My weekend

Well, while Mike stayed here and slaved away on his dissertation, I went to San Francisco for my cousin’s high school graduation.

I had a great time! First, a shot of their dog, Jake:The graduation was held at the big Masonic auditorium in San Francisco. For the record, my cousin did not go to a Masonic high school.

The happy parents:

Graduation entertainment:

The diploma (ta-da!):

Family shots:

We had a super-yummy post-graduation lunch of crepes. Later that evening, my cousin’s parents had a little open house to celebrate. The open house featured great Mediterranean food.

Saturday, the weather was, well, very San Francisco. Finally, in the afternoon, the sun broke through the fog and we went for a short walk on the hill near my aunt and uncle’s house.

I saw an owl on the walk.Saturday evening we ate the leftover party food and celebrated my grandmother’s 90^th birthday. This was a bit of a surprise party, as my grandmother sent an email several months ago explicitly forbidding any celebration of her birthday. Yeah, whatever. Also, for the record, I didn't even receive said email (I'm not sure what that says about what my grandmother thinks about me).

We had plenty of champagne on hand.

And my brother made a very delicious cake.

My grandmother, however, was not allowed to cut her own cake because, you know, we all wanted pieces we could see.

A question for our readers...

This question is directed at our readers who have earned PhDs or are familiar with the process. Is it a good idea to pay the extra $45 to copyright my dissertation? I am having trouble figuring out what benefits a copyright confers, but I am definitely open to the idea.

Please discuss.

Graduate school is a long road

with few high points. But I just reached one of them. I just submitted a draft of my last dissertation chapter to my committee. Yay!

For the record...

in the last year, people have found our blog with internet searches for phrases including "champagne cupcake recipe"; "knitting jokes"; "why are we supposed to eat fish on fridays?"; "aloe yogurt, michigan"; and "big lebowski origami cranes."

You can find a complete list of searches here.

Lake Serene

We took our first hike of the season today. There weren’t a lot of snow-free choices that met our requirements for length (somewhat long) and driving distance (somewhat short), so we ended up at Lake Serene.

I’d actually always been a bit hesitant to do this hike, knowing that it is one of the most popular hikes around. It was, indeed, popular today: there were many other people on the trail, but not so many that we lost the wilderness sense, so that was good. Although we did see one guy hiking while talking on a hands-free cell phone device (I can’t imagine the reception was all that good, as our GPS receiver was having some trouble, but whatever).

The hike is about 7.5 miles round-trip, with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. Although there were pretty parts, we both agreed that this was not one of the most scenic hikes we’d done in Western Washington. Also, the lake-water near the shore was a little brackish and pollen-y, limiting one’s desire to go swimming (an essential part of visiting any alpine lake).

Make Way for Ducklings!

We went to the park yesterday and the ducklings were out! I'd been seeing them for a few days now during my runs around the lake, but I never had my camera with me. Although they're very cute in these pictures, they were much cuter and fuzzier at the start of the week (I would also like to add the disclaimers that ducklings aren't the most cooperative of subjects and that the lighting was kind of strange).

A New Restaurant

Some friends of ours just opened a vegetarian Thai restaurant in the Wallingford district of Seattle. We ate there for the first time last night, and we both really liked it. It is called Jhanjay, which apparently means "vegetarian food" in Thai, and it is on 1718 North 45th Street. Kate had Pad Thai, which she really enjoyed, and I had a fun dish called "abundant asparagus," which, in addition to asparagus, also had some other vegetables and these interesting mushroom cakes. Our friends were also very friendly to us and the other guests. So, if you are in Seattle, and you like Thai food (even if you are not a vegetarian) we recommend this restaurant!

I followed dinner up by seeing the Japanese movie Ping Pong -- a really sweet and funny movie about two high school ping pong players. If you can get a hold of a copy, I recommend that as well.

The S. Weekend

In addition to teaching wrapping up (almost) for both of us, we had a lot celebrate this weekend since Mike’s good friend B-Hatch and his lovely fiancée were in town.

First, we had a little baby shower action.

Then, we went to hear B-Hatch’s brother’s orchestra. The orchestra was playing a symphony written by B-Hatch’s brother. How cool is that?

So, just a few more weeks of school. . . . Then summer school begins for Mike.

Our other exciting piece of news is that Mike is set to become Dr. Mike on July 16^th. A few days after that, we’ll probably leave on a two-week road trip through the mountain west (Idaho, Montana, and Alberta). We'll be doing some car-camping and maybe even an overnight or two. Hooray for summer (although it's 50 degrees and pouring here today)!

Slightly out of order

These are actually some pictures from last weekend.

Hisashiburi!

That is Japanese for "it's been a long time!" Kate and I have been quite busy with our teaching and "other obligations." Kate's major "other obligation" is her job, and mine is my dissertation (I have one chapter left to write, for those of you keeping score at home).

The academic job market is a nasty place, but I have just gotten a piece of good news. It seems that my department has hired me for next year as a lecturer. Now, this is a one-year position, without a chance of rolling over into a tenured position, but it is really great news, because I will be able to graduate this summer and go on the tenure track job market with my PhD in hand, which will increase my chances of getting a tenure track job.

Also, in March I went to a conference in Boston, and I finally got to meet Josh, the son of my childhood friend Seth. Here are some pictures from that trip.

The weekend

Although I was suffering from a sinus/migraine problem during the weekend, we had a great time with the Michigan parents.

First, some pictures from Friday’s trip to the Market. Tulips were everywhere!

Friday was also a truly gorgeous day – it was so warm and sunny that I even wore sandals. Here are some shots looking west across Puget Sound.Saturday, we got a bit of a slow start heading up to Whidbey Island. We rode the ferry over (what a short ride!) and then had lunch at this cute place in Langley. After that, we went to the very lovely Bed and Breakfast. And, yes, there were goats, as promised.The goat eats my sweatshirt. Bad goat!

Sunday we returned to Seattle via Deception Pass State Park after having lunch in Coupeville. It was so beautiful in the park! I definitely want to do some camping there this summer.

More Japanese media blogging

Here is a photo of the very young Princess Aiko skiing.

Spring visitors

My brother and his girlfriend were up here visiting last week, and now Mike’s parents are here. Seattle in the spring is nice for visitors, Seattle in the summer is awesome; How come no one ever wants to visit in December?

It’s been fairly nice in Seattle lately – still rainy and cold some days, but with a few nice and warm-ish sunny days mixed in. The flowers are in bloom and spring and is definitely on the way.

Here are some tulips from Pike Place Market.

And some cherry tree blossoms from the UW campus. Not quite like Japan, but still very nice.This week, the Michigan parents are in, and we’re heading to the Market again, for a picnic at Discovery Park, for a walk beside the water in West Seattle, and then to Whidbey Island. I’m especially excited to go Whidbey Island because I hear that Deception Pass State Park is supposed to be beautiful. It's also possible that we'll see some more tulips.

St. President

This is a combo post.

First, are you in the market for a presidential candidate? Have I got a candidate for you! My brother is running for student body president of UC Berkeley. This is even better if you actually go to Berkeley and can vote for him (grad students can vote in the election, I'm told). If you don't go to Berkeley, you can encourage your friends who go there to vote in the election. The good news is that anyone can check out his website!

And, now, my St. Patrick's Day baking project. I made filled Irish cream cupcakes. I didn't go for the Bailey's, since it was too expensive. Instead, I used St. Brendan's to no obvious difference. I again used the recipe from this book. Unlike the champagne recipe I used for New Year's, these cupcakes definitely tasted like Irish cream. Thus, I think that next time I make these, I would skip the Irish cream filling. I think I'm really just not a filled cupcake person - I felt like the texture was all wrong, and I just wanted the filling to be chocolate, not Irish cream. So maybe chocolate ganache filling would be okay, but Irish cream vanilla filling wasn't. I used the fudge frosting recipe from the cookbook, substituting bittersweet chocolate for semi-sweet chocolate. The frosting was good, but it took two batches to frost all the cupcakes. I topped the cupcakes with watercress (sort of like 4 leaf clovers?), but the watercress soon went limp, so this wasn't the greatest idea. Perhaps next year I should use gummy worms?

I read it for the pictures

National Geographic, that is.

But this month there's an absolutely fascinating article on the origins of Disneyworld and the shifting demographics of Orlando. Seriously.

This article might even renew my faith in the magazine, which was sort of wavering since they no longer give out the free maps and seem to be more interested in the science stories than the stories about ancient cultures.

Snowshoeing

Last weekend we went snowshoeing with the Wellesley club here.

I’d only been snowshoeing once before in my life, so I was excited that this activity included a guided tour with a ranger. Anybody can do this trip – it wasn’t any sort of special event or anything, but I gather the reservations are hard to get. The event was free, although there was a $10 donation requested per person, and they provided the snowshoes.

We started from the Steven's Pass Ski Area - my first time there. We spent about 1.5 hours hining through lightly falling snow. Our destination was Grace Lakes, a series of small lakes. The lakes didn't look like much, just flat, snowy fields.

Here are some pictures.

(The picture above is a bit blurry because I took it through a ziplock bag [trying to keep my camera sheltered from the falling snow]. I actually kind of like the effect since I think it makes the forest look a little mysterious.)

(It's definitely worth enlarging the picture above so you can read the signs. We turned around at this point.)