Goodbye Seattle Summer

Hello Seattle Winter! Well, the Seattle weather up and changed to rainy and cold just in time for my out of town guests to arrive... literally 1 hour before they landed the rain started after a week of beautiful sunshine. Weather forecasts show nothing but rain for many days.

While many see this as a form of punishment, I see it as an opportunity to buy my first rain jacket. I selected the Marmot Precip, a nice inexpensive jacket on sale at REI, in my size and favorite color... RED. I'm now ready for those long walks from the parking lot in the morning rain.

I'll leave you today with the last clear view of Mt. Rainier through the Seattle skyline, as seen from my balcony. I'll be savoring this picture for a long time.

Index Climbing

I realize most of my posts have been climbing related recently. I'll try to diversify, but this is the exception. I went traditional climbing over the weekend at Mount Index. Traditional climbing is where there are no bolts pre-drilled into the rocks. Instead, you jam nuts or cams into cracks in the rock to provide the fall protection. I went with very experienced climbers who set up the routes in a safe manner. I would never do this by myself... yet.

Here's Duffy with his rack of cams and nuts. The climber must carry all of this gear because they are different sizes. You never know what size you will need when you get up there.

Here's one of the hardest routes I've ever "climbed". Climbed is in quotes because I definitely cheated to get to the top. I used some of the old bolts in the wall to climb up.

Here's the view from the tallest single route I have ever done. It was estimated to be about 180 ft tall and it was a GREAT climb. Nice holds. Tricky but doable. And really nice grippy rock.

An unexpectedly beautiful fall day in the Seattle area.

See the river below!
Ok... no more climbing pictures.... for now.

U Dub!

I went to my first non-big ten college football game over the weekend, and I went in S T Y L E. Climbing Kristina is in the alumni band and was able to take me into the game with the band.

We started the day at a tailgate in the stadium parking lot! I almost felt at home except for all of the purple!

Here's the "other" tailgating lot. You can drive a boat up to the UW stadium if you want. I have a new dream, to tailgate on a boat!
I said I was with the band! Instead of carrying an instrument, I got to carry stuff in a backpack. Just call me the sherpa. I was able to quickly snap a picture with a sousaphone (not a tuba, those look much different).
The UW campus has a small rock climbing wall. So I HAD to climb in, even though I was well weighted down with gear and not in climbing shoes.
Did I mention we went in on field level (although it was kinda weird with a track around the field, but I don't mean to complain)? We had great seats in the endzone. I even got to run down onto the track to do pushups with each touchdown. For those who followed, the Huskies won in double over time!
Pregame picture with the actual UW Husky and the marching band in the background.
Purdue, while this day was fun, UW will never replace you!

I'm BACK!

I'm sorry to say, it's been a month since my last post. In the past month, there has been a perfect storm of activity - my internship involvement has increased, my thesis work has increased, and my job search has increased (or started, that's probably more accurate). These unexpected increases combined with the desire to maintain my social life has squeezed the blog temporarily out of the picture.

Since last post, I have

• Spent a week in Boston for Midstream Review - great to see the LGO's again
• Spent a weekend in Leavenworth in an awesome lake cabin with 11 other friends
• Attended my first University of Washington Football game
• Went Traditional rock climbing (aka Trad Climbing) at Mount Index
• My parents visited Seattle and the weather cooperated

In the weeks to come, I have:

• Several friends the midwest will be visiting
• My brother will be out here for business
• Interviews in Boston
• A weekend snowboarding trip in Whistler
• A 2000+ mile drive back to Indiana, then another 1000 miles to Boston

There's a thesis and some internship in there as well.

Last night my friend and MIT classmate Avi was in town. We toured the Boeing Everett facility, ate a great dinner at Peso's, and then explored a bit of the city. We took some pretty cool pictures of "the Troll under the Bridge" in Fremont. It was a great visit with him.

The Troll! That's an actual VW Bug under the hand on the right to give you a sense of scale.

Here's a picture from the top of the troll's head looking down under the bridge. We had some fun with long exposures.
And more fun..
And even more fun.

See you soon!