Verra's Notebook

Why It's Sometimes Fun to Work from Home

[taken earlier this week]

I'm wishing I was working from home right now, instead of sitting in my toasty office.  I think summer, and the resultant heat wave, have definitely arrived.

In Which I Feel Un-athletic, Again

It's February, which on Bainbridge Island means in addition to being frigid and very possibly raining, that it's time for the Chilly Hilly.  Actually, that should be past tense, as the event in question took place last Sunday.  

I was planning to attend the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle -- a perfect event for the athletically challenged -- when I realized that we had to leave the house at 7:30 AM to avoid being blocked in our house by the bikers.  The crazy bikers.  (No offense to you lovely people who actually enjoy biking, but I put biking in drizzly, grey weather up and down giant hills right up there with dental appointments.) 

I am clearly in the minority.  The race starts as the bikers get off the ferry, so I had a great view of the many, many people for whom biking in the drizzle is a great way to spend the weekend.

The ferry was full; overflowing even, with bikers.  Apparently the guy manning the pa system at the dock hadn't previously dealt with the chilly hilly, because he kept coming on the system asking the bikers to "keep moving", "please move a little faster, because we'd like to have the boat leave on time," sounding increasingly annoyed as more and more bikers piled off the boat. 

This post is also a hidden picture where's waldo-esque game.  Do you see the man in yellow?  This one.

He's on a unicycle.  In fact, the largest unicycle I've ever seen.  Now, this is the part that made my day...  imagine a man on a unicycle going up a 8.5% grade hill... now imagine him coming down it...  

See, fun huh?

After taking these pictures I got back in my car, took a swig of hot chocolate and returned to my knitting.  The bikers headed up their first of many hills and I went to the flower show.  I think everyone went home happy.

Brings a whole new meaning to the term house boat...

Yesterday, complete with a helicopter hovering overhead and sailboats trailing behind, they towed a house on a barge into the harbor.  This harbor:

Not a manufactured house.  Not a play house.  A real, honest-to-god, house.  

See the moving boat?  Right now there's a house. right. there.

Where did this house originate, you might ask?  Seattle.  They barged an entire house across Puget Sound. And apparently they intend to barge this baby all the way to it's building site on the island, after a brief rest in Eagle Harbor.  

I left the camera at home today, but if it's still there when I run by the harbor I will take a picture to share.  Because really, how many people have seen a floating house?