I Danced in the Sound

The Eyes of Summer

The weather was deliciously warm, not too hot, but just right for a picnic on the beach. Dr. Erin and I took a short road trip to Golden Gardens for the day. This park is located in Ballard and has an exquisite view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains.

We sat. We talked. We ate. We dreamed only those dreams you can have on the beach on a warm sunny day. And we laughed.

Cruise Reunion 2009: The Seattle Episode

Wow what a weekend! It's now Monday and I'm exhausted. I did nothing but play all weekend and forget about a little thing called sleep. Here is an outline of my weekend with Brian, Heather and Eric.

Friday

After picking up Brian in Seattle we headed home to quickly finish the preparations for dinner. Brian was the designated "cheese man" and is perhaps a better chief than he thinks. We then headed over to Scott's place in Issaquah to meet up with Heather and Eric. This is where we all got to meet Amy, Scott's fiancée, for the first time (and she's super nice and cute - I approve). Our first order of business was dinner. And then the games began…

Saturday

classic Heather and Eric shot

After eating a particularly yummy breakfast we headed out the door for a tour around Seattle on both land and sea, called Ride the Ducks. I’d never done this before, but had heard it was a lot of fun. Totally. Loved. It. And I most certainly picked the right group of people to go with.

young ducks in love

"Windy"

Eric - Brian - Heather ... like I said, non stop fun with this crowd

Brian - Windy

Seattle from the water

Heather - Windy

When we finished it just happened to be the same time the Fremont Solstice Parade was ending. We got caught in some of that traffic and saw a few people that were ‘barely participating’ in the parade. A few sights I could do without remembering. We then headed up to Golden Gardens for a picnic on the beach. The weather (although forecasted to be rain) was only a little overcast and pleasant.

Eric - Heather - Brian, Cheers!

We couldn't keep Brian from eating ice cream the entire time.

"NO KIDS!!"

After goofing around a bit we headed back home and rearranged our dinner plans. Mongolian Grill which is ‘just around the corner’ from me was our restaurant of choice.


Saturday evening we pulled my desk out to the middle of the floor and turned it into a game table for another night of games. Eric, the local game expert, brought a large pile to choose from. However before the evening was over we squeezed in some name-that-tune ‘punk rock style’ and even arm wrestling. For the record: Brian can kick trash at this. Even when it was 2 on 1, Brian still beat Heather and I together. Looks like we have some working-out to do before next summer’s Cruise Reunion.

Windy vs. Brian

Brian vs. Heather

Sunday

We slept in. Oh how I love sleep.

After attending Sacrament Meeting at my ward we headed home for lunch and goodbyes. Somehow a little Rock Band slipped in there.

The weekend went by too fast. They came, and now they are gone. I could not have hoped for a better weekend. Thanks for all the fun!

Brian - Heather - Windy - Eric

Follow up on the Sounders Game

I found the following quote on Wikipedia this morning and I thought it better described the sort of noise level found at Qwest Field. This should give you an idea of the insane noise level there last night. It makes me want to attend a Seahawks game to see what the real noise is all about.

The New York Giants allegedly asked the NFL to intervene in 2006 when they played the Seattle Seahawks. In their 2005 matchup at Qwest Field, the Giants incurred 11 false start penalties due to the crowd noise. For the 2006 rematch between the two teams, the NFL sent observers to verify that the Seahawks were not artificially enhancing the noise level. Qwest Field in Seattle has been architecturally designed to be the loudest stadium in the NFL. This has caused 2.83 false starts per game, which is the highest in the NFL since 2005. The Decibel level at Qwest Field is a whopping 112 dB, only 18 dB below the roar of a Boeing 747.

source

Sounders vs. DC United

There is something that I absolutely love about Seattle, we are true to our own. It doesn't matter if it's a band from the area or our own sports team, Seattle goes nuts to support it.

Tonight I went to my first ever Major League Soccer game, the Seattle Sounders FC verses DC United. And excellent game! Thanks again for taking me, Josh!

as you can see, we had excellent seats

I wish I could adequately describe the insane noise and support fans give at the games. It's almost vicious! We walked in just a little late and the game had already started, a DC player had been injured and the crowd was chanting 'let him die!' Yes, we are pretty serious about our football here.

It was a fun game, both teams played well. My favorite player was easily the goalie, Kasey Keller. He really gets into it.

Favorite moment from the game: it's tied 3 - 3 with moments left of the game and DC United is wasting time hoping for the clock to run out, their goalie has the ball and is getting ready to kick it out to his teammates. Well he's taking his pretty little time about it. Adjusted his socks, adjusted his shorts, blah blah blah. The crowd is boo-ing him like crazy when suddenly a crazed fan from the crowd chucks his half full beer bottle at the goalie and manages to hit him - although nothing serious - I think it just nicked him in the leg and sprayed a bit of beer on him. I thought it was hilarious! Get on with the game!

I now feel hooked. I'm officially a Sounders fan.

Making Plans

This has been a week of making plans.

I'm making plans for this weekend as it's Cruise Reunion 2009. I'm really looking forward to a weekend with my friends Heather, Eric, and Brian. Since I only ever see them once (maybe twice) a year I have to make every minute count. We'll be doing dinners, picnics, playing games, seeing sights, and even Riding the Ducks. You can bet we will have a weekend of laughing, joking, and silly pictures.

Here we are on the actual cruise where we met in 2006 with several other fabulous friends we made.

Between those plans I've been on the phone and on email and checking ticket prices over and over again making plans for my 30th birthday! I will be spending about a week and a half in Hawaii with 2 of my dearest friends. Half the time will be on Maui thanks to my Grandma and her willingness to help out by letting us use her time share (thanks Grandma!). The other half will be spent on Kauai. I've visited Maui and Oahu once before, but it was many years ago. My family (minus two of them) spent 2 weeks there just after I returned home from my mission in 2002. Here we are at the Hawaii Temple, check out my sunglasses, I swear I thought they were so cool.

Dad - Tommy - Sandie - Melanie - Me - Mom

With so many exciting things coming up I can't focus on what I need to be doing right now.

For Tommy!

My favorite li'l brudder turns 21 today.
Happy Birthday Tommy!!

Tommy with 2 nephews: Zachary and Tyler

I hope you are having fun and working hard down there in Argentina.
I sure miss you!

Shout out to another Sistah

Many of you know my younger sister Melanie as the girl who always does my hair. She hooks me up with all the colors and cuts I've had for several years now. She is also fabulously talented in many other areas other than hair. See for yourself and check out her new blog called Bowl of Oranges.

Book Review: Shopaholic and Baby

Shopaholic and Baby
by Sophie Kinsella
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
"I really like it"

This is the final book in the Shopaholic Series. As always, I've enjoyed all the crazy situations Becky Brandon finds herself in. In this book Becky is pregnant, she and Luke choose not to find out the sex of the baby. This creates a little bit of trouble while trying to shop. Only this is a minor plot line. The bigger plot line is Becky needs to have this new Celebrity Obstetrician named Venetia Carter. She miraculously manages to get an appointment with her only to find out that her husband Luke and Venetia know each other. And worse, Venetia is stunningly gorgeous and Luke's x-girlfriend from his college days.

What I liked best about this book (and series as a whole) is I found myself laughing out loud several times. It's always nice to have a good laugh.

next book: Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next book 2) by Jasper Fforde

Friday Night

Have you ever had one of those dates with a guy that is just really great? He's interesting, fun to talk to, nice, handsome, smart, and treats you like you are worth something.

That was my night tonight, with the Dodge Charger.

A Religion

My friend Nadia sent this to me earlier in the week. I thought it perfect to follow up my last post.

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Mathematical BS

This post will not be discussing the Bachelor of Science.

It seems the media is under the impression the general population does not know a lot of math. It is very likely this could be correct. Someone gave math a bad name long ago and now it's gotten about. Math has been falsely accused of being too hard. Which makes me sad (and annoys me) but I will not be venting about this topic just now.

I’ve been reading the next book in The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. This one is called Lost in a Good Book. Here is a small excerpt from page 87 where Thursday is asking her Uncle about coincidences.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "it is my considered opinion that most coincidences are simply quirks of chance--if you extrapolate the bell curve of probability you will find statistical abnormalities that seem unusual but are, in actual fact, quite likely, given the amount of people on the planet and the amount of different things we do in our lives."

I can’t help but laugh when I read this total BS. Please do not misunderstand me, I am in no way trying to knock the book, I have very much enjoyed Fforde’s writing style. But it just makes me laugh. It’s cleverly written to make you think he is saying something brilliant, but mathematically it’s all BS.

Ever seen the Wizard of Oz?

Sadly there is no such theorem about an isosceles triangle. BS again.

For those of you who have seen the movie 21 there is a lot of math terms being thrown around. For such a math-type movie I would have hoped for more. The first scene in the class room Prof. Micky Rosa jumps around wilding from Newton’s Method to Probability Theory, which is utterly unrelated to the class which is stated to be Non-Linear Equations (which is not an actual class). The comments are full of part truths that make it sound smart and correct. But I’m gonna go with BS in this case (although less BS than most).

I.Q. is a super cute movie where Meg Ryan plays a mathematician. Unfortunately what she writes on the chalkboard while solving a problem is BS yet again. There is a partial derivative operator with nothing for it to operate on. It’s the equivalent to saying 5 + … You are left hanging, what is it you want to add to 5? You’ll never know.


I must make one very important exception to this: Futurama. Not only is this show full of math and science humor, it’s pretty much all spot on correct.

Root 66 – bah ha ha!

I love seeing math portrayed in movies and books. Mostly because I just think it’s funny. And please, do not believe what you see in the movies!

New Moon

Call me girly... but I am really looking forward to this. And, I might add, it looks a little higher budget than the first. :)

Oooo, Shiny!

I like cars.

Particularly shiny fast ones.

Even more than that, I like cars with men in them.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Tonight my dad reminded me of a story I've not heard in a while. Many years ago my family was living in Florida and had decided to take a road trip to visit the grandparents. At some point along the way we pulled over for a rest when my dad stood me up on the hood and I took my very first steps ever across the hood of that car to my mother on the other side.

Why is this important? Mostly because I now know how to walk from that experience. And walk I have. Too much recently as I've given myself shin splints, but that is another story. This experience is also important because even as I took my first steps I was staking my claim: on cars. I love cars.

I personally think you can tell something of an individual’s personality by what they choose to drive. I often ask after cars when getting to know someone new. And then I permanently relate that person to their car in my mind.

When I see David I think Mustang. Alan, Porsche. Keri, you are still a Mini Cooper in my mind, I can’t seem to transition to your new car yet. Erin, Chevy Trucks. Correction: BIG Chevy Trucks. Ric, Pontiac GTO. Erica, Jeeps. And the newest addition: Jason, Dodge Charger (which I will be getting my ride in this weekend!).

Now I’m curious , does anyone else relate cars to personalities and friends?

Along with loving cars, I love to see others love their own cars. You can often notice this in the way someone talks about their car, or treats it, or keeps it clean. Or the way they look at it after driving them to their car after carpooling somewhere. I’m happy to know my friends’ cars are loved.

so not my car, but I like riding in it
(and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy driving it too, hint hint!)