How to look like a giant nerd in your high school yearbook

I was 17 in 2004 and could not vote in the November election, so I decided instead to create this super awesome t-shirt — using red Sharpie and Scotch tape, thank you — to peer-pressure my 18-year-old classmates into voting. Preferably not for George W. Bush, but I didn't state that on the shirt.

I guess I should have. Oops!

This is a friendly reminder to all of you to VOTE this week! You have until Tuesday, November 2, to drop your ballot in the mail in Washington state. If you're reading this in another state, you should do your voting thing, too — whatever you need to do. Then go do a keg stand, because the other kids are doing that, too!

Ahh, I miss college.

Speaking of silly, regrettable things... it's not a great idea for a Senatorial candidate to shove fliers under the windshield wipers of all the cars in the Park & Ride, ANDY HILL, because when it rains, as it often does IN SEATTLE, you look like a huge jerk when people have to spend three minutes peeling your soggy face off of their windshields when all they want to do is go home, heat up a Hot Pocket and watch Dancing with the Stars.

I didn't vote for you anyway, dude.

So that's all I have to say right now. Vote. I'm not gonna say VOTE OR DIE, because, wtf? Is that a threat? Vote or don't vote. But it'd be pretty cool if you did vote.

As my super-cool high school friend Carl, who now works for Congress, reminded us everyday citizens on Facebook, "Decisions are made by those who show up."

(That quite possibly came from The West Wing. Amazing.)

**Random memory update: I don't recall a whole lot from 1996, but I do remember quite vividly the mock presidential election we had in elementary school. My family had just moved from Seattle to northern Indiana; I was in 4th grade. I voted for Bill Clinton. Nearly everyone else voted for Bob Dole (this was Indiana, remember). Even then, at 9 years old, I remember being like, "Bob Dole? Really, guys?" I just love voting.

The photos!

If I do say so myself, the coolest photo from the hike on Saturday is this one of Aaron climbing a giant tree stump that looked like a piece of broccoli (click photo for larger view):

I'm sure he's happy that he beat out trees, a waterfall and random mossy things for best photo. America's Next Top Model status! (So many hours of my life dedicated to that show, my God.)

We used his Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens (I have no clue what I just wrote) for these shots, and he also did some magic tricks with Lightroom, I believe.

I was obsessed with trees that sported ugly protrusions. Again, ANTM-style, I was all, "Give me pretty, but make it ugly. I said ugly-pretty!"

I also liked this tree that looked like a claw. It reminded me of the Fremont troll's claw-like hands. Check it.

And here's a leaf. A leaf on a log.

"This will be a good one for the blog," said Aaron:

Please note that I'm rocking a Jansport, thank you. And I'm glad the camera is hiding my face, since I found myself making all kinds of crazy faces while taking photos. I believe the crazier your face is while shooting, the better the photo. Truth.

This one might be straight out of the camera. Aaron might have taken this one, too. This is the flowy water look I was trying to learn about.

Aaron took this one. This little guy grew out of the top of a tree stump. So cute!

This one reminds me of the Henry David Thoreau quote I keep in the right margin of this blog, which I shortened a bit, but says: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I hadn't actually been to the woods in a while until Saturday. Despite its name, Woodinville doesn't exactly count. It was peaceful and fun, and as much as I enjoyed seeing the sights through an awesome lense, I liked seeing it all in real life even more.

Some things just can't be captured in a photo. I remember I was trying to take a good picture of something interesting and finally just stepped back and said, "Maybe I'll just enjoy it in real life for a sec." Of course, I can't remember now what I was looking at, but I enjoyed it at the time, and that counts just as much as a cool photo, I think.

I had Aaron take this last photo because I knew I'd never remember where we were. This was a nice, easy and very pretty hike, and a great place for me to start learning about photography from a very patient teacher.

I highly recommend that you go to the woods sometime.

Awesome/exhausting weekend

It started with a hike.

My friend Aaron, a knowledgeable and talented photographer, was cool enough to go on a hike with me Saturday and show me how to use his ridiculously nice Canon camera. Most of our conversations went like this:

"So, if I want to make the water look flowy, the number needs to be high so that the shutter speed is... slow?"

Typing that now, I have no idea if that's right. He taught me about ISO and aperture and other stuff and my brain just does not grasp it all very easily. But, I know way more now than I did before (I think??) and I'll only learn more with time, reading and practice.

Best of all, there was a super sweet waterfall at the end of the hiking trail, which Aaron swore he did not know was there, but it made for some cool pictures.

This photo was taken with my phone. There's Aaron playing a fun game with his camera practically in the water. He's much more adventurous/brave than I am!

I'll post some actual pictures I took when I get them and we'll see if they're any good.

Today was the Dawg Dash 5K at my alma mater, the University of Washington. The race started and ended in Husky Stadium, which was also where I started (Dawg Days orientation) and ended (graduation) my college career. I'm sure that's symbolic somehow.

You can read about my super awesome 5K playlist (played on my gangster iPod mini, which worked wonderfully), the rain magically clearing up for the race and my new personal best 5K time here.

Yes, that's a plug for my new little running blog. I figured I wouldn't bore you with a bunch of running stuff here. I'm too busy boring you with other stuff!

Side note: How cute is my mom?

Speaking of other stuff... I've been slacking on my push-ups. But, as so often happens at my house, a random push-up challenge commenced on Saturday and some personal-best records were set. My mom did four — she had never done even one before. I did 10 — the first seven pretty easily, then numbers eight through ten with great, head-bursting effort. Aaron did 50, but he's a guy, so whatever.

Also, I'm doing another 5K next weekend. Also, I really need to construct my lobster costume for Halloween (meant to start today, took an epic nap instead). It should be a good week leading up to another fun weekend!

Side-side note: Congrats to my dad on his engagement yesterday! I don't write a lot about my dad here, but we're very close and I'm so happy he's found a wonderful woman who loves him [almost] as much as I do. We don't always agree on everything, but he's the most important man in my life.

He's always in the front row of every event I participate in, from my pathetic attempts at junior high track meets and random award ceremonies to high school and college graduations. He's right there, filming everything and snapping photos like it's the Olympics. He's listened, given advice and cried with me over multiple heartaches and heartbreaks. He never hangs up the phone without saying, "I love you." And I'd need all the fingers and toes of an entire army to count the number of times he's said the words, "I'm proud of you, Dev."

I love you, and I'm proud of you, Dad.

Don't be shy... I see you

I don't get a whole lot of comments on this blog, and that's OK. I write mostly to organize the tangle of thoughts in my head and put them somewhere else so they don't clog up my brain.

But some friends will mention in passing that they've read certain posts, and I've gotten some nice emails and Facebook messages from old high school friends with words of encouragement. It's always nice to hear that people read what I write and don't think it's complete crap. (And if you do think it's complete crap, feel free to keep that to yourself. Thanks!)

If you follow my blog and don't want to comment because you're afraid I'll think you're a creeper, don't worry about that. Chances are I already know you're a creeper, especially if you're the only person I actually know who lives in a certain state or city.

Google Analytics rocks. It lets me know that people do read my crap! And they read it all over the country. Not so much in the midwest, but I've never been a big fan of that region, either.

All those dots represent visits from 77 different cities in 21 states. Doesn't look like that many, I know, but The Google never lies. At least I like to think it doesn't.

People have also viewed this blog in Germany (hi, Moo!), South Korea (hi, Sarah!), Canada, India and New Zealand (no clue on those last three).

And while the largest concentration of visitors obviously comes from Seattle and the surrounding cities, there are a surprising number of visits from Portland, Oregon, and Mesa, Arizona. Who are you, Portland people? Holler at me, Mesa! Don't be shy. I appreciate your visits, and I'd love to hear from you, too.

This is not meant to be an OMGLookHowCoolIAmBecausePeopleReadMyBlog post. (I've already established that I never have been, am not and never will be cool.)

I just thought I'd let y'all know that although I expose quite a bit of my thoughts here, I can also see a little bit of you, and I'd like to see even more (in a completely non-creepy way). Don't be afraid to comment, or just email me if you'd like to holler (talking to you, Mesa!) or ask me any questions about how I got to be such a weirdo.

And I'm sorry I've been MIA from blogging lately. (Yes, I see when people check my blog even when I haven't updated it for several days. I appreciate you.) I've been running. And going to sleep early. And getting up early. And running. You can read a little more about that here, if you want.

I get ideas for blog posts right about the same time I get into bed (which is 9:30 on weeknights, holler!), and I usually fall asleep writing them in my head. Then they're gone when I wake up.

I also have lots of random notes, quotes and lists on the memo app on my phone. The problem is that I tend to write looong, boooring posts and don't want to just knock out a post if I won't have time to get all my thoughts out. And if I start writing a post at 8:30, I'll inevitably be up until 11:30 obsessing over it, and then be tired and miserable the next day.

I highly suggest a 9:30 bedtime, grandma style. I didn't know what it felt like to not be tired all the time until I actually started getting enough sleep, and then I realized it was awesome and I don't want to go back. This hinders my blogging. I need to make the time.

I knew I was going to like J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly when I read something he wrote that was along the lines of, "I've been meaning to do [such-and-such], but I haven't made the time." He deliberately avoided saying, "I didn't have the time."

We all  have the same amount of time. We all choose what to do with it.

I currently make plenty of time for:

• exercise
• sleep
• life admin (boring stuff like laundry, writing my budget, clearing clutter)

I need to work on making time for:

• my close friends
• blogging
• keeping up with people (calling my dad, setting up lunch dates and happy hours with friends I rarely see, etc.)

Well, this post turned from a Creepy McCreepathon into a self-improvement call-to-action...

Now to sleep. Hiking Saturday. 5K-ing Sunday.