Boo and I got up early today to drive up and hike Maple Pass. The hike was just shy of 9 miles, but it’s one of the most spectacular hikes one can undertake.
There was a lot of snow at the top of the summit. I think we’ll wait another month before hiking it again.
What a weekend! Boo and I met our friends Mark and Gary in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the weekend. We booked a room at the Skwachàys Lodge. It’s an aboriginal arts hotel skirting in old town Vancouver. While the neighborhood itself was less than desirable, we enjoyed out stay. My only real criticism about the hotel was that it’s actually a mixed-used building; several of the floors are apartments and only a couple floors appear to be reserved as “hotel” rooms.
Gastown was only a block away and we ended up taking a nice stroll through the neighborhood, stopping at a French bistro for drinks and hors d’oeuvres.
After a wonderful evening out with our friends, we embarked to Point Grey to go to the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a HUGE Northwest Coast Indian art buff. We have two serigraphs by Bill Reid and one by Susan Point (both artists’ works were prominently displayed at the museum).
The museum also had an exhibit on South American artifacts. I had Tiago pose in front of a feather headdress – who knows, perhaps one of his predecessors in the Brazilian Amazon wore something similar. 😉
We finished our exploration with a little siesta in the hammock display.
It was another gorgeous drive down to Moses Lake this morning. This is the last week of the school year which means bus inspections, riled children and probably some drama all mixed in together. I’m looking forwarding to being on the summer schedule next week and putting in 4, 10-hour shifts, and having Fridays off.
Last night Tiago and I went out to meet friends at the Old School House Brewery in Winthrop. Our friend, Bernie, has been on a 3,000 mile solo trek across the Southwest and stopped at the halfway mark to come home and recuperate for a couple of weeks before starting the second half. We were joined by his girlfriend Stacey and our friends John and Penelope. It was a great night with great friends.
I’ve completed one sock and will start the other sometime this week. I really enjoyed knitting toe-up socks and think I may be a convert. I’m not too happy with the heel technique on this sock and will explore the other heels to find one that appeals to my aesthetic. I think I’ll also explore knitting socks “two-at-a-time” on a longer circular needle.
It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon.
https://flic.kr/p/UqBgER
My boss told me a new way to go home. Instead of taking Highway 17 from Moses Lake, through Soap Lake and by Dry Falls, I followed Stratford Road for around 25 miles and then got onto Pinto Ridge Road NE and followed that all the way to Coulee City and then get back onto Highway 17.
What a lovely drive home on a Friday evening. I was able to bypass all the tourists with their fifth wheels and campers. There wasn’t another soul on these roads at 6:00 PM on a Friday night.
https://flic.kr/p/V4YxvG
Once I got home, I dropped off Buddy and Little Miss and went to met Tiago and some friends at Copper Glance for a piece of chocolate cake and a cocktail. It was a wonderful way to kick-off my weekend.
House chores on Saturday. We were expecting a couple friends over; we had reservations for the Arrowleaf Bistro in Winthrop, but one of them had to cancel so we ended up meeting our friend in Omak and had dinner at the 13 Tribes Casino.
The Loup Loup Pass is still closed so we had to take the long way around, all the way down the Methow Valley, through Pateros and Brewster, up Highway 97 to Omak. Still, we had a great time with our friend Sheila.
Sunday’s been a day for some more chores around the house. While Tiago was busying organizing the garage and cleaning up the guest bedroom, I organized and ironed my clothes for the week and made three loaves of bread.
I encountered this little fellow on my way to shower this morning. Spring’s officially arrived.
Here’s the progress of a toe-up sock I’m knitting. I’ve only knitted a couple toe-up socks; I’ve always been a top-down sock knitter, but I’m beginning to see some real advantages to this type of knitting, namely, not having to pick-up gusset stitches or close the toe. I’m using “Judy’s Magic Cast On” for the toe and I’m very pleased with the results. I just have to finish this sock and knit its twin before I can move onto knitting myself a sweater.
This year is flying by. It only seems like yesterday when I posted “Day 1” for the new year and here it is “Day 156” already.
Monday morning, up at 4:00 AM, showered and out of the house by 4:30 AM for my 2 1/2 hour drive down to Moses Lake. This morning was an especially nice drive down; the sun rose about the time I reached Brewster and I rolled into town just a couple minutes past 7:00 AM and dropped Buddy and Little Miss off at the Taj Mahtrailer before stopping at Starbucks to enjoy an iced coffee and a chorizo breakfast sandwich and knit on a sock for half an hour before going into work.
I haven’t dedicated much time over the last couple of months to learning more about web development, but last week I took and passed my assessment for “Principals of Accounting” and “Marketing Fundamentals”.
I’m 59% of the way through my B.A. and I plan on taking “Spreadsheets” sometime this week.
My goal is to complete the remaining 16 courses before September 1, 2017 and thereby finishing my studies in two years.
What a treat! Last night my Boo and our friend Shane made a surprise visit to Moses Lake to take me out to dinner.
I’ve accepted the fact that my beard is becoming ungainly and I think it’s time I go to the barber shop and have the hedge trimmed back a bit. I was thinking of going completely “bush” and seeing just how long I can grow the sucker out, but on further reflection, I don’t think I want to look like a cast member of Duck Dynasty.
I’m at a crossroads in my life. I love my job and the people I work with, but a job opportunity in the Seattle region has become available and I have to go after it. The pay is not only substantially more than I currently make, I would also be supervising over 200 people. It’s scary and exciting at the same time, but I know I’m up for the challenge and the only way we grow is by continually pushing ourselves and leaving our comfort zones.
P.S. This is why I know the beard (in it’s current state of disarray) has to be tamed down. Grizzly Adams does not make for the best job interview.
It’s been an interesting afternoon; I told my boss that I’m applying to the position on the coast and things went very well. I had to learn the rough way that it’s always better to be up front and tell people one’s intentions and not blindside them. Now, I have to work on getting my reference letters and I’ve already got a commitment for a great one that I should have next Monday. I’m going to the board meeting tonight to see about getting two more.
Since I’m pursuing a new job I can’t go on with my “bush” beard. During lunch I went and got groomed. It was bittersweet; I really enjoyed letting my beard grow for the last six months and was hoping to let it grow out, but I think I’ll have to keep things a bit more trimmed.
I’ve reached out to all the people I want for my reference letters and everyone of them have said “yes”. Now I have to work on dusting off my resume and writing a cover letter. I have a lot of mixed feelings right now. I love my job and this community, but an opportunity like this doesn’t come along very often and I feel like I have to take it – albeit two years earlier than my original plans.
After spending my entire Saturday with my folks gallivanting around, I spent today catching up with my chores: washing and ironing my clothes and meal prep for the week. But it wasn’t all work; Boo and I were able to get a nice little hike around Lewis Butte.
Meal prep this week was four marina with mild Italian sausage with fusilli pasta, four lemongrass beef with jasmine rice and four Bun Cha with jasmine rice.
After a long and grueling winter, the narcissists and daffodils are in full bloom in our yard. I’m on the fence about planting anything else since we’ve had years where the deer come in and eat everything in one night. Tiago and I are talking about building a fence, but I have a lot of other projects to tackle around the house before that.
Tiago and I made a quick jaunt up Lewis Butte this afternoon. The hike has a little over 1000′ elevation gain and and was just over 2.5 miles. We were able to do the hike in a little over an hour. It was great to get out for a bit today. The balsam root is starting to bloom and I’m looking forward to when we’ll be able to hike up Maple Pass and Cutthroat.
Tiago went biking with friends up the closed portion of Hwy. 20 up to Rainy Pass and I decided to drive over to Bridgeport and spend the day with my folks and we decided to driver over to Coulee Dam and have lunch at Molody (my mom’s favorite restaurant).
This is how Boo and I spent our weekend – being lazy. Tiago played Xbox while I studied the slope intercept form and graphing equations for my college algebra course that I’m trying to wrap up in the next two weeks.
College algebra (actually, any math course) has been my biggest stumbling block on my goal towards completing my BA in Business before my birthday this August 12th. I’ve decided that I need to study, study, study and fully comprehend the subject matter before moving onto the next subject, which currently is Cartesian Coordinates. While I understand some of the subject, I find that I don’t fully grasp y = mx + b and I need to before I move onto writing equations, systems of equations, functions, exponenets and monomials, ploynomials, factoring, and finally, quadratic equations.
I feel left behind in that I’m almost 50 years old and I’ve never been exposed to these concepts before…and yet still graduated high school.
On top of all of this, I’m still trying to get in at least two hours of Portuguese each day. I’m pretty happy with my progress and found that review of the material I’ve already learned, over and over again, is the key to retention. Tiago says I need to start watching a lot of Brazilian TV shows with subtitles so I can train my ear to recognize and comprehend Portuguese.
Five more days of work before a week of vacation for Spring Break!
