Big news, everyone. I'm officially...



not an uncle yet! But if Karen were to have a child, I like to think that it would look something like the picture above. Even though the blessed event has yet to transpire, Washington has been a lot of fun. What have I been up to?

• Spending a lot of QT with the fam.
• Playing with Bella, pretty much the coolest dog ever.(Usually she has much more energy than in this picture)
• Trying to get my dad into the Arcade Fire. And my mom into the Pipettes.
• Reading - I've gotten through The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists (thanks rox!), Fight Club (thanks jana!), and The Invention of Hugo Cabret (thanks mom!).
• Buying these banging shoes:
• Sampling some of the finest hand-crafted gin the Pacific Northwest has to offer. Hand-numbered and made with wild juniper berries in Bend, Oregon, Cascade Mountain Gin is fantastic. It was fun to hear my mom exclaim, "95 proof? Oh my!"

Gone fishin


Yet another reason to like Minnesota during the summer - going up north to cabins. Last weekend we went up to Josh's cabin - 3 hours west, 1 hour north, and take a left at the cluster of pro-life billboards. You know what I like? Highlights!

• Fishing was awesome. I grew up fishing with my dad and his dad - both Finns. Pretty sure fishing is in my blood. And look, girls can fish too!
  
• Ok, so my camera ran out of batteries during fishing - that's the end of the pictures. Sorry. Try to imagine a picture of a delicious, overstuffed juicy lucy, because that's our next highlight.
• According to Wikipedia, "A jucy lucy (or juicy lucy) is a cheeseburger having the cheese inside the meat patty rather than on top. A piece of cheese is surrounded by raw meat and cooked until it melts, resulting in a molten core of cheese within the patty." Mmmm... molten core. This was my first experience making one, but not my last.
• What is it about road trips that makes me feel the need to buy ridiculous crap from gas stations? Emily, thank you for the chromed out necklace. You're welcome for the novelty air freshener.
• We took a trip down memory lane, stopping by the Dairy Queen where, once up a time, Jeremy and I let a cute girl know that she could do better. In ketchup. Speaking of Jeremy, he's going on a date tonight with a girl he met on craigslist. Awesome.

I'm heading to Washington state tomorrow, where I will become an uncle. It's a lot of responsibility, this uncle business, but I think I can handle it. Now - to bike home and pack.

The end of an era.

Those are a few of the words that Andrea chose to describe yesterday. It was the last day of Set It Up for the season - and my last day of Set It Up ever. It hit me, at some point this morning, biking to work - my last day.

Set It Up is the reason why I tell people I love my job. For a good part of my day, I sit at my desk and play work. I answer phones and respond to e-mails and coordinate programs and work in an office. At the end of my day, I get to stand up, walk away from my desk, and hang out with young people. And they're wonderful. And there's energy - creating things, making messes, making inappropriate comments, making fun of each other, talking about school and life and parents and last night and New York and LA and maybe college. And for whatever reason they respect me, and that's awesome. And the one thing I keep coming back to is how much they inspire me.

To end on a less sappy note - one of my favorite parts of yesterday was giving end-of-the-year gifts. For our incredible volunteers, Andrea and I decided on two pounds of Swedish Fish and framed photos of us. Awesome.