Happy New Year's

This is me on New Year's Eve. It seems like pictures of me taken from my webcam always look creepy.

Winter boots for 08

Last year's Halloween pumpkins

Over the mountains

Last weekend I went on a trip. I drove my car over the mountains to visit my friends in the Eastern part of Washington State. My friends live in in a town called, Yakima. I stayed at their house for the weekend. We had a lot of fun exploring the area and looking at things.

It is very different on the other side of the mountains from where I live, in a town called, Bellingham. It is hot and dry in Yakima. It is cooler and damper here along the coast in Bellingham.

I will show you pictures of my trip and tell you about the differences in the two parts of Washington State.

Yakima Jones Home; September 2008

Drew and Mindy with 'kitchen science'

squash labyrinth

Chicken Coop

Finally a chicken update

this is part of my backyard



This is the chicken pen door. I had fun weaving the sticks in and out for sturdification

We had two weeks of unseasonable rain this past month. Usually people schedule outdoor weddings in August because they know that they need not worry about rain. This year, only people who scheduled their weddings during the first two weeks of August stayed dry.

This weekend the weather dried out but the sun is no longer a hot yellow overhead sun. The light is now a slanted pale yellow autumn sun. The warm begins later and ends earlier than during the height of summer.

Most people are not ready for this year's short summer to be over. Many tomatoes are not ripe yet and there have not been enough really hot dry days to make the citizens of Bellingham to forget the excessive cool and damp of Winter and Spring.

I am hoping that there will be a period of cool mornings and evenings with hot dry days in-between for six weeks or so. That might just be enough to get us through another cold wet winter.

desktop of hope

Thanks to the derision/advice of my dear friends I have changed my laptop desktop image from this:
To this:

chicks in box













Penguin or chick?














Schala watches the chicks

box of chicks













you can sit on my lap

I sent this to Dad for his Birthday

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more roses

the first roses

so thorny and unbreachable yet delicate and fragrant

a beautiful leopard slug

Ah yes, I miss my very good friend. Back home here in the States I'm reduced to drinking high-quality German lager or local micro-brews (at hideously expensive prices).

I'm working up at the local Uni doing web development, newsletter "publishing", database creation and management, and general office support duties. I don't hate it exactly. I spend over 90% of the day in front of the computer. But I do interact with other people and have the opportunity for limited self-expression and creativity. And I have health insurance. Soon I will even have sick days and eventually paid holidays.

One of the reasons I decided to go to China was to find out if I would really enjoy teaching or not. I suspected I wouldn't but I do. I enjoy and am good at teaching. I prefer adults but can teach children also. It is a very demanding vocation; therefore perfect for me ;p. I miss teaching. I miss that connection (strange as it is) that I get with "my" students. I think it must be similar to people who do concerts. That ephemeral yet concrete audience link..

Today on the radio they had a piece on Emily Dickinson. I love Emily Dickinson. They covered one of her best known poems, which I also happen to love. "I would not stop for death-so he kindly stopped for me". I know one of the reasons I am so attracted to Emily Dickinson poems is the amazing way they read out loud. That and her brilliance with words.

Etymological tidbit: the word "quark" was originally coined by James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake.