Today I finally was able to locate and purchase the bluetooth accessory for my phone I've been looking for for a while. It doesn't fit in my pocket as well as it does let me talk on the phone hands-free on the road.

Hopefully it's in as good mechanical condition as it's outward appearance. It's got kind of high miles for a 2006, but seems to be in pretty good shape. Traded in the '01 330i on this one and didn't do too bad I think. Perhaps I may pay a visit to the local dealership to have it checked out and see if there's anything amis lurking under the hood.

Today we had a tree trimmer come out and do some work for us. He did a good job, taking down one tree completely and trimming limbs off another up to about the 100' height. Here we see the guy in the tree at about the 80' level, after he had taken off all the limbs for the whole tree, and cut off about the top third already.

Can you tell from the picture that the tree is actually leaning toward the house? That's the only reason we would cut down a beautiful healthy tree like this. And, it's on the south side of the house which is the direction from which the high winds always blow.

He dropped pieces of the trunk in about 10' sections (about 700Lb each). Here is one falling to the ground. It makes quite a thud (and an indent) when it hits the ground.


So, now we have about 90 pieces of tree on the lawn (ok it used to be a lawn), which at least have been cut into firewood sized rounds. However, I will mention that at the base, this tree is 31" in diameter, and I estimate that the base rounds each weigh between 150 to 200Lb... We'll have to escort each of these beauties up the hill behind the house to stack them someplace out of the way that we can cover them so they dry out until next year.

As it is visible in the background, I will mention that the treehouse is now covered with a tarp for the winter. I'll start in on it next Spring I think.

Seattle, WA

The Park Service today began cracking down on advertising and posters put up on bulletin boards in several of the state parks. There have been numerous complaints about local businesses posting bills and advertisements in the parks. Particularly they said they are removing all posters for local growers and flower shops. They have a new program that they have started, using the Smokey Bear logo, enlisting the public's help in removing the advertisements.

"Only you can prevent Florist Flyers."

 

Commute times as we all know, are a function of distance, and traffic resistance. Resistance to the vector of forward flow can be represented fairly easily, once a few variables are determined and accounted for. Fortunately for us, there are a number of analyses done for us of data from various traffic monitoring stations, from which we can deduce a pattern and corresponding algorithms.

Resistance amplitude varies as a function of time due to traffic, and can be represented by a simple sine wave:

1 - cos(Θ) where Θ =  (2 + h) · π / 6, h being the hour from 0 to 23.

However, there other factors involved as well. Stop lights and stop signs also play a factor. Going by current city statistics, these can be represented as a relative constant:

resistance factor: √2 / 2

Street size (the number of lanes in the direction of travel) also can factor into the equation. In the city, this factor is almost constant at about 1.4, or:

√2

When we attribute fine tuning to factors such as weather, traffic signal timing errors, road maintenance, general city worker incompetence and the like, we have this:

HRF · π / (TSE + RM + CWI), where HRF is hourly rainfall in inches, TSE, RM, and CWI all approximating 1.

When we also contribute the velocity vector of the number of Microsoft employees that are aggressive drivers divided by the number of police officers on duty at any given time, we have the function:

MSAD / 5 where MSAD = (#MS employees) / 2

Then, there are random occurrences such as accidents or head-up-ass drivers which are small but significant:

π / 4 (π / 3 on Mondays)

Thus, when we put it all together, it makes a simple equation. To get anywhere in Redmond to any place else in Redmond takes 25 minutes.

Last night as I was doing my rounds before bed, I peeked into the garage to discover that there was water flowing from the water heater out onto the garage floor. Never a good thing, but even less so at 9:30PM. I rushed to turn off the water to the water heater, and that seemed to stop the leak for the time being.

Spent the next day draining and removing the old unit, and purchasing a new one and installing it. Had to take an emergency day off work, but I managed to get it all done and actual hot water coming out the taps by about 3pm. Here's the new unit. Total cost was around $550. I could have elected to get a smaller unit (this was a 65Gal), but that was the size that was there. In hindsight I should have gone with the 50gal unit I think. Oh well, its done now. At least this unit will save us about 30% on the electricity that the old one used.

We hitched up the trailer and headed east on highway 2, drove up across Stevens pass and then North along the West shore of lake Entiat, and about a third of the way up the West shore of Lake Chelan to the 25-Mile Creek State park where we met with my wife's parents. They brought their fifth-wheel trailer, and we got adjacent sites.

It was pretty warm the days we were there. It was a bit too warm for me, so I grabbed a book and a chair and went over to the creek and put my bare feet on a rock in the stream to read and keep cool. I did only a little bit of fishing but didn't catch anything. Tried fishing from the bulkhead when it was in the shade, but that shade didn't last long. I actually saw one trout swimming around near the docks, but he wasn't hungry apparently. The water in this lake is very very clear. Lake Chelan is over 50 miles long, and the deepest part is over 1500 feet.

We pumped up the inflatable boat, and I took the family out for a little trip around the bays on the lake near the park.


on Monday morning, we went down to the dock at Fields Point,


and picked up the Lady of the Lake boat for a three-hour ride uplake to the remote village of Stehekin. This little town is only accessible by boat, either private boat or the ferry service on the Lady of the Lake. I think the name may mean "you can't get there from here." There are two boats that service these small lake towns, the fast boat and the slow boat. We got the slow boat. Three hours each way, with an hour and a half in Stehekin, made for a really long day... A boat ride on the lake is nice, but the view is pretty much the same the entire way. It was fun, but after 7 hours, it felt good to get back to the dock and go back to camp.

We were also treated to some very nice sunsets over the mountains above the lake.


Finally it was time to go home, and we decided to stop at the Rocky Reach Dam at the South end of lake Entiat. This is a very nice facility with a park, playground, Northwest museum, visitors' center, and a nice fish ladder for watching the salmon and steelhead migrate back up the river.


I was really impressed with the well-kept grounds, the nice play structures, and family-friendly area. This may be an overlooked stop or an out-of the way destination, but we had fun and would definitely stop there again if we were passing through.


It was a long drive up to 4000 feet and over the mountain pass towing the giant trailer, but it was nice to get away for a few days. Next time though I think we'll avoid the mountain passes and hot weather and keep to the West side of the state.

With my parents in town for a visit, we decided to go up to Snoqualmie to ride on the train, and see the falls. It was kind of a cool cloudy day, but didn't rain too much on us - just a few sprinkles. The train museum is very interesting, and has a lot of information and history of how the railroads were built and used in the pacific northwest.

Here is the train pulling back into the station


We took a ride on the train down to the overlook across from the falls. We had fun taking pictures.

and waving to people on the street.

We saw the falls and the lodge from across the river.



After our train ride, we drove to the falls, and saw some kayakers on the river at the base of the falls.




It was a fun day, and not too far from home.