Happy New Year 2011

Seattle likes to bring in the New Year with fireworks from the Space Needle. Many of the years, I get to Seattle Center and get some pictures.  The movie below is compiled from those pictures. You can view the originals in the 2011 New Year gallery at Sockeye Photography.

Classic Seattle

Winter is a great time to get the the sun's low lighting.  Kerry Park is the place in Seattle where you can get a classic shot of the Seattle skyline and Mt. Rainier.  

I'm not the only one getting this kind of shot.














Mt. Rainier was particularly spectacular.


Just after sunset.

Food Channel: Happy Thanksgiving

For a long time I've been cooking our Thanksgiving dinner.  I always serve a few standard items (mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and a basic stuffing), but I also like to try new things.  Last year it was a cranberry sauce with red wine, pomegranate  molasses, mint and cilantro (Bon Appetite [BA] 2009).

In addition to turkey, smoked in the big green egg (12 pounds, 4hrs @ 325), this year's menu included roasted red onions (BA 2010).

 And brussels sprouts with ham and pecans (BA 2010). My gravy is prepared from a turkey broth with pan juices. It is thickened with a roux made in clarified butter (I went the distance on this one).

Most years, I've purchased bags of dried out bread to make stuffing.  This year we dried our own bread, because we realized we're good at that - we've been drying out bread for years. So, why not get something good like a raisin/pecan loaf and make stuffing from that.

Finally, what to do with those left overs? Some things like turkey, stuffing and potatoes get eaten right away. Other items, like the cranberries and onions can last a while. 

Not this year. I threw them onto a butterflied flank steak, added some cotija cheese (not shown), and rolled the mix up and cooked it in the green egg and had a nice steak dinner.

Happy Halloween

 Hope yours is a good one

September Spiders

In Seattle's late summer the spiders come out. Actually they're there all the time from early May when the spider eggs hatch to late summer/early fall when those little spiders are grown up.


According to a recent Seattle Times article, many of the spiders we see are European cross spiders.  In my yard they seem to like to start at my mailbox and then migrate to different areas.

















They mostly hide in bushes until they are big. Then they build very large webs and are able to eat many insects including bees.





Mailbox pictures were taken with the a macro lens and the camera's build in flash.



We caught this one enjoying a bee. The web is between our sunflower and tomato plants, and is between two and three feet in size.

To see more spider photos visit Sockeye Photography. 

Biking in Minneapolis

Last week we visited the Twin Cities. I grew up there and moved to Seattle in 1984. When I left, Minneapolis already had a great biking system. Now it is even better.

Today, there are over 50 miles of paths. But, what do you do when you are visiting and don't have a bike?  Minneapolis solved that problem with "Nice Ride" bikes. You can rent these at kiosks throughout the city. What a great idea, every city should have such a system. Especially those that claim great biking like Seattle.

With bikes rented, we could travel around the lakes and take in the other features that make Minneapolis an enjoyable city. 

Fishing at Lake of the Isles

Sailboat on Lake Calhoun 

Wild flowers on Lake of the Isles

Lily pads between the lakes

Time to spawn

Welcome to the piscatorial perspective (fish eye). My photo and all things digital blog.  I thought a first post would appropriately celebrate this year's sockeye run in Washington State, and more locally, through the Ballard locks.

This year's run is a good one.  WA state estimated 123,600 would be going through the locks between June and July.  By July 14, ~117,000 have come through.  

These photos were take in the Ballard locks viewing area using a Lensbaby (above and below) with the f2.8 aperture ring and a Nikkor 18-200mm zoom on 18mm (left).

Herons and seal pups enjoy the fish too!