Good Day to Do the Puyallup

Nice day to hit the fair. Warm sun, cool breeze, Dizzy Pass (unlimited rides) day, and barely anyone here. We've done the slide and a number if rides already, because the lines are so short. Meeting up with friends and their kids, so we all get to play like crazy.

Of course we got an "elephant ear" - fried dough, drenched in butter and cinnamon sugar. Good stuff.

Steel Lake Park

We were at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way over the weekend.  Who knew there was a giant lake in Federal Way?  (Don't answer that.)

They have multiple parking lots, sprawling lawn spaces, and huge playground for kids, and a snack shop open until 9 PM daily.

They have a designated swimming area, with lifeguards.  A stone throw away, they have unsupervised beach, and they don't care if you go swimming there.  They have a sign that tells you not to, but no one cares, and so we camped a bit of that beach for the sunshine, and the kiddo and I went swimming.

(image swiped from the Park website)

Steel Lake Park is beautiful and a great place to hang out for a bit, swimming or not.

Little Gym Puyallup

Hanging out at the Little Gym, in Puyallup, watching my kiddo learn to follow instructions and do physical skills, with other kids, is one of my great peaceful pleasures.

Why I'm a Big Tipper

For various reasons, some of which I'll outline below, I always tip about 20%, and more if I really liked the service.  My wife has the same philosophy.

We don't dine out often, and at the end of the month, tips we've paid don't cost us very much (on a $40 tab, the difference between 15% and 20% is two bucks), and - maybe just as a symbolic gesture - a decent tip can help improve someone's bad day (or flip a bad attitude).

The "average" tipped wage in the United States is about $11.82 per hour, or just above the federal poverty level for a household of 3 (say, a widowed mother trying to raise two kids).

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipped_wage_in_the_United_States)

(https://obamacare.net/2017-federal-poverty-level/).

(http://www.convertunits.com/hourly/11.82)

Note, that is the *average*, as many states have a tipped minimum wage as low as $2.13, and the employer is only required to make up the difference to $7.25 (the laughable Federal minimum wage, which is definitely below the FPL for  anyone except a single person).  I had a buddy living in Tacoma for a while. He had full-time minimum wage work, paid $300/month for a one-room apartment, and the mother next door was struggling to raise her two kids - on minimum wage - after the father died in an accident. (Subsistence living is devastating and bad economic policy.)

Few restaurants provide benefits to employees, such as health insurance. Instead, they may take tax credits for helping employees scrounge health insurance from outside sources.  Thus, whatever they manage to earn can still get sucked away by things that many people consider "basic requirements of life."

(https://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/bid/289948/does-my-employer-have-to-provide-health-insurance)

(http://smallbusiness.chron.com/pay-employee-benefits-restaurant-owner-14656.html)

I was unemployed for part of last year, and we had to buy insurance through the ACA - we got a plan that was pretty much gambling we would never be in a car accident - for about $300/month (family of 3).  At $11.82/hour, that's 15% of gross income (and if we had lived in a one-bedroom apartment, at $300/month, that's another 15% off the top).

My family has been very blessed in life.  I tip well, because it doesn't cost us much, I believe in "paying it forward," and the small gesture really can have a big impact.

WA State Fair

At The Fair again. Watched Cowgirl Karen. Definitely a dying American art form.  Which is too bad, since it does take a lot Of skill and can be fun to watch.

Kiddo is on the bungee power jump again. Kid would grow wings and soar if she could. I dread the day she learns about base jumping.

Some day she'll be old enough to join me in this demon slingshot thing. Wife says I'm not allowed on it until kiddo is old enough to go with me.

Pierce County Fair - Frontier Park, Graham, WA

Hanging out at the Pierce County Fair at Frontier Park in Graham, WA, tonight.

It's a nice park, with lots of walking trails. Also well equipped with animal barns for those of who grew up around farms.

The Little One loves the rides.  Hoo-boy, do they get you coming and going through.  It seems like all the fairs around here contract Funtastic to run the rides. They do a great job now of selling you a paper card with a barcode, which is then linked to the database.  Each ride operator scans your card, once for each person who is going to ride, and the scanner wirelessly registers the change in value of the card you have, and the operator can tell you how many tickets you have left.

Note that one "ticket" has a value of about 50 cents.  So, those rides that are 7 or 10 "tickets" per rider?  Yeah, you see where I'm going with that one.  Thank goodness I only have one kid!  (Of course, some day, she'll bring her friends along...)

Graham is old farm country, so every time there is an event here, the buildings fill up with cows, pigs, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, rabbits, etc., etc.  We always have fun walking through these.  There are some really weird looking chickens in the world.

Sound Transit - I'm Commuting Now

I've always found watching the world through a train window to be a bit surreal. Like watching a toy set on the table of a toy train set.  It always has that slightly surreal dream-like quality to the visual.  Always.

Never really been a public transit commuter before.  Started a new job this week. Oh sure, I've used buses and trains, but that was when on vacation or for film fests. This isn't glamorous; this is daily grind.

Taking the Sounder (light rail) this mornkbg for the first time. Nice clean trains.

Of course, being able to write this while commuting means less of my life simply wasted by traffic. That's pretty cool.

Daffodil Festival In Orting

Orting, Washington, is this pretty little town that has had explosive population growth as the Seattle workforce moves farther and farther into the suburbs.

They participate in the Daffodil Festival and also have a great little park that my little one enjoys playing at


We have several great parks within about 5 minutes of our house.

Today, we're in Orting enjoying the sunshine and the small town feel.

Disney's Frozen on Ice at the ShoWare Center in Kent.

Having as much fun as the kid :)

Schilter Farm - bringing back memories of my childhood on family farms

I grew up playing on the family farms in Michigan.  I got to build forts with hay bales in the barn with my friends, and we'd make tunnels, too.  One of my friends got beaned with a bale of straw that dropped from the conveyor when we were helping the farmers load it into the barn. He was fine, but it was funny.  I used to test my courage by climbing the ladders to the topmost windows of the barn, and sit on the flower-box like benches to stare out the windows.

There was the giant rock that had been dug up from one of the fields (about 8 feet long, five feet wide and four feet tall - it was fun to climb on and laze in the sun).  There was the old storage building that was falling apart - fun to climb through and imagine myself exploring an ancient ruin.  Later, I got to help tear it down.

Schilter Farm, in Olympia, takes me back. They dressed the place up for the Halloween season.

They also have a Facebook page.

The Washington State Fair

Www.thefair.com

The wife and I never made it by ourselves. Okay, maybe once or twice, but now with the Little One it's an annual event.

Lots of food, and animals and rides, rides, rides.

It's fun :)

Wild Waves

Wild Waves amusement park, Federal Way, Washington.
Very nice park. Obviously the signature attraction is the wave pool and water slides, but they have plenty of dry rides for kids not yet into getting soaked.

Warning: LOTS of hills. The park is built on and around and over uneven terrain. Great if you want to get some hiking exercise, but rough if you have bad knees.

Kiddo is so over the "just goes in circles" rides, and is eyeballing the things that spin, or get some altitude.

Unfortunately, Kiddo's dad is too big for everything but the carosel and ferris wheel, so Kiddo's mom is doped up on Dramamine and gritting her teeth.

Orting Summerfest Festival

Orting is a tiny town in Washington. Practically bucolic. They have a gorgeous little park, and since it's close to home, we come here often. Today, they have a festival.

Kiddo is loving the bounce houses, and now we're off to find the pony ride.

I admit, everything is more fun with a kid.

JBLM Freedom Fair 2015

They put on a good show here, at JBLM, and it's cool they open it to the public like this.

Sure, it's a fair, complete with a thousand ways to spend money, but it feels different being on a live military base.

Although, for the second year in a row, it amazes me how bad they are at providing directions to the handicapped parking, and how much of the base they'll apparently let a plain white Dodge Grand Caravan roll through. Then again, I really didn't try to leave the residential section, so I blended in pretty well.

The kiddo is loving the bounce houses, and this year she's really into face-painting.

The crowd here is a thousand times more physically fit than a fair like the Puyallup (whatever it's called now that it got sold to the private sector).

Fresh coat of paint on the old blog

Slapped a new template on the blog. The old one dated to 2010 - when I launched it as a requirement by my employer to be given two weeks leave on five minutes notice -  and it was hideous even back then.  I'll probably change it again, but at least this template is not painful to look at it.

(Okay, it was technically a week notice, and it was because it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get a vacation in New Zealand for the cost of airfare, but it was still crazy generous of my employers to agree to it, which is one reason I'm still so very, very loyal to them today.  And, yes, it actually was a requirement - they wanted to live vicariously ;-)

Farm Country... in Fife??

I have a long commute to and from work. There isn't much that can be done to shorten it, due to distance, until we perfect teleportation. So, I make it more bearable by finding alternate routes, generally more scenic and with fewer traffic lights.

There is a particular intersection in Fife, Washington, where I turn every day. I've turned there every day for over a year, and never thought much about it. Then, one day, two bits of data robbed together in my head and I started wondering if 1) going straight on my way home would be a viable route, and 2) what would it would like.

So, finally this week I decided to surrender to my curiosity and I went straight through the intersection.... 

Right into Farm Country. Yep. Suddenly I was in the Middle of Nowhere. Houses right by the road, but giant, tilled fields sprawling out behind them. Big, living cow right there by the road to greet me and make sure I Got The Point. Very funny. 

About three minutes later, I was back in The City. So, I confirmed the route is a viable alternative, and it is interesting. 

So I took the route again the next day, and one of the fields had filled with sheep. 

I’m really looking forward to the trip home tomorrow, just to see if anything else pops up.

Pioneer Bakery, Puyallup, Washington

I like to support "Mom & Pop" businesses. You find a lot of creativity and passion there, because the business is a labor of love instead of a retirement plan.

Recently, I dropped in at The Pioneer Bakery, in Puyallup Washington. This place has been open for several years, and I believe this was my second visit. They offer basic sandwiches for lunch, but their "bread and butter" is baking. Lots of fresh-baked bread, cookies, pastries, etc. Very tasty stuff, in a charming little shop.

I dropped in to purchase a custom-made cake. It was extremely attractive, very tasty (i.e. not too much sugar), and very reasonably priced for custom work. Consider dropping in if you happen to be in the area.

--

May 2015 Update: Looks like the domain name is still owned by a real person (as opposed to one of those cyber-squatter aggregaters), but the website is gone. I suspect the business is gone, too, which sucks, since it was a nice place.