I travel with a laptop everyday: to and from work, to coffee shops or to friends’ houses. While I use new, randomly generated passwords (courtesy apg) my home directory had not the same level of security.

A face-full of spider webs as I hunt for a carpet of mushrooms confirms fall’s arrival.

I happened to run across a new open-source project today I had not previously heard about: Hazelcast.

Just a quiet day in perfect weather doing yard work: mowing the lawn, transplanting day lilies and checking on the garden.

I had the good fortune to attend a talk given by Amit Singh at the Seattle Xcoders meeting held in the Google offices in Fremont.

Under perfect blue skies and warm temperatures, I volunteered a couple of hours labor on Saturday to help the Trust for Working Landscapes and a local farmer deconstruct two large greenhouses for relocation on another farm.

For the Labor Day weekend, some friends invited us to their cabin in Packwood and we happily accepted. We drove from BI to Rainier via the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, our first crossing of the infamous structure (it was considerably cheaper and faster to go this route – $28 for the ferry, $4 for the bridge). We arrived around midday on Saturday, ate some lunch with the kids and drove up to Sunrise.

While clearing the undergrowth in a small section of the woods on my property a very brightly yellow colored mushroom stem caught my eye. I didn’t recall having seen this mushroom before so I went inside, grabbed the camera and took some photos (sorry about the flash).

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.

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.