Firewallender // Cassie Wallender

I guess my own personal Bike-o-Rama August started on August 1st, but I didn’t know it then.  That Friday, I took my Little bike riding.  I’m trying to emphasize non-consumer-focused activities, and bike riding is one of our favourites together. We biked from Sandpoint past Matthew’s Beach and back.  It was then I decided that the rest of August would be dedicated to seeing how much I could make my bike my main form of transportation. I’ve taken the bike to work before, but starting Monday, I would be seriously commuting by bike.

Saturday, I rode from my place to the University District to get some lights and a gear problem looked at.  I rode to Gasworks park to meet my friends Erica and Eva, and a bike festival was going on in the park. Not seriously, I took that as a good omen of my newly determined hardcore hobby.  Turns out, Eva just got a bike too, and needed a bike buddy!  Perfect.  After a bit, Erica went to go sailboating (as people are want to do in these parts) and Eva and I fetched her bike from Phinney Ridge and headed downtown to meet up with other friends for The Dark Knight at The Big Picture.  After that, I rode from Belltown to Justin’s place in lower Queen Anne, and even ran into (not literally) Andy along the way.  Biking is great!  All was well.  I was feeling really prepped for Monday’s commute.

So, along rolls Monday.  My ride into work is swell. I scoff at a hipster on a fixie along my way (internally, anyhow). I feel like a hardcore bike commuter.  I got up Pine Street!  Booyah!

(Warning: graphic description of DOOM)

(more…)

I had a truly crazy weekend and I’m still a little weak in the knees from it all.  A good chunk of the limping though is from getting kicked by a gal in sharp heels at the Century Ballroom on Sunday night.  Swing is definitely a contact sport, and Lindy Hop is no exception.  As much as I love swing though, I’m pleasantly shocked to say it got majorly trumped by The Seattle Anti-Freeze this weekend: I’m sure you’ve heard of pub crawls, but we did a pub run.  An epic 8k pub run to seven bars with a ton of people.  Epic.

Things are going really well with the Big Brothers Big Sisters volunteering.  My “Little” is really fun to hang out with, she’s very smart and full of energy.  It’s also encouraging me to go on some fun little adventures.  For example, on Saturday we’re helping to restore a creek in Juanita while learning about the environment.

Also, on a bit of an overdue whim I’ve decided that over Independence Day I’ll be headed to hot, hot Arizona to visit my dear friend Connie. That’s fewer than two weeks away! It will be great just to have some quality one on one time like the good old days, but as a bonus we also have some fun plans: we’re going to the July 4th Tempe Town Festival, and then we’re going camping in the Grand Canyon. Camping in the Grand Canyon - how awesome is that?   Pretty awesome.  I am super excited for camping with Connie. I miss her.

Wow… I had a simply amazing weekend. Usually I don’t like to write “here’s everything I did” type posts, but this deserves some documentation. Friday night, I hit up a bit of Camp Jitterbug (billed as “The Awesomest Lindy Hop Event Ever!”) for some swing dancing with my friend Shane - they had the first heat of the Jack & Jill Lindy Hop contest, which was so much fun to watch, plus plenty of room to dance in as it was at the UW Hub Ballroom.

Saturday morning I sort of randomly went canoeing with Kevin, a fellow BrightKite beta user who I ran into last week at Indy. I had a great time and have never seen more turtles, check this out:

Crazy, eh? I love exploring the area via canoe, in fact I think the highlight of our morning paddling adventure was attempting to find a way through the reeds. It was pretty hilarious, especially when the going got tough and we nearly tried walking across some not-so-stable marshy “land” that turned out to be not so much “land” as a floating mass of vegetation.

(more…)

Canoeing offers a peaceful respite from the stress of modern life, and if you’re living in Seattle, it’s a quick wilderness experience in the middle of the city. At the UW Waterfront Activities Center you can easily rent boats for an hour or two, at $7.50 per hour per boat it is cheaper than seeing a movie.

Here’s a video of last Sunday’s canoeing adventure with my friend Micah:

(Can’t see embedded video? Watch it on Flickr.)

I generally paddle over to the Washington Park Arboretum across the ship canal. Washington Park is a beautiful, uniquely synergistic partnership of the very urban and the very wild: the concrete limbs of 520 intertwine with marshes, reeds, and small plots of land home to interesting animals to observe and photograph (watch for Great Blue Herons and Bald Eagles). The season and weather severely change the foliage and atmosphere, so you always get a different experience. This is compounded by the fact that you can of course bring as many people as you’d like, making it as solitary or social as you’d like. Canoeing suits every mood, as long as you enjoy being outside: I find sometimes when I go I prefer to drift along and relax, just listening to the birds sing, and other times I like to push myself to put all I can into aggressive paddling and race other boats. This is another one of those sneaky workouts that’s cleverly disguised as fun. :-)

I’ve been canoeing pretty frequently lately, especially on the weekends. If you’re interested in joining, text “follow firewallender” to 40404 to follow me on Twitter* for impromptu invitations to paddle.