Seattle AIDS Walk with the Sisters of the Mother House

When I signed up for the Seattle AIDS Walk with the Gothic Pride Seattle team, I did it because Dizzy (now a Rep. of the Capitol Hill Community Council :D) would be there and it's always fun to go on a promenade decked out in my gothic finest. I did not know I was also going to have the company of these fine ladies:

Meet the Sisters of the Mother House of Washington, the founding and recently resurrected charitable drag nun sisterhood of Seattle. Sister Angela Merici (flying nun hat with blue boa, novice sister on the lower right) was the organizer of the Gothic Pride Seattle team and also a gracious answerer of questions about the Sisters of the Mother House.

The park was just full of people. It would've made finding the team interesting, except that I was walking with towering drag nuns.

McGinn sighting! Seriously, this guy is everywhere.

No event with the Sisters is complete without lots and lots of photo ops. The nice man on the left without the flying nun hat is Ambrosio de Membro Sancto (heh heh), a guard of the Sisters of the Mother House. He's there expressly to make sure that the Sisters get where they're supposed to be on time and don't get completely sidetracked by said photo ops.

On the road with the Gothic Pride Seattle team.

We arrive at Harem for a welcome cup of Turkish coffee and are greeted by Dizzy in his....festive...hat....

M. Theresa Nervina of the Mother House of Washington and Sr. Dorothy Faith of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence of the Abbey of St. Joan.

The Mother and a possible future Sister of the Mother House.

The organizer of the Gothic Pride Seattle team, Sr. Angela Merici, plus admirers.

And of course I had to have a picture with the Mother of the Mother House, M. Theresa Nervina. I'm happy to announce that there will be more opportunities for photo ops soon - the Sisters of the Mother House will be accompanying the Capitol Hill Community Council's Halloween Walk. I'm delighted - what better way is there to start Halloween on Capitol Hill than going door to door for candy on Broadway with a charitable sisterhood of drag nuns?

Last Minute Plans: Seattle AIDS Walk

I just heard about this Saturday's Seattle AIDS Walk earlier this week. Just today I found out that the Gothic Seattle Pageant has a team in the walk. So of course I had to sign up with them. If you want to help me contribute some last minute money to charity, you can donate here.

Haunted by Street Art

I found these little buddies on my street just this week. They're all along Boylston and Olive. Thanks artsy neighbor!

Looking forward to fall: Events in October

According to popular belief, things slow down in Seattle once summer ends and the rain curtain falls. This is crap - all the cloudy days don't catch up with us until after the holidays. Until then, we're all still sailing on a Vitamin D high til we can coast on holiday bonhomie/grinchiness, which eventually runs out in January. This means I'm going to be socializing around the Hill for at least three more months until we all go into collective hibernation til Spring.

Anyway, I've already pitched about all the steampunk-y goodness that's coming up this month and next. I'm even more excited now that I've (only just) realized I can recycle all my new steampunk goodies for Halloween. One mad Victorian scientist, coming right up.

It's fortunate I have a relatively family-friendly costume for Halloween this year since I'll be one of the chaperones/shepherds for the Capitol Hill Community Council Halloween Walk. I know that two hours of herding small children up and down Broadway doesn't sound like a ton of fun, but little kids in adorable costumes makes me happy. Especially since the little blighters would be cheated out of all that tooth-rotting goodness if the Council didn't do the Walk on Broadway -it's kind of hard to go trick or treating at apartment buildings.

In nerdier (and consequently more exciting) event news, the Capitol Hill Community Council is going to host it's very own mayoral candidate forum on Oct. 17th at Seattle University's Pigott Auditorium. I know it's not an event venue that non-alums are very likely to see, but I can guarantee you - it's a very nice auditorium. The acoustics are so lovely you can forgive the fact the whole place is painted mauve.

The focus of the forum is on community and neighborhood activism, so the Council is inviting attendance and questions from as many Cap Hill community types as possible. If you'd like to help out with the event or just throw in your two cents, but the Policy and Planning boys at chcc.planning(at)gmail.com.

Park(ing) Day - Live at Central Park Seattle Pictures

I can finally put some pictures up because of the wonders of Flickr and the generosity/quick postings of a person I only know as gravitysalad. I did take pictures on Park(ing) Day, but since it wasn't my central goal for the event there are a lot of things/ interesting shots that I missed. This wasn't so for gravitysalad, bless their little heart, thus I can finally present some pretty pictures of the day.

One puzzle - who the hell is this person? There are some shots of gravitysalad's I remember being taken, but for the life of me I can't picture the person who took them. I'm blaming the long hours and the hot sun for that. Anyway, if anyone knows who it was who took these lovely pictures, please tell me so I can thank them and invite them to all of the Council's future events (their camera is invited too :D).


The grand view of Park(ing) Day Central Park. 4-Play Park, winner of the Most Playful Park award, is in the foreground. The fact that a group of Portland design professionals came all the way up to Capitol Hill just to make that innuendo made me very happy.


Here you can see the elusive 12 Hr Notice, a DJ that recently rolled onto the neighborhood scene with only his beats and a shopping cart.


Here's one of the pictures that I swear I remember someone taking, but I can't remember who it was. Argh. It's one of the shots I'm especially grateful for - lots of people activating the space and me looking useful explaining something. It's kind of hard to get pictures like that when you're the only one manning the booth.


A collection of sites at an event like this was bound to get some high concept parks - Park(ing) Day Central Park was no exception. Above is the sign for Brite Collective's contribution, Negative Space. Their spot boasted vegan cookies and creating your own map of the city (with markers!), but I think they got their picture taken so often because of their sign and its placement. The angle of the light made for an especially clever picture, too- one that I took that I'm actually in.


Speaking of high-concept, here's the winner of this year's Park(ing) Day Seattle Prize: air-stream by Signal to Noise. This is what happens when you ask design professionals to define a park. It's a lot more personable when you add people to it, especially if they're under 5 years of age and apt to treat the whole thing as a modified ballpit. This happened more than once during the day. It was very cute.


I was so amused that the Capitol Hill Community Council park got picked as a backdrop for KOMO that I just had to get a picture. In order to do that, I had to walk right behind Denise Whittaker as they were shooting, hence why you can see me briefly in KOMO's Park(ing) Day video below. Please note the elegant demeanor and the "sash of state".

--

UPDATED Park(ing) Day - Live at Central Park Seattle

Wow...it has been quite a day. We had visits from KOMO, Mike O'Brien, Sally Bagshaw, Seattle Post-Globe (i.e. Kery Murakami). Also, many small children and assorted residents. Hollow Earth Radio is here with their confession tent, a bunch of architects went conceptual and made an Air Park (huge hit with the kids), 12-Hour Notice is down the way playing music out of a shopping cart, Webster Crowell is here with his start-up seltzer company, and of course the Community Council's "Paradise Unpaved" park is gorgeous.

Pictures will come when I get some more time and a better internet connection. Totally looking forward to the Toy Box Trio's concert later this afternoon, and the awards ceremony tonight :)

UPDATE: My pictures and the KOMO video of the "Paradise Unpaved" park are over at the UP Blog. Also, here's the listing of the Park(ing) Day Seattle Prize winners - congrats to Signal to Noise for coming in first! (Sorry, still too tired to post twice.)

A Conversation with Friends of Seattle Public Library

A while ago I got to sit down and talk with Sarel Rowe of Friends of Seattle Public Library about how I use our public library system, what our library contributes to the neighborhood, and what libraries will look like in the future (two words: info portal). This conversation was part of a survey Friends of SPL put together for their Neighborhood Report on library value, an important subject in the light of the recent week-long library closure. I was just lucky enough to be able to take the survey in person with someone as nice and fun to talk to as Sarel. Apparently, Sarel felt the same way, so now you can see what I said in a post at the Friends of SPL blog.

My Mom vs. Tom Carr: The Last Word

To all who have been following this epic story: Tom Carr decided not to appeal the Washington State Liquor Board's decision to grant Faire Gallery and Cafe's request for an extended liquor license. In short, Faire can now serve cocktails because our city attorney finally decided to back down. The end.

Good times at the Broadway Design Charette

I know it sounds weird to say that a four-hour community meeting was tons of fun, but I had a really good time at the Broadway Design Charette this afternoon. Everybody, and I mean everybody, was there and there was a lot of excitement and energy going around. It helped that Seattle University's new Admissions and Alumni Building is spacious, light-filled and lovely. Also, there were tasty snacks :D

The whole write-up will go up on CHS blog soon enough, but there was some consensus around the community benefits that were most desired. Community meeting space, Nagle St. as a green pedestrian corridor, artist live/work or performance space and affordable housing were all quite popular as possible features in a transit-oriented development over the light rail station.

Looking forward to fall: Steamcon and the Browncoat Ball

I know that PAX 09 is just barely over, but I'm already looking forward to the event of the fall geek season in Seattle: Steamcon, the very first steampunk convention ever. The prices are reasonable ($40 for 3 days if you buy now), and if the Steampunk Swapmeet is any proof, I'm sure the vendors will be excellent. Even if the presenters and speakers are uneven, Steamcon will be well worth the price of admission. Now if I could only figure out how to get down to the SeaTac Marriott by public transit in less than an hour...

This is a little far afield for me so I probably won't attend, but the Portland Browncoat Ball certainly deserves a mention. It's a weekend-long shindig all over Portland for Joss Whedon/Firefly/Serenity fans. Nothing more needs to be said.

Hot and Steamy: Steampunk Swapmeet and Fantastic Voyage

In case you needed an excuse to dress up like a mad Victorian inventor and buy up costumery in preparation for Steamcon, Diana Vick and the Steamcononauts have kindly provided these events for your enjoyment.

PAX 09: What a way to spend a Saturday

I headed down to the Convention Center this morning for the Seattle Geekly Tweetup thinking that I'd be there for a cup of coffee and then head back home. I got up the hill at about 7pm. This has been the longest day I had at PAX without actually being at PAX.

The SG Tweetup was lovely - Shannon and Matt were great hosts, all the folks at the Tweetup were geeky and nice, and Caffe Dior makes something addictively tasty with milk and ginger called Royal Tea. There was also a lovely, lovely woman from Wizards of the Coast there who gave us all D&D goodies. It was kind of like geek Christmas.

After that I wandered the halls playing games. I got a chance to try out Munchkin Cthulu (hilarious) and Living Labyrinth by Bucephalus Games (adorable), and played a couple of rounds of Fluxx with some friends (still confusing). All in all, a lovely day.

Geek of the Week special edition: PAX is here!

PAX is this weekend! And while I can't attend (sigh), I can still celebrate its coming by drooling on the sidelines. On my way to work I saw signs on all the Convention Center doors announcing that PAX is completely and utterly sold out (which is news enough to make it on the front page of the Puget Sound Business Journal). On coffee break I walked by a block-long line in Freeway Park for PAX goody bags. 60,000 geeks from all around the country...on one hand, wow. On the other, holy crap that's crowded.

But maybe not too crowded to make my way over for this - @seattlegeekly: Please RT! Tweetup at #pax09 on Saturday 9/5 at Caffé Dior lvl 1 in the convention center 11:30am. Come get buttons! #fb

This reminds me - I recently got my monthly sales email from ThinkGeek, which is always worth taking a look at so I can see all the shiny new nerd toys they just got in. There was one so ridiculous that I need to share it with you. Two words: Tac Bac.

Friends of Seattle Public Library: Because Even Libraries Need Friends

If I could add a subtitle to this post, it would be: "Especially when budget cuts mean that our libraries are closed for a week". While the libraries might not have been able to do much about it, the Friends of Seattle Public Library didn't take the closures sitting down. Instead, they blogged about it. (Twice!)

"Wah, wah, more blogtivism," you might say. But getting the word out, especially word that this closure is hitting disadvantaged folks hardest, is important. Turn their word into action by donating your time or your money, whichever one you have the most of...which, these days, is probably time.

A quick way to help is to fill out the Friends of SPL's "Neighborhood Survey of Library Value". If you'd like to do the survey in person, set up an interview by emailing Sarel Rowe, Advocacy Chair of the Friends of The Seattle Public Library: advocacy(at)friendsofspl(dot)org. I recommend the latter option - Sarel's really nice and a delight to talk with. If you end up having a really neat conversation with her, it just might end up on the Friends of SPL blog :D.

My Mom vs. Tom Carr: Reprise

The recurrent theme in the emails and comments I've gotten about the epic email battle between my mom and City Attorney Tom Carr is that my mom is frickin' awesome. This is absolutely true.

However, the best thing to do in this situation is not to merely admire your newfound civic hero. You should emulate her by writing or calling Tom Carr yourself in support of Faire Gallery and Cafe getting their hard liquor license. (Mr. Carr's contact information is below.) Since Seattle is filled with smart and educated folk, I'm sure you too can achieve a level of letter-writing badassery comparable to my mom's.

Again, it's not as if Faire is getting a hard liquor license because they want to corrupt the youth of Capitol Hill. Times are hard, and they need the extra money they can make from selling cocktails and spirits to stay in business. They've been responsible the last few years while serving wine and beer, so I'm sure they can manage serving the harder stuff responsibly as well.

Seattle City Attorney's Office
thomas.carr@seattle.gov

600 4th Ave., 4th Floor
PO Box 94769
Seattle, WA 98124-4769
Phone (206) 684-8200
TTY Phone (206) 233-7206
Fax (206) 684-8284

My Mom vs. Tom Carr: Epilogue

Wow, my mom is such a badass at angry letter writing that she got Life on the Hill featured on The Slog. Oooh, and CHS Blog. Go Mom.

I really hope that the end product of this kerfuffle is Tom Carr leaving poor Faire alone and letting them get their hard liquor license. I like the place. I feel welcome when I come in and I feel safe when I walk by there when they're open late at night. I just want them to be able to stay in business.

My Mom vs. Tom Carr Continued

Faithful readers, it appears that the saga of My Mom vs. Tom Carr continues. I had no idea that our City Prosecutor had this much time in his schedule to go back and forth over email with a concerned citizen about a cafe's hard liquor license. But he does, and my mom continues her email salvo unabated. So the story continues...

(My Mom's emails are in white, and Tom Carr's are in blue)

=======================================================

I have not decided to appeal. The clerk in the department of executive administration routinely checks the appeal box to preserve our rights. The appeal deadline is September 9. I am concerned about the liquor board’s policy with respect to DUIs. We raise them as a public policy concern. What really bothers me is that the Faire Gallery’s lawyer is making this a political issue when In fact it’s a real public safety question. There is a clear effort to intimidate me. I wonder did anyone tell you the basis for our objection?

=======================================================

I read the story in the Stranger, about the DUI, and the circumstances of the warrant, yes. As to the Faire's attorney, I am not a local and am not influenced by local politics. I formed my opinion based on my knowlege of Faire, (from my visits) on the merits of the original objection, and the proposed appeal.

What you perceive as an attempt to intimidate is really a question of simply not agreeing with your position on the matter, and saying so. I simply do not view the Faire having a hard liquor license as a public safety threat. Nor does the liquor board, who had all the facts and made their decision accordingly.

That being said, I am happy to hear that you have decided not to appeal.

Thank you,

Elise Power

=======================================================

I am sorry. I am a lawyer. What I wrote was, I have not decided to appeal. That is different from I have decided not to appeal. I just received the Liquor Board decision this week. We have until September 9 to make this decision.

=======================================================

Ah, well, thank you for that clarification. My misread.

I do hope you do decide not to appeal. I think the liquor board made an informed decision, which the bulk of the local public, which you are seeking to keep safe, agree with.

I think that the appeal would be unnecessarily obstructive, and a less than effective use of the City attorney's time. There are far greater crime and public safety issues in Seattle that require your attention.

Faire is a dinky little cafe/gallery that the locals like. The public is in no more danger from their having a hard liquor license than they were in all the time they have been serving beer and wine, the owner's having married in May a man with an old DUI (now resolved to the liquor board's satisfaction) notwithstanding.

I hope you come to see it that way.
Elise Power

{and now the Epilogue}

Oh Snap: My Mom vs. Tom Carr

I posted about Tom Carr blocking Faire's attempt get a hard liquor license a few days ago, and I've been meaning to write a letter in support of Faire to our City Attorney ever since. Well, my mom beat me to it. And she has a lot of practice writing cranky letters to city officials (let's just say Garden Grove doesn't have the world's best city council...). She is so good that despite the fact that she lives hundreds of miles away, she got Tom Carr to write her back. The correspondence is below.
(picture courtesy of my mom :D)

======================================================

Sir:

My daughters live in Seattle, and I am a frequent visitor. I find your targeting of Faire distressing. They are good people, hardly the supporters of drunken louts or disruptive partying, and you are wasting your time and theirs by delaying their liquor license.

If you succeed, by your delays, in putting them out of business, you will have done no favor for the neighborhood. Cap Hill does not need, nor does its residents want, to be protected from Faire by you.

Leave them be, and let them get on with it.

Thank you for your attention,
Elise Power

=======================================================
We are not targeting Faire. They have a liquor license. They applied for an enhanced license to sell hard liquor. At the time of the application, one of the owners had a warrant out for his arrest in a pending DUI case. We brought this fact to the attention of the Liquor Control Board as is our duty. I don’t know where you live, but here, we are concerned about people who can’t control their own alcohol intake being responsible for serving others. I have a particular concern about someone who is told to do something by a court and needs to have an arrest warrant issued to get him to do it.

You have no idea what Faire Gallery will be like when serving hard liquor and neither do I. I do have questions about one of the owners, which it is my job to raise.

Thank you for writing.

Tom Carr
Seattle City Attorney

=======================================================
I read the story, I know about the DUI case, I also know about the details of the outstanding warrant and why it was issued, as do you. We here in Garden Grove CA worry as much as the next person about people who drive drunk.

Faire is a gallery, not a party venue. If a person attending such a place has a problem with drinking, they can do so on the license in place, they don't need hard liquor served to them to do so. If Faire has done just fine on the alcohol that they have been serving, they are more than likely to continue to do so.

I stand in support of them, as does most of Capitol Hill, whom I presume you are trying to protect. We are saying we don't feel the need to be protected from Faire having its hard liquor license, and want you to know.

I also presume you care what the neighborhood (and their friends and family who visit there) think, so we are here to let you know.

Thanks,
Elise
-----
In re-reading your reponse, I must agree on one point. Raising the questions about one of Faire's owners was/is indeed, your job. However, having heard all of the circumstances, the Board ruled in favor of Faire's hard liquor license.

Your intent to appeal then takes on the appearance of being merely an obstructive delaying tactic, and thus punitive in nature, even spiteful.

EP


{This post is getting long, so the saga continues here.}

The Blogger's Blog and 1001 Ways to be Popular on the Interwebs

Thanks to Twitter and @TheNewsChick, I just discovered EcoConsultancy's blog. Within two minutes on the site I found articles on 25 things journalists can do to future proof their careers, how to write for SEO, and the A-Z of online copywriting.

Usually when I find how-to's like this, they're boring, semi-useless, keyword-crammed search engine attractors. Instead, EcoConsultancy has created a blogger's blog, a gentlemanly club of experienced online writers sharing their knowledge with their peers and the next generation. It makes sense since it's the blog of a digital marketing company...but where's all the class coming from? Does EcoConsultancy just hire really cool people?

Any minute now, I will ease off the awe. I'm just really impressed at finding that much bloggy usefulness in one place.

PS Just found out why they're so classy - the blog's based in the UK.

PPS In case one blog is not enough to satisfy your need to know more about blogging, here are some online journalism tutorials. Not necessary for the "here's a picture of my cat" blogger, but probably useful for indy neighborhood news chasers like myself.

Pourin' out a double shot of hot jams

You know, I would say "only in Seattle", except for the fact that this weekend's Latte Art Throwdown at Victrola is a qualifying round for a West Coast Showdown between LA and the Emerald City. Amazing. Coffee Geekgasm. This Saturday.

What's in a name?

I saw this in my inbox last week, but jseattle got the scoop - a handful of Cap Hill domains are up for sale. With 40,000 people in our neighborhood and more blogs per square mile than I thought possible, any interested parties better make a bid while they're still up for grabs.

RIP Sunflowers of ROW Garden

I didn't get a chance to write this up last week because I got caught up in neighborhood stuff and Gnomedex. But I still want to take a short moment of silence to mourn the loss of most of the sunflower population at the Harvard Ave Collective/ ROW Garden. Sometime between last Sunday and last Tuesday, somebody (probably a drunken idiot somebody), callously beat most of the ROW sunflowers to death. Out of the original population, there are only three scarred survivors. I take comfort in the fact that they did their duty - our sunflowers bravely stood as bait to drunken idiots and protected their vegetable comrades to the end.

Mushroom! Mushroom!

I may be the only person on Capitol Hill who's really into mushrooms for totally non-hallucingenic purposes. So be it - our fungi friends are cool and sometimes delicious. For anybody else who thinks like I do, I'm putting the word out about EOS Alliance's Intro to Wild Mushroom Identification in Western Washington (10/30-11/1). It's kind of pricey, but you get to go camping and EOS puts on good workshops, so it's worth it.

Tom Carr Hates Small Capitol Hill Businesses

When I read this week's Stranger, I was disappointed to find that Tom Carr's anti-nightlife crusade now has Faire Gallery and Cafe in its sights. Seriously, he couldn't find a cuter business and nicer people to poop on. I will be extremely upset if a delay in receiving a liquor license puts them out of business. Mr. Carr will have Nutella Mocha fans all over the Hill to answer to if that happens.

Note: Liz Drayton of Faire said it would really help out if all the Faire/Capitol Hill nightlife fans out there could write to or call Tom Carr's office telling him what a bad idea it is to keep Faire from getting a liquor license (it'll put a great place out of business, there's no reason to delay this, etc.). Mr. Carr's contact info is below.

Seattle City Attorney's Office
thomas.carr@seattle.gov

600 4th Ave., 4th Floor
PO Box 94769
Seattle, WA 98124-4769
Phone (206) 684-8200
TTY Phone (206) 233-7206
Fax (206) 684-8284

Gnomedex 9.0 - In the Room

I was on deck for Girls in Tech for most of the time I was at Gnomedex, so a lot of the experience has been a blur of networking. However, I did actually make it into the conference room for two of the presenters I really wanted to see, Mark Horvath and Amber Case. They appeal to the two very different sides of my fascination with technology: Mark covered online networking for social justice and Amber covered humans as tool-users and tool-users as cyborgs.

Mark Horvath is a former ad exec who was once homeless, is now unemployed, and is using his "time off" to scream and shout on the internet about homelessness. He has a great website, a following on Twitter, and is now equipped with a cool camera phone. But that's all he has. And with just that, he's gotten onto the front pages of newspapers spreading awareness about homelessness. The moral of the story is, you don't need money to have influence.

Amber Case is...well, let's just say she's awesome. And she knows a lot about the interface between humans and their technology. Her talk on prosthetic culture and cyborg anthropology was a really funny take on humans as tool users, tools as prostheses, and the explosion of the use of these prostheses in recent years.

When she started saying tools and prosthetic, I was thinking hammers and artificial limbs. But those terms also apply to cell phones (ear tools/prostheses), hard drives and the internet (brain t/p's), keyboards (finger t/p's) and so on. And since the definition of a cyborg is a "being to which exogenous elements have been added to aid an organism in adapting to new environments" (approx. quote!), the moral of the story is that we're all cyborgs. Neat. Well, neat until all our prosthetic bits are in the shop :(.

(Photo of Mark courtesy of Pelago.com and photo of Amber courtesy of Amber's Twitter profile.)

Gnomedex 9.0

Surprise Tech Conference! My friend MJ Kelly of Girls in Tech (Seattle chapter) put out a call for volunteers, so I find myself at Gnomedex 9.0 in the Bell Harbor Conference Center chatting up people who are famous on Twitter. So far I got to play with Microsoft Surface tables, watch Bre Pettis make a resin mini-replica of someone's skull with a MakerBot, and get lots and lots of swag.

Oh, and I also started by very own Twitter wave - meet Chrissa, the Girls in Tech booth mascot. Yes, that's a throwboy pillow of Chris Pirillo's face with a bow on it.

Old News is Good News

• This just got covered at CHS blog, but I've actually known about this for a week or two and only recently had the chance (read was only recently absolutely sure) to get the word out: Unpaving Paradise has now raised enough money to cover the entire construction budget for John and Summit Park! Hurray!

• This is old news since it happened yesterday, but the title is just too good to pass up...the things Marc at Cafe Met comes up with sometimes...

Talking about the weather

Spine and Crown says that August was nutty, but the crazy really began in late July with The Heat Wave of Epic and Historical Proportions. And now it's raining like it's November already...and there was the Snowpocalypse this last winter....OMFGBBQ Global Warming!? Cliff Mass says "not exactly".

The unanswered question - Why didn't we come up with a witty name for THWEHP?

The answer - It was too damn hot.

(image courtesy of Dawn42)

This Thursday: Arbitrary Art Grant Show + Marination Mobile + 500 E Pine

Yep, I'll be there.

UPDATE: Or not...it was raining, I had a good book, what can I say. CHS Blog did go, and here is their coverage on the event. I take some comfort in the fact that Marination Mobile didn't make it either because while I may have missed out on $500, at least I didn't miss out on their delicious tacos.

Orcas Island Vacation Slides, Part 3

Slide show starts here

While most of our time on Orcas was spent toodling around, the cutie pie and I actually did go out and do stuff. Like take the island shuttle over to Cascade Lake...




ride the ferry over to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island...











and take ourselves halfway up Mount Constitution.




PS It was only halfway up Mount Constitution because I got blisters at that point. I had entirely forgotten how long four miles is when it's entirely uphill.