73 days...really?

I'm no stranger to profound, extended periods characterized by low productivity. Long gaps between blog posts are somewhat reflective of my overall productivity, but in this case, seventy- three days of blog silence (or 'postilence' as I like to call it) isn't all bad.

For starters, I have begun some posts that have potential to be interesting, but they each require additional research and time, and it's been a buy time, making that process challenging to complete. Posts in this category include:

• a writeup of Ballard's "Gourmet Ghetto," located on NW 70th Street just east of 15th Avenue NW. Packed into one little block are the Honore Artisan Bakery (fabulous, charming French baker) Delancey (cool new pizza place) and A Caprice Kitchen (great, interesting website.) And there's an umbrella store, of all things, where you can buy umbrellas, rent umbrellas and buy a couple of patented umbrella innovations directly from the inventor!
• observations from a wine tasting trip to Walla Walla, which we took in October to celebrate our 25th Wedding Anniversary. It was a great trip...we learned a lot about wine, met some winemakers, bought lots of wine and had some great food. Really fun.
• Starbucks Via update...I finally got my first shipment of Via in early December. Some of it became a Christmas gift, but I still have enough packets left to do a modest craft project...any suggestions?

In addition, I've picked up some interesting coffee-related work at Sodcutter Communications, which has been very interesting and just time consuming enough to make finding writing time a bit more difficult.

There are also many issues of the New Yorker to catch up on, and I had a great time reading Carl Hiaasen's "Skinny Dip" and have several books I'm working through now -- Matt Miller's Dead Ideas book I mentioned in a previous post, "Manhood for Amateurs" by Michael Chabon and a very interesting biography of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame.

Beginning in early January, I'll be a student in a nonfiction writing certificate program offered by the UW Extension program. So I'll have to write, and I'm optimistic that I will be able to "repurpose" work between the blog and class.

Happy New Year!