And we need to look at lots more boats before we can decide how this one compares.I'm hesitant to call it a

hehehe

2008-03-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

Because I'm emotionally 13 years old.That's why.

friggin' sweet

2008-03-06T16:31:00.002-08:00

The Stan Huntingford designed custom pilothouse I referenced in this post here has been sold so we never went to go look at it last weekend.Except for not.Whatever deal there was seemed to have fallen through. Not sure why but we'll be sure to ask. Because we're going to see it on Saturday.

offshore cruising seminar

2008-03-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

We attended the Offshore Cruising Seminar from John and Amanda Neal this weekend. Learned alot and threw buckets of gas on the fire. Like we needed any more motivation. Just a few snippets of what we learned:Emergen-C packets work for seasicknessPelican cases make great ditch bagswrite up a sail reduction plan, at what windspeed do reefs get put in and working sails swapped out for storm sails,

heigh ho, it's off to work we go

2008-02-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

I work in Fremont right off the water. I live in a houseboat on Eastlake. I own a kayak. Of course I should be kayaking to work. However, we've had a winter chock full of crappy weather and bombing winds out of the south. Winds out of the south means I have to paddle upwind on the way home. That's a recipe for sucking the fun out of kayaking so I haven't done much (read: any) kayak commuting

plan update

2008-02-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's been awhile since I've updated the bloggity blog. Plans are on track and we're making progress on our intentions to not become Darwin award recipients during our travels. To that end:We're signed up for John and Amanda Neal's cruising seminar on 3/1 in Seattle.We're scheduled to take a bareboat charter class on 3/14.We're scheduled to take a Medical Care for Long Distance Sailors

hauling out whitecloud

2008-02-19T10:51:00.000-08:00

Fish, Kim, Christy and I all fired up Whitecloud's engine for the first time in many moons in order to deliver her to a yard in Ballard for her haulout. Before traversing the locks and a couple bridge openings, we had to stop and pump out all the nastiness in her holding tank and fuel up.Skipper and crew motoring through Shilshole on the way to the pumpout.Pumping out poo - Fish Approves!"HA HA

ocean shores

2008-02-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

Somebody spent alot of time and effort naming the town of Ocean Shores, WA. Guess what it's primary attribute is? Our plan was to ride the bike down to Ocean Shores taking the long way down the west side of Hood Canal on hwy 101 which is positively wicked fun. But the weather conspired to foil that plan so we moved on to Transportation plan B: the Subaru. Except the Subaru has a check engine

choice

2008-02-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie

how can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?

2008-01-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

I've been remiss with blog updates. Not because of overwhelming school requirements as in the past (I totally quit school AGAIN - but more on that later) but mostly due to future plans that change on the hour. However, Christy relayed a request from her mom that I update my blog with current Christy/Jason happenings and plans. As I haven't yet met Christy's family, it seemed wise to stay on her

a pacific northwest weekend

2008-01-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

saturdayWe met Christy's friend Sarah on the Bainbridge ferry on our way to this cool farmhouse restaurant in middle of nowhere but a touch east of Poulsbo. They apparently only serve breakfast on the first Saturday of the month so if you're hankering for some breakfast vittles, put it on the calendar in advance.Since we dropped a ridiculous amount of money on our ferry toll, we decided to cruise

be the ball

2008-01-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

From time to time, JohnL and I join my rafting friends from Eugene on a three-day paddle down the beautiful and remote Rogue River in southern Oregon. Ask any kayaker and he/she will tell you that rafting friends are the best kinds of friends to have. These folks are epic hedonists and traveling down a river in their company is caramel covered happiness on a stick. Camp dinners consist of BBQ'd

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2007-12-31T12:33:00.000-08:00

Had you whispered in my ear two years ago that at end of 2007 I'd be selling my house, quitting my job, going back to school, gearing up to sail the world, and oh-by-the-way ass over tea kettle in love, I would have enjoyed a hearty guffaw at your expense. "HA HA HA" I would bellow, holding my belly and pointing at such foolishness. "What a maroon!" I'd chuckle to myself as I slowly shook my head

seemed a good idea at the time

2007-12-30T13:25:00.001-08:00

Good ideas are a function of context. What seems like a good idea at one moment can be pure folly the next. And so it was in a cloud of vodka and various other forms of liquid courage, we all agreed wholeheartedly that the only logical course our houseboat party could take at that juncture was for all of us to get naked and huck ourselves into the December-chilled Lake Union water. It was only as

delivery

2007-12-29T13:12:00.000-08:00

JohnL and Jess scored themselves a slip in Shilshole to nest their big shiny Hunter 375, s/v Endless Winter. I partook in the delivery from her original slip on Lake Union through the canal, out the locks and into their fancy new home on Shilshole's M dock. After exiting the locks, we hoisted sail and took off south on a close haul. Right up until the point we saw the teeth of an interesting

s/v endless winter

2007-12-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

So you remember that entry where I told you JohnL bought a boat and it was a great big Tartan named s/v Adios?I lied.Or rather, circumstances changed a bit. The survey came back a bit rough on good ol' Adios so JohnL and Jess bid her adieu. No sooner did they sadly walk away from Adios then they stumbled across this little crumpet of floating luxury:Say a hearty hello to shortly-to-be-christened

on the one hand

2007-12-13T11:19:00.000-08:00

On the one hand sits a nice, shiny production boat. A Jeanneau or maybe a Catalina with all the amenities that come with such boats. A house-sized interior. Great big aft cabin. Shiny wood. Big airy portholes. A swim deck with hot and cold showers. Definitely the choice for the majority of time you spend at anchor or the dock. Lots of room to pass around a pitcher of gin and tonics. This is not

crickets

2007-12-07T11:44:00.000-08:00

I'm having altogether no fun right now so no updates to the blog. I figured the interwebs don't really want to read about how much fun I'm not having.This quarter is drawing to close and calculus is on its way out of my life. Which means more time for sailing and general shenanigans which usually end up on here.

up the mast

2007-11-19T18:19:00.000-08:00

Nooo... not me. Me = deathly scared of heights. Fisher went up his mast this weekend to clear the goldfish out of the deck light mounted on the spreader before we sailed on Sunday. In the process, he snapped a couple cool shots of way-the-hell-up-there.Fisher in rare air.s/v Patriot II (soon, I'm told, she'll be renamed Whitecloud)Jess pretending not to notice what Fisher's doing with his "tiller

docking pics

2007-11-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

One of the fine folks at Puget Sound Sailing Group (Sherri, I'm guessing?) took some pics of me docking a couple weeks back. Since I've been doing fuckall on the blogging front while school tenderizes the life out of me, I thought I'd throw these up here.On approach.Pulling in."What do you mean the engine QUIT?""Hey, what didya kill the engine for?""Shaddup."awwww....

rock you like a... really strong breeze

2007-11-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

Saturday was another outing with the Puget Sound Sailing Group, this time out of Shilshole in Ballard. Our flotilla consisted of a posh Elite 32 and 2 J24's. Ken W. skippered the schmancy Elite 32 with her furnace, galley, couches and berths while Ken V. and I each skippered an extremely bare - and in Ken's sake, partially functioning - J24.The winds were, lessee... big. Really big. The 32

everybody's working for the weekend

2007-11-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

Friday night: sunset sail on Fisher's boat.Saturday: sailing a J24 around Magnolia into Elliot Bay in 27kt apparent windSunday: day sail on Fisher's boat watching some bad-ass sailboats racingI'll post more later but I wanted to throw up these pics from Fisher's boat.Proud skipper on his shiny boat.JohnL poking his head out of the cockpitJohnL and I hanging out aboard the soon-to-be s/v

s/v adios

2007-11-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

JohnL and his wife Jess bought a boat! They scored themselves a 1982 (or thereabouts) Tartan 37 which will be their launch platform for climbing and skiing up and down the Inner Passage. Their offer was accepted and now they wait on the financing, haul out, and survey part of the buying process. Expect another post full of drunken back-slapping in a few weeks or so.In the meantime, I'll supress

s/v whitecloud

2007-10-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

My buddy Fisher sealed the deal on his 1973 Yankee 30 a few weeks back and then promptly flew off to New Orleans. On his return this weekend, JohnL and I hauled a "shetland" pony keg of some bad beer into the cockpit and drank to the future s/v Whitecloud and her proud new owner. We followed our onboard celebration with a debaucherous evening at The Sloop (are there any other kinds of evenings at

tangential

2007-10-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

In 2005, three guys from Seattle piled on to a 44' cutter named s/v SohCahToa (the name s/v Never Seen A Girl Naked must have already been taken) and sailed it around the world. As they hopped from ridiculous tropical paradise to ridiculous tropical paradise, they were so kind as to post frequent and hilarious updates to their website. I lost several hours this last weekend reading from start to

rabbit hole

2007-10-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

I know fuckall about boats.That's the point that I'm starting from in this little venture. I don't know how to maintain them, fix them, keep them running in the face of insurmountable odds. Oh, I'm sure I'll learn. I'm also sure these lessons will be hard fought and caked with layers of oily bilgewater and cuss words.Because of that, I've been eyeballing the new-ish end of the used boats spectrum

one for you, nineteen for me

2007-10-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

Now.Immediately. Post haste. Yesterday. That's when I want my boat. I'm not a patient guy and when I want something, it's usually right bloody now that I'd like it please and thanks. I've found umpteen boats on yachtworld that I must have, can't miss out, need to buy! However, there's this whole capital gains thing that's in my way. I bought my house in May 2006. If you sell a house less than two

sailing lake washington

2007-10-23T00:06:00.000-07:00

Christy and I went sailing with the Puget Sound Sailing Group out of the Island Sailing Club in Kirkland this weekend. After a game of musical outboards, we took out one of their Capri 22's, skippered by the ever-capable Mat (with one T, not two).Much to Christy's disappointment, we had no spinnaker to fly and go zipping by everyone on the lake. However, we had lots of decent wind to sail in and

kayaking lake union

2007-10-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

(I need to come up with a different title because this won't be the last time you'll see a post like this.)Christy and I stepped out of her living room and into kayaks. (Any way you slice it, that kicks a metric ton of ass.) We decided we'd paddle from her houseboat on Eastlake up to the north and around into the Montlake cut. Our plan was foiled by both I'm-getting-really-hungry and

stupid isaac newton

2007-10-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

Dear calculus,Please die in a fire.Sincerely,Jason-.?*&32fasd..+as6#$Vdf$#asdf34asdf4e234..53@#SD54#@$dsdf233ik';/l/l;oo>.?asldkjoijo;lkj@#$@DFDfwerj#465465442@#$SDF#dsfa#@$dsa#SDFsd$#M<>M;'i,m.8856fdsd>asdf

drink up me hearties, yo ho

2007-10-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Against his better judgement, Ken V., organizer of the Puget Sound Sailing Group, had me skipper one of the J22's for our most recent outing at the Island Sailing Club in Kirkland. Against all odds, nobody died, mutineered, or even fell out and we didn't run into a single other boat. "Set the bar too low." says you. "Wildly successful!" says I.We had some great wind that was reasonably

a boat like gideon brown

2007-10-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

I went to a wedding this weekend at Rosario Resort on Orcas Island in the San Juans. One of the attendees showed up in a chartered 28' Camano trawler and spent the weekend on the boat. We had plenty of opportunities to spend time on this fun little boat and I came away super impressed. As per usual, I WANT ONE. (I swear, if they ever let me take the space shuttle for a spin*, I'd sidle up to a

frequently asked questions

2007-09-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

When I tell someone that I'm selling my house, buying a sailboat, and moving on board I inevitably get a lengthy list of questions. These questions are usually very carefully and politely worded so as to couch the person's true feeling on just how galactically stupid this idea is. In no specific order, here they are:1. How did you hatch this ridicu- errr... unique idea?My good friends John and

self improvement

2007-09-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

(I don't remember where I found this and I don't know anything about the author but the message is grand.)Self ImprovementJust before she flew off like a swanto her wealthy parents' summer home,Bruce's college girlfriend asked himto improve his expertise at oral sex,and offered him some technical advice:Use nothing but his tonguetipto flick the light switch in his roomon and off a hundred times a

indeed

2007-09-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

There lots of schools of thought about the amount of personal information on a blog. What if your employer sees it? What if your ex-girlfriend sees it? What if Alanis Morissette runs across it and starts stalking you?This is all I have to say about that.

changes in latitude

2007-09-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

When I was an 18 year old boy, I was an idiot (redundant thought, you say? fair enough). I entered college with plans on becoming an architect only to discover that architecture sucks (apologies to all you architecties out there). Without direction, my academic pursuits crumbled like bad cake. I dropped out of college sans degree and went to work.I've been working in the software industry for

who's afraid?

2007-09-24T16:54:00.000-07:00

The previous day I had seen a black fox. I'd never seen one before and in fact, didn't recognize this little guy as a fox for quite a while. He was a beautiful deep charcoal with a shiny full coat and a lighter gray coloring on his face. I pulled my motorcycle over to the side of the road and snapped off a series of stills. A couple miles down the road, I realized I forgot to get some video

rolling down the river

2007-09-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

My buddy John filmed this last summer after I'd just bought a waterproof camera case for my digital camera. I wanted to see how underwater films came out so we filmed some rollin' rollin' rollin' down the Skykomish River.

how high's the water, mama?

2007-09-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Just playing around in a stream crossing near Winthrop, WA. My co-worker Dave is operating the camera and seemed a bit reluctant to take his BMW through the water. So I offered mine.

matey

2007-09-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day! In case you need to IM like a pirate:

leaving normal

2007-09-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

Now I'm leaving Normal and I'm heading for who knows where.Cowboy Junkies "Leaving Normal"