Addendum from last night: Tim and I feel that we are now ready to take on Rachel in Yahtzee, so we decided to play Farkle instead. Faithful readers may recall that I, in fact, sparkle at Farkle, having pulled off a great win on day 2 of our trip. Tonight however, Tim won handily. At one point I had used all 6 dice in my turn and was going to keep going by throwing all 6 dice again. Sadly, I immediately Farkled (got no 1's or 5's) prompting a quick calculation of the odds of a Farkle on the first roll (it's 2/3 to the sixth power or about 8.7%). After that we headed to the back room to watch the second Harry Potter movie. Unfortunately it's not in Jen's collection, so we ended up streaming it over the Internet. Other than dropped frames now and then, it worked fine.
This morning I woke up at about 6:30 and decided that this was the day for my big beach walk. I woke Tim up at about 7:15 and after getting a load of laundry started, he drove me into town. I started from 2nd street in Cannon Beach and Tim drove back to the house and quickly got back into bed. I had taken my rain coat just in case, but of course that guaranteed that it didn't rain. I saw quite a few (relatively speaking) starfish on Haystack rock, but very few elsewhere. Also, the dead seal/sea lion is still on the beach just north of the carriage road. I would have suspected it'd be washed out to sea by now, but it's actually further up on the beach.
After about 2 hours I finished the 6 mile walk and was back at the house. Tim was still asleep, so I moved the laundry to the dryer and ran one more load. At 11:30 I was ready for lunch, so I woke Tim up again, but he said that he'd rather stay in bed than eat, so I headed into town alone. I decided to try Public Coast brewing (it used to be Clark's, then Lumberman's). It's counter service with a reasonable menu of pub food. The burger was too big and too expensive, but quite tasty. I had a sampler flight of their beers, and I think they are considerably better than Pelican; I ended up with a pint of the NW Red.
After lunch I came back to the house and Tim was *still* sleeping, so I went out to read on the deck until the rain started. Oh well. Tim finally roused himself around 2:30 and we both read for a while. However, I suddenly remembered the problem that had consumed me on my walk this morning: suppose that you are walking on the wet sand near the ocean and you want to get to a point further down the beach away from the ocean (stairs to a parking area, etc.). We all know that you can walk much faster on the wet sand near the ocean than the dry sand near the stairs. So, what angle should you take toward the stairs to minimize your travel time? A straight line would be the shortest distance, but you'd travel further through the dry sand than you should, slowing you down. You could also continue to walk parallel to the shore on the wet sand until you are even with the stairs and then cut to the dry sand. That would minimize the time in the dry sand, but you might have traveled a much further distance than you needed to. What's the answer? How do you even set up the problem? Tim and I poured over the problem on a paper bag for about an hour, and concluded that you need to express travel time in terms of the angle you should aim, take the derivative of that equation, set that to zero and solve for the angle. After lots of trig, we got the equations, but left the actual solution as an exercise for the reader. What nerds we are!
Rachel had a long day at work, but was able to leave in time to arrive at the house at about 5:15 - that's a lot of driving! We headed out again at about 5:30 to go to the Farmer's Market Dinner Show at EVOO. As many of you know, the dinner shows are great fun where Bob and Lenore cook dinner as we all watch, giving hints and techniques along the way. The theme tonight was "local and seasonal" and featured many ingredients from the Cannon Beach farmer's market. Unlike other dinner shows, this was buffet style, so they built up the buffet line in 2 waves - appetizers and main courses. Unfortunately the appetizer buffet took about an hour and Rachel was starving. I thought she might start gnawing on her arm. Or mine! Fortunately we finally got our turn at the buffet and all was well. There was a gazpacho salad that was merely OK, along with a tasty salmon mousse, fresh baked bread, cheese, and salami. The main courses included paella with seafood and chicken, and a salad with creamy buttermilk dressing, bleu cheese, pears and walnuts that may have been the best dish of the night. The paella was very good too, although perhaps not enough socarrat on the rice. There was good dessert too, and we rolled out. It's probably the fullest I've been this week.
When we got home, Tim lit a fire and Rachel took her shower. I think we may just hang out and read, or there might be some game playing. Who knows? Rachel will be back to blogging tomorrow and I'm sure we'll all find out. In the meantime, thanks for reading along with your guest blogger.
After lunch I came back to the house and Tim was *still* sleeping, so I went out to read on the deck until the rain started. Oh well. Tim finally roused himself around 2:30 and we both read for a while. However, I suddenly remembered the problem that had consumed me on my walk this morning: suppose that you are walking on the wet sand near the ocean and you want to get to a point further down the beach away from the ocean (stairs to a parking area, etc.). We all know that you can walk much faster on the wet sand near the ocean than the dry sand near the stairs. So, what angle should you take toward the stairs to minimize your travel time? A straight line would be the shortest distance, but you'd travel further through the dry sand than you should, slowing you down. You could also continue to walk parallel to the shore on the wet sand until you are even with the stairs and then cut to the dry sand. That would minimize the time in the dry sand, but you might have traveled a much further distance than you needed to. What's the answer? How do you even set up the problem? Tim and I poured over the problem on a paper bag for about an hour, and concluded that you need to express travel time in terms of the angle you should aim, take the derivative of that equation, set that to zero and solve for the angle. After lots of trig, we got the equations, but left the actual solution as an exercise for the reader. What nerds we are!
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