Cascade Land Conservancy Conservation Awards Breakfast

On Tuesday morning I attended the Cascade Land Conservancy's annual Conservation Awards Breakfast. This is the third time I've attended in five years, and I have to say it is truly astonishing how quickly (and how much) this event has grown. This year, they had to move the venue from the Westin to the Convention Center--because there were over 1,800 people there!!

The featured speaker was Governor Christine Gregoire, and she gave an inspiring speech about the progress the (Democratically controlled) Legislature was able to make on conservation and environmental issues this past year. Then--a complete surprise to me--she had a signing ceremony for a bill that passed this session enabling a regional transfer of development rights program to begin within the three metro counties of Greater Seattle. This is a landmark piece of legislation, in that it will create a truly effective market for development rights and has the potential to take most if not all of the development pressure off of the forests and farms near the growing cities of Puget Sound.

I sat at Charlie Raines' table with folks from The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Conservation Northwest, and a few other organizations. I've worked with Charlie for about five years on a wide variety of projects, and he's truly an environmental hero. I'm sure one of these days he'll be up on stage receiving an award from CLC, but not this year. The lifetime achievement award was given to Paul and Debbi Brainerd (they started the Brainerd Foundation, which has done a TON of stuff in the NW). Debbi gave a short speech, and she ended with a fantastic quote from George Bernard Shaw:

This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. --George Bernard Shaw

I'm thinking of sticking that one on the bathroom mirror.

Boats, Part II--Seattle Maritime Festival

Yesterday was day two of the Seattle Maritime Festival, which featured tugboat races, wooden boat building, and best of all--a Coast Guard helicopter rescue demonstration. The Coast Guard flew out one of their Jayhawk helicopters up to Seattle from the air base in Astoria Oregon (our local air base has the smaller Dolphin helicopters), dropped a dummy in the water, then had one of their rescue swimmers jump out of the helicopter, 'rescue' the dummy, and hoisted the swimmer and dummy back into the helicopter. This all happened in Elliott Bay, a few hundred yards away from the dock where we watched. It was awesome, very similar to some of the scenes in the movie 'The Guardian' (which I highly recommend).

Afterwards, Liam met the Coast Guard officer who provided explanations and commentary during the demonstration, and we grabbed a quick shot of him and his daughter with our little guy.

It was a great day--tugboat races, helicopters, and people dressed like orcas. What more could you ask for?

Boats, Part I--Opening Day

Opening Day is a long-standing Seattle tradition (close to 100 years) that takes place on the first Saturday in May. This year, Amy was attending an all-day oil spill response training on Lopez Island, so I loaded the boys into the bike trailer and we headed for the Montlake Cut. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and we made it there just a few minutes before the 12:00 opening cannon shot was fired. We lounged on the grass and watched the boats pass by. On the way home, Liam fell asleep and completely squished his astonishingly tolerant little brother into the side of the trailer.

Liam Dances

Here is Liam demonstrating his mad dance moves.

Lochlan Walks

OK, I finally got it! Here is a short, silent, grainy movie taken with our digicam.