BlaringSmelly

*Gasp!* I can’t believe I haven’t post our engagement photos yet. Recently I uploaded some on flickr. My photostream view counts went nuts. One of my favorites was Mango peeking into the camera. It is also many people’s favorite! Maybe it’s the curious little eyes, or the button nose, something about this photo melts my heart every time I look at it.

Yvonne Wong was the photographer, she did an amazing job capturing us in our home. I love both ktula and I look very comfortable in the shots, as if these are our day to day family photos. It makes me look forward to the future days to come. That to me is happiness.

I ran into some charming insects prints on a UK home and garden website. That perked my interests to look for more similar kind of prints. And that’s how I ended up on Panteek.com.

Panteek specialized in genuine antique prints from England and other parts of Europe. David and Sue Panken run the online antique store. I also found out from Elle Decoration blog that they are based in Spokane. Yay for supporting local business.

The website has a 1980s look and feel (unfortunately not in a good way). Once I overcame the inconvenience of browsing the old fashion way, I was in treat for some stunning museum quality prints.

Being a huge fan of underwater world and exotic sea creatures, I was very happy to find the site’s enormous collection of fish, coral, and shellfish prints. One day when I find my dream home, I’ll decorate it with some of these lovely prints:

A minor victory at work had made me a happy designer. During a demo run, I noticed the newly implemented feature still appeared in Verdana. Many moons again a request was made to have Verdana replaced with Arial. The engineer assured the font couldn’t be Verdana because the code is new. She said the smaller font size might have me mistaken it to be a different font.

I was not convinced. But I didn’t continue this discussion so we can proceed with the demo. After all the sprint tasks were demonstrated, we returned to the same screen. I brought up the font issue again. I half jokingly asked the engineers to humor me by proofing me wrong. I’ll shut up when I see the code is indeed Arial.

Engineers were happy to take on that challenge. We went back to their desk and started checking the code. There were hundreds of inline CSS to go through and it was hard to pinpoint to the right one. One of the engineers suggested nesting the font style in the top-level code then run the program again. As I have suspected, the font used was not Arial. The engineers finally agreed.

With 1 extra day off, I took Mango for a long leisure walk in the morning. We strolled over to Kerry Park, alone the way, admiring private mansions’ beautifully landscaped garden and grand entrances. We discovered the neighborhood and tried a new route to get off the part with steep hill.

Mango poked his head, well, he literally walked into every single house with pretty pathway. He would only come out when I call him. He seemed to think it’s a game and was doing it the entire walk.

The final stop was the neighborhood bakery Nielsen’s Authentic Danish Pastry. I’ve taken Mango to the bakery before. He was given a doggy cookie. At first He was not sure about the cookie. Once he decided the cookie was good, he has being wanting to revisit the bakery. In a normal day we have to hurry back so I can get ready for work, this time we were not in a hurry. I sat down to enjoy a cup of coffee and some oatmeal cookies. Mango quietly waited next to me, occasionally raised head to sniff the smell of pastries in the air. It’s such a luxury to start a morning like that.

Ktula and I went to our first bicycle rides this year. Started from Sandpoint, we rode to Woodenville and had lunch at Redhood Brewery. It was a hot day to be out in the sun for hours. But I was more than happy to be on the road so it was great. Coming back, ktula started to experience serious thigh cramps. We had to stop every few miles until his cramps were lessened before moving on. He finished the last 10 miles without stopping. He had more cramps later and was sore and slow moving after the bike ride.

We also took Mango canoeing at Lake Washington. Mango is not a water dog. He would jump over a puddle of water to avoid getting his feet wet. Not sure if he can swim if he needs to, we got him a little life jacket. He was very nervous at first. We can tell because his tail went between his legs. Eventually he overcame his fear of water and started watching ducks and other creatures in the swimming by.

It was a great 4th of July weekend, I did everything I wanted.

Over the weekend I stumbled into The Library of Congress’ historical photos collections on Flickr. What a great find! I’ve being going through each and every one of the photos and reading descriptions and stories added by Flickr users just like myself.

Bravo to The Library of Congress, for reaching out to broader viewers leveraging popular online media.