If you’re new to this blog (and I know some of you are), you’ve just learned the hardest lesson about keeping up with me here: I’m not good at putting things up on a regular basis. But I generally do get there. I promise. Just keep my RSS feed in your reader and you will be rewarded with bursts of creativity, days of posts and even pictures from time to time.

Speaking of pictures from time to time, here’s my vacation pictures from my annual trip to the deep south for the Annual McBride Crawfish Boil. This year it was just me making the trip down South as my traveling companions from last year were busy with various and sundry activities like work and having a 2-week old baby. Next year, we all plan to return with a few extra folks in tow as well.

Alabama 2009

It was a great time regardless, especially because I got to spend so much quality time with my sisters Nina and Lisa. Although we didn’t grow up with each other (they’re older and from other parental combinations than me) we’ve become pretty close in adulthood and definitely have a tight bond that feels great to renew at least annually. I also had the opportunity to re-connect with some of my more spread out family, start talking about a giant family ski trip next year and to meet some really extended family in the form of by brother in law’s immediate families. I know there’s no blood relations there, but when your sister marries someone as amazing as Mike McBride, it’s pretty apparent that his family is also going to be full of good people and you’d be nuts not to call them family too.

Speaking of family, it’s time to head to my father in law’s to celebrate father’s day. Strange to now have to celebrate this holiday every year after never being able to earlier in life.

I didn't take this with my built in Web cam (which I love) but would have, if I could have.

I did it. I switched to a Mac. After a lifetime of working with PCs (and not really having a problem with it, thank you very much) I went and bought myself a new Macbook. I’ve had it for a week now and feel like I can adequately write in a somewhat interesting way about the experience so far.

First of all, to those who say, “You’ll have no problem switching to a Mac. They’re so intuitive.” I’d like to switch you over to a brand new operating system that I’ve used for years and see how well you do. The Mac OS, near as I can tell, is no more intuitive than the PC is. It is different, yes. And it is simpler, yes. But more intuitive? No. It’s just differently intuitive. (And sometimes, it’s just dumb. Like for instance, can anyone tell me why the tab key in Firefox 3.0 moves the focus to some random new spot instead of to the next field and refuses to ever move from a text input field to a checkbox so I can check “remember me” after typing my log-in information?!?!?!?!?!)

Take Spaces for example (for those not familiar, Spaces is sort of like having more than one desktop with different things going on on each desktop). This is a really smart and useful feature that I’d wanted for years. When I went into the Mac store to look around, the salesperson showed it to me and I was completely impressed. But you know what, working with Spaces isn’t necessarily easy at first. One still has to figure a bunch of shit out (like why if Preview (PDF viewer) is open in one space and you download a PDF in another, does it open in the second space?) and finding the answer is NOT easy (the help sytem on my Mac does not deliver answers the way I’d like).

Next, workflows are very changed and that is very hard to get used to. So much of what I do on a computer is done through keyboard shortcuts. They’re just easier and more efficient than using the mouse to do everything. Shortcuts are not something I think about, my muscles just know them. But alas, over here in Mac world, they are different. This is not a fault of Mac design, it just is, but it does slow one down when switching. (Some are also just stupid. For instance, selecting word by word is Cmd-Shift-arrow. Selecting character by character is option-shift-arrow. Hello? shift-arrow for the latter would make much more sense rather than changing your entire finger configuration.)

That’s not all to say that I hate this new environment. I am starting to get the hang of things and starting to think more like a Mac (don’t tell me I’m overthinking though. When I look for the printer driver folder if I need to remove a printer, I am thinking differently.) and am seeing much that IS easier. I’m sure more of that will happen (I started checking out Expose tonight). But I am sure more frustrations are to come. (How to organize my pictures in Iphoto the way I want to is starting to become an issue here.)

Check back tomorrow and I’ll share with you some of the most useful guides and resources to switching to a Mac I’ve found so far.

Thanksgiving in Peru

The horrors in the rest of the world not withstanding, life here goes on here and we’re celebrating Thanksgiving today along with most of the rest of the United States, (I’m also celebrating the publication of my friend Douglas Quenqua’s NYTimes Style article today. It’s dam good. Read it.) I LOVE Thanksgiving. It’s always been one of my favorite holidays to celebrate along with Passover and Channukah (also holidays about big gatherings around the table).

But Thanksgiving tops the list for sure. It seems like the warmest of all holidays to me. I think that’s because I remember all the houses I lived in during all the Thanksgivings from my youth being overly warm due to all the cooking. Plus, on a more figurative note, the table at Thanksgiving always seems more full of warmth and cheer and good friends and good family than at other holidays. It’s a holiday that, in my experience anyway, never devolves into tears or fighting. I think that’s because of the lack of religion associated with it.

What a great holiday;it’s all tradition with no religion.

The pictures on this post are from my best Thanksgiving ever. I was in Peru in 2004 with Jodie and Joel (on the left). On the day before Thanksgiving, we crossed Lake Titicaca in a boat with Andy and Lauren (on the right). Part way through the trip, the boat broke down and what should have been a three-hour trip turned into an eight-hour adventure. It also turned into the best Thanksgiving ever. Andy and Lauren were so much fun. In the picture above, we’re in the midst of our walk into town from where the boat was beached. We had no idea where we would stay because the peninsula (Llachon) had no phone service, and no way to get back to any city till the next day. But we’d already had so much fun, it didn’t matter.

Thanksgiving dinner in Peru

As it happened, we found a homestay with a farmer and his wife and spent Thanksgiving there. Our meal that night (and all the nights we were there) was made up entirely of crops they had grown and was all vegetarian. It was always amazing food and our Thanksgiving dinner was full of good cheer and good friends, and all of it was by chance.

This year we are going to “Little Minty” for Aaron and Jeannie’s annual Thanksgiving Shindig.  I think Aaron has been doing Thanksgiving for the past 6 or 8 years and when I say “does Thanksgiving,” I mean it. He leaves no turkey untrimmed and no plate unfilled, or something like that. One year the man made his own corned beef in a crockpot which was easily the best thing ever. Many years he also made bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with blue cheese. Also the best thing ever. They’ve invited 14 people or so this year so it should be a great time with great people. In the past, this dinner has been a long slow affair thanks to Aaron’s effort to make the time with friends last. He puts out only small plates so you have to eat slowly and insists that people free to stop the festivities and make toasts all night long.

It’s the first time I’ve been in years and Lex’s first ever so it’s going to be great for us both.

I hope you and yours have a great day wherever you are and if you’re in the U.S., you enjoy Thanksgiving as much as we will.

The big trip is done and I couldn’t be happier. New York is always a good time and all, but really, when it comes down to it, I just can’t spend too much time there anymore. It’s not the city in which I grew up at this point and it just tires me out.

First of all, it’s just massively more crowded than it ever was, and I don’t find that invigorating. Instead, I find it annoying when you can’t find any sense of space or peace.

Second, it’s god-awful expensive. ‘Nuff said.

Finally, it feels as if there is no light in the city and there is certainly no sky unless you happen to be high up in a buildiing or in Central Park. I found myself actively missing a sense of the natural world around me and on my first day home, I walked out of my building and was shocked for a moment at the open space around me.

That’s not to say we didn’t have a good time. We did. It was wonderful to meet Melissa’s new boyfriend Homer, to hook up with old friends I haven’t seen in years, to watch my cousin get married and to visit amazing museums such as The Whitney to see their Calder exhibit (superb and fun, BTW), and MOMA for the Van Gogh show (as always, his paintings get right to the source of the light and beauty and make it jump off his canvas). But I love my home city now and am relishing the difference between here and there (though, I will always miss the food in NYC. Although we have about 4 dozen H and H bagels in the freezer, I’m already trying to figure out when I can get back to buy more!)

I took some time to put together a Google Map of our trip. It includes some more information about the places we went and walks we took (kinda geeky I know). I thought I could add pictures to the placemarks, but something is not working UPDATE: I figured it out. Google has you add an extra step when putting a picture on a map that is stored in Picasa. Dumb!). I’ll try to fix it, but in the meantime, you can also look at the pictures on their own (there’s wedding pics too).

View Larger Map

After months and months of looking for a job in the worst economy in just about anyone’s living memory, I am super duper freaking pleased to report that Alexis got offered a real freaking job today! Hot Dam! Details on the position will follow, but I wanted to share since, well, the economy sucks and we could all use a dose of good economic news.

It’s over. At last. President-elect Barack Obama has arrived! We did it!

After all my ranting and raving, my anger and fear, my hope and work, there’s not much else I can say anymore. It’s historic. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful. It’s everything I hoped for and more. I’ve been sighing deeply since 8 PM (PST) last night when the election was called. I feel so much more relaxed. Of course, now the hard work starts.

But first, I’ll share my last night with you. We had a party at Office Nomads. Here are the pics:

I’m catching up. A couple of weeks ago, a big group of my friends (including, for the first time, the wonderful and exciting Aaron and Jeannie) all went out for our annual river float down the Yakima River. The float is about 20 miles long and takes around 5 and half hours. We’ve been doing it for four years now and this year’s was the best since the first for a few reasons. We had a huge number of people (23) and boats (about 30) but we split into two flotillas which made manuevering much easier and also kept us from moving too fast. It was also really hot out, which is nice when you’re sitting on a river, literally, all day long.

There were no major mishaps this year (the first year we lost two our outlier float–called The AquaRocker–within 30 seconds when it caught on some trees and ripped free) and I only almost died once when I misjudeged the difference between the two flotillas and tried to swim much further than I actually can. It was a blessing when Matt (who can swim much better than me) reminded me that the one I had left was still just upriver of me.

Anyway, I’ve finally got the pics together and present them here for your viewing pleasure.

I spent last Saturday working as the production manager for the KEXP Barbeque. This is an annual fundraising event put on by a non-profit radio station based here in town. It started as a small thing in the station’s parking lot six years ago with 500 people. Now it’s a 2000-person, day-long event at a park a block away. Six bands, food vendors, beer garden, the whole shebang.

I got the gig thanks to my eight years working at Bumbershoot, Seattle’s flagship music and arts festival that’s been going on for 30+ years. One afternoon early this summer, I ran into my friend Amy Lindsey, who I’ve worked with at the festival every year since 2001. I asked her what she was up to and she told me about her new job as Events Manager for KEXP and her need for help on the BBQ. I told her I’d be free and would love to do it. Lo and behold….

I got to the grounds Saturday morning at 6. Already the party rentals guys and the porta-potty guys were on grounds and I had to jump off my bike, change out of my wet clothes (it was raining) and get right to work directing them and breaking down some picket fence from an event the night before. The next time I looked up, it was 8 AM and the field was transforming in front of my eyes from a block party thrown by the real estate folks trying to sell condos in the neighborhood to a BBQ put on by a hipster radio station. Not bad, I thought.

I spent the rest of the morning running around, putting out fires and making sure volunteers were working hard with the stage crew to get the stage put up. (As side note: the stage was awesome. It was basically a transformer. When it came on grounds, it was a semi-trailer that opened up, unfolded and popped up into a full-sized stage. Unreal.)

The best and most frustrating fire was dealing with the day’s headliner who wanted wheels for a riser on the stage. The stage company screwed up and didn’t bring us the wheels and when we realized it, the closest set was in Portland, three hours away. We needed the band to sound check but they wouldn’t without the wheels. When they finally arrived, an hour after the band should have sound checked, the band decided they didn’t want the wheels after all. Nice. Fucking bands.

We finally got the gates open to the event about 30 minutes late and were running late all day long. It wasn’t a huge deal, though kind of a logistical issue as we had break-down plans with all our vendors that I had to change. But I’ll tell ya, since I oversaw pretty much all of the concrete issues for the entire set up (Amy dealt with the big-ticket logistics like permits, bands and such) I was proud as punch when the doors opened and people started coming in. It was like I had a baby. When the first band went on and folks were dancing and having fun… I was pleased as punch.

Then there was the torrential downpour at about 5 pm, just when it got really crowded. I had to run around trying to put up tarps and tents to keep strategic locations dry. Meanwhile, I was drenched and just as I got the tarp set up at the entrance using wood dowels and zip ties (not terribly effective) to keep security guards dry so the sticky on the 21 and over bracelets continued to work, the rain stopped. Now all I had to deal with was the muddy field.

The show ended at 10 pm and we went straight from running around making sure things were running smoothly to running around taking it all down. I helped break the stage up and turn it back into a truck (totally fun) and was finally finished at 1 AM. I still had to ride my bike home. By the time I made it home, I was singing to myself to keep awake, and weaving while in the shower. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I was still tired come Monday and am just now coming back into myself.

Why, you may ask, do I do things like this then? (Bumbershoot is equally long days, for 4 days in a row.) It’s a good question. With a degree in theater focused in design/tech, hard work, long hours putting on events like this is in my blood. It’s not something I want to do all the time though because it is hard on the body, mind and social life (not to mention not terribly fulfilling or environmentally sound), but a few times a year, it’s a kick in the pants. I get the rush of making a show come together, with none of the stress of long hours for weeks on end and no social life whatsoever. It’s win-win for me.

I was too busy working to take pictures, but Sara who ran the beer garden did.

We saw that rainbow which turned into a triple rainbow shortly after the rainstorm. It was awesome. I took the shot from Flickr user Image Freeek. There’s a ton more shots of the day at Flickr and write ups of the event at the KEXP Blog.

It’s been a few days since I posted. For some of you, I know this brings back memories of a blog laying fallow for months on end. But I swear, a new leaf has been turned. This short silence is now broken and was only the result of a pile of deadlines for writing that pays last week. If you can’t live without my missives, drop me a line and we can work out a pay schedule.

Since we last spoke, I’ve been bedeviled by work whenever I sit down at a computer, so last weekend, I took a couple of days and actually went out into the world to take part in that thing they call “real life.” Actually, I only took one day as I had to work on Sunday, but it was a long day and gave me plenty of fodder for a blog post.

9 pounds of raspberries.

Saturday, Dayna and went to Biringer Farms in Marysville, half an hour North of Seattle where we picked nine pounds of raspberries and nine pounds of strawberries, took them home and made 41 jars of jam (with the help of our friend Barb who, besides being an excellent person to hang out with had many experimental suggestions for unique jam combos, including one with wine and one with chocolate).

I didn’t take any pictures during the berry picking. Mostly it was the sticky fingers, but it was also because berry picking is hard work. The raspberries are easier, but still, you gotta dig through the leaves to find them. Strawberries, which grow close to the ground are even harder. Because it’s the end of their season, finding enough to make the picking worth it takes a long time and is tiring work. We took so long gathering ours that we actually got kicked out of the field because it was closing.

By the time Dayna and I got home, it was about 6 and she thought we’d be up till 4 in the morning since you can only make four or five jars at a time. It didn’t end up being that long of a process, but we didn’t finish till about midnight.

The process, in a nutshell is thus:

• clean the berries.
• mash the berries to a pulp.
• at the same time, bleach the jars, lids and the cooking implements you will be using.
• take the jars out of the bleach mixture and put them into the oven which should be pre-heated to about 250. This keeps them warm so when you pour in boiling berries, no glass cracks.
• in a blender, mix some pectin (jelling agent) and lemon juice.
• combine the pectin mixture with the now-boiling berries (which also have some calcium (to activate the pectin) and sweetener in them (can be honey, sugar or grape juice concentrate).
• stir vigorously for a minute and then return to a boil.
• pour the mixture into the jars leaving 1/4″ of room at the top.
• close the jars and then put them into a pot of boiling for ten minutes. This creates the seal.
• When you’ve done this entire process once or twice and feel pretty comfortable with it, clean your blender, dump in some ice, tequila, triple sec and berries and make some killer margaritas with fresh berries.
• repeat until you’re out of berries.

Pretty easy, eh? I know some of you are more visual so I’ve included a step-by-step photo gallery so you can see what it all looks like. Next on the Home Ec syllabus: canning. Dayna has a killer recipe for dill beans.

Considering my track record of letting this blog sit unattended for long stretches in the past, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be taking the next week off from blogging while I take a Dairytastic vacation in Madison, Wisconsin to eat deep-fried cheese curds, visit Noah’s Ark Water Park at Wisconsin Dells and, oh yeah, attend a wedding.

But fear not. I will be back and will blog again. I’ve found a method of making the act of blogging easier and less time consuming. I don’t plan to abandon it again.

Happy Fourth!