12/1
Nicole and I, Amity, Angela and Prue went to San Juan Island for Thanksgiving.
We stayed in the same house where Nicole and I were married in August (click here for pictures of that).
We didn't do much except eat, sleep and in keeping with our short tradition, read fifty dollars
worth of magazines. Creating a scary new tradition, we also took turns reading a bad crime novel.
I was exposed to much girl-talk and am a better man because of it.
These photos are from a few events in October and November: dog walking, bathroom painting and family visits.
Lastly, I have another niece! Roland and Kate had their fourth (and last?) child, a girl they named Lola.
Pictures of Daniel, too. He's not as new but he's still very cute.
12/3
This past weekend was an interesting combination of good and bad. It was Angus' second birthday and we had
a birthday party for him in the park (ok, less a party than a bunch of dogs and their owners). That was good.
However, it was the stormiest day in the history of Seattle and super cold. That was bad.
I rented a fantastic 500mm Nikon lens to take photos of bald eagles. That was good.
There were no eagles to photograph and I ran over a car-denting size boulder. That was bad.
We had pizza with Jim after the dog party and came home to wash the dog. That was good.
While washing the dog, I managed to tear a huge gash in my honey-baked-ham. That was...ok, get the picture?
By the way, this reminds me of one of a great Simpsons quote.
One thing that was completely fun was exploring an old building downtown. It's now a clothing store but it was originally
a movie theatre. In fact, it's thought that it was the first building in North America constructed specifically to show movies
(rather than being converted from something else). A friend of ours works there and we were up on the roof taking
pictures of clothes he created. I found some interesting pictures on the web and a link to a page with the history
of the theatre. In this picture, you can see the original balcony seating that now meets the new ceiling of the retail
space below. It's interesting to compare the old and new pictures and see how much is still there. Hopefully, one day
it will be converted back into a theatre. Old buildings - particularly ones with hidden details like this - are of
enormous interest to me. There's something about abandoned places that is very thrilling. When I lived in Sydney,
I explored old railway tunnels. Sydney's rail system was planned in 1890 but was not completed until the 1970's.
When each new tunnel system was built, it included some work for the next stage of the project. However, changes
to the plans were often made between stages, so Sydney has quite a collection of abandoned tunnels. Some were used
during WWII as bomb shelters. Growing up in Brisbane, a long-vacant house two down from ours had a bomb shelter in
it's back yard. I never really explored it (Mum wasn't too impressed by the expedition plans of a bunch of nine-year olds)
but it forever created in me feelings of excitement and foreboding about such places. After our visit to the theatre,
I spent quite a while web surfing to urban speleology sites. My favorite is based in Australia, so perhaps this is some
genetic thing! Another interesting site includes pictures of the abandoned subway station under New York City Hall.
