Quick Financial Article

Usually I won't give financial advice, and today is no exception, but this article was so along the lines of my thoughts, that it just has to be right. LOL, okay I'm kidding but, its either a diamond, or at least a few jewels worth of great information and logic. Thanks Jan for sending this to me!

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081908

Enjoy

Another week in the SEA

What's up all? Nothing much happening up here. Its been a slow week but a great one.
But it wasn't so slow for some parts of the company. Boeing rolled out the new 777 freighter. LOL, you can tell its a freighter because there are no windows. Here's one in the production facility. They're manufactured on a moving line just like cars. Three are produced every month. The first is for Air France!!! Now if Air France is buying Boeing...then who is buying Airbus? Anyway I'm already brainwashed as a pro-Boeing junkie. Nah...but it does raise an eyebrow.

Here's a photo at the unveiling ceremony

Don't ask me any specifications. I do not know. I didn't even know they were building a 777 freighter, but it was a great reason to get out of the office. What was crazy was 30 minutes after the ceremony ended, we were chased out the bay, and back to work, and the airplane was taken right back into the factory for the final touches. It wasn't making money just looking pretty. All the pomp and screens and carpet were packed up half hour later. One of the major reasons for this airplane is that 747 freighters may be banned at a few airports in Europe due to noise restrictions. The improved 777 has excellent noise reduction features. Ironically I while we were driving back to work, a 777 for Air India was performing a touch and go at the Paine Field airport right in front of us. It must have passed overhead at about 200ft, and did the touch and go 0.5 miles away and for about 20 seconds of that whole event it just sounded like the passing drone of a semi trailer. The 787 is supposed to be even quieter.

Tom and Shelly visited with their daughter Avery. Avery is cute as hell !!! I managed to catch up with Tom for dinner, and took him to the Thaiger Room for dinner. Now when you say Thaiger Room it sounds like a Thai strip club. Riiiight. Check out the website at http://www.thaigerroom.com/home/ its some of the best food ever! Speaking of food, I found one great Trinidadian restaurant called Pam's kitchen in downtown UW. Some of the best curry I have ever eaten, here are some reviews

http://www.yelp.com/biz/pams-trinidadian-caribbean-kitchen-seattle

I'll be talking a LOT more about this place!

So last weekend it was 85 degrees so we took a hike...as usual. Its our new pass-time. This time we went to Twin Falls. It was our intention to go up Highway 2 in the north of Washington, but the road was closed for the weekend...the snow was melting and that made it prone to avalanches. So we went south, where the majority of the snow was gone.

The hike was 3 miles long and we expected it to be easy. At least that's what the book said. There were little kids on the hike, so how bad could it be. Well when you're out of shape, approaching 30 and extremely naive things catch you by surprise. It was some serious uphill trekking.

So here we are near the base of the hike. Happy, smiling, not knowing what we were in for. The river is actually 3 times bigger than what it normally is in the summer. The melting snow causes it to swell. In Washington last weekend 11 people died from drowning in rivers like this. The water is cold, so even though its 90 degrees...it feels like you're standing next to an air conditioner.

I took this primarily to show how dense the forest in the area is. Its really temperate forest, but its called a rainforest for obvious reasons. The trail is well maintained for this hike.

After 1.5 hours of trekking, and resting and wondering why we were here:

This is the 2nd of the "twin" falls.
Here is the main waterfall, plunging 75ft at many gallons a minute.
So this was one of the easy hikes in the book. Actually it is probably the 2nd easiest. But we picked it because of the prize near the end. Pris and I work on a risk/reward basis when it comes to everything. Anway the hike was stunning as usual, but I learnt that I need to get in shape haha.

Warmth?

Sorry for not posting in so long, and hello

Had a family issue and a bit of a frustrating setback so I am going to post what I should have posted sometime ago. Just really a few descriptions and of course photos. One major event happened last week with my wife's family. They are okay but very shaken from a robbery, so my wife flew back home to spend some time with them. In addition to which WATER spilled on my camera and it no longer takes pictures. It'll cost $160 to fix, and I can probably get one from ebay for that price. Yet until I get our house in Florida rented, and Priscilla starts working I'm not spending a penny. Luckily she has a nice Casio....a pink Casio, so I'll have to be really discreet.

So compliments of Amanda who, as a going away present paid for my wife and I to visit the Seattle Aquarium...here are some photos of the exhibits. Thank you Amanda






I have to admit, that's the first time I saw a seal, the aquarium must have been created a long time ago, and it must have been quite an experience, but now with mega aquariums like Atlanta's this one is still nice but not exceptional. Kids frequently camp out in the aquarium, there are shows from time to time and you can touch and play with the starfish in the exhibits. The variety is small but nevertheless its still an interesting visit. It aquarium does an excellent job of giving the history of Seattle's ocean and river ecology and there are many guides there to give interesting facts about the specimens along the way.

We also took the time to visit the Seattle art museum which has an exhibit called "The Roman's are coming", where Roman art from the Louvre was flown here. It was $10 to get in and we spent 3 hours browsing through the exhibit and only got 1/2 way done! Its was absolutely amazing, unfortunately no pictures are allowed. Get this though, the museum is about 5 stories tall, and we were on 1 floor in one wing. So to tour the whole thing takes a few days, AND the museum is free every 1st Thursday of the month, which means something to do for free.

One thing Pris and I tried to do recently was try to take a drive down the North Cascades Highway. LOL we did about 20 miles of the drive. We heard it was an amazing thing. Well needless to say, I didn't get very far, we must have only gotten to the beginning of the scenery, but the road got lonely fast and it as getting dark. I don't like lonely dark roads in the middle of nowhere. So with the pink camera I took a couple shots.

LOL one day we'll do the whole road, until them I'm going to leave the Cascades to the coyotes and bears.

And yes, this place does get more and more beautiful, but the cold never seems to go away. I was told, I have to wait until the 4th of July and take up skiing if I was going to survive 3 years or more here. I believe that I'll be buying myself some ski equipment very soon. Take it easy for now, will post again soon