jfin is here…

… pilgrim. :)

After three wet-and-stormy weeks in Seattle, hopped back on the plane to San Jose last night. Home for half an hour then got in the car with workmates and drove east through the Bay Area traffic to Yosemite. Down into the valley, and stayed the night at Camp Curry.

This morning got up bright and early then kept going east over the Tioga Road. Snow at higher altitudes. Probably one of the last days the pass will be open this summer. Frequent stops for views and snow.

Made it to Mammoth .. got the accomodation sorted out and now sitting in front of fire with a nice glass of NZ red. :)

Pics here.

Another weekend in Seattle. Went for a drive out through the Northern Cascades yesterday .. east on the I-90 over the Snoqualmie Pass, north up the 87, and then back west on the 2 over Stevens Pass.

The mountains are awesome. Nice autumn colors lower down, and a decent cover of snow higher up. Checked out two skifields that were open. My favorite season is here! Time to kick out of my pre-winter hibernation mode and start thinking about getting the board back out. Can’t wait. :)

One of the first comments I generally get when I tell people here I’m from NZ is something along the lines of “oh, I want to go there, it looks beautiful!” I think I’m going to have to start not just agreeing with that, but also suggesting that they get off their lazy behinds and get out and see their own country.

C.S. Lewis had this to say:

Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I had to learn this in other ways. But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me. I do not see how the “fear” of God could have ever meant to be anything but the lowest prudential efforts to be safe, if I had never seen certain ominous ravines and unapproachable crags.

There’s some pretty impressive country out there. A few photos here.

Listening to : Five For Fighting - America Town

…was stressed out about a spreadsheet today. Turns out that some other malicious malcontent (maybe not true but it sounds good) had changed some column headers and hadn’t cleared it with them first. An explanation was provided, and all was back in equilibrium. But not for long! The first somebody (let’s call them TKOTEWD - the Keeper of the Excel working document) decided that they needed to delete some entries out of said Excel working document. They had to talk to a few people first (including the malicious malcontent) to make sure that it was okay to delete those entries.

Don’t want to go deleting any entries that somebody else needed, do we? Now that would be a career limiting move.

It’s funny, what goes on in Officeworld. I’m glad I don’t have to get stressed out about spreadsheets. I wonder if that really is part of their job, or if it’s just something that TKOTEWD feels that they need to take seriously?

Listening to : Death Cab For Cutie - Title and Registration

That is all I am allowed
I follow the rules

After the five; Tied
Gather to talk eat and drink
Us comrades in arms

Borat, great success!
True hilarity ensued
Cultural learnings

Singletrack heaven
Speedy riding through the trees
One hand waving free

Big Pink was stone dead
Quick trip; Pep Boys; she has pep
Go Big Pink go go!

Dehumanising
Flying? Check your gels, now queue
They make us cattle

Wet cold Seattle
Driving the darkened freeway
Hotel sweet hotel

And there you have it
Weekend story by haiku
Understanding comes?

Listening to : Foo Fighters - February Star (from new acoustic album)

Pumpkin patches. Costumes. Carved pumpkins. Haunted houses. Pumpkin-spiced lattes. Candy (US$1.5 billion worth, apparently)! Pumpkin pie. Scary movies. Oh, and did I mention pumpkins?

The plan was to have a quiet night at home, maybe giving out candy to any lil’ tackers who knocked on the door. But David came up with a cunning plan.

White plastic bags : free from Cory

White sheets from Walmart : $2 each (fitted even!)

Scissors to cut eye holes : $5

Entertainment obtained when various friends visited eventually click that these are not cute little kids they are giving candy to : Priceless

Yep, that’s me on the right.