Love these pictures

We took these at the park near the Ballard locks a couple weeks ago. I don't think we could have art directed the 2 kids playing with their light sabers any better. Hope you all like them too

Smily Face

at the Mariners gave vs. San Diego tonight. She wasn't smiling about the score. Ms were down 9-1 before losing 9-7.Thanks to Jana Lipscomb for the photo.

Ate at Maltby Cafe today & got a cinnamon bun to go. Check out the size of this thing

Iris Loves Turkey

She's cramming a fistful into her mouth here, out on the deck at Safeco Field during the Mariners 4-2 win over Minnesota yesterday.

(Photo courtesy Ben Budka)

5 Things I'll Miss About Seattle

No, I'm not leaving Seattle. When we first moved here, people always asked why the move to Seattle from New York. We had free airline tickets; we can always move back to New York if things didn't work out. We were tired of being broke in New York; we could never afford to buy. Jim's brother and wife were moving to Seattle after law school (they ended up moving to Portland instead). For whatever the reasons, Jim and I moved to Seattle and we've now been here for 10+ years.

I'm not prepared to call Seattle my permanent home yet, but there are good reasons to stay.

1. Seafood. I've really come to love eating fish out here. Nothing beats wild salmon. Copper River, Yukon River, King, Chinook... Plus Dungeness crabs. I'm only sadden that I can't find lobster rolls here.

2. Music scene. I enjoy listening to music and seeing bands. There are only a handful of venues and clubs in Seattle, and it's not hard to get tickets for most shows. I'm always amazed that bands are willing to make the trek up to the Pacific Northwest because we're so far from other major cities. If a band plays Seattle, they'll also appear in Portland, OR and Vancouver, BC. Once they leave this area, the closest "big" city is San Francisco or Minneapolis, depending on which direction they're heading. Of course, this is purely selfish reasons. And yes, there are lots of great bands from Seattle and Portland that I like -- Pearl Jam, Shins, Modest Mouse, Death Cab for Cutie...

3. Seattle Mariners. I love going to games here in Seattle. We actually started going to Mariners games when they were still playing at the Kingdome. We would trek up those ramps to get to the cheap seats in the upper levels and watch A-Rod, Junion (both pre-steroid) and the Big Unit. Jim used to organize baseball outings for Amazon's customer service, with 30+ people going as a group. The new stadium is great with awesome views of the city and the Puget Sound. We hope Iris grows up to enjoy baseball as much as her parents.

4. Weather. Yes, it rains in Seattle but you get used to it. Umbrellas are mostly useless unless you just want to keep your hair dry. Just pull up your hood and keep your head down. Don't even get me started about how Seattle deals with snow. Those are dark days in the city. But when the sun is out, it really makes you appreciate the beauty of the Seattle. No humidity. No need for air conditioning, unless you're in those new glass box condos downtown. No bugs, unless you're hiking out in the woods.

5. Ballard. It's hard to believe how our neighborhood has grown and matured since we moved there in 2000. We can walk to a movie theatre, cd store, 10 coffee shops, 4 sushi restaurants, 3 music venues, 4 pizza joints, a Puerto Rican restaurant, tapas bar, and an Oaxacan restaurant within 10 minutes of our front door. It's hard to beat that.

Gordon Ramsay

I love Gordon Ramsay because he doesn't tolerate incompetence. Our days of dining out have dropped significantly since having Iris. It bothers me greatly when I have a terrible dining experience. I wish this can be an iPhone app, Gordon Ramsay Swears at You!

Then she was tired on the way home & had to sit down for a rest

Iris LOVED the fountain in the park near our house tonight

Here's another pic of Iris and Ava

18-Month checkup

Iris had her 18 month checkup last Friday & other than her dairy and other food allergies, she's doing well & everything's looking good.

Here are her latest stats and the ones from her prior checkups:

18 Months
Length 30.25" (10th-25th percentile - 1.75 inches taller than at 1 year)
Weight 22 lbs, 3 ozs. (25th)
Cranium 50 cm (95th+) she's still keeping pace on this one

1 year
Length 28.5" (25th percentile - 2 inches taller than 3 months ago - yay!)
Weight 18 lbs, 9.5 ozs. (10-25th - maybe down a little from being sick last week)
Cranium 48 cm (95th+) yep.

9 months
Length 26.5" (between 10th-25th percentile)
Weight 16 lbs, 15.5 ozs. (10-25th)
Cranium 47.5 cm (95th+)

6 months
Length 24.75" (between 10th-25th percentile)
Weight 14 lbs, 12.5 ozs. (25th-50th)
Cranium 45.25 cm (95th+)

4 months
Length 23.75" (between 25th-50th percentile)
Weight 12 lbs, 5.5 ozs. (25th)
Cranium 42.75cm (90-95th)

2 months
Length 22.25" (50th percentile)
Weight 10 lbs, 8 ozs. (25th-50th)

Birth 11/21/2007 6:51 AM
Length 19.5" (50th percentile)
Weight 6 lbs, 15.4 ozs. (25th)

More photos from our CA trip

Here are some more pics from our Memorial Day weekend trip to the Bay Area. We stayed with my brother ML, his wife Julie, their boys Will, Luke & Reed, and their new puppy Ava.

Iris meets her cousins in the Bay Area

Nice of Cousin Sam to put us in the middle of the photo. Too bad no one had a tripod so Sam could be in the shot too.

Bear sighting in Ballard

There's been reports of a black bear wandering around in Seattle. According to one report, the bear was sighted within 2 blocks of us in Ballard. Wildlife agents think the bear even swam across the Ballard Locks, from Magnolia to Ballard. The bear is still at large.

Sleepy girl

Iris & Pepere ready for Sox-Ms game to start

Iris LOVES rocking on this thing!

Introducing Molly!

Our friends Andrea & Joe had their daughter Molly Sophia last night, at 7:48 EDT. She was 2 weeks early and weighed in at 6.2 lbs and 19" long. Here's a pic of exhausted happy new mom & baby:

A warm feeling

Sign on ATM in Vancouver BC

Hello city life

Iris enjoyed the view from our hotel room in Vancouver last weekend

Idiot ringtone

There are only 2 TV shows that we watch the same night it airs -- Amazing Race and Lost. Last night Jim and I finally watched The Office and 30 Rock from last week. Both shows were very funny. You can even download the new ringtone that Jim had on the episode.

Mothers Day gift ideas

As usual the marketing geniuses at MLB have come up with an assortment of great gift ideas for all the moms in your life. No pink bats this year though

Iris is taking a late nap today

First Moose Sighting of the Season

He was hanging out in the section just above us.

Iris wasn't sure what to think but she definitely was keeping an eye on him

(photos courtesy of Kris Chick)

Iris's first Mariners game of '09. No score after 3.

Iris's new 'do

Iris got her first haircut this weekend

I'll post more photos later this week

Goodbye Freddy

Very sadly, we had our cat Fred put to sleep tonight. After a long stretch of low-level chronic kidney failure, Freddy's kidneys failed this week, starting on Monday, I'd guess.

He'd been pretty gimpy for a year or two but it seemed to get much worse this week & he was pretty immobile for the past few days, though he did somehow manage to drag himself up the stairs & jump up into our bed one last time today--that was where I found him this afternoon. When the vet checked him out today, all of his kidney readings were about 4 times higher than the upper limit for healthy readings. He has had long term kidney issues so we've been monitoring the levels for a few years but these numbers were way worse than they were just back at the end of January, which the vet said indicated kidney failure.  Plus his blood glucose level was well into the elevated range for diabetes, which we had long worried about with Freddy. Rather than subject him to a lengthy hospital stay to try and get the kidney and diabetes under control temporarily, we decided that it was time to say goodbye to our beloved Freddy.

It was a very sad day for all of us. Iris said bye-bye to Freddy too :(

Here's one of my favorite Fred photos. It was take about 4 years ago with one of my old cell phones (which is why it's so low-res) but I think it captures Fred's personality perfectly, his whole, "this is how I am & you love me or you don't, whatev!" attitude.

Goodbye Freddy. You'll be in our thoughts for a long time to come.

Waiting for lunch

Out for a walk

My girls out & enjoying a beautiful sunny evening in Ballard

I love strawberries

Staying connected

Guess Iris sees her mom and dad at the laptop often that she likes to pretend she's on the computer too. Wonder if it's too soon to start her own Facebook account?





photo courtesy of Aunt Helen's iPhone

No More P-I

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its last print edition today (it'll continue to exist in an online only format). All copies were already gone when I got to my bus stop this morning. (that's the Seattle Times on the right)

My virtual stalker wall

On my new work computer's desktop. I had a real wall of photos at my last job but haven't had time to build one here yet

Sent from my unlocked iPhone.

View from the window near my new desk

My new desk

Iris in Kyle's hat

She's wearing it backwards but I think that's OK

Jimmy's new job

Lots of people have been asking me so I thought I'd do a blog post about my new job.

I was unemployed for about 3 weeks and found myself with 2 job offers a couple weeks ago. One was for a long-term contracting gig at Microsoft doing paid search mktg, thru the same consulting firm I worked for a few years ago, before I started at WaMu. The other was doing email marketing/customer segmentation and analysis with Big Fish Games, a fairly new company that sells downloadable computer games. Their slogan is 'a new game every day' and they really do intro a new one every day of the year.

I decided to go with the full-time position on this side of the lake with the smaller company. It seemed like a better fit for me, to be in the smaller place, and hopefully be able to make much more of an impact there.

I start at Big Fish next Monday, March 9, and am pretty excited to get started. As I told Irene the other day: it's the first time since I started at Amazon on St. Patrick's Day 1997 that I'll be starting a job someplace where I don't already know someone, so I'm a little nervous about that but they all seemed pretty cool when I interviewed, so I think it'll work out well. Watch this space for further updates.

In the meantime--go download a game here! (you can play the first hour of any game for free & only have to pay anything if you decide you want to keep it & buy the full version)

OMG - The Bachelor

Ha ha!!! The rumors were true -- the Bachelor dumped the girl he proposed to at the final rose ceremony and decided he wanted another shot at the one he rejected that day. I confess I've watched a few seasons of this show, but I've given up after they kept picking guys who could be contestants on VH1's Tool Academy. Give me Rock of Love any day over The Bachelor.

I'm not sleepy

...must...keep...eating...

Iris with Irises

Our friends Kris & Ben have some irises growing by their front walk. Kris took this photo this morning:

(We're still working at getting Iris to smile on demand)

TPIR

Now with Jim counting down his days before he's working again, he's been catching up with The Price Is Right now hosted by Drew Carey. He likes to recap big showcase winners, usually mocking the dumb ones who are so lucky to win. I figure he would enjoy this website.

Iris's new hats & art appreciation day

We received a request to post a picture of Iris in her personalized Mickey Mouse ears. Here are a couple of them--one from last summer when Iris got the ears from Helen & Martin, and one from tonight:But we had a hard time getting her to sit still with her Mickey ears on

& think she may like her U of Michigan hat better:We also went to the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park on Sunday--here's Iris enjoying Richard Serra's "Wake":and admiring Alexander Calder's "Eagle" and the view beyond:

Funny clip from Independent Spirit Awards

Yes, it was funny seeing Ben Stiller's impression of Joaquin Phoenix. Much to the surprise of no one there, they already made fun of him during another award show. The funniest part is Steve Coogan's impression of Christian Bale dressed as Batman, complete with profanity (watch with caution). Steven Coogan is a funny British actor who starred in 24 Hour Party People, I'm Alan Partridge and other British TV shows.

Guess who got new overalls?

Iris likes "Lump"

Daddy likes this song too. Looks like she's feeling a little better :)


Apologies for the shaky camera work--daddy was dancing too.

Laid Off & Iris has a cold

Yesterday was my last day at WaMu so I'm home today with Iris. She's had a cold this week so we decided to keep her home today in the hopes that she'll sleep more & feel better quicker.

She's been developing very quickly lately and can now push herself up from the floor into a standing position without needing to grab ahold of any furniture. She also knows the hand signs for please, eat and more. I taught her the drinky-drinky hand motion for when she wants a drink but not sure if its's the approved hand sign for babies.

If you don't know what the drinky-drinky move is, John Candy does it at the beginning of this Planes Trains & Automobiles clip:

Ways to fill up your Tivo

Sunday kicks off TCM's 31 Days of Oscars. Here's your chance to catch up with every Oscar-winning movie you've been meaning to watch. Here's a link to the entire schedule. This isn't a list of Best Movie, simply any movie that won an Oscar for an actor/acctress, director, etc.

Guy in town

Sometimes when watching the Food Network, I catch segments of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives." I love watching the host, Guy Fiori, wax poetic, about a chili dog, chipped beef, a greasy burger, etc. He's in Seattle shooting segments but I only heard of one place he's been at, Georgia's Greek Deli (which is up a few blocks from our friends, Pat and Robin). Wonder if he's ever been to Beth's, the home of the 12-egg omelet?

Civic duty

A few weeks ago, much to our surprise, Jim and I received ballots in the mail. What/who are voting for now? Much to our disgust, it's a special election for the Director of Elections. A ballot for a single item?! The estimated cost for this mail-only ballot is $3 million. Now I've found out more about the candidates and the only person who hasn't been fired, reprimanded, or charged with crime is a 61-year-old former bank operations manager. Jim and I simply recylced our ballot, and hang our head low in shame that we're not bothering to vote. Read more in the Seattle PI and here.

Amazing Race - Season 14

Next month starts the 14th installment of the Amazing Race. The latest racers were just announced. I love it that Mike White is racing with his 68-year-old dad. Yes, the Mike White who's written Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, School of Rock, Nacho Libre (to name just a few). The last celebrity racers were Robbie Fulk's son and father-in-law. I doubt the show will be around long enough for Jim or I to do with Iris.

Iris in the park

Iris is beginning to walk. She still prefers to crawl because she can get around faster that way.