#ProgrammersInThePNW - Days 4 & 5

Already playing catch-up on blog posts. My apologies. Here we go...

Day 4

Today was travel day #2... we started in Portland, drove up the coast, and ended up in Tacoma where we spent the night. The drive up the coast didn't have as many awesome views, but our stop at Cannon Beach, OR definitely made up for that:

There were a few neat views that we saw on the drive, though:

Tuesday night we had a chance to catch up with an friend who's been in Tacoma for the last 2 years as a part of a pastoral residency at a local church, and eat some fantastic seafood right on the bay in the process.

Day 5

Our original plan was for Wednesday to be our day hanging out in Olympic Park, but we decided to postpone that since the weather looked like it would be more cooperative on Saturday. Thus, Wednesday became one of our days to wander around and experience downtown Seattle.

We started out with the Seattle Underground tour... to make a long story short they raised up the city about 15 feet a long time ago, thereby taking what was the first floor of the various buildings and making those into the basement. Some of these basements are now used as extra retail space, and others are used for things like this tour, which was subterranean for most of the time. 

There are also some skylights still in place from when they built the underground (in the late 19th century) that help illuminate it... they're built into the sidewalks and still functional today.

That afternoon we wandered around downtown, including a trip through the Pike Place Market.

We also came across the Seattle Public Library, which was SWEET.

Coming soon
Day 6: EMP, waterfront/harbor, and some sculptures
Day 7: coffee, roaming, and some baseball

Other stuff
Don't forget to keep an eye on Flickr, Instagram, and Twitter for more fun from the trip!

Updated - check out the ProgrammersInThePNW label below for all of the posts for the trip!

#ProgrammersInThePNW - Day 3

Day 3

Today is (was) our last full day in Portland... tomorrow we're headed up the coast and towards the Seattle/Tacoma area.

Today was also marked by some pretty awesome food (at least in my opinion). We ate breakfast at Pine State Biscuits - I had a biscuit with fried chicken, cheese, bacon, and apple butter. Life-changing. Lunch was from some food carts downtown, we got donuts from Voodoo Donuts, and dinner came courtesy of Bunk Sandwiches and Salt & Straw Ice Cream in Alberta (a neighborhood on the NE side of Portland).

(Seems I missed getting a picture of lunch. I got a burger from the Steaks 5th Avenue, a food cart that's been around Portland for about 15 years. It was great.)

Our main activity of the day was the Secrets of Portlandia walking tour. If you're ever around Portland, I highly recommend it - Erik (the guide) knows a ton about the city, and at the end you tip him however much you think the tour was worth. We had a pretty big group so the tour took a bit over two hours, but it usually doesn't take that long.

We saw some pretty cool stuff along the way, such as...

An awesome-looking car:

The World's Smallest City Park (Mill Ends Park, aka Leprechaun Park):

And a dog riding on its owner's back through the middle of downtown:

We also stopped in Powell's Bookstore (which takes up an entire city block), and wandered along the river for a bit.

Gear - an aside

I switched from my old dSLR rig (Canon 60D and 3 lenses) to a smaller Olympus body and one lens... so far it's working out great. The weight/size savings have been a welcome change and the image quality is fantastic.

Coming soon

Driving up the coast

Seafood

Probably another park visit

Don't forget to keep an eye on Flickr, Instagram, and Twitter for more fun from the trip!

Other posts are here!

#ProgrammersInThePNW - days 1 & 2

As a means of introduction...

I'm currently on vacation in the Pacific Northwest ("PNW") with three good friends and fellow programmers (thus our trip's name/hashtag, Programmers In The PNW) - Drew Preston, Dan Goslen, and Andrew Southard. Our main goal for the trip is to enjoy some time away from work exploring a new part of the country that we've never visited, and catch up with a few friends along the way. My goal here is to fill you in on our shenanigans on said trip. Here goes nothing.

Day 1: Travel, Mt. Rainier

Our travel to Seattle (RDU - MSP - SEA) were, thankfully, very uneventful. If you ever have the chance to fly into the Sea-Tac Airport from anywhere east of Seattle, I highly recommend getting a window seat on the left side of the plane because you might get views like this on your approach to the airport:

On our way down from Seattle to Portland, we stopped to motor around in Mt. Rainier National Park for a few hours... the $15 entrance fee did not disappoint - the mountain is spectacular!

Views of Mt. Rainier can also sometimes produce cases of people taking a picture of someone else taking a picture of someone else taking a picture of Mt. Rainier. Not that this happened or anything like that.

We then headed down to Portland, and checked in to our place that we got on AirBnB (I don't have any pictures yet, but I'll grab a few tomorrow). Great hosts, neat space, great view of some scenery.

Day 2: Church, Multnomah Falls (etc.)

The morning started out with a visit to a church that some of our friends had visited when they were in Portland earlier in the summer - Door of Hope on the northeast side of town. That was a great experience, due in part to this:

Yes you read that right. Free coffee (that tasted pretty good) IN AN AWESOME MUG. I was a fan in case you couldn't tell.

From there, we grabbed lunch at a delicious taco place called Por Que No?, then headed out for an afternoon of hiking (and getting a little wet) in the Multnomah Falls area, including a trip up most of the Oneonta Gorge and seeing Multnomah and Ponytail Falls:

After that we went to get dinner at a fantastic Thai place called Pok Pok, and then motored around downtown until we came across this gem:

Ruby Jewel Scoops (yes, that's the name) was AMAZING. I got their Salted Caramel and Dark Chocolate ice cream and it was fantastic. Highly recommended.

Days 3 & 4 - preview of what's to come
-- Walking tour of downtown Portland
-- Eating doughnuts
-- A giant bookstore
-- And some views of the Pacific

It's about 10:30pm as I write this and it's been a long day, so I'm calling it quits. I'll try to update this blog every couple of days, but if you want even more information here's how to get it:
-- Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kniffendor
-- Instagram: the_kniffendor
-- Twitter: @thekniffendor

Other posts are here!

Until next time...

Chicago, Days 2 and 3

Sunday thankfully was a slightly more laid-back time than Saturday - got to spend some time hanging out with Hunter (my co-worker, and co-author of the macro/poster that we're presenting) and her husband Pablo. First stop was breakfast at this awesome brunch place called Yolk. A bit pricey but dang that was some good food. We tried to get into the Aquarium, but thanks to a stupidly line we ended up going to the Planetarium instead. I don't have many pictures of either, but I did finally get a decent shot of the skyline from over that way...

The planetarium was pretty sweet too. We got a tour of what you can see in the night sky from Chicago this time of year.

After that we went back to the hotel and got our AWESOME poster set up! The conference started later that afternoon, and after various festivities I came back, wrote the Day 1 blog post, and hit the sack.

Monday was conference stuff all day, and then I went out to wander the city again with Hunter and Pablo. We went a little bit north of the hotel to another Chicago-style pizza legend called Gino's East. Apparently it's a tradition to write your name on the walls there, because every single wall I looked at had writing on it. Like this:

Or this (Stat-Tech represent!!!):

Oh, and of course here's the pizza:

Comparing the two pizzas that I tried (this one was pepperoni, mushrooms, and bell peppers, while the pizza from Giordano's had that plus onions. They called it the "Stuffed Chicago Classic"), they were both delicious and VERY filling. I enjoyed the ridiculous cheesiness of Giordano's and found it to be a bit less messy to eat, but Gino's had the better all-around flavor combination... the pizza had a bit more kick to it and the sauce was a bit more prominent. Barring a surprise upset at O'Hare tomorrow, it looks like Gino's wins!

Oh, and after dinner I split off and went up into the John Hancock Observatory on the north side of downtown. It was very much worth the $18 admission.

Well that's all for now... I'll have a recap of Days 4 and 5 up sometime tomorrow. Hint: includes baseball.

Chicago, Day 1

Sorry I'm already 1.5 days behind (it's still technically Sunday night so I'm not completely late on that post... yet).

Saturday was a whirlwind of a day for the most part... here's a brief overview:
-- Got up at 4am eastern time, went to RDU, wheels up at about 6:45am
-- Arrived at O'Hare around 7:45am, and hopped on the L to head downtown. Also discovered that the L station at O'Hare has some AWESOME lighting:

-- Got to my hotel room (on the 38th floor) and saw my first legit view over the city.
-- Discovered that Chicago has 2 or 3 layers of streets at some points... streets under streets. Kinda crazy, but makes traffic flow better from what I've seen.

-- Rode the L up to Evanston (suburb about 15 miles north of downtown), and hung out with my dad's cousin and his daughter (mom and the other siblings were somewhere in Missouri). Had fun catching up with them and seeing a musical at Northwestern Univ.

-- Found The Bean. Also found a group of kids who looked like they were geared up for Prom Night (or some such occasion) getting pictures taken around The Bean:

-- Walked down to the planetarium to hopefully get a good skyline shot, and wasn't thrilled with the result. Went back towards Millenium Plaza to get some dinner, and figured out the skyline shot - use The Bean!

-- And finally, enjoyed my first taste of Chicago-style pizza. My choice: the Stuffed Chicago Classic from Giordano's. In order of layers: a thick pie-style crust, pepperoni, cheese, sauteéd onions, peppers, and mushrooms, more cheese, and a killer pizza sauce. Assembled backwards(ish), but it was good. Also, 1/3 of a 9" diameter pizza and I was stuffed - terrific bang for your pizza buck. Highly recommended!

-- Went back to my room, considered writing this blog post, and ended up crashing. Sunday is a story for another day. Peace out.

Procrastination, Chicago edition

Rather than finish packing, I'm writing a blog post. Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to say right now. Aside from the (fairly obvious) facts that... 1) I'm looking forward to visiting a new city, 2) hoping to learn a lot at this conference, 3) hoping to share some of Chicago with you through my lens and this blog, and 4) I really need to finish packing since my flight departs RDU at 6:36am tomorrow.

Kniffendor over and out.

Introversion, and a journey

Yeah I know... it's been over a year since I fired up this bucket of bolts known as my blog. Since you're reading it that means you survived, which also mean that it's probably not that big of a deal :)

It's been a dream of mine for a while now to visit a new city for a weekend (by myself), and just explore. See what there is to see, enjoy what there is to enjoy, and experience something completely new. With camera in hand and spare battery in pocket, of course. Whether or not it's a completely healthy thing, I constantly crave at least some change of scenery (no matter how small), so this idea is basically taking that to its logical conclusion.

I've got the awesome opportunity to do just that (the exploration thing) later this month... as a part of my job I'm traveling to the Pharmaceutical SAS Users Group annual conference in Chicago. The conference doesn't start until 5pm on Sunday. I get into Chicago at 7:45am on Saturday. I think this will be a very interesting experience on multiple levels...

1. As a formerly homeschooled only child, I'm kinda used to doing stuff by myself. Eventually I need to be around people, but I reckon that will be taken care of by the conference. Anyways, I've never gone out to a completely foreign environment by myself to explore solo for 36 hours, so the psychological side of this will be interesting.

2. I've never been to Chicago. It seems like a pretty legit city, and I've heard their pizza is ok. My goal is to have Chicago-style pizza from a different place every day and report back with the winner. I've also already got some photography ideas in my head, some of which will hopefully make it on here.

My goal (please hold me to this) is to report back with daily updates while in the Windy City as well as possibly a wrap-up post. Hope you enjoy the ride!