Wednesday, April 30, 2008

My first (and last!) naked beer ad



This ad for New Belgium's seasonal "Skinny Dip" beer is running in the May/June issues of a number of magazines. And that's me, holding the "A"!

I was delighted to see that, in the final "creative", the beer bottle is covering my rear-end. That's better than I can say for one of my colleagues in the front, where you get a nice side shot!

Anyway, we did the photo shoot back in October on the White Salmon River in southwest Washington. It was FREEZING! There was a good deal of beer and other alcohol flowing, to keep us warm and to help with the whole courage/getting naked factor. It literally was freezing because the river is fed by glaciers and cold springs.

It's cool that New Belgium is helping promote our efforts to restore the river by removing an old dam. Condit Dam doesn't produce much electricity, is roughly 100 years old, and blocks salmon and steelhead from swimming up the White Salmon and spawning in the river's pristine habitat. We're hoping the dam will be removed next year.

As the ad says, Go Fish!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

In DC

I'm in DC and it's 80 degrees! I hear it's 50 in Seattle...

I'm here for a quick work trip (communications retreat). I had dinner with Joy and Bridget at Joy's house last night. Homemade pizza, salad, and lots of funny high school memories. This morning I went for a run and had to stop and wait for a very intense motorcade (black SUVs, guys with guns, police on motorcycles)...I wonder who was in there.

Tonight I'm meeting up with Dave (works at AR, friend of John and me) and Summer for dinner in Georgetown at Leopold's Kafe. And then I get on the plane at the crack of dawn tomorrow.

Looking forward to being back home with my sweetie!

Monday, April 21, 2008

April 22: Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

To the best parents, and an inspiration for a great marriage!

Love you!

Portland

John and I had a great weekend in Portland. I took the train to meet him there Friday evening, in time for their board dinner. Our friend Nate (a climate scientist at the UW) was there to give a talk about how climate change is impacting the Northwest's rivers. Nate's wife Christine was there, so she and I had a nice time hanging out. She's a substitute teacher, and she brought her class of first graders to see the Dalai Lama when he was in Seattle last week. She had some fun stories about that.

Saturday morning was John's board meeting, so I took off exploring Portland. Had a great time walking everywhere, checking out the Saturday Market, cool shopping in the Pearl District, and Powell's Books. Since it was windy and cold, I took a luxurious bath back at the hotel (we stayed at the Hotel Deluxe, a great place)

John's meeting finished up in the afternoon and we went out on the town. When we left the hotel it was snowing! First stop was a wine bar, to warm up. Then we checked out some music stores, and John sampled some nice mandolins. My friend/colleague Brett then picked us up to get (another) glass of wine at Equinox, a great little bar/restaurant. After that we met Nate and Christine at Clyde Common, a cool (but not pretentious) bar that is written up in this month's Portland magazine. By this point I was taking a break from drinking, and sampled one of their homemade natural lemon-ginger sodas. Yum.

Eventually it was time for dinner and we walked to Ten 01. Everything was delicious, including the dessert John and I split -- chocoloate chip bread pudding with carmelized bananas, salted caramel ice cream and dark rum sauce!

We collapsed into bed and woke up the next morning for breakfast at J&M Cafe. Then we drove around, checking out neighborhoods. If all goes as planned, we could be moving to Portland this summer!

Monday, April 14, 2008

View from my office

I stole this picture from Darcy, who notes that some of the boats here were in the show, The Deadliest Catch!

Friends, fish tacos, good music

What a fun weekend! Saturday was beautiful, it got up into the 70's. Sunday was gray and a bit rainy again...

Our friend Jim (he runs rivers in China and was featured in this Outside magazine story) and his friend Melissa, who works for Women's Voices for the Earth, were in town for the big Green festival in Seattle. So we had brunch with them Sunday morning, then they came over for dinner. My boss Rob and his girlfriend Kim came over too. John made a delicious fish taco feast. Rob and Kim had tickets to see Tift Meritt (I had never heard of her but she's really good) so they had to leave a little early. Everyone left and John and I contemplated the dirty dishes, then decided to be spontaneous and go to the concert. Who cares if we have to get up early in the morning for work! Now I'm feeling a little groggy, but it was worth it.

So, back to Melissa's job -- her organization is looking at how chemicals, preservatives, fragrances, etc in cosmetics and cleaning products affect women's (and kids and men's) health. They have good info on their web site about how you can make your own "green" cleaning products. It's not just the chemicals in the individual products we use, but how all the different chemicals in the different products interact with each other...called a "chemical soup". Yuck.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to two of my childhood friends -- Danielle just had baby #3, and Laurel won 5th place in the IronGirl Triathlon!

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Come chase me!

Mr. Q likes to steal things (napkins, dish towels, socks, mittens) and run outside through his dog door. Of course, we've encouraged the game. Here he is with John's ski hat.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

River article

For all of you river folk out there, an article I wrote about dam removal for Open Spaces magazine is now posted on their web site. Enjoy!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Is it the weekend yet?

John and I are going away this weekend, and I can't wait for this little getaway adeventure. We're heading out to La Push on the Olympic Peninsula. Little known fact - it's the westernmost zip code in the US! We're going to do a lot of fishing, hiking, and photography (the beaches are amazing).

I realize it's only Tuesday, I need to be patient. Tomorrow my book group meets (we read good books, but it's also just an excuse to drink wine and get together with friends. John doesn't think it's fair that girls have book clubs but guys don't). The latest book is The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. It was really good, I flew through it. The story is about her totally crazy childhood and dysfunctional (but loving) family. I thought the book would be depressing, but it wasn't. I recommend it!