April 26th, 2010
Brian starting the Eagle Creek hike
Did a quick hike yesterday on Eagle Creek after being exhausted on Saturday. What a beautiful park!
I had picked out a pretty quick easy hike because I needed to get home and study, but Brian misread the direction we printed and so we did a part of a more strenuous one.
It started out following the creek and then went up and up and up until you were high in the sky hanging onto some metal supports that had been added for stability.
Brian looks over the valley
My new glasses can unfortunately cause really bad vertigo and I got dizzy to the point that we declared it too dangerous to continue, disappointingly. We turned back before the payoff, which I think was two waterfalls I haven’t seen yet. The trails were well maintained and just a little muddy.
We made up for that disappointment by continuing on to Double Mountain to eat a salad, a Buffy pizza and have a beer or two. Beautiful day all told.
Cooling off by the waterfall
Tags: Double Mountain, Eagle Creek, hikes, hiking
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April 18th, 2010
I am having trouble remembering if I saw a band or not because of all the small local places I go to and hear music so I’m going to keep myself up to date here (and a good number of the shows I went to last year are on here).
So in recent times, I saw Okkervil River at the Crystal Ballroom. It was just okay. It was fun to wander that night – it was a beautiful spring night and we took the bus downtown so that we could both drink. We started out at Clyde Common for a cocktail and dinner and wandered a few other places before ending up at the Crystal Ballroom. It was nice to check it out because I’ve wanted to see the inside for a long time. I’m really happy the McMennamins’ have preserved it and are using it as a music venue – but I wonder if they could do something about the sound, which sucked. I’m glad I got to find that out for a show I saw for free (won tickets). Despite being a big Okkervil River fan, and Brian is a bigger one than I am, neither of us could really hear what he was singing. All the music, as well as the vocals, sounded super odd and muffled. But a fun night, nonetheless.
Same problem with seeing Cyndi Lauper, but I guess I knew that going into it. She was playing at a casino after all. It was surprising to me though, how difficult it was to get a beer or a drink at the casino. Additionally, giving the number of shows this place advertises, I was also surprised at how temporary the area we saw Cyndi Lauper felt. Folding chairs with numbers masking-taped to their backs. But I saw her, and I am glad I did. I’ve liked her since I was, oh, thirteen or so, and one of my most heavy metal friends (Phil) has seen her three times and can’t say enough good things about her shows.
So there. Mostly up to date. I’m hoping to score tickets to the upcoming Norfolk and Western show, and I need to check and see if She and Him have relented and have decided to play in Portland. And summer means more wandering for me. Super excited about the number of places I have recently discovered I can easily walk to, which are going to make summer concerts even more exciting.
Tags: Crystal Ballroom, Cyndi Lauper, Music, Okkervil River
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April 5th, 2010
I’ve been off the wagon as far as working on losing weight and eating healthy for the last few weeks (pretty much since spring break). I’m still exercising a fair amount but I’ve had some, errr, indiscretions as far as eating goes.
Yesterday’s dinner was a case in point. It was very good. However, I had fresh pizza dough to use up, and did I cook a bunch of veggies to put on it? No, I made a Blue Cheese and Bacon thin crust pizza. Very, very good. Healthy? Not even a little. And yeah, the salad I had before the pizza doesn’t even count as a nod toward healthy, it was only a few greens. With extra bacon on it.
So today, my long school day, I am going to work on cleaning up my act. I’m taking my dinner with me to school rather than eat from the carts or go to a happy hour between classes. Brian and I have pledged to eat vegetarian all week, and I will start very strictly tracking what I eat again. I’ve noticed that entering everything into Lose-It on the iPhone seems to keep me pretty honest.
Tags: back in the saddle again, food, pizza
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March 25th, 2010
Taken on a walk in my neighborhood with my grandfather's SX70 Polaroid.
The Impossible project came out with usable Polaroid film!
And even better, they are releasing film for my camera (SX70) which hasn’t been around for a while. I’ve been using film for a different Polaroid model, knowing it won’t work well with my camera. I saw hacks to modify my camera, but I really didn’t want to, even though it didn’t look too difficult.
I’m so excited! I can hardly wait to get some to check out. It looks like it may be all black and white right now, but they expect color film by summer.
Very, very cool
Tags: cameras, film, pictures, polaroid, YAY!
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March 12th, 2010
I’m just reading about how Red Rover is banned in schools in the UK and in Australia. ! Really? That’s too bad. On one hand, I never really liked playing it in grade school because the less popular kids would never get called, and you could just see it on their faces how miserable they were. Or even worse, they’d get called by two popular boys who would strong arm them so that they fell hard when they came across. Bleah.
However, one of my most fun times was “having a Harrington.” When I was in high school and just after, we get a bunch of people together and drive to Harrington Beach on Lake Michigan (so you had to have either enough drivers to do this, as it was about a half hour away or the ability to cram more people in each car than you’d think was possible). It’d be at night, after dark.
Usually, we’d have someone there earlier, who’d scope out a fire ring and bury a cooler of beer and wine coolers (heh). You’d start out with a fire, maybe some smores, and most likely (surely there was one time we didn’t?) drinking. Then, around 10 or so, we’d play Red Rover on the beach. It was FUN! Lots of laughing and it veered between competitiveness and utter silliness. Once, we discovered that my friend Ann had drank too much (with all the drinking we did on the beach, we didn’t usually get to the point of drunk, just to that silly tipsiness) because when she was called, she took two steps from our line toward the enemy line and went face down in the sand. One of us pulled her off the “field” and sat with her for a while, but the game went on, with much arguing over whether we were allowed a replacement for her.
Fun times, a Harrington. Sometimes, it would devolve into skinnydipping, and now, looking back at it, I cannot believe we jumped naked into Lake Michigan late at night, it was COLD!
Anyway, I don’t know if Red Rover is banned here. I’m assuming as the US tends to be more lawsuit-happy that it is, and if so, I am going to have to make sure my nieces and nephews know how to play it. In the UK it’s called British Bulldog (aha! so maybe the rover in Red Rover refers to a dog?) and in Australia it’s called Bull Rushes.
Tags: a Harrington, British bulldog, bull rushes, drinking, games, red rover, skinny dipping
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March 9th, 2010
Dear universe,
I have a friend who is going through a bit of a rough time right now, please cut her some slack.
If there is anything I can do to make up for it, let me know.
Love,
Heather
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March 8th, 2010
1. Gary Jules’ version of Mad World
2. Rufus Wainwright’s version of Hallelujah. I like Leonard Cohen’s versions better generally, but something in this version stabbed me at some point and doesn’t let go of me. Also, thinking about how Rufus talks about Leonard Cohen also makes me choke up too.
Alright. Back to radio silence – one more week of school and then hopefully I’ll be chatty again.
Tags: Music
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February 15th, 2010
Do you know Ed Emberly? Did you grow up with him as I did? When I was a kid, I had so many of his books, and it was my secret ambition to do a drawing that incorporated all of the cool elements from his Make a World book.
So if you don’t know him, check out his books from the library or even just page through them when you are at a bookstore.
Tags: books, drawing, Ed Emberly, Hey! He has a website
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February 7th, 2010
Yeah, quiet again, I know. I’ve been sick so often this winter, you’d think I’d be used to it by now. Woke up Friday with a bit of a scratchy throat and by Saturday was full-blown sick. I don’t have time for that right now! I have a C++ midterm! With associated 300 pages of reading!!
I’m disappointed in this weekend too because it’s beautiful outside and I’d hoped to clean up the yard from winter. I need to get out there to chop back the roses soon! This week no matter what! They are completely out of control. I also want to get my container garden cleaned up so I can start planting things to eat!
I’m also finding a certain irony in matters – I started really exercising this week and made really good progress. I was really proud of myself, and oddly looking forward to working out this weekend. I’m watching what I eat and lost 4 pounds in the last two weeks, so I was really motivated to keep going. Alas, the weekend has been spent almost entirely in bed, hacking and coughing and aching. Bleah. I need to identify why I keep getting sick so that I can correct whatever issue it is!
So hopefully I will return with a more interesting, healthier post soon! Back to coding stacks and queues…
Tags: boredom, Illness
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February 3rd, 2010
Wow, an extremely rare (first in 15 years?) interview with Bill Watterson. Calvin and Hobbes helped shape me when I was growing up!
Tags: Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, comics
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