Seesaws and Sunsets

My cooworker Erin and I went back to Galbraith on Sunday, this time with a map. This place has everything...flow, tech, stunts and mud.









The Diamond Knot brewery has $2 Tuesdays, so naturally I head there after work every week. It 100 yards from a point of land in Mukilteo where the ferry comes and goes. I got there at just the right time this week.

Apparently I'm a...

....fucking idiot! Or so said the passenger in a pickup as he drove by me when I was biking home on Thursday. The people here are known for being Northwest Nice, but it only took 3 days of bike commuting to get this friendly greeting. Don't worry, the Jersey Boy in me replied with the bird.

New set of slicks and the Dragon is faster than ever!

X marks the spot

Barring any major disasters, you can find me here from Nov. 7 on. I might even have to change the name of this blog.

HOME SWEET HOME

Actual address is 943 Cedar Street, Edmonds, WA 90820. Google is a few hundred feet off.

I'll have the best view in town. Google earth tries...

Galbraith....good people

This weekend was gorgeous, so I took the chance to do lots of riding before the rain settled back in. On Saturday, I rode Galbraith Mt. near Bellingham. This place is awesome and I met lots of other riders out on the trails who I could tag along with since the trail system is expansive and its very easy to get lost. I was having a blast up until I realized that my camera was no longer on my back! I went looking for it and had given it up for dead, so I just tried to enjoy the ride and not be too pissed at myself.

Sunday was perfect too and I rode Japanese Gulch again. I have a pretty good mental map of the place now and know where the good stuff is. And where the freeride stuff is. I'll take photos next time I'm there....its absurd.

Monday I got an excellent surpise. I had posted a lost ad on a local mountain biking forum and received a response from a guy who had found my camera! Its back now and I even have a few pics from Galbraith. Steve, you are the man!

Mt. Baker





What's around that corner?

Working Stiff

Today marked my second week of working a real job. I have been both excited and terrified of this point in my life for years now and I'm happy to report that its going to be OK. I'm still a bit in shock that I managed to find a company like this and managed to get hired. Electroimpact is completely lacking in any kind of training and they really throw you into the mix as soon as you walk in the door. I've compared hiring and early experiences with quite a few other engineers there and they all coincide, almost perfectly.

I've been assigned to a project team that is building a "small" 6-axis riveting machine. Small is everyone else's word. I call it large considering its yoke is about 12 feet tall and has a 5 foot throat. Picture a gigantic horseshoe. I've been assigned to design and make a prototype section of steel and carbon fiber paneling and then test it to failure. And adapt the A and B axis actuators from another machine. And design the test jig for when we initially build and test the machine in our facility before delivery. I'm making progress on all fronts and learning a ton as I go and ask questions of the more experienced guys.

The work environment is great too. There's no dress code at all. I'm given an almost scary amount of autonomy and I can come and go at will.

Here's a few pics from the neighborhood.

Dicky's house where I'm renting.



Yikes

In Rainbows

I'm listening to the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, right now...pretty damn good if you ask me. Similar to their other stuff, but somehow simpler. You can download it at the link above for whatever price you choose to pay.

walk score

I found this nifty little widget that calculates how good your neighborhood is for walking based upon how close certain necessities are. Current location.....20 out of 100. Pretty poor, but very accurate. Sidewalks are almost completely unknown in this part of town too. So are shoulders for that matter.

You can get your score here...




I'm looking to move to a more permanent location pretty soon anyway, so I've been using this to see whats around my perspective locations. Now I'm looking at neighborhoods in the low to high 80's. The one irritating thing about this is, that these neighborhoods are 3 times further to work and driving is absolutely mandatory.

slipperier than snot

Its been pretty rainy since I got to Seattle, but today looked like a good day for an after work ride. Japanese Gulch is advertised as the best place within about an hour of here and its only 10 minutes from the office. I chatted with another rider in the parking lot about where the best trails are, etc. His one gem of info was, "Watch out for the bridges...they're slipperier than snot."

Point taken.





Overall a great place. Can't wait to ride it when its really dry, but it will see plenty of action nonetheless.

Cross Country

Went something like this....

1.5 day blast from NJ to Minneapolis...




Weekend with my aunt Deb and her family near Minneapolis...got to do some riding, see the sights and catch up...




from Minneapolis to Chadron, NE via the Badlands, Black Hills (more riding) and Buffalo Gap Grasslands...





spent the night in Chadron with Russ and Julie and then on to Jesse in Colorado Springs...guess what we did when I got there...





From CO Springs, it was a relatively short drive to the other side of the Rockies and Fruita, where I rode my bike and camped out in the desert...




Here's where it got rough. I was very excited to see Utah and Nevada because I have never experience the high desert. Well I got my fill. It took me something like 18 hours to get to Lake Tahoe. The scenery was fantastic for most of the ride, but the wind in Nevada was brutal! I felt like my car was going to come to a dead stop at times.



Good thing I had Nate to greet me when I got there! Here's what I saw when I looked out the window in the morning...



On Sunday, Nate skipped out on work, so he, Jay and I did a local ride where I was both thoroughly humbled yet completely ecstatic by the end...



Monday morning entailed a quick breakfast with Nate in Truckee, then on the road again to Corvallis, OR where Sarah lives. This was another stretch that was rather grueling. Getting through the Sierras was OK, especially with views of Mt. Shasta leading me on...but Oregon seemed to go on forever...



Sarah took me out to an awesome vegetarian place in Corvallis when I got there so I could gather myself for the last day of driving...

And wadayano....I didn't take a single freakin picture on the last day. I was pretty nervous about moving into a new place and going to work the next day so I spaced...