Firewallender // Cassie Wallender

*Technically, this book comes out February 18th, but if your preorder things on Amazon (like moi) sometimes you get them a few days early and get to write a preview in your blog. Win!

This is either my most pointless or awesome post ever (depending on who you are).

So, I was considering today the awesomeness of sandwiches available in Seattle, especially near my office on Capitol Hill, and decided to share with you my top picks (in no particular order).

• The Romozzager from The Honey Hole: Roma tomatoes, mozzarella slices, a dash of balsamic vinegar, romaine lettuce, mayonnaise, salt and pepper on a fresh French roll  ($4.05)
• The B.E.T. from Crave: Bacon, escarole, yellow tomatoes, and delicious goat cheese ($7.50)
• Chicken Salad Sandwich from Mia’s Off Broadway Cafe: So good. The perfect chicken salad, with raisins, and balsamic vinegar ($6.25)
• Lemongrass Steak from The Baguette Box: grilled organic ‘strawberry mountain’ lemongrass steak with carrots and some rutabaga-like veggie called jicama that I love ($7.50)

What are your favourite sandwiches in Seattle (or elsewhere)?

The Penny Arcade Expo this year was even better than last year, despite the crowding that has resulted from being consistently awesome. Three days of constant “epic/legendary/monumental” everything managed to actually wear me out, which is a great feat, really.

I could recap the whole thing, but I am too tired. Instead, I will just post a link to the photoset on Flickr, and some shout-outs to those who made it great: Harmony for being the best sister in the world, Mike and Jerry of course for putting it on, the Enforcers for making it work, Wil Wheaton for calling me “baby” (swoon), Tony, Cameron, Sam, and Melissa for coming out, and especially the Twitteratti that made up my “PAX Posse”: @andy_k, @bethgo, @jtswinkles. I also had the joy of running into some great folks, albeit way too briefly: Jason and Montine, Colin Henry, Wade Rockett, Scott Robinson, and a bunch of new people I got to meet at PAX. Oh, yeah, and this guy dressed as Mario’s Princess Peach…

It was great to know so many people at PAX, that was a new experience and one I’m grateful to have had, because when it comes down to it, community is what PAX is about, or any conference for that manner. You can get so much information independently online these days, that now few conference panels can provide more factual information than can be easily researched by ones’ self (or viewed online after the fact, for that matter). After attending Gnomedex one weekend and PAX the next, two very different events, I’ve found that 95% of the value quickly becomes getting a chance to share an experience with a like-minded but diverse set of individuals who have committed their time to come together as a community.

So, though I’m tired, my extrovertism remains strong as ever. I feel so lucky to know the people I do, and am amazed at the seemingly non-stop flow of wonderful people in the world. It’s encouraging to know the world can be such a friendly place.

Because it’s two hours from Seattle and twenty degrees hotter than Seattle was when you left. Because you drive down the street and see ginormous dot-com king companies lining the street, one after another. Because the party you throw in Atheron gets on ValleyWag. Because of all the good memories there.

But most of all, because stuff like this can be found on the street and end up in your Flickr friend’s photostream:

If can haz
Originally uploaded by Jamison

Sidenote:  I’m traveling right now, but in Spokane, Washington, not in the valley.  Just being in the hotel room here kind of reminded me of my last trip to San Francisco.  I’ll be back in Seattle on Saturday evening.

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.

I really enjoy looking at the bright side of life. I mean, you only get one life, might as well accentuate the positive and learn from the negative, then move past it. So I thought it would be nice to do a series of blog posts on things I love, and why they are so awesome. Mostly, so I can look back with fondness at these things, but also in hopes that I might inspire friends to try out some of my favourites. So, let’s get started. Since I just went, let’s chat for a moment about swing dancing.

Fist, an unordered list of random things I enjoy:

• Hanging out with good friends
• Meeting new people
• Exercise that’s cleverly disguised as fun
• Big band music from the 30s and 40s
• Being goofy and silly and people finding that cool
• Feeling like a rockstar, if only for one song
• Figuring something new out and then perfecting it
• Covering up the “oh-no-tomorrow-is-Monday” dread

Add all these things together, mix thoroughly, and *BAM!* you have swing dancing. How much do I love dancing? Well, I bicycled about ten miles on Friday, hiked almost as many miles on Saturday, and went canoing on Sunday - my body was basically ready to mutiny on me, but I just couldn’t stay away from dancing at the Century Ballroom tonight. Even when my legs are ready to fall off, I start swing dancing and forget it all, I could dance for hours.

Another bonus: it’s physically impossible to be sad while swing dancing or even shortly thereafter. At least, that is, until you accidentally drive over a little white mouse on Denny Avenue on the way home. Oh, that made me so, so bummed.

But I digress - dancing is awesome. One of the things I love is that the crew that I go with is equally enthralled with dancing and we’re always trying to figure out new and interesting looking moves. We’ll work on a technique until we nail it, and then integrate it into our dance “vocabulary” for the future. We’re all getting better together. We also usually have an even ratio of gals to guys, meaning we all get to dance every song, and everyone has their own style. Tonight we even did a bit of a “do-si-do” during which the whole group of us would simultaneously change partners several times during one song. It was a blast. We took some great shots tonight, once the guys upload them I’ll be sure to add to this post.

I think it goes without saying (but people always follow up that phrase by stating the obvious, and who am I to break societal norms?) that I highly recommend swing dancing. Special emphasis on the Lindy Hop, which is like all the awesomeness of swing dancing plus the coolness of ten ninjas. If you’d like to give it a go, I’d recommend just running a Google search for “swing dance” plus the name of your town and you’re likely to come up with a lot of options (assuming you live in someplace mildly entertaining). Swing has a huge following all over the United States.