Monday, April 24, 2006

Clever Title to Come


Sitting on a nice, warm car with the sun at your back, munching on some Red Hot Cheetos, with a commanding view up the street, waiting for your friends to come by.

Car is Found

My wife's car, which was stolen from in front of our house ten days ago, was found yesterday (Sunday) morning. Tuuli saw the car as she was driving to the Petco pet store to do some shopping. It was neatly parked on the street in front of a non-descript white house, about ten blocks north of our own house, and just one block away from the street we drive every morning when taking the kids to school.

There was absolutely no damage. The car was locked and there was still some gas in the tank. The interior had been ransacked but nothing was missing. The license plates were still on the car, the tab still on the license plate and the ignition had not been punched. According to my wife, the vehicle had been driven about 200 miles, so we're wondering how long it had actually been at that location.

Needless to say, we're very grateful. We got the car home, cleaned it out real good and installed one of those Club steering wheel bars, as obviously someone out there has a key. Would it have been nice if the police had found it earlier or if they had taken more of an interest in the details of the recovery? Sure, but evidently stolen cars are a low priority for them. So low, in fact, that they basically take the approach that the car will turn up on its own parked sideways on somebody's planting strip, or be involved in a crash or be pulled over for a traffic infraction. Or the owners might recover it themselves, less than a mile from where it was stolen. In any event, the car usually finds the police--the police dont' find the car, and they can still brag that they have a near-90% recovery rate.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Vancouver BC



Spent Easter weekend up in Vancouver, where I think the snow level was somewhere around the 25th floor of most downtown hotels. Since we were staying on the third floor of an apartment/hotel in the West End, all we got was cold rain, much of which was coming at us sideways.

But that's totally typical for this city in mid-April. It's pretty much typical in mid-June, as well, though the snow level is probably somewhat higher. I don't know if I've ever been to Vancouver when it wasn't windy and wet, but that's largely because I usually go in the low season when hotels are cheap and you're only competing with the locals for a table at the latest Indian or Greek restaurant (I recommend the Olympia on Denman).

Even at this time of year, however, you can find plenty of tourists at the border crossings, which are almost bad enough to make the whole idea of traveling to Canada unpalatable. The trip up from Seattle was bad enough. Because of Tuuli's work, we couldn't leave until 3:30. That's the Friday afternoon of Easter Weekend. It was not good. It took us nearly two hours just to get up to Marysville. There was stop and go traffic in Bellingham. We waited at the border for over an hour. We finally limped into Vancouver at about 8:45--over five hours after we left. Mapquest said it should take two hours and 38 minutes. The wait at the border coming back was even worse: an hour and twenty minutes.

We stayed in a small apartment building (the Oceanside) which had been converted to a hotel a few years ago. It was right across from the famous Sylvia Hotel, so was convenient to the water and Stanley Park. Our hotel selections were limited because we had the dog with us, but this place turned out just fine. It was quiet, adjacent to Denman Street, which was great for eating and people-watching and near Stanley Park, with it's Seawall Walk and 22 miles of hiking trails. The hotel was very modest, with simple but clean rooms. There was no pool. Parking, though free, was very limited and there is virtually no street parking in this area. The four-story hotel has no view rooms, so during the worst rain squalls when were stuck in the room, we amused ourselves with the constant parade of scavengers going through the dozens of dumpsters immediate vicinity. There was a notice in the lobby that all rooms had free wireless Internet access. It would have been nice if they had made mention of that on their website. Having my laptop would have made it much easier to research things to do and would have been a boon for the kids.

After arriving late Friday, I took a long walk in the rain to the other end of Denman where there is a large marina. Saturday was spent just screwing around (mostly involving the one thing the kids are interested in--eating) and Sunday we went to the Aquarium. We got home around 5. I immediately threw a big ham (pre-cooked) into the oven and we had our Easter dinner at about 7:30.

One disappointment: I had wanted to pickup a bottle of Absinthe (see earlier post) in Vancouver, where it is supposedly legal. The first liquor store I checked didn't have any, but it was pretty small and I thought the bigger one by the hotel would surely stock it. After not finding it on the shelf, I asked a clerk. He had never heard of it. That depressed me even more than the weather. I'm learning that some things are just not meant to be.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Case #99-234665

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning we awoke to find that Tuuli's car was missing from the its accustomed place in front of our house. Apparently, it had been stolen.

The car, a 1995 Subaru AWD Legacy wagon, was no beauty. With trim pieces missing here and there, a faded paint job and worn-out tires, it's the kind of vehicle you could leave unlocked, with the keys in the ignition, and the bad guys would just keep walking until they came to the next Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla, the two most-stolen cars in the Seattle area.

For some reason, however, they wanted this car. There was nothing of personal value inside. The interior was filthy, with dog hair, mud and other junk related to my wife's pet-sitting business. Nobody was taking this car to a chop-shop. We're not going to find it somewhere on cinder-blocks with its wheels and tires missing. I wouldn't give you 50 cents for the stereo.

So yes, one does wonder why it was this car that was stolen. The simple answer is that it was just a crime of opportunity, probably done by some local kids. Walking down the street in the middle of the night, checking every car on the street for unlocked doors. Looking for something in the glove compartment or the back seat that they could grab. Maybe someone had experience with a similar car and knew how to get it started. Or maybe someone put a little more thought into it and decided that a ten-year old Subaru wagon was the perfect low-profile, non-descript sort of car with which to commit other crimes. Chances are we'll never know.

But the really unfortunate part is what a pinch this puts us in logistically. Like most families, we simply need two cars. And because money is tight right now, the idea of renting a car for $50 or $60 a day is not too palatable (our insurance reimbursement for rentals tops out at $20 a day). And when the car is found (almost 90% of cars stolen in Seattle are recovered), it undoubtedly will have some damage. It may have been crashed into another car and thus be totalled, or it could just have had its ignition punched. The former scenario will get us a couple thousand from the insurance company, the latter a few days in the shop and the cost of our deductible. If it turns out that we need to buy a replacement vehicle, that is going to be a huge hit.

I'm not really mad that the car was stolen. That happens all the time and we just have to deal with it. But nothing, and especially nothing bad, ever occurs in a vacuum and this has just been a tough week, for a lot of reasons. This was just the topping on the cake, as they say.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

A Different Kind of Post



This is what posting means in Cle Elum.

Went over to our cabin Tuesday night and spent all day Wednesday working in a new garden I'm putting in. I actually started the garden last fall when I cleared an area at the bottom of our front yard of a hodgepodge of brush, small trees, an old firepit and miscellaneous garbage that had been left there by the home's previous owners. Once cleared, I gave it a good tilling and let it sit for the winter.

Yesterday, I pulled the tiller out of storage and worked the ground again for a couple hours, mixing in much of the organic debris that had collected over the winter (mostly old leaves and twigs) until I had a nice, rich composty loam to a depth of about ten inches.

Because our yard is a magnet for deer, elk, rabbits and skunks, I felt that a fence was a necessity to ensure a viable garden. To support the fence, I dug 11 post holes to a depth of 18 inches, put in the posts and set them with concrete. In the next couple weeks I'll string some chicken wire and complete the job.

The garden has a dead south exposure and will get plenty of sun, even though there are two or three tall pines that will give some shade. The plot is also on a mild slope, which should not only help get everything some extra sun, but should also provide good drainage. At some point before the weather gets really hot, I'll have to install some kind of automatic irrigation system that will water the garden when I'm not around.

Now the only question is what to plant. The growing season in Cle Elum is quite short, with freezing temperatures expected from the first of October until the end of April. Most local gardeners do their planting in late April or early May, so that precludes the possibility of many vegetables that might be available in a milder climate.

Other possibilities would be something like grapes and berries. I put in some grapes about ten years ago in a small garden closer to the house and they have done quite well, with virtually no supplemental water and very little care. The only problem is that as they are still maturing toward the end of September, if you get an early freeze, the fruit is killed immediately.

Another thing you have to plan for, besides the short growing season, is minimum temperature tolerance. Although the winters have been relatively warm lately, there's never been a December or January when the temperature doesn't get close to 0 degrees and I remember several times when it got down to -10 or -15, which is low enough to kill many perennials, including a lot of popular grape varieties.

Therefore, I'm also looking closely at berries, some of which, such as blueberries, should do quite well in Cle Elum's climate. Another possibility would be a mini-orchard. The space is big enough (being about 500 square feet) where I could probably put in three or four dward fruit trees.

I'd love to put in some corn, peas, potatoes and tomatoes, but for reasons already mentioned, I don't know if that's going to work. Vegetables are extra tough because they require more frequent care and I just don't know if I'll be over there enough this summer to do all the weeding, etc that's necessary for their survival. I'll let you know in a couple weeks what I've decided!

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Spring Reign 2006



"Spring Reign" is what they call it, but this year "Winter Deluge" might have been more appropriate. This is the world's ultimate Ultimate Frisbee tournament, attracting teams from as far away as Alberta, Canada, Northern California and Billings, Montana, 56 of them to be exact, in a 2-day feast of food, fun and coping with fickle Northwest weather..

Younger daughter Savanna and I arrived at the incredibly expansive Burlington site next to the Skagit River early Saturday morning. It was raining. It was blowing. The temperature was in the low 40s. It was good weather for soccer, but very bad weather for throwing a 175 gram disc. After checking in at the official headquarters, we plotted a course for our field. Unfortunately, we forgot to bring our GPS plotter and field glasses, but after what seemed to be some kind of vision quest, we did hook up with our teammates, who were huddled under a white and red awning, resisting the coach's plea to take the field and start warming up.

At 10am sharp, the first of the three Saturday games began and despite the inclement conditions, the game went well, with the good guys (the Whitman Wildcats) winning 13-0. The second and third games went a little less-well, with one blowout to a team that included some high school players and a close loss to a very good private school from Tacoma. The kids played great for all three games and seemed to be enjoying themselves despite the near-impossibility of staying warm or dry.

After the game Savi and I checked into our motel, where she hooked up with some of her teammates. A bunch of us went out for dinner and when we returned to the room at about 8, we were so tired that we just watched TV for a couple hours and went to bed at 10.

Thanks goodness the rain stopped sometime during the night and Sunday morning found the conditions much better. We got to the fields at about 9:30 and again started our first game promptly at 10. Because of the results from yesterday's games we got into a difficult bracket, but the kids held on to a win a very tight match. The second and third games were also very close, but both resulted in tough losses against very good teams.

With the exception of one game, there were five matchups that were very close, with the average margin of victory being somewhere between two and three points. The games were exciting and fun to watch and they all lasted close to the 90-minute time limit. I think most of the kids had a great time, especially on Sunday. The tournament was very well organized with lots of food, and the weekend just sort of flew by. In the spirit of Ultimate Frisbee, where good sportsmanship is part of the culture and co-ed play is mandated (each team must have three girls and four guys), a lot of friends no doubt were made.

Savanna, as usual, was one of the star players and made several spectacular sliding catches and was the top scorer for the Whitman team. Along the sideline, she earned the nickname "The Claw" for her uncanny ability to make difficult one-handed snags. She also won two "Spirit Disks" which the opposing team awards to players who show exceptional sportsmanship and enthusiasm.