First!

*Checking Raf & Elisabeth's blog* ... Who's the fastest picture-poster now, suckas?

nephew update

Welcome, Elijah!

before/after

Apparently Mr. Galore started a new job in November. At least, that's the word on the street. Before, getting to the what, a typical outfit in old and new position should set the tone:

Before	After

To start with the obvious: gone are the days of Guns 'n Roses shirts (an anniversary gift from Mrs. Galore), the scruffy jeans, shaving whenever it suited, and wearing untied tennis shoes. Fortunately, the blue hair has persevered. Though I'm not much for the new dress code, it gives me much amusement that I am now the proud owner of 11 button up shirts all purchased 24-hours before my first day from Value Village (includes the shirt I'm wearing above).

So with that drum roll done, I'm working on a major internal web content management project for Fisher Communications. For those hailing from or with experience in the northwest, it's the home of KOMO News in Seattle, KATU in Portland, and everyone's favorite weather anchor. I'm serving in the role of senior web developer. You can Google for their current sites but I don't and won't have anything to do with them.

It would be impossible to summarize what got me to this point, but I suppose it all started with a rather compelling (for a nerd like me) job description that I gave a few reads over. I suppose that's how it goes with these things. With that, all of a sudden the wheels were turning. That was way back in August, but it feels like the whole process happened in 2 weeks tops.

An incredibly wise friend and former colleague, told me not to compare and contrast every daily joy and concern to what has been an amazing ~7 years working for ONE/Northwest, but to keep an open mind about the transition.

With that in mind, I'm still very much feeling my way around, but the upshot is that I'm happy. I get to work with really amazingly interesting (for a nerd like me) open source tools and technologies that would cause many of you to fall asleep. I like my co-workers. I like the challenge of trying something new. I like the general problem space of helping the content producers be excellent at local and regional journalism because I think it's the right time to pay attention to things that are happening in one's neighborhood, city, and region. I like the architecture at my building. I like digging deeply into one project, rather than feeling pulled in many directions that's inevitable with consulting.

With that said, it's not all good news. Even though I was ready for a change (7 years at one job, and the only "real job" I've ever had, is a long time), I had to say goodbye to an incredible group of people, who were my friends, serving incredible clients in the name of the worthy cause that is treating our natural resources and our earth as though we wanted it to be around for many generations more. And for that loss, I definitely grieve. Also, ONE/Northwest had way better coffee.

nephew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have one now.

*Happy dance*

it's appeal season

Since it could be argued that my job depends on it, I encourage you again to donate. We're having a staff competition for who can bring in the most donors -- so even if you can donate $1, that'd be great!

And by the by, I make a cameo in this video too.

donate to grist!

Yay donations!

life is a highway

I took this picture when I was in Dallas.


Exit: 49 days.

Yes, it's the other Bush. Whatever.

gobble gobble

Getting-ready-for-Thanksgiving playlist:

qooc

"I don't have a turkey costume, one; and two, where the hell did that come from?" -- Mr. Galore to Mrs. Galore

work

What I've been up to at my job:

1. I was interviewed in Running Times and deemed to not be "puritanical and preachy" as the interviewer had feared.

2. I narrated this video, which is now being shown at some college film festival somewhere.

3. In researching the second item for this column, I learned that it is possible to play Lemmings on the internet.

4. There's a picture of me in this slideshow.

5. I, along with the rest of my building, was mooned at length and with great enthusiasm by a woman in a hotel room across the street.

By the by, I'll be shifting job responsibilities starting next week, moving from the editorial department for a time to concentrate on becoming intimately knowledgeable about the new website we plan to launch in February.

hot hot heat

We recently had a bit of a water heater mishap. It involved much wetness. We spent five days in the company of fans and a dehumidifier, which were very noisy. And we were told to keep the heat up to speed up the drying. So we turned the thermostat on the lower level to 72 degrees. And the middle level turned into Florida.

Kudos to Friend Jon B., who uncomplainingly spent a night in the tropics.

father knows best

Father Galore escaped left Indiana and came to visit us a few weeks ago!

First we met him in Portland, where he joined us in dining with many of our favorite Portland people (who also happen to be some of our favorite people, period).

Then he came up to Seattle, where the first order of business was to sample the most delightful of its many delights.



Father Galore was there to comfort us following the sad demise of Jack.


The loss of Jack was the sort of difficult time wherein the only consolation is a new day planner.


Then it was down to Tacoma for Friend Katie's volleyball game. Her team was very much the underdog, and then they won, and then I was hoarse the whole next day. Here she is serving faster than the speed of light.


Victory beer!


Oh yes, and Brother Galore joined us for a voting party, which seems to have turned out quite well.


I unfortunately don't have pictorial evidence of the evening that Father Galore walked a mile back to our place in the pouring rain wearing his scooter helmet, but I'm sure it was a sight to behold.

We miss Father Galore already and can't wait to see him, as well as Mom and Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins Galore, at Christmas.

contentment

We talked last Sunday about busyness, and saying yes and no to things, and how fulfillment can come from choosing what you say yes to, instead of letting your priorities be driven by what you feel forced to say no to. So I thought about the things that I say yes to:

• relationships -- especially the one with Mr. Galore
• community -- especially the Mennonite one
• living lightly on the earth
  

... and was pleased to discover that I do in fact tend to arrange my priorities around these things, and this may explain why I feel satisfied and content with my life right now.

I'm so content, in fact, that I could just hug a rack of feather boas.

qooc

There is a lot going on, a lot to blog. So, uh, look for that soon. In the meantime, some quotes out of context:

"I had a good idea while I was tipsy. Which means it has an asterisk. Which means it's like two good ideas." -- Mr. Galore

"That was very wise, and very unlike you." -- Mrs. Galore to her father

Yes We Can

reasons i love ballard, #2188

If it's good enough for the New York Times, it's good enough for us.

boo!

His name is Jack. Oh, we're so creative.

ok fine

Remember when I blogged about Friend Ashley and I was like "everybody thinks we are the same person but we are not, no sir, no way, no how"?

And then later I blogged about pants hats?

Um, yeah. She apparently put this on Facebook two weeks ago:

today (h/t: rob bell)

Mr. Galore: "Are you blogging again? Nice! You are a machine!"

Be that as it may, the real reason I've been blogging so much is that we finished watching season 3 of The Office and don't have season 4 yet. So our evenings stretch before us, Office-less and bloggable.

This morning we were late for church because we were watching dough turn into doughnuts on the conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme. This afternoon we bought purple carrots at the farmers market. Tonight we had Brother Galore over for a birthday dinner of chili and pineapple shakes. (Uh, that's chili, and pineapple shakes.) Then we discovered something is horridly, smellily wrong in our downstairs. That aside, it was a good day. We needed one of those.

In conclusion, here is a happy watermelon:

more randomness

Galore Household Rule 17.iii.b: When cleaning the house, one must wear a hat made of cut-off pants.


Our creative picture-taking pretty much guarantees us a future in professional photography.

two wheels

By the way, I have a bike now. I try to ride it as little as possible. Smiles can be misleading.

Love, Grumpypants

Solitaire

An auto-related business that Mrs. Galore and I frequently walk by in Ballard (it shall remain nameless) has a set of rather large windows that allow people on the street to see into the customer service portion. It just so happens that their PC monitor is facing the window and on several occasions (I would guess in the ballpark of 5 to 8), we walked by and observed that the same employee was always playing solitaire. It got to a point where we would call out "solitaire" and then look in the window only to have our prediction confirmed. Ironically, after our big east coast extravaganza, we walked by on Labor Day, again expecting to see some solitaire in action, only to be disappointed with someone gazing at a spreadsheet. How backwards is that?

Not to pass judgment, but it makes me happy to have a professional position that offers more to keep me occupied during the day and that also doesn't require staring at spreadsheets on a holiday. That is all.

a few random pictures

We know what it's like to walk a mile in each other's shoes.

Potatoes are funny.


Mini cabbages are cute.


Cartwheel-off!

Green Jobs ftw

Full disclosure: I've been moderately tied up with this.

h/t: Grist

east coast big city tour, part three: boston

The last stop on the tour was Boston, where we stayed with Friends Ashley and Thom. Mr. Galore had never been to Boston, and Mrs. Galore had only spent one snowy weekend there for a track meet, so we found it quite convenient to have delightful people to visit there. Mrs. Galore had to work again, so Mr. Galore got to do more sightseeing, including the Capitol building and Fenway Park. But we did find time to wander around Cambridge, see the Harvard campus, and walk the freedom trail.

The Galores also had a wonderful visit with Friends Katharine, Ryan, and Malcolm, who is brand new.

Friend Ashley and Mrs. Galore have been friends since third grade, and have consistently been asked whether they are cousins, sisters, or twins. It's happened at age 8, age 13, age 20, age 25, and every age in between. When Friend Thom and Friend Ashley first started dating, Friend Thom once mistook Mrs. Galore for Friend Ashley, which was awkward. Mrs. Galore was even mistaken for Friend Ashley at Friend Ashley's wedding. We find it all kind of baffling, since we don't think we look like each other at all. Excepting our dagger-like fingers, of course.

east coast big city tour, part two: nyc

Since neither of us had ever been to New York City, and Cousin-and-Girlfriend Galore live there, we decided to go visit them. Unfortunately, our timing was off -- they were both out of town on the days we were visiting. Fortunately, they let us stay in their place in Manhattan, just a few blocks east of Central Park.

Three days in NYC is obviously not enough time to see everything. Fortunately, we both hate to shop, which took away approximately half of the Things One Must Do in New York City. (Maybe if we had spent more time in uppity shopping areas we would have seen more celebrities -- by which I mean, any celebrities. Nary a TomKat sighted.) We did set foot in the Apple store because, duh. This is really a terrible picture, but hopefully you can see that the entrance is this glass box thing, and then you walk down the stairs into the underground Apple lair. Very fancy.

With home base at Cousin-and-Girlfriend Galore's insanely stylish apartment, we did a lot of walking and hit the Manhattan tourist attractions: Central Park, Rockefeller Square, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Chinatown, Little Italy, Brooklyn Bridge, World Trade Center site, some old churches and cemeteries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and probably some other things that have already escaped from Mrs. Galore's porous memory.

We also had dinner with two of Mr. Galore's old friends. These three gents are also known as The Wonder Years Club. Sadly, Mr. Galore had to break the news that we recently rid ourselves of all of the 20 or so VHS tapes onto which Mr. Galore and his sister had meticulously taped every episode of "The Wonder Years." (We also recycled all of the Michael Jordan Wheaties boxes that Mr. Galore had saved in hopes of getting rich. Basically, we have thrown out Mr. Galore's childhood.)

One thing NYC does not have -- at least to our limited knowledge and snobby tastes -- is good coffee.



Here are the obligatory one-arm pictures of ourselves at tourist attractions. L to R: in Central Park, atop the Empire State Building, and on the Brooklyn Bridge.

i know things about BPA?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming? To bring you me on the radio again? With rising inflection this time?

east coast big city tour, part one: philly

We spent the third week of August in Philadelphia with Mr. Galore's sister, her husband, and the aforementioned, ever-adorable Niece Galore. (Said Mrs. Galore's coworker: "Wow. I got pregnant just looking at those photos.") By the by, Niece Galore thinks we are one person and generally uses "Adu-Saah" to refer to either one of us. It is pretty darn cute. If you want to see 7 bajillion photos of Niece Galore, we would be happy to make you a slideshow. But it's about time we showed off Sister-In-Law and Brother-in-Law Galore, because they are pretty cute too.

Mrs. Galore was telecommuting the whole week that we were in Philly. Mr. Galore wasn't working, so he got out in the city more and has some photos of historical Philadelphian things. But your current blog author doesn't really know what they are (except ooh, look, the Liberty Bell!). Perhaps Mr. Galore can work the historical sites into the separate food-focused blog posts that he has promised to do for the East Coast Big City Tour, since approximately half of our pictures are of food. Preview: The Philadelphia food post will include veggie cheesesteaks and a ridiculous amount of gelato.

Considering our usual crazed schedule in Seattle, it was nice to spend calm evenings making dinner, putting Niece Galore to bed, and watching the Olympics. (Non-sequitur photo alert: At right, Friend Danny shows the Olympians a thing or two.)

We were also able to visit Friend Ryan, who is an old friend of Mr. Galore's (not that Mr. Galore is old) and whom Mrs. Galore is forever grateful to because he once armed himself with an ice axe in her defense. And we were able to spend an afternoon with Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin-and-Girlfriend Galore too, as well as Friends Heiki, Mark, James, Conrad, and, um, Conrad. Some of those folks make a cameo in the pictures we posted earlier. And last but not least, Mrs. Galore tried to rekindle her torrid love affair with Charles Dickens, though he played it cool and didn't return her embrace since they were in public.

Philadelphia is pretty awesome. Mrs. Galore expressed desire to move there, but she does that for pretty much every new city she visits (including Saskatoon, to give you some perspective). But the old architecture, walkable dense neighborhoods, giant in-city park, row houses, running trail along the river, and delightful Galore-in-Laws are mighty enticing.

me on the radio again

Did you know I'm an expert on biodegradable utensils? Uh, me neither. But here I am chattin' about 'em.

while we were out

While we were gallivanting on the East Coast, Mom and Dad Galore moved to Indiana. They'll be gone for 10 months while Mom Galore pursues an M.Div. at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and Dad Galore tags along to get his Hoosier on. We will miss them very much. But at least they promised to start a blog.



They didn't actually drive the scooter to Indiana, but wouldn't it have been cute if they had?

more clare

We're back! (For those of you who weren't aware: we were gone.) Many more pictures to come from Philly, NYC, and Boston. In the meantime, instruction in How to Get Amazing Pictures at a Gathering: have one of the guests be a professional photographer.

clare