Dr. Neil’s Adventures: Icing on the top

While Dr. Neil was off at Mt. Rain-Here, which I have yet to go to despite having lived here for over a year, I took my cousin-in-law from Ks. and my wife up to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Kim and I went there for our first wedding anniversary last year, but that time we were late and just walked on the ferry. This time we got there early enough to take our car over so we could explore the island.

We circled the island. First we stopped at Lime Kiln Lighthouse to try and see some Orca whales, they were all apparently running errands down at Lopez island and wouldn’t be back until later. We didn’t get to see any whales, but we did see a few seals bobbing up and down.

The next stop was Westcott Bay, Kim and Billy are big oyster fans so they bought some fresh oysters and ate them later that night. After that we stopped at the Pelindaba Lavender Farm. Kim loves lavender and needed to buy some gifts for a friends birthday party. We ended up harvesting some fresh lavender and somehow someone managed to buy her some lavender soap and a wand while she was out cutting the lavender. Our last stop for the night was the San Juan Vineyards for some wine tasting and buying. We spent the night up there on the spur of the moment and got a pretty good rate. It was a great weekend.

MAXIM HOMETOWN HOTTIES

The women in Wichita KS do not ALL look like this and they did not look like this while I lived there.
I’m just trying to head off any impetuous moving plans of the single guys out there.

.NET Undocumented: Walking Monkey

Yahoo story

CNN story

Of course the vet treating Natasha speculates that she suffered some brain damage after an illness and that may be what’s causing her to walk upright.

FARK.com: (1041506) Photoshop this troll bridge

Fark is having a Photoshop contest starring everybodys favorite Fremont troll. I think my personal favorite is either the troll on Mt. Rushmore or the iPod troll.

komo news | 12-Year-Old Lured Away From AquaSox Game, Then Raped

The next day, when the boy still hadn’t returned home, his father found him back at the baseball field. When the boy told his father what happened and pointed to the man who did it, his father called police.

I’d have probably called the police, but I’d also probably end up with a murder charge against me for the death of the rapist. The father showed great restraint.

Wired News: Bruddah Iz Gets Belated Buzz

Wired has a story about how a big Hawaiian man who died in 1997 is overtaking Britney and Christina in downloads from the iTunes store. I can believe it. He’s an amazing singer and even if you don’t really care for Hawaiian music or for some UNGODLY reason think it’s cheesy you should at least listen to the preview and decide for youself. He sings from his heart.

CNN.com – ‘Giant leap’ opens world of possibility – Jul 16, 2004
Dreams became reality.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Scripting News: 7/18/2004

Looks like Dave Winer is in Santa Fe, NM. I lived there for about 2 years and 2 years in Albuquerque (you know, where Bugs Bunny was supposed to turn left at?). There are lots of good places to eat at in Santa Fe. My Favorties included the Bobcat Bite, it is the place to get a Green Chile cheeseburger at (or just a Green Chile burger if you don’t want the cheese). Best burger in the Southwest. Mark that.

Marias, which Dave mentions in his post, has the best collection of sipping tequilla in town as well as the best margaritas. They are legendary around Santa Fe.

The 2nd street brew pub is a great place for microbrews, a friend of mind who is a beer snob says they have the best microbrew in New Mexico, hands down. You’ll never find it though. You go S on Cerrilos, left on 2nd Street, on the right just before the RR tracks. Good luck. It’s a great place to kick back after work with a porter.

Santacafe has the best chocolatte cheesecake I’ve ever had. It’s a little pricey for lunch and dinner but for dessert and coffee it can’t be beat.

The restaurant at the La Fonda hotel is great. Order the guacamole and they make it by hand at your table. The restaurant itself it gorgeous. Draped in stained glass and sunlight. The bell tower bar is a good place to hang out after work.

I can’t recommend the Shed for anyone but NM natives, the green chile there is just too hot for people that aren’t used to it. If you’re not used to it, stick to the chile in the restaurants on or near the Plaza. If you get the real stuff, and you’re not used to it, you’ll be sorry. Tia Sophias is another great place any time of the day, but I’d go there first thing in the morning for their breakfast burritos. These aren’t your east coast/west coasts breakfast burritos. Bring your appetite and your hot mouth. They are “not responsible for too hot chile”. (It’s printed on their menu). The nephew of the owner of Tia Sophias is Alex Marol, one of the best young new blues guitar players in the area. If you get a chance to catch him performing in the area, I’d highly recommend it. He’s usually at El Farrol on Wednesdays and the Cowgirl Hall of Fame on Tuesdays.

There are lots of great places on Canyon road, El Farol comes to mind. There are just too many places in Santa Fe alone to eat. Backwater Bistro, Upper Crust pizza, Il Vincino, even the chains like Gardunos and Blue Corn cafe are great, the Cinema cafe, the Compound (if you have to ask how expensive it is, you can’t afford it), the Chocolatte Maven bakery. I haven’t even thought about up I-25 towards Taos, ther are hundreds of small and large places along the way. That’s the one things I miss about living in Santa Fe, access to some of the best southwest food in the entire southwest. When I think of southwestern food, I don’t think Texas or Arizona or Nevada, only New Mexican food really captures the flavor of the southwest for me.

P.S. I mentoned earlier that Bugs Bunny always forgot to make that left at Albuquerque. Do you know where he was trying to get to? I do. Santa Fe to visit Chuck Jones. Chuck Jones lived near Santa Fe for most of his life, he loved New Mexico and it’s showed in his Road Runner cartoons. Bugs lived in California. Well if you are going to Albuquerque from California, you most likely are taking I-40 east. From I-40 going east, you have to make a left to get onto I-25. So bugs was always missing the left to go north to Santa Fe. If you go down to water street, right next to the Coyote Cafe you can visit the Chuck Jones gallery and pay homage to the man that gave us Bugs, Daffy Duck, the grinch and more.

moose vs car

Why you don’t just run over the moose that is blocking the road in Alaska.

The P-patch is coming along great. Our squash plants are producing like there’s no tomorrow. Between our two pumpkin plants we now have 6 pumpkins in the works. Yesterday we had to prop up our tomato plants and dug up 3 of our potato plants. We got about 10 lbs of potatos. Even the pepper plants and the lettuce that we thought were dead have sprouted up.

Looks like a picture-in is a brewing August 1st at the Ballard locks in support of the photography student that was hassled by the police and “homeland security” for taking pictures of a public place.

Seattle times article
Seattle PI article

My previous post

I?m up here meeting with a team from the Sloan-Kettering Memeorial Cancer reasearch center about an application that Fred Hutch CRC is collaborating with them on. I like NYC fine, but my heart still belong in Seattle.

I just checked the CNN web site and then I realized that I?m only 12 blocks away from their broadcast studios. I could just WALK over and see what?s going on. It?s odd to not be 3 hours behind the news.

Ate at a small italian place at 52nd and 2nd. It was pretty good, nothing I couldn’t get in Seattle. Then we went to a small Irish-ish pub across the street called “Jamesons”, they have Tetleys pub ale on tap and sheppards pie.

If anyone needs me the rest of the week, I’ll be at Jamesons pubs on E 52nd. mmmmmmmm

BTW if anyone knows anywhere on the upper west side where I can get a good, small cheesecake to go please let me know.

I swear, I was just walking along Olive downtown and I saw a helicopter hovering over the space needle, two of three people on the dome, and one person rapelling down on a rope from the dome.

Weird, can’t find anything about it on the news sites though.

update ah, that’s what was going on.

Slurp!!

Any of the Tom Douglas eateries. Etta’s, the Dahlia lounge…

The Mecca or the Five point cafe. They aren’t fine dining establishments, but poeple of all types eventually come through there. It’s a great cross-section of what Seattle is really like. Plus you’ve gotta love a diner with a bar that’s open 24-7. (well the bar is open from 6AM to 2AM).

I’ve heard lots of good things about Two Dagos from Texas. Never eaten there myself though. Same with the Frontier room.

I really, really want to try Salumi. I went to Cutters Bayhouse a long, long time ago and I remember it having great food.

If you have a car, Chinooks at the Fishermans terminal is the absolute best place to have planked salmon.

The beef and Guiness pie at T.S. McHughs in lower Queen Anne (whoops, sorry. Uptown) is great. Ten Mercer is a great lounge. My wife and I stopped in at Chopstix at Roy and Queen Anne ave on Friday night and had a great time. I’d have to say that a great night out would include dinner at Nona Marias, then over to Chopstix for some dualing piano action, then Ten mercer for cocktails and desserts.

That’s all I can think of right now. I’ll post more when I remember them. There are lots of places I’ve eaten that aren’t close to downtown but are great places to eat. Not all of them are expensive.

The science of weight loss

I spent a about a year studying metabolism in college. Everytime one of these new diet fads comes along I always ask one question: What’s the science?

You’ll notice that every new diet plan always includes the phrase “combined with regular exercise”. That’s because no matter what the diet claims, the creator knows that the only way to guaratee weight loss is to BURN more than you EAT.

calories eaten – calories burned = weight loss/gain

The diets can throw around terms like ketosis, but if you look at the diet itself it always recommends that you: a) eat less b) exercise more than you currently are. Look at the Orange Juice diet. You drink orange juice for 2 weeks. What are the odds that you’ll have the same caloric intake from just orange juice as you did from your normal diet? Same with the Atkins diet, the majority of our food today is made up of carbohydrates, if you cut out carbs don’t you also lower the total number of calories you take in? Lets say you try out the Atkins diet. Instead of having your usual breakfast of 2 pieces of bacon, eggs, and toast. You have just bacon and eggs, but you end up eating 4 pieces of bacon and 2 eggs instead of 1. Now you’ve not only upped your caloric intake but you’ve increased the amount of cholesterol too. “But the ketosis means I burn off the fat and protein faster”. Not if you have a glass of orange juice with your breakfast or a sweet latte. The sugar causes an insulin spike in your bloodstream. Insulin is responsible for moving fat from your bloodstream into your cells and for metabolizing sugars in your bloodstream. So now, instead of burning the proteins and fats faster, you’re storing them faster. In fact you’re storing them first before you even start to burn them.

So the bottom line is, pick whatever diet you want provided it’s a healthy diet and exercise more if you want to lose weight. There is no magic bullet or pill and changing WHAT you eat doesn’t affect your weight as much as changing HOW MUCH you eat will.

Petetownshend.com – Pete’s Diary – 7 Jul 2004

Michael Moore has been making some claims ? mentioning me by name – which I believe distort the truth.

Michael Moore — distort the truth — say it ain’t so!

Well at least Michael is making actual accusations instead of just pointing at random facts and saying “and we all know what THAT means don’t we?”

The Artist’s Statement

If the story in question is factual, then I’m ashamed for our Police force. Sadly, recent supreme court rulings have made it illegal to refuse to offer ID when asked by a police officer in a move reminiscent of East Germany in the 1970’s. (’Papers please!”)

Alright, I’ll admit it

Autistic child

Lickety Split and other fast moves..

Chas Redmond notes some interesting behavior while navigating from West Seattle over to the U-District.

The trick – scoping out primary routes and then using alternate routes quickly when the primary shows signs of clog. What continues to perplex me is that pretty much everyone knows the alternate routes but insists or is compelled for some reason to stick with the primary route. It’s like the 45th and 50th Street I-5 interchanges in the U-District. Sure, 45th Street is the main drag, but that street and interchange are pretty much always jammed. 50th is a short four blocks away, is a through street and its interchange is NEVER jammed. I can’t believe the other seven-hundred-thousand Seattleites don’t know this and yet they insist on using 45th. The same holds for using I-5 or SR99. They both go pretty much the identical route from south to north and are separated by less than a mile over most of their parallel distance north of SODO. And yet, again, everyone insists on using I-5 and completely ignoring Aurora/SR99. That was true back in DC as well. There were literally a half-dozen ways to get anywhere on the District and Maryland side of the river and yet everyone insisted on using the Beltway. To get to the Virginia side there are a limited number of bridges but the one no one seemed ever to use was Chain Bridge just north of Georgetown. Using that bridge I could get to Falls Church or Vienna and back in less than an hour almost any time of the day, even morning and evening rush hours. I did have to know and use different methods of getting to the bridge because some of the roads leading to and from Chain Bridge become one-way during morning or evening rush hour, but still, with that knowledge I could save fifty-percent of the time it might take to get to Virginia. I’m equally positive the other Washingtonians knew this as well and yet, like the Seattleites, they insisted on staying with the one freeway which went “exactly” where they were going.

So the question I’ve got is “what causes this?” Is it the lack of thinking power? Do car drivers just want to do the same thing over and over again even if it takes forever because it’s easy and they don’t have to think about their route? Is it laziness? Is sitting in a stop-and-go situation on a freeway better than actually having to drive and navigate? Is it actual ignorance? Does everyone actually NOT know of any other way to get somewhere and they’re stuck using the one way they do know? Is it some expression of collective, urban sociology? Do folks actually like sitting adjacent to dozens of other car-bound humans listening to their individual radios or car music systems, staring out at each other staring back? Do people really have such a surplus of time that they feel compelled to spend it in this manner lest it wouldn’t get spent?

I really don’t know. Maybe it’s curiosity. I’ll research a map, talk to other people and experiment at non-busy times of the day to find alternate paths to places I need to get to that are otherwise difficult because of traffic congestion. In a sense it’s somewhat like a map-math problem. It’s a puzzle and a mystery and I would think that the combination would drive other people to experiment as well. Maybe I’ve got an advantage. I use the bus, I use my bike, and I walk a lot of the places where everyone else seems to use a car. I learn about alternate streets, different shortcuts, better paths, by using alternate transportation systems, and then when I am in a car I have advantage of this additional knowledge. So, the Aesop Fable lesson from this is that “those who are stuck inside their cars are forever bound to be stuck.”

I’ve noticed this trend a lot. Now getting over to the east side and West Seattle are a different matter since there are only four ways to get to the east side and really only two ways to get to West Seattle, but why does everyone take 45th to get onto I-5 when they could go five blocks over to 50th? Why does everyone use the Mercer Mess to get onto I-5? Why do people even TRY to drive down Pike street in the market on a weekend? Why is the Northgate way exit always backed up, yet taking Sand Point way north and around is never backed up? Why do the drivers ALWAYS enter University Village at the first driveway after the 45th ramp? Why not go the extra block and enter over by the parking garage or on 25th? They all back up trying to get into U-village on the weekends, which then backs up the 45th ave ramp, which then backs up 45th and eventually the I-5 exit onto 45th starts getting backed up.

I feel like a WA state drivers license test should include an “alternate route” portion if the person lives in Seattle. “Plan out at least two alternate routes to get to downtown.”

Look I promise, I’ll just put the tip in…honest…

My friend Brian has started his own weblog. It should prove to be interesting since he’s an opininated person and he actually does {GASP} RESEARCH to back up his opinions rather than parroting whatever web site or news report he’s reading.