Picnic Double Header

Yesterday was a fun day as I had two picnic scheduled.  

The first was a work-related picnic.  I belong to a great organization at the company I work for; all great people to work and party with.  We get together at picnic or other social gatherings several times a year, and this is our annual summer picnic.   We had a good time grilling chicken, ribs, and salmon and after eating all that great food, we headed up to the ball-field and played a fun and competitive game of softball.  

I hadn't played softball since my knee and elbow replacement, but the workout must be helping cause I was able to hit, throw and even run the bases with some degree of confidence and very little, if any,pain in the joints.  Granted, today, the day after, I am a bit sore in places, but overall I was happy with being able to participate in a sport I used to enjoy.  BTW, our team won with a clutch  pitching save by yours truly.   

After the fun of that picnic, I headed to a great park on the western shores of the Puget Sound to meet up with some old friends for a birthday bash picnic.  These are friends I had in Seattle before moving to NYC and it was nice to catch up with them and their lives (and their kids!).  Three of the folks ll have birthdays in close proximity, so we had a big cake for them and celebrated with more good food, great conversation, and a beautiful view of the sun setting behind the Olympic Mountains.  

I was tuckered when I got home, but it was a fun way to spend a beautiful sunny summer day here in Seattle.  Plus I managed to do both picnics without gaining any weight.... YAY!

It's Definately Summer

And that means the rugrats are out en mass. Wednesday is my usual work from home day and I take my lunch break to go swimming at the local pool. Thank goodness for the adult swim time as the lap lanes are mostly empty and I can get in a good quick workout.

However, right after the adult lap swim time is the public swim and the ankle biters descended upon the pool like a swarm of locust. Screaming and talking with their outside voices (this is an indoor pool) and generally being in the way. Ugh.... I was so glad to get out of there as quickly as possible.

On a positive note, at least summer seems to have also shown up weather-wise. A whole week of warm temperatures and sunny skies. Finally!

Miami

I've been here almost a week and really haven't seen more than the immediate area around the Miami Airport. Fun, I know! The class I'm here for is located near the airport and so is my hotel, so I just haven't had much time to venture beyond the airport area. A few of us are headed out tonight to Coconut Grove, FL for dinner. The restaurant is on the waterfront, so hopefully, it will be nice. The weather is certainly very nice.

I finally got all my photos from Kennedy Space center off the camera, so I hope to have some of those for you soon.

The diet has been a challenge while here in Miami. Hotel rooms are just not conducive to eating healthy. I have been doing ok meal-wise, but certainly not as well as I was doing before I left. They do have a workout room here and a pool, so I have been trying to workout after the training class each day. The pool is not a lap pool, so I have had to create a lane to swim in... kinda angling along the longest length of the pool's dimensions. Fun! My goal in this two weeks is to, at a minimum, maintain the 15 pounds I had lost prior to heading to Miami.

Happy Valentines Day!

SNOW!

It's December 1st and it is snowing here in mild-weathered Seattle. WHA?!?!? I don't think I have ever seen snow here this early. Awesome!

Blue Angels

This weekend is the annual Seattle SeaFair event to celebrate summer here in the Pacific NW. As part of the celebration, SeaFair puts on a fabulous airshow complete with the Blue Angels, the US Navy's elite formation flying squad.

Yesterday, they were out practicing and getting acquainted with the area and I was lucky enough to have a front row seat of their takeoffs from the local airport here in Seattle. Standing on the roof of my building at work, we had an eye level view of the Blue Angels as they past by us. The smoke, the roar of the engines, and the precision formation flying was awesome to see.

I am volunteering in the Air Operations group for SeaFair over the weekend so hopefully I will have other opportunities to see the Blue Angels takeoff and land as well as all the other airshow participants.

Today however, I am taking a vacation day and heading down to the hydroplane race area as my volunteer credentials get me into the pit area. Should be a fun day.... if it stops raining!

Snowbound

Boy, do the weathermen out here in Seattle suck. We had snow and cold temps at the end of last week and all the weather reports said that warmer temps would come on Saturday along with melting of all the snow.

So Saturday comes along and what do I see out my windows. SNOW. It snowed all day. And today? No snow coming down, but it is still freezing and now there is fog all over the place. I don't think we are gonna see the sun anytime soon.

Is Seattle's weather that unpredictable or do these weathermen stink?

My So Called Boring Life

I haven't posted in a while cause there is really nothing going on with me at the moment. We had snow last night, but as usual, it was nowhere near as bad as the newsheads made it out to be.

I packed up all the christmas decorations and took a pile of stuff to Goodwill. That cleared off the treadmill, so now I am starting to workout again after work. All that is really left to get the condo in order is to hang all the pictures.

Work is ... well ... SLOW! I am still not sure why they needed me back here so desperately when there is not much work. Oh well, I am back now, so I will deal.

If the weather gets better, I may venture out this weekend. There has to be something to do here in January.

Snowbound

Snow in November in Seattle. And not that light little dusting that disappears quickly, but the full on blizzard deal. YAY, I am so excited [/sarcasm].

Seattle folks are already bad drivers, so when you add some snow, the roads become litteral parking lots. Do they not teach these people how to drive on snow? Or when you get stuck on a patch of ice that you don't sit there and spin you wheels? Morons!

I got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams yesterday as I was coming back form moving the first of my stuff into my new condo (YAY!). And yes, there were many folks trying to get out of ice patches by just pressing on their accelerator and spinning their back wheels at high speed. And of course, they weren't going anywhere. Low gears folks, that is what those rarely used "2" and "L" things on your gear shift are for. Heck in the "2" gear, my wussy little Camry pretty much moved along slow and steady by itself without even hitting the accelerator.

So now it is the day after and there are only three of us here at work in our group. Everyone else is probably still sleeping in their warm beds at home.