Some of the cool things I've been doing.

Here are some of the fun things I've done up here in the "Pacific" Northwest.

After seeing the Mariners play (yes, yes, weeks ago), Kathy and I drove down to her place, then the next day we drove down near Portland, where her sister Susan lives. Another sister, Becky, drove up from Salem, Oregon to meet us. So it was a fun family get-together.

Here's Becky, with her new little baby Milo.

And a close-up of Milo.

It happened to be Susan's son Sheldon's birthday, so we had cake and sang happy birthday, which apparently was the third time for him for this particular birthday ... the novelty really seemed to have worn off for him, but I think it was still pretty fun. Sheldon bought himself a dune buggy for his birthday with money he had saved up himself doing chores. The money that came in for his birthday apparently put him over the top, and his dad let him buy it. A true testament to this kid's staying power. It's a really cool dune buggy.

Susan is not prominently featured in these photos, since she told me there were to be no photos taken of her until after the baby came. Fair enough.

Other things that happened that weekend include:

hanging out at Lake Sylvia with Kathy, Brett, and their family,

taking on Cache in a kungfu match - and losing badly,

picking blueberries (HEAVEN!!).

Cache picked blueberries, too, but mainly took advantage of the 'sampling' clause. You've got to know if the quality is right.

It was a week or two later that a group of us from work took a road trip down to Cannon Beach in Oregon. Beautiful spot.

This is me, Tim, and Joe. Joe sometimes plays the 'New York Guy' on radio prank calls - he pretended to be a guy building an illegal deck in his back yard a few weeks back ... and I thought those things were real. Joe's a retired NYC cop, and a very funny and nice guy. Tim's become a good friend, as well. The people I work with are all top notch. I'm very fortunate in that regard.

Another shot of the rocks at Cannon Beach.

A good friend of mine from undergrad named Cindy-Lou Who used to live up here in Seattle, and she has definitely been a boon to me by introducing me to other fun friends up here. One of those, Kristina, met up with me to give me a bit of a tour of the area one night early on. One of the places we stopped by had this view:

... which really is great, if you enlarge it and lighten it up a bit. I'll have to post another shot. This is from Kerry Park, and apparently is the view used as "the view from Frasier's apartment" in the sitcom by that name. Kristina also invited me along on this great progressive-dinner-by-bike a few weeks ago. Lots of fun, and there are photos on facebook, but I left my camera at home, unfortunately.

This is a shot of Elliot Bay on the Puget Sound, with the Olympic Peninsula in the background. This shot was taken just down the street from my office building, which leads me to this next shot,

which is a view of Elliot Bay from my office building. It's a nice place to work.

Finally, I thought I'd include a random shot of Seattle. This is from a plaza near Pioneer Square. There are a lot of cool little niches here and there in this city.

Ichiroll

This is Ichiro. He plays left field for the Seattle Mariners.


This is an Ichiroll ... you can buy them at the Seattle Mariners' Stadium.


This is me enjoying an Ichiroll while Ichiro is up to bat at the Seattle Mariners' Stadium.

This is Cousin Kathy and me kicking back at the game. Her team won.

LA

Okay, I'm going to try to keep up on this thing.

Last weekend I took a last-minute flight down to LA, where my sister Jules lives. My sister-in-law Holly was visiting her parents down there with little Katie, as well, and my parents and aunt and little sister all drove down to catch the little tyke and Jules and Holly all in one short trip ... so I decided to get in on the party.

The main highlight, and the one where I clipped the best photos, was Katie's first SoCal beach excursion. I'd say first beach excursion, except that technically, England does have 'beaches', and she has been to one of those. Apparently there was no wave jumping or wading involved there, though, so this was her first full beach experience. She loved it, and here are some photos to prove it.






Here are some more photos from the beach.

Mom, Aunt Colleen, and Allison. MY BABY SISTER'S PREGNANT!!!!

Holly, Mom and Aunt Colleen.

That's me out there in the surf. I got pounded a couple of times trying to body surf. Sweet fun!!


For dinner Saturday night, we went to El Cholo near my sister's house. It's the location where Mom & Dad went on a few dates before they were married, and where they used to take the first few kids out for dinner before they moved from LA. Dad even took Mom and Aunt Colleen there once, as a thank-you for something nice they had done for him. A little bit of family history wrapped up in those sweet-corn tamales.

Mom & Dad in the drastically-redone interior of El Cholo. They said it was nothing like what it used to be. Success, I suppose.

Pleased customers after a big meal. I guess I'm a slow eater sometimes.

Well, that was Saturday. Sunday we went to church with Holly's family ... love those Raddons! ... and followed Katie around and around and around and around ... Mom, Dad, Aunt Colleen and Allison took off back home after that, and Jules and I killed time around Pasadena until Katie woke up from her nap, and then we went and saw Holly, Katie, and Mum, one of Katie's namesakes and one of the nicest people anywhere ... always fun to see Mum. Then it was a tough parting from Katie, and off to Jules' to pack and then to LAX. Oh, funny story about the flight back. I checked in online and decided to sign up for the mileage program with United, just because ... why not. When I got to the gate in San Francisco for the second leg, they called me up to the counter and told me that since I was a Mileage Plus member, they had bumped me up to first class! Fantastic! I can't wait to see what happens next time I fly, when I've been a member for more than three hours!

Trip to Monterey

I was in Stockton, CA for a couple of weeks, and from what people told me going in, the best thing about Stockton is the fact that you're really close to other places. Doesn't say much about Stockton, does it. I thought the all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet at Rubie's was good. Other than that, though, I pretty well agree with the assessment.

With that in mind, a friend and I took the only weekend I was there and sped West. He was staying in Stockton for a while, and had all the options open and lots of weekends to use them up, so he left the choice up to me. I chose Monterey.

Monterey is one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, if you ask me. I was fortunate enough to have a marine bio professor allow me to go along on a few Spring-term trips with him, and have always looked for a chance to go back.

We were lucky enough to catch a Stanford grad student pulling into the Hopkins Marine Station, where we spent our class and lab time in Monterey. She let us follow her in, and it was great to be back there. The photo above is a view of the beach outside the lab building and dive lockers, looking toward the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Cannery Row. There are a lot of good memories from there. One time we were sitting around on the beach after dark, and I sprinted over toward the dive lockers and woke a sleeping elephant seal that we'd not noticed. I was pretty startled when it reared up and bellowed just as I was a couple of feet away. Those things are huge.


This is Cannery Row, with Doc Ricketts' lab in the foreground. It's not the best photo of Cannery Row, but if you want the tourist version, you can Google that. It is, though, one of the coolest spots on Cannery Row, since few people understand what it is. This is where Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck's friend, had his Pacific Supply Company, where he'd process all the sea critters he caught and ship them off to schools back east for dissection. No markers, nothing to show it off, it just sits there as tourists pass by on their way to other things. If you've never read Cannery Row or Tortilla Flat or Log from the Sea of Cortez, I'd recommend any of them.

Here's a view of the Pacific from China Point on the 17 mile drive, between Pacific Grove and Carmel. This is one of the most scenic spots in the Monterey area. And when the tide's out ... spectacular. So many critters. The Monterey Bay has one of the deepest canyons as close to the shore as it is, and the deep-water upwellings bring huge amounts of nutrients, resulting in an incredible biodiversity and biomass in this area. We had so much fun tidepooling in these areas.


This is the famous "Lone Cypress" on the 17 mile drive, just up the coast from the Pebble Beach golf course. What struck me the most about this spot was the amazing stretch of kelp floating on the surface out there in the ocean. It stretched like this for hundreds of feet. Those kelp beds are such amazing hotbeds of biota, it's almost boggling to think of the numbers of critters out there. If you can't tell, I really loved doing marine bio in Monterey.

From the sublime to the truly reediculous. We headed up the coast from Monterey to Santa Cruz and found the Boardwalk. It was the end of the season, one of the last good weekends, and the place was wall-to-wall Whisky-Tango. Quite the cultural experience. We tried our best to fit in. I try to eat right, but there was a place selling deep-fried Twinkies, and the absurdity of the concept of eating something so artificial, deep-fried, overwhelmed me. It sucked ... at least until I loaded on the chocolate sauce. It was a decent base for eating chocolate sauce.

And there you have my favorite part about Stockton, California ... not too far from Monterey.

My New Car

It only set me back 2.4 ... million. But think of it in Euros ... a bargain at only 1.1 million.

Canandaigua Family Vacation Part 2

This is out of hand ... It's over a month late ... But what can I do? Here are some more photos from our awesome trip upstate.

From the National Museum of Play - yes, there is such a thing.

Stephen, Jonny and Me in a room that makes Jonny and Stevie tall and me realllll small.

The boys sit back and relax after a tough time piling all of the "sand" from the sandbox into one corner. Ooooookay.

Merrill and Julia Suzanne spend some quality time with Mr. Troll.


Annabelle in action mode at the Bernstein Bear's Family Restaurant.


Some pictures from our Niagara Falls expedition:

Niagara, when James and the boys met up with us at the end of their cross-country trek.


Matt, Tom and Miles become Sticky Cousins!

Gearing up for the Maid o' the Mist ride.

Mike, Rachel, and little Sean-Sean.

The awesome HorseShoe Falls.

Mom with the American side of the falls in the background. You might be surprised, but the ponchos weren't only for looks!

Matt and Tom soaked.


Finally, some shots from the Hill Cumorah Pagent.

Some of the Stripling Warriors' understudies.

Mormon and Matt.

King Noah and some of the guys.

And that's the extent of it. We had a good time.

Lake Canandaigua and Palmyra - Family Vacation Part 1

Well, work's been pretty busy, and it doesn't promise to let up anytime soon, but I have to get these photos out so the family and friends can see them. All of the East-Coaster Liechtys and Mike & Rachel (sorry, Illinois is not "East") got together in upstate New York for a little fun and Pagentry. Here are some photos.


First, a series of photos from the lake campground where we stayed for the week:

Dad, Sammy and Annabelle.

Joe and Julia (and Mike flexing his calf).

Matt with a flagpole growing out of the top of his head.

Tour of the Sheriff's boat at the park, with Joe in superhero uniform (of some kind).


SQUIRTGUNS!!!!!


Matt prior to the water balloon fight ... this was his second set of dry clothes for the day.

Next was a trip to the Joseph Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove (or "Secret Grave," as Matt slipped once and said).

At the Joseph Smith Farm.


In the Joseph Smith frame home.


The lineup in the Joseph Smith frame home.