I took off this weekend down to the gorge to do a little bit of camping and mountain biking. I’m not sure I’ll get another chance to hit it up while I’m out here, but I certainly hope to! It was a good weekend, but the best part was the biking. I rented a full suspension bike called the Norco Fluid:
hood_river/IMGP2690

What an awesome bike! There was a trail called the Whoopie Trail that we went on - it’s called the Whoopie Trail because there are three whoopie do’s on the trail - you know, big huge dips that you fly down on one side and try valiantly to reach the top of the other side, but usually end up making it only part of the way up and having to hop off to the side. They were tons of fun and there was some really good singletrack. Now I want to buy that bike. I got some sick pics of me going down the third whoopie, but I don’t have them yet. I’ll definitely post them when I do.

Update: I added a few action shots:
hood_river/DSC_0102

Oh man, did I just get the hookup for some good places to go in Seattle for live music. I mentioned a couple weeks ago how I stumbled on Mycle Wastman. Well I went there again tonight and met a few people that recommended all kinds of other places I should go. One of those places was Paragon that had some good jazz/r&b tonight, but unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the band. In any case, I talked to one of the singers as well as another guy from Chicago (w00t) and they both recommended a few more places. Like Joanna’s on Cherry St., Malibou(?) across from Dick’s in Queen Anne, Isabella’s on Sundays (well, this Sunday…there’s a white party), and some other place that I didn’t write down properly. Also, Mycle will be at Wonderbar on Saturday.

Sweet.

Oh, by the way…if you need to know someplace to go for breakdancing in Seattle…just ask me!

I forgot to mention that I hiked Mt. Si for the second time one week after my initial climb. It was a little bit different this time as it was a clear day, as opposed to the soup I climbed in the first time. You can see the difference in these two pics - same view, different days:
wa_mtsi/IMGP2555 wa_mtsi2/IMGP2633

Pretty crazy! I uploaded just a few more pics to my gallery - there was even a nice girl at the top that offered to take my picture with Rainier in the background.
wa_mtsi2/IMGP2664

In just a few months time, I’ll hopefully be standing on top of the sucker! On a side note, haven’t donated yet? Please support me and the Washington National Parks by contributing to my Rainier Climb ‘06 fundraiser.

I went back to Chi-town this past weekend and it turned out to be quite the crazy weekend from beginning to end.

I was originally planning on flying in late Thursday night, but the announcement of ChiSec 3 caused me to push things up a bit. The excitement started when I called Southwest (thank you for your flexible reservation policy) two hours before an earlier flight and re-booked myself to get home in time to participate. Then Friday it was brunch, lunch, and a BBQ that kept me busy all day long. Not to mention I came home to a car with a dead battery and one mostly-deflated left rear tire. So I took care of that after brunch, and then went and put on my summer tires so I could have a little fun in my car while I was home (thanks, Steve, for the recommendation on Cassidy Tire - theey were great!).

Hung out a bit after the BBQ (which included speed-shifting and some aggressive driving in order to get back in a timely fashion) and then finally crashed out Friday night.

Saturday found me up early taking care of bills, doing various other stuff, and then shopping for half the day. I got a sweet new pair of kicks! Then a quick trip up to Wrigley-ville to pick up my tics to a future cubs game, and an afternoon of chilling and assisting in an interview process by beating up any nerds that showed up.

Saturday night was pretty crazy…so crazy that I found myself headed home with the sun at my back. So crazy that I set my alarm to 6:30am PST (oops). So crazy that I managed to arrive at the airport 3 minutes after my flight had departed (thank you, SWA, for your flexible reservation policy) . So crazy that I had to just toss everything I brought into my suitcase in a jumbled mess. So crazy that I felt like a tourist in my own town…and it was awesome!

Thanks to all involved. I felt a little out-of-place when I first arrived on Thursday…almost as if I didn’t belong and even my own apartment seemed foreign. But now I can’t wait to come back next time!

Additional Comment: So in conclusion, I think I pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to while I was in town.
Chicago dogs
Jake’s Beer Club++
Wings
Gyro’s
BBQ’ing
Hanging out
Friends
Dancing the night away
Zoom-zoom’ing in my car
New kicks - went home with 3 pair, came back with 5
Packing as much fun as humanly possible into one weekend

Headed home early today to hit up ChiSec. Good group of people (larger than I expected!) and got to meet up with some friends to boot. Nice to know that there are security people here in Chicago, and from what I hear the industry in this little city is getting a little bit better. It’s funny too, how you run into the same people from time to time…Sherrod/Mike D…you know what I’m talking about. ;o)

Until the next second Thursday on every-other-month…

And Yes, Sherrod…I have already started syncing up my cvs/svn homedir/downloads directories…*grin*

Most of you have received my email already, but in an attempt to reach some of you others out there in the blogosphere, I would like to post on my decision to summit Mt. Rainier.

As has been mentioned, I am currently in the Seattle area for work for an extended period. At the end of my project, I will be taking some time off and have decided to attempt to summit Mt. Rainier! Mt. Rainier is the highest volcano in the Cascade Range standing at 14,410ft. I will be doing this as part of a fundraiser for the Washington National Parks (WNPF), and in order to join the climb I must raise $2500, which will be corporate-matched in a donation to WNPF in order to help maintain the park that Rainier is located in.

I ask that you consider sponsoring me not only to help me achieve this goal, but also to support the wonderful parks here in Washington. Whether it’s $10 or $50 any little bit will help and would be much appreciated. Heck, chip in $20 and I’ll let you forget about my birthday! For easy access, you can donate online. Also, please let me know if you would like to be recognized for your donation on my website and how you would like your name to appear. You can keep track of how I’m doing on my Rainier Fundraising Status page.

To get some incentive going like any good fundraiser, if you donate $50 or more I’ll send you a nice print of me (hopefully) at the top of the Rainier that you can do with whatever you like…hang it above your fireplace, use it in a dartboard…whatever, I just appreciate the donation.

Thank you for your help!

Happy Mother’s Day to a wonderful Mom. I am the person I am today because of my parents and my mother had a large part in making sure that I always looked nice and treated people with respect. Thanks, Ma, for all that you did so I (and my siblings) could succeed in life.

Can this place get any better? I decided to take a quick hike up to Poo Poo Point this evening after work. Another one of the benefits of Seattle in the summer is that it doesn’t get dark until after 8:30! Tonight’s sunset was right at 8:30pm.

The hike is 1.7 miles up - 3.4 round trip. Starting elevation is 200ft, and the Point is at 1780ft. I decided to push myself and keep a decent pace on the way up and was able to make it to the Point in about 40 minutes, including a few stops for photo ops. Not as good as I was hoping for, but still not bad. Poo Poo Point also happens to be a launch spot for paragliders and when I got up there, I was lucky enough to see a few launches. Here’s one of my favorite pics from tonight:

I uploaded a bunch of the pics to Flickr and you can view the whole Poo Poo Point set at that link.

After a half-hour, I was pretty chilly so I started to head back down the trail. For some odd reason, I thought that jogging/running the entire way down would be a good idea. It was definitely fun, and I made it in about 15-20 minutes - I’m not sure because I stopped to talk to a couple guys on the way down - but I ended up with a pretty decent blister on my heel. It was kind of fun to pass a group of people that I had originally passed on my way up as they were headed down the trail. I got a couple odd looks, but I’ve always loved trail running like that. That run, combined with yesterday’s soccer finally wore me out, though, and I think I might take it easy tomorrow…but we’ll see!

PS - Kind of neat, but if you zoom in on Google Maps, you can actually see a paraglider in the process of taking off. They land in the field just to the West next to the road once they’re done soaring with the birds. Oh, and Mom…they do tandem jumps! *grin*

Another busy weekend - Cindo De Mayo, hiking, soccer, and more. I wore many different shoes this weekend, but I don’t think I have ever before been in two such different places as I was on Saturday. It was pretty cool, but I prefer not to blog about the details…just the fact that it happened. I think it’s the ease with which you can access the woods out here in Seattle that makes things like that possible.

There’s a nice climb just outside Seattle on Mount Si - It’s an 8-mile round trip with a vertical elevation change of 3,700 ft with the top being 4,167 ft up in the sky. It was a cloudy/drizzling kind of day, so I wasn’t expecting too much from the views at the top, but just wanted to climb to get some exercise and enjoy the outdoors. Well I was right. We got to the summit and it was completely enshrouded with clouds. Take a look at the picture below - that peak is probably no more than 200 ft. from where we were standing, but you can’t even tell there are people sitting on the rocks, can you? Take a closer look - there’s somebody walking along the top and almost smack dab in the middle you should see a brief glimpse of somebody’s yellow rain jacket:
wa_mtsi/IMGP2556

But then something amazing happened. I scrambled up to the top of a bunch of rocks and starting taking pictures of the fog that I couldn’t see through. And then, within a few minutes the fog completely lifted from one side of the mountain and I could not only see the town below, but also Seattle off in the distance. Here’s a couple shots for comparison:
wa_mtsi/IMGP2569 wa_mtsi/IMGP2576

What an awesome treat! So take a look at some more pics of Mt. Si and I’ll leave you with a few more of my favorites before I head off to hit the hay!

Some dude standing on a ledge overlooking the valley.
wa_mtsi/IMGP2589

My attempt at getting artsy.
wa_mtsi/IMGP2566

Me at the top!
wa_mtsi/IMGP2567

And finally, this is when the mist just started clearing the top.
wa_mtsi/IMGP2580

Oh yea…and we saw a couple last patches of snow at the top! We polished off the hike in a nice 3 hours and 45 minutes and my legs felt great Sunday morning. After a game of soccer on Sunday afternoon, though, my legs were suddenly very tired. And now, I must rest.

That was today’s forecast…who can’t wait for this weekend?? This guy!

I just got back from Ascada Bistro, which is right across the street from where I’m staying. I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been hearing this place for a couple weeks now. They have live music quite often, and a pretty good “scene”…if you know you what I mean. Tonight, Mycle Wastman was playing who not only has the best spelling of Mycle I’ve ever seen but also is a great performer. A wonderful gal named Vicki(sp?) joined him and sang some vocals while he was playing guitar and she is what actually drew me into the actual restaurant from my table outside. Then a guy by the name of Joshua came down and jammed on the tenor sax for a while. It was such a great evening that it made me want to pick up my sax again. I’ve been wanting to pick up piano for a while…of course, the lack of an actual piano is somewhat of a prohibitor to that… ;o) But I’ll most likely be back again next Thursday.

This weekend promises to be another fun-filled weekend. I’ll be hitting up various places including the luxurious West Seattle and Mt. Si. Stay tuned in for the adventures of a Seattle transplant!

And in honor of another Mike and the coming weekend, allow me to wax poetic:

Weekend is here now,
Only good times to be had.
Weekends let me loose.

Life is here, nothing else.
Enough sleep you get at death.
Live for now, don’t wait.

Weekend is here now.
The weekend is yours to own.
Sleep less, live more now.