Seattle

Brooke and I are in Seattle again. The last trip was only 2 weeks ago. This time it's for my little cousin Sophia's wedding. We spent most of yesterday just lazily walking around, taking photos, and eatings & drinking. In other words, it's another typical weekend for us. Here are some photos of our trip so far.....

Downtown Seattle for some shopping
Then we walked toward the Pike Place Market and Post Alley (home of the first Starbucks and Sur La Table). We had lunch at the aptly named Pink Door. It's an unassuming front door, but the restaurant is great. With indoor seating, you may find a trapeze artist swinging overhead. We chose the outdoor seating which offers great views of the city and bay.

From Pike Place, we walked down to the waterfront. Notice the really beautiful clouds....

Photos taken from Pier 70, the location of our wedding.

Sculpture Garden, near Pier 70

Velodrome races @ Marymoor Park in Redmond

Santa Barbara Triathlon

This weekend I did yet another triathlon. This time it was a 500 yard swim, 6 mile bike and a 2 mile run. I finished in 55:41. I will put up more pics and details of the race on the training blog.

Seattle Triathlon Weekend (part 2)

Saturday, the day before the race, was also a day filled with all things triathlon. After a leisurely breakfast, we headed to the packet pick-up and expo. There were so many people there. We got our arms marked, picked up our bibs, timing chips and swim caps and then went to get all our goodies. The goodies/race souvenirs we got included a race t-shirt, a reusable grocery bag, a jellybelly sport beans water bottle and a small container of Jif peanut butter. There were also about 5 places where we could get something to drink, Odwalla, Naked Juice, Talking Rain, Nuun and pitchers of water located around the expo. It made it easy for us to stay hydrated.
We had plans to go to a carbo-loading party that evening. On the way there, we dropped our bikes off at the transition area. I think they had more racers than they expected, because every rack in my section had 12 or more bikes on it, when they are only supposed to have 10. I had to rearrange some bikes to get mine in. It was an insanely hot day, over 90 for sure. The party is a tradition of my mom's business partner's family. They have a beautiful house on the Puget Sound where we enjoyed the food and the beautiful view.
We left in time to get to bed relatively early, but I was awoken at around 3 in the morning by really bright lightening and very loud thunder. I thought I was dreaming at first, but it lasted several hours. I started to worry that we were going to have a repeat of last year, but by the time we got to the race start the weather had cleared up.

To see pics from the race, check out my training blog (there's a link on the right sidebar).

Seattle Triathlon Weekend (part 1)

Van and I spent the last weekend in Seattle. We were there so that I could do the Danskin Triathlon with my mom. We arrived at a little after 12:00am Friday morning and attempted to sleep in as much as possible. One of our goals for the weekend was to sneak in as many of our food favorites in between triathlon stuff as possible. We checked one of our favorites off the list on Friday morning with a trip to the Family Pancake House. I don't believe there are better pancakes anywhere.
After breakfast, we headed to a friend's house on Lake Washington for a practice swim in the lake. It was around 80 degrees, the perfect day for a swim in the cool water. Swimming in Lake Washington is so much more enjoyable than swimming in the ocean in Santa Barbara. First (and best) of all, there are no sharks. The water in the lake is clear enough that I can see at least 2 feet down versus the 6 inch visibility of the murky ocean water. I also got to see fish! Lots of cute little fish beneath me, and the spectators on the dock witnessed several 30 lb King Salmon jumping out of the lake.After a quick shower, we headed to Chinatown to enjoy a few more of our food favorites. We had some Ma Pa Tofu, some Chinese broccoli and wonton mein. I know those things don't really go together, and our waitress agreed, but we only had one opportunity to get everything we wanted.
When we got home, there were some beautiful "good luck" flowers waiting for us from my wonderful brother, complete with a card featuring his Eye of the Tiger pep talk.

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you for all your concern. There’s certainly no need to worry…and absolutely no need for you to send us food. Despite the recent pay cut, we’re still doing (and eating) fine.

Here’s a photo of us on Monday night barbecuing at Goleta Beach. We grilled up some hot dogs and chicken, had some potato salad, bbq beans, and a variety of fruits, and then some s’mores.

Then on Thursday night, after surviving on only saltine crackers and water for 3 days, we had a large, fatty dinner of bbq pork sandwiches and coleslaw. I used a very simple crockpot recipe from the internet. In the morning, I combined the following ingredients in the crockpot and set it to cook on LOW:

4 lbs. of pork shoulder
2 large onions (cut into wedges)
1 bottle of bbq sauce
1 cup of water

When I got home from work, the crockpot was filled with a lot more liquid than I started with. Somehow the onions and pork released enough juices to produce about 5 cups of a very dilute bbq sauce. I had to scoop all the liquids into a separate sauce pan and boil for an hour in order to reduce it to the proper consistency.

The coleslaw was very easy to make.
1 head of green cabbage, shredded
1 head of red cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, shredded

Then mix in a sauce consisting of approximately:
2 parts mayonnaise
1 part lemon juice
1 part brown sugar
Salt to taste

Here are the final results...

What's the difference between a recession and a depression?

A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose yours.
- Ronald Reagan

Well, according to Reagan's definition, we've dropped beyond a recession and are now 10% of the way toward a depression. Here's how I figure it....

The company I work for has been feeling the effects of the economic downturn and high fuel prices for about a year now. Being a manufacturing company who primarily caters to the trucking industry, it's not hard to understand why we're having problems. On Monday, I had the awful task of laying-off one person in my department. It's definitely not something I'd want to do again. Our production manager had it even worse. He had to layoff 3 full-time employees and 1 part-timer. Then on Tuesday, the remaining employees got an additional shock. We are now working 5-4 work weeks. This means I'll be alternating between working 5 days per week and 4 days per week. Essentially, everyone is taking 1 out of every 10 days off, and therefore getting paid 10% less.

This situation would normally make me consider employment elsewhere, but with the possibility of Brooke graduating within one year and then moving back to Seattle, a new job
is looking less attractive. For now I'll just try to enjoy my extra days off. I'll finally be able to catch up on my Young and the Restless shows.........just kidding.