meu: Life in a Northern State

Farther north than most of the rest of you in any case. Also farther north than most of the country.

As the recent heat wave has swept the US, it didn't forget about the Pacific Northwest. We've been enjoying some delightfully summer-like (and occasionally quite hot, though nothing like the East Coast) weather and have had no measurable rainfall in the month of July.

There have been a number of small yet noteworthy things that have been occurring in my life over the past week or two, so let's just see how far we get in this blog post shall we?

Let us ease into new material slowly with an update regarding the tooth incident from the beginning of the summer. For those who don't remember my grumbling all too well, I will refer you back to "Barbecues and the Anticlimactic". Anyway, I have had a dentist's appointment, and in addition to removing the stains that my brief trial of Crest mouthwash left on my teeth, confirming that I have no cavities, and offering once again to refer me to an orthodontist, the dentist said that I probably just strained a ligament and there was nothing to worry about on the x-rays.

Now on to the real news, in pseudo-chronological order.

First of all, it turns out that since I have graduated high school, gone off to college, and turned 21, Bremerton has acquired a Beer Festival. As such, my father and I decided to go and improve our knowledge of the local breweries and beer in general.

Tasting glasses

It was crowded, and hot, and there were a lot of tipsy beer enthusiasts.

We split our tastes so that we could try twice as many... a very good strategy if I do say so myself, and three things were noted over the course of the afternoon.

1. My father and I have similar, but not identical, tastes in beer.

2. If you go to a festival of any kind and have a particular thing you want to try or find, best get to it first or it might run out.

3. A beer festival is a very good place to go kilt-watching. I think the only time I've ever seen that many kilts in one place was in the Utili-kilt store (remember that Laura?).

I also went to Seattle to visit Linlin, who is known to at least some of you. It was a beautiful day and there's nothing like an hour-long ferry ride on the Puget Sound when it's warm and sunny without a cloud in sight. I realize that people probably get tired of hearing about how beautiful Washington is, but the sun and the water and Mt. Rainier looming in the background were heavenly, and photographs are less painful than paragraphs, no?

My town

It was fun to listen to all the little kids, who were universally trying to spot all the jellyfish we passed.
Once in Seattle, we got Belgian Waffles and went to a Seafood Festival and the Dragon Fest in the International District. We ran across some cool things and got free sunglasses.

Block Clock

Food #1 you wouldn't expect at a seafood festival

Food #2 you wouldn't expect at a seafood festival

After getting lumpia and candy, walking by a protest at the courthouse, and eating dinner, I finished off my day with a sunset ferry-ride home. It was a good day.