tiltawhirl

Dog kisses

Here's where I will post all the Photos from New Jersey .

Commenting system fixed

I heard that the commenting system on this blog was not letting people comment, and was accusing them of being spammers. It sounds like the problem is fixed, so feel free to comment away once again.

What! Christmas bears...What?

Ryan and I like to pretend we're smart, but in reality, when we are alone and unguarded, we sound pretty dumb. Here's a transcript of a brilliant conversation we had in the car this weekend when we saw a holiday display of lit up bears on a neighbor's lawn.

Michelle: Oh my god - BEARS!
Ryan: What! Christmas Bears. What?
Michelle: Maybe they polar bear.

Granted, we had been out and had a few drinks, but it was still pretty funny to us.

Mark it zero for Blu-ray

I haven't really spent much time following the Blu-Ray (Sony) vs HD-DVD (Microsoft) high definition DVD war since I don't really watch many movies on DVD. But, I've always assumed I'd get an HD-DVD player at some point, probably the one that connects to the XBOX 360.

It occurred to me today, though, that a key factor in the purchase decision for us would be the availability of The Big Lebowski. A quick search reveals that The Big Lebowski is available on HD-DVD, but not Blu-Ray. I think the format war is officially over.

What are you looking at?

Rear lights
Originally uploaded by Michelle McGee.

A cool feature in the Ford Escape is an AC outlet in the dash, where you can plug stuff in. I got some LCD Christmas lights, and hung them around the interior roof of the truck. It's quite festive.

The funny part is, I forget they are there, so when i see people staring at them while we're on the road, I think "What the hell are these people looking at?" Then I remember, right, I'm the person driving around with Christmas lights inside my car.

The most beautiful dog rest stop

Marina Beach Dog Park
Originally uploaded by Michelle McGee.

Sometimes things just work out perfectly.

Last weekend, Ryan and I went up to Edmonds, WA to keg some beer that we brewed with our friends Heidi and John at Gallagher's U-Brew. We all met up there a few weeks ago for some team brewing, then left the beer there to ferment while we went about our business. Now it was time to go back and harvest the fruits of our labor. 

We figured we'd take Nellie with us for the ride up, she likes a good ride in the car. We just opened the front door, opened the back of the Escape and let her run out and jump in, sans leash. She's turned into a good dog in her adult age, and seems disinclined to run away from us. She knows where her next petting session is coming from.

We went to Gallaghers, kegged our beer (a tasty winter warmer, ala Pyramid's SnowCap Ale) and got ready to return to Bellevue with the payload.

We were cruising around, checking out some of the sights in Edmonds when the unmistakeable aroma of dog fart filled the car, and Nellie started fussing and whining in the way that means "I need to poop".

Since we had just let her jump into the truck without her leash, we didn't have any way to walk her.

Ryan drove back into the Marina Park area, looking for a likely area to poop the dog. We got to a possible area, when we noticed people coming out of a fenced area with their dogs. We had unwittingly driven to and parked at the only off leash dog area in Edmonds, WA.

Only one slight barrier remained. Not only was Nellie leashless, we hadn't even put her collar back on before leaving the house. Could we trust her on the 100 foot walk from the car to the park gate?

"Are you wearing a belt?" I asked Ryan. Of course he is wearing a belt. Ryan, like Hank Hill from King of the Hill, suffers from DGS, and has to wear a belt at all times to keep his pants up.

Ryan removed his belt, looped it around Nellie's neck, and we went into the park.

It was small, but definitely one of the cooler dog parks I've ever been to. It's right on Puget Sound, and we arrived just in time for a gorgeous sunset, with the Olympic Mountains silhouetted against a red/pink/yellow sky. Nellie played at the waters edge (and took her much needed potty break), and we sat on a beach log and watched the sunset.

I love these cookies

Pretzel cookie
Originally uploaded by Michelle McGee.

They are are a pretzel, but they look like a cookie. So when you eat one, it's like you had a pretzel AND a cookie.

Pineapple Express

It's a very wet, grey day here in Seattle. I got ready for work, and got all bundled up - I put on some long armwarmer-y type gloves, and a muffler over my sweater and walked outside and it was...warm.

The Pineapple Express is here - my favorite weather phenomenon in the Pacific Northwest. Yes it brings drenching downpours, but it also brings warm temperatures via a strong jet stream of subtropical air straight out of Hawaii. When that warm air hits the Olympic Mountains out by the Washington Coasts, to quote a local meteorologist, "It's like having a fire hose aimed at us".

I just like the idea that the air came all the way from Hawaii. If you close your eyes, you can almost smell the plumeria.

Christmas tree

xmastree
Originally uploaded by Michelle McGee.

Although I've always been a fan of real Christmas trees, some years are better than others for us to have a real tree. This isn't one of those years. So, for those years where a real tree isn't practical, Ryan found this vintage aluminum tree on eBay. I think it looks really cool.

Neither of us ever had a tree like this growing up, but we both knew of them from the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Except that in that show 1) they were decried as an example of crass commercialism ruining Christmas 2) they didn't look like this - they were like big metal triangles in the cartoon.

It was only a few years ago I learned that they were a real item - I thought it was something they made up.

I like it, though. When our color wheel light arrives, I'll be excited to see how that looks.