Rich finds some great places to visit in BC. I hear King Pacific Lodge is nice too. And Eaglenook might be fun.
Tag Archive for Northwest
Best of Yakima
OK I have no idea if this is the best of Yakima but it is what I found in 4 days there:
- Where to stay — we stayed in the Hojo’s, it was merely adequate. Locals tell me that the Red Lion and the new Marriott Courtyard are nicer
- Dining — Zesta Cucina was great! The find of the trip. Great atmosphere, and they handled our huge group (45+) well. We also dined at the Olive Garden — it was yet another Olive Garden — and at Tequila’s — standard chain Mexican but in converted railroad cars downtown so kind of fun. Both the Garden and Tequila’s also did a good job with our mob. In all cases, do the restaurant a favor — have one person pay and figure out how to break it up later.
- Lunch — El Grullense (near the Sundome) is a fine little taqueria. And Miner’s (also near the dome) is classic burger drive-in fare.
- Recreation — well of course if you are there for a high school state tournament or a state fair then you will spend a lot of time at the Sundome. Note that they have some fairly restrictive rules about fan behaviour for high school events so you might want to dig into it before you go – signs, bodypainting, too much standing, boomboxes — all prohibited. As is outside food of any sort.
- Other recreation — the riverwalk along the Naches and Yakima rivers is a pleasant walk. And you can get into the Cascades to the west in a half hour for hiking etc. The Naches Ranger Station on Route 12 is a great place to stop and get current condition info, maps, etc. Based on my experience – bring snowshoes if you are heading out in early march, because there aren’t many trails clear yet.
A lifetime of Starbuck's Coffee
I drink coffee. I am addicted to crosswords. Hence the perfect contest for me — win a cup of coffee a day for 50 years. I finished today’s first puzzle — not very hard — the equivalent of a monday or maybe tuesday NY Times puzzle — I wonder if they are going to ramp up.
Idaho backcountry yurts
Man these look great — look at the scenery around the fishhook and bench sites — i am jealous.
Seattle Weekly Restaurant guide for iPod
You can download their guide here. Nice. Hope we get out to dinner sometime again, life has prevented us from getting out for months.
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Tags: Northwest
Washington Ski Conditions
Ski Conditions for the northwest at skiwashington.com — thanks rich
Duck and Cover not helpful
Great pointer on marginal revolution to a discussion of earthquake survival — basically asserting that the duck and cover strategy is a sure way to get killed, instead you want to huddle next to massive objects. Makes a lot of sense.
Goats — nature’s herbicide
Truly amazing to see the pace at which 260 goats can clear an area of blackberry bushes.
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Tags: Northwest
Outdoors recos
- Martin on camping close to Seattle
- Top 10 waterproof tech items. Really for divers but in our wet conditions, some good things in here to keep cameras and ipods dry
- Tips for ultralight backpacking. Now if someone would just come up with ultralight water…
- Over the next couple years need to look at boats for daytrips around lopez island — corsairmarine, southpawboats, parkerboats, customweld all seem worth looking at. Want zero maintenance and high durability.
Jobster site launch
The Jobster team launched their revised site this week…now the service is usable by job seekers…way to go guys! (Ignition is an investor).
Ignition Blog roundup
First a non-Ignition blog, but one that ought to be in all our aggregators:
- Mini Microsoft. A constant fountain of great stuff. Don’t just read the posts, dip into the comments too. Important to read not because of any MSFT obsession or any joy taken in MSFT gossip, but because we face Microsoft daily on the recruiting front and it is smart to know what people are talking about there.
Around ignition blogs, the jobster guys clearly are outposting everyone else:
- Jason with a job for someone affected by Katrina. The jobster guys have done a lot for Katrina victims, this is just one example. Here Phil talks about all the things they are doing.
- Phil on the Jobster technology stack. I wonder how decisions at other companies differ.
- Phil on hiring innovators and nurturing innovation.
- Phil on finding relevant blogs. He is right here — it is easy to find posts today but hard to find blogs on particular topics.
- Rich on tracking ferries via GPS. Love the ferry system.
Ignition blog roundup 9/11
- Adrian is trying out EDGE for wireless connections. Sounds good. I am tired of futzing around with crappy public wifi access points. Couple it with a box like this and you can run your own hotspot where you need it.
- Brad in a thread on .net and vcs from this summer. Like he says, we’re agnostic. We can’t afford to be technology bigots.
- Martin points out that biodiesel is now cheaper here than regular diesel. Exciting times for energy investors.
- I’m a sucker for optical illusions — nice one from phil.
- Rich is in love with a9 maps and misquotes me. I think what I was really trying to say is Google is finally figuring out how to be sticky. They are providing a platform now that hundreds of apps are using. As they expand and get thousands of apps to use their underlying service, well that will be quite an asset.
- People inside Microsoft took note of the aggressive recruiting that our friends at Judy’s Book and Mpire co-sponsored. Nice work guys!
- Phil keeps cranking on his blackberry app — find jobs on your phone, and his app will be featured in an upcoming bberry hacks book. Nice.
5 Minute Jobbing in Seattle
Wow I love this — Get a job in 5 minutes at a Seattle venture-backed startup — what a cool idea. Ignition is an investor in 2 of the companies, and all three seem to have great things going on. I’m very interested to see how this event works out…
Catching up with Martin
Catching up with all of Martin’s postings:
- Responding to the negative energy balance FUD around biodiesel — good stuff
- Seattle leading way to embrace Kyoto — great news. I think we’re way behind in fully embracing eco-friendly industrial policies in this country. Put it this way — if you want to defend your economy and markets from high growth, emerging producers — raising the eco-bar way high is probably a good thing to do. Emerging producers may be able to produce basic high volume goods cheaply, but it will take them a while to catch up with highly-engineered green goods and services.
- Martin discovers process modelling software — I have no real use for these tools but they are incredibly fun to play with.
- Current supply and demand numbers — fuel prices are only going one way.
- From Bits to Barrels — Martin’s contribution to SNS, journaling his transformation into the John D. Rockefeller of the next century
. Hey martin, go read “Titan”.
Seattle Sombrero — essential rain gear
A bit of rain today which made my hike a little damp. My one essential piece of raingear is the Seattle Sombrero — I picked up at REI. This hat is great for Northwest weather — a wide-enough brim to keep the drizzly rain out here off of almost my entire trunk. Won’t go out without it.
Hiking on Lopez Island
Just back from Lopez, great time. Some tips on hiking up there:
Stop by the chamber of commerce office in the village. Get their list of hikes and current directions — it is quite accurate. Many hikes on the island are on DNR land, accessible only by easement over private property — it can be a little tricky. The Chamber of Commerce directions are great.
The best hikes in my view:
- Shark reef. Short. But nice coastline and sealions. Very busy.
- Otis Perkins Park. Go at low tide. A long expanse of beach. Probably safe to ignore private property signs.
- Chadwick hill. Definitely need those instructions, accessing the trail head is tricky. No one goes here — Trail is rough, rough. But more vertical than most the trails on the island
- Iceberg point. Again you need those instructions, tricky to find the trail. Not strenuous but a gorgeous piece of property, sealions, great views, some vertical gain. Lots of sun. This is the best on the island.
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Tags: Northwest
Mt Si
Rattlesnake Ledge
Made it up on one of our favorite hikes today, Rattlesnake Ledge. Gorgeous day and gorgeous spot. 2 miles and 1200 feet up. A lot of maintenance on the trail since last time I went, it was in great shape.
Tiger Mountain 6-19
Hit Tiger Mountain this morning for a hike. It is a nice area and incredibly convenient — maybe too convenient as it was quite crowded particularly at lower elevations, and the trails are pretty beat. But a gorgeous morning so I can’t complain.
Here’s my good morning video (3Meg), about 500 feet up from the trail head. And a little later on, on the backside of Tiger Mountain, walking and thinking about doughnuts (7Meg), the logical conclusion of any hike.
Things to do this weekend
In case you find yourself in Seattle with time on your hands:
- A friend recommends the following hikes: Lake Serene near Index off Highway 2, and Mount Pilchuck off the Mountain Loop Highway.
- He also recommends Attrition.WS for trail info.
- In an entirely different direction, Raymond recommends the Seattle International Juggling Festival. I bet this would be a hoot.
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Tags: Northwest