Last weekend Jules and I went camping at Cougar Rock campground at the base of Mt. Rainier. We had planned on staying either one or two nights, but when we arrived and realized that we were basically snowed in we decided one night would be plenty! Neither of us were prepared for the possibility that we would have to unearth the fire pit from beneath a mountain of snow, so it was a pretty interesting challenge getting the fire started. With a little ingenuity we managed to get a decent but smoky fire lit. Resultantly our clothes reeked of campfire the rest of the weekend which was nauseating for me. It was still really nice to be camping with Jules, and I was able to have a relaxing night after a horribly stressful week at work. More pics here.

I finally bought an Amazon Kindle. Several factors played into this decision: I have been eyeing it ever since it was announced over 6 months ago, the price just dropped $40, I just got a raise at work, I plan on selling my eeePC soon on eBay, and it’s nearly my birthday! First book pictured above is Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (which is amazingly good, btw.)

This is the sort of device I have been dreaming of since my childhood: a portable device designed specifically for reading books on the go, with long battery life and the ability to store hundreds of books in its memory. The hype it’s been getting is totally deserved.

Pros:

• Small form factor, about the size and weight of a larger paperback (non-mass market)
• Long battery life (I’ve been reading all weekend and it’s only dropped about 1/4 of its charge, as shown in image.)
• E-ink display is nearly indistinguishable from real paper
• Buttons and switches are really chunky and analog; the device feels really solid
• Beautiful included cover that resembles a Moleskine notebook, which I also adore beyond words
• Ease of use (took me about 5 minutes to figure out how things worked)
• USB connectivity: when connected to a PC it acts like a removable hard drive and it’s a matter of drag and drop for prepared files. You can save directly to the device from a web browser (manybooks.net is a great resource.)
• Wireless connectivity to web in Seattle is excellent; books downloaded in about 3-5 seconds. The experimental web browser is a pretty cool addition to the device and allows for easy Wikipedia diving. Can turn off wireless with an analog switch when not in use in order to conserve battery life.
• Excellent conversation starter; many of my friends have been drawn into its seductive grasp within moments of picking it up.
• Expandable memory capacity through SD cards.
• Can also read txt files.

Cons:

• Available Kindle library is a bit small at present, but is growing quickly. I wanted to find Wil Wheaton’s books but they were unavailable.
• Pretty easy to accidentally hit “Next Page” buttons on left or right, but going back and forth is no big deal.
• Device tends to slip out of the carry case as you read, this is fixable with some basic modifications.
• On/off switch is on the back of the device, making it less convenient to power on/off but probably prevents accidental powering off.

If anyone is on the fence about buying one, I wholeheartedly recommend going for it. It isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, as I have demonstrated by holding off for half a year (I was hoping for the announcement of version 2, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.) But if you’re like me and have grown up reading and loving books but found that computers have pulled you away from reading, this is the device for you. It fixes that disconnect between the printed page and digital words. Buy it.

Monday was our one-year anniversary, and we had planned on going out to dinner, but Jules had caught a nasty cold so we decided to stay in. He managed to cook us a lovely dinner including wine, steak, veggies and garlic bread. We stuffed ourselves silly and played Lego Indiana Jones followed by a viewing of Die Hard With a Vengeance on Blu-ray. We both agreed that was just about the coolest way to celebrate our marriage, be it under the weather or healthy. We postponed our dinner out to last night when he was feeling a little bit better and could enjoy it. $40 got us both extremely full tummies of Japanese yummies and 2 bottles of hot sake at our favorite Japanese restaurant, Maneki, which is about 3 blocks down the street from our place. (Delicious food and amazingly low prices, highly recommended!) Happiness.

The politically-correctness of these window-washing signs is delicious enough, but the cherry on top is the fact that they haven’t swapped out the older signs declaring “Men” working above. Are they trying to make a statement claiming men are not people? (It should be noted that every time I’ve seen this crew working I’ve seen *only* men working, so it lends itself to a bit of confusion.)

Earlier this week I walked down to Jimmy John’s for lunch, hoping to get a BLT. Due to the salmonella-ridden tomatoes making loads of people sick, the best they could offer me was a BL, which didn’t sound very satisfying.

Aside from the slightly offensive nature of this ad as a whole, the added bonus of this chick talking into a Wii remote put it over the top. I know they have a speaker but I didn’t realize there was a built in microphone as well… (Found on Amazon.com)

As it turns out I may have overdone it with Wii Fit. On Saturday morning I bent down to give the kitties their food and something in my lower back went. I spent the entirety of the weekend on the couch, moving only when I had to. Jules had a migraine on Sunday so we had to miss D&D. We watched about 10 or 12 episodes of Lost and I napped awhile, and resultantly I had a horrible night of sleeplessness. When I finally got to sleep I started having Lost-inspired dreams (what a shocker) and woke up all disoriented. My day of work was quite stressful as well, so I’m trying to take it easy tonight. *sigh* I think I’ll go to bed a bit earlier than usual.

Also, here is my new haircut, as promised earlier. I’m getting used to it now, but I still can’t decide if I like it yet. It’s nice to have a change though.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture despite the metric arseload of times it has been photographed.

Jules, Nat, and I flew down to San Francisco to spend Memorial Day weekend with Jon. It was really great to see him again (I miss him terribly) and it felt like old times again. It’s too bad it’s so expensive to travel. :(

Almost every moment of the trip felt like a highlight; after all I’d never seen SF before and I was really happy to be there. We had lots of wonderful meals together, spent the nights holed up in the hotel room playing GTA4 together, and walked all over downtown. One awesome thing we did was visit Alcatraz. It was every bit as cool as I expected! I was amazed at how ridiculously tiny the cells were (barely big enough for a toilet, sink, and bedframe–though the solitary confinement cells were larger.) The audio tour was really well done and featured former inmates and employees of the prison. The best part was upstairs: the hospital. It was very Silent Hill looking. :D

We also visited the Golden Gate bridge and walked halfway across it (it was extremely windy, cold, and foggy!) and had a decent meal at the insanely busy In-N-Out Burger. We also saw the new Indy movie, which I loved. It was really well within the spirit of the previous films and I was pleased to see it still didn’t take itself too seriously.