San Juan Island, Part IV: Boats!

There was a guy trying to sell yachts at Roche Harbor. Some of them were open for public viewing, like this one. I think the price tag was $2.9 million. Pocket change.

Fancy-schmancy! The master suite has his-and-hers bathrooms because cramped yachting conditions shouldn't mean that you have to share a bathroom with your spouse! On the lower level, there is a second bedroom and bathroom, plus a TV den.

Oh yeah, don't forget the granite and stainless kitchen, dining room, and fully furnished living room...

Geeky Things on the Internets

Monkey Music
Thinking About Virtual Growth
Reading Minds

TED talks are my new addiction

It's not really a "talk" but it's SO COOL!!!

San Juan Island, Part III: Roche Harbor Flora and Fauna

Roche Harbor has gorgeous gardens. Some were very manicured, European-style.

There were lots of beautiful brightly colored flowers.

An artichoke!!!

A romantic trellis walkway. (Seriously, I had to sit on the sidewalk for 20 minutes, waiting for a moment when there were no people to take the picture. This one guy was pacing on a business call for forever.)

There was a lot of naturally occurring beauty, especially the rocks by the water.

Chart Porn, Energy Consumption Edition

All the other bloggers have repeating themes with cute titles, so I will too.

From an NYT article that's OK. This article is better, about energy inspections on homes, although it's chart is less pornish. They have a whole series on the little things that can change global warming, which is a nice alternative to the blah-blah-blah about carbon taxes vs. cap-and-trade and trade wars with China.

Photo Adjustment

I messed up and my pics were too small in the last couple posts. I fixed it in case anybody wants to go back and see.

San Juan Island, Part II: Roche Harbor Historic Buildings

At the north tip of the island, we stopped at Roche Harbor. I had heard of this place as a vacation spot, bu never been there. The harbor was first developed by some guy with a lime and cement company, but at some point that business wasn't hot anymore, and the spot turned into a tourist area. The original homestead has been modified and is now a pricey restaurant. Actually, considering the multi-million-dollar yachts in the harbor, I think the menu was quite reasonable. We, however, are poor and brought sandwiches.

The pier had some building that I guess origanlly housed some business operations. Now it is a small grocery and deli.

Another gorgeous old building, now a hotel.

The yard outside the hotel, with a peek at some of the vacation condos up the hill.

San Juan Island, Part I: Ferries and Camels

Finally!! I have 1,100+ photos from this summer. It took me a while to get them all loaded, then sorted, then I had to decide which ones to post...it was exhausting! Now I have material for an eternity.


The first "trip" we took was on the ferry out to San Juan Island in the Puget Sound. The original plan was to visit all four islands in one day, but that turned out to be impossible. I think the best plan would be to take the crack-of-dawn ferry out to San Juan on a Saturday morning, stay the night, then visit the other three islands on the way back Sunday. You only have to pay the ferry fare in the westbound direction, so if you go in the right order on the way back, the ferry is always free, which would be nice because it costs $60 for a car and two passengers.

View Larger Map


I had read that the wait is often 2+ hours on the weekend, so we got there pretty early. That turned out to be totally wrong (at least the day we were there) so we ended up getting on an earlier departure and still an hour early. So we went down to the beach to explore, and I took random pics of things on the beach.

We got to the island and headed of on a random road that headed through the center of the island. Luckily, we had found a map of the island in a pamphlet on the ferry. I hadn't thought of that, of course. We rolled through, stopping occasionally to check out ponds and other scenery. At one corner, we noticed a bunch of cars pulled off the road. Everyone was stopped, hanging out with a camel. Well, we had to stop too. People driving by would holler out the window, "Her name is Mona!" so we said hi to Mona the camel.

She was very nice and mellow. She would eat weeds from the ground, or any other food you offered, right out of your hand. She enjoyed being petted and getting all the attention.

Also hanging out nearby was an alpaca, who was not so social. He didn't want to eat or get pet.

But he liked to roll around in the grass.

I want to move to Copenhagen

Maybe it will work now...

Ok, seriously, it better work this time. A pic of the Rec Center pool should be here.

This is a test.

I am trying to figure out how to post from my phone

So I've been reading a lot lately...

I love this article about health care because it articulates everything I believe about the system, and it's not written by an economist, so maybe more people will take it seriously.  It is possible to support both health care reform and less bureaucracy.

But on the topic of actual economics, I think Paul Krugman's latest is spot on, even though he bugs me most of the time.  He's careful to say that Keynesian policy is the best set of theoretical tools we've got right now, not that it is the correct set of tools.  However, is it really that ridiculous to think that people overreact to things en masse (i.e. the crappy retail season right after the all the financial hoopla), causing firms to cut back, resulting in a recession?  Isn't that exactly what just happened???

Last but not least, I totally knew that fake sugar is STUPID!!!  The processed foods industry will still probably try to slap health food labels on to it anyway.  Ugh.

OOPS: The Krugaman link is here.