MoleZ

Moles, these small (so I am told) animals that can drive any sane person to the brink of nuclear war. Last summer we had tons of mole damage (see pictures), and I had weeks when over two full wheelbarrows had been dug up by these pesky critters. I am now just waiting for the house to drop down into a gigantic "void" underground...

I remember when I was young and read "Kalle Anka & Co" (Donald Duck for those of you who still think that Mickey Mouse is the star in the Disney empire) about Donald turning absolutely bonkers over the moles digging up his yard. We laughed at it.

It was then. Now I don't laugh any more. These guys (the moles) are active - although never when you watch - and can ruin any sized yard in no time. The only thing that seemed to work last year was a product called "Mole No More", even though it had no effect when sprinkled into their tunnels. But after two applications over the yard, the moles never showed - until now! Time to get more of the grey "stuff".

Hooked on YouTube(Z)

For those of you who have not "used" YouTube to "go back" to better times, maybe now it's the time!

Sort of by pure accident, I did peak at YouTube this past weekend to see if there was any footage of "past heroes". Well, it turns out there's TONS of it. Looking back, I likely spent a large portion of Friday and Saturday night listening to tunes (and watching) by Chaka Khan, Shakatak, Steely Dan, Level 42, Rose Royce, Captain and Tennile, plus a lot of other stuff from the late 70ies and 80ies.

Much of this is likely posted/uploaded to youTube w/o any consent from the RIAA and MPAA - and others. But, before these organizations go out and sue everyone and their GrandMothers, you've gotta relaize that the mere fact that this stuff is out there - illicit stuff - is actually good for (your) business.

Why and how? Well, in my case, I was able to take a nostalgy trip back to "better" days and re-live some of past musical memories. This triggered my interest as to what these performers are up to today, and subsequently ordering of a few DVDs and CDs from Amazon.com.

I can also certainly say that I am not unique in this aspect. Many of us are curious for new and old music, but not curious enough to shell out anywhere from $15-$20 for an album - UNTIL we have gotten a feel for "what's there". Services like YouTube and other sites do provide that "stimulant" that trigger an unknown "need" - resluting in the purchase of stuff we would never ever have looked at (at least not after we entered our 40ies).

In my case just being able to see some of Shakatak's earlier work (long after MusicBox Televison died out) was like being brought back to the days of "staying up all night at the dorm and watching (music) TV". Few of my friends back then listened to that type of music (well composed and well performed) but the fact that these guys (Shakatak) are still alive and better than ever, must be proof of something.



And getting the chance to see performers in their pink dresses (and big hair) from the 80ies, now looking like normal individuals - AND doing a better job when they are close to retirement, was pretty rewarding.

Fat, laZy Americans...

Well, that is a provoking title, isn't it?

In an article in today's edition of the Seattle Times, one can read:
"One-third of Washington residents say they traveled exclusively by car to get from one place to the other last year, NEVER walking, biking or using public transportation."

Wow! We live in a region of amazing beauty, where outdoor activities - and possibilities - are everywhere. if this study is any indication, many do not even bother to WALK to the local bar or the java hut (Starbucks) down the street.

People, walking and biking is good for you as well as for the nation. Try it out, at least once. But first make sure you can handle it, cause there's a real chance you might like it!

MidZummer in Zeattle

A few days late compared to Sweden, but earlier than past years, today was the day for the great traditional Scandinavian Midsummer fest up at S:t Edwards State Park. It is all organized by the excellent Skandia Folkdance Society.

A good crowd, nice weather when it mattered (before and during), Swedish "fika", "Sill o Potatis", +everything else Scandinavian, made this into a nice Sunday! There were tons of dogs in the park, a couple of black German Shepherds nicely decked out in flowers just what the day called for!

And, just as a traditional Swedish midsummer, the afternoon ended with a huge rain storm pulling in over the park. Luckily most had already left, but is sure looks gloomy.

Enjoy the pictures:

Garden WorkZ - 2

Last weekend (father's day) the dogs gave me a giant bamboo. Maybe not a giant plant yet, but one that will eventually grow to be huge. The canes (or is it trunks in Bamboo speak?) will get up to 4" thick. Pretty big for a grass.

A few days ago I did prep the spot in the backyard for this new addition. Moved tons (felt like it) of gravel out of the way and replaced it with a good mix of mulch from the compost. Bamboo went into the ground. For the first few days it did not look too healthy, but this morning, I've noticed that it has grown well over 2 inches just since yesterday lunch. There's still hope!

Since it was yard work day, I also tried to be a good citizen (eh, resident) and cleaned out all the English Ivy under the Holly tree. According to King County both English Ivy and Holly are deemed to be invasive plants and are to be removed. Both plants thrive, choking out everything else. But for us, the Holly stays. It is a big and beautiful tree that provides a good screen towards our neighbors (not that we don't like them but we also like a green, lush, private backyard). In case we ever change our minds and decide to go for the English Ivy style, I'm sure it will have no problems "catching a root" later on.

Once the Ivy was gone (about three full yard bins), the area really opened up. It was sort of a blocked off corner of the yard, but both humans and dogs can now wander there freely.

Next project will be to consider if to dig a well or not. People think it rains in Seattle all the time, but that is certainly not true. Summers are mostly bone dry and water can actually be an issue. On top of that, irrigation water in the summer is pricey and many - us included - let their lawns sort of go brown during the summer.
We have a corner of the backyard that traditionally have bene a bit wet and swampy. Previous onwer installed a long drain down to the street. I'm thinking of digging a deep well and lining with concrete pipes. The water can be better used in the yard than just "drained away". Stay tuned.

Zhame on CNN

CNN just announced that Larry King Live is "dumping" Michael Moore on Wednesday night for an interview with a newly released inmate, Paris Hilton.

OK, who really cares? The evening might have both informative and entertaining with Larry King spurring on Michael Moore over America's healthcare system (or lack thereof). But this time CNN bowed in for the greater ratings of Hilton. Dumbification of the media, even for the grand daddy of all talk shows, Larry King.

But, even though I really don't care, I'll be (together with the remaining 299 million) glued to the TV during one of the evenings runs of Larry's show.

And, maybe Michael Moore still pulled the longest straw. He's on for Friday night instead!

IZ annexation is getting closer?

King County has put a carrot out for the City of Kirkland: "Annex neighboring unincorporated areas and we'll help you with the finances over a 10-year transition period."

Annexation would increase Kirkland's population from somewhere around 45K to closer to 90K. Will it change the city too much, or are these areas already in all practicality part of Kirkland and it will only be an administrative change?

There are many tough questions around the annexation "yes or no" issue and likely no easy answers. At the same time, for some the issue has turned very emotional and many fear it will "destroy" our lovely city. There are arguments against an annexation, both for Kirkland residents and residents in the "PAAs" (Possible Annexation Areas). At the same time, good arguments can be made for an annexation.

Really the only right thing is for the public to discuss it and make their voices heard. There is tons of information on the City's web page, as well as some well formulated "against" arguments on the "Save Kirkland" web page.

So, get involved, study the facts, speak your mind, and contact your elected officlas at City Hall - since they are the ones that will make the final call for "yeah or neah".

Just don't sit around, do nothing, and later complain about the outcome. Instead, be a part of the solution!

GaZ Prices

Who ever thought one would appreciate gas prices at $3.09/gallon? But, believe it or not, the prices seem to have dropped quite a bit over the past weeks. Even the Shell station by SR-520, normally the most expensive around Seattle (it is the last one before the bridge) displayed a price today of $3.18. Last I saw there was over $3.50!

Not that it really matters (do not burn that much fuel in a summer), but the lower prices maybe just put the boat in the water...

Still, we are far from the prices I saw in Texas in 1996. Lowest one outside Hamilton was $0.69/gallon and regularly it was below a buck inside Dallas. No wonder everyone back then drove around in gigantic (spewing) pickup trucks.

Higher gas prices at least have gotten us to think before we take out the car, but we're still far away from the prices in most of Western Europe. For the nation, as well as for the environment, higher prices would be good, but it sort of sucks to have to shell out over $75 to fill the LandCruiser...

FremontFair - Zummer ZolstiZe Parade

An annual event in Seattle that ranks among the top of "just has to be seen";
The annual SommerSolstice Parade, part of the FremontFair.

A few photos but nothing part of being there will make this event justice. And, despite what you might see in these photos, this is a great and fun event for the ENTIRE family!









































After all this, we hosted a screening of a new Swedish film "Hating Gothenburg" (Hata Göteborg) up at the Swedish Cultural Center (SCC). A low budget but pretty good movie about Swedish football hooligans. It'll likely never hit the VERY big screens, but check it out if you get a chance. Well worth seeing!

Alex haZ left

Alex's departure from SeaTac. Jan shed more than one tear!
"He grow so much during the year, it was like losing a son"...

High Zchool Graduation

Alex, our neighborhood exchange student from Ecuador, graduated from Juanita Senior High today (or at least he attended the ceremony - they are way too stingy towards the exchange students in my mind - did not even get a diploma...).

After only having seen one graduation in Minnesota back in 1985, I have to say that this one was a bore and a pretty unorganized, noisy "spectacle". But, on the other hand, Alex is now done and on his way to NY City and then home. He's happy!

It's been a fun year Alex, and do stay in touch. You're always welcome back!


Proud Student



With exchange program boss

Angie's HouZe is Gone!

A bit surprisingly, Angie's house was demolished this morning.
Of course w/o the normal "alert", and people who wanted stuff inside the house (eager to actually pay for it) was never given the chance. House was torn down and with it all the stuff. I guess normal developer "fare". They just don't want to bother.

















I could have taken a substantial amount of wood just as fire wood, but wasn't that eager either. The remains of the house have filled up 4 big trash haulers so far, and after being re-loaded in Woodinville, it will end up in a landfill outside Yakima. Sounds a bit inefficient since most of the material from the house could have been recycled (wood) into mulch and fill material.

After having taken a nice walk up to Nona's house and checking out her new chickens, day ended with a BBQ for Alex and his fellow exchance students out at Golden Gardens Park, to a cold but pretty sunset over Puget Sound and the Olymic Mountains. Nice ending to a sad day.

Angies HouZe...

Angie's house is coming down. Word has it that it'll happen tomorrow, Thursday.

Angie's been a staple in our neighborhood and lived here since the early 40ies when she hand her husband had the house built. Angie was more or less forced to move out last year due to her ailing health, but also to, dare we say it, greedy family members. They wanted the land, or rahter the money in the land.

It is the sole structure remaining from that time, but now its time has come, and it is really to no one's surprise (her house was literally a rats nest). Her lot is the largest one on the street, and it has a great view out over the lake. At the same time, the lot is not big enough (yeah!) to be sub-divided into smaller parcels. But it is a prime target for development and word has it that the house that will be erected there is about 5,500 sqf. THAT will be the largest in the neighborhood. Just hope that the design will be good, and not another monstrosity like the one up the street.

Wife had her eyes on a bunch of older wooden doors inside the house. Initially she just wanted to "take'em". We told her that was a really bad idea (=stealing) and that the doors were best left for the current owner/developer. But today she made contact with the developer and was able to buy the doors. The result?

1. Husband (=me) suddenly got his entire evening turned upside down in trying to remove doors, door hardware and door jambs in the darkened rooms + carring them down the street.
2. Doors galore are now littering our garage and there's really no space left - for anything.

Well, let's look at these doors in tomorrow's daylight and pick out one or two that we eventually will use, and let the other ones be sold to highest bidder on Craigslist!

Garden WorkZ - 1

Bamboo. Last year we planted Bamboo. Not my idea, wife wanted it. I though it was way too pricey for what we got, and I was for from sure if it'd ever survive up here.

But, low and behold, our bamboo is healthy and growing. The new stems have actually grown over 10' just since last weekend. That is more than a foot a day!

We've had some spreading of the bamboo as well, but not at all what we wanted. Likely due to the fact that the soil around the bamboo consists of crushed gravel, after our neighbors decided to erect a tall stone wall (it is really "fake" stone, i.e. concrete). When the wall was built we got a strip of gravel about two feet wide and over a foot deep on our side, a strip that is in all essence a waste land (it was previously a beautiful green area) since nothing really grows in it. Something needed to be done - since nice pointers to the "wall erectors" have sort of passed by w/o getting noticed.

During this beautiful Saturday I dug up about 3-4 wheel barrows of "gravel" and replaced it with good mulch/compost. Hope is of course that the bamboo will find it, and spread out closer towards and along the wall. Many people fear bamboo in their gardens due to its "spreading" capabilities. In our case, we have no problems if the bamboo takes over the entire NE corner of the lot. It'll cover the (ugly) stone wall, and provide a great nesting area for the songbirds we have around here.

Plus, it is just plain cool to see something that grow that fast!

The White Zuit - a teenagers white suite

Went over to our neighbors for a quick chat today. In the hallway I almost got a shock. Alex, the ("cool") Ecuadorian exchange student they've had for the past 9 months, met me in a suit! And not "any" suit! It was a white pinstriped concoction with a white vest and a black shirt. Something that could have come straight from the "GodFather". Very classy! He actually looked good, especially compared to the cut off camo pants and flip-flops he normally wears - even in the middle of the winter.

Turns out it was Prom Night, and Alex was just about to leave with his friends for their great evening of the year. I guess it is the biggest night of the year for High School students in the U.S., and few knows what really takes place on "Prom night"...

Look at these pictures. Dapper!

Computer TroubleZ

About two years ago I did buy a new Dell desktop. Not really that fond of Dell, but price was definitely right and and it had all that I required. On top of that, it has never been a bad deal to get a three year full service warranty. Had after all used it to replace some hardware on wife's Dell PC.

This time a few ports started disappearing. Since I had some 200+ days left on warranty, and fearing hardware failure, I decdide to actually tackle Dell's (infamous) support. Called the number and got connected to "James" in Bombay (not Mumbay). We went through some basic trouble shooting and nothing helped. Agreed to a partial "roll" and we booted from original DVD (before ServicePack 2). As I feared, this did not go that smooth since files needed (included in SP2) were nowhere to be found on a pre-SP 2 disk. "James" promised to send me a new set of disks. This was a few days before Memorial Day so it was unlikely anything would arrive before the holiday. Nevertheless, I asked James to tag the package for "Saturday delivery".

The following day "James" called back to check on the status. It was sort of funny since he very well knew that we could do nothing before I had new disks in my hand. I still did not have a tracking number, but that really did not matter since it was a long weekend anyway (little did I know how effective Dell's process was, the package already waiting i Bellevue for me, about 24 hours after first call).

Since I've done a fair share of Windows installs over the years, I sort of decided to "screw" Dell and fix this myself, at least so I had some functionality until the disks would arrive. Managed to get everything up and running (except IE 7 but that was no major loss at this time) and had at least a machine that I could access the web with, and that would allow wife to reach the printer.

Weekend passes and Tuesday morning the disks arrive. 30 minutes later, "James" calls. Good timing! We continue with the re-roll process. All seem to be fine, and after about 30 minutes, I decided to let him go. Only to have Windows install "hang" at the same time as before.

The next day I talk to "Ashish". He's good, maybe even better than James. At least just as polite, but he might actually know this PC better. Or, at least it appears like that. Since I had the PC running over the weekend, I've taken all needed backups and is now almost eager for a complete re-install. Just to sort of start out fresh again (Windows accumulate a lot of "crud" over time and eventually it has an impact on performance).

So, we start from fresh. Same procedure. Install Windows and all seem to be fine. But when done this time, my SATA disks are only running in ATA mode, not SATA AHCI mode, which is preferred for better performance - AND the way they've been running from day one. When trying to boot in AHCI mode, the infamous MSFT "BSoD" (Blue Screen of Death) appears and booting stops.

I spend a few hours on-line reading about similar horror stories with Dell and AHCI, but no real (or simple) solutions. Just a lot of complaints, seem to be linked to problems with an Intel driver (iastore.sys).

Call back to Ashish again. After some research he claims that "this Dell does not support AHCI after a re-install, only from factory". Tell him politely that that is a bunch of crap. Ask him to look into this and come back with better info tomorrow. There are NO reasons why we - with good/correct SW driver - should not be able to get my machine in working order again.

Next day, same answer. And for the 101st time he thanks me the for my patience and just claims it is "ATA" mode I have to settle with, but will do some further checking for tomorrow. Since we're not up and running "as it should be", I decide to experiment a bit and low and behold, late in the evening manages to get the PC running. I"m happy, but will be even happier when I can tell Asish this tomorrow - especially since he claimed it was not feasable!

After the call to Dell support, just to tell them that "all is good" and "we've got AHCI", I proceed with updating the PC as per "all rules in the book". I start by creating a log where every action is logged, since I am eager to load achieve a Windows load that is as slim as possible. I have over the year been able to "trim down" Windows by shutting down not needed services, and preventing unneeded applications from loading. It has just never been done in a consistant, documented, manner so it has always been very hard to replicate. This time will be different!

After going trough Windows Update and loaidng some 90+ patches, actually very smoothly, PC is ready for loading applications and "tweaking". Before and after every install, I check both the startup applications via "msconfig.exe" and "Services" via the services console. Anything that looks suspicious is disabled, can always enble it later if needed.

Earlier I was running a bunch of "crap" after booting, but I am now down to only 4 applications in "startup" and not that many more services. Seems like every application is eager to load something that will make it work a little bit smoother, but at the price of overall performance. Among the applications that bring along a lot of "freeloaders" is Apple's iTunes/QuickTime with a bunch of extra small "helpers", really not needed unless you plan on synching with an iPod.

But maybe worst of them all is McAfee's Security Suite. A total of 15 "processes" is running in the background just for this. It is pretty excessive (although not as bad as Norton), but will stay with this for a while since the package is free from our ISP. ZoneAlarm or AVG are otherwise good alternatives since they run much "slimmer".

All in all, the PC is up and running, but it likely took about 10 hours on the phone with Dell - and at the end their help was more or less useless anyway. To give them credit, it could have been done faster, but I would then have ended up with a different (slower) machine than I bought from them, a route I was not willing to take, and they are getting a negative mark for trying to "force" that solution on me.

But one cannot stop wondering over Dell support. Horror stories abound, this time they spent a lot of time on my calls, sometimes having a 2nd call on the other line in parallel. Can it really be finacially wise (for Dell), considering that a three year support contract for a home PC does not cost more than a bit north of $100 (or about the same amount a corporate contract cost per month...)? Bottom line is probably though that many are willing to accept a Dell just because of their service. It is not always that good, but it is there and it is willing. And for the samll added cost, it is a piece of mind many see as priceless. My guess is that 90% of Dell's buyers have no idea of how to dig deeper into their machines. For them, Dell is a good choice.
At least as long as you can take "James", "Rob", "Adam", and "Steven" with a good sense of humor!