We spent today on Vashon, checking out beaches, lighthouses, and their cute little shopping area. Mostly it’s just a nice half-day trip. I got some good photos, which Instagram’s filters made a little better. Lighthouse at Point Robinson Park Dramatic cloud cover with a sun break on the beach Shelter on the beach The KIRO AM transmitter (love the old type) Always a classic. The treed bicycle.
I'm on the Steering Committee for the South Sound Technology Conference and will be speaking on a panel as well. It should be a great day next Friday! Join us for the 2012 South Sound Technology Conference! Friday, March 9, 2012William W. Philip HallCheck in at 8:30 a.m. Don't miss… Steve Jarvis, VP Product Development Expedia-Mobile Application Development Howard Schmidt, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Leaders from many community and technology organizations As the technology showcase for Tacoma and the South Puget Sound, this conference brings together leaders from industry, education, and government to discuss and demonstrate innovations and their Read more…
Metro Parks has been trying to better capture the number of volunteer hours spent in the park district through the Chip-in program, coaching, teen volunteering, event volunteering and all the many other volunteer opportunities. The stats are incredible. Total Hours volunteered 2009: 121,013 2010: 156,147 2011: 176,298 That's right. Last year more than 176,000 hours were donated to the park district. Let me put that another way: in 1 year, volunteers donated 20 years worth of their time to Metro Parks. We estimate the value of the time donated as $3.7 million. I think there a lot of takeaways from Read more…
"For me, for me, for me you say? I'm going to ride it, right a way!" I probably have "The Bike Lesson" memorized for as often as I read it as a kid, and my parents read it to me. I post it here in remembrance of Jan Berenstain, who passed away over the weekend.
I would encourage you to check out the Tribune article from last week about plans for the Zoo. The North Pacific Aquarium is almost 50 years old, and it's time we start planning ahead, either to build a new aquarium, or to close the one we have. The concrete building has held salt water for that whole time, and salt water and concrete just don't mix over the long term. Discussions about the aquarium are part of the bigger picture planning we've been doing for the last couple of years: what species do we want to focus on, what facilities Read more…
I will pretty much read anything. Actually, I try to be selective within genres–for example I read Bridget Jones' Diary, one of the most influential and earlier "chicklit" books, but I haven't read widely within the chicklit genre. But, more generally speaking, I will pick up pretty much anything. I devoured all the Star Trek novels in the Swasey library as a kid and even continued to read them through high school and even into college. I've read pot-boilers like Clive Cussler and Dan Brown. I've read a bunch of old classics–Dickens, Verne, Hugo (helpful hint: reading old French books Read more…
Sometime in early December I started the book Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. It's the first book in a seven part fantasy series (parts 6 and 7 haven't been released yet). I started getting interested after the hoopla surrounding the HBO adaptation of the books. And then hearing from a lot of people that the books were quite good. So I decided to check them out. They have occupied the better part of two months. Really, I don't think I've read much else of anything since then, but they total 5,000 pages, so it's not like I've been slacking. They Read more…
Last week, Charles Dickens celebrated his 200th birthday. I've actually read a fair bit of Dickens. Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. Of those, Bleak House is probably the "best" of his books, and I have a certain fondness for it because I read it while in London. It also contains one of the first detectives in English fiction: the bizarrely named Inspector Bucket. I wouldn't necessarily recommend Bleak House, though. It is 1000 pages and quite dense. Out of those I've read, David Copperfield and Great Expectations are probably the most accessible. Read more…
Two worlds are colliding! This Wednesday, City Club's lunch will be about the future of funding for local and state parks. I'll be moderating the panel, which will have people from the state, from Pierce County Parks, and from Earth Economics, a non-profit that specializes in innovation for parks and open space. I think it will be an interesting lunch program! (the picture of the Wright Park lion is from our 2005 park tour)
If you haven’t checked out pinterest.com yet, I think you should. It’s an online pinboard, and after playing around with it for awhile, you might identify with this guy. 🙂 Source: Uploaded by user via Erik on Pinterest I’ve enjoyed creating boards around my main interests: books, movies, parks, travel, etc. It’s pretty fun! Here are my boards if you want to check them out.