33!

Yes, I'm 33.

Memorial Day ballgame

This weekend finally arrived! Early in April I bought 5 tickets to the Seattle Mariner's vs. Boston Red Sox, and we've been waiting for it to arrive. We even played tourist early in the day and took the boys up to the top of the space needle, something I hadn't done in 11 years of living in the Pacific Northwest...

You've seen the Mastercard commercials about the cost of a major league game, and the "priceless" line at the end of it. Well, I blew the commerical out of the water on total costs for the trip, but I can still say it was priceless. The boys sure had a good time, and Ichiro put on a show for us. If you didn't catch it on sportscenter that night, he made a spectacular catch in centerfield that saved us a couple of Boston runs.

I would guess that there were at least 40% Red Sox fans at Safeco field that night. It truly is "Red Sox Nation". They were so loud, that if you weren't paying attention, you couldn't tell which team had done something because the cheers were so loud.

It was a pitcher's duel until the 4th, when we got to see "Big papi" David Ortiz hit a home run off of Felix Hernandez. We answered in the 6th and knotted it up 1-1.

Then came the fateful 8th inning. If only we had pulled Felix before the inning started. Things got ugly quick, including walking in a run and waiting for a ball to go foul down the 3rd base line, which never went foul...it died in the grass, allowing all runners to advance. Arghhh!!!!

We did score two more runs in the bottom of the ninth, making it interesting. It was a great game, and we are looking forward to going back later this summer or in the fall.

Day shift!

Yes, from the stamp you can see it is an old picture, complete with about 7-10 lbs of "License Class weight" on it.

I picked this picture over others because I am trading the office in the picture for a regular cubicle for the next year so I can concentrate on "outage preps". What this means in english is that I'm on dayshift for a year, with a cubicle, a phone, a window, and internet radio.

I am happy to be getting off shift for a while, although I've actually jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. This new job will be very challenging, but at the same time will prove to be very rewarding as well. Becca and I are rearranging our vacation plans based on the schedule change, and I'm actually available now for stuff like being a Sunday School teacher...lets see what happens.

Badger Mountain Summit

The forecast for today said that we would hit a high of 72 °F sometime today. The boys and I planned on heading up to the summit of Badger mountain to enjoy the view of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, and on a clear day Mt. Hood down in Oregon.

So much for plans.... It was a cold, rainy, windy hike up to the summit, but the Long boys made it to the summit successfully. Gavin, Micah, and Brady hoofed it up on their own, with Gavin and Micah serving as pack mules for the trip. Ethan got to go on the chariot ride as I packed him up as practice for my Mt. Adams hike this July.

At the summit, there is a small pile of gravel that Gavin and Brady climbed on top of for a picture. Micah refused to climb the extra 2 feet so I have a picture of him crying beside the gravel pile.

The boys were quite an impressive site to all the other hikers who were up there despite 50°F weather, wind, and at times lots of rain for this part of the country. They were good troopers, although Brady tuckered out on the way down. They each hiked on their own the 2.2 mile round trip to the summit and back.

This picture was taken at the beginning of the hike, there are no picture of myself or Ethan who was providing the 30 lbs + of pack weight for my conditioning.

I'm looking forward to hiking to the summit of Mt. Adams this July, I should have lots of pictures to blog about this summer. I will plan on running to the top of Badger a few times as the weather gets warmer. It's an ideal path for anyone who is interested in a quick trip and a great view. There is an 800 ft elevation change from the trail head to the summit in 1.1 miles, so it is ideal for trail running.

The last picture I've included is of my view for most of the hike.