No Snivelling

Quick/funny story. Karen and I have decided to have a scheduled 'date night' once per week. Not that it limits it to only one night out per week, but moreso that it forces us to carve out a specific night each week where we say no to other demands for our time. We hadn't chosen a location yet, so I asked Karen to just look at the list of top Seattle restaurants and pick one that she always wanted to go to. I got home, and she said that she chose 'Mistral' (we were pronouncing it like Minstrel, without the 'n'... we found out later it is pronounced like Mee-strahl... ah well).

We head to the restaurant, and the alarms go off when I glance at the menu while walking in... no prices apparent.

The alarms go full volume after we've sat down. 3 Choices. Lowest priced choice is $90, without beverages. And, it sort of makes you feel guilty not going with a choice with a 'wine flight' -- is looking like a $350-$450 night, easy... my stomach starts to churn... blood pressure up... definitely not going to be able to enjoy the food.

So, at this point, we have two choices (1) stay, enjoy the food, and learn a lesson or (2) leave, laugh, and learn a lesson. We were literally, and figuratively, on two sides of the table. I ended up winning. I just couldn't stomach that. Not that I'd never do it... say, for an anniversary, or a special celebration... sure... but for a Tuesday night out, wearing jeans, coming from work, and having to be in the office at 8am the next day... no way.

We left... Karen was absolutely horrified... and I was laughing a bit uncontrollably. I mean... I could buy a functional scooter/motorcycle that would propel me around the city for years for less than $400!

After the fact, I found out that this restaurant/chef is the best location, bar none, in Seattle -- so, the price may be justified... just not by smalltown boys like myself.

Check out Mistral. Just make sure to pronounce it correctly :)

We all complain about work from time to time, right? What I want to know, though, is... are you willing to admit the extremely cool things about your employer? Working for Amazon.com has a lot of perks... 3 month sabbaticals come to mind... but one of my favorites is our 'Fishbowls'... where Authors, Bands and various others come in to talk about their goods... Today, we had a living legend, Cal Ripken (and his brother, Billy) in talking about their new book, Play Baseball the Ripken Way : The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Fundamentals.

What made it even better, was that greedy me got my grubby hands on a signed copy. Ahh... bliss.

I don't know what I expected going in. I expected them to hawk their book (got that). However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear them talking about how much they cared about baseball, and teaching how to play, and enjoy, baseball to the youth of the World. They were definitely witty, even knowing that they've told the same jokes to audiences from NYC to LA. Billy's self-deprecating style made you really think about what it must be like to live life in the shadow of a talented sibling -- we all think we understand that because of our brother/sister who's 'smarter/faster/nicer...' than us... but can you just imagine growing up with the Iron Man? That could really drive someone to the bottle :)

How do I rate it? I'll give it 8 1/2 thumbs up, out of 9 and 3/4 :) If you have kids involved with youth baseball, you really should check out the book.

Sarah celebrated a birthday... without disclosing the the actual age, let's say it is between 34 and 38 :)

Am sure that the #1 Blog topic by about 4,900% today is The Apprentice, so I'll keep it short -- think that Donald's final choice was quite simple, because at that level Kwame made the worst mistake of all, and that's in doing a terrible job of hiring -- Omarosa may be the most media-marketable of the entire cast, but I wouldn't even trust her to bring the paper in each morning...

With Martha's market power waning, I bring you...

Easter with Karen:

Aren't they just too cute?

Wonderful day in Seattle today -- 65 to 70 degrees, blue sky

What did we do? Well, I broke some productivity records -- I re-installed Win XP on my laptop, to try to solve some 'freezing up' issues I've had since I purchased it... also took dog to dog park, stopped at Office Depot to purchase a new legal folder hanger, and then reorganized my files... installed a new ceiling light in our guest bedroom... and, Karen mulched our entire garden beds... this all occupied our day until 4pm... then to Sam's Steakhouse for dinner and drinks on the deck overlooking Lake Union and the boat traffic... highlight of our day... all in all, a wonderfully geekified productive day

Good bye, Eugene

Amazon will miss you

Finished reading Moneyball today -- tale of Billy Beane's brilliance with building a statistically-generated major league ballclub -- found most of the story a bit tiring, as it was bending over backward to focus on the brilliance of the A's moves -- trouble was that noone could believe that the didn't make any mistakes; think it would have had more credibility if it covered some of their boners as well. One thing that I thought was very interesting about it was how it is applicable for non-baseball players -- issues like "doubting your own abilities", how important image is to being successful, impact of attitude, etc. In any case, despite it's weaknesses, I recommend it for anyone who enjoys watching baseball from time to time; I know that it will make baseball more interesting to me going forward. (And, as I'm typing this, the A's just gave up a home run to the Rangers... isn't that appropriate? Given that Moneyball is about the A's? :) )

Officially made the decision today to return to work next Thursday -- not sure what the final decision maker was, but ultimately I think it is the right decision for me right now. Took Zach to the Magnuson/Sand Point dog park today, and what a gorgeous day it was in the Pacific Northwest -- the Cascade and Olympic mountains were both out in full force. Zach was in and out of the water -- so much that I thought he might actually go swimming, but no, he limited it to where he could stand.



Capped the day with a Leschi to Madison Park run with KarenC -- good 35 minutes of running.

Not sure who said this one... maybe S. Wright... but is very funny...

"It's a small world... but I wouldn't want to mow it"

Eugene gave us free passes to see 'The Return' (see trailer) this evening at the Metro Cinemas in the U-District. It is a Russian film, and we really enjoyed it -- I personally prefer to not know the storyline for movies before I see them, so I'll not spill the beans. That said, it was very fun to leave the theatre with many unanswered questions (why did he return? what was in the box? did they tell anyone what happened after they returned? what was his story?). You won't be disappointed with this film -- now, пойдите, см. это (that's russian for 'go see it' -- translation was courtesy of this website)

To cap off the evening, I drove the aforementioned Eugene to the airport... I wonder if he'll return? :)