pacific northwest

Journal – 120826

/ Sinclair / Leave a comment

I’ve found myself drawn back to an idea I’ve carried for 26 years; biking across Washington State on the Palouse to Cascades Trail. A quick estimate puts the ride at roughly three to five days, depending on how often I stop for resupply or detour to explore points of interest along the way.With my knee not being what it used to be, this trip will have to be done on my ebike. That means planning for battery management. Scheduled charging stops or possibly building a small solar‑charging trailer to keep me moving through the more remote stretches.I’m not sure how all of this will come together yet, but I do know it’s going to take research, planning, building, and plenty of testing. After two and a half decades of thinking about it, it’s time to finally map it out and make it real.


🌤️ 78°F – 58°F 🙂 | #Seattle

Journal – 110926

/ Sinclair / Leave a comment

I was back in the office today, welcoming a coworker after his three‑week vacation. It was great to see him again. He surprised me with a high‑powered laser pointer engraved with my name. It was gift for taking care of his son’s Roley Poley farm. I’m already thinking about taking it on my next camping trip and testing how far the beam reaches from a mountain top.

Other than returning the music CDs I borrowed from the library and cooking dinner, I didn’t really do much today. I just needed to take it easy and recover for this weekend as I will be heading to a water park to have some fun.

Just before bed, I slipped outside and sat beside the fire, letting its glow keep me company as I read Tales of the South Pacific.


🌤️ 78°F – 59°F 🥱 | #Seattle

Journal – 100826

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Enjoing the cool summer night outside watching the start lit skies. It’s peaceful. I really should do this everynight, turning it into a ritual and not something I do occationaly. Being outdoors is something I love to do, yet for some reason in recent times, I do it sparingly.

When I do go out, it is almost always hiking or climbing up a dificult route. My body isn’t what it was use to. Back pain and my sciatic nerve in my left legs has been causing me to take it easy this summer. Most of my adventures have been in my small eBike on trails. I have to admit, most of my adventures take place durnig Autumn, Winter, and Spring. While Summer I mostly car camp or do research on location of intrest for my hikes. At the moment I am looking for abandon locations. This typically are mining or forestry locations that were quickly abandon, leaving behind equipment and buildings. Something like Monte Cristo in Washington State, but less known.

I am also very intrested in riding on abandon rail roads. At the moment I have some ideas on building a contraption that will allow my small ebike to ride on the rails. It sounds fun and there must be a few in Washington I can go for a ride.

We will see.


☀️ 74°F – 56°F 😐| #Seattle

Journal – 070826

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I went for a night swim to just relax and look up upon the start. The water was 80 degrees, quite warm but felt nice. Very peaceful and still. I was just floating there and not thinking of anything, just absorbing my suroundings.

It’s good to relax, I really need to do more of this. Just be in the moment and take it all in.


🌤️ 86°F – 56°F 🙂 | #Seattle

Journal – 060826

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It’s been a long time since I have writen on my blog. I miss writing for myself. Typically I write technical solutions for 8 hours at work. It very steril and lacks any personality. I feel like I haven’t grown as a writer, just stagnent.

Enough about that, over the past few days smoke has filled the air in Seattle. The sun is dim and the sky has an oragne hue in the late evening. Hopefully the fires are extinguished soon. I have been wearing a mask to help me from inhailing the smoke that is causing my head to ache tremendously.

I spend most of the day indoors next to an air filter and AC unit to keep me cool on these hot days. Hopefully the smoke will go away and I am able to get back outside and explore abandon mines and forestry equipment in the surrounding mountians. I have researched a few sites and need to get out to check them out. 


☀️ 86°F – 59°F 🙂 | #Seattle

Journal – 040226

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I’m not feeling well today, so I stayed home from work and rested. I also spent some time working on my online journal workflow using an Android tablet with an attached keyboard. It’s not as easy as you’d think. My goal of keeping everything as simple as possible, ran into a few snags. I use TextExpander to insert my page template, but for some reason the trigger isn’t case‑sensitive on the tablet the way it is on my computer. This caused the trigger to activate on certain words, so I had to rename it to prevent that from happening. Another issue is that TextExpander only works in some applications but not others. For example, it works fine in Jetpack or Edge, but it doesn’t work in OneNote or Word. It’s just frustrating.

I really want my tablet to be my fun companion that I can take everywhere. My laptop is set up purely for productivity; it’s not something I’d describe as fun or uplifting. That’s the role I want this tablet to play. In the past, I used it for studying Portuguese on Duolingo and for taking notes in Microsoft OneNote. I’ve had this tablet for over a year, and I just need to make this happen.

I miss writing and posting things on the site, and I want to get back into it.

🌤️ 61°F – 39°F 🤒 | #Seattle 

Journal – 251104

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Today I began using my Kindle Scribe to write my daily journal. Over the past few days, I’ve been testing how well it handles handwriting-to-text conversion so I can easily post entries online. So far, it’s been smooth—the workflow is simple, and I genuinely enjoy writing with it.

It’s not fast or as efficient as typing, but that’s part of the appeal. After spending 9 to 11 hours a day in front of a computer for work, the last thing I want is more time at a keyboard. Writing on the Scribe feels different, more tactile, more peaceful. It’s thin, light, and the backlight is gentle on my eyes while still bright enough to write outside in the dark. The whole experience is just… pleasant.

Once I’m done writing, I let the device convert my notes to text and email them to myself. From there, it’s easy to copy and paste into my site. Compared to writing on a Surface Pro or Samsung tablet, the Scribe feels more natural. The pen-to-screen resistance is well tuned, something I appreciate as someone who enjoys writing on paper.

For me, writing is a slow, deliberate process. It’s not about speed or efficiency. And that’s perfectly fine.

🌧️ 59°F – 53°F 🙂 | Seattle 

Journal – 012925

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I have been feeling tired and overall not feeling health. I am eating right, but feel sick at the same time. Yesterday I was going to take a day off at work but we had 4 people sick, so I had to work through it. Today is an easy day, just a lot of meetings and little actual work. My sleeping habits are the same but I am not getting the rest I need for some reason. I am tired but I am getting my normal 8 hours of sleep. It’s weird.

Over the weekend, I went for a bike ride with my daughter to look for geocaching. We found 24 that day. It was fun,  and we had one on one time with each other.  Nobody interrupted our conversation. It was really nice.



☀️ 47°F – 32°F 🤒 | Seattle

Journal – 012025

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I went to Leavenworth over the weekend to just walk around and enjoy the scenery. It was cold but beautiful.  I believe the last time I was before Covid hit. A lot has changed. They have closed the street that leads into the vilage. A welcomed change. There were just too many pedestrians to have cars going in and out of the area. I can walk with confidence that no one is going to hit me trying to back up. I hope they level the a road with the curent sidewalk so it is all even.

A portion of the time we walked around and window shopped. Most of the things there are things you can find home. Overall the resturants are good and definitely need to check them out if you are ever here.

The next day everyone was tired so we stayed home and relaxed playing games and wathcing tv.

☀️ 43°F – 28°F 😀 | Seattle

Journal – 010925

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Yesterday was allot of changes to the team structure and schedule. Everyone was fine with it and didn’t complain, which surprised me. People don’t like change of any sort and always pushed back on it. It wasn’t unreasonable change just a lot of small changes and set expectations. Today I have to redo the everyone schedule and publish them. I am using Ticktick to schedule all my task for the day and it helps a lot. I use to use Microsoft Todo for years, and it worked well but it lacked a calendar integration. I hope Ticktick integration with a smart watch is good. I just need it to remind me of upcoming meeting and events. Adding things to the list isn’t important to me. I prefer doing that at my desk or if I am out and about use my phone.

This month is getting everyone on board on all the changes that are being made and getting through the challenges that may derive from it.

My personal life is going well. I am changing some of my focus to health and personal development. I work out and am studying a new language 5 days a week. The only thing that breaks the routine is something more important pops up. They are rare so I am happy with my progress.

This year I am putting the family on a tight budget so we can do something special once a month. This month we are going snow tubing. The whole family is real excited about it. Afterwards we will hit up a restaurant and head home. We were not able to do this for a few years because we didn’t have a  reliable car and had to wait well over a year to receive our new car. We have it now and it is now time to travel like we use to do. Our first trip in the car was a drive from Seattle to San Diego. The car handled great and the views from the drive was amazing.

🌤️ 48°F – 42°F 🙂 | Seattle