Ever Forward

Well, I’m a little slow in posting, but I recently spent about a week in Bellevue, Washington.  I went to visit my brother and his family, and had hoped to get to see a little bit of what appeared on my first visit (in 2004?) to be a beautiful state.  As luck/fate/destiny/whatever-the-heck-you-call-it would have it, it was a bit rainy, but all in all a great trip.  I got to know my brother’s family a little better, and to see my two nephews, one of them for the first time!

I was blessed to experience practically none of the pitfalls of air travel – no body scans, no one grabbing a can of beer as they bailed from the plane, no one acting stupid – just a normal flight.  Yes, that went both ways.  My flight into SEA-TAC was about 30 minutes behind, due in part to a slow departure and in part to headwinds en route.  The weird thing was that I apparently didn’t understand the new food system very well.  They used to give you a menu and ask what you want.  Now you have to just know to ask for something specific.  You would think they would at least ask if you would like to buy the breakfast… I accepted a snack, thinking they were going to offer the breakfast – they never did.  When I asked, they had sold out.  Oops.  Again, everything else was smooth sailing.

I was thrilled to leave behind the hot-n-humid Southeastern Steam Bath that is Charlotte for the cooler air of Seattle-Bellevue.  My brother had suggested that I opt for mid-September, since it should still be great (read dry) weather.  Ha! Ha!  Hee! Hee! Ho! Ho!  Turns out the joke was on both of us.  Basically, the sun stopped shining in September there.  Oddly enough, even though it put a serious damper on my camera adventures, I was thrilled to see the rain.  I know that sounds strange – wanting to see rain on vacation.  But you gotta understand that, here in Charlotte, we just haven’t seen much rain this Summer.  We’re in drought conditions – again!  So, to see some rain was, honestly, fantastic!

Mount Si from the outskirts of North Bend

The opportunity to just spend time with my brother and his family was phenomenal!  Even with an infant and a nearly-two-year-old boy on their hands, my brother and his wife were just fantastic hosts!  I’ve only been around my brother’s wife a few times, so it was good to get to know her a little better.  I met my oldest nephew, Rylan, last year for the first time, and to be able to see how much he’s grown was great.  Watching him climb up the slide at the park – you know, the part you’re supposed to slide down – and successfully make it to the top was awesome!  Even though I think my brother wants to choke me, he really seemed to enjoy the music of the harmonica I gave him.  As if having two boys in the house isn’t music enough!  And I managed to charm the younger Graeme by singing an old Irish-Gaelic love song.

Me with Rylan & Graeme

My Pa made it out to visit as well, so the three of us were able to hang out together for a time.  The three of us drove out to  North Bend, where I snapped the photos of Mount Si, and to Snoqualmie Falls, where I really couldn’t get any photos, but did get to see the waterfall.  We watched a movie and headed for the house.  The night before I left, we all tried to play some darts, but my brother made up some excuse about having to help with the boys so he wouldn’t have to face me at the board.    Oh, and that comment about moving out to Seattle and mooching off my brother and his wife?  Yeah, well… I’ve got my sweetheart here in Charlotte, so I think I’ll stick around here a little while longer.

Be sure to visit the Gallery for more photos of the scenery and my nephews.

I have an MP3 Player, a cell phone and a cyclo-computer (fancy word for bicycle speedometer).  Whenever I ride my bike, I usually wind up taking all three along.  If I have a problem and need to call for help, I’ve got the cell phone.  I enjoy listening to music, and I just gotta know how far and fast I’m travelling.  But Sprint’s HTC Evo literally changes how I roll. I’ve always loved gadgets.  The more creative and useful, the better.  I even try to keep current on what’s available, although I admit that’s a real challenge in today’s rapidly changing technology frontier.  That’s important, because, for the first time in many years, I am able to use a gadget that is actually still near the frontier.  Mostly, I’ve been in the back of the wagon train.  So when I saw I had the opportunity to upgrade from my Blackberry Curve to the Evo, I jumped.

My iAudio MP3 player stores 1GB of music, which is fine.  If you want to use it for multiple purposes (not just music), you have to transfer songs and audio books back and forth.  I prefer to listen to fast-paced, upbeat music – not War and Peace – when I’m cycling.  My Blackberry was capable of a number of functions, but the screen was so small that it’s best purpose was as a phone and text messaging tool.  The cyclo-computer has wires and needs to be ‘installed’ to function properly. The HTC Evo does all of that and more.  With 8GB of data storage, I’ve probably got more music than battery power.  And the GPS capability means I don’t even need to ‘install’ a cyclo-computer to figure out how far and how fast I’m travelling on my bike.  And, of course, I can still make that call if I need help while I’m out on the road somewhere.

The Evo just saved me the purchase of a Garmin GPS running around $250-$350. And you know how those infomercials go… “And wait! There’s more!”  And there is!  It holds my photos and other files as well.  It’ll record my Sunday morning sermons – either in video or audio, depending on what I choose to do.  Facebook functionality for Android outclasses that of the Blackberry Curve by a mile.  And I may even be able to check in with my other social networking sites more often now. One of the really great things is that I can now watch college football live on Saturdays.  I haven’t been able to do that since I ditched the television back in 2008.

The size of the Evo’s screen makes a huge difference – documents, photos and websites are infinitely more readable than on a Blackberry Curve.  The 2.25×4.0-inch screen (roughly) is plenty big to see decent photos, and reading documents is pretty darned easy on my eyes, compared to other devices. Now if the cases for these things could just hold my driver’s license and credit card, I’d leave my wallet at home.  Aside from that, the Evo doesn’t seem to be the best platform for editing documents (word processing and spreadsheets, etc.), and it doesn’t seem to keep beer cold for very long.  Come to think of it, it doesn’t cook, wash dishes or clean the house, either.  But it sure does just about everything else.

The iAudio set me back somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 back when I bought it.  The cyclo-computer was probably only $40.  The Blackberry was around $100.  So a $200 upgrade replaces more than $500 worth of gadgets.  And, frankly, it’s worth more than that.

I bought some roses for my sweetheart this past weekend, and then took photos of them, which you will find… here.  I played around with the aperture priority and a tri-pod.  I still have a lot to learn, but these came out pretty decent.