It’s a quiet evening at home. I worked late, while Hayden hasn’t come back yet from Institute. The last couple weeks have been good fun. I reorganized the garage two or three times for an optimal arrangement of Stuff. Getting rid of that couch really helped; haven’t had this much room in there in months.

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The tree out back clearly survived. It’ll probably need that rope to fasten the two main trunks together for many years, but at least it’s alive.

The flower tree in the corner has also thrived much more this year than last. A couple of friends came by to pick some for their place.

Later that day Hayden and I went to a fireside broadcast. Afterwards a friend of ours (Hayden has friends! 🙂) had a flat tire. I busted out my trusty wrench set, but one of the nuts was on there way too tight. Ended up doing a bit of damage after I stomped on it one too many times.

Oops.

Speaking of damage. Those thorns I got a finger-ful of last time I wrote have not gone quietly. I think there’s one left and it’s deep. Above it has formed what I believe is some scar tissue. Other thorns I’ve squeezed out have been remarkably long.

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They were straight in too.

The weather has been delightful. Rode my bike to work quite a bit last week and just had to stop a few times to take it all in.

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On Wednesday last week I got a group together to do bar trivia. But unfortunately we couldn’t make it to our usual place, a nice Irish pub. My fallback turned out to be an actual proper bar, very dark and smoky, not our vibe at all. So we diverted to a nearby burger place for a non-competitive dinner. Had ice cream and explored a nearby park afterwards.

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On Friday evening our Logan friends arrived in town, and Saturday was a Whidbey Island trip.

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On Sunday Hayden and I attended an “Orphan’s Mother’s Day” picnic at a park near a lake beach, with some friends who did not have family in the area.

Been watching Deep Space Nine with Hayden lately, and it’s been a blast. The documentary was fun, though I wish I would’ve had another month or so to watch the last season and a half first. I’ve seen the finale before, years ago, but I couldn’t remember most of it and was looking forward to watching it with fresh eyes. Big spoilers in that regard during the doc.

Till next time!

“Alright sir, your car is right this way. I see you selected a full-size?”

“That’s right. Heh, it’s funny, last time I was through here they didn’t have any full-size cars left and put me in a Mustang.”

“Hmm… d’you want this SS?”

“Uhh, sure.”

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So it’s now a tradition that I get to try a sports car when I travel for work.

That last pic is a straight-on shot from the front. You can see just how ridiculously tiny the view-port is. And the fat pillars in the back mean there’s even less visibility in that direction too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wicked fun to drive, but I’d never own one.

The most over-the-top feature, though, had to be the Heads-Up Display.

Anyways. The trip was a great success. Had a junior employee along and we had tons of meetings, got to show her the ropes of how to get around down there, met some faces, etcetera.

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My flight out, like my flight in, got quite delayed. It was a nice day out and I’d already returned my rental car, so I walked around the airport and found a walking trail next to a river. Had to beat my way through some brush to get to the river bank.

You can see some trash stuck in the foliage. That’s not littering, that’s a sign that this river is filthy and gets a lot higher. So it wasn’t quite the idyllic respite I’d imagined from the trail.

To prep for Hayden’s arrival, I had to finally get rid of the couch that had been taking up space in my garage for the better part of a year. I’d never put much effort into getting rid of it, always figured someone would come along for it. Then it turned out my good friend’s roommate was moving out and taking all their furniture with her, so the couch would be a welcome addition to their place. To paraphrase the elementary school song:

“BROWN couch, it never gets dirty, the longer it stays here the browner it gets.

“SOME day, I think I will sell it off. Something keeps telling me, don’t do it yet. Not yet. Not yet.”

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Then Hayden and Mattie arrived!

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At the park where these pics were taken, we took a stroll through a forest trail. I was intent on retracing my steps from a long ways back. But the undergrowth was too much for me to navigate. I tried my best, but got a finger-ful of thorns for my trouble. Which are still working their way out, a week later.

On our way out Hayden requested a GIF shot of him throwing the frisbee. I wasn’t able to capture it, but I did get something a little less flattering.

Before Hayden shot off for work on Monday we had fun with the plasma cutter.

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Tuesday was a nice day and I decided to take a half-day off to shoot the breeze with Mattie. We headed up north to the Tulip Festival, then decided to swing west and head down south through the middle of Whidbey Island.

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Wednesday night we headed out for some ice cream after work.

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Hayden was gracious enough to take Mattie to the airport early the next morning. I needed the sleep as I was giving a presentation at a large summit the next day, which went quite well.

Highlights from having Mattie and Hayden over:

• Driving over the Deception Pass bridge with Mattie in total amazement. Definitely gonna have to hit that place up next time y’all make it up here.
• Geeking out over protocol buffers and serialization formats while wandering through a tulip field.
• Rocking out with Hayden on the way back from his first local FHE.
• Applause at the end of Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, my latest favorite Bollywood film.

Currently passing the time on a bench in SeaTac airport, till my flight leaves. On accident I arrived here four hours before my flight. Flight left at 6:50, so I got it in my head, 6pm, that’s my flight time [to arrive at the airport]. Somehow I forgot the “to arrive at the airport” bit, so when my ride asked me what time she should pick me up, I did the math backwards from 6pm and figured I should arrive around 5pm. As we were pulling up to departures I realized my mistake just in time to learn that my flight had been delayed to 7:50pm. Didn’t want to inconvenience my ride so figured I’d just tough it out for an extra hour. Got all settled into my bench, when another update said the flight had been delayed again to 8:50pm. Blegh. Actually I really should check to see if it didn’t get delayed again… Nope, still 8:50.

Sunday evening last week I attended a Lamb of God concert down in Tacoma. It’s an annual thing and I haven’t bothered to go in the past. Good thing I went, since apparently this is the last year they’ll be putting it on. The music was good, but the performance was plagued with mic issues. One of the lead singers’ wireless mics suffered from very loud static whenever it was enabled. You could hear it as the tech specialist tried to narrow down which mic needed silencing, as random mics got disabled throughout the performance, until they found the culprit and gave them a hand-held mic. Felt sorry for the performers. But apparently they have issues like this every single year, so, I guess you get what you pay for?

This is a view underneath the deck out back. The water feature leak is back. It was a slow one, but who knows how long it flowed for before I caught it. Entire area back there was soaked. I’m sure it wasn’t any worse than what a few days of Washington winter will do to it, but I didn’t want to pay for it out of season. In the past my strategy has been to shut off the water, wait a few weeks, turn it back on irrationally hoping it went away in the meantime, and be vindicated when the leak actually does go away.

This time I just reduced the flow rate, went to church, came back, and the leak was gone. Weeeird. Not complaining though. Except now that weird humming noise is more audible. Gonna have to do something about that.

The week was pretty ho hum. After YouTube randomly recommended this DS9 clip I’ve fallen in love with the show. The seven-episode arc that follows the clip is fabulous television. Gul Dukat and Weyoun (and Keevan, though he’s only a one-episode character) are excellent villains.

Yesterday I put my back through another round of stress tests, with a 3-hour hike.

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After we got back I headed straight to a Bellevue ward event, dinner and a showing of Infinity War Part 1. I was wondering about the legality of showing a commercial film in a church building, when the opening credits fizzled out and it turned out we weren’t actually watching a movie, but solving a murder mystery.

Had to split off into teams to explore six classrooms-turned-bedrooms and hunt for clues to determine the murderer, the motive, and the weapon. Turns out the victim was dating two people at once; they found out, combined their respective specialties of chemistry and botany, and concocted a poisoned smoothie. Goodbye, Earl.

Today after Sacrament Meeting it turned out that my ride to the airport was attending an early-afternoon Easter dinner, and invited me along. I’d assumed I’d miss out on any of those, due to my forgetting that this was Easter Sunday when I booked my flights. So that was a nice little get-together. As mentioned earlier I ended up leaving it far sooner than I truly needed to, but it was nice to have been able to go at all.

And my back must be getting better, since I completely forgot to bring my arch support and I seem to be doing just fine.

Looking forward to spending next week with the sibs! Good luck on your finals, and good luck Steve on the new job!