Well summer is still holding on for dear life. There’ll be drizzles next week, but this week is all sunny.

I may have mentioned before, but the cloud formations are really something out here, much nicer than Utah clouds. I experienced a similar phenomenon in Australia, and I wonder if it’s due to the water content in the air – much drier in Utah than here. Another difference that may be due to the same root cause is that I can’t easily tell by looking outside how cold it is in the morning; it was pretty darn frigid today on my bike ride. I considered just driving in, but with only a week left of nice weather, I can’t be picky.

Speaking of bike rides, and how I ride past tons of blackberry bushes, the blackberries are all shrivelling up for the year. I arrived in town just in time to catch the best part of blackberry season. It’s too late now, but over the last two weeks I would’ve enjoyed being a berrybender, levitating the berries off the bushes into a basket I’d keep on my bike. There’s no other way to get at those high berries since the prickly bushes are so tall.

I keep meaning to write these over the weekend, but then I’m consistently busy. On Friday we had the first of what may become a regular movie night at my place. The movie – The Tourist – lasted until 9:45, and I was happy we’d finished up before the 10pm quiet hours. Then they decided to stay for games. I feel pretty bad for my neighbors. Here I’ve been trying real hard to keep quiet and respect the 10pm quiet-hours rules, and then out of nowhere here’s a group of 12 people shouting at midnight, accusing each other of being government agents out to topple the insurgency. Next time we’ll play the rowdy games before the movie.

On Saturday, the latest chapter of the Holy War unfolded. Unfelded? Unfelled? Feels like there should be a shorter word for that. Anyways. A bitter taste of déjà vu, as I’m pretty sure we lost two games ago in an identical fashion. About 3/8ths of the way through the game, the power went right out. Ended up streaming the game on my phone, which taxed both the battery power and my data usage. It’s just as well that the game ended when it did, since my battery wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyways. Would’ve had to resort to watching it from my car, charging off of the engine.

The flashlights I brought worked wonderfully though. Shining the light straight up at the ceiling made it seem like there was a sunroof installed.

I was using up the last dregs of power on my laptop to watch Interstellar, and then go to sleep, when power came back at 11:30pm. Nice, now I can stay up another two and a half hours reading Dune! I need to finish the book before I head back to Utah at the end of the month, since it’s checked out from the BYU library.

On Sunday there was a dinner at our bishop’s place for the ward council members and all the newbies. Since I fit in both categories, I was contractually obligated to go :p Afterwards we watched a delayed showing of the devotional by Elder Quentin L. Cook. Good stuff, but I was dead tired afterwards.

Anecdote: I’d arrived early for church in order to attend Ward Council. Afterwards I decided I’d drop in and join the choir. Didn’t realize we’d be singing in Sacrament Meeting that very day, but oh well. But the funny bit was before practice. Girls in row ahead of me, complimenting a guy standing next to me on his bowtie: Bowties are cool. Me: Fezzes are cool too. All of us: Yeeeeaahhh.

Monday evening was a regional FHE over at some beach in Seattle. Didn’t have time to grab something to eat beforehand, so I hoped they’d have proper food, but it was just s’mores. Had one, played some volleyball, more volleyball, frisbee, more frisbee, met some Bellevue members, told riddles, climbed on a cool pirate ship playset, went and had burgers on the way back. Much fun.

Sayonara!