Happy 17th Birthday Jennifer!

I've just returned from a week visiting my niece Jennifer, and helping her celebrate her 17th birthday! What a blast!

This was definitely the vacation break I needed. On Sunday, Nov 15th I took a huge national optician's test called the ABO in Seattle and I was dead tired from studying. I still had a few more days off, and so I decided to go up and see Sharon, Jenn, and Kevin for a few days. Wasn't sure I was going to be able to go because of the bad weather, but mother nature was kind and I made it over the pass (twice) without any troubles.

The first few days were spent watching movies and playing Rock Band. I had never played it before, but now I'm addicted! I'm not really very good (I always choose Easy), but the point is to have fun, which I did.

On Jenn's birthday (Nov 19th) we had a birthday party for her and a few of her friends came over for ice cream and cake. We played more Rock Band, opened presents, lighted up some sparklers, and then finished the evening off with a Cake Fight That's Jenn's friend Courtney and I going at it. We both had a blast acting goofy. Courtney's sister whipped out her cell phone and has a video, which I'm dying to own. Katie, if you still have it, please send me a copy or post it on YouTube and send me a link.

Mike Blowers predicts HR! Unbelieveably accurate!

You gotta see it to believe it.

Last Sunday, Seattle announcer Mike Blowers predicted rookie Matt Tuiasosopo's first MLB HR. Anyone can make a prediction, but he went way beyond that. So perfect is his prediction that it has made all the sports highlight shows, even the national news covered it. YouTube has it up and it's been viewed over 200,000 times!

The following link shows it the best. The video is from FSN, showing Tui's 2nd at bat. The audio is from the pre-game radio show so you can hear the prediction, followed by Dave Niehaus' actual call from the 2-1 count on:

http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=6923171


Here is the accompaning article from the Seattle Mariners homepage giving you any details you might have missed:

Blowers amazes with uncanny prediction
Mariners broadcaster calls Tuiasosopo's first home run

SEATTLE -- Talk about making some bold predictions.

Mariners television analyst Mike Blowers went a little farther than the edge in Toronto on Sunday afternoon, when he selected Matt Tuiasosopo as his "Pick to Click" -- and then watched in amazement as his predictions came true, one after the other.

"Dave Sims and I do a pregame radio segment every day called the 'Pick to Click' and I decided to have a little bit of fun with it," Blowers said on Tuesday. "I liked the way [Tuiasosopo] was swinging the bat and he was due to have a good game, so I decided to go with him."
As the interview with longtime radio announcer Rick Rizzs continued, Blowers became a little bolder with each prediction.

"I was thinking to myself that it was about time that he hit a home run," he added, "and Rick pressed me to keep going. It just went from there. I took it to another level, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would happen the way it did."

Count the ways it did happen, just as Blowers said it would.

The former big league third baseman predicted that Tuiasosopo would hit a home run in his second at-bat of the game.
Tui came to bat for the second time, in the fifth inning, and hit a home run, becoming the 21st Mariners player this season season to go deep, tying a franchise record.

Why the second at-bat?
"I thought he would take some pitches in his first at-bat, because he's a rookie," Blowers said.

Oh, there's more.

Blowers also predicted that the home run would come on a 3-and-1 pitch.
"I knew the pitcher [Brian Tallet] had been known to be a little wild, so I figured Tui would get ahead in the count, the pitcher would challenge him on a 3-and-1 count and Tui would turn it loose and hit a home run. That was my thinking."
The count went to 3-and-1 and sure enough, Tuiasosopo hit the next pitch for a home run.

But wait, there's more.
Blowers also predicted that the ball would land in the second deck in left-center field.
The ball almost landed in the first row of the second deck in left-center field, instead bouncing into the Blue Jays bullpen, where it was retrieved and given to Tuiasosopo as a momento.

But wait -- there's even more.

Blowers even predicted that the pitch would be a fastball.
"When the count got to 3-and-1, I started to get a little excited," Blowers laughed. "And when Tui hit the next pitch out, I just started laughing. [Sims] didn't know what I was laughing about, because he hadn't heard the pregame show.
"Next thing I know, Kevin [producer Kevin Cremin] was high-fiving me."

So, how many times has the "Click to Pick" actually happened?

"Never like that," Blowers laughed.

14 innings and a WIN

Yesterday Julie and I went to see the Mariners play the Chicago White Sox. It was our final game we will attend this season. It turned out to be one of the better ones we've attended too, but that's later in the night. The first 6 innings were pretty boring, with the White Sox scoring a run in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th inning. We were doing nothing. At the 7th inning stretch, we went to see the Mariners Hall of Fame display where they had just added Ken Griffey Jr's locker from the Kingdome. We were in the bathroom when Adrian Beltre hit a solo HR in the bottom of the 7th, so we missed that blast to left field, and we were at the Hall of Fame during the 8th.

We moved to the concourse behind homeplate to watch the 9th inning, expecting to stand behind the last row of seats (the seat nazi's don't let you occupy empty seats even in the 9th behind homeplate) for 1 inning. The score was still 3-1 White Sox.

Jose Lopez was the first batter and he swung and connected....solo HR....it was now 3-2 with no outs. The next 2 batters were retired and it was up to Bill Hall. Well, since I prefaced this writing as a great game, you know what happened. Bill Hall connects deep to left field and the game is tied 3-3! All 13,000 fans at Safeco Field are going bananas.

Both teams had scoring opportunities throughout the extra innings. Our bullpen didn't allow a run, with rookie catcher Adam Moore behind the plate all this time in his first major league game as catcher. (After the game he said he never thought he'd catch the entire bullpen in one game...7 Mariners relievers pitched to the rookie catcher)

Shawn Kelly pitched the top of the 14th and afterward, we were up on our feet for the second 7th inning stretch of the ballgame. As the bottom of the 14th arrived, I mentioned how fortunate we were that this game started at 3:30pm since it was almost 8pm now (it would be after midnight if the game started at 7:10pm) We were tired, but still loud. We might be here all night! One guy got aboard, then an out, then another out. Kenji Johjima pinch hit for Adam Moore and was hit and took his base. Two men on, 2 out, and Ichiro approaches the plate. (see photo at right) Ichiro misses the first pitch, lets a ball go by for 1-1 and then takes the next pitch to center field for the walk off single! What an amazing comeback! M's win 4-3!

That's the game recap, but what about our autograph hunt? We got there 2 hours before the game and came up with 6 more autographs. Pitcher Daniel Hudson & catcher/bullpen coach Mark Salas from the visiting White Sox. From the Mariners I was finally able to obtain the auto of our closer, the DA, David Aardsma, and relief pitcher Luke French. I also got former Mariners pitcher and FSN commentator Bill Krueger and also from FSN, announcer Brad Adam.

See Scrappy and her babies on YouTube!

It's been awhile since I've made a post, so tonight I'm letting everyone see a couple of videos we've made of Scrappy the squirrel and her little babies. A huge thank you to my niece, Jennifer, who told me to load them on YouTube and post the link. I've been trying to upload them directly to my blog and have been unable to do so for some time. It was quick and easy on YouTube, so I'll probably post a few other videos in the future from some of our adventures.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKoFvoxYSwY Scrappy burying peanuts

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkAj3MqEfD8 Meet Scrappy's kids!

French and Saunders

We've discovered over the past 6 months or so that we love British comedy! It started when Julie brought home an episode of "Ab Fab" from the library. It was hilarious. So she checked out the entire series and we started watching them (and couldn't stop). Then we looked up the actresses to see what else they were in and that's when we discovered "French and Saunders".

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders......well known British comedy duo who had their own TV series for several years. Their work is incredible. Spoofs of movies, bands, original skits....it was one of their original skits that was the beginnings of "Absolutely Fabulous". (the aforementioned Ab Fab) Check out some of their stuff on YouTube or rent a video.

Here are a few links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ4A0aaaOAw An Original Skit "Computer Trouble"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9onI92OxBHY Harry Potter Spoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOM-_PYgQPY Very early skit "School Girls"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD0rbiePhBc Madonna, Missy Elliott, & Britney Spoof

Their most current spoof is of the Meryl Streep film "Mamma Mia".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq-FX1ced8g

From there we were led to the comedy "The Vicar of Dibley" starring Dawn French. There are 5 series of it (similar to our seasons of shows) and we've only seen the first 3. I'm dying to see the rest of the show. It's just started showing on PBS here in Seattle, so we're glued to the telly every Saturday night at 7pm.

We've also discovered "The Catherine Tate Show" and all the great characters she played for 4 series. You'll just love "Nan". Other series we are watching: "Gavin & Stacey" and "Jam & Jerusalem" (known as Clatterford here in the USA).

Believe me, you'll be dying when you check out these British Comedies!

Autograph Ramblings

I was just thinking tonight about how many baseball player and coach autographs Julie and I have obtained over the past 8 years. It's a bunch, but I wanted to know exactly how many. So I've started my list here. All were obtained in person either at a game or at the Mariners FanFest held every January. Players team (other than Mariners) are listed in parentheses and an asterisk by a players name means they played for the M's at one time.



It's amazing to me that we have so many. It has been a blast obtaining them, and occasionally having a story to go along with it. Case in point is our John Wetteland autograph. We obtained it at the M's bullpen. The card is his ONLY game-used card and he had never seen it till Julie and I showed it to him. He didn't even know he had one. He made a huge deal about it, having the entire bullpen come over to see it before he signed. David Aardsma took the card, flipped it over and said "You have obtained a game-used jersey card of the greatest pitcher ever." It doesn't say that on the back, but it sure was funny hearing the guys tell their coach how cool the card was.





THE AUTOGRAPH LIST

1. Adrian Beltre
2. Bruce Chen (Royals)
3. John Wetteland (Mariner's coach)
4. Sean Casey (Red Sox)
5. Ian Snell
6. Shawn Kelley
7. *Carlos Guillen (Tigers)
8. Felix Hernandez
9. Dave Niehaus (Mariners broadcaster)
10. Ozzie Guillen (White Sox Manager)
11. Miguel Tejada (Orioles)
12. Larry Bigbie (Orioles)
13. Melvin Mora (Orioles)
14. Bret Boone
15. Bucky Jacobsen
16. *Dave Valle (Mariners broadcaster)
17. Dan Wilson
18.* Chris Shelton (Rangers)
19. Bengie Molina (Angels)
20. *Norm Charleton (Mariners coach)
21. *Jared Washburn (Angels)
22. Miguel Olivo
23. Barry Zito (A's)
24. Mark McLemore
25. Ryan Franklin
26. JJ Putz
27. Phil Niekro (Silver Bullets coach) *HOF pitcher*
28. Bob Feller (Indians HOF pitcher)
29. Willie Bloomquist
30. Andy Hawkins (MLB coach)
31. Jamey Wright (Rangers)
32. Josh Hamilton (Rangers)
33. *Joey Cora (White Sox coach)
34. *Eddie Guardado (Rangers)
35. Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez (Tigers)
36. David DeJesus (Royals)
37. David Murphy (Rangers)
38. Todd Greene (MLB coach)
39. Joey Gathwright (Royals)
40. Richie Sexson
41. Yuniesky Betancourt
42. Sidney Ponson (Orioles)
43. John McLaren (Mariners Manager)
44. Mark Hendrickson (Marlins)
45. Rich Harden (A's)
46. George Sherrill
47. Sean White
48. Kevin Correia (Padres)
49. Chad Gaudin (Padres)
50. Julio Cruz (Mariners broadcaster)
51. Heath Bell (Padres)
52. Darrel Akerfelds (MLB coach)
53. Ben McDonald (Orioles)
54. Mike Scioscia (Angels)
55. Brandon Wood (Angels)
56. Rick Dempsey (Orioles)
57. Milton Bradley (Rangers)
58. *Mickey Brantley (Rangers coach)
59. Juan Uribe (White Sox)
60. Roberto Kelly (MLB coach)
61. Gerald Perry (MLB coach)
62. *Ron Roenicke (MLB coach)
63. Joe Mauer (Twins)
64. Mike Gallo (Astros)
65. Carl Sadler (Indians)
66. Josh Womack
67. Matthew Brown (Angels)
68. Ryan Christiansen
69. Rene Rivera
70. Rick Rizzs (Mariners broadcaster)
71. Ron Washington (Rangers coach)
72. Scott Downs (Blue Jays)
73. Timo Perez (White Sox)
74. Mike Adams (Padres)
75. Greg Burke (Padres)
76 Josh Greer (Padres)
77. Jeremy Reed
78. Joe Thatcher (Padres)
79. Edward Mujica (Padres)
80. *Jim Presley (MLB coach)
81. Tommy Hunter (Rangers)
82. Nick Swisher (A's)

Guess who was in the bullpen?

On Friday, Julie and I went to the Seattle Mariners game vs the Kansas City Royals. It was another stadium give away night, with the evenings first 20,000 fans receiving the Mariners Classic Commercials DVD Volume 2. We arrived early and got our DVD and then headed down to the field level to watch batting practice. I almost got 2 foul balls, managing to get my glove on them, but not able to capture one entirely. The guy next to me (with slightly longer arms) managed to get both of them. Did he share? No. Oh well, better luck next time.

My luck improved when I went over to the bullpen to watch Felix Hernandez warm up before the game. I was on the bullpen market side and trying to get David Aardsma's auto when guess who shows up in the bullpen? Adrian Beltre was entering the bullpen and came over to where I was standing. I quickly found this card, and asked him to sign it which he did. He signed for about 5 minutes, so I consider myself very lucky to be in the right spot (with the right card) at the right moment. Certainly made my night. Felix and the Mariners went on to beat the Royals 6-3 with Aardsma getting his 31st save of the year and Felix getting his 13th win of the season.

Seattle Sounders FC game vs New England

We just got back from the Seattle Sounders FC match vs the New England Revolution. Seattle is the newest franchise in MLS (Major League Soccer). They play their games at Qwest Field, which is also home to the Seattle Seahawks NFL team.

The crowd was huge, and quite boisterous. Louder than just about any Mariners game I've ever been to. We had great seats with great views. Here are some of the photos I took during the match.

Our Sounders lost 1-0 in the worst officiated MLS game I have ever seen. Our team still should have been able to score, but for some reason seemed perfectly happy playing "hacky sack" in front of the net rather than taking an actual shot on goal. The Revolution's goal keeper didn't have to stop one shot tonight.

All in all though it was a great night, celebrating Julie's birthday with a game of footie.

Cheddar Cheese!

Meet the newest member of the family, Cheddar Cheese!

Julie and I adopted Cheddar Cheese from the Everett Animal Shelter today. He is a very large cat, almost twice the size of Kiwi, our 14 year old black kitty. He is very, very affectionate, and has already claimed the washer as his own! Kiwi isn't exactly thrilled about her baby brother (who is approximately 7 years old) but I know in time she will come to love her new playmate. Or at least tolerate him.

Meet the little squirrels

Several people have asked me to post a picture of Scrappy's baby squirrels, so here they are.

This picture shows both babies, who at this point are probably about 2 months old. This photo was taken the first day we saw them. According to online references, Scrappy (a north american red squirrel) was pregnant for 35 days. After the babies were born, they stayed in the nest for about 40 days. Around day 60, the babies are taught to forage for food by their mother. Scrappy was up on our deck also, but we never were able to get a picture of all 3 together. We have a short video, but I don't have enough band width to load it sucessfully. You'll just have to come visit us to see it!

Speaking of Scrappy, the little slut is pregnant again. Her next litter is due in about 2 to 3 weeks. Again, according to online references, north american red squirrels have 1 or 2 litters per summer, usually one, but two if there is an ample food supply. Considering she gets handouts from all the neighbors on at least 3 floors, it's not surprising that she is having a 2nd litter.

Other places we visited along the Coast

This last post about our trip includes some of the stops we made that really don't need long explanations.

Julie loves lighthouses (even more than I do), so we made sure to visit some while we were here. Yaquina Head Lighthouse was the tallest lighthouse in Oregon at 93 feet. A picture of it was shown on my last blog. The shortest is Cape Meares Lighthouse, which is only 35 feet high. We visited it on the way back from Tillamook, OR , home of the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

While there, we were able to tour the factory and see how they make the fabulous cheeses and ice cream that we are always eating. Each block of cheese on the conveyor line weighs 40 pounds. It makes it way along the track where it is cut into smaller blocks and slices and then put in it's packaging. Finally, the cheese is put in boxes for shipping to your favorite grocery store for purchase.

At the end of the tour, you could sample some of the cheeses and ice cream was sold too. They had a great gift shop, too.




This was the first lighthouse we saw in Oregon, Heceta Head Lighthouse. Somehow, it missed being included in Day One blogs. It was here that we saw Anchovies washed up on the beach while the tide was going out. The sea gulls were feasting on the little fishes while we were here.

Well, that's some of the highlights from our trip and I hope you have enjoyed the pictures.

OSU Hatfield Science Center

Day Four was spent in Newport, Oregon.

The Oregon State Univ Hatfield Science Center was free to the public. They do accept donations.

The biggest draw is their Octopus exhibit. Each octopus they have is "rescued" from local fishermen nets and lives at the science center for approximately 6 months before being released close to where it was found. The octopus is a Giant Pacific Octopus, and it is still only a toddler. Octopus live, on average, 4 years. Shortly before they die, they will mate and lay 50,000 eggs to continue the species. This is similar to spawning Salmon. Usually only 2 eggs will live to reproduce again. Not great odds.

The octopus at the Hatfield science center is fed one crab three times a week. We were lucky enough to be there at 1pm for it's feeding.

The current octopus is set to be released this fall. There has been an octopus in residence since 1965 when the facility opened.

While the Octopus is the main draw, the entire facility was unbelieveable. They had huge "touch tanks" where you could touch starfish, sea anenome, small fishes, and the like. We saw a cool film about Cocos Island and it's habitat of sharks. We attended a lecture that showed new video from the Mariannas Trench. Included was video of an underwater volcanic eruption. The crew was there doing research when it erupted in May, 2009. They had to actually "rescue" the unmanned robot to recover the data. We learned that there is an underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon also.

Interactive exhibits were everywhere. You could be a commercial fisherman and buy a boat, go out for a 5 day fishing trip, make decisions on where and what to fish for, and find out how you did. I made a $14,800 profit on my trip and was told I could buy my family that new car they wanted. We were there for nearly 3 hours and still didn't see everything we wanted to see.

The science center opened at 11am and we arrived in Newport about 9am, so we went to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse just a few miles away beforehand. Here we saw common murres, cormorrant babies on the rocks, a group of seals, and of course the lighthouse. It was foggy most of the time, but that's ok. Here are a few pictures from the morning.

Our trip Part 2

On day three we drove out to Cape Perpetua to see the tide pools at low tide. We saw tons of typical critters such as sea stars, sea cucumbers, anenomes, urchins, crabs, mollusks, and other such creatures,



but the coolest thing was catching a glimpse of an otter playing around in the pools like the one pictured right. Julie hiked up one of the basalt rock hills and screamed "otter" when she saw it. It surprised her and she surprised it. I managed to see it briefly, munching down on a sea star, as it clampered over the next rock out of sight. Unfortunately, neither of us got a picture.



As the tide went out, we were able to scramble down off the rocks and actually get down to beach level. This is what it looked like as the tide was coming back in from a viewpoint 800 feet above the rocks. (You can click on any photo to see an enlarged picture for greater detail).

and this is what it looked like at low tide when we climbed off the rocks.


As you can see, there was a great

difference in the tide level that day.

VACATION ON THE COAST!

Julie and I just returned from 6 days camping along the Oregon coast. We had a great time and enjoyed much cooler weather than those still stuck here in Everett over the past week.

We set up our base camp at Beachside State Park on July 24th, which was a day later than originally planned. It was much colder than we anticipated, we forgot that the coast can be 30 degrees cooler than inland (which turned out to be in our advantage, when we discovered that temps hovered around 100 degrees while we were gone). S0 the nights were chilly (around 55 degrees) and the days cool, but pleasant. (60s to high 60's/low 70's). It only rained on the last night, although we were socked in in the fog for much of our trip. BTW, UV rays come thru fog and make your transition glasses dark (which makes it hard to see in the fog) and you can still get major sunburn but don't realize it till way too late! We wore our hoodies most of the time so basically our faces got scorched. Julie says my left ear (which faced the sun while driving) was purple it was so red.

First we visited the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area near Florence and walked the Taylor Dunes trail to the Ocean, a round trip of 2 1/2 miles thru the sand dunes. During that trip we were visited by a snake, which Julie assured me was not poisonous. We just took a picture of it and let it continue on it's own. We were very happy that it was foggy and cool, cause I figured this was going to be a hot hike. I was wrong, and it was a very nice day.





Day two was a trip to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It was ok, but not as good as I was expecting. The draw was their Shark exhibit, where you walked thru the tunnel and had sharks, rock fish, rays, and other fishes swimming all around you. They were beside you, below you, and above you. That was cool, but the rest of the exhibits weren't much to talk about. They had an otter exhibit, a sea lion exhibit, an octopus exhibit (which the window was so small you could only have 2 people look in at at a time), and oh yeah, the aviary. Supposed to be the biggest one of the west coast, but it only had 4 different types of birds. The puffins were very fun to watch as they "flew" thru the water. They can actually fly, but catch their prey by swimming underwater and they are very fast. Think of a penguin and you'll get the idea. The two puffins shown are male, and one was quite funny trying to "eat" the fake grass platform.

Germs make me sick!

Well, flu season is not over as is seen in the icky bug that has caught us. Julie is almost better, but the CDC says stay home so I am. Debbie finally caught the nasty lil' bugger and is sleeping very LOUDLY! Kiwi is curled up in her basket ignoring us both and wanting to play soccer at wierd hours of day and night. Scrappy is still visiting/begging for food, but hs still hasn't brought up the babies. not much else is going on, love, Jul

Sharon and the kids come to visit

Last week Sharon, Jennifer, and Kevin came to town to visit during their spring break. It was a goofy time for all, beginning with a delayed Christmas/St. Patrick Day's opening of presents and finishing off with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and games. Although we didn't get to do all that we planned because of the weather, I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We, of course, had tacos on St. Paddy's day, as is the Sisson-Barbay tradition, and I didn't serve green eggs and ham, although I think Kevin would have enjoyed it! Too much candy was eaten by many, which game someone a tummy ache. We played Apples to Apples and Battleship, watched Harry Potter (again!) and the kids met Scrappy the squirrel.

Happy Birthday William!

Yesterday, we attended our nephew's first birthday party. It was held at the Everett Children's Museum and attended by several of his cousins. There was lots to do! Interactive activities were everywhere. The museum was divided into many rooms on the main floor....there was a bank, a TV station, a theater, a pizza cafe, a farm, a Boeing airplane, an Everett city bus, a train, a H2O discovery room, a fire engine, a glow-in-the dark room, a disco light/music room, a tree-house, and a library. Downstairs was the party room where William opened presents, and we all had pizza and cupcakes. Happy first birthday William!

We lost our precious Cupcake

Cupcake lost her battle with hepatitis lipidosis today. She was 6 years old. Letting her go was the hardest thing I think we've ever had to do, but she had been suffering for over 3 months. Julie and I were with her when she went to sleep. We loved her so much. She is in kitty heaven now and happy and not throwing up anymore. She is healthy. So long kitty mcfatty pants, your mamas and kiwi love you. Your memories will always be with us. We will never forget you.