Jayanth's Weblog

Green Lake

jayanthms — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:53:51 +0000

Varun, Veena and myself visited Green Lake Park yesterday. We had Anil Nagraj and family for company. We enjoyed the stroll from the East parking lot to the small craft acquatic center. Varun enjoyed riding his bicycle with Aditya. Praveen and family met us at the small craft acquatic center. I got to take a lot of sunset pictures. I experimented with exposure compensation on my Canon Powershot G9. The red and blues stand out at an exposure compensation of -1 in the twilight. Varun got to see a Grey Ferrari at the parking lot. By the way, he has almost learned to balance on his bicycle. Time to take the single training wheel off.

Conference Bike spotted at Ballard Locks

jayanthms — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:56:35 +0000

We had been to Ballard Locks today (9th November 2008). A very unfamiliar sight awaited us at the gates. We saw a strange cycle pedaled by 5 people sitting around a spindle. It seemed uncertain as to which direction the cycle would go. Ah, Yes.. There was a driver with a steering wheel making it go where he wanted to go. See picture below -

Back from Ballard Locks, I did some research and found that this was called the ‘Conference Bike‘ and it can seat 7. They call it a ‘Party on wheels‘. Those interested in learning more about the ‘Conference Bike’ can follow the link below. You can rent it too..

http://www.conferencebike.com/

Anna’s Hummingbird visitor

jayanthms — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:51:16 +0000

We have a Hummingbird visiting us at our Bird feeder at home in Bellevue. It is an Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte Anna). I found that it visited the bird feeder mainly in Winter. The bird used to visit the feeder as frequently as 15-20 minutes. At times, it used to perch on the tree in our backyard and makes trips up to the feeder constantly. The visits decreased in Summer and completed stopped.

I haven’t been able to get a good still shot of the bird yet. However, I filmed it on my Camcorder (see below).

For more information on the Anna’s Hummingbird, click here…

Green Roofs in Bellevue

jayanthms — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:18:15 +0000

I had been to the Mercer Slough Nature Education center with my parents and Varun on 12-October-2008. I saw for the first time an example of the Green roof.

More details on Green roofs can be found on Wikipedia (link below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof

Salmon Days at Issaquah

jayanthms — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:44:30 +0000

We had been to the ‘Salmon Days’ festival at Issaquah yesterday (4-Oct-2008) to see the Salmon run – hoardes of Salmon swim upstream against the currents. It was a rainy day with a heavy breeze and a moderate squall of rain that later drenched us. it was exciting to see the Salmons throw themselves against the current to cross the man-made dams and culverts. Varun was excited too, seeing the fish jump out as high as 3 feet out of the water.

Picture above shows the Issaquah creek directly behind the Salmon hatchery. Some snaps of the hardy fishes can be see below:

Varun’s Piggy Bank

jayanthms — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:42:31 +0000

Varun handpicked this piggy bank at IKEA in early 2007. We started putting in spare change – cents, nickels and dimes, every time we needed to lighten our wallets. Since the last few months, Varun had made it a habit to ask me and Veena for ‘Coins’. He consciously wants to put the coins in the piggy bank. We had reached a ‘FULL’ state, much sooner than anticipated.

Our New Car

jayanthms — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:51:00 +0000

On July 15th 2007, we decided to go shopping for our second car. An high end SUV was what we had in mind. We decided to test drive the Acura RDX & MDX and also try out the Lexus RX 330/350.

By that evening, I was the proud owner of a Millenium Silver Lexus RX330, Premium plus package.

Link to some pictures of my new car is given below:

Our New Car

Trip to Big Four Ice Caves – A Memorable experience

jayanthms — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:44:00 +0000

I recently had been on a short hiking trip to the Big Four Ice caves. This was the first time that I was taking my son on a hiking trip. It was a very eventful trip. Wait till you hear and see more…

Big Four is actually the name of a magnificent mountain on the south wall of the Stillaguarmish River Valley, Everett, Washington. This one is a quaint little valley, not touched by the likes of big industry.

Big Four Ice Caves are easy to reach. They are precisely one mile up a fine Forest Service trail from the site of the old Big Four Inn, about 25 miles east of Granite Falls, Washington.

We started along the Forest Service trail and got to see some interesting flora and fauna along the way…. A PACIFIC TREE FROG (Hyla regilla) and fine alpine flowers.

As we had heard from the National Park Service, the bridge that spanned the Stillaguarmish river was out, taken down by the Wind Storm last December. It was not fixed yet. Though the river was still, the water was waist deep and freezing. I discarded the plan to wade across the river carrying my son. We were left with a proposition of having to come back from the trip without seeing the Ice Caves. Fortunately, we saw some fallen trees across the river, big enough for us to cross. We decided to take the chance and cross the river with me bundling my son in my arm.

We succeeded in crossing the river… Whew.

The trail rises about 300 feet, from a beginning at 1,700 feet, making Big Four the lowest glacier cave on record anywhere! Visitors can appreciate that fact well if they have ever climbed the 2.8 miles to the Paradise & Stevens Glacier Caves, much of which is above 6,000 feet at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, USA.

The Scenary became more picturesque as we neared the ice caves…

Big Four Glacier is really not a glacier at all; it is a debris pile as you can see from the picutres below. Snow avalanches tumble down the mountain continually during the cooler half of the year and accumulate in the bowl-shaped cirque on the north flank of the mountain. Because it is on the north, it is sheltered from direct sunlight and consequently is sheltered from the melting radiant heat. This Ice field is somewhat like the Glaciers in the crater of Mount St. Helens. Thus, the “glacier” is perpetuated as series of conical masses that shrink and grow from season to season.

The cold wind coming out of the ice caves was pleasant, though chilling.

We were lucky to see this at the fag end of the Northwest Summer. I heard that the ice caves are more elaborate, if visited towards beginning of the Summer (June – July). However, this was a fantastic hike, the first with my son made so memorable by the beauty of nature, delight at seeing this beauty and the small challenges that we overcame.

Haloween 2006 – Varun’s First haloween

jayanthms — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 11:34:00 +0000

We celebrated this year’s Haloween here in Bellevue on 31st September 2006. Veena dressed up Varun in a Cow costume, which we bought for him @ Babies ‘R’ Us.We had been to houses of Ashwini & Prashanth and Shilpa & Praveen.

View picture album by clicking on the image below:

Haloween 2006