Andy Oakley

As a mini pre-Christmas vacation, Amy and I travelled to Colorado for a few days last week.

We left Seattle early on Wednesday and were in Denver by noon. I called in to several meetings and continued to work through the afternoon and early evening from our hotel room to finish up some items from the week.

Thursday was an entirely different experience. We were up early and headed to a nondescript warehouse in the suburbs of Denver to witness the filming of a Food Network Challenge starring our very own Eve Samonsky. It was great seeing the behind-the-scenes set up; the coordination effort, number of people involved, logistics and sheer volume of recorded video was surprising to me, overshadowed only by the impressive creations of the competing pastry chefs. While the competitors worked non-stop for some 10+ hours, we broke up the day with a good breakfast at Lucile’s and a walk around Wash Park. We returned for a tense ending and to admire the result of a day of hard effort but you’ll have to wait until the show airs some time in 2010 to see it all.

On Friday morning we headed up to Winter Park for a couple of days of skiing. There had been about 6” of snow the day before but continues were dry, clear and cold by the time we arrived shortly after lunch. The first few runs of the season are always a bit of a challenge but it came back quickly. We enjoyed a good few hours on the slopes surrounding by great views of the snow-covered Rockies before retiring to a ski-in condo at the Iron Horse Resort (bargain found online just the night before!). More skiing on Saturday, followed by a good soak in the hot tub. Aching bones.

The views from the slopes are something you can’t really capture with a camera. The bright clear sunshine at 9,000+ ft, crisp 15 degrees F and brilliant blue skies are all around.

Back to Seattle on Sunday morning.

Wash Park on Flickr

Starting in mid January of next year, Amy and I are planning to be in Beijing, China for about five months. To make that happen there is much to be done in the next six weeks: from visas to travel plans and accommodation, also planning work projects and picking the right clothes, all while figuring out what to do with cars and other commitments here and how to spend our time while we’re there.

Exciting times ahead!

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite time of year. It’s an opportunity to slow down for a moment, reflect on how good things really are, and look forward to the times ahead.

Since I seem to think in bulleted lists these days, here are some of the things I’m grateful for:

• A loving, caring, kind and thoughtful wife. I expect to be thankful for this one for a very long time to come.
• Supportive family. With so many having made special trips this year to join us in Port Townsend, I’m reminded how important this is. Particularly also for my parents who also hosted a lovely reception for us in England. And of course the new set of people who I now also get to call family and their welcoming.
• Friends. Life is much more fun with company and I’m reminded of the hospitality extended over the years to a young foreigner in a new city, especially over the holidays.
• Employment. It may not always be easy but I enjoy what I do and know that it’s not been an easy year employment-wise for many.

Today itself has been been rather great as well, including many of my favorite things.

• Nespresso. Coffee continues to be a vital enabler.
• Whole Foods. Holding the title of Mayor on Foursquare for the local store may be taking it a bit far but they just have so many tasty things.
• Turkey, football and one of those entirely overwhelming, immensely satisfying nap after a delicious meal.
• Feel good, family movies on TV.

Life is good.

I spent an hour this morning hacking together a quick prototype that brought together Windows Azure hosting and storage, the Bing Maps SDK, and a set of photos that Amy and I have been collecting of US Post Offices. The result is a United States Post Offices mashup which shows a map with pushpins for each post office for which which we have a photo.

The practical part of this was really the experience rather than the output. In short, it was really surprisingly easy to pull together the pieces to make this work. It takes a little while to get Visual Studio set up as an Azure development platform but once that’s done (once) it’s trivial taking existing techniques and having them run cloud-enabled with barely any changes.

A few resources that came in handy:

• Windows Azure Platform
• WPF Client for the Windows Azure Blob Storage
• Data Visualization with Bing Maps
• Bing Maps Control SDK 6.2
• Bing Maps Interactive SDK
• Image Resizer (convenient replacement for the great XP PowerToy that did the same thing)

After all that, two things are clear: it should be a good PDC this year and there are many more post offices yet to be visited.

It’s that time of year again…

Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill:

Halloween set on Flickr.

A couple of years ago Seattle added another professional sports team to its list – Seattle Sounders FC an expansion team in Major League Soccer (MLS). The last serious soccer match I saw was Manchester United playing Chelsea in a summer game in Qwest Field several years ago and before that it must have been Stoke City in Britannia Stadium a long time before. Suffice it to say, it has been a very long time since I’d enjoyed a proper football game.

It was a cool, clear and dry night and the lights of the stadium beckoned.

I was impressed by the level of crowd engagement (quite different from the previous soccer game at the same venue). Singing, chanting, horns, drums and rowdiness behind the goal; just like England. There are still a few subtle differences, however.

The whole lower level of Qwest Field was filled, a record mid-season attendance of more than 33,000 people. Good to see such a level of interest and support.

It was a good game and all the more enjoyable to see the Sounders win 2-1.

Sounders game set on Flickr.

Last Sunday, Amy’s parents hosted a post-wedding reception for us in California. Marking the end of what has been almost a year of celebration, we had a great time and I had the chance to put a lot of familiar names to actual faces.

Eve, everyone’s favorite Food Network star, did a fabulous job with the cake and posted some pictures on her site at Eve Samonsky. Jen made a small photo gallery too.

We flew back early on Monday morning, precisely one year after I asked the question. It has been a whirlwind of a year but I wouldn’t have given it up for anything.

It’s fall and that can only mean that Halloween is just around the corner. With good weather this morning, a quick search for ‘pumpkins’ on Yelp and we were headed to The Farm at Swan’s Trail in Snohomish. They have it all – a corn maze, a hay maze, wagon rides, cow trains and a substantial pumpkin patch.

Although there were a lot families there the place is huge and there is plenty to go around.

With pumpkins chosen we enjoyed a polish dog, corn and apple cider for lunch. Great way to spend a crisp, sunny morning.

A few more photos in the set on Flickr
The Farm on Yelp

Amy and I got married a couple of weeks ago at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington. We had a great time, everything went smoothly, and it was very special to have so many family and friends in one place together.

Holly Strand with Beautiful Endings did an absolutely fabulous job with the pictures. She was great throughout the day, clearly passionate and excited by what she was doing, considerate to the hectic sequence of the day and thoughtful of things that can easily get overlooked (like eating!), all while being almost invisible as she went about capturing some great shots. I would strongly recommend her.

Amy and Andy on the Beautiful Endings Blog

Update: High resolution pictures uploaded to Amy and Andy Oakley wedding photos.

Despite a cooler morning and overcast skies we headed out on I-90 yesterday for a hike. Parking in the lot at Alpental we took the trail up to Snow Lake and the Source Lake Overlook. It didn’t take long to rise up above the low cloud cover to enjoy beautiful clear skies, fall colors in the meadows and a stunning view of the lake on the other side of the peak.

Snow Lake set on Flickr.
Snow Lake details at WTA
Source Lake details at WTA