The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

We worked on a houseboat during the tour making sure there weren’t too many people on it or on one side, since the house was very wobbly and would sink with too many people. Milo dreamt about large hotdogs when we worked on the tour.

New England Road Trip VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I finally got to see Boston, walked part of the Freedom Trail, went to the aquarium where they have “80 penguins with 80 personalities” (according to their advertisements), saw some remnants from the 1600s, and even Paul Revere and Samuel Adam’s graves.. We didn’t see the entire city, but I think I liked the Beacon Hill and Back Bay neighborhoods (map) the best – they seemed to have a bit of a London feel to them.

We were there for our friend’s Geoff and Silvia’s wedding, which was in Cavendish, Vermont. Therefore, we (Anne, Bindi, Rosie, Lorie, and I) all piled into a large Ford Explorer (or maybe Expedition – I’m not sure) and drove from Boston, through New Hampshire, and into Vermont. We were all expecting to see quaint New England towns, but what we learned was that New Hampshire has quite a few Dunkin Donuts shops and graveyards; if there is more to it, we didn’t see it. Vermont seemed the same, but with fewer donuts. Both states had too many strip malls – old ones though. 

Other than the wedding, our highlight was the Singleton’s General Store that was near our hotel in Vermont. They sell whiskey, guns, and ammo according to their sign, but really they sell that plus quite a few groceries, food, much more than just whiskey, and just about any hunting supply you might need. Plus maple syrup of course.  

A week in Atlanta VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I have been in Atlanta this week for a Microsoft conference, which is generally about 10 hours of meetings during the day then parties each night. It gets a bit exhausting, but there are some fun things, such as:

• Watching, listening, dancing and sweating with the Black Eyed Peas at our private concert!
• Petting a shark and stingray at the Georgia Aquarium: Stingrays (or some sort of ray) feel slimy because they are covered in mucus. Sorta gross to find out AFTER touching them.
• Visiting The World of Coca-Cola: It is impressive how much they have influenced the world
• Going to an Atlanta Braves game with 4 English and 1 Norwegian: some of them knew more about baseball than I did, but that’s not saying much.
• Meeting up with friends/co-workers from all around the world
• Learning about new Microsoft products and technologies: Geeky yes, but I saw some pretty cool stuff that I can’t tell you about yet.

Open Mic Night VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Our neighbor, Brad King from the local band Take Cover, plays at open mic nights in the neighborhood. Tonight he was at Inner Chapters Bookstore & Café where there also happened to be a guy from France with his harp and another guitarist. Brad prefers to sing, so they found some songs they all knew and played them. Brad didn’t know all the lyrics to a couple of songs, so he looked them up on his iPhone and read from it while singing. It was pretty impressive since they’d never played together and they were using a harp for rock songs. I especially liked hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvana; partially since Nirvana was the local Seattle band that started grunge music in the 1990’s, but also because it was the French guy on the harp who asked the other two “do you know this one?”. Without any practice, they just nailed it – as much as you can in a small book store.

Seattle Penthouse Loft VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Since my original blog post about our loft going for sale, other web sites are now up and running with it or talking about it:

• Craigslist: $649500 / 1br – Veer Penthouse Loft – Amazing Views (Seattle)
• Rick Miner’s (or real estate agent) site has all the details: http://www.duckin.com/listings/401_9thave.php 
• UrbnLivn: Sweet Looking South-West Penthouse at Veer Lofts
• YouTube: Videos from Rick Miner (also on Animoto), Brian Groth,, and TourFactory 
• Twitter: via @AngusLogan

Our loft is now on the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and on our real estate agent’s (Rick Miner) site:
http://www.duckin.com/listings/401_9thave.php 

The Veer Lofts Penthouse in South Lake Union is going on the market for $649,500 on July 6^th, 2010! This is a one-of-a-kind penthouse with unobstructed views of Seattle, the Space Needle, and Queen Anne Hill.

The Loft (photos and videos)

• South, West and North facing 2-story windows for all-day sunlight
• 18-foot wood ceilings with large, timbered beams
• Two south-facing decks with full city views
• Huge private (almost 350sq feet) West & North-facing terrace with views of the Space Needle and Queen Anne Hill
• Concrete floors
• Private, but loft-open bedroom
• Custom cabinetry
• Upgraded fixtures, lights, laundry
• Custom California closet installation
• 1.5 bath, with plumbing for an additional tub/shower
• 2 underground secured parking spaces
• Extra-large secured underground storage unit
• Rick Miner, our realtor has put together a very cool video of the loft too.
• Click here for all of the photos

The Neighborhood

• Walkscore of 97 – “Walkers Paradise”
• 1 block to the Seattle Streetcar
• 2 blocks to Amazon’s new headquarters
• 2 blocks to Microsoft’s Westlake office
• 3 blocks to Whole Foods
• 3 blocks to the new South Lake Union Park

The Building

• Leed Silver-Certified building
• For additional building details, see the Vulcan Real Estate website @ www.veerlofts.org

If you would like to schedule a viewing or for more information, please contact Rick Miner @ 206 940-1180 or www.duckin.com

Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We woke up this morning and noticed people running on highway 99 instead of the usual traffic, so Milo and I naturally had to check it out. Turns out it was the Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle Marathon, that apparently at least 27,000 knew about it – just not us. Since I’ve never wanted to walk along the always-busy highway 99, this was a good chance since the road was closed for the marathon. We walked along side the runners up to Fremont, then down to the waterfront (at almost the same speed as some of the runners). The runners went through the 99 tunnel that goes under part of Seattle, but Milo and I walked above it. The part of the map shown here is where we walked for 2 or 3 hours, which is only part of the full course.

It was fun to have people cheering the runners on and to hear 5 or 6 different bands that were set up and playing at different points on the course. Here’s some links to the latest news of the marathon if your interested.

I have now entered a new era…. personalized radio on my phone steamed over the air (thankfully I have an all-you-can-eat data plan)

I was recently at the Mashable Media Summit 2010 conference in New York where I was given a free Motorola Backflip, which is based on Google’s Android operating system for phones. I don’t like the keyboard and the camera is very slow, but there are a bunch of fun applications I can run on the phone. Also, my old Windows Mobile 6.1 phone has sorta died, so I’m trying to get the most from the Backflip. One of the fun applications is the Pandora music player. I setup a station based on Gnarles Barkeley so it automatically finds music like that (Zune, iPod, Spotify, Last.FM all have similar features). It’s geeky, but fun. Pictured here is my phone with a song from Oasis playing.  

I am waiting for Microsoft to ship Windows Phone 7 so I can get a phone with Zune on it. I’ll be able to do the same cool thing as I do with Pandora, but more. Plus I can load it up with all of the music I own too. Until then