July 8th, 2008 - Turning 27, various independence days, Leavenworth, Singapore, and some rafting

About a month and a half ago, I turned 27. Reactions have been mixed; from "Oh dear, you're getting old" to "Boohoo, just you wait until 30 hits you". And, of course, there have been the occasional "You should probably start thinking about settling down and having kids now, eh?". Thanks for that...

Anyway, enough of me being negative about my age. Let's move on to the fun stuff. Like Norwegian Constitution / Independence Day!

Being roughly 7,000 kilometres from Norway (thanks Google Earth), the 17th of May celebrations that I was used to from my childhood were somewhat beyond reach. There was no reason to feel gloomy, as Seattle has its own Nordic neighbourhood! Ballard, which lies just across Salmon Bay from downtown Seattle, hosts its own parade every year. It's roughly the same concept as the 17th of May parade in places such as Bergen, except instead of Buekorps, there are cheerleaders. Oh, and lots of "kings" and "queens" of various societies and high schools. Check out my photos to see what it was all about.

In a sheer fit of desperation to get away from stress, Tiff and I decided (ok, Tiff and our friend Savannah decided) to drag our friends Rob and Savannah up to a cabin near Leavenworth, WA. Leavenworth is a Bavarian themed town on Highway 2 east of Steven's Pass. It's a bit of a strange place, given that you don't really expect a whole bunch of Bavarian themed signs and houses to turn up in the middle of Washington State. Highlights of our stay included: finding a dead mouse, finding a dying mouse, eating breakfast at Sandy's Waffle Haus, getting lost up an unmarked road, having to turn around when the unmarked road turned out to be covered by snow (in June), and running like scared little girls when we heard something growl in the dark near our fire pit. For photos, go to the usual place (my gallery).

Uhoh, this post is turning epic. That's what I get for not updating for two months. Between you and me, I blame the guy who wrote the interface for my blog. He really had no idea what he was doing, and probably didn't pay very good attention when being taught about effective Human-Computer Interfaces and Usability.

Oh wait, that was me.

Then what happened? Well, my brother and his girlfriend Janet decided to get married. In Singapore. Which was actually rather fantastic, as I've been looking for a good excuse to go see him in his equatorial homestead. Naturally, I brought Tiffany with me, and (obviously) my parents were present as well. We had an absolutely fantastic time, thanks in part to Janet's wonderful family, who couldn't have been more welcoming. Of course, we're now threatening to come visit again. Photos can be found here.

Oh right, there were several independence days. The American Independence Day is always embraced by a few favourite American passtimes: drinking beer, attempting to remember the words to the national anthem (or if you're a jazz singer, the right bloody notes), and blowing stuff up. I mainly enjoyed the latter. Some pretty photos from our vantage point in Gasworks Park can be found here.

I suppose I should also mention that I went rafting this past weekend. It sounded like a great idea to start with, until I realised I had to sign a great big waiver stating I wouldn't blame anyone if I happened to die in the course of the activity. When we finally got on the river it turned out to be a whole load of fun, and not anywhere near as death-defyingly scary as I had expected. Granted, we chose an easy river for beginners, so I'm not going to make any claim that rafting is always as fun and un-death-defying as our experience. I didn't take any photos, as taking a digital SLR on a rafting trip is commonly known as Really Silly Idea. Instead, you can find some "official" photographs and some taken with a disposable waterproof camera at Rob's Picasa page (photos courtesy of River Recreation and Savannah Klunder).

And that, I believe, covers the past two months of my life. Just in case you thought that was all a little too much excitement, and that I'd be doing boring stuff for a while, Tiff and I are off to Tuscany on Saturday. We'll be meeting up with my parents, and staying outside Siena for a week. Then we thought we'd go be tourists in Venice and Rome. After that, I'm off to Las Vegas for Blackhat Training, Blackhat Briefings, and Defcon 16.

Phew!

May 11th, 2008 - Kittens!

Tiff and I got kittens from the shelter yesterday. You'll find the first photos over in my gallery!

May 8th, 2008 - Photo update

It took some seriously good beer (thanks Dean) and some pizza from my favourite pizza place, but I've finally managed to get all my latest photos uploaded.

The first photos from Seattle ToorCon 2008 are available here. You'll find other (arguably better) photos from the event here (mattw) and here (divide).

I also spent some time in DC, as I mentioned in my previous post. I took some touristy photos and managed not to get arrested and/or questioned.

And finally, we went to the Seattle World Rhythm Festival a few weekends ago. Some of the photos were taken by Tiff and my friend Rob, but they were all with my fancy camera.

Speaking of which, I think it's time I bought some more gadgets for it...

In other news, I'm now wearing slightly different contact lenses from earlier in the week. The first pair wasn't really doing its job right; I went from being able to see most things without contacts, to not being able to see anything with contacts. With the new lenses, my eyes are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but at least the "oh crap, there's something in my eye!" sensation has subsided.

Coming up, Nick may or may not be going to London the week of May 18th. Stay tuned for more excitement.