Sunday, November 11, 2012

Twelve Years Rewind

This past week, with the elections on Tuesday, I realized how my current situation reminds me of the same period twelve years ago.
In November 2000, shortly after joining a tiny group of scientists who set out to change the world of genomics by reinventing how we sequence DNA, we moved with the company to San Diego, CA. My colleagues and mountain biking friends Keith, Scott and John and I lived out of our suitcases, worked long hours and weekends, explored local trails and enjoyed the warm weather of Southern California. Then came the Election Day and we watched the TV in a hotel breakfast room next morning with horror. Everybody knows what happened next, both to the good old US of A as well as the company called 454.
This year, after 12 years of what one really cannot call other than misery for this country, the right guy got reelected and with much less drama, too. And my new state, WA elected to allow gay marriage and legalize pot. That I call progress!
I can say that I live here now, well, at least I have established a permanent residency in Seattle. I also went for my first real bike ride here on Saturday, although it was just 40 miles on paved Burke-Gilman trail. The fall scenery was beautiful and I liked how all kinds of folks ride all kinds of bikes here. Today, I ran to find out how far are the trails of Discovery Park from my house. Taking the steepest streets of my neighborhood (much steeper than my old 14% Crestview drive!), it is about two miles to the deep woods, ferns and trails of the park. Rain came back this afternoon so I got soaked again. Next item on mental shopping list: trail running shoes with goretex.

PS: this Blogger mobile app sucks. You cannot insert photos in text, just append them at the end. So here are few pictures from this weekend:

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