ONP: Mount Ellinor
If you are big on nature, or just enjoy a slight on top of the world feeling then this hike is definitely for you. The views from the peek are just fantastic and unbelievable. With the clouds scattered around us and the wind throwing them around the scenery was ever changing.
[svgallery name="Mount Ellinor - Sept 09"]
We did this hike back in September on Labour day. I do have to admit the hike up wasn’t the easiest i have been on, with 4.5 round trip and a total elevation gain of 2100 ft the climb is quite steep. Usually on these trails the beginning feels easily and it gradually gets harder, but this one as soon as we started the trail looked like a staircase the climbed through the woods. The switchbacks get shorter and more and more steep until about half way Read more
Storables: fresh and modern sotrage for a decent price
A few nights ago Orsolya and I stumbled on Sotrables store in downtown Bellevue as we were driving around. We were just in the middle of a major renovation of our home office so we decided to drop by to see what they had. We were both in the car complaining about how difficult it was to find affordable storage. And by affordable I don’t necessarily mean cheap; just something that you wouldn’t mind spending the money on. We had been to stores like “The Container Store”, but I sometimes feel bad walking through there because their prices are so ridiculous that I would never want to spend any money there. So the only other place that was left for us to shop at was Target and Ikea, but they have a lot of the same old cookie cutter stuff. When we walked into Storables, we noticed they had pretty much all the stuff we wanted, in multiple colors shapes and styles and the prices were decent too; at least the same as we would have paid at Target or Ikea. Check out their site www.storables.com and I am sure you will find something you like also.
Social or Antisocial Networking
During the past little while I have noticed my friends, coworkers, people on the bus and pretty much every kid walking the streets have become more and more addicted to the concept of social networking. Everyone has a Facebook page, msn account, chat account and a smart phone with unlimited data plan to follow all of the above. Every time I turn around one of my friends has his/her phone out, clicking away and chuckling about some dumb comment someone else left on their Facebook wall. I know I am probably the last person in US and Canada not to have a Facebook account, and according to my friends I don’t really exist until I exist on Facebook, but personally I neither enjoy for just about anyone one the WWW to have access to all of my info, nor do I think anything I do is interesting enough for others to follow. And honestly, I am surprised you are even reading this post right now. Read more
Evian commercials: the good and the creepy
A few years ago i saw this ad for Evian water. It was an homage to Queen: We will rock you at same time as it was pretty and well designed. Now that said, today one of my friends showed me their new add; JUST CREEPY. I don’t know what is the thing with babies? Every once in a while some designer or director says “You know what would be really cool? Lets have a bunch of babies in diapers do something adults would look totally stupid doing. Yeah that would be cute.” After seeing this add i don’t think I can even drink Evian water without having a slightly queasy feeling at the bottom of my stomach. Judge for yourselves:
How does Evian make me feel? A little creeped out and sick to be honest. I don’t think i can listen to Rapper’s Delight, look at roller blades or even a child for a long time now.
ONP: camping at Cape Alava
We just got back from a nice long weekend spent in the Olympic National Park. We arrived at Lake Ozette camp ground Friday afternoon in 2 cars completely stuffed with our packs. After filling up water, redistributing some weight from some packs to others (mostly to mine and Vinay’s) we set on a 4 mile hike down the Cape Alava trail down to the beach. The trail was one of the nicer ones I have seen in a while. The whole path was a very nice and sometimes bouncy boardwalk that led us through the woods all the way to the pacific beach. Once at the beach, we set up our tents and after having our food went immediately to bed.
The next day when we all woke up (some later than others, yeah OK fine, i was the last to wake up. Don’t tell me you thought otherwise) we realized that the fog had been so strong the night before that none of us realized there were a few other islands in front of us. On Saturday we went for a very nice hike along the the beach, sometimes sandy, sometimes rocky and watched the fog go inland and back to see.
One of the most amazing things that i think caught us all by surprise was how high and low the tide can get. On the first night the water was a few meters from our tents, but by the next morning the water had receded so much that you could pretty much walk to the nearby islands.
