On reference from runswithcarrots. Whether these are actually all important books or if this is a statistic needing more data, I'll add another data point. I could name another 50 books that should be read by everyone that understands the English language, but alas.

Total Read from the list: 23

The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. They've come up with this list of the top 100 books, using criteria they don't explain, and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these. So, we are encouraged to:

1) Look at the list and bold those we have read.
2) Italicize those we intend to read.
3) Underline the books we LOVE
4) Reprint this list in our own blogs

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Hobbies / Reading

The professional/ambitious side of my life encountered a minor delay last week - I'm currently waitlisted for the U-Wash MBA program. If it works out I'd welcome the opportunity to make progress toward the degree. If it doesn't, well, I understand I'm young and without much in the way of managerial experience presently, so I'll try again in the future.

In the mean time, having a strictly 40hr/wk job with no on-call has left me with lots of free time during the week nights.

Since the move I've cleared out 90% of the old computer parts I had laying around, filtered thousands of old baseball/basketball cards for any of value and discarded the commons, filtered the 'assorted stuff' boxes - result - two fewer rubbermaid bins full of stuff than previously. I've also ripped all my CD's to properly ID3 tagged MP3's and sold a few that I knew I'd never listen to again. And cleared some old clothes out of the closet. I'm not done yet, but it's a necessary start.

After all that, it was time to read. Between 'A Fine Balance' (recommended by family) and 'Atlas Shrugged' (just never got around to it before, even though I knew it would resonate with me) it hasn't been light reading to say the least, but necessary.

Next up - we'll have a decent number of friends and family visting Seattle over the next couple months, so I won't have as much free time as previously, but I'm still thinking ahead to what to do with my off-work-hours time during the week.

What kinds of projects I could take up in the absence of school...

-I've thought about rebuilding an(other) old car - early Porsche 911's interest me from an engineering perspective, even if they do have a cult following that keeps prices high-ish.

-I'd like to make something. This is hard to do in a 700sqft apt.
- Herbs are growing, slowly. The harvest at the end of May was generous though. The oregano turned into a week's worth of pasta sauce, the thyme worked well on fresh fish over a few meals.
- I'd like to make a bookcase from lumber instead of buying Ikea next time. It's all right angles. Easy enough it seems.
- The other thing that interests me, along similar lines, is making speakers - not the specific drivers, as I can't produce magnets, but the pairing of drivers (which are cheap) to real wood enclosures. Buying complete real wood speakers is rather expensive.

On the non-productive diversion side I've thought about possibly finding a sporting club to be part of - possibly soccer, possibly sailing - unsure, though I think I'll probably veto both on the grounds of 'I could be doing something productive with this time'

That's all for now. Back to work here.

One lap of the Olympics

Photos will be posted to Facebook in due course.

Saturday morning - breakfast at home - then we caught the 8:45 ferry to Bainbridge. Kinda cloudy day, but warmer. Drove the boring hour or so to Port Angeles under increasingly sunny skies.

Good chocolate shake and fries from some small drive-in in Port Angeles - looking up at the mountains under a mostly clear sky.

Lake Crescent was iridescently blue - very clear water - want to spend some more time here next trip. Love the road along the edge of the lake - scenic and fun.

As we crossed the logging-lands between the lake and the rainforest there were many near-deserted twisty sections of asphalt- speed limit - 55, actual speed - occasionally higher.

Arrived at the Hoh rainforest in time for a late lunch. No rain in sight. Picnic lunch near the visitor's center - then wandered the 3ish miles of loop trails around there. Took many pictures of mossy trees and streams and such.

Realized we had lots of time left in the day - drove back up the road, then out to Rialto beach on the Pacific coast. Wandered around the driftwood and smooth-pebbled beach for an hour or so. Bright sunshine - great scenery.

Back to the campsite (just a few feet from the Hoh River). Dinner of curry-lentils and rice at the campsite. Good Australian Zinfandel. Stayed up to watch the fire die at about 9:30 - fell asleep minutes after that.

Woke up about 7 - clear and cool morning - disassembled camp and out by 8:45. Stopped at one of the inlet-beaches along the Pacific coast highway - took pics, but felt lazy and didn't walk down the cliff to the water.

Incrediby rapid drive south along the PCH. The 14 year old Merc got a good workout on the miles-long straightaways followed by sweeping foothills roads. For an old car with near 150,000 miles it can still run... fast.

Lunch at the Olympia farmer's market. Locally made Bratwust and Kielbasa - tasty! Picked up some morels and portobello and local onions for dinner.

Back home in time to pressure-wash the car and then wax it. Still sunny here in the city. Good weekend.

Weekend!

The sun finally found Seattle yesterday. It has been a while, but it looks like the rainy season finally may be ending. Allison and I made use of this event by going for a walk and while walking, out to dinner (yes, there was a birthday involved as well) to a small bistro place on top of Queen Anne hill. It was casual and nice. We did a very usual thing and split a hamburger (local beef piled with fresh local mushrooms - morel and portobello) and salad (mango/pepper). She also made a sacher torte, which we ate too much of upon returning home.

The general idea for the weekend is to go hiking/camping over in the Hoh rainforest (yes, I understand the disparity here - taking a sunny weekend to go to a rainforest) as well as along the Pacific Ocean coast, as there are many supposedly scenic trails over there. If there is scenery pictures will be taken to record the event.

The interview process for the MBA program was mixed - didn't get a sense of exactly what they were looking for - so we'll see what happens in a week or two when the decision letters are mailed out. If it works out, great, I'd like to finish the degree. If not, computer nerding seems to be a fine way to pass the time, though I may need to find a hobby, or at least another old Porsche to rebuild.

Thanks to all who called/left birthday messages!

Too much thought went into this:

After 6 months of daily use, the soap tray in the bathroom took a flying death leap. It fulfilled the design criteria of preventing mushy soap, however I expect better durability from a soap tray, especially one designed by OXO. (the suction cup split from the tray part)

http://www.organizeit.com/pooxosoapdish.asp

Normally this would not be news, however being cheap and incredibly nerdy I have not yet bought another one due to

1) Waiting on one of the Bed Bath Beyond 20% off one item coupons (since arrived)
and
2) Wondering what design criteria would make a better soap dish, and if such a thing exists.

This is where I make rather odd use of the internet.

I wonder how many daily Google searches there are for 'best soap tray design'

According to the results there are 170,000 related pages. However none seem to be related to either 1) making your own or 2) soap tray functionality and durability reviews.

It appears the weak point of suction cup designs are the cups themselves, so those are out.

Hanging from shower head devices are promising, though bulky and generally more expensive than trays.

Trays are cheap and generally indestructible, but edge-of-tub space is limited.

I know it really doesn't matter, but sometimes the engineering mind takes over.

Observations

Well, it was good to go back to NC for a week - visiting with friends and family was nice - granted everyone's dispersed pretty far and wide already - so it isn't specifically an NC thing, but good to visit with those that are there - glad to be back in Seattle though.

The modernist barn has been thoroughly updated by its new owners - was kinda shocked when I drove by - there are windows in the front of the house now, and two new decks off the back. Not sure I agree with the light tan paint color, but overall they've done a lot in a short period of time.

Things I miss about Raleigh/Charlotte:
- NeoMonde
- Red Oak
- Chopped Pork BBQ

Things I don't miss:
- Humidity
- Humidity combined with heat
- Driving as a means of traversing a city.

In any case - it's shaping up to be a busy summer - lots of visitors - lots of places to go, sights to see.

Excessively Expensive Food, Seattle Style

Random first note - it is a spectacularly beautiful day here. Sunrise on the Olympics, and helping some tourists find Pike Place market - good morning.

As our Christmas present, my parents gave Allison and me a gift certificate to the Herb Farm. One menu each night, multicourse fixed price, wine pairings, the works. Their menus are only grouped by the major fresh-ingredient seasons of the region, so when we saw salmon we felt that one was worth waiting for.

The general history of the place is that a couple inherited their parents herb farm which was on some land outside of Redmond. They started offering cooking classes and some small attempts at a restaurant in that location. After their initial restaurant burned down they sold the land (probably for a nice sum given the location), bought a smaller plot of land and small building near the Woodinville wineries, and went about building their vision for what a nice northwestern restaurant should be. The owners take the diners on a tour of the gardens, pick pieces of the herbs they're using that night, describe generally how they're used in the dishes. It's kinda an upscale hippie approach to fine dining. They reinforce the local-food philosophy and how everything is either from their gardens, the farms just down the road, or the Pacific Ocean. This includes the wine - the furthest one traveled was from Oregon. I agree with the approach.

Unlike other high end restaurants that I've experienced, the chef and sommelier give a presentation on the ingredients, techniques and wines before the dinner. It is a much more personalized experience - you get to know a bit about everyone that's cooking for you - interesting approach.

However this is a restaurant, not a cooking school. On to the food. No, not all 9 courses included salmon. Some were very simple (one prawn - tail part was butterflied with an herb butter, the head part was fried) and some were complex (3 rabbit and herb gnocchi over stewed beet slices). For the 3 salmon preparations they approached fish in a way I agree with. Cook it as little as possible with as few seasonings as possible. (Sashimi cut with chive, ceviche with a house made lemon scented oil, seared fillet with reduced pinot noir as a light sauce)

It wasn't as overwhelming as the concept may sound. Each of the 9 courses were small - just 3-4 bites at most. Still a large meal, but not any more filling than a trip to the Penguin.

Neat Idea:
- Put a fragrant herb leaf (lemon verbena) in a glass of sparkling wine. The bubbles will smell like the herb.

A bit too self-aware take on a French Laundry creation:
- carrot sorbet cannelle in a cardamom dill 'ice cream cone' with sprig of lemon balm
(the carrot sorbet was even the same color as the salmon cannelle...)

Summary Time

Given the whole house experiment over the last couple years, and the move, and business school, and well, reading more economics nerd stuff, I've found this housing-as-an-investment boom/bust rather interesting.

In the consumer media (cnn, etc) there are typically only glossy stories when companies have failed or when someone is crying about losing their house, rather than the larger trends and reasons why things are like they are.

Enter NPR.

Listen to this show: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Yes, the This American Life presentation model of making ordinary life somewhat more dramatic is still there, but it is still a good concise summary of why the US is in a recession and why it's a larger problem than just some regional banks running short of cash.

There were no informed guesses as to the short term economic future made on the program, and probably for the better. It's still early in the process. No one really knows how it will shake out.

Agreed

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html

Quieter weekend

No concerts or road trips - just a generally quiet weekend in the city - went to a new restaurant (Boom Noodle) where they have okonmiyaki and generally good and interesting noodle combinations.

Sunday was perfect weather - sunny and 60's. So we just walked around a lot. Brought bacon to the local donut shop (Top Pot) that makes good maple donuts to re-create the Maple Bacon Bar from Voodoo Donuts. Then walked to pick up groceries up at the top of Queen Anne hill - just to see the views.

In consumer news - the single speed bike experiment begins. Swapped the old Trek mtn bike for a single speed Marin. I've read a lot about the whole simplification idea and seen tons of them in the city here. Which is surprising because there are well, hills. However the initial test rides seem to show that geared right it can work and be very relaxing. You're just cruising at a fair speed - about 10mph, which is enough for city traffic. Hills don't seem to be an issue, and I took it up some pretty steep grades already. It's all about using the right tool for the job it seems, and in the city, one gear about covers it. For long rides, if I were to ever want to do that, it would be sub-optimal, but I see the bike as in city transportation now, not as a weekend workout plan.

Also - swapped both older watches in favor of a shiny new Seiko automatic (SARB029). Yes, I had to be slightly different and order a model you can't get here directly from Japan. It's kinda interesting that mail from Japan is quicker to arrive than mail from NC out here. In any case - the Seiko should be far more livable than the Poljot - automatic winding, far more precise build quality - hopefully more durable too. Looked at the Tag Heuer and Omega Seamaster again, but they're 3x or more the price of the Seiko for about the same precision. Japan wins this one.

This week - ah, it's still Bike to Work month! Time to continue that trend.

Networking

Does anyone know anyone that would want a size 48R black (with nice fabric weave) double breasted suit - free plus cost of mail?

It is in excellent shape - I'm just too small for it now. (Down 2 suit sizes in as many years)

Leave a message if interested. Thanks!

Seattle - Healthiest City in the USA

So, I finally found a good gyro within walking distance of my office (or the apartment) - fresh veggies, a no-too-runny cucumber/yogurt sauce.

However there are 1.4 miles and 450 feet of vertical elevation gain to get to it.

Seattle - regularly listed in the healthiest cities in the USA - perhaps not entirely for the diet of its residents, but that it makes them work out to get to the good food.

In other news - Lotus was in town on Wednesday - good show - some new experimental stuff (some more polished than others) as well as at least one from Germination, which is the first time I'd heard anything from that album across ah 5 concerts of theirs now.

This weekend will undoubtedly be less of an adventure than last, probably wandering the city looking for real ramen.

Weekends

Last weekend Allison and I got out of town for the first time in a while.

A fair percentage of the bulb-based flowers in the US are grown about an hour north of Seattle in the Skagit Valley. Vast fields of daffodils, and then tulips, bloom here every spring.

It looks kinda like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Skagit_Valley_1.JPG

Except we got there before the tulips bloomed, so there were a few vast fields of yellow daffodils, then lots of green soon-to-be-tulips. Pretty, but not as spectacular as the billing. (yet)

At which point we drove over to Whidbey Island and took a ferry over to the Olympic peninsula. After a quick lunch in Port Angeles we drove up to Hurricane Ridge.

Basically, it's the Alps, in North America - nice winding road, no guardrail, 5500 ft up in the mountains - huge views out over the valley to the mountains. The view from the top definitely lives up to the expectations. It is probably the most spectacular place in the US. (HW1 in Big Sur comes close - and there are restaurants there so you can sit and drink wine and enjoy the view for hours - possibly better for that reason)

Pics are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2134065&l=97ea7&id=36620541

Took a more southerly ferry back to Seattle in time for dinner. Not a bad day at all.

Sunday we were back under the clouds - time to catch up on nerdiness - played Crysis some - it's the best approximation yet of a first person action movie - not much in the way of story, but fun - big explosions, so on.

Portal on the other hand is better in my opinion - good sense of humor, smart puzzles - interesting.

This weekend - depends on the weather - lots of parks to explore.

Nick's Tip of the Week: never use the front brake on a mountain bike going down a really steep hill. It can result in a spectacular incident. Requiring band-aids.

A Day in the Life

First thing - it's been nearly a year since the wedding. The life situation for Allison and I has changed somewhat in that year - new jobs, new cities, we're still exploring and having fun.

It was overall a typical weekend day - shops and market in the morning... split a piroshky (cinnamon cardamom raisin) and the just-out-of-the-fryer tiny cinnamon donuts at the Daily Dozen... pick up some fresh veggies and fruit for the week... back home for lunch.

Walked around the Seattle Center and walked a few errands (new camping 3L pot and sporks at REI) in the afternoon... then cooked dinner.

Mushroom ravioli with a browned butter/thyme/vegetable/reggiano parmesan in a vegetable stock sauce. Side of broiled asparagus. This was one of the simpler/better dinners I've cooked lately.

Allison made a strawberry granita for dessert, and we split a bottle of Pommery champagne.

All in all - good day, good food, time to fall asleep watching a movie.

Updates

Well, my mom is recovering - the first week after surgery is pretty dicey though - lots of monitoring for brain swelling and small strokes and such - signs are pointing to a full recovery - at least she's able to get up and walk around a bit already - and she sounds normal enough - moreso than after the back surgery last year.

In other, more upbeat news - due to lack of seating here I bought a Sumo Omni - freakin huge (5' square) pillow/urban lounge bean bag thingy - it arrived yesterday and I immediately proceeded to fall asleep in it - good sign.

It's comfy, and foldable and feels durable enough. Priced cheaper than more traditional, less comfortable seating too.

Link http://www.sumolounge.com/omni.shtml

Also - for the musically inclined - Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead - still thinking it's the best album I've found in a while.