Sunday, October 29, 2006

Back from the San Juans!

We had an awesome time up on San Juan Island this weekend. It was a first trip for both of us and, although we were there for just over 24 hours, it felt like a nice weekend getaway. We woke up bright and early Saturday morning for the 1.5 hour drive up to Anacortes to make it onto the 9:35am ferry ride. We arrived at the island 70 minutes later to a bunch of fog. Right next to the ferry landing was Island Dive, the dive shop we planned our dive trip with. Fortunately, in the time it took us to fill out the paperwork and get the gear we needed, the fog lifted and we were reading to go diving! This ended up being a great trip because a bunch of people from the shop came along with us: Dawn is the scuba instructor and former roommate of OUR instructor (she made it clear she was valecdictorian of their instructor class). Niki was the shop manager, Chris the divemaster and Captain J who chartered the boat:



Here is a bunch of the tanks and gear all ready as we headed out to Larry's Lair at Griffin Bay, our first dive stop. You can see the fog had lifted and it was a really nice, sunny day:


Matt and I before heading out for the first dive:


Here I am along with Chris after coming up from the second dive at Bell Island (excuse the redness on my face from the mask). This was an amazing dive as I saw a giant lingcod, a sea slug the length of my arm, and lots of beautiful starfish, fish and sea anemone. I even "accidentally" went all the way down to EIGHTY feet! Being a basic open diver, my max is supposed to be around 60' but I was following Dawn, the instructor, down and we were all at 80' before I knew it. She told me later to consider it Dive 1 of advanced diving--ha! In any case, it was worth going down that because that's where all the cool life was.


Chris, the divemaster, took a bunch of pictures on our dive trip--check them out so y'all can see what we saw! (although he saw way more since he went as deep as 112'!)

After diving, Matt and I ate some clam strips and drove out to the Lakedale Lodge where we were staying for the night. This was a beautiful log cabin lodge perched alongside a peaceful lake. It was just what we needed after the diving. Here's a view from our balcony:


We also dined at the Friday Harbor House and had a wonderful meal--highly recommend it. The next morning, we slept in late (since we gained an hour with Daylight Savings) and headed into town, parked the car for the ferry line early, and got lunch at a pub so Matt could watch the Seahawks v. Chiefs football game. (K.C. won! Woot! Woot!) Soon after, we took off on the ferry back to Anacortes--here's a shot of cars loading into the ferry...it was POURING rain for about an hour before we boarded.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Vote with the rest of the Asians

It's Election Year right...and I just got a voicemail that went like this:

Hi Audrey, this is Betty from the Asian American Pacific Islanders of King County. I just wanted to let you know that the Asian Americans of King County are voting the following this year [proceeds to tell me yes or no on various proposals]. It's very important for Asian Americans to vote as they can really turn things around in King County.

Seriously? I don't know why I found it so silly but I just felt like being told to do what the other Asians do.

Can't wait for this weekend--Matt and I are heading to San Juan Island this weekend for some good rest and relaxation. I'm finally using up a certificate that I won at least year's Emerald City Swank, good for a stay at the Lakedale Lodge and dining at the Friday Harbor House! If we can work it in, we'll attempt to go diving or kayaking too.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

We're diving!!


I just got a photo from Michael, one of the instructor's assistants from the dive class that Matt and I took a couple weeks back. He took a picture of us while we were in the murky waters of the Puget Sound. Ha! Man, the water looks really green....

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Another 7/7/07 Bride!

Congrats to my good friend and fellow Smithie, Megan Neumeister!! She just got engaged!! And her wedding date? Same as mine! Ha!

Thursday, October 5, 2006

Adult-Proof Ringtone

NPR did a story on a sound that apparently only teenagers can hear---very few people over the age of 30 can hear it. It was used initially to ward off teenagers by British shopkeepers but it's now being used by high school kids as their ringtones so that they can get text messages and phone calls without their teacher knowing.

I just played it in my office and cranked the volume up because I couldn't hear a damn thing. Suddenly, Spencer and Yili (both 24) came running into my office yelling "What the HELL is that? Turn it off! It's such an obnoxious sound!". Damn, I'm old.

Download the mp3 of this sound yourself and try to hear it.

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Update: after closing my office door and CRANKING up the volume, I could finally hear it. But interesting how I couldn't hear it at a certain volume and others could.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Relaxing weekend of doing a bunch of stuff....

Been awhile since I've had such a busy weekend yet it was really relaxing. Friday night I went to a Wine & Cheese party at Vidya's while Matt checked out a punk show at the Funhouse with his co-worker, Simon. Vidya had a good 40-ish people show up so I got to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in a long time.

Saturday, I headed up to Shoreline to attend Amy's bridal shower. No games--just good 'ol food and fun conversation. I didn't know many people--just Erica and the Infusion ladies (Gen and Kim). I heard an interesting saying at the party: "If you put a penny in a jar for each time you have sex prior to marrying your husband, and then start taking a penny out for each time you have sex after the marriage, you'll never reach the last penny." Ha! All the married women in the room seemed to agree. Hmm...

In the evening, Matt and I got some quick yummy food at the Triple Door before walking across the street to Benaroya Hall to catch our 1st show of the symphony season, starring Barry Douglas playing Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto which was pretty freakin' damn hard. This is the same piece exhibited from the movie, Shine, and there's a reason for it. Now, to finally experience the piece in its entirety in person, it was just amazing seeing the pure stamina needed to get through all the running passages of this piece. I was in total awe. I'm so excited that Matt and I decided to subscribe to the symphony's season--it was something I did for a few years with my good friend, Fred, until he left Seattle to go to business school. I really missed it and it makes me so happy to share this experience with Matt.

After the symphony, we headed back up to Capitol Hill to toast to Sumit's 29th birthday at the Cafe Metropolitan---Happy Birthday!

Today, we met up with Sumit (another Sumit) and Shiwani to go sailing. Fortunately, the weather was absolutely gorgeous and sunny. Unfortunately, there was practically no wind. We still had fun, floating out slowly to the middle of the lake and then indulging in mimosas, strawberries, cheese, hummous and chocolate. After that, Matt watched football with Petey while I met up with the girls for another day at the spa.

I can't believe it's already October.