It's been quite the week. Over the weekend, a service account at work expired because the system notification only went to one person, who didn't read the email. That didn't kill the tool I work on entirely, but it made it so it couldn't talk to two other essential systems. I hoped getting it started back up again would fix everything, but but getting it reconnected was complicated because of updated requirements. It took a lot of people working on the problem for three full days. Some things got improved in the process, but those would have been addressed soon anyway, so that's cold comfort. If I'm using that term correctly.
When lunchtime came around on Monday, I'd done what I could for the day so there wasn't really a reason to hang around. I haven't been to the movies in forever so I thought I'd grab lunch Marysville and see one after. But I did the thing I do once in a while, which is go somewhere for lunch on a Monday without checking to see if they're open Mondays. And they weren't. I wasn't positive I'd find somewhere good to go in time to still catch either of the movies I'd chosen, so I just came back.
I'm planning Banh Meetup 2 and after the taco joint I really wanted to go to was also closed, I went to a favorite hole-in-the-wall joint to try their banh mi. I decided it'll be a contender because I like them with soft bread and theirs was quite soft.
The problem at work's longest day was Tuesday. I sent emails about it from when I got up at 4am until time for bed at 8pm. I think I was here all day.
I had a nice walk at the marina Wednesday, and then we got the problem resolved at about 11am. The only thing left for me was to manually refresh all of the failed jobs. It was a race against time because I had an appointment at 2pm to record the Live in Everett podcast. I've wanted to be a guest forever and they finally asked! I had to wolf down my lunch and my nerves were shredded from work, so I hope I sound ok. I'll share it here when it comes out, of course.
I took one boring picture at the marina Wednesday and zero at Edgewater yesterday. But I did the same thing yesterday that I did Monday and made another plan without checking hours. There's a Mexican juice/smoothie/snack place I've needed to visit for LIEv for a while, and I wanted help, so I made plans with Melissa and Erika to meet up. And Garrett wanted to tag along, too! I figured we should have something small first and I've been wanting to try the pizza at a brewery in the same shopping center for a while now, so the plan was to meet there and share one. What makes the pizza special is that they reuse the grains from the brewing process to make the crust. Neat!
What made my plan bad was that they aren't open for lunch. They open at 2pm. We got in three of our four cars and went over to Basil, the newest Vietnamese restaurant in Everett. It's across from Garrett's office and he'd been once already and loved it. I'd been dying to go, so that worked out. Sort of.
The stuff at the place we (minus Garrett) visited next was much bigger than it seems from their photos. When I write about it, I'll definitely tell people to show up hungry. Cool place, though. I'll share that post when it happens.
Speaking of which! I was finally able to complete one of my first story ideas last month, and almost a month after I submitted it, it finally hit the blog yesterday. I'm really happy with this one: A Mansion on the Move.
![20181223_094240]()
The whole shuffle kerfuffle at lunch made me forget an errand I had, which was to pick up a donated prize for Banh Meetup 2. I feel bad, that's very unlike me. It's a few months off, though, so at least there's no hurry.
That brings us to this morning at Japanese Gulch. When I got out of the car I spotted a light moving on the hill off in the distance. At first I thought it might be a helicopter off in the distance I could see through the trees because it was going so fast, but then it wound its way back and forth down the hill. Someone was running the trails in the pitch black darkness! There's one guy who I think runs up the gulch to work but he stays in the middle where it's easy. And right as I thought about him, he ran by. The new runner hit the level just above the middle as I approached, and I didn't know it at the time, but he followed the interpretive trail down to the bottom. I figured this out when he came back up via the tracks, the cut over to the dog park and went up the opposite side!
He moved crazy fast and it was wild to see. And it inspired me to do the big loop going up to the top and then zig-zagging back down via the residential neighborhoods to the west. I saw a lot of nice views, but the only good photo op was this landscaping near a big weird church.
![20190118_062609]()
When I got back to the park, I noticed a bunch of advertising signs poked into the ground near the entrance and another at a trailhead. Screw that, it's a public park. I pulled them all out of the ground and placed them neatly next to the garbage can they were too big to fit in.
I'm glad I spotted the sign by the trailhead and picked it up because as I walked by the bulletin board to get to it, I saw this amazing new map of Japanese Gulch!
![20190118_072339]()
Here's the PDF. Only one side of the gulch is officially part of the park. Everyone who visits treats both sides the same, but the east side belongs to Boeing and the City of Mukilteo can't really tell people to walk there. It's pretty funny, all the trails are showing as ending when they hit that imaginary line at the bottom. In real life, there's tons more in the white part at the bottom. I suppose since Boeing's railroad tracks bisect the area, they'll never tell people they can walk there. But I'm sure nobody will ever stop anyone from doing it. I'd love to have a nice big print of this map.
My latest tattooing (coloring in the Nagel women's hair black) is healing well but at the place where the parts that were damaged most are healing well and itching. Looking forward to being able to go to the pool again. I think I forgot to mention that I mostly walk back and forth in the pool now. Unless it's really crowded. I won't share a lane.
I didn't realize until today that Monday's a holiday! After this week I'm definitely ready for the three-day weekend.
When lunchtime came around on Monday, I'd done what I could for the day so there wasn't really a reason to hang around. I haven't been to the movies in forever so I thought I'd grab lunch Marysville and see one after. But I did the thing I do once in a while, which is go somewhere for lunch on a Monday without checking to see if they're open Mondays. And they weren't. I wasn't positive I'd find somewhere good to go in time to still catch either of the movies I'd chosen, so I just came back.
I'm planning Banh Meetup 2 and after the taco joint I really wanted to go to was also closed, I went to a favorite hole-in-the-wall joint to try their banh mi. I decided it'll be a contender because I like them with soft bread and theirs was quite soft.
The problem at work's longest day was Tuesday. I sent emails about it from when I got up at 4am until time for bed at 8pm. I think I was here all day.
I had a nice walk at the marina Wednesday, and then we got the problem resolved at about 11am. The only thing left for me was to manually refresh all of the failed jobs. It was a race against time because I had an appointment at 2pm to record the Live in Everett podcast. I've wanted to be a guest forever and they finally asked! I had to wolf down my lunch and my nerves were shredded from work, so I hope I sound ok. I'll share it here when it comes out, of course.
I took one boring picture at the marina Wednesday and zero at Edgewater yesterday. But I did the same thing yesterday that I did Monday and made another plan without checking hours. There's a Mexican juice/smoothie/snack place I've needed to visit for LIEv for a while, and I wanted help, so I made plans with Melissa and Erika to meet up. And Garrett wanted to tag along, too! I figured we should have something small first and I've been wanting to try the pizza at a brewery in the same shopping center for a while now, so the plan was to meet there and share one. What makes the pizza special is that they reuse the grains from the brewing process to make the crust. Neat!
What made my plan bad was that they aren't open for lunch. They open at 2pm. We got in three of our four cars and went over to Basil, the newest Vietnamese restaurant in Everett. It's across from Garrett's office and he'd been once already and loved it. I'd been dying to go, so that worked out. Sort of.
The stuff at the place we (minus Garrett) visited next was much bigger than it seems from their photos. When I write about it, I'll definitely tell people to show up hungry. Cool place, though. I'll share that post when it happens.
Speaking of which! I was finally able to complete one of my first story ideas last month, and almost a month after I submitted it, it finally hit the blog yesterday. I'm really happy with this one: A Mansion on the Move.
The whole shuffle kerfuffle at lunch made me forget an errand I had, which was to pick up a donated prize for Banh Meetup 2. I feel bad, that's very unlike me. It's a few months off, though, so at least there's no hurry.
That brings us to this morning at Japanese Gulch. When I got out of the car I spotted a light moving on the hill off in the distance. At first I thought it might be a helicopter off in the distance I could see through the trees because it was going so fast, but then it wound its way back and forth down the hill. Someone was running the trails in the pitch black darkness! There's one guy who I think runs up the gulch to work but he stays in the middle where it's easy. And right as I thought about him, he ran by. The new runner hit the level just above the middle as I approached, and I didn't know it at the time, but he followed the interpretive trail down to the bottom. I figured this out when he came back up via the tracks, the cut over to the dog park and went up the opposite side!
He moved crazy fast and it was wild to see. And it inspired me to do the big loop going up to the top and then zig-zagging back down via the residential neighborhoods to the west. I saw a lot of nice views, but the only good photo op was this landscaping near a big weird church.
When I got back to the park, I noticed a bunch of advertising signs poked into the ground near the entrance and another at a trailhead. Screw that, it's a public park. I pulled them all out of the ground and placed them neatly next to the garbage can they were too big to fit in.
I'm glad I spotted the sign by the trailhead and picked it up because as I walked by the bulletin board to get to it, I saw this amazing new map of Japanese Gulch!
Here's the PDF. Only one side of the gulch is officially part of the park. Everyone who visits treats both sides the same, but the east side belongs to Boeing and the City of Mukilteo can't really tell people to walk there. It's pretty funny, all the trails are showing as ending when they hit that imaginary line at the bottom. In real life, there's tons more in the white part at the bottom. I suppose since Boeing's railroad tracks bisect the area, they'll never tell people they can walk there. But I'm sure nobody will ever stop anyone from doing it. I'd love to have a nice big print of this map.
My latest tattooing (coloring in the Nagel women's hair black) is healing well but at the place where the parts that were damaged most are healing well and itching. Looking forward to being able to go to the pool again. I think I forgot to mention that I mostly walk back and forth in the pool now. Unless it's really crowded. I won't share a lane.
I didn't realize until today that Monday's a holiday! After this week I'm definitely ready for the three-day weekend.
