entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

A two-inch scarlet dragonfly flitting about the backyard while having a black-coffee dragonfly bent underneath it, its end stuck into the middle of the first bug, and its head holding onto the butt, forming a bizarre P-shaped biplane.

( so much chocolate it's all over you screen )

Over Hwy 85, a small grey bird with white wings flew into a crow or raven, which was also flying.  I saw it hit the crow three times.  I wonder what that was about.

MEETING WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY: In Vancouver, Kim and i met with eviltofu for lunch, just in time before he heads back across the Pacific.  In Seattle, we met with rimrunner for brunch.  As for unelljayfied people, we went to Safeco Field with Kim's mom's cousin Gary and his wife Marguerite (on the way there, Kim and i recognized Curt Golden's "Bicycling to Afghanistan" playing on their stereo; turns out it's on a CD given to them by their friend Bill Rieflin), and the next morning we had brunch with Marguerite and the Bubble Man, and on the way back through Seattle we saw my mom's cousin's Pablo's wife Constanza and her two kids, María José and Martín (Pablo was stuck in Idaho doing some shit job for the FAA), and she made us a very tasty dinner, and the kids were in full show-off-to-the-guests mode.

On the way to Eugene, we stopped in Portland to have dinner with Alan Scott, and also spent some time with his lovely wife, Roberta, as well as the heirs to the Throne of Power, Daniel and Olivia.  You Seattle t.b folk should drop him a line next time you're in Portland for a Powell's run; he's great company.  Lastly, we spent a couple of nights at Kim's friend Judy's place.

FERRY COMEDY: There hasn't been a vehicle ferry from Victoria to Seattle for quite some years.  Time to burn the old map and get a new one, i guess.  The next vehicle ferry out of Victoria to the US was to Port Angeles, departing at 19:30 (at that time, it was 13:00).  We decided instead to drive back to Port Swartz, take the ferry back to Tsawwassen and drive to Seattle.

STANLEY PARK: We had a nice hike, looking at the bird wetlands and  gardens, then heading for the Vancouver Aquarium to watch otters "swim around on their backs and do cute little human things with their hands" as they were fed clams; also, one of the seals in the seal tank would swim to the surface, get a breath of air, dive down below one of the rocks, blow out all the air noisily, and repeat.  We also checked out the belugas, the dolphin show, and the hawk talk, all of which was outdoors; indoors, we touched the tops of horseshoe crabs and saw a huge catfish, maybe 6' long, in the Amazonian tank, as well as a bizarre display in the shark tank: a smaller blacktip shark violently grabbed a larger blacktip by its left gills and powered it down to the bottom of the tank, where they stayed still for about five minutes until one suddenly released the other and they swam away (during this time, the other sharks are completely ignoring them).

Vancouver's traffic lights tend to blink green a lot. I don't see the point. Many also seem to exist only along the main street, and the cross street only gets stop signs. The lights turn red so pedestrians may cross safely. It seems like a half-assed way to save on traffic lights.

Vancouver is very similar to San Francisco in many ways: surrounded by water, a bustling Chinatown, a large park in the northwest, a suspension bridge that leads out of the northern part of the city, large clusters of homeless people. Commercial Drive is a collection of New Age-y shops and vegan/vegetarian restaurants that reminded me a bit of Berkeley.

The ferry ride to Victoria is beautiful. So is Victoria. Here we found the same painted orca statues we found in Vancouver, a series similar to the cow statues in Kansas City. We took a walk to the end of the Ogden Point seawall and back, and saw a bunch of starfish (including a fuzzy purple variety), lots of two kinds of jellyfish (one about cantaloupe-sized and dark reddish, the other basketball-sized and eggyolk yellow), as well as one lazy seal who cruised by for a couple of minutes before returning to deeper waters.

We saw the first episode of "Medical Investigation", and the characters can be summarized as the hardass, the tightass, the badass, the dumbass, and the piece of ass. We also caught Napoleon Dynamite, which was weird, often surprising, goofy, funny, and cute. Not great, but good.

On the ferry out of Tsawwassen to Victoria, there were prominent signs that forbade further transportation of BEES.

We're leaving Victoria now, heading back to Seattle.

Via ratphooey, i give you prehistoric giant guinea pigs. My thought: "Where are we going to find a cardboard tube that big?"

I did manage to have some tasty cuy the last day i was in Ecuador. That prehistoric stuff... mmm, enough for the whole family. Oh yeah!

Kim and i (and Kim's friend Harry) went to Oregon to visit her friend Judy (in Eugene), and we took the opportunity to visit her and Harry's friends Carmen and Dorie (in Vancouver, WA), and i took the opportunity to meet Alan Scott, a t.b acquaintance, for the first time (in Portland). I was actually the first Cabal member he'd met. We ate at Ya Hala, a Lebanese restaurant (which meal included a bottle of Lebanese wine, which was quite nice), and after that we dropped by his house. We met his lovely wife and two cute and studious children.

We also took a trip east of Portland to the Full Sail Brewery, in Hood River. Good beer, but the selection of food offered was pathetic, and the food itself was not good. The chili was easily the weakest i've ever tasted. On the way there, we checked out Multnomah Falls, and on the way back to Portland we saw Beacon Rock.

We decided to head home via the scenic coastal route. Nice idea, but it took us WAY too long to get home... not until 04:00 on Thursday. Ugh. On the way, we drove through Coos Bay, a small logging town. There we found the Blue Heron Bistro, an island of civilization where local microbrews and Belgian ales were offered along with some very tasty food, amidst WW2 and East German propaganda. There i sampled Liefman's Framboise, an incredible raspberry beer which i must find (i hear Beverages & More carries it).

And, remember, kids: in Oregon, "lottery games should not be played for investment purposes."