Urban Death March

Amy and I are celebrating our one-year wedding anniversary this weekend. Though we have a couple things planned for the weekend, we decided to go on a hike to Discovery Park in Seattle. I had never been and our goal of going there last week was complicated by cougar problems.

We left the apartment around 8am, swung by Cafe Besalu for some killer French pastries and then the hike was on. And boy did we hike:


View Urban Hike in a larger map

The main leg ended up being over nine miles! We hiked the full perimeter of Discovery Park and Magnolia Bluff. Once we got to Interbay, we cheated and caught a bus back to Ballard (because seriously, who hikes Interbay?) for a lunch at Smokin' Pete's BBQ (best brisket + ribs + sweet tea in Seattle, hands down). Add a little more mileage for the walk home, and bang: 10 miles. Crazy stuff.

Drawing the US is Hard

In this YouTube video (linked from BoingBoing), Senator (!) Al Franken free-hand draws a map of the United States with impressive attention to detail. I thought it'd be fun to try it myself. In fact, I encourage you to go give it a shot right now. Don't look at a map of the US before you start... you'll ruin all the fun.

Here is my result (click for a larger version):



All in all, the results are pretty embarrassing, but not a complete failure. Let's look at some of the finer details:

1) Somehow Wisconsin ended up on the left-hand side of Minnesota.
2) Utah snuck up between Nevada and Idaho, when it belongs between Nevada and Colorado.
3) Whoops... where is New Jersey?
4) The NE is a general disaster.

How did yours turn out?