Collateral Bloggage

If you ever want an adventure, travel to Seattle and try to find a hotel.  It’s awesome.  It’s inspiring.  It’s spontaneous travel at its best.  Now, our trip to Seattle had been on the books for a few days, at least, before we left the house.  But did we get reservations?  Nah, that’d take the fun out of not-being-able-to-stay-in-Seattle-due-to-everything-being-booked (possibly the Gamer Convention and Mariners-Red Sox game had something to do with it?).

Yeah, we ended up in a dive in Edmonds/Lynnwood.  Exactly as we planned.  Since the place did at least have free Wi-Fi (connected apparently to a 56k modem), we quickly secured lodging for the next night we’d need it.  Apparently this is commonly done by other travelers.  Now we know.

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While in Seattle, we took in a Mariners game and a third.  Seriously.  It was an extra-innings affair (12 innings, to be exact).  Unfortunately, our baseball mojo has apparently either worn off or gone over to the visiting teams.  We had an unbeaten home team record going, including two major league games and two minor league ones.  Streak broken.  Mariners lost 6-3.

Still, it was cool to see Ichiro! take away a home run from J.D. Drew and to see a couple of home team home runs.  It was also cool that the Mariners turned three double plays, but none of them were the common short to second to first (or permutations thereof) kind.  Instead, we had the lineout to second, runner doubled off first, strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out, and lineout to right, runner doubled off first kinds.  Most cool.  Unfortunately, the Red Sox turned a typical double play in the bottom of the 11th, with runners on first and third and only one out.  And then the Mariners loaded the bases in the bottom of the 12th and still couldn’t scratch out a win.  Bummer.

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If I had to name my top five favorite fruits, I’d struggle to come up with five varieties of peaches, but I’d come through in the end.  Because peaches, to my mind, are the pinnacle of God’s creation, proof of the common grace available to all.

It’s getting close to peach season in our area.  This is awesome.  If you somehow missed the Hood Strawberries, don’t make the same mistake with the peaches.

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Speaking of peaches, a word about Jossy Farms.  By the way, it’s pronounced “Joe-ssy.”  How do I know this?  Well, because I’m a frequent caller to their Sales Number, (503) 647-5234.  The proprietor always has a detailed (and hilariously animated) message on their voicemail, explaining which crops are available for picking and which ones may soon be ripe (or, in some cases, are completely gone).

Jossy Farms is a U-Pick farm with several varieties of peaches (Veterans are my favorites), Gravenstein Apples and Bartlett Pears.  Yum!  Some farms will let you come and harvest fruit well before it’s ripe.  Not Jossy Farms.  If you pick there, you won’t be disappointed, and it’s fairly convenient.  You can check their website out and get directions if you’re interested.

Oh, and the Redhaven Peaches apparently won’t be ripe until the second week in August.  Bummer.

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Trend-setter that I am, I’ve decided to read The Shack.  I picked it up a few weeks ago at Christian Supply, but it’s been collecting dust while I’ve been working through my stack of library books.  But, I finished the one book that was keeping me interested, so I decided to pick up The Shack and get started.  Along with everybody else in the world, from what I understand.  I may post a review here once I finish (Weirdly, after I started reading it, I picked up one of my library books again and found it engaging again.  So, I’ll be reading the two of them…give me a couple of weeks to slog through).

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And now, back to work.  Ugh.