Trees are alive, and this old tree is my favorite! He's located just behind the Seattle Sounders practice facilities here in Tukwila.

These photos are from a post I made in April of 2015. I didn't take photos today when I walked along the Green River. There's a pair of Osprey (Fish Hawks) that nest across the river from BECU every year, and this year they had three babies. The youngsters are now flexing their wings and flying out from the nest in these wide loops over the river. Very cool...

It's blackberry-picking time again!
Made me think of Richard Brautigan's "Blackberry Motorist":

Just like my annual routine of watching "The Seven Samurai", sort of anyway, every once in awhile I need to read Richard Brautigan. This is a found poem in a book by Richard Brautigan:

"By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (#4)
By accident, I put
My money in another
Machine (#6)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the
Empty machine full
Of water and no   
Clothes

It was lonely.

When my brother John and I were visiting Mom yesterday, I pulled out my camera to take some nice shadow photos. Mom asked JR "what's he doing?" "He's taking a picture of a chair." "What!?" "Yeh, right? An empty chair?" :)

looking out the kitchen window yesterday, when I was washing dishes...

the park behind the Seatac Community Center, during an early morning walk last April...

Playing around with Google Earth...our condo is in the left tall building center, with the light blue vertical line...

We went for a walk in downtown Walla Walla during our extended weekend in June for Andrea and Ray's wedding. These photos are called "pausing, and looking down into the water..."

I met Pat in Bothell this morning, at the half way point in his 11? mile (one way) daily commute to work (Edmonds to the Sand Point area NE of U Wash), and we bicycled together along the Burke Gilman Trail to his job near Magnuson Park. My RT ended up being 10.6 miles. So pretty! Lots of trees along the trail, this being the "Evergreen State", and it was fun looking at all of the nice houses along the Lake Washington. I'm posting the mapmyride map, and also a Google Earth image showing the trail with those houses. Nice ride. Going to and from our rendezvous was interesting, and I'll save some comments about automobile commuters and our Seattle traffic for another post.

a few more boxcar photos: names...

Another fun thing from my ride last Saturday was the long line of boxcars on the tracks by Boeing Field. This was one of my favorites:

I did an 11 mile loop ride yesterday morning, along the Green River Trail up through South Park and over the bridge to mid Boeing Field. Then I rode around the north end of Boeing Field, thru Georgetown and back down the East side of Boeing. Even though there was a drizzle, there were already a few dozen cars lined up along Airport Way at 11am, waiting for the Blue Angels Show. I stopped in South Park and took some photos of a large sculpture called "Allure":

A few of my recent FB posts:

Part of my morning ritual when I read the newspaper with Neo our cat is going to the frig and getting some creamer for my coffee. Lately, since we returned from Andrea's wedding, another part of my routine is smiling at "punk baby" on the refrigerator door...

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No proselytizing here, just a suggestion, to be Here, Now, nothing else...

"Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.
When you sit, let it be.
When you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.
Resist nothing."

~ Ajahn Chah ~

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https://vimeo.com/153727380
A powerful documentary preview of the University of Texas Tower sniper in 1966.
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http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/donald-trump-meets-the-cia-xi-is-a-man/
funny...

I went to the "Seattle Art Fair" this morning. It surprised me. I haven't seen so much good art in one place in a long time, and I walked around with my mouth wide open for a bit. Galleries from all over, both National and International, were well represented, and one in particular gave me pause. The Robischon Gallery, in Denver, is where the work of a special friend of mine is shown. It's times like this when I miss Jim Colbert very much. We used to go to art exhibitions together. Once we even went on a 2-week Amtrak rail pass to visit galleries and museums in Chicago, NY and DC... We would jump on a train and ride wherever at night, sleeping, to save the costs of hotels, and during the day we would explore and visit museums, etc. Jim's paintings are listed under JIM COLBERT ESTATE on the robischon gallery website. "Estate". Makes me sad, but I like his work.
http://robischongallery.com/

Credit to "Cebu City, a developing skyline" video by Edwin Chavez on "Cebu ni bai"

Re - Nathan's FB post from earlier this morning (see below):
I didn't have the gumption to do that on my own during my first trip to Japan. When the owner of a small family inn I stayed at tapped on my door and asked me to follow her, I assumed that we were headed to the house bath. Instead, out the front door we went, with me in my Yukata robe and slipping on my shoes at the last second, down the street in this small town to the local bath house. She gave the person in front some Yen and in I went. The men were on one side and the women on the other side of a wall. Fortunately, like Nate, I new what to do custom wise (soap, scrub and rinse BEFORE getting in), and it ended up being one of many favorite memories. There was an old man soaking at one side of the bath, seemingly asleep, and there was a young father playing with his toddler son, while you could hear the women chatting on the other side...
Nathan's FB post:
"So I went to a public bath for the first time and it was very nice and relaxing, but I could VERY MUCH feel everyone thinking, "what the hell is this foreigner doing here?" It didn't help that I had no idea how anything there worked!
I don't feel upset about it at all though, I'm in a random Tokyo suburb after all. I doubt any of them expected a foreigner to come in! And everyone else I've met has been nothing but kind 😊
(I'll definitely be going back tomorrow though, I'll make them accept me)"