“Dust in the Wind”
“♫ That’s just the way things go, in Kii-ii-ii-ii-irkland ♫”
“Such is Life”
“These are the Voyages of the Hardrock Andersen”
“Giving Back to the Community”
^ Alternative titles to this post.
Friday night was Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Night at the Mariner’s game against the L.A. Angels. It also happened to be Star Wars night, and a fireworks night to boot. So that was a ton of fun. We caught a bus in, which was its own sort of fun. It is exceedingly convenient to have Hayden board a bus ahead of time and share his location with me, so I can see just where the bus is while I rush to find a nearby stop that isn’t closed due to weekend construction.
Hayden spun off to meet up with a friend for some fishing the next morning, while I found a ride back that didn’t involve buses.
Saturday morning I had errands in Redmond, and decided to bring my bike so I could ride around for a bit. While I was in the middle of a very disappointing burger, I got word that a baptism was happening at the stake center, which was only like 20 minutes away. It was basically entirely up-hill, but last week’s foray up Tiger Mountain had prepared me well. I had to sit in the back since I had a giant sweat spot on the back of my shirt.
Just behind our church building, there’s a modest mountain bike park, with jumps and curves and what-have-you. In almost three years I’d never had the chance to try it out, since I’d never had my bike with me at church. So I made a few rounds. Not something I’d bike a long ways to play on, but it was fun. What was really fun was riding pure downhill back to my car.
Didn’t have much time after that before I was due at an escape room with some friends for a belated birthday celebration. We beat the room with a healthy margin and plenty of un-used clues.
Went out to dinner after that, then back home.
Sunday afternoon I decided to take a bike ride around town. Ended up on a section of the CKC that I hardly ever take these days. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a foot trail heading off into some heavy growth. Too much to take my bike through easily, I left it on the side of the trail, out of the way of traffic, and set off into the woods. The trail was faint but eventually it led to a fantastic little area, very reminiscent of the Creek back home.
Got a bit lost on the way but eventually I made my way back. Crested the trail and… the bike was gone.
In a sense it served me right cause I left it unlocked, but c’mon people, be cool. I guess I can just try to imagine that whoever nabbed it needed it more than I did. Very fortunate in that regard.
So there I was, walking along the trail like a chump. Called Hayden and got a ride back home.
Been shopping a bit since then and I had no interest in finding a different brand, but I was having a devil of a time finding a vendor that carried Specialized Hardrock bikes. In desperation I called up The Bike Peddler in Lehi to see if they still carried it. They helpfully explained that Specialized had discontinued their Hardrock series, but its replacement, the RockHopper, was nearly identical. Turns out it has several improvements over the Hardrock, so that’ll make moving on a bit easier.
Anyways. My co-worker gifted me an old GameBoy Advance SP, which Hayden’s been having a ton of fun with. A real blast from the past.
Monday night I had the ward over for FHE. The activity was an egg drop. The committee had been looking for somewhere high to drop the eggs from, and I volunteered my balcony, with the idea that I could set up my ladder to get a good 15 feet higher in the air.
Unfortunately the gutter protruded just a bit too far over and I was unable to extend the ladder to its full height. But we still had fun. Though I was pretty paranoid that someone was gonna drop an egg indoors. That did actually happen, but it was out back and easy to clean up.
So that was fun. Another shout-out to Hayden for helping me put those rubber feet on the couch – didn’t move an inch, even with seven people on it.
This evening I had my first ever HOA board meeting, where I got voted in. There’s a couple of projects going on, various improvements to the neighborhood like replacing old curbs or rebuilding the roof over the mailboxes. Should be interesting. If nothing else I see an opportunity to help the board do better than draft up announcements through emailing Word documents back and forth.