In November, Michelle, the girls, and Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Dave all met up in Kauai for a week in paradise. It was a lovely time despite the . We spent some excellent time in the water (sometimes while be rained on), visited Wimea Canyon, and went back to Tunnels Beach where I proposed to Michelle 11 years ago. In case (in the likely hood that) I don’t post a full report, here are the photos:
I’ve just barely made the deadline for our 2011 Opt-in Christmas Letter. Yeah, there’s a couple months of dead space on the blog. Whoops.
It’s been years since we last journied south to Mt. Angel for the Oktoberfest celebration. Yesterday, my parents, sister and the family all piled in to a van, took some back roads, and took in some Oktoberfest celebrations. We missed the wiener dog races, but the girls loved the petting zoo, pony ride and hay maze. The rest of us enjoyed the food and Spaten.
I was trying to figure out the most geographicly convenient place to have an off-site staff meeting and got distracted trying to find the temporally adjusted geographic midpoint for my life. gives you a nice Google maps API interface to add locations and time spent to calculate. I’ve been moving west consistently since I was born, and it appears that the geographic midpoint, weighted by time, is in the Salmon River north of White Bird, Idaho.
The family packed up and headed north to spend the 4th of July weekend with the Dunlaps. It had taken nearly 3 months to figure out a time to meet over the summer, but we managed to pick the perfect weekend. We stayed on Whidbey Island atop a bluff looking south over Puget Sound. It was fantastic, and we had a blast doing some proper relaxing with friends. We ate well, drank well, relaxed well, and roasted marshmallows well. I hesitate to say we slept well, but I hear you can do that when you’re dead.
I think one of the highlights for me was the excellent tide-pooling we did on Sunday morning on what was looking like a cloudy and rainy day. The tide was out quite far and with Stephanie as a guide, we got to see a lot of cool stuff lurking in basins and under rocks. She showed the girls (and me) that if you . The girls loved it (as did I).
We made a trip over to Langley, which is a quaint and fancy town on the east side of the island. We picked up lunch from the grocery in town and ate it while sampling beers at Olde World Ales & Lagers, then picked up ice cream. Finally, we headed home and swam for a bit with the girls. Ella discovered the joy of goggles and spent half her time underwater. MG isn’t yet appropriately respectful of the water and did her best to thrash out of everyone’s arms.
Meals were great, and not just because the view was so stellar. The first night we had smoked bratwurst from one of Scott’s coworkers and grilled corn. The second night we had Thai beef salad. The third night we had pork loin. Desert should have been the view, but we also did s’mores, which we discovered can be altered by switching out milk chocolate for peanut butter cups. I recommend trying sometime. All of it.
Eventually, the trip ended with a ferry ride back to the mainland and an all to brief stop at Lake Rosiger to catch up with other college friends and a tired car trip back to Portland. Three cheers for summer.
Michelle and I enjoyed a ride around Overlook Park on the BrewCycle at the NAOBF this afternoon.
Last night I uploaded my completed thesis to ProQuest’s ETD service. It marks the end (hopefully) of my graduate work aside from a few signatures here and there. It was a fairly straightforward process and when I finished, I was left with a somewhat confused and disappointed feeling. I guess I was hoping for a “you’ve won” style pop-up congratulating me. Or a party whistle.
I’d have loved to celebrate by cracking open one of the awesome celebratory beers that Scott and Stephanie sent me, but I was still in the throes of some stomach virus that I got from the girls and beer didn’t sound appealing in the slightest. Hopefully my body will sort that out and I can get on with it.
Wednesday’s theme was layers. And the significance that comes from the interaction between them. And I suppose the effect that the combination of layers has on people.
First, I defended my master’s thesis. The topic was “The Effects of Multiple Thematic Layers on Web Map Use by Middle School Students.” Kind of boring, yeah, but I’ve grown fond of the topic, and I’d say given the response from my committee, they find now faults in my research. To sum it up in a sentence: “Combining multiple thematic layers on a web map will not negatively impact a middle school student’s ability to accurately answer questions with the map, nor negatively impact the response time in answering.”
Ditto with adding a hillshade layer for terrain portrayal. The defense is over and now I’m left to make some surprisingly minor edits to the document before giving it to the school.
But layers can manifest in many ways. The next way can be summed up in this title: “The effects of multiple layers of awesomeness on my victory sandwich.” Yeah. Sesame bagel, some sort of cream cheese, course mustard, swiss, lettuce, tomato and turkey pastrami. I ate it out in the sun, hardly believing that I’d come to the conclusion of my graduate work. Barley got none.
Lastly, I went to see Battles (the band) at the Doug Fir lounge with my neighbor Eric. I was really happy to take Eric (when Scott bailed (boohoo, i tore the tendons off my finger and don’t want to drive 4 hours on a weeknight. Really though, thanks for the beer)) because he’d allowed me to pilot my thesis fieldwork in his classroom and he loves music. Plus, he’s just a fun dude.
The last manifestation of layers was in the music. In a somewhat awkward to see live way, the musicians recreated the fruits of their studio work for us to enjoy. I freely admit that most people won’t like the music – I’m sure it seems like absurd noise to most. But the show was fantastic, and the music can be described as somewhat accurately by the interaction of multiple layers of sound and timings to quite an excellent end. Plus, John Stainer is awesome. They all were.
It’s been really interesting to watch the appearance and now in many ways generally accepted practice of using samplers with live music. It’s a great tool in building and composing complex layers of sound, but it can often prove to be challenge to the in-person experience if the musician is not sure how to engage the audience and the music comfortably. It’s like being with someone who is constantly checking his phone through your conversation. The upside is that instead of another conversation, you get sweet, sweet music.
Did I mention I successfully defended my thesis? Yeah? Ok.
Ella, Maddie and I took off after cartoons and breakfast and drove east on SR14 (Washington side of the Columbia) to Beacon Rock State Park. I’d seen some cool pictures of the trail, and frankly, they didn’t do the trail justice. We got to the trailhead a little after 9am and after adding several layers (it was cool and windy), we started upwards. Ella is rather fearless on the trail and I kept having to ask her to slow down, not because I cared, but because I could sense Michelle scowling.
The trail essentially winds up a cliff, zig-zagging up the most approachable route, and occasionally doubling back over itself on a bridge. The trail is surprisingly easy, but it’s still a pretty steep climb up. It was easy enough that most of the people we saw were not “hikers,” but they all seemed to get the same enjoyment from the excellent views of the river, east to the Bonneville Dam, and west towards Washougal and Portland.
We hit the top and had a picnic. It was only 10am, but I couldn’t argue with the girls who thought it was the perfect place for some sandwiches. It was – even for simple PB&J. We played on top for about 30 minutes before winding back down. Madeline finally insisted on walking, and made it about half-way down the mountain before I sensed Michelle’s apprehension about the exposure.
I’d recommend the hike without any hesitation. So would Ella.
Ella hiked up to Angel’s Rest in the Gorge all by herself, then all the way back down. When Michelle asked if she wanted to take a rest, Ella exclaimed “This feels great on my legs” as she rubbed her quads. A week later we took a hike in Forest Park, and while she enjoyed herself, she was disappointed that there was no grand view at the end of the trail. We’ll try to pick another hike with a vista next time.
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