Weekend Portland Adventures

Hey guys,

I hope you all had a good weekend. I spent the weekend down in Portland, Oregon. Portland is about 3 hours drive time south of Seattle and it is also the city where Nicole went to college. We were down there because her sister just graduated form the same college (Portland University) and needed help moving her stuff from her college apartment into her new apartment off campus. She has a job within Portland, so she will be staying in the area.
We spent most of Saturday helping her move stuff, so we were pretty tired after that. We just hung out at her new place for the night, then went out around Portland the next day. Portland is a pretty interesting city. It feels a little bit more laid back than Seattle. They also have gorgeous views ow Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens on clear days. Unfortunately we had sort of cloudy skies when we were down there, so we didn't get any pictures of those.
On Sunday we went through the Rose Gardens (Portland calls itself the "Rose City"). The roses were definitely in bloom and it was a good time to be out there.I got some pictures, here they are:

portland_june08

After we did that, we went to a large independent bookstore in downtown Portland called Powell's Bookstore. It was a really cool bookstore that was very large and spanned a few buildings that they linked together by tearing down walls to put doorways. As such, many of the rooms were around 2 or 3 feet higher or lower than the adjacent rooms. It was very Portlandy.

After that we went to a brewpub for one of the microbreweries in the area called Deschutes Brewery. The northwest has the largest concentration of microbreweries in the country, I believe. After that we headed back to Seattle. Here's a map of the locations I went to. If you bring up the map in a full screen, you can zoom in on the individual locations that I went.


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Anyways, that's it for this post. I hope you are all doing well.

This coming weekend I will be down in San Diego visiting Nicole's family and seeing the sights. I will be leaving for it on Thursday night and returning on Sunday night. I'll update all of you with a new post next week!

-Sean

Weekend Adventures - June 2008

Hi all,

I thought I would give you a brief update on what is going on here. Work is progressing fairly well for me. I am still working on the 787 dreamliner. We are gearing up to do tests on a full scale constructed plane soon, which is a big deal because it's so expensive to build one of them and then just destroy it. I should get a front row seat for it though! It means I'll have a lot of work this summer, however.

Other than that, I had a pretty nice weekend. The weather had been cold and overcast the last couple of weeks, but it finally opened up late last week and we had an awesome weekend! Friday night, Nicole and I went to a Mariners game. We left before the game was over because it was getting cool and the tickets were free, so we didn't care about getting our money's worth. It's really exciting to be able to go to a major league ball game so close to where I live.

On Sunday we went on a hike up around the Snoqualmie Pass area to a place called Talapus Lake.


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It was a short hike, but it turned out to be fairly challenging since we didn't realise how much snow was still left under the trees in the pass. We had a really good winter and it's amazing how long the snow sticks around. We got up to the lake alright, and got some cool photos of it too!

Here's some pictures from the weekend.

June_2008

That's it for now, I hope you are all doing well!
-Sean

Boeing 787 Rollout - July 2007

As many of you know, I work in Seattle for Boeing on their newest passenger airplane they are making, the 787 "Dreamliner".

I was very lucky in on July 8th, 2007 (7/8/07 , take a look at the name of the plane and you'll figure out why they chose this date) to witness the public unveiling of the first airplane in person.

It was a very glitzy event. We went into the factory where they make the largest of the Boeing models (I work right next to this plant, so it wasn't a long walk for me). They had a presentation where our company's CEO, Jim McNerney talked. He then handed it over to Tom Brokaw, who talked more about the airplane and all of our partner companies who are helping us build it.

Finally, they rolled the first airplane into view. We all got to go outside and walk around it and touch it. It was very exciting, and a moment that made me very proud of what I am doing.

Here are some pictures that my roommate Jon took at the event. Jon is also an engineer at Boeing and works at the same location as I do. We carpool in to work together. He's a cool guy who is originally from New York City and his family immigrated here rom Colombia. He's a fun guy.

2007 Seattle Adventures

In addition to the two trips I took in 2007, I also went on some other adventures that year.

Over the summer, I hiked around Mt. Rainier, competed with a local rowing club on Lake Union near where I live in downtown seattle, went whitewater rafting, and in the winter I took a course on backcountry skiing.

As you might be able to tell by now, I enjoy the mountains very much. I miss the rolling hillsides and fields of Vermont alot, as well as all of you of course. When you are out here and see all the mountains and get to climb them though, it's something very special. I am very happy with where I am living for this reason.

Here are some pictures from July through December, 2007.

Washington_07

My 2007 Chamonix Trip

Hi all,

In addition to my trip to Whistler in February of 2007, I took another ski trip that spring. In March of 2007, I spent a week in chamonix, France.

Chamonix is in the Swiss Alps. Here is a link to its location. If you click on it, you will be able to see a satellite view of the village.


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Chamonix is on the border of France, Switzerland and Italy. It is famed for its skiing and climbing terrain, and boasts being at the base of Europe's tallest peak, Mont Blanc. It was absolutely gorgeous there.

I went with a group of friends that I knew from my days rowing in college. I flew from Seattle to New York's JFK airport, then we all flew on from there to Frankfurt, Germany. We then got on a connecting flight from Frankfurt to Geneva, Switzerland. From there we had a 2 and a half hour ride into Chamonix.

We stayed in the center of the village. It was a very romantic french style town. I was worried how the europeans there were going to take to us Americans, but thankfully it was a ski town and as we all know, skiers are a friendly bunch no matter where they are from.

During our time there I had some of the most gorgeous snowboarding terrain that I have ever seen. Here is a link to some of the pictures that I took while I was there.

chamonix

In case some of you are wondering after seeing pictures of me, in late February of 2007 I shaved my head as part of a fundraising event in order to raise money for children's cancer research and treatment. It was a successful event and we raised around $3000 all together. My hair has since grown back, don't worry!

My 2007 Whistler Trip

In February of 2007, I went on a trip with my two college roommates Ryan and Bill. They flew up to meet me in Seattle, and all three of us drove up in my care to Whistler, Canada.

Whistler is one of the premier ski resorts in the country. It is located about 2 hours north of Vancouver. It is a very easy drive for me to go from Seattle to Vancouver, it is around 3 and a half to 4 hours away from me and a direct journey on Interstate 5.

I never thought I would say this, but it blows anything in Vermont out of th water in terms of skiing. It is huge, the terrain is exciting and the snow is always powdery (we don't really know what powder is in vermont, just hardpack).

Anyways, we really lucked out for this trip. Whistler had an incredible season and we had wonderful snow. It was a great introduction to the resort and I have since been back several times.

Here is a link to the pictures from that trip. Just click on the picture and it will take you there.

Whistler 2k7

Beginning this Blog

Hi all,

I'm going to try this thing out. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's called a "blog". That is short for "web log" or sometimes "web diary". I'm going to try this out because it's been hard for me to stay in touch with everybody back east and I figured this would be a good place to try and improve that.

Basically this is going to be my online journal. I am going to include pictures hopefully, and try and let you guys know more about what I am up to out here. You can easily come here and check in on whatever I am up to.

We'll see how this works out. I hope that you all enjoy it and it makes me feel not so far away.

-Sean