Whiplash

Well, we bit the bullet and listed our house/property yesterday. The shingle went up today.

Five hours later our agent called and said we had a cash offer, full price. Needless to say, we're a bit stunned! We'll sleep on it and call her back in the AM. Holy cow...

Now we just have to make a formal offer on that place in WA!

and the winner is...

Back in Stockton...for the time being

I think we may have found "The Place" to buy up in WA. No place is going to be perfect, but this one is pretty close...maybe 90%. The house could be a tad bigger, the neighbors could be further away...but by and large it's really a great find! The big barn with stalls and paddocks and a HUGE pasture is the real selling point. It's all about the critters...

In other news, while I was "up there" several weird things happened within minutes of each other on Saturday night, the 12th. First, giant flaming meteorites! Then, power outages all around Seattle! Then, a nice little earthquake (3.3)! What next? Raining toads? I missed it all because I was safely ensconced at the Poulsbo Community Center Theater watching the High School production of "Hello, Dolly!" It's a good thing I love those songs, because if I hadn't known them already I would have wondered what they were singing/saying half the time. Diction? Projection? What're those?

BTW: Mt. Rainier did NOT erupt (party pooper, I guess), although I did notice when I flew in to Seattle on Friday that Mt. St. Helens was showing evidence of her little tantrum last week. We had a really spectacular view of most of the WA/OR volcanoes and other assorted mountains. Two guys in the seats behind me were arguing about which one was St. Helens. Not very observant, those two. I don't know, when faced with a whole assortment of snowy, conical peaks, I would guess that the stumpy, messy-looking one would likely be the one that exploded. I finally turned around and said, "It's the sooty one."

Volcano Alert...Again!

Today at around 5:30 PM Mt. St. Helens decided to get all huffy and send huge plumes of ash skyward in a dazzling display. This news was particularly interesting to me as I spent most of last night dreaming about the eruption of neighboring volcano Mt. Rainier (the next one north of St. Helens). It's always something...

Volcano Cam Links

Four Seasons in a Graveyard

Before you think I've gone all gothic, please visit Afterlife, an amazing web gallery by Jonathan Clark. This is the most interesting digital photography I've seen yet. The photos stand alone, but then he's added some very subtle animations to some of them that really take photography to the next level in a beautiful and moving way.

Media Bias...No, Really!

In case you haven't figured out that the general media are heavily biased in one direction and another, and that major "news" outlets offer nothing of the kind, check out this little nugget of goofiness from Jeffrey Overstreet up in Seattle (our fair city).

To up the ante, sort of, here's another sterling example (sorry, no permalink, but it should be on top for awhile) of why people with more than two brain cells to rub together eschew broadcast news in general. Why do they even call news anchors "reporters" anymore? Talk about stretching reality...