Rock N Roll Seattle

Done:
10250 Chris Tobin M 35-39
Half Marathon Start: Gun 7:02:17 Chip 7:21:39
Splits: 5 Km 10 Km 9 Mile Finish O'All Sex Div
Times: 28:16 59:06 1:24:40 2:01:11 3431 1695 357
Pace: 9:06 9:31 9:25 9:15

Basically what that says is I finished the Rock N Roll Seattle Marathon this morning in 2 hours 1 minute and 11 seconds. My goal was 2 hours. But I did have a two minute bathroom break in the middle. So I will call that the asterisks goal met.

We ran right by my buddy Nate's house, I will try to get the photos he took and put them up here. I am not one of those people that carry a camera with them while running, so sadly no action photos.

Other notable times:
Bryan Klisch 1:58:44
Reid Jonasson 2:39:54
Heather Jonasson 4:51:03 (full marathon!)

This was Bryan's first run, so kudos to him.

Time to replenish:


This is a picture of the finish line. There were 25,000 people participating in either the half or full marathon. That is quite a bit for a longer run. This picture is from about 30 minutes after we finished. You can see the amount of people still filtering in to the finish coral:

Now on to more important things: US v Brazil 11:25 AM kickoff in the US's first ever FIFA men's final of any kind. I know it is just the confederation cup, but it would be really nice to follow up the win against Spain with a tourney title and Brazil win. That would really solidify our argument for being seeded in the 2 pot for World Cup 2010.

Nate took a few pictures since we ran right by his house. The pictures of me might have turned out better if I had realized that Nate was going to be standing on the opposite side of the street from his house. (he's a tricky dude) I was trying to get an action photo of me as I was ready with a full glass of water to throw on the Iben's as I passed but the opposite side of the road threw me for a loop. Anyways, this guy here is much faster than I:

There's me, mile post 9. I was hurting here but seeing friends helped me soldier on:

There were 25,000 people running the race. It is a really large race for a marathon and half marathon. The start is staggered out over about 45 minutes. You never really spread out like you would think in a run of this length. This is another picture by Nate. Taken at mile post 9. Notice how packed the race still is:

Being the 'Rock N Roll' race, this is what you got every one to two miles:

Memorial Day 2009

Every year we go to Cape Lookout State Park for Memorial Day Weekend. The Tobin's and the Last's and assorted friends soak up around 7 camping spots at the park. Well most years assuming that the correct weekend was reserved, but that's another story. Here's the cape itself:

Every year we pretty much do the same things. Friday night is steak night as we are all filtering in to the campground from locales afar:

Notice the lights and the steaks already on the grill? Because of some strange confluence of events, traffic and vacation availability we all got to the Park around 4 PM. Here is the gang from our side of the family. Notice that everyone already has a drink except me. I had to include this picture because really, what are the odds?

By far the earliest ever arrival. Paty decided to share her Champagne with Natalie:

And Natalie decided to share her lime with Paty.

Saturday is our trip to the Pelican Pub and Brewery. This is my favorite brew pub in the entire world (of which we have sought out and sampled many a brew pub) and it just so happens to be in Pacific City, Oregon. This year our party consisted of 22 people:

It turns out that it is really hard to get 22 people to pay attention at one time, plus we had the issue of the back light in the room. If I was crafty with the camera, you would see that the ocean is just past that window. Here is another attempt to get everyone to pay attention. I had an even better picture where almost everyone was looking at the camera, except one person who was trying to get everyone's attention to look at the camera. And that person happens to be your author, so this is the picture you get instead:

Paty, bonding with Clare. Shannon watching like a hawk in the background (just in case).

Saturday night I am in charge of dinner. We did Salmon along with a lot of sides. Well more me as Paty pretty much just supervises. But she is starting to adapt to this camping thing. As long as it is limited to once or twice a year.

Sunday is crabbing day. We get on a little aluminum boat in Netarts Bay and cruise around the bay chasing Dungeness crab. The last few years it seems that the crabs are winning. All weekend we had about the best weather you could ever ask for on the Oregon Coast. Mid 70's all weekend with little to no wind. And more importantly, NO RAIN. Here is me crabbing:

I was imitating the locals:

And here is our catch:

VICTORY, one crab for the Chris, John, Aaron, Paty and Cupholder boat. Zero for the other boats...combined.

Again, I can't stress how nice the weather was. Paty got back to her Mexican roots and laid out on the beach:


It was a great weekend, we are looking forward to it again. On unrelated blog news, I am running the Seattle Rock and Roll Half Marathon this weekend. But Paty is going on a school retreat. So unless I get someone to take pictures (Chizzy maybe) there will be no photo journal of the event. Just be warned that we START the race at 7 AM. Why these runs start so early is beyond me, but there it is. The last time I ran before Noon also happened to be the Last time I ran a half marathon. In Prague, Czech Republic in March of 2007. You can find all the details here:
Prague Half Marathon Post
It is very safe to say that this race will take me significantly longer as my training has been less than stellar.

Weekend Visitors

We had some weekend visitors:

The Sobo's made the trek over from Richland for the first time in quite some time. Not to worry, by the end of the weekend we were buddies again. It might have been the cottton candy that I bribed them with. But if it takes cotton candy, then so be it.

Now I know why people with kids eat either A) eat outside all the time or B) have a dog:


We had cupcake night, the jury is still out if Paty or Grace and Molly liked the desert more:

FINALLY LEGAL

By the heading of this post you think I would be posting something about my baby brother Patrick turning 21, but we still have about a month for that event.

No, today is the day where I passed emissions and got my new car legal for driving:

For those of you who don't know I bought my Grandpa's old car, this 1985 Mercedes 380SL, last November. But being Seattle and winter I kept it in the garage until April.

In order to get it licensed I needed to pass emissions. Due to a slight oversight in idling emissions we failed the first time back in April. When you fail you get to take the car to one of hundreds of 'licensed' emissions people in King County. And if you spend a minimum of $150 trying to fix the problem then you get a waiver until next year.

Well let's just say finding one of these licensed emissions people that will work on a 1985 Mercedes is a little bit harder than you would think. After trying three places in West Seattle that each had their own unique issues I ended up taking it to Phil Smart Mercedes in downtown Seattle. Not surprisingly my bill was exactly $150 plus tax, but I did pass emissions so I guess it was worth it. And being as the car is a 1985, this is the last year it will have to pass emissions since any car over 25 years old is exempt. Which is a curios law seeing as the goal of emissions is to lower overall emissions by automobiles and cars over 25 years old are much more prone to actually being the cars that need to worry about emissions, but I digress.

Here is another picture of me from my house. Patrick is up here and he took the pictures. I was hoping to get me with the car and the water in the background but Patrick deemed it more important to get the entire street in the picture.

On a side note, it touched 90 degrees in Seattle yesterday. The perfect weather to break out the convertible. There is a hard top as well. Patrick and I took about 15 minutes to figure out how to get it off. But the hard top is now safely ensconced in my garage for the summer.

Moving

I hate moving. This is one of my core beliefs in life. I am a bit of a pack rat leading me to always have too much stuff, thus I hate moving.

So when my Uncle Rob calls me at 7 PM on Friday night, he had a strategy. First he called at 7 PM on a Friday in Seattle that was in the upper 70's and not a cloud in the sky. This is a good strategy by Rob because the odds of me already being at a happy hour under these conditions are > 80%. Which I was.

When Rob says we are over on your side of the state, what are you doing tomorrow? I should have known it was a trap. But the sun (and beverages) might have dulled my defenses and I answered with a "Nothing really, why what's up?" Thinking that they wanted to meet in Seattle.

Nope, they needed help unloading the U-haul that apparently had every worldly possession of Cousin Matt's plus his long lost girlfriend(?) Jade.

Before:

After:

Matt had a week from when we unloaded the U-haul until he starts his new job over in Poulsbo. So we banged out the unloading, but left the unpacking to Matt. I actually took great pride in unloading things in weird spots. Skateboard...Bathroom. Bedroom stuff...Kitchen. And so on.

All in all it actually wasn't that bad. And then I had to drive back to Seattle for a Sounders game on Saturday night. Game kicked off at 7:30, I met my buddies the Klisch's and Aaron Last and Krista somethingorother (Aaron's girlfriend) at the Pyramid beer garden to partake of the continuing great weather. I would post a picture but due to an oversight, we brought the camera but did not take any pictures. Rest assured that it was a beautiful night to watch the 'beautiful game' at Qwest.

Memorial Day Preview

Who said Paty doesn't like camping? She looks pretty comfortable there. And yes that is both champagne and wine in each of her hands.

 

More to come. I just got the pictures downloaded to my computer. But since it is currently 78 degrees on a Friday night in Seattle we are heading down to the market to go to Maximillien's again with my buddy Nate and his wife. They just got back from 23 days in Italy. (Yes, we are jealous)

New Spot

Paty and I found this little gem tucked in the back corner of the Pike Place Market.

A good happy hour and a great deck with a view. What else could you ask for? This deck is attached to a French restaurant called Maximilien.

Motherly instincts?

 

Maybe she does have 'the instinct'...

Paty with her nephew, Patito, at the beach in Mexico.

Purdue 76, WASHINGTON 74

I have not been this disappointed in an outcome for something that I personally anticipated so much since the day Harry Potter Seven was released and I sat down and read it that weekend (silly family wedding not withstanding, I mean who would schedule their 'day of joyful bliss' on the penultimate day for Harry?).

I have a few pictures of the event. I'll most likely get over my despondent state and get around to posting them. But all I can say now is....BLAH

Pre-Game, we were SOOO excited. Me, my sister and my friends Nate and Reid.

At the Rose Garden which is a great facility for an event like this:

After our game Gonzaga played Western Kentucky. This was a great game, too bad I was too depressed to enjoy it. As usual the Gonzaga fans were particularly classless in their utter lack of empathy for their fellow hoops team from the state. I almost wish I had a 8x10 glossy of Adam Morrison crying after the NCAA loss to hand out to every smug Gonzaga fan.

After the game. I will leave you with this picture that succinctly sums up our mood:

Sounders Opening Day

So today was the Sounders franchise opener. 32,523 of my newest friends joined me a Qwest field (Seahawks Stadium) for the opener.

The Sounders have sold 22,000 season tickets. Easily the most in the league. One of the cool things they did for opening night is they gave every season ticket holder a scarf with their ticket attached for the opening day tickts. They they had a 'Scarves Up' campaign leading up to opening day. Thus you had about 30,000 fans holding up their scarves during the pregame and anytime something good happened. It is hard to get a picture that properly shows how cool this was from my seats, but here you go:

As for the game, it was really good. Although it was a little bit of a blur as I was still on an emotional high from the 15th ever NCAA tourney victory by my beloved DAWGS.

The rhythm of the soccer game is so much different than what I am used to when attending Seahawks games at the same stadium. Typically you get to your seats before kickoff and then don't leave until halftime or even after the final whistle. The fan experience is much more like an NCAA hoops game than anything else in that respect.

The game was an absolute success before the kickoff with the game sales and the job that the Sounders have done marketing and promoting the team. But to top it off, we won 3-0 over the New York Red Bulls, frankly we totally outclassed them from opening kick to final whistle. I think Kasey Keller made only one save of note and that was in the 90th minute.

On a side note, Rip Village was awarded an MLS expansion team yesterday. Portland and Vancouver will now join the league together in 2011. This should make for some interesting road trip possibilities. At the unveiling ceremony for Portland the commissioner mentioned how Seattle has been so successful early on with ticket sales and those always classy Portland fans promptly booed any mention of Seattle.

Tomorrow I head to Portland for the UW v purdue game in the Rose Garden. Hopefully I do a better job with my photo journalism and can have a good post for you sometime soon.

GO DAWGS

Cougar Roots

"Win or Lose, I'm gonna booze"

I think this part of the being born in Pullman has sunk in. But that's it.

Today is the UW first round game against Mississippi State in the tourney.

I get very worked up about these games.

Today is one of the 'EPIC' days in the Tobin world. UW NCAA game and the franchise opener for the Seattle Sounders. Of which I am a season ticket holder.

Hopefully the Huskies win and I will remember to take pictures at the Sounders game for a blog post later. If they lose I might be so despondent (or back to my Cougar roots and drunk) that I forget to take pictures.

I have so much nervous energy about the Dawgs game today that I decided to make a blog post from the bar. Thus, here you go.

Golden Globes

Okay, so Paty and I are stuck (well I'm stuck, she's in TV heaven) watching the Golden Globes. On another side note, Brooke Burke is one of the pre-game i.e. red carpet hosts. She's on my list.

So the second award was for best original song in a movie. Sting presented the award. And Bruce Springsteen won for the movie 'The Wrestler'. I can't remember the name of the song. But this gave us one of those 'Paty moments'. Actual quotes from my wonderful and entertaining wife about Bruce Springsteen:

"Who is he?"

"I don't know who he is because I don't like country"

"Is he a rock star?"

"Why isn't this guy super excited to get an award from a big star like Sting?"



I guess I'll show Paty who Bruce Springsteen is at half time of the Super Bowl.

On another kind of creep moment, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's daughter is a presenter. The camera went to Demi and Ahston smiling and waving at the daughter on stage. For the creepy bit, who is older is Demi's daughter and Demi's boyfriend?

Game Day, UW v Cal

UW 85
Cal 88
Triple OT

I am absolutely sick about this game. Talk about an opportunity lost. For a game that went into triple overtime, there were only two lead changes. Yes you read that right, only TWO lead changes over 55 minutes of ball.
Cal led 1-0 then Cal took the lead 86-85 at the end of the third OT.

UW controlled the entire game. Including an 11 point lead with 6 minutes in regulation. And a sure fire lead pipe cinch lead at the end of the second OT. That is until Isiah Thomas channeled his inner Mike Jensen and made one of the dumbest plays of the college season. Not the UW season, but the entire NCAA year. Up by three with 10 seconds to play, Cal had to take a three pointer. UW played excellent defense and forced Cal to take a fade away three pointer with 2 seconds left that missed so badly it actually grazed the side of the backboard. The rebound was thus deflected right to a Cal player with 1.2 seconds left. Not enough time to run out and try another three. Game over, UW wins, lets go home and enjoy our first top 25 ranking in years. BUT, for some unknown reason, Isiah Thomas did the only thing that would have kept Cal in the game. He fouled the Cal player that got the rebound as he was putting in the consolation layup that would have brought the game to a one point UW margin with 1.2 seconds to play.

The Cal player hit the free throw, inexplicably sending it to a third OT. Where again UW had the lead the entire OT but missed free throws and some tired legs finally doomed the UW. To sum up, in a 55 minute game Cal had the lead for a total of about 30 seconds and won. I'm sick about this.

Here's another picture from my camera phone. I'm not thrilled with the quality of the pics. But I didn't bring the better camera. The crowd tonight was unreal, we are back to crowd levels approaching the Brandon Roy teams. Speaking of which, our next home game is a week from Thursday where they are retiring B-Roy's jersey. There is the one game that we will be early for.

Tonight's game was on Fox Sports. And because I must be secretly a sadist I am currently watching the replay of this game as I type this. I'm curious how they are going to fit a triple OT game into a two hour replay.
Oh and WSU just edged by Stanford with a super close come from behind victory, so the Pac-10 is confirmed as wide open. Big win for the Cougs, I honestly think that's a decent upset. I was impressed by Stanford.
2-1 in the Pac-10

Game Day, UW v Stanford Hoops

UW 84
Stanford 83

The UW played well today. I had not seen Stanford play until today, but they seemed to shoot the lights out. I can't imagine them playing any better. A few times the UW, as they are apt to do, went on a frantic run that should have put some distance between them and Stanford. But Stanford was extremely composed. For a first year coach, Johnny Dawkins is about as composed as you can ever hope for. Eleven years as an assistant at Duke really shows. Stanford made a nice, no great, hire there.

Here's a couple pics I took with my camera phone. I'm not sure how well they will show up so I might have to cart in the regular camera.

The game was not a technical sell out, but the atmosphere is back after a down year in 2007-2008.

The Cal game is at 3 PM on Saturday. They are really good. Currently ranked #10 in the RPI and I think 17 or so in the polls. This will be a big test and also for the early season Pac-10 lead.
2-0 in the Pac-10

Seriously, Global Warming is so not real...

To all of you tree huggers driving your hybrids thinking you are 'helping' the environment, how can you say that Global Warming is real?

Seattle normally has one or two days of snow per year that quickly melts as soon as it sees the light of day. But NO, this year we had 'Storm Watch 2008' in December. Replete with constant updates from the great Danger Jim Foreman on the outstanding local news that I always watch.
View from our deck on day 1 of the storm:

GAME DAY!

Game Day ended up being a non starter. It took me 20 minutes to dig out my hybrid:

After digging out the aforementioned hybrid, I had the neighbor kids help push me out of my street as I got stuck twice. I did make it off the block just barely when I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and proceeded to turn around and stay home. Which ended up being a good decision since about 6 inches fell during the game and getting home would have been a challenge. An offshoot of not attending this game was the fact that I was able to keep my wearing shorts to every Seahawks game I attend streak going since I didn't attend this one. Instead of going to the game I ended up shoveling off the 18 inches of snow on our deck:

Because it was so cold (global warming, pfft) we had to move Porfi upstairs for the winter.

No funny comment, I just though this was a strange picture of the snow that formed on our deck railing:

Someone just told me that Global warming can actually make it colder? Who knew?

Spokane Tobins

A few months back the Spokane Tobin's came to Seattle. Ostensibly the trip was to see a Seahawks game with a side trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. Realistically Paty and I were just happy that they dragged my new nephew, Eli, to Seattle.
(editor's note: I would have done this post much sooner, but I lost the cord to get pictures from my camera to the computer and you would be shocked how tough it is to replace on of those things.)
As promised we delivered the Zoo, here are the pictures to prove it.
You would be surprised how hard it is to get Lexi to look at the correct camera:

Someone likes to pose for pics:

Someone also still doesn't like birds:

Maybe warming up to the bird idea, although who is intimidating who here is up for debate:
There he is, GAME DAY is upon us. Eli's first ticket lanyard:

Paty looking, dare I say, Motherly?

All in all a good trip, we had a little adventure with a broken window at the Seahawks game, but it could have been much worse. As usual, the Seahawks lost. But this was 2008, the worst year in sports history for any city. EVER.

Happy Three Kings Day!!

For those of you that don't know, today is what my darling wife calls "Three Kings Day". Apparently according to Paty, this is the day that the kings returned home from visiting baby Jesus. In Mexico, Paty used to get more presents on this day, signaling and end to the Christmas season it seems.

Interestingly enough while western Christians celebrate today for just that, eastern Christians seem to have determined that January 6th is the day Christ was baptized in the Jordan. (on a side note, are there a lot of Eastern Christians left? Maybe Greeks and such I guess)

I did some research on this (wikipedia) and found that the day is actually more commonly called the Epiphany. And quite a few cultures have some sort of tradition that goes along with the day. For instance, the Irish call today Women's Christmas or 'Little Christmas' (I will withhold the plethora of jokes that I have queued up about little = women and Ireland as most of my readers are in fact women).

In Greece they bless the waters and ban sailing on this day. In Rome they make some sort of hard baked pastries that people choke down. More food in Portugal. And so on.

The last interesting fact I found is that this is the day the signals the start of Mardi Gras in New Orleans!

Happy Three Kings Day!

New Year's Resolutions

First, Happy New YEAR to all.

May 2009 be fruitful and healthy for all of you that still take a minute to read this space.

(On a side note if you are still checking for updates after my lack of posting over the past 18 months, then you are a very persistent person)

This year as one of my New Year's Resolutions I vow to blog more. Now a problem with that and the main reason that I haven't blogged much over the past year is the lack of unique user generated content.

In the past this has morphed into a 'Chris & Paty's Travel Blog' written by Chris. Well this year looks to be as sparse or more sparse in the travel department for the Tobin's so I will have to expand the horizons of the blog some.

That being said, be ready to hear my thoughts on Husky Hoops, Gonzaga ruining a potential Final Four run (yes, I am the ONE person who has CBSCS and was watching the Utah v Gonzaga game on New Years Eve on a channel called CBS College Sports (Ch613 on you DirecTV) and they did choke away another game, this time from behind), random small trips we take, occasional what is happening in my life posts and probably a LOT of Seattle SOUNDERS footall posts.

Yes, for those of you in a soccer cave, the city of Seattle lost the Sonics but gained the Sounders in the MLS this year. For me a fair trade as I transitioned the money I spent on my season tix for the Sonics to the Sounders.
http://www.soundersfc.com/

That's all from here. I'm not going to post every day or most likely every week, but I'll try to keep this up for my readers (/wave Shannon) a little better.

Intrigue in Spokane?

Lexi thinks to herself:
"They already got me a little brother to split attention from me, we have to draw the line somewhere."

As she does her best to choke the new Labradoodle......


Congrats on the new dog to the Spokane Tobins!