Brian Ulmer’s Web Site

Seattle trip and more

Ok, I’ve really been slacking on the updates. Here’s an attempt at summarizing the last couple weeks…

On Friday June 12th, I went to see the Gipsy Kings at Wolf Trap. It’s become and annual tradition and was lots of fun as usual. Picnic dinner (including mini chocolate doughnuts), wine, and no rain.

The next day, AirTran delivered me to Seattle for a week of adventure. Fueled by pretzels and 1/3 of a can of diet coke, I headed off to my brother’s studio apartment where we would be living, along with our parents for a couple days. It actually worked out pretty well. They slept on an air mattress in the kitchen area, I slept on an air mattress in the middle of the living area, and my brother had his bed off to the side.

On Sunday, we visited Jared’s church, watched his softball team whip up on the competition, and hung out around town. Here are the touristy pictures.

On Monday, we drove and ferried up to the San Juan Islands. We hiked around a lake in Moran State Park and drove up to the top of Mount Constitution to check out the view. On Monday night, we stayed in a cabin on the water on Orcas Island and did some grilling and camp fire smore making. The next day, we ferried over to San Juan Island, visited Lime Kiln State Park, drove around a bit more, and then headed back to Seattle. Here are the San Juan Islands pictures.

Wednesday, my parents headed out. We rested up and went to a Sounders vs. DC United soccer game in the evening with an old friend of ours who lives in Seattle now. On Thursday, we hiked up Mount Si which is an 8 mile round trip that goes from 700′ to about 4100′ elevation. It was pretty much just up the whole way. At the top is a moderately sized rock scramble called The Haystack, which we enjoyed climbing up and afforded a nice 360 view. Here are the Mount Si pictures.

On Friday, it ended up raining a decent amount and we drove north to do the Boeing Factory tour. No pictures allowed on the tour unfortunately but it was very interesting to see how they build giant planes. The skin of the plane is a lot thinner than you’d probably imagine.

Saturday was the Fremont Fair and Solstice Parade. 100′s of crazy hippies and their floats put on a nice performance. There was fair food, crafts, music, and public nudity, including naked cyclists. What more could you ask for. Following the fair, we did some rooftop grilling at a friend’s building nearby, then headed back sunburnt to find another friend’s car for a ride back to ours, a mile or two up a giant hill. Once we located the car, it became apparent that its keys had disappeared. After some panicked searching, a call to AAA, and some more reasoned searching, the keys were located hanging on a fire hydrant a block away and we were saved. Here are the Fremont pictures.

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of waking up at 5 AM for my 7 AM flight back to DC. I like to fly out of Reagan National but it hard to get nonstop cross-country flights. At least there was a Moe’s Southwest Grill in the Atlanta airport to keep me fed and entertained. I didn’t realize how truly devestating it is to discover that the queso you ordered was overlooked until I got to my gate with little time to spare and realized I was without my liquid cheese. Not enough time to rectify the situation and chips and salsa are just not the same. I’m getting my 99 cents back, or better yet, double queso next time I’m in Atlanta!

After returning to DC, it’s been mostly working, biking, and some apartment projects. Last weekend included a cookout and a dinner with friends and some hiking on the Billy Goat Trail in Great Falls Park.  This weekend is kayaking on the Potomac for 4th of July fireworks!

Two videos from Fremont:

Power outage work day

An end-of-the-world class thunderstorm rolled through Arlington around 6 AM this morning. It was really quite impressive. A transformer that serves my office building did not survive the onslaught so I’m working from home today until the power returns. Then I have to go in and help make sure everything gets back up and running properly. Exciting times!

Here’s a visual approximation:

As seen on a street in my neighborhood…

An excellent hill parking job.

[caption id="attachment_611" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Hokie pride!"][/caption]

National Doughnut Day

Don’t forget to celebrate National Doughnut Day today! Krispy Kreme is giving away one free doughnut and Dunkin Donuts is giving away a free donut with purchase of drink. I also made my own donut on their web site. It looks so real…

Chincoteague Camping

This past weekend, I took Friday off and headed to Chincoteague for a three-day camping adventure. After battling midday Friday traffic for a few hours, we pulled into our campground and found our site. As we began to unload the car, a black storm cloud crept over the trees in the distance. We set up tents in record time and dove into the largest (and leakiest) one to wait out the rain. Two hours later, we emerged and finally got down to the business of getting a campfire going.

On Saturday, we woke to a flock of seagulls devouring any food that was left outside overnight. A full bag of bagels disappeared without a trace. After breakfast, we headed off to the beach for the afternoon. The water was quite chilly so I opted out of swimming but we played some volleyball and relaxed. The weather was perfect, not too cloudy, probably low 80′s with a nice breeze. After the beach, we went to look for the famous ponies and were successful. A swarm of mosquitoes followed me back to the car and devoured me. I’ve been feeling under the weather since Sunday and I fear it might be malaria. Or I suppose it could be bird flu, given all the fowl that we shared the island with. Saturday concluded with more campfire and more rain just after we went to bed. My tent managed to stay dry all weekend so I was happy.

On Sunday morning, we hung out for a little and ate cookies for breakfast, cleaned up the campsite, I chased some seagulls around, then we said goodbye to the Eastern Shore and departed for home. All in all, a nice weekend. The same group of friends is doing a weekend hiking and canoeing trip in July which is going to be a blast.

Follow this link to see all my photos from the weekend…