Seattle Capitol Hill fire

My last apartment on Bellevue and Pine! Poor Ed :(

• Man dies in Capitol Hill fire

• 1 dead in apartment building fire

Is the Age of Prosperity Over?

Yikes!! If the weather isn't getting you down, just read the paper. The Wall Street Journal has been reporting plenty of doom and gloom lately. The latest today is that the financial mess is hitting the oil rich gulf region, GM and Chrysler is facing bankruptcy fears, and an op-ed about the end of prosperity.

In the op-ed, Arthur Laffer gives his perspective on the current financial crisis and how panicked government interventions usually worsens the problem...

When markets are free, asset values are supposed to go up and down, and competition opens up opportunities for profits and losses. Profits and stock appreciation are not rights, but rewards for insight mixed with a willingness to take risk. People who buy homes and the banks who give them mortgages are no different, in principle, than investors in the stock market, commodity speculators or shop owners. Good decisions should be rewarded and bad decisions should be punished. The market does just that with its profits and losses.

No one likes to see people lose their homes when housing prices fall and they can't afford to pay their mortgages; nor does any one of us enjoy watching banks go belly-up for making subprime loans without enough equity. But the taxpayers had nothing to do with either side of the mortgage transaction. If the house's value had appreciated, believe you me the overleveraged homeowner and the overly aggressive bank would never have shared their gain with taxpayers. Housing price declines and their consequences are signals to the market to stop building so many houses, pure and simple.

But here's the rub. Now enter the government and the prospects of a kinder and gentler economy. To alleviate the obvious hardships to both homeowners and banks, the government commits to buy mortgages and inject capital into banks, which on the face of it seems like a very nice thing to do. But unfortunately in this world there is no tooth fairy. And the government doesn't create anything; it just redistributes. Whenever the government bails someone out of trouble, they always put someone into trouble, plus of course a toll for the troll. Every $100 billion in bailout requires at least $130 billion in taxes, where the $30 billion extra is the cost of getting government involved.

If you don't believe me, just watch how Congress and Barney Frank run the banks. If you thought they did a bad job running the post office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the military, just wait till you see what they'll do with Wall Street.

...

The stock market is forward looking, reflecting the current value of future expected after-tax profits. An improving economy carries with it the prospects of enhanced profitability as well as higher employment, higher wages, more productivity and more output. Just look at the era beginning with President Reagan's tax cuts, Paul Volcker's sound money, and all the other pro-growth, supply-side policies.

Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan added their efforts to strengthen what had begun under President Reagan. President Clinton signed into law welfare reform, so people actually have to look for a job before being eligible for welfare. He ended the "retirement test" for Social Security benefits (a huge tax cut for elderly workers), pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress against his union supporters and many of his own party members, signed the largest capital gains tax cut ever (which exempted owner-occupied homes from capital gains taxes), and finally reduced government spending as a share of GDP by an amazing three percentage points (more than the next four best presidents combined). The stock market loved Mr. Clinton as it had loved Reagan, and for good reasons.

The stock market is obviously no fan of second-term George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama or John McCain, and again for good reasons.

These issues aren't Republican or Democrat, left or right, liberal or conservative. They are simply economics, and wish as you might, bad economics will sink any economy no matter how much they believe this time things are different. They aren't.

Read the rest here.

Fun around Seattle

Jason and I have been lucky to have family come visit in town. With Connie, Kay, and Noah, we've gone hiking, taken weekend trips, and just hung out around town. Mostly eating out quite a bit... Kay took a billion pictures to prove it :)

Then last weekend, Jason surprised me with a seaplane ride to the San Juan Island and a whale watching tour. It was awesome! The plane stayed pretty close to the ground, so we had amazing views of Seattle, Mt Ranier, and Mt. Baker. More pictures coming soon :)

After brunch and hanging out at Friday Harbor, we went whale watching. The weather was perfect (rare in this unseasonably cold and rainy summer), and we got to see a ton of orcas! The naturalists on board said that two pods were meeting and probably mating. No, I don't know what it looks like for orcas to mate - it happens underwater. But we did see some orcas breach, and got to hear them talk through hydrophones.

Lots of family in town!

It's been a whirlwind of guests for the past month... Connie for a week, Kay for three, and Noah for a little over a week. So we've been up to tons of fun stuff, and now we're sad that everyone is gone.

Here's Noah, Kay, Jason, and me at Golden Gardens :)

Shi Shi Beach Trip Report

It's a bit late, but here's a summary trip report of hiking and camping out to Shi Shi Beach over Memorial Day weekend. Bob, Joy, John, Jason and I went out for a long weekend of beach camping and relaxing.

Getting there

• Ferry and drive: The ferry and drive over was smooth, but that's easy to say because I fell asleep most of the way. I was pretty wiped from being up late packing... let's just say packing is not one of my strengths.
• Lunch on the way: Once we were nearing the trail head, we were looking for a good lunch place. But after the last big store, we didn't see many businesses. So we decided we'd eat after hiking in.

Parking, permits, rules, etc.

• Parking: Overnight parking options were mostly in the yards of locals for about $5-10 per night. There's only day parking at the trail head.
• Permits: You need a Makah Indian Reservation permit, and a backcountry camping permit for the group. We didn't know about the backcountry permit, which wasn't good since there were quite a few rangers around checking for the paperwork.
• Bear buckets: Another rule we didn't know about was about having bear buckets. The same ranger we saw at the trailhead, kindly waited for us to hike in before asking about our bear buckets. Two of our more nature-friendly group members hiked all the way out to get a "bear" bucket - it was just a normal bucket. Anyhow, it was pretty funny since we hid our bucket in the sand instead of hanging it up on a tree. We felt like squirrels digging for our food in the morning :)

Highlights

• Hike... It was a nice muddy hike to the beach. The trail was easy, but jumping over muddy patches with your pack was a bit of a challenge. I'd recommend hiking poles or a finding nice walking stick on the way. I'd also suggest high-top boots for walking through mud.
  
• The beach was gorgeous. I was a bit sad to see quite a bit of washed-up trash, so Jason and I tried to do a mini-beach clean-up. But otherwise, it was great to be hanging out on the beach :)
  
• Water... There's a nice stream close to the beach, so bring your water filters.
• Crowd... There were quite a few people around when we were exploring the arches along the coast during the day. It was probably a bit more crowded than usual since it was a holiday weekend, but we still had space to set up camp away from other people.
• Beach fun... we occupied our days with tossing the disc, playing hacky sack, making a super big fire, building a beach bench from driftwood, and exploring the coast :)
• Camp fire and cooking... at night, we cooked dumplings (yes, we are an ambitious bunch to make beach dumplings!), bratwurst, and corn. And of course, we had delicious smores.
  
• Sweet coast... the arches and sea stacks are pretty cool. I also learned that mussels grow on rocks. Hmm, we also looked at lots of sea anemies and star fish.

• After heading out from Shi Shi, we stopped by Cape Flattery for lunch.
  

Cake from Amy :)

In another news, Jason and I got ANOTHER cake from Amy! She's so sweet :)

Lake Annette Trip Report

Our hike turned out to be much more of an adventure than we anticipated. Lake Annette is a 7.5 mile, 1700 ft elevation gain hike up to an alpine lake. Bob, Joy, Suor, Jason and I started our day early with a hearty breakfast at Julia's. Then after a gorgeous sunny drive out to exit 47, we started off on our hike. The first half of the hike was great - lots of gushing streams and fun bridges. I particularly loved the refreshing air of the streams, and the sound of water rushing down the mountain. However as we started getting closer to the lake, we were hiking on 3 foot of icy snow. We scrambled up snow/ice fields for quite a while, until we lost the trail. But we found a sunny spot in a snow alcove for lunch.

After deciding that trying to find the lake would probably be a bad idea, we started to head back. It was pretty tough getting down on icy snow fields. And we were slightly concerned when we lost the trail. But at the end, Bob found the trail and saved the day :) So while it was fun adventure, we learned a few lessons:

• hiking poles is a really good idea, especially if you think there might be snow
• having a GPS is handy
  
• hike Lake Annette in July... and maybe not until late July to avoid the muddy trails after the snow melts

Kay visits Seattle :)

Jason and I are having a blast with Kay. We've been busy hiking, bikram yoga-ing, movie-watching, and dumpling-making. Don't worry if you want to know everything we've been up to, because Kay is crazy with the camera. She's taken a second by second play of all our fun, so you can check flickr. You'll even see Jason eat his entire brunch on Saturday. It'll just be like you're there with us :)

A highlight of the weekend was hiking Rattlesnake Ledge on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. There was an amazing view, and we Loraxed almost every tree stump :) Jason got extra credit for the hard-to-get ones.

Tonight, Jason is cooking us quiche :) And hopefully, we'll play Puerto Rico.

i've got bangs!

Snowboarding at Steamboat was so amazing! We had two awesome days of sunny soft riding, a 16" powder day, and then another powder day in the sun. I also had a blast hanging out with everyone there... I can't wait for more trips :)

In other news, I got bangs! I think the last time I had bangs was in high school? It's been weird adjusting to the new do. I wonder how I'd look with a buzz cut :)

Jason and me at our favorite restaurant

more snowboarding and salsa dancing!

I'm so excited to go snowboarding in Colorado next week! This is an epic month of snowboarding - we've already taken two trips to Baker. Next month, we're also taking a trip up to Whistler. We're definitely very lucky. Jason and I have also been doing a lot of salsa dancing... I think we're getting pretty good :)

In addition, we've started volunteering at the Orion center. It's a facility that provides services for homeless youth. I really like volunteering there so far. This week, we went during drop-in hours and dinner. Next week, we'll be helping out with the outreach program. I think its wonderful the center also provides a program for getting your HS diploma and employment training. Meeting these kids reminded me how lucky I was to have grown up in a stable home with lots of opportunities.

Some facts I learned at the training course about homeless youth:

• about 60% come from foster homes
• 25 - 40% identify as LGBT
• it's tough to apply for a job without an ID, address, phone #, and prior work experience
  

seattle winter :)

It's been beautiful here! I should probably be concerned about global warming, but its been awesome having gorgeous weather at 50 degrees in February :)

View of Seattle from work

Is Obama's fundraising really different from the rest?

Obama has done an amazing job campaigning. But I'm tired of hearing how he's different from the rest because he doesn't take money from lobbyists. I didn't really start researching until I heard John Edwards state that "Senator Obama has taken more money from the drug companies than anybody" in the South Carolina debates.

Here is an article explaining the real difference of Obama's fundraising.

Jason also wrote an interesting article on this topic - The Obama fundraising myths.

Slate's provocative article - "Chelsea Clinton's Provocative E-Mail"

Slate published an article a couple days ago titled "Chelsea Clinton's Provocative E-Mail." Her e-mail was a forward of Robin Morgan's essay, Goodbye To All That, on sexism in the democratic primaries.

Like how Chelsea noted in her email, I don't agree with all of the points and phrasing. However, I believe Robin brings up important points. So I encourage you to read the essay, keeping in mind the author and her background. I hope you excuse the language that doesn't agree with you. And I hope you read it reflectively and see if you hear any truth.

shooting in Capitol Hill !

I like to describe Seattle as a comfortable mixture of a town and city. It's small enough to feel familiar, but big enough to always find something to do. And very importantly, I feel safe walking around at night. I wouldn't advise some streets late at night by oneself, but I certainly don't worry much. So it was a shock to hear there was a fatal shooting at the corner of my last apartment! Very shocking.

restless

This past week, I've been constantly checking for great last minute flights anywhere. It's a slightly uneasy feeling of being stagnant and bored. I feel silly complaining of being bored and "needing" to travel. But I was pretty close to flying to Mexico this weekend... and flights to Amsterdam were $260 from Seattle! It was so tempting.

Instead I took a long weekend, which was really good. I took Friday off from work, relaxed, read and cooked. I made Kielbasa and sauerkraut pasta, and clam chowder. Of course, the clam chowder was lactose-free... it was awesome to have clam chowder again :)

On Saturday, Jason and I had a fun time snowshoeing somewhere near Twin Lakes. Here's where we went... we started at the Hyak sno-park (907-1 push-pin), and we went about 1.5 miles along the groomed trail to about the 907-2 push-pin. The directions said to find to go 0.75 miles on the Iron Horse trail, and then turn onto FR 9070. Then about 1.5 miles in, take a sharp hairpin turn into a narrow trail for 0.5 miles to the lake.

We never saw the turn-off for FR 9070. So even though it was a bummer we didn't find Twin Lakes, it was awesome just wandering around the forest. Lots of pictures of snow are uploaded on my flickr page :)

the news

Why do I get the sense CNN isn't hoping Hillary will win the primaries?

On the top banner, here are the stories: Will Hillary nominate Bill to the supreme court? Huckabee up, Clinton down. Seriously, are you kidding me?







I hope people know that this isn't really news.

happy new year!

It's 2008! I'm always amazed at how fast time flies.

I had a fantastic Snowliday, which is our new holiday celebration of giving, friends, family and snow. To celebrate our first Snowliday, we went snowboarding at Stevens Pass. It was so awesome. Although on one of the backside runs, we were riding right next to giant power lines. You can hear the power crackling. It was very disturbing. I wonder how much radiation exposure we got, and the chances of cancer or an 11th toe. Anyhow, there were tons of powder and fun :) We've also been snowshoeing, which is another awesome way to spend time in the snow.

This New Years eve, we went salsa dancing at the Century Ballroom. It was fun getting all dressed up and dancing to a live salsa band :) Now I'm psyched for more salsa dancing this year. I'm also super excited for another winter of lots of snowboarding. This year, we have trips to Baker, Colorado, and Whistler planned already :) It's going to be sweet.

Although spending the holidays in Seattle was really good, I miss my family and friends on the east coast. My plan of moving people out here isn't going so well. I also miss hanging out with cool girls - working in tech isn't helpful to the cause of meeting women. So I'm really excited to have Amy move out here :)