I’m off on vacation. A week in Olympic National park. No interweb, no computers. Just trees, water, writing, pictures and books.

This will be good. I’ll see you in a week.

Inside the Luxor, from the 22nd floor.

My 36 hour Vegas spree was very entertaining, and I thank P-chop Express for making it happen. I didn’t take many photos but we all know it’s probably better that way.

This is the sign for a store that sits right outside the Luxor’s buffet—at the time I felt the name was pretty close to a perfect explanation of a good chunk of Vegas’ appeal. But wait, the buffet was $15, did I overpay?

I’m off to Vegas this morning—a quick getaway—I’ll be back tomorrow night.

On Friday we toured the Conservatory of Flowers, the new de Young (tower observatory level pictured above), the Botanical Garden, skipped through Chinatown, and even hit the biggest tourist trap of them all, the wharf. After great Chinese at the House of Nanking we had drinks at San Francisco Brewing and Vesuvio. Breakestra and Ohmega Watts (pictured below) finished off the night. Quite a day.

Sadly rain limited the outdoor activities somewhat on Saturday and Sunday but the SF MoMA, the Asian Art Museum (pictured below), and the Museum of the African Diaspora showed no ill effects. Many thanks to Chris and James for making the trip possible.

This weekend I’ll be in San Francisco for a brief vacation before the holidays. Any suggestions for great sites to hit as a tourist? I’m visting the SF MoMA and the De Young for sure, and making Chinatown a priority, other than that the schedule is pretty wide open.

This Saturday at 4:50 a.m. Seattle was dark, 39 degrees and blanketed by a persistent drizzle. (This is the type of languid weather that usually keeps me under covers far into an afflicted weekend morning.) On this particular Saturday however I was wide awake at 4:50 a.m. and nearly done with breakfast. Just a few hours later at 9:00 a.m. I was in the Burbank California airport. There it was 72 degrees with brilliant sunshine.

Yes, last week the man who chooses to be known as “Porkchop Express” suggested to me a quick getaway—to ride all the large coasters to be had at Six Flags outside of L.A. and return to Seattle that same day. It sounded like a small slice of lunacy. Naturally I immediately accepted.

Scream was excellent, probably my favorite, while DejaVu undoubtedly had the best scare factor. SuperMan (pictured) boasts a 0-100mph acceleration in 6 seconds—which if you travel as I was lucky enough to last weekend, only feels par for the course.

Last weekend I was helping my folks in the Tri-Cities clean up the house and paint the deck in 102 degree weather as jets entertaining the Columbia Cup crowd roared overhead. While we were too busy to make it down to the races we watched the Tri-Cities Fever win the Indoor Bowl in their inaugural season, which was pretty darn exciting. The highlight for me was when the TV commentator, realizing a final interception had sealed the game, furiously yelled,

There’s a lot of people in here taking off their shirts who shouldn’t be, things are gettin crazy!

Yes that’s a genuine quote. Since then the week has been a blur as I’ve been slammed at work—and now I’m off to Ashland, OR for Brandon’s wedding. They’ve promised me a full barrel of wine from the local winery will be at the wedding. So it turns out they’ll get their wedding present after all.

As the snapshot Highway 101 tells, the weekend was a bit of a blur. After WebVisions (very fun, more on that later), Dennis scuttled me off to Tacoma where I met up with Laura for a trip to Lake Crescent. Some hours of hiking, swimming, and sunning later I’ve found myself pretty tired, but well in shape for the coming week.

Tomorrow I’m heading down south after work with Dennis, arm-twisting John into putting us up for the night so that on Friday we can attend WebVisions in Portland. Spending a night in a house with a kegerator I decided was immensely preferable to getting up at 5am and driving down Friday morning. (I know, I’m nuts.) I’m sure it’ll be a very fun event and a good learning experience, as there is a great line-up of speakers and I’ve yet to go to one of these web convention deals. Thanks much to the headmasters at work for putting up the fare.

Yes I’m back in Seattle and I had a great trip back East, it was far too short a vacation however. Many thanks to both Nick and Anna’s families who were such wonderful hosts. Here’s a nice shot of the happy bride and groom:

Smile Nick! There’s bubbles dammit…bubbles!

I also had a fun time the short while I was in New York, swinging quickly through the Met and the Guggenheim. A big reason I felt compelled to hit the Met was the Diane Arbus “Revelations” exhibit. It was fantastic.

Tomorrow right after work I’m hopping on a plane to New York, where I’ll spend a day meandering on my way down to New Jersey for NIC’s wedding. With luck I’ll meet up with Mary and hit a museum, maybe snap some pictures, it should be a great time. Who’s Nick you ask? (I only refer to him as N.I.C. for Network Interface Card) Well he’s one of the few people I know who’d give out directions like these.

Oh and Mom, I’m REALLY sorry I’ll be missing your Day. How many martinis does it take to make up for a missed Mother’s Day?

I’m heading down to Packwood this weekend to hopefully capitalize on our snow-barren mountains. Just yesterday I googled “Packwood WA” for sherry who had never experienced the wonder before that is…Packwood. I’ve never googled Packwood before and shockingly I haven’t missed much for never having done so. Though the town has yet to really make its mark on the information age, packwood.com and destination packwood attempt to represent. But there are a few things left these sites don’t seem to cover: a few hikes to be had, a great taco night at the blue spruce, and legends of a wild street-walking pig and a plumber named the DUDE. Perhaps I’ll get to more of that later, but for now have a good weekend and wish me luck.