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Harumph

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It was just one of those mornings. The smoke's back, and when I set the Podo up on the fishing pier in Mukilteo, it wouldn't connect. I found out later the battery was dead, which was weird, because I left it plugged in all night. Guess it was a little loose or something. My throat's a little sore now, and I'm really glad my tattoo's healed enough that I can go swimming tomorrow instead of breathing smoke outside.



I at least got to eat a lot of delicious blackberries! There wasn't much to see, though. The tide was low, so I got an angle for this shot that I don't normally see.

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Had a few good heron sightings today. They seemed braver than normal.

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After a few laps, I decided to take the long way to the car through the woods. It'd been a while and it was nice there.

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Had to throw away my shoes recently because of that hole that got poked all the way through by a sharp rock. Dirt was coming in through it and my foot would end up filthy, which was really annoying. I have one pair left of that kind, and have found their successor, the LA Gear Voyager. What I like about these is that they're cheap enough that the regular price is lower than the sale price of the last two models I bought.

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I got both pairs they had in my size, plus a couple of pairs of another shoe to wear for general use. Those were on sale, and I had a coupon, so I walked out with four pairs of shoes for $85.

All of the pictures of people wearing eclipse glasses gave me an idea for time lapses. I ordered some prism glasses, cut the lens out of a pair, and put it in my Podo case. The result is pretty neat!



I'm looking forward to getting some prism-enhanced footage of sun with clouds, when they return. Here's another test from the back yard today.



Last night before bed, I finished the last episode of 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. It was very intense, and I was so relieved that I had something short and light in my YouTube Watch Later list to watch before falling asleep.



Do it anyway, it could turn out great

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Today was surprisingly pleasant and overcast for much of it. The sky was a solid flat grey when I got to the swim center, so I didn't set the Podo up there. Had a very nice swim, though.



Working my way backwards through the Lip Locked podcasts, I've reached the end of the era when she was doing two-hour shows. Many of the stations where they aired only played the first half, so they're conveniently broken up into two one-hour halves on her website where I download them. Today's soundtrack was the first part of episode 294, and I really liked this song from it.



That's a good hour, and if you've got the time, you should have a listen.

Glad I wasn't the one at the swim center who made this discovery!

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The article I wrote about gas station food for Live in Everett was posted today! I swear I'll have a post that's not about food at some point. In fact, I'm hoping to do an interview for one tomorrow.

I went outside to toss a watermelon I should have cut up sooner into the food waste bin and noticed the apple trees next door have suddenly done their thing.

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The sky was a little less flat this afternoon, so I went ahead and set up a time lapse, which ended up being one of the cooler ones. There's no waste except for a few minutes of my time if one doesn't come out, so there's no reason not to go for it.



The sky looked amazing in a completely different way afterward, so once the Podo was charged again, I put it back up. We'll see what happened later.

Recharge, reset

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Yesterday afternoon looked completely different than the morning. I was pretty surprised by the sky when I went to get the Podo after the second time lapse. Too bad the battery had died before this happened.

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Still neat.



Last night I saw this article about construction finally starting on the new ferry terminal, and sure enough, when I got down there this morning, there were Honey Buckets for the workers.

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I figured the crane that's been sitting in the water by the terminal might be moved, and I was right, but it was nowhere to be seen. Weird.

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And then I found the official sign.

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I spent more time on the Mukilteo side this morning since the tide was low, though I didn't go as far South as I could have since there was another dude hanging around and I prefer my solitude. That meant passing by the lighthouse quite a few times.

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Gorgeous driftwood.

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Today was the first time I noticed this sign, which is funny, because it was also the first time I found both bathrooms locked.

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Good framing of info for the people who are the most likely to need it.

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Lucky timing.



This wasn't the original spot I planned to use for the Podo, it was originally going face the other direction, from the end of the fishing pier in the video. But tons of people were fishing so I changed my mind. I think someone moved or at least bumped into the camera, but thankfully it was at the very end and I just edited it out.



The interview I hoped to do today didn't happen, but I've kept busy. Just finished lunch and now I need to finish some weekly chores. And I'm finally watching Bee Movie because there are always weird references to it on Tumblr.

SchadenFriday

CATURDAY

A day in the dining room

Adventures

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Jetty Island is a 2-mile long mad-made island that runs the length of Everett's Western waterfront. I see it all the time when I walk at the marina and have been meaning to go to it for a while now. There's a free boat over from July 5 through Labor Day, and I suppose the main thing that's kept me from going up until now is that the earliest sailing over is 9:45, a bit later than my normal outings. I'm just not a fan of the sun, what can I say? But lisaloopner wanted to check it out and I figured it was finally time to do it. We had to reschedule once because she had a job interview, but she got the job, so she bought me lunch before our trip!

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Jetty Island is amazing. It's like a vacation destination beach, but close enough to do in an afternoon. We walked everywhere we could, checking out all the different terrain and views.

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The island is a renowned destination for kiteboarding, which looks really fun.

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I wish the season at Jetty Island wasn't so short. It's the kind of place I'd go all the time if there was a bridge I could walk across. The staff told us it's illegal to camp there, but I don't know if it's trespassing to take a personal boat over during the off season. Not that I have access to one.

Yesterday was a fairly typical trip over to Langus Riverfront Park and Spencer Island. I left the Podo at home in the dining room figuring the sky would be pretty clear, and it mostly was. There was some fog and clouds that were really pretty, but I checked on my phone's wide angle lens and confirmed the time lapse wouldn't have showed much if I made it.

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Pretty squares.

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The wildfire smoke wasn't really noticeable until sunrise.

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I was happy to see the path that runs along the biosolids detention pond was open again. Or maybe someone took the sign. There was really no reason for it to be closed since there's another barrier at the end of it. The little birds are back.

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And they've brought a crane to the habitat restoration project site.

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Wish I could have gotten closer to this fog.

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Since today's a holiday, I wanted to do something different, so I decided to drive over to Snohomish and walk a section of the Centennial Trail.



It's been on my mind lately because I saw the other end of it on my drive back from Mt. Baker recently. The trail is 30 miles long, and I'd like to do the whole thing. In segments, of course. Of course, that'll be 60 miles total since I always have to walk back to the car.

I parked at the aquatic center and hoped to get a time lapse in this foggy ballfield, but the Podo wouldn't start for some reason. Frustrating.

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KITTY

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That section of the trail is serene but there's not a ton to see. Mostly the back of various nice residential properties. I like the part where Highway 2 crosses above.

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A nice morning for sure, but a lot of driving, too. Funnily enough, I hoped to go to the aquatic center this week because my pool's closed for two weeks for maintenance, but Snohomish decided to do their maintenance at the same time. Kinda dumb.

Finally, enjoy Steve's little snores.



Bleak

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Today I learned a hard lesson, and it's that I have to take the air quality issue seriously. I've been back from my walk for well over eight hours and still feel terrible. Thankfully susandennis posted about a good app that I'll use from now on. It's dark in the morning now so I was well into the walk before it was light out and I noticed I probably shouldn't be out at all.


It may be the only walk ever where I didn't take any pictures. Everything looked so sad, there was no point. I took one when I got to the car, though, because there was ash all over it. I saw a couple of bits earlier and thought I'd imagined it.

Ash on my car

I didn't even see the sun until I was driving. There was nobody around at the marina so I stopped the car to take this.

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Not a whole lot to see in the time lapse, so it's just on YouTube. I do like the bird on the dock.



I had a pretty cool seal encounter, at least.



300

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My dream this morning was a horror movie starring notlostonme. She was trapped with a group of friends in a huge mansion that also had a bowling alley, and had until dawn to bowl a 300, taking shots while the killer stepped away from the lanes to hunt down the others. Between strikes, she had to hide from the killer because she was a target as well. I woke up just after it was apparent she finished the game and bowling balls started crashing in through doorways and staircases to distract him, and she was about to emerge and crack his skull open with the ball she bowled a perfect game with.

Here's a time lapse of the sun in yesterday afternoon's smoke. Today I'm probably only leaving the house to go to the grocery store.

Oof

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After I posted yesterday, I felt even worse, and it didn't let up for another eight hours or so. So, two hours out in the smoke lead to 32 or so hours of feeling really awful. I'm still taking it easy, and haven't left except to go to the store. It feels very strange to go two days without a walk, but I ended up making good use of the time.



One of the cats peed in my room recently. This is another in a long line of pees and poops in the bathtub and random poop around the house. I assume it's Sam because he's getting old and we caught him peeing on a bath mat a while back. Just something you have to deal with, with a senior cat.

Terrible timing for the pee in my room, though. It'd be so great to open my bedroom window for some fresh air, but there's no fresh air out there. Garrett bought some air purifiers for the house, and the one in my room helped a bit, but it was really gross when I woke up this morning. It was still nice and dark, so I got a black light and had a look around. Garrett's parents gave us an old steam cleaner when we moved in, and I used it everywhere in my room today except under the bed because I don't think it happened under there. I also cleaned out the litter closet and put fresh litter in there.

A little Febreze is in order too, once the carpet in my room is dry.

Also in my room, an update I've thought about for a while.

Display update

After a year, I got tired of the other fillers in these containers and decided to just have the plants. I'm open to displaying a few objects in the bottoms here and there, but I like the way it looks now.

Here's another smoky afternoon time lapse. You can really see the layers of filth in the sky in this one.



Hopefully the smoke will let up a bit overnight because I'd really like to get out for a walk. I'll follow the recommendation from the app, though. If it tells me to stay inside, I'll probably do some yoga.

Another update I keep forgetting. A while back, I decided I wanted to try the QFC deli's lox and bagels even though I didn't expect it to be very good, and as soon as I decided that, there were never any out. A few weeks ago, after months of looking every time I was there, I found one. And they wanted $9.99! Bagel shops that make good ones don't even charge that much. Totally offensive, so I didn't buy it.

SchadenFriday

CATURDAY

Arriving at a corner and hoping to turn

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Garrett had a thought about the whole Sam situation yesterday. One that I had for a moment recently and rejected immediately. When cats are having litter box issues they can often be traced to a change in their environment. Garrett asked, when did I switch to the litter boxes with the higher walls on three sides? It's been a while, but I thought there was no way that bothered Sam enough to make him use the rest of the house as the litter box instead. We took the clip-on high sides off, and sure enough, the next time I walked by the litter closet, I saw Sam in there using a litter box, perched on the edges of the box instead of standing in the litter. I had no idea he ever did that, and now I know the high walls aren't an option. That's a bummer because they really helped. The boys really kick a lot of litter over the sides, and today I saw a pee spot on the wall, right above the top of the linoleum I lined the closet with.

Garrett had another great idea, though. When we have our bathroom remodeled next month, we can have the contractor tile the closet!

Obviously it's too soon to say Sam will quit defiling the rest of the house, but I'm hopeful. I had to sleep in my office last night because the carpet powder we used after steaming twice smelled so strong, and this morning the smell was still there. I dumped an entire bottle of resolve in the smelly area and steamed it again a while later. Hopefully it's better now.



I can't really remember why I decided to do a shorter walk Friday morning, but it was just a few miles down at the tank farm. I don't park at the beach because I always get there before whoever opens the gates, and Friday I walked up to the gates just as he drove up. He said good morning and, "You've been walking here a long time!" I noticed he just reached down and pulled something to open the gates and didn't even have to unlock anything, I'll have to take a closer look next time I go there.

I got a lot done. Had the wildfire ash washed off my car.



Then I got a haircut from my barber, and had it colored later on at a salon, where I made fast friends with the owner. I told Garrett he could choose my hair color if he pays, and he chose purple. It's pretty subtle, so I'm going back for a more drastic shade next week.



I heard about the salon via my friend Kristen, who's known the owner for ten years and sells her plants there. You know my vertical garden in the dining room? The front of the salon has one twice as tall and six times as wide. It's amazing. Melissa, the owner, doesn't share the salon with any other stylists, so it's nice and quiet and a very different experience from any other I've been to. Glad I finally went over.

I got there early and had to take a walk to kill time because she wasn't there yet. I really liked this little family of satellite dishes I saw on the way back.

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Garrett got us a few air purifiers and the huge box they came in was a hit.



This mug I ordered arrived yesterday. If you don't recognize the face, the video which inspired the artist is below. His shop is pretty great.

Balegdeh! mug by Nordacious


Didn't sleep so well in my office last night, and ended up staying in bed until 5:15. The timing was perfect, though, so maybe it's time to set my Sunday alarm for later. I don't mind walking in the dark, but I can't get a very good time lapse starting in the dark. Something to think about.

This morning was absolutely gorgeous. The fog was great, too bad I couldn't walk to where it was thickest, in the construction area. The first photo isn't the construction area, just so we're clear.

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Pretty squares.

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I'm very happy with today's time lapse. It has everything! Sunrise, fog, a car, and even a person who walked by and didn't mess with my camera.



Fog and yelling

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The river is one of my closest regular walking destinations, but also one of the ones I go to the least. It can just be a little creepy is all. Today might have been my most stressful visit, as a dude was down there pissed off and yelling. I said good morning to him as I passed and he said it back, but the yelling resumed. And was still going (or going again after a break?) an hour later. I wish it was possible to feel like calling the police would be the right thing to do, but in the US they oftentimes escalate situations like that. Instead I figured I'd just mention it to anyone I saw who I thought would really benefit from a warning. As if the yelling isn't enough of a warning. I told an older couple about him and they said, "We'll just walk past him." It's Lowell, they're probably used to it.

I was there much later than I typically have been because of the later sunrise and saw way more people than I'm used to. Maybe I'm the only thing that was unusual there today.



The fog was great.

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The clouds were cute and modest.

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Once again, I loved seeing things down there line up perfectly. If I didn't mention it, would you notice the power lines in this photo?

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Sunrises and fog work so well together, as long as there's not so much fog that that's all you see.

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Looks like fall.

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Someone moved the camera again, but at least they did a decent job putting it back. For once. The spot where I put this is at one end of a little path along the river's edge, and today I spotted a guy at the other end when I went to get it. Wonder if he was the one who moved it.



Start in the dark and be surprised

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It's important to be easygoing if you want to get into making time lapses. You have to learn to set it and let it happen, and come to terms with the fact that you may or may not have chosen the best angle, or the battery could die too soon, or any number of other things. Tomorrow's another day. Just try again. Today's is a perfect example.





Starting in the dark adds another layer of difficulty. I tried lining it up by looking at the lights in the preview, but as you can see, it's not quite there. Oh well. And if I could change it, I'd turn the camera East instead of North, because the fog opened up for a while to reveal a really nice pastel sky for a while.

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Oh well. Tomorrow's another day. And at least today I got to see this.

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Later on, I saw the truck again. A man and woman had it backed up against a taller area of land, I guess because they were going to try to drive it off? So weird.

I never noticed the lovely glass in the doorway at the Wyerhaeuser Muse before.

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Love a good warning label.

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This is the biggest snail I've seen in a long time and its trail is impressively consistent.

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I had two surprisingly good heron encounters and managed to have the camera ready for both! Not sure if it's two herons or the same one twice.




And I had a very good idea for a time lapse today. It'll require some good planning and excellent timing, as well as finding the perfect location. But I'm very inspired to get it done.

Ambitious

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The time lapse I thought of yesterday and wanted to create today may still be in process almost 12 hours later. It feels very weird to be home while the Podo is several miles away, but that's the only way to get what I want. I could go get it tonight because there's no way the battery will last longer than 13 hours, but by that time, it'll be dark out, so if nobody's spotted it by nightfall, it's probably fine until I head out tomorrow. Or it could be long gone! No risk, no reward. After dropping it off, I was about halfway to Langus, so I kept going and walked there.



It was such a gorgeous morning, I'm happy I ended up there.

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Richard, the blog manager at Live in Everett, wrote about Langus this week. His piece is definitely worth a read! I promoted that on IG with a crop of this photo.

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Toward the end of the walk, I could see that a fire was breaking out somewhere in Snohomish or Lake Stevens, and sent a Snap to my friend Kristen to make sure it wasn't near her at her new house. She could also see the smoke, but it wasn't super close.

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No time lapse today, of course, but here are some other fun videos.






SchadenFriday

Tide interrupted

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On Wednesday I had a brilliant idea for a time lapse but it involved leaving the camera somewhere vulnerable for at least 13 hours, and since I didn't want to have to drive back over in the evening, the plan was to leave it for 24.



The inspiration? Tides. During my last walk at the marina, I looked at the docks and the ramps leading to them and was fascinated by the way they function. They have to move with the tides, so I wanted to document that, and the timing with low tide was good Wednesday. But when I returned for the Podo Today, it wasn't there. I called the marina office number and got voice mail, and rather than leave one, I emailed instead. And I got a very prompt reply right after 9am! A boat owner "felt it was pointed at his boat" which is pretty silly once you see the video.



This video represents 5:30am-10am, but without his interference, it could have gone as late as 7pm, showing the ramp going even higher, then halfway back down, and heading back up. Too bad.

Cute graffiti.

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It was a gorgeous, albeit slightly understated morning.

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There's also a new restaurant nearby that opened Tuesday!

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I wanted to try it for lunch after picking up my camera from the marina office, but their credit card machine isn't ready yet and I didn't have enough cash on me. Looking forward to trying it soon.

Oh yeah, the guy who took down my camera also took it out of the case and put it in backwards so it wouldn't continue to get pictures. Decent idea on his part, but the case isn't designed for that, and it got jammed inside. It took a while to get it out and I'm really glad I didn't have to break the case to do it.

The employee at the marina suggested that I put my contact info on the camera, but I always figured if someone sees the camera and the signs on it saying to leave it alone, the only reason they'd want to get a hold of me is for a "reward" for returning it. Still haven't decided if I should do it.

CATURDAY

Snatched again

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My weekly routine got all shuffled around so I ended up at the tank farm on Friday, with a plan to leave the Podo there all morning, go out for lunch, and pick it up in the afternoon.

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They've moved trailers to the construction staging area.

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And they've fenced in several of the former tanks. It was nice of them to leave a walking path for us.

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They've also done this, presumably to stop stuff from washing into the sound.

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Looks like some of the local teens aren't too happy about the situation. The abandoned building had FUCK CONSTRUCTION spray painted on it in big letters, and the wall along the walkway that's a shortcut across the loop had MUK IS FUCKED. And there's this.

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It's going to be so strange when it's redeveloped down there. I'll miss the weird stuff.

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One thing that's great about walking down there is you can cross the street and be in the woods. I like to end my walk there sometimes with a climb up throw the lower portion of the gulch.

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Recently I got an email from Restaurant.com informing me that some vouchers I forgot I had for a restaurants in Seattle could be exchanged because they were no longer in business. That was sure nice of them! I always figure a big part of the business plan for vouchers is crossing their fingers and hoping a lot of them just never get used. I got one for Buck's in Everett, which I've been wanting to try a while, and another for this bakery/wine bar, which I've walked by tons of times without ever noticing it.

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My friends Kristen and Matt recently bought a new property out in Lake Stevens and I figured Kristen could use a break or at least a visit, so I messaged her and she was up for it. I wanted to finally try Ray's, a drive-up burger joint that I've heard a lot about, but it was mobbed, so I got us tortas at Tacobook.

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Their new place is really cool. On a hill overlooking a vast expanse of farmland across the road, amazing views, lots of space to build her greenhouse. But they want to change every single room, so there's a lot of work ahead.

From there, I drove back out to Mukilteo to get the camera. The time lapse came out pretty great. I especially like the shifting patterns you can see in the water as the tide comes in.



Yesterday was a nice day hanging out at home with the boys. We watched several episodes of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I saw every episode of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, but I know there are several from TNG I never caught, and I don't mind seeing the others again as we rewatch. It'll be neat to watch this as Discovery starts, too.






Our neighbors were away this weekend, so I figured it'd also be a good opportunity to put the Podo on the fence pointed at our house for a whole day. This represents 13.5 hours, which was all of the daylight.



I haven't gone to Japanese Gulch that much this summer and figured a visit there this morning would be nice, so I set the Podo up at the Future of Flight museum parking lot facing the Boeing plant, hoping for a nice sunrise. Then I parked at the business park, walked the access road a few times while the light came, then went up to the Western side via the Rusty Car trail. It's funny how there's no spot on that side to get a clear view across to the East side, this is typical of the kinds of gaps you see in the trees.

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Over near the community garden entrance, there's a side trail to a pond I haven't taken in a long time, because it was really muddy for a long time. It was good today, though, and neat to see again.

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Unfortunately, the Podo was gone when I got back. Hopefully I'll get it back, and if I do, it'll be interesting to see if the battery ran out before this all started.

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I checked at the hotel front desk to see if they have a security patrol that might have grabbed it, but they didn't have it. The Future of Flight workers said they don't, but that I should check with the county parks department to see if they have it. I left a voice mail and hope to hear from them tomorrow.

Again, part of me wishes I'd put some contact info on it, but I still don't understand why someone would move something that says not to move it, but then call a number on it after doing that. Doesn't make sense to me. If it never turns up, I'll just get another. People ask me how I can leave it where someone could steal it, but as far as I'm concerned, there'd be almost no point in owning it if I didn't. I've gotten some good lapses from our property, but most of them have been out in public. And the Podo's a good choice in this case. Much cheaper than the GoPro and less desirable a target since there's no onboard controls.

We met up with Lisa today to see It, which was very good. I wish 2-hour movies had an intermission, though.
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