Shorecrest High students impress with viral lip sync video
My friend Garrett and his classmates are famous! Or at least on their way. Shorecrest High School students made a “lip-dubs” video for school spirit and it’s wonderful, joyous and funny. One of the school teachers challenged his students to make a video as a class project. 4 other teachers caved to pressure and about 150 student participated in the project.  6 rehearsals and they were ready.  The video was shot in a single 4 minute and 11 second take. Their cross-town rival school is in the game and a  ”lip-dub” competition is under way in North Seattle. My friend is the kid in the green sweatshirt and yellow shirt R

Vancouver Adventure, Part Two
Food. It’s all about the food.  Dinner the first night is as good as some of us are lucky enough to get when Mike is cooking.  We call in Paint Chow and the food at Sooke Harbour House is done in the same style, the same approach, as Mike takes.  But they have a set of constraints, of limitations, that force creative solutions:  prepare world-class dishes using only edible ingredients that are in season on Vancouver Island, and only food that can be grown here in this current season, or put up in its proper time, like jams, jellies, chutney and such. Sooke Harbour House is a quaint inn with stained glass, knotted rugs and local First People’s art

Adventures on Vancouver Island.
At 4:55 am, a few minutes before the alarm is set to blare, I wake up, check the time, and get of bed.  Today we’re going on a float plane to Victoria Harbour.  And I remember, I’m cancer free.  Wow.  I can hardly stand it. 50 minutes on the recumbent bike and it’s time to wake Mike up.  At 6:30, we’re packed and in the Honda, driving down to Lake Union.  Snack has been a pest all morning, taking advantage of Rigley’s absence.  Merow, merow, merow at the top of her lungs.  Throwing herself on the floor in front of us as we walk and rolling around, smacking us with her claws.   Merow.  Merow.  She wants something, but we have no i

Julie and Julia
Yesterday was Mike’s birthday.  He turned 51.  To celebrate, we drove to Portland, in the rain, checked into a hotel, ate BBQ pulled-pork sandwiches at the hotel for free, then watched Julie and Julia.   His pick.  But he was just being nice to me.  But he liked it!  And so did I.  Merryl Streep has got some game.  It was especially fun, I think, for Mike, because he’s been through cooking school and he’s had to bone a duck and make aspic and all that stuff.  We even have a copy of that cookbook Julia got for her birthday one year. Today we got up and went to OHSU to see the cardiologist and the surgeon for my 3 month check up.  And here̵

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barak Obama
barak-obama Originally uploaded by blvesboy Mike and I were still in bed, just waking up and gathering our strength to face the day. NPR was on in the other room and suddenly we were sitting straight up, straining to see if we heard correctly: President Barak Obama awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. We he