New Kitty!

As some of you know, these past couple of weeks have been quite eventful for Stu and me. We discovered about a week and a half ago that our beloved cat Peaches was suffering from kidney problems and needed to be put down (more on Peaches at a later date). We were both quite upset, but we decided what was best for Ebony (our other ancient cat, who had been best buds with Peaches) and for us was to go to our local Humane Society and adopt a new friend.

After looking at several kitties on the Humane Society’s website, we decided to go in and get a feel for some of the kitties in person. One two-year old cat in particular completely stole our hearts. His name at the Humane Society was Junior, and he immediately won us over with his gentle demeanor, curious nature, and affectionate kisses. We decided that we had to take him home.

Having never adopted an animal personally from the Humane Society before, neither Stu nor I were really sure how the process worked, but it went smoothly, and about an hour later, we carried “Junior” out the door with us. Now, neither one of us particularly liked the name “Junior”, so we decided on the car ride home to name our new friend Dougal. One of the features we like best about Dougal are his pronounced “eyebrows”, which seemed very much like Scottish eyebrows to me, flying mad all over his face. Hence, where part of the inspiration for the name “Dougal” came from.

Dougal has proven to be an excellent addition to our family. He is getting on quite well with Ebony, if there were a few hisses and swats at first. They like to play with each other, and though I don’t think Ebony will admit it, he likes having a “young whippersnapper” around. Dougal is quite energetic and is very curious about everything. He doesn’t quite understand the rules of the house yet (just last night he stole a perfectly good steak off a pan on the stove and dragged it down the hall to share with Ebony!), but we’re working on it. We love the youthful energy he brings to our home, and we look forward to many more years enjoying his company.

Seattle – 02-02-2007

As the first set of photos to share from those we have taken over the last few months, I’d like to begin with our trip to Seattle on the first weekend of February.  For the preceeding couple of weeks, I had planned to surprise Meaghan with a visit to see Seattle as it was a place she had indicated to me that she was interested in visiting.  A few hours after I had returned home from work, I asked her if she was up for some adventure and if so then to pack a bag with a couple of days clothes and “don’t forget your toothbrush.” Soon we were loading a couple of pilot bags into the car and then began to head North on I5.  While it was already approaching 9:00pm, some might feel a little late to begin a drive, the roads were completely empty, which in terms of the drive to Seattle means saving about two hours in driving time.  I had booked a couple of nights at the Best Western at Pioneer Place and we pulled up outside the lobby a little after 11:30pm.  Two and a half hours to Seattle with a stop for food on the way isn’t bad going at all!  The room at the hotel was nice (I’ve never been disappointed by Best Western) and because of the time of year and a few other specials I was able to negotiate over the phone, we ended up only paying $89 a night; a price anyone who has stayed by the waterfront in Seattle can appreciate.

Having only a couple of days to see the sights, we wasted no time in heading straight to bed ready to get a good night’s sleep before the adventures of the day ahead.  The hotel breakfast began at 7:00am and we arrived early enough to catch them arranging the donut and pastry trays.  We were planning on grabbing a snack at Le Panier later that morning, but for now several croissants and other morning delights were consumed to give mucho walking energy.  We began by simply wandering the streets of downtown Seattle.  Before the stores are open the streets are empty, which can give a great opportunity to really figure out where you are before the bustle of the day begins.  I took this picture of Meaghan outside a shop that had two old army bikes in the window because they just looked so cool.  I think it might have been the Harley Davidson store, but I’m not entirely certain.

Our route [purposefully] caused us to arrive at the base of the Space Needle just as it was opening, which was great because there were no lines and when we got to the top we had the viewing tower almost exclusively to ourselves.  There were a handful of other people up there, but nothing like the usual crowds you see in summer that make it impossible to get a good picture.  Of course, we still had to pull the “hold the camera away and smile” technique, which takes quite a bit of the sheen off (and man I need to lose some weight!), but it was great fun to be up there and point out all of the places we’d been that morning.  We even called our parents to tell them where we were and surprise them. (The picture of Meaghan on the phone gives an idea of how many other people were in the Space Needle too.)

After the Space Needle, we headed over to the Paul Allen show…the Science Fiction Museum and Experience Music Project.  I’ve been to both of these several times before but like OMSI, there are so many things to see and read that I still don’t think I’ve really taken it all in.

We went by a glass-blowing studio and a garage full of restored classic cars, as well as the waterfront, and more parts of downtown Seattle than I’ve ever taken the time to explore before.  In tribute to the excellence of the meal I had there with my family this summer we ate at Ipanema that night, an experience I can highly recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Seattle looking for amazing food.  The restaurant is right across the street from the Seattle Art Museum, so walk down 1st street until you see hammering Sam, then simply cross the street.

Meaghan and I had a ton of fun together tootling around Seattle and we came away for less than $400, including the hotel cost and the price of tickets.  It was a really nice way to spend a weekend away and to start out the month of February.

Welcome

Welcome to the our new blog, hosted by SubText!

Meaghan and I have decided to post to this blog together, which should increase posting frequency, but should also give two different perspectives on our experiences.  We are both new to SubText and it will probably take a couple of days to get everything up and running.  We have a ton of photos to post and lots of stories to share concerning our adventures together over the last few months.  It has taken a while to get this going and the old blog hasn’t really seen a post in 2007, but hopefully with two people going at it and some of the nice new features in SubText, we’ll have a lot of fun.

Hope you all had a great weekend!
– Stu

Still Moving to SubText

The move to SubText is going well, although it’s been a busy week and I had to put the project on hold for a couple of days while we take care of our cat Peaches.  She’s not doing so well and we want to make her last week here as comfortable as possible.  I’m hoping to finish up the SubText installation before the weekend and make April 21st a new start with the blog.

On that note, I’ve started blogging technical articles on a corporate blog at work as it makes more sense to do them there.  As a result, I’m going to use the SubText blog for simply personal posting to share pictures and stories with family and friends and keep them connected with our lives.  Meaghan and I both live far from our families and many of our friends now and the blog is an awesome way to keep people in the loop about what’s going on.

Hope you’re all having a good week!

Moving to SubText

I’m moving this blog over to SubText sometime either this week or next week.  I’ve been looking at doing this for quite a while now but hadn’t got behind the effort in earnest until earlier this week.  Meaghan and I have had a tremendous amount of fun over the last three months and have many photos to show for it but I’m going to wait until the new blog is up and running before I post them.  A few attempts to automate an import of the old posts from this blog to the new installation have produced some interesting results but fairly riddled with artifacts concerning post order, mis-matched comments and some loss of post text.  I’m thinking right now that I’ll archive this blog off to a different url and let it run from there; leaving the option open to migrate the posts across later.  For now, I’ll just consider the SubText installation to be a new start and go from there.