Thanksgiving in Hampton

Recent pizza experiments

Red sauce, mozzarella, soppressatta, mushrooms, onions.



Neapolitan style crust, fresh pesto sauce, heirloom tomatoes, mozzarella.

Vacation, August 2008

Here are some pics from our wide-ranging summer vacation, which took us to Providence, Cape Cod, Amherst, and the Adirondacks.

Hood River and Janine and Greg's Wedding

The big thing in Hood River is windsurfing on the Columbia River. From our rental house, we could see dozens of colorful sails on the river each day.











Mt. Adams.


Mt. Hood in the background.

Erick's graduation

My little brother, Erick, graduated from West Point this weekend and is now a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Aside from the happiness of the occasion, the entire scene was pretty interesting. Photos and discussion below.

Cheney gave the graduation address, which meant war protesters...



...and Secret Service people everywhere.



Here, cadets file out to receive their diplomas. Numerous honors were announced, but no one got a bigger round of applause than the "goat"--by tradition, the cadet graduating at the very bottom of the class. This year's goat squeaked out with a 2.2 GPA. Every class's goat receives a silver dollar from each member of the class, and joins the ranks of famous goats like George Custer.



After graduating, the cadets toss their hats, above. Kids attending the ceremony are allowed to run out and grab a hat as a keepsake. Cadets typically put some money and a photo of themselves inside their hats for the kids.


Erick with our folks, in cadet uniform for the last time.


After graduating, Erick and the other cadets had an hour to change into their new uniforms and head out to their pinning ceremonies. This is where the grads officially hear their commissions read, take their oath of service, and have their very first set of officer's bars pinned on. These ceremonies were going on all over the place after graduation--some very quickly, as a formality; some more elaborate. The graduates from the men's rugby team, on which my brother played hooker, had their own pinning ceremony and had their orders read and oath administered by one of their coaches.

My mom and I pinned on Erick's bars. West Point grads are 2nd Lieutenants coming out of graduation and are committed to serve for at least five years.

Naturally the rugby team had arranged a barbecue and kegger afterwards.

Seattle and Whidbey Island Marathon

We spent a week or so in the Seattle area, running a marathon and visiting our friends Brian and Alicia.

First up: whale watching off of Whidbey Island. We watched a pair of gray whales for almost an hour--lots of surfacing and tailflipping. This is Alicia and Ben on the way out.

Me and Alicia.
It was "welcome the whales day" in Langley, WA, where there was a celebration of the return of the island's resident gray whales. They stop by each year to eat ghost shrimp on their way up to Alaska.

The next day we ran the Whidbey Island Marathon. It fulfilled all of our dreams of pain and glory with its many tough hills, beautiful scenery, and surfeit of organic, high-fiber granolas (being sponsored by Nature's Path).




After the race, we pounded seafood at the Mad Crab in Coupeville.





The marathon course took us over this bridge at Deception Pass, and we decided to visit it again the next day. Here's another view.

I spotted this big, fat bald eagle chilling on a tree under the Deception Pass bridge. Ben tells me that a bald eagle was also swooping around the marathon finish line when I came through the chute, but I guess my mind was on other things because I didn't notice it at all.


Next: the eating. We stayed with Brian and Alicia in Seattle, and got to check out the awesome Top Pot coffeehouse/donut emporium near their apartment.

The Pike Place market has everything from giant fresh halibut to jewelry to cheese.

Of course we had to go up the Space Needle.





We all met up with Ben's high school friend Dave and his friend Catherine for good food and beer at Brouwer's. Go there. It's good.

The bigger, younger Waage sends greetings from Stonehenge

Cool pics from my little bro. The message was something about a 750-year-old pub in Salisbury, and jumping fences, and park security, and an unanticipated 22k run. All sort of garbled, but looks fun.