Archive for the ‘Living’ category

Cartooned!

January 17th, 2010

Over the holidays, we traveled to see Amy’s mom in Richmond, VA, to see her dad in Charleston, WV and got to see my parents before and after our east coast trip as they came out to Seattle for the holidays.  It was a lot of traveling, but one of the things we managed in between family time was to see some friends in Richmond.

One of the couples we got to spend some time are Amy’s best friend from forever Eva and her husband William.  They live in Philly but they were visiting family in Richmond as well.  We saw them twice and talked at length about what was going on in our various lives.  Somehow, one of hiking trips Amy and I took some years ago came up, as we encountered an unusually dressed person on the trail that day.  William found this extremely entertaining, and he portrayed our story today on his illustrated blog.

View our story on his blog, or see his latest drawing’s on William’s amazing illustrated blog, Drawing on Experience.

Backstory: For what it’s worth, the hike when this occured was on June 11, 2006 when we hiked up Sunrise Mountain towards Scorpion Mountain.  That day we got chased off the mountain by a thunderstorm, so we started hiking back to the car after a satisfactory lunch near the top of Sunrise Mountain.  On the way back, I was hiking a little ways in front of Amy and Brendan, and I said hello when I saw someone coming up the trail around a bend.  When they got around the bend, I realized that the person was a nude male in his 40′s or so, carrying a backpack.  I never made it far enough down to see if he was wearing shoes.  I was baffled by his lack of apparel, but continued discussing the weather.  “Be careful up there.”, “Oh, don’t worry about me, I think the storm is passing.” as if there was nothing unusual at all.  When Amy and Brendan caught up, they were having a harder time containing themselves.  We hiked on, certainly out of sight and maybe out of earshot and completely lost it, laughing out loud.  We discussed the experience after the fact, and none of us were offended by the encounter, it was just unusual, and funny.   I don’t know who we encountered this day, but there is atleast one nude hiker in the Seattle area who has a website where he explains why he choses to hike this way.

1 comment »

Posted in Hiking, Living

Tags:

Strange Celebrations

January 6th, 2010
The New Year begins on a rather unlikely day of the year; it is too early to be the coldest day on average, and it misses the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) by a little over a week.  So why not celebrate this unlikely holiday with an unlikely tradition.

For years, I have used this day as an excuse to plunge myself into the nearest body of water, my own “Polar Bear” swim. In looking back through old photos and videos, I am pretty sure the first time I did this was in 2000, but it may very well have gone undocumented in 1999 or 1998. There isn’t a lot of pomp and circumstance involved, the only real criteria is to completely submerge myself in the water, if only briefly.

2000/01/01 – Severna Park
2001/01/01 – Severna Park

The first celebrations were in Maryland, with friends from High School including John Merrill and Chris Moore.  Subsequent celebrations follwed me wherever I was a given year.  In 2001, we had to fight with a thin layer of ice over the water which you wouldn’t think could do any damage, but it cut up our legs pretty well.  I recall a swim on the river in Pittsburgh at CJ Sloan’s River house with Casper.  I also recall a very brisk midwinter swim at RB Winter state park, although I’m not certain it was on New Years Day per-se, or just a chilly bad idea.

2004/01/03 – Pittsburgh
2005/01/01 – Severna Park
More recently, I have celebrated at nearby Waverly Beach Park in Kirkland, WA.  This celebration has been a solo expedition, both being rather quick swims.  In 2009, I got to perform for Amy’s Dad and Sharon who were visiting.  I’m glad he still let us get married.
2008/01/01 – Kirkland
2009/01/01 – Kirkland
Due to my absentimindedness, I had nearly forgotten my annual tradition until we were making dinner.  Since Andre and Ellie were coming for dinner, I called to warn them about the post-dinner festivities.  They decided to bring swimwear, and lo-and-behold, they decided to give it a try.  This year I was pleased to have co-participants instead of just gawkers. (Amy has no interest in joining in the swim, but is aways happy to hold the camera.) Andre and Ellie took the plunge too.
2010/01/01 – Kirkland

 

This year, since it was dark, we decided it was smarter to run in to the water from the beach rather than taking the intense plunge off the dock. Knowing that this approach is difficult, since you can back out before completing the dunk, I went at the water at a full run.  It was a good plan, as it was quite chilly out, and I knew the sun woudl not be able to help me warm up after it had set. 

201
0/01/01 – Kirkland

Thanks to all who celebrated with me this year and in year’s past.  Happy New Year!

2 comments »

Posted in Living

Tags:

The $ of Food

October 1st, 2009
As my wife called out in her blog today, we bought a ton of local produce at the farmer’s market and we are in the process of converting it into frozen pasta sauces and soups for the colder months.
This raises an intersting question about the ($) cost of preparing local food for use later in the year versus buying your food at the store. 
Potato Leek Soup (Fourteen 12oz portions)

Potatoes (4$), Leeks (1.5$), Onion (1$), Green onions from the garden (worth 1$), 3 boxes of Chicken Stock (9$) = 16.50$ for 168oz (5.25$ for 32oz versus 3.69$  in a grocery store.)
Verdict: A little more expensive, although a major ingredient was store bought anyways.  Do it for the taste, not the savings.

Tomato Basil Soup (Six 12oz portions.)
4 lbs tomatoes (3.75$, due to negotiated bulk price with market employee), Basil from the garden (worth 2$ or more), Onions (1$), garlic (.50$), chicken broth (2$) = 9$ for 72oz  (4.00$ for 32oz versus 4.29$ in a grocery store)
Verdict: Actually saving a little money to eat locally, although the price is biased by the low negotiated price for the tomatoes.

Pasta Sauce (Fifteen 12oz portions.)
16lbs tomatoes (12.50$), 4 peppers (2$), 1 onion (1$), Basil from garden (worth 2$) spices & oil (.50$) = 18$ for 180oz. (2.40$ for 24oz versus 3.79$ or more at the grocery store)
Verdict: Decent pasta sauce is expensive in the grocery store.  There is money to be saved here if you can find cheap enough tomatoes, and almost everything is local!

Note, three important costs are not being accounted for:

  1. Storage: We bought semi-reusable glad and tupperware containers for this project at about 75 cents a container, but they are reusable so their cost goes down over time. besides, we could ahve just as easily used reused butter tubs or similar.
  2. Power: Running your existing freezer with a few extra items actually saves power over the long run, but running a second freezer is not free.  We might invest in a chest freezer for next year, so this is a cost that must be considered.
  3. Time: If you value your time even the slightest bit, and you don’t enjoy processig and preserving food, then this would be really hard to justify.

 

No comments »

Posted in Gardening, Living