Seattle generally has great summer weather, but this one has been extraordinary. The forecast every day is 80 and cloudless sunshine. That generally starts in July but this year it started in early/mid June. If you want to read all the details, check out Cliff Mass’s blog post, but here are some highlights for the entire month of July:
- Quillayute, WA (on the coast) tied the driest month on record set 124 years ago (0.01 inch.)
- Seattle had only a trace of rain, the driest since 1960.
- The coast in the Northwest experienced 2% of our normal rain.
- Only two days failed to reach 70 and no days were in the 90s.
While “the best” is hard to quantify, this is probably “the best” July most Seattle residents have ever experienced and that’s saying a lot because July is usually so good anyway.
The fantastic weather isn’t set to end anytime soon. The long range forecasts from the national climate center are showing continued dry, nice weather for at least the next couple weeks.
Happy Birthday to the incredible mother of my son! I know it’s a little weird to say that and then use a picture of Tyla and Oskar, but I thought she’d enjoy the photo (from just after we met in 2008.) I wonder how long it will be before Elijah is as big as Oskar?
Our little man is now seven and a half weeks old and he’s not so little anymore! He’s gaining wait at a good rate and seems to be very healthy. He can hold up his head while laying on his stomach and is just starting to give us some of his first intentional smiles. When we’re out and about, we keep him in the Moby wrap most of the time because it both keeps him really calm and quiet (or sleeping), and it helps us avoid passing him around a lot. Pertussis (whooping cough) is still at crazy levels, and I just heard that there are a disturbing number of cases of measles appearing in the area and he won’t get that vaccine for quite a while. So we’ll be the over protective first time parents and keep him in the wrap.
The other day I was wandering through the grocery store looking for some sweetened condensed milk and when I saw the “Carnation” brand, something clicked and I realized there was a big Nestle farm in the town of Carnation, WA. I ride past it on one of my favorite motorcycle loops.
If you’re worried about Prism and the NSA, have you ever stopped to think about that device you’re carrying around in your pocket? The government doesn’t have to worry about tracking where you are because you’re doing it for them. At a minimum your cell phone is reporting which cell tower it’s connected to and sometimes it will report GPS location which is more exact. I’m fine with that, but I also feel that if info like this is being collected about me, I want to have the data! This stuff is cool!
When babies are in the womb, they have quite a noisy environment with all the blood rushing around in addition to the muffled noises from outside the womb. So it makes sense when they are born that it’s comforting to have some white noise playing while they sleep. There are tons of white noise generators on the market, but we picked up an hour long MP3 called “
We’ve been doing quite a lot of grilling over the past year. While Tyla was pregnant, we were extra careful about making sure that the meat was cooked thoroughly. I got in the habit of using an instant read thermometer, but now that Elijah is here, I still find myself using it. Maybe it’s wimpy or geeky, but using that thermometer has saved me numerous times from either over or under cooking the meet. I use this 
This website started 16 years ago and 5 years after that I started writing at least one blog post per week day. The site has never grown huge but it’s a fun way to communicate with friends and family and it’s cool to have a fairly detailed account of my life over this time. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if any of my ancestors had done something like this. Will Elijah or later descendants read through this mess of posts?
Walking out the door in the morning and saying goodbye to my wife and son isn’t fun. I know Tyla does a lot more work during the day than I could handle, but I feel like I’m missing so much of Elijah’s life! Thankfully Tyla agreed when I brought up the idea of buying a web cam so I could peak in during the day to see my family. 
SkyDrive
If you’ve been using it or thinking about using it, SkyDrive will soon be disappearing. Sort of. The service will continue and the features will be the same, but the name has to change. A British company called Sky won a trademark case against Microsoft and the result is that the SkyDrive name needs to change.
We don’t yet know what the new name will be, but don’t be alarmed when it changes. It’s still going to be a great service.