I’m not here.

I love foodie weekends and in my book that means farmers’ markets, harvesting vegetables from the garden and most enjoyable of all foraging for free food.

As the end of summer approaches — if you can call the last three months summer — it’s blackberry picking time. I ventured out midday on the commuter to pick enough for a jar of blackberry jelly.

The berries need another week or more but I snagged myself long enough on the vines to fill two yoghurt containers and safely packed them away in the Ortliebs.

The weather being so agreeable, I rode over to Johnson Farm to check on the apples and bask in the summer sun. The trees and bee hives were heavy with activity.

When I got home, surprise, surprise, I no longer had individual berries but a berry soup of sorts. Clearly the bumpy roads of dirt, farm and wildlife preserve aren’t gentle on berries. The jelly — berries, sugar, lemon, love — didn’t seem to mind.

What we don’t forage for we grow and our garden is producing madly with most of our evening meals’ primary component the product of seeds planted months ago. The first of the tomatoes are finally ripening, the broccoli heads are robust and beautiful and there’s ample cabbage void of slug damage for a couple of jars of sauerkraut.

Last year the plum harvest produced five gallons of wine but this year’s crop is not as promising — apple cider anyone?

I didn’t notice what appears to be a spider among the apples until after I got home. I did, however, notice all the spiders picking berries!

I love living here.

My article on Scalability Worst Practices was published yesterday. Thanks to Monika and Matt for their help.

Five or so years ago my wife said “We should move to Bainbridge Island.” I responded “there’s no way in hell I’m commuting by boat”. Well, times change and a ferry ride is now part of my daily commute to work and back.

It’s only been a short while but I love riding to and fro and enjoy my quiet time on the boat. The first couple of weeks my wife drove and picked me up, then I rode to the ferry and locked my bike up on the island side. Now I’m a full-fledged, Ortlieb toting cycling commuter and I’m enjoying every minute of it, rain and all.

I used to ride to the Metra station in Chicago and bought a 2006 Bianchi San Jose single-speed for the commute. It was perfect for Chicago and turns out to be pretty ideal for Bainbridge and Seattle too. Here’s the bike setup for commuting:

I carry a laptop, portable hard drive, iPhone, clothes and assorted other sundries back and forth. The bike’s made of steel so it’s not light and when you factor my weight in I’m really fighting gravity up the hills.

Fortunately, the thrill of cycling (even though it’s only 3-ish miles each way) and views from the boat make the experience enjoyable so far.

I’ve noticed a big difference between riding in Chicago and Seattle. In Chicago, anything goes, ride where you ride and look out for yourself. In Seattle, it’s more orderly and there appears to be rules about which I’m still not entirely clear. The other big difference is the hills. I gain more elevation from garage to road than I could in an entire 9 mile commute in Chicago. I’ve climbed Alpe d’Huez — some of the steep, albeit short, hills here hurt too.

Very early on Tuesday morning I quietly left the house and set up the tripod facing to the stars in hopes of viewing the Perseids.

A bit of a running joke with a friend of mine, I have historically been unable to see shooting stars for some reason unknown to me. I’m happy to report this finally changed. While I have no photos of the event I’ll forever remember the moment and the child-like excitement it created.

Overall the viewing wasn’t spectacular (I was out from about 2:30-3:30am) and the photographs aren’t particularly good but it was fun nonetheless.

(I have some room for improvement in nighttime photography.)

The Big Dipper was just over the horizon and appeared far bigger than normal, though I learned later at work this is just an optical illusion.

Hours and hours of yard work have kept us close to home this weekend and last but I wanted to get in a short hike, no matter how short. At my reading group I was told about a beach access trail I hadn’t traveled so my daughter and I set out on Saturday morning to check it out.

The trail starts down Skinner Road just west of Battle Point Park. There’s no parking along the road so if you’re driving park at Battle Point. Walk along Skinner Road until you can just see the fences in the distance.

This is silly. If I lived on either side I’d probably do the same but nonetheless this walk felt weird.

The views weren’t very good because of the low clouds (it rained both days this weekend). I suspect on a clear day the Olympics are pretty visible. Expect to see some sunset photos posted in the near future if this turns out to be true. The rock wall to the North stands as yet another fence — if that wasn’t enough the sign was posted on both sides.

Despite the extremely narrow park we had a good time because we found this little yellow shore crab nestled under a rock my daughter upturned. It looked right up at us and then scurried away with my daughter in pursuit. We let it go — but it was another entry in the budding naturalists’ log.

I encouraged my daughter to run all the way back along the mulched trail then I carried her back to Battle Point where we played on the freshly painted equipment and watched the red-tailed hawks, osprey and Canada geese fly about — another day on Beautiful Bainbridge Island.

A quick garden update. We have a large grove of hydrangea starting to flower but the small buds really catch my eye.

The blueberries are blue and sweet, the cabbage are green and just-about-ready for dinner and the squash are flowering and, um, green and yellow. We picked a yogurt container of Cupidon beans and snap peas this evening — dinner tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago we planted some new lavender (a T&C 3-for-$10 special, my wife’s Achilles’ heal) and they’re looking great.

I’ve watched many a Chicago Air and Water Show and Friday enjoyed my first Seafair from a boat on Lake Washington.

Jockeying for the best position seems to be as much of the experience as the show with the likes of steamboats, cruise boats and powerboats forcing each other around — then the show begins.

To the cheers of the crowd, the Blue Angels fly over in formation.

The flybys were the highlight of the day. First high:

… then low:

That plane is barely clearing the boats and trees! As you’d expect, the sound was nearly deafening. Following the fast moving planes while standing on a boat on a lake with chop is not my normal photographic experience.

A couple more passes and the show ends.

I was curious about fuel consumption so I did some googling. A rough estimate for the weight of jet fuel is 7lbs/gallon and according to the Blue Angel web site each Boeing F/A 18 Hornet carries 11K lbs of fuel. If I’m reading this table correctly, the cost of jet fuel is about $3.76/gallon (seems low). This, I believe, works out to be almost $6K worth of fuel per plane.

Note: I did the math backwards the first time, shocker.