Victoria and Harry?

On 22 April, 2000, our family began to read Harry Potter. Our young son had started reading but had settled himself into relatively lightweight stuff. He would read the youth editions of Pokemon and Star Wars novels, but refused to touch anything in hardback or that might "look hard". We had planned a visit to Victoria, BC, a ferry ride from Seattle, so we took along the newly released Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. On the boat ride to Victoria, we read chapters from Harry Potter. When the (adult) voices wore out, we stopped reading. Our young non-reader was so incensed that he grabbed the book and finished reading it himself, although we had to continue reading aloud for his younger brother. Thanks, Harry!

The is a view of the Empress Hotel on the Victoria Inner Harbor shortly after we arrived.

Vancouver from on high

Welcome to beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. This is not the 51st state nor is it part of Britain. It is a lovely city in the southwestern corner of our northern neighbor. Among the many visual delights of Vancouver is the Lion's Gate Bridge and you are standing on it. As you look eastward, you see the Burrard Inlet, an arm of the sea - a fjord. Vancouver city lies to your right, while North Van is to your left; West Van is behind you, on the left. The Lion's Gate Bridge connects the Vancouvers. You can see the orange of the cranes on the loading dock, and a set of white peaks that form the port building used by the cruise ships that go up to Alaska.

Update: Added a title. Oops.

1000000 Lawyers

I used to think that Temple Bar was a British tribute to the greatest institutions of the Empire, but then I found out the Brits call them "pubs". Color me more deflated than the US dollar.

More to the point, Ham has featured the Temple Bar on his brilliant photo-blog, London Daily Photo. I had no idea the Temple Bar was a gate to London. An ignorant tourist, I just wondered why they had this odd monument in the middle of the road. The Temple Bar is surrounded by spots that will sound familiar to anyone reading Neal Stephenson recently - Fleet Street, the Strand, High Holborn, and Ludgate all feature in his recent writings (The Baroque Cycle) - and it was fun to visit the places that feature in the novels.

Nearby was a poetic example of that The Greatest British Institution.We were not able to dine at this particular establishment, it being too early in the morning, but we did enjoy peeking in. We ate later in the day at - I think - The Prince of Wales.

And all those lawyers in the title? You can thank Tom Paxton.

Keep on truckin'

This is the top of Mt. Adams, the second tallest mountain in Washington (after Mt. Rainier). This little bit of rock is part of the Cascade range, a string of volcanoes that run up the coast of North America from California (Mt. Shasta), extending into British Columbia, through Alaska and out to Kamchatka; the northern part of the Ring of Fire that circles the Pacific Ocean. My son was in a group that climbed Mt. Adams this weekend (2 July 2007) and I was the Base Camp team. I kept the home fires burning (literally - my job was to have hot water ready for soup and cocoa when they came back). Lovely day, great views, heavy work-out.

Cry Me a River

This used to be a campground.

A heavy rainstorm hit Mt. Rainier National Park in late 2006 (November). Eighteen inches of rain (half a meter) fell in 24 hours. The flooding was selective but intense. The Nisqually entrance is at the southwest corner of the park and is the main entrance to access Cougar Rock and Paradise. A small campground and picnic area is a few miles into the park from the Nisqually entrance. Or rather, used to be there. The Nisqually River decided to expand, ripping away half of the campground. In the photo you see here, there is river where there used to be camp sites.

Millions of dollars have been spent to rebuild roads and facilities so that the Park could be reopened to visitors just this month. The Park Service is doing an outstanding job. If you're in the area, they could sure use your help to repair and rebuild. If you are unable to help in person, you can still contribute.

Rock'n'roll

I find petroglyphs fascinating.
The oft ambiguous message comes across time to tell the puzzled observers an important message that has lost context. Many are timeless, but this one seems to speak of a square-rigged ship seen sometime in the last two centuries. The message is an obscure one for modern day viewers as it lies miles from the center of civilization and on the far edge of a rainforest, but the tale was important enough for the maker to invest hours of effort to create. Did it express wonder at the enormous ship? Pleasure at the cargo it brought? Or horror at the loss of a civilization?

Wedding Rocks near Lake Ozette, Olympic National Park, Washington, USA. April, 2007.

Seattle Warming

It has been a gradual change, but it has recently become clear that Seattle and the Puget Sound are warmer than they have been historically. As a result, our sailing habits have changed. As the polar bears have moved north, we have been able to shed much of the equipment that burdened us in the past. No longer do we require the tooth-resistant chain mail that makes swimming so difficult and is so awfully hard to maintain shiny in the salty air. Our tans develop better and a number of the local tanning salons have had to close up shop. The rumor is that Starbucks will stop selling hot coffee drinks to focus on iced rum drinks with little umbrellas. And I'll finally get to grow real tomatoes in my garden.

I love Paris in the Springtime

Paris is such a fabulous city to visit. In spite of the old saying, I suspect one or two people even like living there! We had the pleasure of Paris over the 2006/2007 holiday season. This photo was taken from the top of the Centre Pompidou (I think) on a blustery, rainy night.

We stayed in an apartment off Rue Rambuteau for a week, frequently passing the Centre. Finally, we visited the Herge exhibit and then went up to the top. (Sorry - I don't know how to inject the proper accent on the second e.) I will say that I spent more time appreciating the Herge exhibit and the view from the top than I spent appreciating the art collection that was open that evening - if you catch my drift.

I love Paris in the Springtime. And in the Fall, Winter, and Summer, too!

(Note: the old saying to which I refer is: "It's a lovely place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." I think I would gladly live in Paris.)

Bright Eye

Over at London Daily Photo, Ham has challenged us all to add our photos of the London Eye in celebration of the approaching 25,000,000th visitor. There's a photo contest, and I've posted my photos. This is the one I posted under the title "Bright Eye" (sounds like a great song title - oh, silly me! - it's a band).

If you visit London, take the time to visit the Eye - highly recommended.

Only the Lonely

It has been an unusual winter in metropolitan Seattle.We're having a lot of snow. Yesterday (28 Feb 2007), we had about six inches fall overnight. It was only just about freezing, so the lower part is pretty sodden. The differences among locales is amazing. Nearby Bellevue got almost nothing - just a decorative dusting, while my backyard in Redmond got over six inches. We live on top of a hill in this hilly area, and the 100 feet of elevation (or so) was enough to turn rain and a little snow into snow and a little rain.

These folks must live up top on the hill, or over on the east side. They evidently ran into just a slight hitch last night as they tried to climb the hill in their cars and were forced to abandon them overnight. All but two of the cars had been claimed by this afternoon (about 20 hours of abandonment). I sure hope someone offered these folks rides.

It's a dog's life

Today is men-at-work day on the Daily Photo blog sites (such as London Daily Photo and Paris Daily Photo). Inspired by Ham's work in London, I offer a small contribution: the Horse Guards Under Stress. These poor guys have a job to do, and they have to do it with a straight face even as they're being undermined by swarms of motivated tourists. This poor guy is working on Christmas day. Or was it Boxing Day? It was a long flight and I'm rather confused on the point. It's a cold, rainy holiday night, and he's got to keep that stiff upper lip. I think they had even retired the horses for the night. Wouldn't want to send a horse out on a knight like this, eh?

Happy Birthday, Charles!

Today, 12 Feb 2007, is the 198th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. I struggled to find a photo of mine that might do him honor, but no joy. I did find a nice (spliced) photo of the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct built in France, and I hope that Charles would appreciate how we humans have advanced from rock-stackers (wonderful and talented but still stackers of rocks) to elegant carvers of rock - etchers of silicon, to be exact. I find this change of scales to be an interesting metaphor of our evolution.

Two thousand years ago, it was a major achievement to build an enormous aqueduct that could channel water across miles and miles to provide a city with an essential of life and to power the fountains that would enchant their hearts. Today we can channel electrons across little cities of transistors, creating anything from pacemakers that maintain life itself or create games that fritter it away. I know two people undergoing cancer treatment now, and it is amazing they can be treated - it wasn't that long ago that cancer would have been untreatable, and now we talk about survival in years or decades. This all relates back to Darwin because it is his simple little theories that help explain how we developed to the point where we can even affect the climate of an entire planet. Let's hope we have also developed to the point where we can reverse the effects of our earlier simplicity.

Armchair travel

I own a domain (actually a couple) - pretty easy to do these days, at about $10 each per year. I have configured the domains such that any received email not sent to a legitimate user gets forwarded to me as the domain owner. I get some mail that needs to be forwarded, usually due to name confusion. In the last month or so, there seems to be a new virus out in the world, because I am getting a huge number of "delivery failure" messages. The message I see is usually a "reply" to a supposed sender message informing me that the message cannot be delivered because of the contents (virus), but occasionally because the destination address is defunct or full. The supposed sender is some bogus user within my domain - not only a fictitious user, but often something completely bizarre (e.g., "fl8noj12" or "bz8ankladfy" - not even a phat name from some haxxor). My guess is that a virus is out there, sending mail using my domain to create a seemingly legitimate email address and hoping to capture someone who opens the mail.

The messages come from all sorts of interesting domains - .ru, .jp, .kr, and so on. Had I been clever, I would have put up a map with pins in it.

Spam - It Brings the World Together(TM).

Whole lot of shakin' going' on?

The news is reporting that we are to have an earthquake this coming week. The Globe and Mail headline says "B.C. put on alert for huge quake"; as British Columbia is but a few short miles north of here and we can see Vancouver Island on a clear day (from the right vantage point), I think we'll be in on the party should one arrive.

Update: Hey, look what happened 307 years ago, on 26 Jan 1700: an earthquake... of magnitude 9.

The Road Not Taken

We were snowshoeing in the area of Stevens Pass, WA. One of the fun bits of snowshoe hikes is that there's no trail. Rather, one can follow a trail or one can make a trail. We did some of both. In this case, we were making our own trail. The area in the photo is a little over an hour from Seattle on US Route 2 and around 4000 feet in altitude. It was a great day for a snowshoe hike - the weather wasn't too sunny (well, it was overcast, but not oppressively so), and the temperatures were in the upper 20's (Fahrenheit). There was a fresh layer of snow over a deep encrusted base. At the lunch stop, some of the guys dug a hole in the snow to see if it was suitable for building igloos. They went down about four feet, and the snow was fine. It was fun walking among the trees in the snow and it was very quiet. About all one could hear was my heavy breathing as I labored to keep up with the group...

Cool future

LG Electronics announced the availability of a a TV refrigerator equipped with digital multimedia features (in 2004, here) -- a computer in a refrigerator. The buzz in the industry has been that every appliance would eventually be connected to the Internet so you can turn on the oven from your car as you drive home. Or your refrigerator would detect that you're out of milk and automatically send an order to the grocery store. Or the refrigerator computer could give you seventeen recipes that use the contents of your refrigerator (chicken-fried-steak pizza with lime pickles and hummus, mmm, mmm, good!).

I've never really figured out the allure of this, but I have recently finally understood the real motive. It is both simpler than I thought - and deeper.

It's to keep the microprocessor cool.

Snow fooling

We've had an odd winter this year - wet, snowy, and windy are typical but they are hitting extremes. The struggle is retain a sense of balance and humor among the assaults thrown our way by Mother Nature. We don't normally get a lot of snow, but this rose struggled forward to overcome hardship. Although we lost the traditional blossom, this bit of visual poetry more than compensates.

Marketing

In a recent posting, The 2008 Democrat, Barry Lieba makes the observation that

a lot of politics is sales and marketing, and sales and marketing have many similarities across domains. Sell a car, sell a political platform, sell yourself to the voters... they have a lot in common.

This statement is more accurate and literal than most people believe. I hereby submit the following file for your consideration.

I took a technical marketing class at Bell Labs (BTL) in about 1985. Normally, I wouldn't sign up for such a topic, but my manager discovered a conflict after she enrolled and offered to let me have the slot. I took it, thinking maybe I would learn something about marketing. Did I ever. To teach the course, BTL flew in a professor from a Virginia university each week to present the course for eight weeks. The professor had invented a multivariate analysis technique that could turn consumer preferences as expressed in structured questionnaires into two-dimensional vectors that highlighted the differences among the choices. The professor offered "lite beer" as his best example. Historically, there were two basic beer choices - cheap stuff and regular beer. According to the professor, the group that drank the cheap stuff preferred to drink hard and alone. The group drinking the regular stuff preferred to drink in groups (sociable) but wanted something that tasted good. The cheap stuff didn't taste very good, and the regular stuff was too filling, not allowing them to drink for the duration of the social activities.

Sounding familiar yet?

The questionnaire had taken many dimensional variables (self-perception, sociability, activity/sport, taste, desire to get drunk, and so on) and remapped them into two dimensions. There were a few clusters of responses on the resulting 2D chart - clusters that represented existing drinkers satisfied with existing products, and a cluster representing customers with unmet needs. This last cluster became lite beer. Low in alcohol, allowing one to drink a (relatively) large volume without getting drunk, and distinctively flavorful. Pitch it to active, social people who perceive themselves as attractive to the opposite sex.

The professor did exactly the same analysis for his political candidate (Reagan) and his opponents (Democrats). He analyzed the candidates of interest and mapped them onto a 2D plane. He found that Senator John Glenn was the strongest competitor to Reagan and Mondale was the least. The resulting strategy was simple - ignore Glenn and respond vigorously to Mondale, exaggerating the differences. This had the effect of making Glenn irrelevant (Reagan couldn't even be bothered to respond, so how could Glenn be a credible opponent?) and pushing the Mondale caricature to prominance (Reagan was aghast that Mondale could seriously propose surrendering to the Soviets).

I don't think the above gives a sufficient explanation of the technique, but it's all the detail I can recall from the time. The point is that it was my first exposure to the blatent expression of the idea that Presidential candidates were to be sold like cheap beer. As we go through the process that leads to the selection of candidates for 2008, I hope - perhaps in vain - that we'll consider the candidates on the basis of their merits and not on the cynical manipulators who want us to look carefuly at the "New and Improved Label".

Note: it appears that Joe Owades is generally viewed as the inventor of lite beer.

Holidays have arrived

We'll be off in the land of the Angles and the Gauls. Happy holidays and a joyous new year!

Black pine

When our neighborhood was laid out, it seems that Black Pine was a popular tree for landscape designers. We have lines of them alternating with flowering plum trees along the white fencing at the south entrance to our subdivision. They're nice looking trees with a dark green color and a puffy appearance. Our local evergreens tend to be pointy and lighter in color, so it's a pleasant contrast. We don't shape them as is done in Japan - they just grow freely.

Sadly, the recent windstorm was not kind to the black pines. These trees completely blocked this entrance to the neighborhood. A second entrance was partially blocked. The wind blew from the south and, as one might expect, virtually all the fallen trees point to the north.



The black pines that faced the wind without an upwind deflector didn't hold. Those in north-south rows did reasonably well, but those in east-west rows fell hard. Smaller trees were more likely to survive, but the larger, more mature trees had too much sail area.

Based on the way they fell, the black pine has a shallow, broad root system. The trees that were pulled up showed roots that rarely went deeper than a foot and were typically half that. The roots were barely deeper than the sod. The breadth of the root system wasn't enough to compensate. It's not clear if the root depth is natural or is a consequence of the soil structure. The soils around here are generally poor. The glaciers scraped off most of the soil and pushed it elsehwere. When they retreated, they left sand, gravel, and clay. The builders added just enough topsoil to allow the plants to survive. But I would think that twenty years of growth would have given the trees deeper roots. The black pines are also denser than the native trees. As I look at the firs and cedars, they have a more lacy look to them. Stands of them get very dark, but individual trees are more open than the black pine. The successful trees bend with the wind and let it pass.

There will be a faction in the neighborhood that wants to replace the fallen trees with the same type. I will lobby for native trees that have shown they can withstand our blustery days.

Risky business

I am fascinated by the risks that we take in our daily lives. We pay extra for special bottled water to avoid the perceived risks of tap water. Driving is particularly challenging. We drive cars at high speeds without seatbelts fastened. We talk on cell phones, apply make-up, and hand things to the kids while driving in heavy traffic. A sample of the damage left by the recent windstorm is shown here. A tall tree, probably a Douglas Fir or a Western Red Cedar, is suspended above the roadway by power lines. Many people were quite happy to drive under that tree on their way to shopping or soccer. Personally, I drove over on the shoulder to avoid a chance collapse. I know the chance was remote, but I just didn't want "Zap!" to be my epitaph.

I should have taken more photos. The damage was -- is dramatic.

What was your name?

The Seattle/Tacoma bureau of the National Weather Service wants your help naming the storm that blew some many electrons out of Seattle. The announcement page is here or you can send mail to namethewindstorm@noaa.gov .

Reeling in the years

It's been a while since I posted. I started to think that the content was not interesting to the audience. I have finally realized that the audience is rather small - probably just me - and I can't impress or disappoint myself, so I may as well start again. (No, I can't explain - it made sense at the time.)

We've just come out of a long, dark period. A major storm blew through the metropolitan Seattle area a week ago - Thursday night, 14 December 2006. It started with a few hours of pouring rain, almost three inches - an amount we normally get in a month. This was followed by strong winds - sustained at 50 mph. Trees started falling.

Although our home was not hit by anything falling, there were hundreds of thousands of homes without power as trees struck power lines. Ours was one of the many dark ones. We spend Friday thinking power would be restored shortly and we could resume our normal lives for the weekend. Not so. We finally had power restored Tuesday morning. Fortunately, we have a fireplace, but we had to source firewood from friends and neighbors. The furnace was inop (electric fan for circulation), but the hot water heater worked (natural gas). Washing the dishes has never been so popular. We dug out our camping gear - sleeping bags, flashlights, lanterns, and so on.

Once power was restored, we quickly forgot the hardships and returned to our normal, posh life. Lights, heat, computers, music, and garage door openers. As the Horsey cartoon (Seattle P-I) says, there's a thin line between civilization and nature.

Arachnophobia

It is one of the great mysteries of life: from whence come spiders and insects? What is the origin of life itself? At the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, there were theories of spontaneous generation. When I check Wikipedia, it goes back to Aristotle who believed that aphids sprang from the dew on roses, mice from dirty hay, and (one would think) fruit flies from aging fruit. Clearly from this photo, Aristotle would think that spiders sprang from unused bathtubs.

The bathtub is in our summer cottage and the spiders just appear. It's not like there are masses of webs on the ceiling, with thousands of wannabe Charlottes angling and dangling for a chance at pictorial fame on Blogger. No! The ceiling is quite finished and well maintained. So from whence come all these spiders? Inquiring minds want to know!

The end of summer

These floats got a lot of use this summer. Many hands and feet disturbed their quiet drifting. Shouts and laughter surrounded them. Splashes and tumbles soaked them all afternoon and into the evening. But the days have turned cooler, shortening as the sun drifts lower each day. Soon the floats will be pulled out for the season and set aside to dry. When the rainy season ends and the water warms, they will be brought out again. The feet will be larger, the hands stronger, the splashes bigger. There will even be delicate new hands and feet touching the floats for the first time. But for now, quiet and solitute in the September sun.

Nightlight

When I fly, I like to get a seat with a view. It's not easy and a peek out the window can reveal little more than the top of a wing or the back of a jet engine. For some reason, everyone seems to think business travelers like aisle seats and on personal flights, the kids tend to get first choice. This usually leaves me sitting in the middle seat, sometimes on the aisle. On a June flight, I got a window with a view.

It was a long flight that arrived in Seattle around sunset. Because we were coming in from the southeast, the view was fantastic. I don't know if the pilot planned this (thank you!) or if we were just lucky, but we flew right past the north face of Mt. Rainier on our descent. We must have been around 15,000 feet because we were only looking down slightly on the 14,410-foot mountain.

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?

We live in the Sammamish Valley, carved by the Sammamish Slough. Once a naturally meandering river, the Slough is now channelized and arrow-straight for miles. A couple times a year, it rises in a fruitless attempt to reclaim its natural domain. Fortunately for those living nearby, the planners were thoughtful and they placed mostly sod farms, vegetable farms, soccer fields, and a golf course nearby. There is some housing that encroaches on the Slough, and some industry, but they seem to have well-designed dikes.

Quite a meandering introduction, eh? But you have survived to the point: the valley is scenic. The Red Hook Brewery and the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery are at the north end of the valley. Somebody decided it would be a good place to run a balloon. The winds are generally northernly (out of the north), so they start at the north end of the valley and drift south. The balloons are surprisingly silent (except for the roar of the propane burners) so that I'm often tempted to start a conversation as the balloonists float over my backyard.

Camp Parsons, BSA

Over here on Dabob Bay, near Quilcene, WA, is the famous Camp Parsons, BSA. One of the famous features of this famous camp is the pier. At 500 feet in length, it extends far out into the waters of the Hood Canal. There is a significant tide in the area, so they need quite a pier to get out into reliably deep waters. One need is for boating, so the boats are tied up at the end of the pier. The other need is for Pier Jumping! Pier jumping is, as the name would suggest, jumping off the pier into the water. The tide varies, of course, so the jump ranges from 15 to 20-some feet. As a friend of mine mentioned, it doesn't look all that high when you're standing in dry street clothes, but when you're out there in a swimming suit, the jump takes on a new perspective. Highly recommended, though - it's a blast.

Mountain Flowers

The alpine flowers of Washington can be stunning. This has been a good year, at least in the early part of the summer.

Summer sun at the beach

It seems to have Beach Week over at the London Daily Photo and at the Paris Daily Photo, so here's my contribution: fun in the summer sun. These three boys are preparing for a water-balloon fight in celebration of a 12th birthday. I can't imagine what sort of strategy they were cooking up, but they were intently debating the options and the merits. I would have thought that a water-balloon fight would lose its charm were I standing waist-deep in the ocean, but I'm no longer twelve.

They sure like their highways

I am stunned at the enormous roads they build in Texas. This intersection on the south side of Austin is an incredible spray of concrete. It's quite impressive, but one really has to wonder if this scale of road-building is necessary. I'm not going to defend the brilliant engineering of the local folks, but they clearly like things big in Texas.

Holey Roller

A rolling rock gathers... dimples?

I can't figure out where all these dimpled rocks come from. This photo is from the Pacific coast on the shores of Washington (state). Look up Cape Alava, WA in Google Maps. These rocks are pounded and rolled by the tides of the Pacific. Cape Alava is exposed to storms throughout the year, so the rocks become round. But many of them have these large dimples. The dimples are golf ball-sized and a few inches deep. What causes them?????

War of the Worlds

I was looking out my office window at a gray day in April (3-apr-2006) and I decided to use the only camera at-hand to take a photo: my camera-phone. It proudly presents itself as a 1.3 megapixel, but it's not really a camera. Snapshots, maybe, but not photographs. However, interesting things come when you're least expecting them, rather like those cheap Russian (?) cameras that people use to take creative photos. They're not accurate, but the distortion is interesting and can be artistic. So here's my entry. I had to straighten out the horizon and crop the photo down a touch, but that sort of solarization going on here - that's all in the camera.

I haven't posted in quite a while. I challenge myself to fix that.

Lions and tigers and bears...

Lions, acutally. These are the Vancouver (BC) lions in profile. Stanley Park is the beautiful park in the heart of Vancouver. From the north end of Stanley Park, the Lions Gate Bridge launches across the mouth of Vancouver Harbor to North Vancouver. The bridge is named for the crouching lions seen in the northern distance. See if you can find the lions here.

By the flickering flame of Mount Olympus, Cocky, it's great to be back at the game!

On a clear day, Mount Olympus reigns over the northern suburbs of Seattle. The fog is rising but the mountains loom above, illuminated by the rising sun. The Olympic mountain range covers the northwest corner of Washington state, deflecting and blocking the worst of the Pacific weather. The surviving moisture drizzles the Puget Sound basin in the winter, giving Seattle its reputation, but the bulk of the moisture creates the great temperate rainforest that shares the Olympic name and covers the western flanks. The advancing summer season struggles with the winter snows but have not yet won the high ground, and the rivers are swollen with the casualties of warmth. It is early in the morning as the sun has not yet illuminated the nearby houses and hills.

Update: removed spurious and lurid apostrophe. (Blush)

Heigh-ho, Nobody Home

There is a lot of construction proceeding in Kirkland, WA. This hole is to be a new hotel. I find it to be an enormously impressive hole (foundation) for a 2-3 story hotel. If you look carefully, you may be able to recognize the forms of the floor of an underground parking garage. The light blue coils are evidently cables that will be under tension, embedded in the concrete. Against the far wall, you can see the reinforcing structures that help hold the walls of the hole in place during construction. I assume that these will be removed as the building / parking structure / foundation completes.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

That rainbow really struck me. Certainly, I've seen rainbows, but this one was unusually intense in color and nearly complete. It wasn't a full circle, but I usually think of rainbows as fading off on one side. After I resumed driving, I kept peeking at the rainbow and it started to fade. I was lucky to see it full and intense for the brief time it was there.

In reality, the rainbow was more nearly circular. This image was taken as three exposures on my cell-phone camera, then merged with Photoshop Elements 4 using a perspective merge and advanced blending. This explains the kink near the peak of the rainbow and the spreading of the curve (divergence from circular). Initial attempts to merge the images had major discontinuities in the sky and rainbow, so I kept playing with the Photoshop options.

Slip-sliding away

Our Spring weather has been unsettled and unusually violent for this area, bringing hailstorms, rainbows, and drenching rain. I was stunned by a fabulous rainbow as I was driving south of Seattle the other day, so I whipped out my cell-phone and took a picture of it. Don't be alarmed - I had pulled to the side of the road to stop and safely take the picture. It is rather interesting that a passing car gets skewed; there must be some sort of sequential scanning process in the camera exposure.

Odd, isn't it, that I take out a cell-phone to take a picture. A few years ago, that would have gotten gee-whiz responses, but now it gets yawns. Now if only someone could invent a roof that looks good and doesn't leak.

Walking on broken glass

Hiking along the Pacific beach near Cape Alava, WA, we came across this striking display: a bleached clump of trees above a candy-striped log.

April, 2006

Faces

We went on a backpacking trip in the Olympic National Park. Most people think of mountains and snow in the Olympics (surrounding Mt. Olympus) but an unexpected part of the park is the rainforest and coast. These petroglyphs are south of Cape Alava, the westernmost part of the continential United States (traditional). There is a clump of rocks that cut the beach to the sea and have the name Wedding Rocks. I don't really recall, but I think the photo is in the "correct" orientation, though the rocks have probably moved since the original creation of the petroglyphs. There are a many other petroglyphs among the rocks, but I think people are starting to add modern ones. These seem to be authentic and old (1000 years, perhaps?).

Tiptoe Through The Tulips

Spring in Seattle comes early and lingers. We have our soggy days, but the sunny ones make up for the rest. Our tulips come out and last. I grew up in the Midwest of the U.S. and the tulips lasted for a day or two. In Seattle, we get weeks and weeks of pleasure.

I was inspired first by the London Daily Photo blog and the Paris Daily Photo blog, but I have come to understand just how challenging that can actually be. This bouquet is in honor of the reliable souls who bring us the daily photos. And a fond memory of Tiny Tim.

I get around

We were out on a drive to see the eagles on the Skagit River. During the winter months, the eagles follow various salmon runs, and the Skagit seems to be one of the favorites; it also happens to have a road that allows easy access - Route 20, the North Cascades Highway. Our tour started near Concrete, WA, and continued east, including stops at Rockport State Park and Mile 100 (a wide spot in the road). Along the way we happened across a tour group of restored cars. As the drivers lunched nearby, the cars formed an impromptu show.

Update: Forgot to provide a title.

Tattered

The Seattle Science Center has a tropical butterfly house. Inside it's hot, humid, and bright. The visitors walk paths among tropical plants, gawking at the flowers and the butterflies. The butterflies congregate around flowers, water, and plates of food. This particular butterfly must be approaching the end of his life. His neighbors have smoothly undulating edges to their wings, but this one is tattered. He seems to be enjoying a banana.

Paths on the Mountain

We were using our snowshoes on Mount Rainier, WA. We parked by Paradise Visitor Center and started climbing. The day started out clear but clouds came in during the early afternoon. At times we were climbing through overcast and snow, but there was also plenty of sunshine. This image captures a period of change.

Update: We are standing around 6000 feet (about 1000 feet above Paradise) and looking up the 14,400 foot mountain.

I like Paris in the Springtime

I've been visiting daily a couple of photoblogs. The first one I found was the London Daily Photo (LDP). The LDP was inspired by and introduced me to the Paris Daily Photo (PDP). These are wonderful. In honor of the first anniversary of the PDP, I offer this little snapshot of an obscure part of Paris with a wonderful name, Rue du chat qui peche. My poor abilities in French give this street the name "Avenue of the Fishing Cat".

Eric, the host of PDP, has a special listing of photos he has received in honor of his first anniversary, and I encourage you to have a look!

A rose by any other name

A simple sand pendulum can create complex, interesting figures as the point swings through the sand - Lissajous figures. These sand pendulums are often sold in little shops. One of the shops in Port Townsend, not far from Seattle, happened to have their pendulum swinging at the moment of the 2001 Seattle earthquake, and this image is left to us to ponder. The owner named it The Earthquake Rose.

I feel the earth move under my feet

Seattle is on the Ring of Fire, a massive curve around northern part the Pacific Ocean. As the tectonic plates move, we develop neighbors who like to party. Five years ago, 28 February 2001, Seattle had a reminder of our party-hardy neighbors: an earthquake. Everybody has their story to tell and everyone remembers exactly where they were when "it" happened.

I was in the office of my boss, having a routine 1x1 meeting with him. The first rumble hit and it was like a heavily loaded cart rolling down then hallway - just a loud rumble. A few seconds later, a louder rumble with a distinct floor motion hit. I asked Gene (my boss), "Is this an earthquake?" "No, don't be silly." By the time he got the "...lly" out of his mouth, we were both standing in the doorway of his office, looking at each other, because the third rumble hit and hit and hit. It seemed to go on forever. There was a fellow outside Gene's office, sitting at his desk and staring up at a light fixture that was swaying back and forth. "Gee, you really ought to get away from that and under your desk." "Huh? What?" he said as he watched the fixture sway. It seemed to go on forever, but it probably lasted five seconds of so.

Gene and I walked around the floor to inspect any damage and to ensure that anyone needing help or attention got it. Luckily, we were in a new building so most of the damage was to items that slid or bounced off desks to the floor, and a couple of bookcases that weren't properly secured to the walls. I waited around until the official all-clear announcement. I had to wait until the city bus lines started running again.

The bus ride was a little strange. The city was silent, nearly still. The route for the bus I needed took me into the Seattle Metro Bus Tunnel. I must say it is a bit odd to ride through a tunnel in the aftermath of an earthquake. No obvious damage - the engineers had checked it out before re-opening it, of course - but one feels like the ultimate gambler to go below the earth after an earthquake.

Next day? Back to work.

Note: it is normally a bad idea to stand in a doorway during an earthquake. Much wiser to get under a table or sturdy piece of furniture that's away from glass windows. In this case, the door was a sliding door rather than a swinging door, so the response was reasonably safe. A conventional swinging door tends to flap in harmony with the earthquake (literally), slapping you out of the way should you attempt to interfere with its path. Avoid doorways, head under a table or desk.

Where have all the flowers gone?

The Northwest Flower and Garden Show comes to Seattle like a tropical breeze each February. The floors of the Convention Center blossom with displays and booths. This display was an interesting combination of flowers and glass in the style of Dale Chihuly.

Don't know much about history

You look at this picture and you probably think it's inane. Here's the secret: it's not inane, it's art. Yep, there's a plaque on that utility cover in the foreground. A significant plaque. Well, OK, I'll let you judge for yourself (I assume a singular readership here, and I don't mean distinctive, I mean unary).

The plaque reads as it says. Kirkland, WA.

Grazin' in the grass

What do you do with a valley floor that is also a floodplain? You might build houses or businesses there, but they would flood regularly. Here's a clever idea: build a sod farm. Yep, grow grass. Then when the fields flood, you don't lose much. If the floods recede quickly enough, you don't even lose the grass - it will recover quickly.

This is the valley of the Sammamish Slough and you're looking north from the north side of Redmond, WA. The Slough is to your left. In the distance you might be able to make out the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery, but I rather doubt the visibility is good enough. The Columbia Winery (must be over 21) is nearby and so is the Red Hook Brewery. Yes, we have all the conveniences here.

Slip-sliding away

The good side of all that rain is: snow in the mountains. We went skiing at the Stevens Pass Ski Area on the afternoon of a recent football game. It was great. The day was sunny, as you can see to the right, the crowds were light, the snow was good, and the lift lines were brief. There was even plenty of seating and eating room (normally it's a struggle to find a place to sit).

Rain, Rain, Go Away

It is raining again in Seattle. After a day of brief relief - it takes just one to interrupt the record string - we're back into rain. Two and a half times the average amount of rain for January and an inch short of the wettest January on record. Water is everywhere. The rivers had started to drop, but they're higher than ever. Hillsides are slumping; one stretch of a hill slid into the Oso River and blocked it. The emergency folks brought in construction equipment to dig a new river channel to save nearby houses.

This is to be someone's basement. The rain will drain, the ground will dry, the cement will pour, the foundation will harden, the house will go up, and the happy people will move in. Seattle - we can survive anything!