It's been a busy two or three weeks! We're down to our final 3 days here before we leave. And of course, we just can't have too much to do, so we took a break from packing and cleaning the condo and ran in the Seafair Torchlight 8 km race Saturday night. It's a nice route, starting at the stadiums, up the Viaduct past Seattle Center, turn around and then all the way down the parade route back to the stadiums again.

We did pretty well -- Claire ran it in almost exactly the same time as last year for her, but I did a little better. For some reason the official race results don't include our names and numbers... I've emailed "the people in charge" and they are looking into it but I don't expect much. Nonetheless, I crossed the line at 33 minutes and around 15 seconds I think, and Claire was close behind at about 36:12.

Mom and Dad were up at Seattle Center by the parade route start, and Dad got some pictures of us as we went by:

Another step forward, as the Jeep is (finally!) up on Craigslist. A real downside to Jeep Wranglers is they are really hard to wash & wax, with dozens of seams, external hinges, and protruding parts. With that done, my major goal of the weekend is accomplished and I'm relaxing in Belltown. I managed to score an open parking spot in the middle of the nightlife, and with the big 'FOR SALE!" signs on the Jeep maybe someone walking by will take notice.

But if not, well, it's relaxing to sit here, surf the net, watch the crowd, and blog. I'm at "the Apartment" which bills itself as a "bistro - martini - tree" whatever that means. A reasonable glass of wine for $5 and a corner table... life is good.

So it begins.

We've accepted an offer on our condo, Torrey accepted a job offer to start when we get back from Europe, and everything is starting to happen very quickly! We just have to complete the condo sale, sell our Jeep, move our stuff to storage, plan the trip, buy tickets, make reservations, figure out phones and ATM cards and Internet access and buses and trains and ... by the end of the month.

But a few things at least can be crossed off the list: We now have a blog, and I'm posting to it from the little Thinkpad we're going to carry with us, using a free WiFi connection.