Seattle Clouds are the Best Clouds

Of all the many places I have lived and travelled, I think the Seattle area has the best clouds, hands down. They have so much variation, but they always have character and seem so relaxed and casual.

They strike the perfect balance of form, color and pattern.

While I really do miss that thunderstorms we had back in Michigan, and I'd trade Wellington for just about anywhere (maybe I'd take Prague; Prague was pretty amazing), I love Seattle clouds the best.

Do the Puyallup 2016

The Washington State Fair will be known by "Do The Puyallup" for years to come.

First stop on the 2016 visit? Same as last two years: The Giant Slide.

Microsoft Volume Licensing - reflections on managing the VAMT

Like everyone who has ever tried to read a software license agreement, let alone figure out how to pay for it, I have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft, and especially their Volume Activation Management Tool.

Volume licensing can be a real time saver, especially in organizations where machines are rebuilt frequently.  However, it's also finicky and a royal pain in the ass.

Well, turns out J. Decker agreed, and she has written a VAMT Technical Reference.  I'm not sure how "VAMT" might be pronounced, but every rendering in my head sounds exactly like a swear word.

(Image poached from)

Also potentially useful is the Microsoft Licensing Review (old, but still useful to grasping some of the basic nonsense concepts).

An article discussing Microsoft licensing in the Amazon cloud hosting service.  This is specifically for AWS, but the general concepts of "software in the cloud," are still potentially useful.

Chambers Creek Park, Tacoma

Chambers Creek Park, in University Place (aka Tacoma). Used to be a gravel mine, so has some really fascinating concrete structures. Beautiful park with huge open spaces.

Kite Festival was tons of fun. Took my little one on a play date with her friend. We got bits of wind here and there, so not much kite flying, but it was a wonderful day. They had bounce houses and food trucks.

Food truck with news article saying cash strapped public schools try inviting food trucks.  They had "spiral cut potatoes" on a stick - basically a different kind of French fry, and it was good.  The idea that schools are so cash strapped we can't afford to feed kids who can't afford food in the first place, is depressing and a bad sign for our society.  The food trucks are a bad solution to a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Pig Iron BBQ - Seattle local dining

Great local BBQ place in Seattle. You know a mom & pop restaurant is going to be good when 70% of the space is kitchen. And it was good, too. Fun staff, good food, and they have their own store cola, too.

My coworker and I were running client site visits, when he got a flat tire. We located the nearest Les Schwab, left the car, and asked for a local recommendation.  They suggested Pig Iron BBQ, and it was worth it.

I had the BBQ chicken sandwich, and my coworker had some kind of monster healthy-looking green salad with pulled pork piled on top.  He's this skinny thing, but somehow couldn't stop himself from shoveling it down, and repeating the mantra "THIS IS SO GOOD!"

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.

Why we love Heroes Unlimited and Rifts

The game mechanics in all the Palladium Books games are a complete mess, but the character generation is so over-written that it's actually kind of a mindless pleasure to indulge in the wreckage and see what kind of character shakes out.