Damon Cortesi's blog

Musings of an entrepreneur.

6 Pairs of Shoes in 24 Hours

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Another busy weekend - Cindo De Mayo, hiking, soccer, and more. I wore many different shoes this weekend, but I don’t think I have ever before been in two such different places as I was on Saturday. It was pretty cool, but I prefer not to blog about the details…just the fact that it happened. I think it’s the ease with which you can access the woods out here in Seattle that makes things like that possible.

There’s a nice climb just outside Seattle on Mount Si - It’s an 8-mile round trip with a vertical elevation change of 3,700 ft with the top being 4,167 ft up in the sky. It was a cloudy/drizzling kind of day, so I wasn’t expecting too much from the views at the top, but just wanted to climb to get some exercise and enjoy the outdoors. Well I was right. We got to the summit and it was completely enshrouded with clouds. Take a look at the picture below - that peak is probably no more than 200 ft. from where we were standing, but you can’t even tell there are people sitting on the rocks, can you? Take a closer look - there’s somebody walking along the top and almost smack dab in the middle you should see a brief glimpse of somebody’s yellow rain jacket: wa_mtsi/IMGP2556

But then something amazing happened. I scrambled up to the top of a bunch of rocks and starting taking pictures of the fog that I couldn’t see through. And then, within a few minutes the fog completely lifted from one side of the mountain and I could not only see the town below, but also Seattle off in the distance. Here’s a couple shots for comparison: wa_mtsi/IMGP2569 wa_mtsi/IMGP2576

What an awesome treat! So take a look at some more pics of Mt. Si and I’ll leave you with a few more of my favorites before I head off to hit the hay!

Some dude standing on a ledge overlooking the valley. wa_mtsi/IMGP2589

My attempt at getting artsy. wa_mtsi/IMGP2566

Me at the top! wa_mtsi/IMGP2567

And finally, this is when the mist just started clearing the top. wa_mtsi/IMGP2580

Oh yea…and we saw a couple last patches of snow at the top! We polished off the hike in a nice 3 hours and 45 minutes and my legs felt great Sunday morning. After a game of soccer on Sunday afternoon, though, my legs were suddenly very tired. And now, I must rest.

75 and Sunny

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That was today’s forecast…who can’t wait for this weekend?? This guy!

I just got back from Ascada Bistro, which is right across the street from where I’m staying. I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been hearing this place for a couple weeks now. They have live music quite often, and a pretty good “scene”…if you know you what I mean. ;) Tonight, Mycle Wastman was playing who not only has the best spelling of Mycle I’ve ever seen but also is a great performer. A wonderful gal named Vicki(sp?) joined him and sang some vocals while he was playing guitar and she is what actually drew me into the actual restaurant from my table outside. Then a guy by the name of Joshua came down and jammed on the tenor sax for a while. It was such a great evening that it made me want to pick up my sax again. I’ve been wanting to pick up piano for a while…of course, the lack of an actual piano is somewhat of a prohibitor to that… ;o) But I’ll most likely be back again next Thursday.

This weekend promises to be another fun-filled weekend. I’ll be hitting up various places including the luxurious West Seattle and Mt. Si. Stay tuned in for the adventures of a Seattle transplant!

And in honor of another Mike and the coming weekend, allow me to wax poetic:

Weekend is here now, Only good times to be had. Weekends let me loose. Life is here, nothing else. Enough sleep you get at death. Live for now, don’t wait. Weekend is here now. The weekend is yours to own. Sleep less, live more now.

One Packed Weekend

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Between a party for work, Seattle Mindcamp, and a soccer game on Sunday…I don’t think I stopped moving once this weekend. It was an awesome weekend, though! Certainly don’t have much more to say…just recovering so I can do it all over again!

SubEtha

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MindCamp 2.0 - cool moment

I’d heard of SubEthaEdit before, but I’d never seen it in action. I was in a ruby session where two guys were presenting. The crowd asked them to do a code demo and in order to do it quickly, they both fired up SubEthaEdit. All of sudden, they were coding simultaneously across the network. Both editing the same file, in different locations. It was amazingly cool! Be sure to keep up on all the pics.

Fading

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I only slept a half-hour last night. And it hit me pretty hard. As a simple example, I went to a session this morning about funding your own startup. Being a diligent attendee, I took notes. And saved them to a text file. There was much gibberish, but the thing that confused me the most was what I named the file: “movie times”. !? What the heck was going through my head? hehe.

Oh well - great mindcamp. Tons of fun, especially once midnight rolled around.

Mindcamp 2.0

4am McD’s and Sleep Hacking

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polyphasic sleeping lucid dreaming (mmm) hunger 3am taco bell run turned 4am McD’s hunt misty seattle streets catching a nap on some folding chairs mindcamp 2.0, baby!

The End of the Road

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I headed into Seattle this evening to meet up with somebody for some sushi, and as I was headed back to my place I realized something. I was on a normal street and saw signs for I-90 East. I took a left onto another normal street that in a few blocks turned into I-90. Why am I posting about this? Because I just realized that I found the end of I-90! At least…the part where it ends on the west coast. For some reason, realizing this hit me as really neat - with the exception of Idaho, a small portion of Montana, and some of Massachusetts, I have traveled across the entire country on I-90. Not too shabby.

Ironically enough, the sushi joint was by Safeco Field where the Mariners play…who happened to be hosting the Chi-town White Sox. The Sox lost by one last night, but apparently whupped ‘em tonight 13-3.

Oh, and the sushi was excellent! ;-)

Nine

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Nine

That’s how many shoes I have out here in Seattle with me - and three of those I have acquired in the short time I have been here already. You saw my soccer shoes. I have another pair of mystery shoes I might tell you about someday that finally arrived. And I just got new hiking boots yesterday. wa_hiking/IMGP2533

And of course, what else do you do when you get new boots, but go for a hike! wa_tigermountain/IMGP2518

The lovely sales person at REI was nice enough to give me a nice little list of day-hikes I could do, and I hit up one just off the highway called Tiger Mountain. There are 60 miles of trails and more out there, so I’ll definitely go again before the week is out!