Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Thursday, August 30, 2001
Anyone else amazed that a movie as cool as Unforgiven could possibly win an Academy Award for Best Picture?
Last night, we had a reunion party for all the couples in our childbirth class. At the last moment it got switched to our house since the house where it was planned to be held at had suffered an exploding dishwasher flood. 10 couples, 10 cute babies. Here is some video of them all lined up on my couch. 9 days until Husky Football! Wooo! Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Heh. Well, up until now, Isabel has been a dream baby. Very sweet, cute, well behaved, sleeps all night. However, last night Bridget decided she needed to get out of the house, so I watched Isabel while she went shopping with a friend. This was the second time Bridget has been away from Isabel, but the first time (to see The Habit, an excellent local sketch-comedy troupe) was after Isabel had gone to bed, so she didn't know Bridget was gone.
Things started out OK, she played with her symphony floor gym (plays classical music when she whacks it) for a while, then got fussy because she was hungry. I put her in her swing near the one-eyed babysitter (aka TV) and had her watch Pucker Tucker on FoodTV while I heated up a bottle. After feeding her, she was sleepy, so I put her down for a nap. She zonked out for about half an hour. When she woke up, she started to get really upset. I bounced her, sang to her, tickled her, changed her, NOTHING would make her happy, she started to wail. Her pacifier helped for short periods, as did letting her suck on my finger, but basically she cried hard for ~25 minutes. At that point Bridget came home. Isabel stopped crying when Bridget held her, but then started whimpering, like "mom! Where were you?! I was left with that crazy guy and you weren't here!!!" Poor little girl. Well, she's going to have to work on that. 10 days until Husky Football! Woooo! Still Vista cruiser crazy. Check out the photo gallery at Stationwagon.com for Oldsmobile Vista Cruisers if you want to see some sweet pictures. Monday, August 27, 2001
I spent the weekend obsessing about Vista Cruisers some more. Bridget still thinks I'm looney. I've found six of them for sale now, however. The one in Michigan, one in Alabama, two in Texas, one in SoCal, and one in Salt Lake City. SLC is by far the closest, that's only 14 hours away, and there is an almost direct freeway connection the whole way.
The one in SoCal is interesting as well, although it's a '69 and I prefer the body styling of the '70-72s better. It was originally bought right here outside Seattle, and still has the original owner. Too bad LA is 20 hours away... Helped Bridget's sister move on Saturday. I friggin' HATE moving. Ugh. Her couch was one of the heavy ^&*%$ bastards, you have to avoid getting too close or you'll get sucked into the event horizon. (Little physics geek joke, sorry) BEEEEEER! Tonight it my "investment" club (aka BEER!) meeting. Thursday, August 23, 2001
Ok, now I am obsessing.
Back in college, a roommate and myself co-owned a 1970 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon. It had a 455 cubic inch engine with a four-barrel carb, producing about a jillion horsepower. When you folded up the 3rd row of seats, it easily sat 8, and you could seat 10 in a pinch. The name Vista comes from the fact that the passenger seat had a sun roof, and the entire roofline of the car was higher from that point to the back, with skylight-type windows down the lenght of the roof. It was a glorious college car, you could load up tons of people for road trips. Unfortunately, the intake manifold has fairly well rusted through. Replacing it was beyond my ability and paying someone to do it was beyond me as well. We eventually had the car towed away, since I had no place to store it and no relatives in the area to store it at. A few years later, after I graduated, I regretted that, and started my search for another old Vista Cruiser. While I don't search all the time, I do it from time to time, and have NEVER found what I wanted for sale. Until now, that is. http://www.carbuyer.com/moreinfo.html?key=637478&s= Wow! That's EXACTLY what I want. Of course, it's 2200 miles away, and about $3000 more than I really have to spend. Obviously, Bridget thinks I am crazy. She says in 5 or 10 years, when we're in a better financial position, I can get one. I'm afraid I'll never find one. Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Last night we went over to a friend's house for a Monday Night Football party. Years ago, a local mexican restaurant chain had a MNF bar special, $2 all-you-can-eat tacos in their bar, plus drink specials. We went every freakin' monday, had the same waitress (we tipped so well she eventually stopped charging us for foor and brought bartender mistake drinks to our table gratis), drank, laughed, and barely paid attention to the game.
The next year they didn't have that special, and every year we whine about it. Last year Bridget got sick of us whining and trying to find a new bar with a MNF special, and offered to provide all-you-can-eat-plus-beer for $5/head at our place. We basically broke even, and had a great time. I know I didn't appreciate the effort she put into it, her working until 5pm, going to the store, buying food, cooking for us, with her sick as a dog with morning sickness from pregnancy so she couldn't eat the food she was preparing... She's awesome. Anyway this year we decided to use our baby as an excuse not to host it. One of our friends picked up the torch, however. She made chili. Mmmmm. It was fun. Monday, August 20, 2001
This morning on K-ERIC: Blue Oyster Cult - "Veteran of the Psychic Wars", Motorhead - "The Ace of Spades", The Buggles - "Video Killed The Radio Star"
Busy Sunday. Spend some time in the morning moving my server to our new building, then an old friend who moved to Boise was in town, we played with his new Ford Expedition. I was driving it all over the place, damn that lumbering tank is fun to drive. Went to Thommer's house last night for a pizza fest. Thommer makes good homemade pizza, and he had lots of it. He had thai chicken pizza, and some pepperoni with cashews one too, plus more normal toppings. Isabel was busy charming all my friends by being her happy smiling self 19 days until Husky Football! Saturday, August 18, 2001
Went to a fun wedding today, one of Bridget's friends from college. Reception was at a damn nice old house in the Capital Hill neighborhood, I'd be surprised if any of the houses on that block were under $800k. Fun fun fun. Isabel was very well behaved and cute as a button in her new red dress.
We had to drive right by Husky Stadium on the way home, where the Seahawks were playing an exhibition game against Arizona. Hearing the crowd roar got me all stoked for Husky football, three short weeks away!! Friday, August 17, 2001
Mmmm, Nutter Butter cookies. I've always loved these peanut-shaped peanut-butter-creme-filled sandwich cookies. They remind me fondly of my days in Desert Storm, where there were one of the few tasty things you could get at the little PXes in the desert. You could also get cartons of cigarettes for $5, which inspired a bunch of people in my unit who'd quit smoking to start up again. "$5 a carton?!? I'm all over that!" Want to bet half those guys didn't quit again? Amazing.
One food from Saudi that I can no longer eat is peanut butter M&Ms. This was like in May, and it was officially HOT then. Most of the guys in our unit were working 12on, 12 off shifts, doing various things like customs, palletings, weighing vehicles, working in the passenger terminal. I, on the other hand, got roped into being a computer geek. The day we arrived, our new commanding officer wanted to know who knew anything about computers. I, not being stupid, didn't volunteer (Duh, NEVER volunteer!), but it didn't help that EVERY other person in our company pointed at me. "Cpl Lundquist knows computers!!" Aw, shit. I saw what happened up north to the poor bastards in our unit who were mechanics in civilian life, those bastards worked 16 hours a day... So, I got roped into being "the computer guy", and got a non-rate as my assistant. My job was to use these two old Zenith 286 DOS computers (this *was* 1991) to make pretty charts and graphs each morning for our Major to present to some other brass. Fortunately the computers had Harvard Graphics on them... (Dang, there is a program I haven't thought about in years...) The job was cake, I set the computers up, taught my flunky what to do, and told him to be up at 6am to enter the data and print out the charts. I didn't have to get up until noon unless I wanted breakfast, since the chow hall closed at 10am... Once in a while the computers would act up and I'd get hauled out to fix it, but it was pretty easy duty. I had worked with Zenith 286 machines in my student job at UW, and when I set 'em up I knew the secret Zenith key combo to get into the BIOS, (Control-enter? I forget now...) One of the computers had a second hard drive according to the BIOS. "Hmmm", I thought. I booted it, typed "D:", and "DIR". 0 files, 1Mb free of a 30Mb disk. "Ah, hidden directories!" My first try was "CD GAMES". Bingo! A hidden Games directory chock full of pirated games. I spent my afternoons playing Ancient Art of War, Lesuire Suit Larry I, Lords of Conquest, and other old DOS games. Heh. Life was rough. All of the civilian aircraft that landed there were regular US carriers (Pan Am, etc) charted to pick up troops, and they included regular US stewardess crews. Some guys, trying to pick up on a stew, (oops, scuse me, "flight attendent") would offer to show them our living quarters. One morning, at maybe 8am, it's already 90F, some guy opens up our tent and lets in this pack of attractive women. The tent was half full of night crew people and myself, sleeping on top of our sheets cuz it's hot, in boxers or buck nekkid depending on preference... The flight attendents were not quite expecting THAT! heh. Not that there weren't *any* women in the military. Several were quite enterprising, as a matter of fact. One young lady got caught in customs with over $20,000 in $20 bills in her sea bag. Hmmm, I wonder how you can make that kind of money in a war zone? The guys in customs had all kinds of funny stories. One female Major had been in country for seven months, and got sent to Germany because she was five months pregnant. Her husband was a general back in the US, and hadn't visited. Ooops! There was an "amnesty box" outside the customs inspection station, and you could toss things in there before the inspection and not get in trouble for it. A pickup pulled up with two corporals, a leuitenant, and maybe 150 AK47s in the bed. They started throwing them into the amnesty box as fast as possible... heh. A more gruesome aspect was that every day they'd find human souveniers in the box, usually dried ears. Always some sick monkies in the mix. Dang, that was all just over 10 years ago. Funny what memories a cookie can inspire! 22 days until Husky Football! Thursday, August 16, 2001
Got some new pictures of Isabel at six weeks, a short video clip of Isabel sitting on the couch holding a beer, and best of all, we captures Isabel's first real laugh on video last night. See my Isabel pages for them.
23 days until Husky football! Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Today on K-ERIC: B-52's 'Rock Lobster' & Wierd Al's 'I Think I'm a Clone Now'. Heh. "I can send myself for pizza"
Ooooooooo!!!!!! Ok, if there is one thing I love more than beer it's HUSKY FOOTBALL! Wooooooooooo!!! Only 24 more days until my college football season starts, and this year it's a doozy, we're starting at home vs Michigan. Fortunately Michigan's star QB left for a multi-million dollar minor league baseball contract with the Yankees. It should be a good game. Our second game is vs Miami, AT Miami. Sure, we're 2-0 lifetime vs them, but last year we had a star QB and they had a brand new one, this year it's reversed... Anyway, you'll be hearing a lot about the Pac-10 football season all autumn. Last night I found my first bracket opponent in the NetFungus tourney, and won the first two games out of five, but then lost the next two, and squeaked out a victory in the last game to win the round. I advance! Wooo! Isabel is so totally cute now that she's beyond that "newborn blob" stage. She's strong enough to sorta sit up on the couch, looking like a big person. I sit her next to me and we watch Mariner's games together. On Monday night we had her in her Magic Bouncey Chair while we watched NFL preseason football, and she craned her neck all the way around so she could watch the football too. Brings tears to her daddy's eye! Football baby! She's going to have loads of fun in Husky Stadium going to football games this fall. She'll be my own stadium heater! Monday, August 13, 2001
Had a great weekend camping trip. We went to Paradise, one of the base camps on Mount Rainier, there is a cool old lodge/hotel there as well. It was totally awesome seeing that mountain with clear sunny skies for once. Amazing.
Bah! I turned 33 1/3 last Thursday, and forgot to have a party to celebrate. Sigh. I'll never be a third of a century again. My 10,000 day old party was an excellent one. Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Ok, so today I am at Safeway (grocery store) buying stuff for this weekend's campout with Bridget's relatives. I look at the bacon. Hmmm, Hormel Black Label bacon, 16oz for $3.99. Ok. The tag says that means it is $4.50/lb... Ummm, no.
The Hormel Black Label center-cut bacon is 12oz for $3.99. The tag on the shelf for that one says that translates into $75.32/lb. ?!?!? Damn! These tags aren't hand-written, they are produced by a computer. Obviously the computer isn't used to calculate price per pound... Speaking of pounds, I wish the Yoo Ess would get off our stupid collective ass and just freakin' switch to metric already. Once when I was up skiing at Whistler (in Canada) my friend and I were at a deli counter buying some sandwich meat. The oaf asks the clerk for a pound of roast beef. The clerk looks all confused, so I quickly say "He means half a kilo" "Um, and I want half a pound of that cheddar" "He means 500 grams"... Crickey. And he's not a stupid person, either. Gaaaaaaa!
This morning on K-ERIC: Tom Sawyer by Rush, Metal Gods by Judas Priest, and I Don't Walk On Water by Ozzy.
Took Isabel to her two-month doctor appointment yesterday. She weighed 14lbs 2oz, and was 25" long. This is off the growth charts, she's like in the 105th percentile. BIG healthy baby. She got four shots, which she didn't like, but she mostly whimpered through them, and then had the cutest sad face for an hour afterwards. Last night we had our street block party, it was amazing how many of the new families have kids. Met the guy who bought the new construction skinny house down the block, I figured odds were he'd be a computer geek as well since the house went for $570,000. I was right, he works for Intel. We bashed Microsoft for a while. Tuesday, August 07, 2001
Cool, I am selling my scuba drysuit (a Typhoon Ranger with replaceable neck and wrist seals). I haven't been diving much in recent years, although my Scuba Page still gets lots of hits. I used to dive 10-15 times a month, which is pretty hardcore. Eventually, though, it got boring, seeing the same old stuff. Plus it's a tad cold and inconvienient to haul all that gear into and out of the water, and it's a hellaciously expensive hobby.
I started scuba when I graduated from college and got a real job (which, humorously, I still have) and had enough disposable income for one stupid-expensive hobby. My two choices were scuba and skiing. I figured, "with skiing, if I mess up, I spend six weeks in traction. With scuba, if I mess up, I spend six hours in a hyperbaric chamber". Thus, I chose scuba. Nowadays, I ski, unless I go somewhere tropical, in which case I still LOVE to dive in warm water. Anyway, I decided to sell the expensive stuff while I can still get money out of it. Monday, August 06, 2001
Ah, camping. I love it. Ok, I'm easy, I enjoy anything involving beer and fire, but how many things do?
Isabel turned out to be a great camping baby, just like she's great everywhere. I still can't believe how lucky we are, and I sometimes have a feeling of dread about our next child, since I doubt we'll get this lucky twice. Ugga. Camp toast is awesome. For those who haven't experienced this artery-busting treat, you take your cast-iron skillet, fry up some bacon, and then fry up bread in the bacon grease. It's almost unbelievably good, but of course anything fried in bacon fat is going to be pretty darn good. Fortunately for my heart, it's something you only do while camping, otherwise I'd need a triple-bypass and an angiogram. Two years ago when I first went camping with my friends, they were disgusted by the description, but now they are like little crack monkies fighting over the first piece. The best part of borrowing my parent's camper, besides not having to set up a tent, was the toilet. This being the Pacific Northwest, the weather was slightly rainly. We set up four large tarps over strategic areas of our campsite (set along the North Fork of the Nooksack River, amid GORGEOUS old-growth huge cedar trees) and had a nice roaring fire in the firepit most of the time, unless we were off hiking somewhere. Homer Simpson quote: "I don't know why, but fire made it good" Friday, August 03, 2001
Ha! Ok, I forgot one of my favorite Coors Lite slogans: "Tap a kidney, Coors Lite" (anyone who's drank american 2% "lite" beer knows you have to pee constantly if you're drinking enough to actually get a buzz)
Leaving to go camping in an hour. We'll be on the Nooksack river. Damn if Washington place names aren't funny. My favorite river is the Skookumchuck. Others, like Nooksack, sound downright dirty:
"Hey, baby, nice Walla Wallas. Ooo, I like how you shake your Tonasket. I'll show you my Sedro Wooley and Nooksack, and we'll Humptulips Tilicum." Mmm, I love saltwater taffy. Bought a 4lb sack at Cost-a-ma-co (Queue Homer Simpson saying Sax-a-ma-phone) (Other words for Costco include "Costco P Coltrain, gee gee gee") for $5. Holy Glub! One of my buddies is a hard core fisherman, and getting worse every year. He used to snub American MegaLagers, drinking only microbrews. Then he started drinking Corona with lime. Now, get friggin' this: He's drinking Coors Lite! Out of CANS, no less! Coors Lite was the official beer of my high school, our motto was "Coors Lite: Loaded, Not Bloated". Somehow Coors decided on a stupid Tap the Rockies or Catch The Silver Bullet campaign instead. Oh well. Yet another million dollar idea shot down. Personally, I'm bringing a six pack of Deschutes Obsidian Stout, a sixer of Deschutes Black Butte Porter, a sixer of Deschutes Quail Springs IPA, and a halfrack of Kokanee. Obsidian Stout is far and away the best breakfast beer out there. Thursday, August 02, 2001
I've got tomorrow off, going camping with a bunch of my friends. First camping trip for Isabel... This year I'm borrowing my folk's full size Dodge pickup and camper, should be cush. No tent to set up, no air mattress to deflate...
Anyway, I thought I'd leave my loyal readers (all three of ya) with a tale of my favorite deity, Glub, official god of Alt.tasteless. Used like "Glub damn it!" "For Glub's Sake!" and "I shit on the five wounds of Christ!" (Oh wait, that last one was my favorite Islamic curse phrase... how did that get in there?) Years ago I used to read Alt.tastless, and it was funny. Sick bastards, the whole lot of them. Anyway, as with any usenet newsgroup, there is a lot of drivel to wade through, and I eventually stopped reading a.t. A friend kept at it, forwarding gems to a group, he was my a.t. clipping service, but with time, even that fell. One of the all-time great stories was The Tale of how Glub came to be. A grand story. Further a.t. classic stories are on Dave and Kristin's AT Archive. I highly recommend the Tales of Tae, a sick bastard paramedic. Off to the woods!
Sometimes I wish I felt free to discuss the lunatics I call friends. Unfortunately, they're all computer savvy, and they'll almost for sure find this blog eventually, so I edit what I write.
Isabel is 2 months old today. She's getting huge, over 13 pounds and 25". That's a big baby. Wednesday, August 01, 2001
Bah. I didn't get around to finishing up my OBF story. Oh well, in the end, we tasted and rated 75 seperate beers, including one that was so nasty I think it would have been improved if Thom had steeped his sweaty nutsack in it for a while. Another "beer" got the rating of N/A. It was a "frambozen" or something like that, basically it was a malty fruit thing, more appropriate for pouring on pancakes than drinking. Bleah. I got the shower almost finished at the rental house. Need to paint up, cut, and install trim, but it's usable. I made into the top 16 at SimX's NetFungus Tournament. I'm FIN (netFungus Identification Number) 47, in group B. I won two matches and lost one, but curiously the dude who beat me didn't make it out of the elimination round. I'm glad, he beat me by taking 5 minutes between moves and boring me to death. Can't wait to go camping this weekend. |
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