Seattle, round 3

This was officially our third trip to Seattle....however the first two don't count because we were only passing through (on our way to Whistler the first time and catching a flight to Hawaii the second). This time we finally got to spend some time in this wonderful city. Pauline had been staying with us for the week in Portland and was ready to discover more of the Pac NW, so we all headed up to Seattle to visit with Jo and Clayton for the weekend (thanks again for a place to crash!!). Emily and Pauline ran the Seattle half marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday morning. Yes, they are crazy....especially considering the steep hills in Seattle.

Em and Pauline showing off their medals for completing yet another half marathon

After the run, we headed back to Jo's place to regroup and clean up for a day touring the town. The first stop was Pike St Market...it reminded me of Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran.....yes, touristy galore, but ya gotta do it once.

Em and Pauline at Pike St Market

Fresh salmon; when you order one, they literally throw it up to the cashier to weigh it. While we were there, a foreign TV show was filming the spectacle of throwing fish. The host of the show tried catching the flying fish; needless to say, it took him several tries before actually catching the slippery salmon!

Emily just HAD to make a pilgrimage to the original Starbucks location

Continuing to be tourists, we went up the Space Needle:

The view from atop the Space Needle (observation deck at 520 ft): downtown Seattle with Mt Rainier in the distance

The next morning, we took a stroll to a nearby cemetery where Bruce Lee is buried. Brandon Lee is buried alongside. The grave is easy to find by the crowds of constant visitors.

Next, we stopped by a local farmer's market. This one is more of the real deal and not so touristy like Pike St market. It is a lot like the markets we frequent in Portland. We enjoyed some crepes....the chefs were quite artistic as they cooked:

a walk through a random park where Jo ran into one of her friends, who was gracious enough to get a group photo for us

Our last stop with the group was to go to the Chittenden Locks, where the bay and river differ by about 30 ft in height. We watched a couple of vessels navigate the locks, however the more exciting part was watching the salmon swim up the fish ladders. I have always wanted to see a salmon jumping upstream; this is probably the closest I will get, short of wading in a river in Canada. The fish ladders are a system of graduated pools that allow the salmon to negotiate the height differential at the locks and get upstream to spawn. Very cool. Sorry, I couldn't get a good pic or video of the salmon going up the ladders because they were very swift and the lighting was not proper. Here's the salmon hanging out in the observation area between the fish ladders:

Our time was quickly running out, as we had to get Pauline to the SeaTac airport in time for her return flight home. Emily and I had one more mission to accomplish while in Washington: we needed to pickup a phonograph that was located about 2 hrs east of Seattle. The phonograph was my great-grandmother's. She passed away at age 97 when I was in grade school, however I still remember visiting her house and playing the old phonograph. It is a Thomas Edison brand and dates back to the early 1900's. It features a hand crank (it was used before electricity was commonplace) and has a flywheel design to maintain constant speed. It has a warm crackly sound that takes you back in time. As an engineer, I am amazed with the simple, yet effective design. For instance, to adjust the volume, you move a lever which pulls a cable, which moves a muffle in/out of the megaphone (speaker). I am even more amazed that it still works as well as new after over 100 years! I guarantee my iPod will not work in 100 years....maybe not even 10. They just do not make things with this level of craftsmanship anymore.
Long story short, the phonograph sat at my parents' house for years because I was living in apartments during school. Recently, a family acquaintance was hauling some stuff from Ohio to Washington, so I quickly asked if they would mind if the Edison rides along. They agreed, my parents mummified it in bubble wrap, and now I just had to pick it up in Washington. Done.

My great-grandmother's Edison phonograph now resides in our dining room to provide many more years of enjoyment. I've decided not to refinish it; the rustic patina adds too much character!

Our drive back from picking up the phonograph took us through the eastern/central portion of Washington....I must admit, originally we dreaded the extra couple hours of driving, however, once on the road, we soon came to appreciate the wonders that met the eye. The terrain changed from lush evergreen forest to barren prairies where only sagebrush grows....then as we approached the Columbia Valley, the trees appeared as an oasis.....(sigh) back to the beautiful forests we know and love. Here are some random pics taken during the drive:

windfarms.....another way the NW produces green power (the others being hydroelectric and solar)....take notes everyone!!

farms with million dollar unobstructed views of Mt Hood

Mt Hood at dusk, viewed from the Columbia River Gorge

A visit from the 2110 girls + Mike!

Pauline had been planning a trip to visit Portland at some point this summer, and we were able to coordinate it so that it coincided with Amanda and Mike's West Coast road trip; also, since Jo lives up in Seattle, she took a few days off to come down as well...it turned into a 2110 reunion! What's 2110 you ask? Well...the girls and I (along with Christal who couldn't make it) lived in a house at 2110 Wesley in Evanston during our senior year in college. They were all bridesmaids in our wedding, and I was also a bridesmaid in Amanda and Christal's wedding. Ever since college, we've been able to stay close even though we were all scattered throughout the country. The weekend worked out perfectly as it was the weekend Brad was in Las Vegas for his best friend Paul's bachelor party and it was also Pauline's birthday!


One of the first stops the group wanted to make was to VooDoo Doughnut! So of course, I couldn't say no. They are known for having wacky doughnut creations such as a maple bacon doughnut, a doughnut that looks like a voodoo doll (with jelly inside), and doughnuts topped with Tang, cereal, candy, etc. It was a 45 min. wait...but it was worth it!


Here's a pic of the display case. It made for the hardest decision of the day - which doughnuts to pick??


After VooDoo, we headed to both the Farmer's Market and the Saturday Market (definitely must-dos in Portland if you're ever visiting). While at the Saturday Market, we ran into Matt and Kristina. Portland can be a small city sometimes :)


For Pauline's birthday, Mike gave her his absence - he went to the Portland Beavers baseball game while the girls got a night out to celebrate Pauline's birthday. We met up with Courtney, who lived on our floor in our sophomore year dorm, along with my personal trainer and some of his friends at a club downtown.


The next morning Brad came back to Portland and cooked us all a big breakfast. It's what we do for our visitors :)


After breakfast, the girls and I headed out to do what we do best - shopping! Mike and Brad headed to the International Rose Garden. Before they left, they cleansed their sense of smell with an inhale of Pauline's peonies (that Jo got her from the Farmer's Market).


I know this picture is kind of random. My company picked a select few of us from the office to attend the Portland Business Journal's 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies Awards Ceremony at the Portland Art Museum. We have ranked #1 for 2 years in a row and then last year we ranked #16. This year, we won #19!

Stay tuned...the next blog post will be about our weekend trip to Seattle this past weekend.

San Francisco - Google, Lite Brites, Bouncy Rooms, and Good Food!

I got the opportunity to travel to Santa Rosa, California for work (in beautiful wine country) last week, so I took it :) We've been looking for opportunities to fly down to San Francisco (it's only a 1 hr 20 min. flight) since Renee, my cousin, and her family live out there. We hadn't seen them since our wedding 2.5 years ago, and we also haven't had the opportunity to meet Nina, their newest addition (who is now 1 years old), so we were long overdue for a visit. Jon, my brother, was also recently hired by Google to be a Software Engineer and moved out a few weeks ago with his fiancee Stacy, so it was a bonus that we would get to see them along with Renee, Danny, Naomi, and Nina. Luckily, since we had already been to San Francisco before, we didn't feel the need to do the touristy stuff. We just took advantage of getting to spend time with family and having some good eats! We hope to see them all again soon, hopefully in Portland!


Prior to picking me up from Mill Valley, CA, Stacy and Brad visited Jon at Google for some breakfast. They have free meals as a perk for their employees and family! We headed over to Google again for a light dinner early evening, and Jon gave us a tour of the campus. In this pic, he is wearing a Noogler hat indicating that he is a new employee to Google (he just finished his first week there!)


Another fun bonus they have on the Google campus are the bikes that people can ride as they travel from one building to another or in our case, to get around faster as we toured the campus. Here's a pic of Brad on one of the bikes for the shorter people.


Jon and Stacy have a cute Pomeranian named Angel. After the Google tour, we headed back to Jon and Stacy's apartment complex and watched as Angel ran after all the runners who came by.


Of course, Brad and I couldn't visit Naomi and Nina (Renee and Danny's two daughters) without bringing them some toys! We bought Naomi a Lite Brite...a little blast from the past. I remember playing with these when I was her age.


Nina was a cutie! I love this pic of her riding the inflatable purple donkey. It was adorable watching her ride this little animal toy.


Danny set up a bouncy room for Naomi to play in while we were just chilling on Sunday. It looked so comfortable that I decided to hop in it too.


What's a trip without a good meal? Renee introduced us to San Tung...a great restaurant in San Fran. We had some of the best wings we've ever had!

Hopefully we'll get another chance to travel to San Francisco! Thanks Renee, Danny and fam / Jon and Stacy for hosting us!

Visiting family in Canada

Over Memorial Day weekend, I flew to Toronto, Canada to see family. My mom and brother Chris also came into town for the weekend along with my Uncle Jack, Aunt Linda, and cousin Nick from Chicago. It was like a mini-family reunion! I hadn't seen most of my family since our wedding, so it was great seeing everyone...and we had great Chinese food in the process!

Yum! My mom and I walked to Chinatown (about a 30 min. walk from my grandma's house)and enjoyed some congee and some noodle wrapped "you tiao" - a Chinese oil stick.


For dinner, we met up with my Uncle Jack, Aunt Linda and her sister's family, Nick, and my Aunt Cecilia. Yet again, yummy Chinese food!


Lychees are in season - we found some plump, juicy lychees from one of the markets in Chinatown along with some dragon fruits and star fruits. It makes me wish we had a big Chinatown here in Portland.


My Aunt Cecilia and Uncle Henry treated us to a little getaway to Niagara Falls. The family traveled down to Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and had a great Chinese (surprise, surprise!) dinner together.


This pic is a view of Horseshoe Falls from our hotel room! My Aunt Cecilia and Uncle Henry are platinum status at the casino, so they get comped rooms (like this) and free meals (like our dinner).


After dinner, we went for a walk by the falls. It was phenomenal how big the natural falls were in person. I had been to Niagara Falls when I was a lot younger, but I was on the Buffalo, NY side. The Canadian side is much prettier!


This is the view from our other hotel room of Bridal Veil Falls, which is on the Buffalo, NY side. If you really check out the pic, you can see the bridge that connects Canada to the US (and is also telling of how long the line is to cross the border when you see cars lined up along the bridge...).

An aerial view of Portland

A month ago, I found out during a work trip to San Diego that a co-worker of mine has been flying planes as a hobby for the last 15 years. Sweet! I offered up my services as a good traveling companion if he ever wanted someone to fly with. Well...he took me up on my offer a few weeks later, and we rented a Cessna 182 after work one day. It was a 4-seater plane, so we took up another co-worker with us.

Below are some pics/videos from the flight. Much cooler than seeing the Portland area from a commercial airliner because we were able to fly really close (5,000 - 10,000 ft) to everything. In the last video of this blog, we capture zero gravity...David (our pilot) essentially took the plane straight up and then straight down causing things (such as my co-worker Brian's phone) to be weightless.
This pic is actually of me post-flight by the plane (to give you an idea of what we rode in)...let's just say with all of David's cowboy maneuvers that I'm surprised I didn't throw up during the flight...but I was mighty close :) It was cool watching David do all the pre-flight safety check, and he was great at explaining everything to us as he was doing it.
We first flew East of Portland through the Gorge. As you can see, this area is probably some of the prettiest landscape you'll find in America: rocky hills full of green trees, snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, rivers, etc. I captured some of the flight through the Gorge in the other video at the end of this post. The pic above is of Multnomah Falls.
Below us in this pic is Bonneville Lock and Dam. It's amazing how you can see a whole other side of Portland from being up in the air.
It was a fairly clear day so we actually got some good views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood, the Three Sisters, and finally Mt. St. Helens as seen in this picture. Here is a pic of us coming up to the mountain.
As we flew around Mt. St. Helens, we got a great shot of the clouds surrounding the crater.
An inside view of the crater in Mt. St. Helens. It's still an active volcano, so we could actually see some steam coming from the little nub you see inside the crater.
Around Mt. St. Helens is gorgeous with the Cascade Mountains. These pics were taken just 2 weeks ago...yes, there's still snow in May here!
Just North of Mt. St. Helens is Spirit Lake. It used to be a popular place to visit, but then Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980 causing the lake water to be toxic and uninhabitable. Also, as you can see in this picture, a good portion of the trees that the eruption took out were pushed into this lake and now covers a large portion of the lake. In the picture, the logs are all off to one side of the lake, most likely due to where the wind has been pushing them lately :)
So David gave me the opportunity to fly the plane for 10 min.. Hrmm...are you sure you want to trust your life to me?? ;) It's interesting how as soon as I was in control of the plane that I no longer felt like I needed to throw up; actually, the tides turned and our pilot was starting to get a little airsick from my shifting us up and down in elevation :)
Here we are approaching Portland from the North.
A closer shot of downtown.

Below are the 2 videos I mentioned earlier. I grabbed a quick video of what the flight felt like and our view of the Gorge in the first video. Also, you'll see that we fly by a vista point, which is a popular place to stop to get a great camera shot of the Gorge (when you're on land that is...). At the end of the video, David is playing around by tilting the plane to the side, hence the bad video shot.