Blog du Wren

I love public transportation!

For the past 2.5 year, I have been doing what some call a crazy commute. On average, it is about two and a half hours each way. I rarely have done more than 3 or 4 commutes a week, but that is plenty. When people ask how I can stand it, it is easy. I love public transportation. It is cheaper (usually), you don't have to deal with the stress of driving, you can sleep/read a book/space out, you don't have to worry about parking, it is better for the environment, you have an excuse to leave work early, etc. etc. I'm grateful for this opportunity to have learned the ins and outs of greater Seattle's public transportation. I consider myself an expert, so let me know if I can help plan a trip for you.

Here are some links I've found helpful:
*Metro Transit Serving mostly local Seattle routes, also going to the airport from downtown.
*Community Transit Serving Snohomish County. Route #422 from Stanwood to Seattle has been a good friend of mine.
*Sound Transit Mainly a link from the suburbs into Seattle. The train to/from Everett is quite easily the nicest way to commute to downtown.
*SKAT What has been a somewhat cumbersome experience in the past keeps getting better with the addition of new routes and more convienient ways to pay. The Everett Connector has esp. been a great edition. This website also has a link to the County Connector, which connects Mount Vernon, Bellingham, Anacortes, and Oak Harbor
* Island Transit Although I rarely go down to Oak Harbor or Coupville, Island stops at Marches Point park and ride, and runs to Mount Vernon Transit station, connecting with both the Everett and Bellingham connectors. And best of all, it is fare free!

I hope you found some of these helpful. Three cheers for public transportation!

Monday September 4 2006

File under: travel, work

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Two Weeks' Notice

"A lawyer decides that she's used too much like a nanny by her boss, so she walks out on him." Oh that Sandra Bullock. Can she *make* a bad movie? I mean, really. And I just can't get enough of Hugh Grant. So despite the bad grammar in the movie's title, Two Weeks Notice is the way to go.

But on a completely separate note, I've tendered my resignation to Photoworks and bought a one way ticket to Thailand. The plan is to meet up with Andrew, Per, and Myke. After that, the world is my oyster. I leave in 2 weeks with an estimated return sometime in December. Keep it tuned to BdW for the latest.

Friday September 1 2006

File under: travel, work

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Comments Feature: Beta

One-way communication is so 1900s. With that in mind, I've added comments to BdW both for your entertainment and mine. The technology is uses is AJAX, which might cause some with you non-mainstream browser folks problems, but I think we've got it tested in Firefox and IE for the PC (thanks to the help of my testers!). If you do run into issues, please let me know.

Also, there still seems to be a bit of a caching issue caused by the browser XSL/XML parsing, so if you don't see the latest comments, just reload the page. Hopefully I'll figure something out for that in the future.

So comment nice and comment often!

Wednesday August 30 2006

File under: blog

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Lasqueti Island Juggling Festival 2006

Lasqueti Island is a world away from everything. Last weekend, Nora and I biked up the east side of Vancouver Island (75 miles, round trip: We were proud of ourselves at least) to catch the little foot pasenger ferry over to Lasqueti. The juggling festival was a good time, but seeing the island and the culture there took the cake for me. The food for our meals were grown right on the property and cooked on the open fire. I slept in the middle of the garden under the stars. I pooped in a bucket. It was awesome.

On Saturday night, we put on a show at the community center. Not too many people showed up, but what can you expect on a little island. Highlights of the show included fire juggling, 6 year olds hula hooping, a mud boot dance, and zucchini juggling.

Biking with gear in my little old milk crate

Luke only paid half price to bring his uni on the ferry

A little juggling action from the public show

Passing fire with Johnny

Tuesday August 29 2006

File under: events, pics

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Silent Movies are a riot!

So last night I went to see Sparrows (1926) at the The Paramount as part of their Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays. It was a grand old time and I recommend it to everyone. The Mighty Wurlitzer was played to perfection. The crowd got into it hissing at the bad guys and cheering the good ones. And there were even prizes given away. It gave some idea of what the movie experience would have been like back in the day.

Tuesday August 22 2006

File under: events, movies

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A few pounds lighter and healthier than ever

Working on a car makes me feel like a man, even if I whine, complain, and require two trips to the auto parts store to change a lousy alternator belt. But even so, I feel like a man.

And not only did I change the alternator belt, but I also found these extra parts strewn about the engine that the car didn't need. I say this because I removed them, couldn't find where they go, so left them out and the car works fine!

So Ms. Marilyn is feeling better than ever, I hope, and is ready to carry me on my ridiculous commute. I couldn't ask for a better car (although having a drivers side door that opened would be nice)

Sunday August 20 2006

File under: transportation

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Good music, good fun

Last night I attended the flotsam festival over on Guemes. Being out in the sun with good friends and great music can't be beat. And while there wasn't much juggling to be had there, I'll take this opporunity to post a pic from the last Spoonshine concert I attended.

Sunday August 20 2006

File under: pics

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A celebration of local foods

For my birthday this year, I decided to start a tradition of hosting a party that celebrated the local foods of the area. The experience turned out to be amazing, both the party itself, and all the knowledge and experience gained in the prepartion.

The main reasons behind the party were:
*the environment (minimize resources that are used in transporation of food
*economics (by supporting local agriculture and food production, we help support our communities)
*health (eating foods grown in the area mesh better with your innards)
*history (to learn how things were before you could get Italian olive oil at the local supermarket)
*fun (working within strict guidelines presents a challenge that was fun to overcome.
*taste (fresh just tastes better)

For me, the highlights were twofold. Firstly, all the preparation was great fun. We made our own butter from cream that we skimmed from local raw milk. Churning butter isn't nearly as hard as I thought. Figuring out a way to get salt was another fun challenge. I ended up getting some seawater from Fidalgo Bay and evaporating it in the sun. I was really suprised at how much salt is in salt water. Flour is something that I have always taken for granted. Yes, I see wheat fields around, but there is a large gap between that, and the flour that I use in my pizza doughs. Well, thanks to Keith, I now know the process start to finish. He gathered some rye from his neighbor's yard and threshed it for me. I ground the rye seeds(?) to flour using my coffee grinder. Then Jule and I baked bread with the flour. Gretchen also used some of it for a kick ass crust on her crisp. The second highlight for me was seeing people's reaction. Explaining to people where every ingredient in what they are eating came from led to a lot of wide eyes combined with a new appreciation for the food. The general support, excitement, and delight from all the participants just furthered my joy at the idea.

So for those of you that couldn't make it, I've put together a menu of most of the things we had. Last minute additions unforuntately didn't make it to the list.

So a big thanks to everyone that came and participated. Special thanks to Andrew and Per for taking some pictures.

The kitchen was abuzz with great smells and great helpers

Todd and Marieke look questioningly at the mushroom pate

Joey and Per share a romantic glass of honey wine

What party is complete without a fire juggling show?

Saturday August 19 2006

File under: events, pics

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Happiness is home-coded

Well folks, I finally did it. I spent hours and hours doing what it would only take a not-so-tech savvy person 30 minute to do. That's right, I've got a blog.

But this ain't no regular blog. This is a selfmade blog. No wordpad, no typeguru, and no mySpace. This is written in PHP/XML by yours truely. So if you want comments, tough. Want an Atom feed, not a chance. You get this, and you should be happy for it. So I hope you enjoy. If I am feeling frisky, I might get the ball rolling with improved functionality, but I doubt it. In the meantime, report any problems you see with you RSS aggregator or browser quirks to me, and we'll see if we can't get them all fixed up.

So here's to the adventure they call the blogosphere!

Saturday August 19 2006

File under: blog

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