Smells

I'm currently suffering from more animal issues.  I think.  Whilst sitting on my sofa watching TV over the last few days, I am getting occasionally assailed by an unpleasant smell of what I think might be some kind of animals living under my house.  It might be mice, it might be worse.  For example, today I found a dead rat just outside my house.  Do I have a rat problem?  That's not good.  Both myself and my landlord have put down some mouse traps under the house, so let's see if they catch anything.  I don't know what else the smell might be.  As best as I can tell, it isn't anything inside my home - I've checked and cleaned everywhere.  Though the fact that I caught a mouse recently suggests otherwise (though I haven't caught anything else since).  I guess it's possible it might be the smell of mo(u)ld/mildew, or the smell of some other environmental factor.  It might just be psychological - I'm a little bit oversensitive to smells as well as noise, so perhaps I'm imagining it.  Or perhaps not.  After all, it wouldn't be the first time I've encountered an unpleasant smell in the house.  Hopefully it will just be one of those things that go away in time.  But if it gets worse, then we have a real problem and my landlord will hear about it.   

The Rehearsal

The best show on TV currently is not The Last of Us, which in itself is a great show.  No, it is a show that airs on the same network (HBO) about half an hour later - The Rehearsal.  We are about half way through the second series, and it may be better even than the first season, which I thought was excellent.  So very difficult to describe the show - bizarre, ridiculous, unique.  But utterly compelling and utterly hilarious.  I'll quote the premise: "The Rehearsal features Nathan Fielder, as a fictionalized version of himself, helping ordinary people rehearse upcoming difficult conversations or life events through the use of sets and actors hired to recreate real situations.".  But this doesn't do justice to the craziness that ends up on screen.  Take last night's episode, which for convoluted reasons results in Nathan Field portraying Captain Sully throughout his life (including as a baby) leading up to the infamous flight that he lands on the Hudson - theorizing that he was listening to Bring Me to Life by Evanescence on his iPod when landing the plane.  Bonkers, and so very, VERY funny and utterly surreal.  Highly recommend watching it if you can.

Game 7s

When it comes to North American sports, there are few things as good as a Game 7 in a best-of-7 playoff series.  One game to win or go home.  We had quite a few of those in both basketball and ice hockey over the weekend.  I definitely prefer hockey - and we had a classic Game 7 yesterday.  With the Winnipeg Jets scoring twice in the last few minutes (including a tying goal with under 3 seconds to go) to send their game against the St Louis Blues to overtime.  Overtime in hockey is the best - a bit like the golden goal in the World Cup where first goal wins, but the tension and stakes ratcheted up to unbelievable levels.  And in double overtime (nobody scored in the first 20 minutes of overtime) the comeback was completed by the Canadian team that was trailing by 2 goals with less than 2 minutes of regular time to go.  Nice.  And love it for the Jets fans, who like most of the Canadian teams support their team fanatically in a way that just doesn't happen in the US.  With the NBA and NHL playoffs going on concurrently at the moment, I definitely have leaned more into watching hockey over basketball.  I can't believe I still haven't seen the Seattle Kraken play a game yet - that has to change next season.       

Star Wars Day

Happy Star Wars Day!  May the 4th be with you!

Note: this terrible AI image comes courtesy of the White House, and unintentionally but accurately depicts Donald Trump as a Sith Lord.

Trail Cam April 2025

Quite a lot of action captured on my trail cam over the last month or so.  The usual culprits: deer, rabbit, bobcat (a lot!), squirrel, coyote, plus a guest appearance by a woodpecker!  I hope my landlord cuts the grass soon, as it's starting to impede the field of vision (he's currently pre-occupied with creating a small gravel driveway going behind his garage next to my main driveway - mainly for parking his cars, but also as a turning point for vehicles that come up my driveway - so hopefully delivery vehicles will no longer drive across the grass!  However, an unfortunate side effect of all all the work he's been doing there is that it appears to have temporarily frightened off all my hummingbirds.  Hopefully they'll be back soon.). 

Power Outage

My day was ruined by an unexpected power outage this morning.  I lost power about 8.30 am, and it didn't come back on until lunchtime.  It's a good job that I didn't have any important work or meetings - as obviously I couldn't work from home.  This could have been really problematic.  My reliance on technology is a real liability - I didn't know what to do with myself without it.  In the end, I went out for a walk!  We don't currently have any windy weather or anything, apparently the outage was caused by equipment failure.  And seemingly it was very localized - even though I lost power, I don't think my landlord next door did!  The utility company outage map indicated that I was one of about 100 households affected, so not really that many people in the grand scheme of things.  Just glad it got fixed relatively quickly.     

Juanita Bay and Juanita Beach Parks

It's been a while, but I did a new walk recently.  And surprisingly, it was a local walk (a 20 minute drive away) that I did on a mid-week lunchtime last week.  The walk encompasses 2 parks alongside the northeast edge of Lake Washington, located in the Juanita neighbo(u)rhood in Kirkland.  It's an area I don't know very well, though I think I looked at a place to live somewhere around here when I first moved to Seattle however many years ago that was (glad I didn't, because the commute to work would have been absolutely horrendous).  One of the main reasons I haven't done this walk before is that I thought the parking might be a nightmare.  But I was wrong, one of the parks has a big (and free) parking lot.  However, this is not a walk to do if I'm seeking peace and solitude.  Especially on sunny days, these trails will be busy.  And we are not talking a particularly challenging trek - only a couple of miles and flat.  But for an urban walk, it is quite pretty with the lake views (you can just about see the tip of the Seattle skyline at one point) and a surprising amount of wildlife (lots of birds and, perhaps best of all, lots of basking turtles to be spotted!).  I will come back here, and I imagine it might be best done around sunset.