Must-see TV (or not)

July 21, 2016, 3:57 pm

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Thursdays have been one of my favorite days for a long time. Back when I commuted to Redmond, I worked from home on Fridays and it was so nice to pack up the laptop and bring it home with me and have three days before having to go back. It was also my payday for a long time, which worked out great, because any payments I made that day were processed overnight instead of taking all weekend. And once I finally asked Garrett to take care of dinner one night a week because I was overwhelmed by always doing it, he happened to choose Thursday, which was great.

Things are a little different now. I work from home every day. I'm paid monthly, but thankfully we have all of our checks go to a joint account and then draw a weekly "allowance," so I chose Thursday for that. It's still my day off from making dinner, thank goodness. And for now, I'm really enjoying going to beach in the morning unless I head over to the aquatic center, which is also nice. Today was really fun down there, and it was going to be one of the days where I export my Snapchat for a nice video, but the new version doesn't handle it as well as the old one did. I got an error message saying it couldn't export if the story had more than 20 videos. It didn't, just more than 20 items. Oh well.



I originally thought about walking the length of beach I did last week again, but the tide was really high, so I went to my normal spot. Imagine my surprise when I tried to access the small beach by the hotel and found a seal pup!



Don't worry, I know better than to get too close. Someone here recently found a seal pup waiting for its mother to return and thought it was abandoned, and took it with them, leading to its death. There was a lot of education after that, and lots more people know to call Seal Sitters, who presumably are the ones who cordoned off the area.



The beach was really nice, but there were no clouds, and it got brighter and brighter.








There was an odd little cloud that appeared almost before my eyes over Hat Island, and disappeared as fast as it came.




As you approach the beach from the South, there's a gate with a "no trespassing" sign that I've never really understood because you can walk all the way to the other side of that gate from the North. I've never done it, but today I saw two women walking around near there, and they inspired me to check it out. There's a very interesting and creepy overgrown structure there.



I thought about maybe doing six laps as opposed to my usual four-ish. I'd woke up at 2:30 today and never fell back asleep, and arrived earlier than I ever have. But the heat and sunlight started to annoy me, so I headed up to the main road via the Japanese Gulch interpretive trail. Instant relief. It felt 20 degrees cooler in there.





There were lots of people out today. I saw another woman doing laps, a guy with a dog, another guy balanced on the rocks fishing, and three groups of guys wandering around, who I suspect were all playing Pokemon Go. Very strange for a place I almost never see anyone in.

It's been a lovely day otherwise, but that early wake-up time is catching up with me. Glad it's my night off.

Oh yeah, my new Zima sign came.



It'll be a while before it goes on the wall. We're thinking of rearranging the room a bit once our new loveseat comes, and that would mean rearranging the whole Zima wall. Makes sense to wait.

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SchadenFriday

July 22, 2016, 10:14 am

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Slowest week I've seen for these in a long time! Add some in the comments.

Not gonna icon this one, but...

July 22, 2016, 7:12 pm

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h/t jedi_iwakura

CATURDAY

July 23, 2016, 6:20 am

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BONUS Saturdogs

Catchemups

July 24, 2016, 4:43 pm

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I post at least something here every day and have for years. And even for quite a spell before I made that commitment, there were only a few days here and there that I missed. It's important to me mainly because LiveJournal consistently provides us a platform that works the way we want it to. Everyone is mad about algorithms and sorting on other sites, but left this one that shows us everything in order, behind.

A nice thing about having features on Friday and Saturday is that I can postpone some stuff if I'm busy. Now that Sunday has rolled around, though, I've got a lot to catch up on.



Friday morning was a typically lovely walk over at Lowell.




I spotted a Honey Bucket off in the middle of the residential construction site.



At the end of the trail, I noticed that you can keep going if you follow the fence. And at the point where you can't go any further in that direction, there's another Honey Bucket!





It's possible to head back via a gravel access road instead of the trail, but that's where I saw some evidence of camping last time, and didn't really feel like checking it out. The other end of trail was lovely, as usual.




4.99 miles in 1:48, 11,452 steps

My rescheduled massage was at 11:30, and it was great. I'll definitely see that guy again next time I want one. It was a deep tissue massage, and he was very good at pushing right up to the point I could handle, but not beyond. I felt really great afterward. From there, I drove over to Mukilteo to have my car detailed, and walked to get lunch while that was being taken care of. The distances in that part of town are much longer than they appear on the map, and the place I chose to eat was a mile away. The trip there and back brought my daily total to seven miles, which was pretty cool. Lunch was ok. Nowhere near as spicy as the menu indicated. Mostly I wanted the photo because the plate looks so '80s.



Traffic is really bad in that area, but thankfully there's a sneaky way to get to the next road over, behind where the auto salon is. That allows you to get on the main road at an intersection with a light instead of trying to turn left into stop-and-go traffic. This sign is on the way out that back route, and it cracked me up.



Here's the latest group shot of my air plants. This is all of them except for the dozen butzii that arrived this week, and the free medusa they included with the order because I subscribe to their newsletter. So, this amount plus 13 is the new total. I've upgraded the bathing supplies; there are now three of the large green bowls instead of one plus two rectangle containers.



Saturday was Bev's 70th birthday and we had a hot dog party over at their place, so here's the obligatory shot of Bella.



And here we are.



Bev's mom lives in a group home in the cul de sac right across the street, so it's really easy to pop over and see her whenever we visit.



The mandatory cake photo.



Garrett and I really enjoyed sitting around listening to Bev and Dennis chat with their friends they've known since high school. It was great to hear about their mischief and misadventures, and funny to hear them correct each other's false memories. Really heartwarming. After everyone was gone, I asked Bev to get her yearbooks out, and we got to see photos of several of the people who just left. Here's Bev's senior photo.



This morning I woke up thinking about Lord Hill Regional Park, but not really planning on going. When I got on the road and saw that there wasn't a single cloud in the sky, I knew my typical Sunday walk wouldn't be great, so I went after all. If you never watch any of these videos, this is a good one. The fields near the road were foggy and I saw a train running alongside the road for the first time. Never even really noticed there were tracks there.



That park turned out to be a great choice. The sun barely made it through the trees, only a couple of times. It's funny, when you first arrive, there's a trail off to the side, but it's clearly marked as being off limits. I'm curious if a nearby property owner has their own personal entrance.



I've only been there one other time and decided to go a completely different route. I'm sure whoever named this trail wouldn't appreciate the fact that I leave my earbuds in.



I don't see myself going on that particular trail again because I really didn't care for this bridge.



And on the way back out of that area is this, which got my feet very wet.



No matter. That's a very small part of a very huge park.






I thought this might be the largest mushroom ever.



And then I saw one even bigger. About 18 inches wide!



And this cool group of them.



Something I've never seen before, a trail made of sandbags.



Another scary bridge.



This pond or lake or whatever it is isn't on the map. I took a trail that's also not on the map, and it turns out that particular trail makes a loop around it.




It's weird to see just a couple of foxgloves. I'm used to seeing huge groups of them or none at all.




This boulder was very impressive. Probably 15 feet tall!



Right before this was when I finally started seeing other people. A guy by himself, and then two women with dogs. This is the view looking back from a huge, steep climb.



You can see that climb as the hump above the 5.46 on the elevation chart.


6.82 miles in 3:26, 19,363 steps, 590ft gain

As you can see, that's quite the trail system. I think now I've done about 2/3 of total. Maybe.



I made us a very hearty post-hike meal: Soyrizo poutine! Crinkle cut fries, Soyrizo, cheese curds, and gravy. Plus a mix of black beans, onions, and salsa off to the side. I knew that would taste good with it but I also wanted to eat a lot of it without that. Corn would have been great on this, but I couldn't find any in the freezer.



Today's walk was extremely blissful for me. I was already really happy after Bev's party last night, and I couldn't stop thinking about how great it is to live here and how much better my life has gotten after my first few years here. Life's good.

Monday funday

July 25, 2016, 4:08 pm

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I'd been kind of dreading starting this work week because the team members I support were having a very tricky problem on Friday, at 5pm. I let them know that I'd investigate it first thing Monday, because the guys I escalate to are in Alabama and South Africa. No point in getting all involved until Monday morning. Looking at it with fresh eyes today, I was able to document what I saw efficiently and our guy in Alabama figured it out relatively quickly. Pretty painless compared to how I thought it would turn out.

I also had a quick meeting about stepping in to help with a big migration project. It's the kind of thing people don't like to do and that I'm generally good at and happy to help with. A win for all involved.

What I was really looking forward to today was seeing my friend Bryan for the first time in several years! He's on vacation staying at his aunt's place down in Burien and was kind enough to drive up here to meet me.





I wanted to take him to Terracotta Red, but I've been there on a hot day before, and it was unpleasantly warm in there. Instead, I drove us way down to the South end of town for sushi at a nice place that I knew had air conditioning. Aside from having the best-priced chirashi bowl I've had, there was another advantage to going that far South. I've been wanting to get a video of this.



My friend Traci said on Facebook that she wanted to see it in slow motion, so I ran it through Snapchat for that, and then decided to also make a backwards version. Turns out those guys look like really good dancers when they're backwards.



On the way back to the house, I drove him through Mukilteo, then all around Northern Everett to show off my favorite stuff. It was fun, but it was also a very bright and warm day out. He lives in LA, though, so it no big deal for him.

Stand by your decisions

July 26, 2016, 5:53 pm

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I was in a bit of a hurry this morning when I set out because I wanted to get back and work on my project. I figured that simple route up to the top of Japanese Gulch and then back down without using any side trails would be a good, fast, climb, and drove over. But of course I changed my mind once I got there.



The weather's been pretty dry lately, so I thought I'd follow the lowest trails on the Eastern slope where mud's always been an issue. The mud's definitely related to ongoing drainage issues, though, and I had to turn back once I got to this spot.



Please don't think I gave up too easily. I really tried to get past that, and of course could have if I was willing to get my feet really muddy. But I wasn't, so I turned back. The lowest trail branches off and rejoins the railroad tracks several times, and I jumped back on the next time I had a chance. The next section was fun, but when I reemerged at the railroad tracks, I saw someone up ahead who looked like he wasn't outside by choice. This isn't uncommon at places like the riverfront, and I don't normally go out of my way to avoid someone who appears to be homeless, but this guy was acting pretty erratically, and I didn't feel like going further up the hill alongside him.

So of course it was a dumb coincidence that I encountered him at the one spot where I won't go up either side. On my side of the tracks was the roller coaster trail that's clearly designed just for bikes heading downhill, and should be marked accordingly. On the other, was the trail that's so steep I've only been on it twice. The first time I scooted down on my ass, and the second time, I crawled up it. But I'd never tried to go up the roller coaster trail, so rather than head back down, I tried to go up it. That was dumb.

There's really no difference going up or down on that trail. It goes back and forth on opposing surfaces that are nearly vertical. That fact that you go a little further down or up as you move toward or away from the center barely factors in. I crawled up the first part and slid down, and didn't really want to proceed either direction. I realized I could cut the switchbacks and go directly up instead of following the trail, but that only worked twice. The third one was way too overgrown, so I had to turn back. After all that, I decided to head back down.

I connected with the OG trail that leads away from the dog park, and just before getting back, decided to join up with the first trail I ever followed there. That's the one that leads back from the dog park, and is still as overgrown as the first time I ever went there. Only that time, it was also too muddy. Now, I'm just curious how enough people are ever there to leave this mostly-overgrown trail that barely goes anywhere.




2.66 miles in 1:23, 7,761 steps, 383ft gain

It ended up being a really short and silly walk, but that was fine since I wanted to get back to working on the project I'd been tasked with. And it turned out there wasn't nearly as much to do on that as I figured. What a day.

Safeway sandwich

July 27, 2016, 11:51 am

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I have extra earbud tips for my waterproof ipod because I've lost a couple, and it's high time I kept them with my swim stuff because this was my second swim in a row where I could only use one side. The last time was because I lost it, and this time was because I forgo to put a new one on after that. Of course there's a challenge as everything in my swim bag gets wet, but if it's not in my swim bag, it doesn't come along into the swim center. And everything that goes in the swim bag gets rinsed (goggles, iPod, earbuds, case), washed (towel), or hung to dry (bag itself, trunks). So maybe a heavy duty freezer bag for the earbud tips that'll see a lot of action and get replaced once in a while. Better than one earbud.



I did my hour and then headed out for some shopping.



Mainly I wanted to go to Trader Joe's today because it'd been a while, but I was running a bit early. To kill time, I went to the Safeway in our old neighborhood first. There were some King's Hawaiian mini rolls on the first display I saw, so I decided one of our upcoming meals will be Spam sliders. That screams out for macaroni salad on the side, and I figured Trader Joe's would probably have an awesome one. Turns out, they don't have any macaroni salad at all! Pretty weird, if you look at the other stuff they have. It seems like a natural fit. So I went to our neighborhood Safeway on the way home, and admitted to George the cashier that it wasn't my first Safeway of the day. He laughed and said that's what I deserved for shopping anywhere else.

It worked out, though, because I thought of a couple more things I hadn't already picked up. And I found these.



I didn't even know Lay's was doing another one of these flavor promotions. This one's not a contest, though. Looking forward to finding and trying the other three. I wouldn't say I buy tons of chips, but I'll try every single new flavor I can find.

I'm happy to report that this plant has *three* blooms!



Poor Garrett's sick today. Last night right at dinner time, he got a fever which was at 101 by bedtime.

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Early

July 28, 2016, 7:48 pm

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I woke up at 3am today and got out of bed at 3:30. That ended up working out perfectly because there was an email waiting for me from Garrett explaining that I'd probably need to be back home by 7:30 to take him to the doctor. Dawn was going to be at about 5am, but I looked up the hours at Mukilteo Beach and this time of year, you can go there at 4am! The place I've been parking doesn't allow it between 2:30 and 4:30, so I figured I'd just try to arrive at 4:30. It was close! I got there at 4:26 and waited in the car, just in case.



Thank goodness it was low tide, otherwise the trip to Mukilteo Beach would have been pretty short. I made it as far as I did last time, but it was a lot darker. This is the light finally arriving as I headed back from the end of the beach.



Lovely bike rack.



The weather's been hot the last few days. This was the only cloud I saw.



Over at Edgewater Beach, the tide was so low, and I saw the water geoducks were spitting out. I got a Snap of that but didn't bother making a copy for Instagram since I've posted that there before.



A newly-placed Honey Bucket across from the tiny park where I leave my car means two more contest entries.




4.77 miles in 1:46, 11,158 steps, 233ft gain

It took a while to get Garrett's prescriptions filled but I'm happy to report I found the other three of the four new Lay's flavors I hadn't tried yet.



Tonight's dinner was grilled Spam sliders on King's Hawaiian bread plus macaroni salad. Good stuff.

SchadenFriday

July 29, 2016, 9:09 am

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Another slow week, looks like it might be time to find some new sources. Add some in the comments!

CATURDAY

July 30, 2016, 6:05 am

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BONUS Saturdogs

Upgraded

July 30, 2016, 3:57 pm

≫ Next: Island time

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My new trekking poles came Wednesday, but Thursday's my beach day so I didn't get to try them out until yesterday. Here's a photo of the new ones, collapsed, next to the old ones, which I always left extended because it was too difficult to get them locked in place again.



I really love the fancy quick-release system on the new ones. The straps are also more comfortable, and the handles are cork instead of just plastic. The only thing I'm not sure about so far is that I can't feel any shock absorption, so I need to look into that.



My plan was to head up to the top via the OG trail and then find the loop that I missed when I took Melissa there recently. And of course, I found it easily. When I'm by myself, I don't worry about wrong turns, and also don't take many. Funny how that works.




After that I decided to trace the outer edge of the rest of the upper Western side and then head back down. The original plan was to use Rusty Car to get back, but I decided it'd be fun to follow Bowling Ball. As part of one of my wrong turns with Melissa, we went pretty far down it, and I couldn't remember how long it'd been since I did the whole thing. At the Southernmost end, I peeked around just off the trail and saw some kid's bike. Hopefully that's just where they like to stash it and it wasn't stolen or anything.



Bowling Ball's a fun trail, though I will say if someone were to come down on a bike there wouldn't be a lot of room to use to get out of the way.



I wish I could capture just how prismatic these webs were.



About halfway down the trail I realized there's another very steep trail. I've been up it once. It's barely visible because so few people use it. There's really no reason to unless you like a trail that's ridiculously difficult for some reason.





4.25 miles in 2:26, 13,225 steps, 373ft gain

Yesterday was air plant bath day, and this is the first time in a while there weren't any new ones left out of the bath because they got one upon arrive, so the whole collections in both these photos.




Today's been fun. Unfortunately Garrett has to work, but he didn't want to watch Mother May I Sleep with Danger? with me and our friend Jenn, so it's just as well that she happened to come up today for that. First she and I went out to breakfast in Mukilteo and I gave her a short driving tour of our immediate area. We watched the original version, then the recent remake, which was amazing. Tori Spelling is in both, as is the love interest/dangerous man from the first who returns as a professor in the new one. Also, the remake is about lesbian vampires. Gotta love James Franco.

We watched them upstairs since it's a loveseat downstairs, which would be awkward.



Sam enjoyed the extra attention today and seemed exhausted by the time Jenn left.

Island time

July 31, 2016, 12:17 pm

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On my way into Spencer Island today, I saw a cat that may or may not have been the same one I saw there a while back, which I suspect was also the one Melissa and I saw on the trail later on. And I saw a couple of black cats running around from one water treatment plant property to another. I feel a lot better about their situation now. Clearly it's not a bad place to be a feral cat, and if at any point any of them wants any help, the animal shelter's right there. I'm not implying that they know what it is, but there are very few buildings and I'm sure if they're hungry they'll try it.





We had a nice walk around the entire area minus the hunting trail. I was more interested in following the river up to the marina again, so the hunting trail was a good section to forego, especially since it's been overgrown a lot. As usual, I played with the phone a lot less since I wasn't alone.






6.47 miles in 2:06, 13,973 steps

There's a fork in the road when you head in and I've always been curious about the other direction. It's a bridge that goes up and over the freeway, so you can't see what's off in the distance at all. Turns out it's not very long, and there's an entrance to a farm, along with some city property. But I ended up with two more Honey Bucket selfie contest entries.






Garrett's been cooped up all week because he got the flu, but he still had to work from home on a major project. Thankfully he was well enough to want to go out for breakfast today. We tried The Vintage Cafe for the first time today, which was good. And it's nice to know it opens at 7am with cocktail service, whereas a lot of other places that do aren't open until 10am.

Nothing else planned today but movies and TV in the basement. Sounds great.

Easing in

August 1, 2016, 12:00 pm

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I like swimming on Mondays because it's a nice way to kick off a week without overdoing the walking. I generally do my longest walk of the week on Sunday so being kind to my feet on Monday is smart. I've simplified the music situation, too. All that's on my waterproof iPod when I get to the pool is episode of Lip Locked I want to hear, plus the song I often found myself wanting to hear after it's over. No need to fast forward through the other 26 tracks from that album just for a quick fix.

I'm not buying too many toys or collectibles lately, but I couldn't resist the new Uhura doll. She looks great with RuPual.



And I added some Thai basil to the garden. I wanted to do mint but the plants I found were surprisingly tall.

Get out while you can

August 2, 2016, 7:14 pm

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Some work that was supposed to be ready for me when I started my day wasn't, so I went out for a walk I wasn't entirely sure I'd even do today. The week's been all shuffled up, though. I wanted to show Melissa the tank farm but my normal Thursday there doesn't work for her, so we're doing it Friday. And my niece Katie wants to get a good workout in Thursday morning before she leaves for Costa Rica, so she'll join me at Japanese Gulch on Thursday. So I figured I'd just do the waterfront today. After parking a little further West than I normally do, I started following the water's edge, but took a quick detour to check out the former site of that building that was recently moved. I'm impressed. You can barely tell a building was there at all. Anyway, I'm excited to learn that the stairway that will lead up and over the railroad tracks to the next street over will be here. That's the perfect spot.





I realized recently that I was missing one section of path. It wasn't really affecting my distance, but going the way I did makes for a nicer walk.



The aforementioned building is still propped up. I'm curious when a building is moved how they handle the plumbing. Does everything on the lowest floor have to be ripped out and redone? Do they use something flexible? Hrm.



It's been a long time since I saw so many geese on the ground at once. They're one of the main reasons I was hoping to be able to export my Snapchat story for this post, because the video is much more chilling than the photo. But one of the recent "upgrades" took away the ability to do that if there are more than 20 videos in it. But the whole reason to want to export it is if you have a bunch, so that's dumb. Hopefully they'll see the error of their ways and fix that.



The cutest bench ever.



The sky was overcast this morning and there really wasn't a sunrise to speak of. But I can't remember ever seeing clouds so blue.




And I managed to get another contest entry from a place I thought I'd tapped out! They've moved a portable bathroom building that's been there for a while to a new spot, then surrounded it with Honey Buckets and even a Honey Bucket handwash station. Not really sure why they'd have the mix of the two instead of double the amount of one or the other.




6.07 miles in 2:05, 13,491 steps

Why did it take me so many visits there to realize I could just double back on the same route and get twice the time on the water with more distance and minimal time on the loud, busy road? Silly me.

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Sensing a theme

August 3, 2016, 7:01 pm

≫ Next: Good for what ails you

≪ Previous: Get out while you can

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Last night for the first time in ages, the sounds around me crept into my dream. My boxer briefs were made of sheet metal, and when I bumped into one of the front porch walls at my grandparents' house, they made a rattling noise that wouldn't stop. I finally woke up and realized it was the sound of my CPAP. That got me thinking about it a lot, and I realized it was finally time to address my water bottle situation.



Sleep used to be a vicious cycle for me. I'd start snoring with my mouth open, and it would dry out. I'd wake up and drink some water. I'd wake up again in a while the same way but also need to pee. Over and over, sometimes five bathroom visits a night. Now that I don't snore at all, I generally make one bathroom visit a night. And while I find I'd like to wet my whistle a bit sometimes, I tend not to because this water bottle doesn't work so well any more.



Opening my mouth wide enough to drink from that makes the air from the CPAP rush into my mouth, so I mostly just don't. I've had my eye on something at the grocery store for a while that should help, though, and finally picked it up this morning after my swim.



I should be able to take the tiniest sip without disrupting the normal CPAP air flow too much. And it matches my tattoo.

Our new love seat finally arrived today, so I was able to toss this kludge in the trash that kept my side of the old one from locking in the upright position.



Did I post about my Chia Hillary before? I got her for my birthday and she's super weird right now. I missed a day of watering and that made the seeds on the top of her head die. She almost has a mullet.



The new love seat:



It's electric, which we never wanted, but the head rest is adjustable, which is great. So we went for it. This is our third love seat together. Turns out the easiest way to get it in here was for the delivery guys to park next door and walk it through our back yard, through the French doors.



The neighborhood cat we call Janet likes to taunt Sam and Steve through these doors, and I caught her just as she was about to walk in while they were open.

We're getting used to sitting in it now. It's going to be a long process.

Good for what ails you

August 4, 2016, 6:23 pm

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One nice thing about Dish Network is that a lot of Sirius XM stations are on it. For many months now, we've had the TV on Utopia, which is the dance music station covering the '90s up until now. Lots of good stuff on there. Unfortunately, they've decided to remove it from their lineup. It'll still be available on their app and somewhere else, but that doesn't really matter since we just need the TV to be on something good between DVR viewings. Last night was supposed to be the final night, and I started wondering if I might be able to hear it end if I stayed up until 9pm. That's midnight on the East coast, so it wouldn't be a shock if it ended at 9:00 here. It didn't end right then, and I went to bed having stayed up too late and having had too much wine. I felt pretty terrible this morning, but a hike always helps, so I headed to Japanese Gulch. My niece was originally supposed to meet me there today anyway, but canceled.



First, I hiked all the way to the top on the Eastern slope and did a loop near the Boeing recreation center, catching part of the sunrise while I was up there.



Some of the trees I saw up there made me wonder if we're going to have an early Fall.



The photo I always take.




5 miles in 2:28, 14,031 steps, 465ft gain

No matter how many times I go that way, I always get confused by the loop that goes around the large bike stunts area, so today I finally decided to climb up the shortcut I found into it, exit the normal way, then figure out why I always end up where I started even though I never think I'd passed the path from the other direction. It all makes sense now. A path that I always look at and think it goes to the ballfields doesn't go directly there. It's part of the loop, and then the exit path branches off that. I also managed to find a path I hadn't seen in a while again today. It's rather useless, though, as it leads you out of the gulch and onto an access road people are specifically not supposed to walk on. Good to know about in an emergency, I suppose.

I got home, finished a bunch of work stuff and submitted it, and wanted nothing more than a nap. But I also needed lunch, and knew I wouldn't fall asleep if I was hungry, so I went to the sketchy buffet for a quick lunch. I love that they have pinwheels alongside the sushi and always have to get one.



Once I got back, I had a really good 40-minute nap with the CPAP, and felt so much better. Then I checked the Utopia station to see what was playing, and it was still Utopia! But an annoying message was flashing saying a Garth Brooks station was premiering there in a month. Because that's what the world really needs. Oh well.

SchadenFriday

August 5, 2016, 9:05 am

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August 6, 2016, 6:21 am

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BONUS Saturdogs

High tide with company

August 6, 2016, 10:54 am

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I moved my normal Thursday beach/tank farm walk to Friday so my friend Melissa could come along. She has a regular meeting early on Thursdays. Not a big deal, as Thursday at Japanese Gulch was pretty great. We started off at the Mukilteo Beach side but couldn't get very far due to high tide, but what we saw over there was still very nice. She'd never been down there and it was cool to show it to her.



Lovely morning.




Melissa decided to stop after about four miles but I stayed longer. Wish I would have planned for that possibility, as I did another couple of miles with no music. I grabbed this photo and posted it to the Cloudspotting group I'm in immediately thinking there wouldn't be any more clouds at all after that.



Turns out there was a lot more cloud action and I ended up doing a followup post.





Not sure why I never thought to intentionally mess up panoramas before.



Didn't crouch to get this photo, the bunny was actually at my eye level! It ran way up a big pile of debris when it saw me coming.




6.04 miles in 1:56, 12,951 steps

Not a whole lot to see in this video, but I really like the way the clouds look in the first part.