Today's Tweets

• 20:05 Just uploaded 3 new photos to my SmugMug "Sports > Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Tickets" gallery: bit.ly/4CfVJM #
• 00:47 Just uploaded 313 new photos to my SmugMug "Weddings > Amalea and Andrew's Wedding" gallery: bit.ly/904NT3 #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Olympic Tickets!

Our tickets for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver arrived today. 2 tickets to each of 12 events. Now the only thing is to try and arrange transportation and lodging, along with time off work.

Free Fall

The bad news is I fell down the stairs with Max yesterday. The good news is I did not break my foot or ankle and Max is not at all injured. We fell a couple of steps and hit the landing, and the only damage seems to be a bad sprain on my left foot. The official report says I tore two and maybe all three ligaments there, but no breaks and no bone chips, which is all good news, or at least as good as it can get. I have a new fancy pants boot that inflates with air to wear for the next four to six weeks, including for all our upcoming travel plans - starting tomorrow. But I should be back at work as regularly scheduled.

Blitzen and Doner kebob

The only doner kebobs without traveling all the way to Germany - well worth the drive to Portland.

Now that's compact

Only in Seattle: 1 parking space, 3 vehicles. Technically, 1 car space and 1 motorcycle space, but filled with a mini, a smart car, and our scooter.

Penguin Power

Penguins are popular, probably because they look good on everyone.

Tetley vs. Beep

You can ignore the last minute of the video, where nothing fun happens.

Orange Odyssey Photo Fun

In case you missed Michal's earlier post, photos from the orange party are available for your viewing pleasure! Check them out here and here.

Costume Comparison

Inspiration: Lucilla from the Gladiator movie, in her Glory of Rome outfit.







Interpretation: Not bad for a no-sew costume. I am especially pleased with the earrings. Thanks, Michal, and Debbie for helping me get into it!

David Gray

We scored last minute tickets to David Gray's performance at the Paramount Theater. Overall, not a bad venue, and of course, as always, David rocks.

Today's Tweets

• 01:37 Just uploaded 83 new photos to my SmugMug "Parties > Orange Odyssey" gallery: bit.ly/3RHAXp #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Eagle Creek Rocks!

I am incredibly pleased with Eagle Creek luggage. Their Tarmac series (and possibly others) come with a no-matter-what damage guarantee. The claim is if your luggage falls off the roof of your car on the way to the airport and gets hit by the semi tailgating you, and you manage to duct-tape it back together and check it and the wheel gets caught in the conveyor belt and is ripped off and then the luggage handlers jerk the handle too roughly and tear it off while loading it onto the plane because it no longer has a wheel -- well, they'll fix it, for free, under a lifetime warranty. The only cost you have to lay out is shipping the suitcase to them for the repair or replacement.

Well, as it happens, Sarah and I were in REI over the summer (that happens quite a bit actually) and we were looking around in the gear garage, where REI sells off items that were returned (because REI has an awesome return policy that allows you to basically return anything anytime). Sarah spotted a Tarmac 28 bag which, as you can see from the link, retails for $340. Except this suitcase had been returned because all the zipper pulls had been torn off, a few of the zippers themselves had been torn off, and a litany of scratches and other surface damage was present. So of course REI discounts the gear based on how usable it is -- in this case, not very much so, and thus the suitcase was priced at $5 and some change. Then in late September I shipped it back to Eagle Creek -- thanks to my employer's stupendously negotiated rate with UPS, shipping costs were another $5 or so. Today, a brand-new suitcase, complete with tags attached and everything, arrived!

The whole reason I knew about this warranty bit with Eagle Creek is that Sarah got me a Tarmac 22 as a carry-on bag to replace the no-name one I'd had for ages whose wheel fell off a few years ago after an accident with a pebble getting caught in the wheel during the 2001 STP and she felt I needed a suitcase with a good warranty. I certainly don't plan to abuse the Eagle Creek suitcase, but it's nice to know that Eagle Creek does actually honor their warranty without hassles.

Meet Moulin

The merriment meercat. A present from Michal.

Today's Tweets

• 17:21 Just uploaded 5 new photos to my SmugMug "Food > Avocado" gallery: bit.ly/4aTTmN #
• 18:08 Just uploaded 31 new photos to my SmugMug "Pets > New Fish October 2009" gallery: bit.ly/1HzKT2 #
• 23:05 Astute followers of @furchin (is that allowed?) should note I am only using twitter to interconnect Smugmug, Blogger, and Facebook. :) #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Fish by Mail!

I've done this once before, but it's been a really long time. It still strikes me as really awesome. Everyone knows you can buy stuff online. But I don't think most people realize you can buy pets online. And I don't mean "look online, then go pick up in person." I mean buy online, pay online, next day air box. Well maybe you can't do this with real pets, but fortunately for me, I have an aquarium. A bona fide saltwater marine tank (that's redundant, but whatever). Only I'm not exactly very good about changing the water all the time so all sorts of algae have moved in. Plus the heat wave this summer killed off at least two snails, and it's been a while since I've had any fire shrimp which are the whole reason I got a salt water aquarium in the first place. So Tuesday night I spent a few hours online price shopping between marinedepot.com and liveaquaria.com (the latter won) and picking out about $150 worth of aquatic life, consisting entirely of

2x Fire Shrimp
5x Chestnut Turbo Snail
5x Turbo Snail
3x Dwarf Red Tip Hermit Crab
4x Peppermint Shrimp (they were all sold out of spearmint, sadly)
5x Nassarius Snail
5x Cerith Snail
2x Emerald Crab
4x Dwarf Blue Leg Hermit Crab
10x Astraea Turbo Snail

Now I profess to not really being sure what each specific snail type does (and in fact I can only tell three of them apart, and only name one). I think my general strategy was that I have a lot of different types of algae, so let's get a lot of different types of snails to eat the various things.

So fast-forward to today, when the packages showed up. Ironically, I worked from home today so I could be present to sign for the packages, and they were delivered during the one hour I was at work for a meeting. Good thing I left a note.



Let's open this puppy up! (Oh wow, these pet-in-the-mail jokes literally write themselves, don't they?)



Free Styrofoam coolers!



Inside the coolers are bags of fish, just like you'd get in the pet store. Only they're sealed a bit better (and I think I read somewhere that they use oxygen in the bags). And a few are double-bagged, and there's a couple which apparently don't like to look at each other in dark bags so they can't see anything.



I hold up the bags and eyeball the contents, trying to determine whether the bag does indeed contain 5 snails, and if so, which set of five snails it is. The futility of this is quickly realized and we move on to the next step, floating!



The bags float in the aquarium for 15 minutes to bring their temperature up to the water temperature. After the allotted time is up, into the bucket everyone goes.



The instructions that came with everything indicated the acclimatization process should "take no longer than two hours" in the instructions from the first box, and "take no longer than one hour" in instructions that came in the second box. One box came from Miami and the other from Los Angeles, so I'm not really sure what that says about either city. But guess what? There are like 20 bags here and I only have one bucket. So into the bucket everyone goes. (In retrospect, there's no way the Californians had the same water as in Miami, so maybe I should have had two batches for each time zone. Ah well.)



Then the IV drop starts. Dripping 2-4 drops of tank water per second (actually a little more because of the relatively huge amount of water in the bucket) to bring the salinity, alkalinity, and similaritinity of the bucket water closer to the tank water. This continues until the bucket contains 75% tank water, at which point the net comes out and we transfer the guys into the tank.



This is a rose bubble tip anemone. Sharp readers out there like yourself will refer back to the list at the beginning of this post and notice the anemone wasn't on the list. And you'll be absolutely right -- I've had this anemone long enough that it's undergone asexual reproduction and now I have two (which is really awesome, since they're $100 each at the store). But it turns out that taking pictures of snails, especially through algae coated glass (because they haven't eaten it all yet), is just not that exciting. But you can still see all the photos if you really want.

Saturday: Jay's Birthday Party

This past Saturday we went to the Bottleneck Lounge to celebrate Jay's 29th birthday. [photos]

A Gorgeous Day in the Pacific Northwest

Today was just absolutely stellar. Sarah and I started the day by going shopping to get a doggie life jacket, then we took the kayak out for a spin on Lake Washington. No photos, but the views of Mt. Rainier were just a little bit more magical today than usual, and even Mt. Baker popped out to say hello.

Mt. Ellinor

While Sarah was off doing the wine thing, I took myself to Mt. Ellinor over on the Olympic peninsula. I took the trailer and spent the night at Potlatch State Park, taking some photos late at night and again at sunrise. Then I slept some more, got up and hiked Mt. Ellinor with Tetley, and poked my way back home afterwards. See the photos.

Showers of Wine

I spent last weekend in DC, Virginia, and Maryland for Amalea's Wine and Well Wishes shower. She knew nothing about it, but I think she got the idea by the time we pulled up for our first tasting.

A big thanks to everyone who could join us, and particularly to Leslie for opening her home to a gaggle of girls.

See more photos from the event here.

Waiting for light rail

I am taking light rail to the airport for the first time. Despite just missing both the train and the temporary airport shuttle, it still rocks.