When my spouse and I bought our house in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle in April, 2001 it came with a huge backyard garden. Not only did we buy a house, we bought the farm.

This is my farm plan based on my presentation for the Urban Farming class at the UW. I consider this project to be a starting point for my exploration in urban farming and gardening. It is a summary of what I’ve learned and observed this spring. 

I’m starting to wonder if Seattle is becoming one big urban farm. There are so many opportunities to get involved in the urban farming community. This spring, I visited several of the farms, gardens and P-Patches that I’ve been hearing and reading about.

I completed the 6th Annual Coffeeneuring Challenge this fall. What is Coffeeneuring, you ask?

Coffeeneuring is a play on the concept of Randonneuring. Originated by the folks at Chasing Mailboxes, the Coffeeneuring Challenge is an informal cycling endeavor for people who enjoy riding a bike and drinking coffee.  Continue reading →

I was darn pleased with myself for riding my bicycle to my favorite early-morning AA meeting for the first time. As I locked up my bike with my mega-strength U-lock and headed towards the door at two minutes ‘til 7:00, it dawned on me that the journey to this particular meeting began almost thirty years ago during a missed encounter with twelve-step recovery. Continue reading →

The last miles on the Burke-Gilman bike trail are always a benign kind of torture. Our final rest stop at Blythe Park was behind us, and the distance to our finish line at Magnuson ticked off in agonizingly slow increments: Ninety-two-point-four. Ninety-two-point-five. Ninety-two-point-six. Continue reading →

I recently got a message via Facebook from my high school friend Terrie Ocker (now Terrie Barrow). She said that the coverage of Muhammad Ali’s death made her think of me. My initial response was “Really? Why?” but before I hit send, I realized why she would associate me with Ali. Continue reading →

Not Prozac. Pro Zeca…a tune by Victor Assis Brasil.

This is from my performance at Jazz Vespers in Seattle. Here I’m playing tenor sax with Dean Schmidt (electric bass), Jeff Busch (drums), and Julio Jauregui (piano). Vocalist Adriana Giordano was also on this concert and I’ll post some of those videos soon.