Private fireworks are banned in Seattle. You could go to jail. And piss us off. And stop us from sleeping - you were going all night, after all, for the last 4 nights or so. And scare all of the dogs in the neighborhood. And hurt people - according to the news, at least 3 amputations last year from fireworks in Seattle alone. Not cool. So stop!

Private use, sale, or possession of fireworks is prohibited in the City of Seattle. The private use of fireworks without a permit in the city of Seattle is punishable by a fine and possible time in jail.

http://www.seattle.gov/fire/pubEd/homesafety/july.htm

(Not just Seattle by the way - most of the rest of the state of Washington also bans fireworks).

Happy 4th! Enjoy your safe, public fireworks. And stop annoying me!

E-mail I just sent to work:

“Hey All…

Just a quick update on my status.

Recovery is continuing to go well, and I am now able to sit long enough to make it worthwhile to start working from home again (so I can work from both chair and laying flat as needed, as too much sitting is still not good for me). Trust me, I am getting bored not working :)

As such, my plan is:
1) I am going to come into office for an hour this morning to catch up with everyone, and to figure out where all of the projects are at (so I know where to focus on for working from home)
2) I’ll be working from home starting today, until at least July 8th (next Tuesday), when I have my one-month followup with the neurosurgeon. I’ll know more about my medical clearance to work from office once I meet with him.
3) I’ll be available via phone and email while I am at home. Feel free to call me for anything needed and to call me into any meetings I am needed at.

See you this morning!

- Aaron”

RedFin just posted a blog entry about archival photos of Seattle. Cool! I’ve previously posted about the Washington State Archive photos (see here and here), but hadn’t heard of the Seattle Municipal Archives before. Just checked it out.

There’s nothing showing our house directly, but as we have the West Queen Anne Playfield just across the street, they have a bunch of photos that show our house (albeit small). Here’s a sample - for all of them, see the Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection

1965 http://tinyurl.com/3q2kva	Jan 26, 1968 http://tinyurl.com/6hwhxk

If you notice on the top of these pictures, there’s a community center across the street. There are some awesome pictures from the late 1930s during the Works Progress Administration construction of said community center (or shelter, as they called it then)

Dec 21, 1936 http://tinyurl.com/3pvdpr	Mar 24, 1937 http://tinyurl.com/4kx2t5	Mar 24, 1937 http://tinyurl.com/3stwdj

Also, I found the Sherwood Park History Files, which has a pretty cool pdf of the old plans for the playfield - see http://www.seattle.gov/parks/history/QueenAnnePF.pdf for it in all of the full glory.

And for final good measure, here’s a 1938 view of Queen Anne Ave (the main street by us) just a block or two from our house (i.e. right in front of Blaine):

1938 http://tinyurl.com/6elhdl

I love this old stuff - can you notice I am not working yet? Spending 15-20 minutes at a time surfing the web, and this is what I end up with :)

While most of the time has been spent laying flat, reading, and watching TV, there has been a few activities over the past few weeks…

And yes, you can also call this post: Aaron is clearing out his camera from old pictures!

(As always, click on the pictures for larger versions)

• We’ve been wanting to get a fence put into the front yard - it makes the outside of the house enclosed, so if we are BBQing, doing yard work, or just reading and enjoying outside, Molly can now be with us. So we hired some folks (clearly, I couldn’t do it myself, with or without the back condition) to put in our cliche white picket fence - very white indeed until it starts raining again!

• Joelle finally found planters she likes, and put them out on the front porch:

• Molly bought me a book on Macaroni and Cheese for Father’s Day, so of course, I immediately wanted Joelle and my mother to make me one of the dishes - asparagus macaroni gratin. Fantastic, albeit a little heavy, was the universal agreement. Perhaps better as a side dish so you don’t try to eat too much of it.

• Got a Get Well Soon cookie from some really nice friends - overnighted from New Jersey, OU-certified and everything:

• My mother bought Molly a necklace thing from the Edmonds Art Fair (she went with my sister). I am not one to know these things, but everyone commented on how pretty she was with it on - on her end, at least she didn’t mind it the one time she wore it!

While my mother was in town (she left on Friday), I was trying to make at least one jaunt out of the house per day in the car, just to build back up the sitting strength for that position. In trying to find errands to run, we decided it would be a good idea to get oil changes for Joelle and my car’s - it had been a while for both.

I knew we didn’t drive a lot, but after looking at our paper work to figure out when we last changed our oil, this is getting ridiculous:

• My car: It had been 9.5 months since my last oil change, and I only went 1800 miles. My manufacturer (Saturn) recommends every 3 months/3000 miles. So on the mileage number, I still had a while to go.
• Joelle’s car: It had been about 14 months, 3500 miles. Her manufacturer (Scion) recommends every 5 months/5000 miles. So she also had a ways to go, and it had been a year-plus (a little before we were married!)

How do we drive so little?

• Both of us bus to work every day
• Grocery shopping is mostly done around our neighborhood (Queen Anne, Seattle) - Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Metropolitan Market (and 7-Eleven, while we are at it, though we never go there) are all within 4 blocks - so we walk to all of them
• Most dinners, by ourselves or with friends/family, are on Queen Anne Ave or at our house
• Even our doctors are either 5 blocks from home or right by work. Some of the specialists I saw were a little farther away, so for those, we did drive.
• Given my back situation, I haven’t driven a car in 3 months! That helps keep things down :) Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things…

Needless to say, the rising gas and oil prices hasn’t had a major impact on our direct budget, thankfully. Chalk one up for the urban density crowd!

Also known as, Shay stole Molly’s bed :)

Greg and Clodagh - thanks for watching Molly over the surgery days!

Recovery has gone very well so far - having Joelle, my mother, and my sister to take care of things makes it really easy! I’ve been resting, laying flat on my back (or occasionally, on my side) for most of the time, with occasional walking around. Most importantly, no pain pills since Friday. I am still taking it very easy, and plan on taking a while more off from work, per doctor’s orders. If I start working at all, I (as most patients do, so my doctor warned me) know I’ll push myself too much, making the chance of re-herniation much more likely, which would be very bad.

Walking has been going real well so far - I can do about a half-hour before tiring out and needing to come home and rest. I can sit for about 10-15 minutes, but then need to stop. That’s mostly due to the incision though - once the stitches come out on Thursday, it should be much better.

I’ve also been doing a ton of reading - so might as well post my recent reading lists, as I have done in the past. What I’ve read:

• • Dog Lover’s Companion to the Pacific Northwest (library)
  • Wry Martini’s (library)
  • How to Raise a Jewish Dog (funny gift - thanks!)
  • The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong (library)
  • 2 Economist magazines
  • Northwest Brewing News magazine
  • The Stranger news-weekly
  • Seattle Weekly
  • Lots of web-pages - especially checking out http://www.howcast.com more and http://www.spine-health.com
  • Surprisingly little TV. That said, watched a bunch of golf yesterday, and today, since I am laying in bed, happily watching the US Open Playoff WebCast (free, yeah!)

Next on reading list:

• • Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World (gift again - been wanting to read this)
  • Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash (library)
  • Any other suggestions?

scanning is easier than typing - so here’s a nice surprise we got in the mail today (slightly redacted for privacy):

As those of you following my Facebook status updates know, surgery went very well (the main back/leg pain is gone - albeit with a new back pain from the surgery itself), and I am back from the hospital, and well on the path to recovery (walking a little, sitting a small bit, resting a ton). I’ll write more later when it is more comfortable to be on a computer, but just wanted to pass along the latest updates in case I haven’t had a chance to talk to you in person.

And for everyone who has passed along good wishes - thanks! it means a lot to me to hear from everyone :)

I definitely need to get one of these: http://store.barackobama.com/product_p/bt21991.htm