Taipei Airport

Every gate area has a theme.  Thank goodness we aren't departing from the hello kitty gate.  Jami liked the big headphones.

How Aboot that Eh?

Over Vancouver island for a few.

Getting ready for Thailand

We are in good shape but keep remembering other things to bring...  Dye to an incoming storm, we are leaving for Seattle this afternoon.

AT&T Adressbook

When i got my new to me at&t phone, the address book was a pain in the neck - trying to sync.

This seems to fix it
"Go to dialer and do *#*#2666#*#*" then change the registration setting to completed.  Found it on androidcentral.com posted by Dee Lee

Valentine's Truffles

Extensive research shows that buying flowers is not what women really want for gifts.  Instead, you're supposed to spend time together doing and creating something - an experience to remember.

With this research in hand, Jami and I have been making Truffles on Valentines day for several years.  I only buy flowers if I have something to make up for :).  Just kidding.  I buy flowers just often enough to keep her guessing.

This year's truffles start with ganache:

1.  White chocolate with vanilla bean and orange zest.
2.  Dark chocolate with peanut butter and vanilla bean.
3.  Lavender infused milk chocolate with fresh honey (from Mom's bees in Eureka).  http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/September-2013/Honey-Lavender-Truffles-Recipe/

Cassay Marquette Pavers - Pattern

We're doing a patio around the hot tub and chose Lowes' Cassay Marquette pavers - they're heavy but you get more done quickly.  They're listed as 24x13.5 but that's the whole width of the chevron = 24", and the height of a side being 13.5.  The actual paver is more like 24x18 with missing space on the edges and middle-bottom.

They've got a cool chevron pattern and come with four different designs.

The problem is, they don't provide a pattern to lay them out (like they do for some other pavers).  We tried laying them in rows, with 1,2,3,4 on the first then 3,4,1,2 on the next but there were really ugly lines going down the patio.

Lots of hunting online turned up only one good starting point:

Some time fooling around in Excel with the drawing object and we came up with this repeating pattern that we liked.  There are 12 pavers used, 3 each of the four patterns.  We tried to minimize the number of areas where there are few lines as well as areas where there are lots of tiny lines.

Hope this helps someone...

End of day bbq

Carl helped chop down a tree.  Mookie supervised all day.

Yard after excavation, before cleanup and fence

More...

Strawberry plants getting ready to produce.

Front side of the dogwood flowers.

Hybrid blackberries and fruit trees, deer proof.

The yard from the bottom.  Note the cat.

More of the yard, cat didn't move.

From the street, looking up at our knoll.  Ugly dirt will soon be wildflowers!

Foresty hillside from below.  Over time, for, holly, and maples will go! Redwoods coming instead.

That pile of briars is visible from outer space, there's a nice rock under it.

Front of the house, cat did move...

More house/yard photos May Day evening..

Cat escorted me all evening.

This bush is trimmed back, moving next week.  Red flags outline the new garage.

Peonese, Jami hopes the bloom before the bulldozer comes.

Around the front, one more bush to bloom.

Looking down from the hill in front.  Lonely sailboat.

White flowers along the path.

The smaller fir.

Looking around the Kalama House

Beautiful evening, first day of May.

Inside is a mess, we've been outside mostly...

Out the back door.

The lion rests, fetching a ball down the hill can wear you out.

The pretty flowering bushes out back.

A corner post...

Back view of the dogwood flowering.

This guy doesn't know it but he's moving soon!