Puget Sound Blood Center is critically short of blood. Snow and ice kept a lot of people from donating, dropping the supply dramatically. Go give blood ( Read more... )

I love Die Hard. It has everything a good action movie needs: a witty protagonist, a memorable gang of villains, great pacing, humorous dialog, and, of course, plenty of action. I grew up watching this movie, and my father used to ensure that we watched it every Christmas season. It's the movie I associate most with Christmas, strangely enough. I'm ( Read more... )

This morning I ran for 6mi in the snow! I won't win any medals for my pace, but that run was hard. Seattle actually had a fair amount of snow last night, enough that people were cross country skiing on the same trail I was running! My guess is that there was about 8" on the ground by morning. I didn't want to deal with any refreeze-into-ice, so I ( Read more... )

I don't normally write about music that I enjoy, but I thought I'd make an exception today. I went to Conor Byrne on Friday for the Lovely Ladies on Beautiful Bikes Calendar release party. I really enjoyed the opening band, The Whiskey Romance. The music is this seductive cabaret/folk combination featuring a singer with a lovely voice, an oboe(!), ( Read more... )

Roll call. Who's in town in the 12/25-1/1 range?

I'm an idiot and didn't look at booking my tickets home until today. They're pretty expensive at this point, so I may just defer my Christmas trip until January. Especially because the place I usually board my dogs is also full.

I went in for apheresis for the first time in about a month and a half. The last time I went, there was some ugliness on the second blood return cycle, and I've been a little squeamish since then. This time it went fine, though - I asked the phlebotomist just drop the draw and return pressure down so both were comfortable. That meant that the ( Read more... )

My right foot has the beginnings of a blister on the big toe, and my left nipple was chaffed to bleeding this morning. And yet, I am strangely comforted by these minor wounds. They feel oddly familiar.

Back running again, yay. An ankle injury sidelined me for a bit, but I've recovered from that and I'm back up to running 5 miles. I'm going to be really conservative this time about mileage increases. I want a goal, though, so I'm shooting to run the Mercer Island Half Marathon in late March. To prevent myself for caring too much about my pace, ( Read more... )

I visited two customers in San Jose today on a longish day-trip (leave the house by 5am, back at home around 7:30pm). For professional reasons I'm happy I went, but I honestly forgot just how soulless I find San Jose. I think my memory of San Jose was apparently jumbled in my head with past, fond memories of San Francisco. Dear god, the place is ( Read more... )

I've twice now had the pleasure of having Meta Beer, both times at Dukem in DC. I really enjoyed the beer, and the name is awesome, too. For the life of me, though, I can't figure out how to find it in the US - I even wrote down the importer this time ("Global Ocean and Air, Baltimore, MD"), but they have no web presence to speak of. Assuming there ( Read more... )