Homemade Bread

Thursdays seem to be the worst day of the week. Do you know how I noticed? I was looking through my previous posts and noticed that I had not posted anything the last two Thursdays and I was about to not post anything today. Oh yeah, and today was a not a very good day. Some people hate Mondays. I can deal with Mondays, but Thursdays are just about the end of the week, but your not quite there yet... It teases you with its almost weekend feeling, but you know you have one more day of work and can't relax yet.

Anyway, I was tired of the breads they have at the grocery store. Although they have a very good bakery, I wanted something homemade. So, for the first time in years I baked bread. To my surprise it actually came out just like it was supposed to. There is nothing like soft, freshly baked bread.

Frozen Lake

I took this picture yesterday morning. It snowed Monday night and this is what it looked like Tuesday morning behind my apartment. The lake was almost completely frozen, but there was small area where the ducks still had some water left. It rarely snows around here, so all the roads were covered with snow and frozen over. I never thought I would get a "snow day" from work but we actually almost did. Of course, instead of going to the office we just worked from home (or at least pretended to).

Fire

With the snow and the cold weather it sure felt nice to have a fire tonight. Before the logs consumed themselves, I took some pictures and liked this one the most.


Have you ever wondered what phase of matter fire is? Well, if you have ever wondered, but never knew, here you go. Fire is considered to be plasma. To be specific, a low temperature partial plasma.

Let it Snow

When I woke up today, the ground was covered in a light snow. It was more ice by then since it had been several hours since it snowed the previous night. However, just as I got back from work, it started snowing again. About 10 minutes later I took this picture and there was already about 1/5 of an inch. It accumulated fairly quickly up to about 1 inch.

Drummer Boy

I went to downtown Bellevue to see the new movie Deja vu. As I crossed the sky bridge from the parking lot to the movie theater I heard drumming, trumpets and Christmas music. Since I only had my camera phone with me, I could only take a picture of this drummer that was closest to the bridge. It was actually rather cool, because the entire block was lined up with drummers and a couple of trumpets on both sides of the street. They also had fake snow coming from the buildings.

See this location in Live Maps.

Tow-Away Zone

Today I went to Pike's Market in downtown Seattle. I saw a lot of interesting stuff including a group of people gathered around a Tow-Away sign. I fail to see why they were all gathered around this post with the sign. Can't they read? It clearly says "No Stops".

See this location on Live Maps. See more pictures in my Picasa Album.

Over a Century of Flight

It's a bird! No, it's superman! Oh wait, it's just a plane...

Instead of joining the masses in post-Thanksgiving materialistic consumption, I payed a visit to the Museum of Flight. The museum is comparable to the Smithsonian's in in Washington, D.C. It has everything from a replica of the Wright Brother's Kitti Hawk, to the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird seen in the picture bellow. In this picture you can also see several other planes including an Extra 300, two NASA experimental planes, US and USSR war planes, some older commercial planes and a replica of the Viking Mars Lander.



Most of the planes are on display in large hangars where it's nice and warm. However, some of the cooler larger planes are on display outside where it's cold and windy. One of the planes outside includes this recently retired British Airways Concorde.

See this location on Live Maps.

Press Any Key To Continue

With no food in the fridge and too tired to buy and prepare food, I went the easy route and got pizza. I went to Pizza Schmizza located in the Redmond Town Center. The entire place has its walls decorated with fun stuff. On the roof, they have an assortment of board games (yes, board games). On the walls, they have a variety of other collections, ranging from Pez dispensers to pigs on bicycles (yes, pigs on bicycles). The wall next to the table with the drinks and napkins was covered with old mice and keyboards of the old fashioned type (yes, old).

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Nochebuena

I went to get a haircut after work today, but it happens that the barbershop is closed on Mondays. So instead I went to the grocery store next door and ended up buying a poinsettia.

At the Grocery Store

I went to the grocery store today and they had every color of peppers; green, red, orange and yellow. Unfortunately I only had my phone camera with me so the picture didn't come out that nice.

Mount Index

Rain, rain and more rain. But, in the mountains snow! Went for a drive on Highway 2 and drove to Stevens Pass. This is part of Mount Index in the Cascades. See this location in Live Maps.

Flying Over Egypt

Flying over the Great Pyramids at Gyza. In this shot, from front to back, you can see the Pyramid of Khufu, the Pyramid of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure. You can also see Queen Hetepheres' tombs in front of the Pyramid of Khufu. I was flying an AirCreation Trike Ultralight in Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

See this location in Wikimapia.

Tree Silhouette

Today's walk to work was actually pleasant. Not that I don't enjoy walking in the cold rain (like the last two weeks), but it's nice to see the sun once in a while. The weather forecast for the next five days is still rain, but at least there wasn't a cloud in site today in the morning.

Start Wars Geek

My office mate is a bit of a Star Wars fan. On Halloween he went to one of his meetings with his mask on. Hmm...

Sun!

It's been raining for over a week and half. It finally decided to stop raining today in the morning and the sun came out for a little bit. It's been cloudy for so long that I had almost forgot that it even existed! On my way to work this morning I took a few pictures, and this was really the only one I liked. Most of the trees have lost all of their leafs and things are starting to look a bit gloomy, so it was nice to see some color.

Waiting

Waiting for the stop light to turn green on my way back home from the grocery store.

Discovery Park

Today in the afternoon I went to Discovery Park, located north west of Seattle. It is the largest public park in Seattle and is located in the former location of Fort Lawton. I specifically wanted to visit the light house at the very tip of the park. I was fortunate that it decided to stop raining today, as it has been raining all week long. Well, that is, it stopped raining for most of the day. On my way out, I was caught by a heavy down poor. Fortunately, I was already in my car on the way back home.

On my way there, I could see the Olympic Mountains covered in snow. It was a great view I was hoping to take a picture of. But, once I was at the beach with a clear view, the clouds beat me and the mountains were completely covered. Nonetheless, I still had a great view of the Puget Sound. A strong wind was blowing from the south west, causing several big waves. I was also hoping to get a nice view of Seattle but it was hidden behind some cliffs.

I took several pictures and you can see the other pictures on my Picasa Web Albums page. You can also see the light house using Live Maps.

Last At The Gym

It's been a while since I've gone to the climbing gym. So instead of sitting at home watching TV, I went climbing. Vertical World closes at 10 and I was the last one there. See this location in Live Maps.

Where Did the Color Go?

It was a long day at the office, so I didn't do anything once I got back home. So, I decided to take a mundane picture and try to make it slightly more interesting.

Window Cleaning

Stepping out to get some lunch at the cafeteria, there were some guys cleaning the windows. Rappelling of a building and swinging around looks like fun.En mi camino a la cafeteria, vi que estaban limpiando las ventanas del edifio. Columpiandose del edificio parece divertido.

Cafeteria Decorations

These Fall decorations are at the entrance of the cafeteria at work.Estas decoraciones estan a la entrada de la cafeteria en el trabajo.

Mocha

The mocha I am about to enjoy while I proof read Martha's thesis. I just realized I have no idea what the coffee shop is named, but you can see its location on Live Maps.El cafe moca que estoy apunto de disfrutar mientras reviso la tesis de Martha. Me acabo de dar cuenta que no tengo la menor idea del nombre de este cafe, pero puedes ver donde esta usando Live Maps

To the Rescue!

Firefighters rushing to the rescue past my apartment. Luckily, the fire station is right next to our apartment complex.

Fall in the Rain

As I was driving back to my apartment from the post office I quickly stopped by the Microsoft campus to take a couple of pictures. This first picture is looking down 36th Ave. into the campus. See this location on Live Maps.


This second picture is of employees playing flag football in the rain at the fields on the Microsoft Campus. See this location on Live Maps.

Looking Through a Porthole

Looking through the porthole of my front door.

Time Passing By

The passage of time 1/30 of a second apart. Yes, I was bored. No, I didn't have anything better to do. It has been raining all day and it's cold outside. It took me about 6 minutes to get the timing right to capture the minutes ticking by on my oven clock. In case you were wondering, I'm not that fast on the trigger, I used multiburst. Each of these was taken from a series of 16 frames.




This one is a series of another 16 frames at 1/250 of a second. Of course, this animation is slowed down. Apparently, 1/250 is faster than the refresh rate of the digital display on the clock. Anyone know how fast the refresh rate of the display might be?

Avenue of Lights

I took a few more time laps pictures after work today. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the UV filter off the lens so it scatters the light on posts kinda weird. Well, I will experiment with this later. But for now, here is today's picture.

See this location on Live Maps.