Week in Seattle with Paul and Hien Feb 15, 2010

I had a last minute trip to Seattle and got to stay with Paul and Hien. As usual the activities were fun and the food great.

• Feb 15: Went shopping with Paul at his local Madison Coop. He got fish and he and Hien made me dinner including crispy rice and seasoned tofu with a nice wine of course.
• Feb 16: The guys at work went to a nice Pho shop in the Great Wall Shopping Center. I got to buy some Chinese pastries to take home. Paul and I went to Tula's for a big appetizer taster while listening to local Big Band called Roadside Attraction. The bass player was great, had a nice pickup and works in product support at Microsoft during the day.
  
• Feb 17: Don Sung from Huntington Beach joined Paul and I at his 'real' pizza restaurant, Via Tribunali. It was worth the price. Paul got our waitresses name and history(she is from Italy) but not her phone number.
• Feb 18: Hien, Paul and I went to their favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Green Leaf, located in the International District. Great fresh food and although Paul tried to teach me some Vietnamese words, I forget them now.
• Feb 19: Met Paul and Hien at Pike Markert, shopped for food at DeLaurenti's and Don and Joe's meat market, hit ZigZag for happy hour (great cocktails) and then hit the Film Noir Film Festival at SIFF. it was opening night so it was packed (also Bon Jovi was playing down the street). Great movies Pitfall and Larceny.
• Feb 20: Hit Top Pot for coffee and doughnuts in the morning. Plan to cook the Rib Roast this evening. Rented a bike for the weekend at Recycled Bicycles who gave me a deal since it was off season. Took about 4 hours to loop northwest Seattle with a nice stop at a Puerto Rican restaurant called La Isla which we hit at Happy Hour. Nice EMPANADILLAS and Shrimp dishes with great sauces.
• 
  

Another Catchup...Feb 20, 2010

Well I have been busy with lots of other activities taking my time. I will work backwards since I am getting old and the mind forgets things real quickly...

• I am writing this in Top Pot on Capital Hill in Seattle with Paul working on his project and Hien studying her Materiels Science. See next post for more details.
• Pittsburgh got plenty of snow this year so I haven't been to the mountains at all this season. Sam and I trailblazed Saturday of the first snowfall (Feb 6) and visited the Evan's on Abbott St since the roads were not plowed. I did most of my skiing in the cemetery behind the house since I spent most of my outdoor time shoveling. Went skiing last Sunday, Valentine's Day, for a couple of hours down in the Frick Ravine.
  
• We have switched over to Netflix and have seen several weird movies.
  

1. 2012:Doomsday - Careful this is the Christian version
2. Bicycle Thief - Actually a very good old Italian film about post war II.
3. Love Songs - Some good looking actresses are the best feature of this cute story.
4. Avatar - I liked the 2 3-D versions I watched. Well crafted and exciting story.

• Took Sam to visit University of Rochester on Feb 1 - Looks like none of my kids will go there since he did get into Michigan.
• Some of the plays and shows Lisa and I have seen:

1. In the Heights - Road Show hit the Benedem on the first night of snow.
2. Pittsburgh Symphony - Some good concerts with Manfred Honeck conducting including Mahler's 4th
3. Room Service - Play with the same plot as the Marx Brother's movie. Good play but not well executed.

Catchup since last November

Well, I finally thought of checking my blog and realized that I haven't updated it since last November. A few reasons why...

• Some real nice cross country skiing this past winter. I hit the Laurel Highland trails multiple weekends with Lisa, Sam, Chris, and a few others.
• While the mountains had some good snow, Pittsburgh had some nice bike riding weather over the winter. Started communiting early in March and had some nice weekend rides
• The Pirates called and offer Howie a personalized tour of PNC Park. Well, he wasn't around so Sam, Matthias, and I took the tour and I convinced my brother in law to go in with me to purchase a pair of season tickets. Lots of games!!! Some good games until this last homestand. Looks like they will win tonight in Denver!!!
• Nice weather this spring and summer so lots of bike rides. In fact, on Sunday I did the American Cancer Society ride around Pittsburgh. Got 75 miles in!!! My longest.
• Oh yeah, I still work and had a nice project that took me to San Diego 3 times and I got to stay with my brother. Other fun trips to Salt Lake City, Cedar Rapids, Boston, and LA

Well hope my next post is not 10 months from now!!!

Nov 4, 2008

Well it has been almost 2 months since my last post. I am sitting in the DoubleTree Hotel Bar in Aurora, CO watching the election returns. Obama was just predicted to win both OH and PA which should send him into the White House.

More importantly I am drinking the local Odell 90 Shilling beer which has a nice bite but is a little too sweet for me. I took a nice little walk around the area in the unseasonally 65 degree weather.

What have I been doing?

• Dynamo Recreation Referee assignor - Keeping me busy most weekends as I don't have enough kids willing to ref. I am working hard to sign up a new crop to take the course in January so I expect spring to be much easier.
• Edgewood Symphony concert last month was much better than I expected. It was fun playing the Symphonic Dances by Bernstein. Hey Lisa is standing right in front... I have been traveling the last 2 weeks so I keep missing our weekly rehearsals.
• I ride my bike to work almost everyday. Yesterday was the first day since we changed the clocks back and I left early to make sure I beat the dark. Not sure what I will do next week but I do have 3 lights plus my bright yellow windbreaker. I really enjoy my Xenith Comp on the weekends but I only ride it to the soccer fields and back.
  
• CMU Homecoming was fun. I went to the Staff - Alumni lunch on met an interesting guy who was back for his 50th. This was my 31st so I don't feel too old yet. I dragged Lisa to the CMU Capital Campaign kickoff. Great fireworks and we also had a demo from a student of a robot and associated software that creates these fantastically detailed pictures. Check Gigapan out...
• Haven't seen too many movies but we did go see The Secret Life of Bees this past weekend. Althought the NYTimes didn't care for it, I thought that it was very well done and told a good story. TV Shows that I am watching are Pushing Daisies, ER, Numbers, and In Plain Sight and reruns of Voyager.
• The leaves are beautiful this week.
  

August 25 - September 1

A short drive to Boston for delivering a kid to college and a week of work. I had my son's bike at my disposal all week so I got to do some riding in the morning and evenings. I was a little dismayed at how for north and east Boston is. It gets pretty dark well before 8PM!!!

Stopped off for a hike at Harriman State Park with my cousin which we finished well be before 8PM (see above). We stopped for dinner at Hogan's Family Diner in Stoney Point. Their dinners are enough food for 3 people and I highly recommend the carrot cake.






An uneventful trip home. But I had to return the car back to the airport. I decided to throw my bike in the back and ride back from the airport. The route looked good on paper and it really isn't that bad but I tried to do 54 km in 2 hours but I sure was tired after getting home in 2.5 hours.

Other fun stuff this weekend was riding downtown with a bunch of us to see Sam march in the Labor Day parade. Matthias, our exchange student, continued on with me to hit the rib fest and then see The Alps. Sam and Matthias recommend Armadillo's.

Milan - Aug 17th

Well the only way to see the ‘Last Supper’ was to take an expensive tour but since we only had one day to see Milan, we did it. We got down to the Piazza di Duomo and hung out there for about 45 minutes until the bus came. Turns out that the first part of the tours was a walking tour then a quick drive around the historical district and then we go to the Last Supper.The Duomo is immense being the 2nd largest cathedral in the world. Very overwhelming. The amount of marble is mind boggling.

We then took a walk through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which was pretty cool. All of the fashion shops were there along with some cool mosaic floors. Everyone liked the story about turning 3 times on the bull.









Lisa and I like La Scala's Museum tour. They usually take you into the opera house itself but is closed for renovations this month. They have a very cool Homage to Maria Callas with about a dozen of her costumers, gowns, etc that she wore during the 13 years of performance there.
On the bus ride they showed us the cemetery, the castle (see below), and the needle and thread (see below)






The Last Supper was actually very cool. You have to go through 'people traps' in an attempt to keep dust down and the temperature constant. It was worth seeing it in person. If you go, I recommend doing what Lisa's friends did and order them online ahead of time for 8Euro.

We left and headed on foot to the Sforza Castle but first past this needle and thread sculpture representing the subway system.

Lugano - Milan - Aug 16th

Well on my trip yesterday I saw a sign to the Hermann Hesse(HH) Museum. I thought it was farther away but now I knew I could walk to it. Today was a perfect day, no clouds, not too hot so I headed up the hill to find the museum. Well as usual I decided to take a few short cuts and soon I remembered that I didn’t bring my map. I was just about to turn around and I found a map of the HH trail except it didn’t have a ‘you are here’ mark.

I saw a nice church down the road and after taking in the view of the lake I ended up asking a couple directions. They weren’t sure but sure enough, I took 10 steps and I saw the signs. Turns out the #3 on the trail is the church cemetery where he is buried although I couldn't find it.

I then followed the signs back to #1 for the museum. I was amazed at the beautiful houses and views along the way. I see now why he stayed here for the last 43 years of his life. The museum was a little pretentious…

The markers in the museum were only in Italian and German. I asked for an English guide and got a little booklet with some of the information translated.

HH’s tortoise (I think) – He had free reign of the back yard and they live for many years and he was pretty big so I assume he has been there a long time.

I tried to find #9 and #10 but was running out of time. I did find this beautiful playground, again with no one in it, and decided to do Tai Chi while looking at the lake and the snow capped mountain in the distance.

Made it back and then we headed into Milan with a bunch of Lisa’s AT buddies. They decided to use the Milan Metro to get to our hotel. It is dirty, poorly marked, and tough to use. We made it and got out on the street and the streets were deserted. All the shops were closed and almost no cars around. Obviously we each made it to our hotels but we found out that this is what the non-tourist parts of the city look like during August when everyone is at the beach or traveling to see the sites.

A quick search of the area showed everything closed and I mean every bar, restaurant, pizzeria except the money machine across the street and surprise, surprise, the supermarket. We stopped in and got a bottle of wine and some cheese and onion foccacia for breakfast. We had dinner at the hotel which as expected was very good, spinach tortelli, grilled salmon, and a salad.