What a difference a week makes!

My last post here on May 4th the rhododendrons were just about to bloom. One week later on Friday, May 11th they are in their glory and coming into full bloom just in time for Mother's Day!

I'm loving these colors on a beautiful Friday afternoon! Both photo's were taken with my iPhone 4s and the one below is using my new olloclip lense. Click the images to view full size.

These rhodi's are just outside our First American Title branch on Easthill in Kent, Washington.

The Rhododendron's are blooming!

One of nature's many gifts to the Pacific Northwest is an abundance of Rhododendrons. Though us natives of the Puget Sound (if the truth were revealed) do become weary of grey days and rain about now, but the Rhododendron's love it as they ready for the warm spring sun to burst into their glory and flower. This is so spectacular and renews the spirit. Life is born anew!


Growing up in my old neighborhood of Earlington in Renton, Washington, I remember every neighbor had at least one Rhododendron. My Grandparents had two huge trees in their yard that were about 16 feet tall.



After a cool rainy morning the sunshine came out this afternoon and the Rhody's at
my office in Kent are ready to burst into bloom!


Don't forget May 14 - May 20, 2012 is the 77th Annual Rhododendron Festival in Port Townsend...


I love the Olympic Peninsula. Port Townsend is about 2 hours from Seattle if you take the Seattle - Bainbridge Island Ferry then drive north on State Route WA-305 to Port Townsend.


Port Townsend is an old waterfront town and one our early guardians to the Puget Sound. It has a long history. Captain George Vancouver named the area "Port Townsend" after his friend the Marquis of Townshend back in 1792. The city took the name on April 24, 1851. It's worth the drive just to see all of the old Victorian era homes.


There's a lot going on during festival week, arts and crafts, fashion shows, and bike tours. The Rhododendron Garden opens on the 14th at Fort Worden, there's fun events like the pancake breakfast and spaghetti feed at the Elks Lodge, live music by the high school, a memorial Rhody open Golf Tournament, and much much more with a Grand Parade on Saturday the 19th. Great small town Northwest Americana fun and the scenery and views of water and mountains is truly inspiring.


A great way to welcome spring. The Rhododendron's are blooming!


For details, directions, and guidelines to all events click: Port Townsend Rhododendron Festival.

Remembering my little blue bug.

I've always had a special place in my heart for the Volkswagen Beetle... I owned a blue 1966 Bug back in the early 70's, in fact it was the very first car I actually owned. Not many perks but it got great gas mileage and was fun to drive. I ran into this red 1970 VW at Fry's in Renton, WA.

Very straight and cute 1970 Volkswagen Beetle in Fry's parking lot, Renton WA.

I was attending Green River Community College then and drove to Auburn from Renton. Then after classes to Enumclaw to teach guitar lessons at the Stan Boreson Music Store. Those were long days and finally around 7:00 or 7:30 pm back home to Renton via Maple Valley. That was a little over a 65 mile round trip everyday, yet a tank of gas lasted all week.

I loved the Beetle's simplicity. It was reliable, low maintenance, and with a little imagination it drove like a sports car. One drawback however was the internal heater worked off the air cooled engine. I remember a lot of cold wet winter mornings jamming for an 8:00 am class with foggy windows and your breath freezing on the inside of the windshield.

The drive from Renton to Auburn was straight down the valley and flat. It wasn't until the last 2 miles or so when I had to gun it up through Lea Hills to campus that it would finally heat up. Then, as if by magic, the windows cleared and you were now in an oven rolling the windows down gasping for air.

I put a lot of hard miles on that little car before it needed some engine work. If memory serves me, it was rings. My friend Steve Johnson, unlike me, had mechanical skills and we decided to pull the motor and do the repairs.

We rented a jack to hoist the engine and with me on top and Steve lying on the ground we unbolted the motor when it slipped off the jack. I'll never forget Steve bench pressing it up through the engine compartment grunting, "Here!" Thanks to Steve we got it running again and I was back on the road.

Good memories and many adventures... remembering my little blue bug. It was very good to me.

I Stumbled Upon Hippocats.

Last week was amazing! I was flying down to First American Title, HQ in Santa Ana, California to spend a few days with some of my (social media type friends and) co-workers for a 2 day retreat with Jeff Turner of Zeek Interactive, Jay Thompson, the Phoenix Real Estate Guy (and as of today, also now at Zillow), Stacey Harmon, and Tamara Dorris.

As it turned out my flight ended up being 3 hours late. First response, I’m mad, then sad, I’m missing a really great dinner with friends in Santa Ana! Yet not one to stay down for long I went exploring and to my delight I started discovering the wonderful art that is everywhere at the Seatac International Airport.

Just before boarding my flight from N Gate I stumbled upon some works in clay by local artists. They were all great and charming but my eye was drawn to one in particular. It had a great whimsical slant on life and an attitude that reminded me of my daughter Shannon's cat Charlie.

Hippocats by Aaron Murray.

 

Aaron is an artist and an independent arts educator who teaches at various community centers around Seattle. He makes ceramics, wood carvings, prints, and paintings. He’s a young guy (compared to me) and I think deserves some attention.

The irony of my story is social media. I meet most people nowadays online first then later in person. Here at N Gate at Seatac I'm getting impatient waiting for my flight then literally stumbled upon this exhibit and being the well meaning social mediast I am I fired off a few photo’s thinking, "hey, maybe there's something here, maybe not."

But I made a connection. Those dang cats hanging out on that hippo with attitude! It stuck. When I got back home I did a little online research and found Aaron's blog and got to see more of his work at: Aaron Murray. I emailed him and asked if it would be okay to use my photo's of hippocats in one of my blogs?" He replied back within 24 and said it was fine and thanked me for my interest...

I’m hoping as things play out these days we will meet in person soon. Aaron, you have a lot of wonderful ideas to share with the world. An insightful eye, you have a knack at capturing life and make it stop for a moment so we can pause to comtemplate. I felt a shared sense of humor that went way beyond our differences in age. Thanks!

I stumbled upon Hippocats. More about my Santa Ana trip later...

Ya think Mom's trying to tell me something?

Snow?

What? Snow? In mid March? The lion is still roaring and I can't wait for summer! What a surprise it was to wake up this morning and see it snowing like crazy. The east hill in Kent was slushy and slippery in spots. I'm driving down Benson Highway just north of South 236th for the First American Title Branch to teach my new clock hour class, Real Estate in the Social Age. Should be fun! Safe Travels...

Tugboat on Lake Union

I had a few meetings in Seattle today and really enjoyed stopping by my old Eastlake office. I love the view over Lake Union with Queen Anne, the Aurora Bridge, and the Olympic Mountains in the background... Well, the mountains are there but you can't see them because of the clouds. The tugboat was doing a circle for about 20 minutes. I think they were just having a little fun. Later another tug showed up and they were off guiding a ship through the Ballard Locks.