Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Monday, December 30, 2002
I have to admit, I am a slut for Napoleonic Wars age-of-sail stories.
Normally, I read sci fi and fantasy, with the occasional Clancy novel, and indulgent trash W.E.B. Griffin writes. However, a fondness for space opera led me to David Weber, whose Honor Harrington novels are excellent, and were supposedly based on the C.S. Forester Horatio Hornblower novels. Now, I wanted to read Hornblower for a long time, but they only come in that annoying as hell oversized "trade paperback" format, not my preferred "mass market paperback" format. Cripes, I own over 1000 scifi and fantasy books alone (nearly 100 linear feet of bookshelf), there isn't any way they'd all fit in that format. Gahh! Not to mention they're $15 a pop new vs $8 for a normal paperback. However, after figuring out I was doomed to that format if I wanted to read them, I broke down and bought a used copy of Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (the first of the 11) and read it. I was hooked. In the airport on the way to our honeymoon I picked up the first of Dewey Lambdin's Alan Lewrie books, which are also highly entertaining. I now own all the Hornblower books (took a while only buying them used) and recently aquired Patrick O'Brian's 'Master and Commander', which is going to be a Russell Crowe movie next summer, as well as Alexander Kent's first Richard Bolitho story. O'Brian gets rave reviews as being "literature", but partial due to the extreme realism he puts into his works they can be very hard to understand, I shudder to imagine trying to figure out what the hell was going on without having read nearly 20 other nautical fiction stories of that era. On another note, both kids have been sick for about a week, we took them to the doctor today and they both have mild ear infections but nothing in their lungs, they're both on antibiotics now. I'm not a fan of overuse of antibiotics, but I sure hope this helps them. Tomorrow is the Huskies bowl game, the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, vs the Purdue Boilermakers. I'm taking the day off work (like I could work during a Husky football game, let alone a BOWL game, sheesh!) cuz the game starts at 11am Pacific time. Saturday, December 28, 2002
Ooooo! Last night B's mom showed up for the weekend, so after the babies went to sleep we had her babysit while we went out to see a movie. I got to see The Two Towers again, but this time in analog projection instead of digital. Analog really isn't as nice, but I think I liked the movie better the second time. It seemed a lot faster, too, which is strange since the first time I saw it at noon and this time I saw it starting at 10pm...
It was awesome. B loved it too, but she found it very scary. One big complaint is they did a half-assed job on the soundtrack, far too many times the voices are drowned out by background noise or music, so it can be really tough to hear what they're saying. I hope they clean that up on the extended DVD. Can't wait for that extra half hour. REALLY can't wait for the Return of the King, but I don't have a choice. Friday, December 27, 2002
I bet I'm the only one who got mooned by their 59 year old mother at christmas dinner.
My two older brothers Johnny and Steve and their families had come over to my parents' lake house for a lovely christmas dinner. We had a huge prime rib, coconut prawns with curry dipping sauce as an appetizer, garlic mashed taters, and no green bean-onion casserole. Mom had pulled out three very nice bottles of wine from her cellar, and we were sitting around the dining room table after dinner finishing off the wine. Mom commented that in proper whine (er wine) drinking circles, one never touches the bowl of the wineglass, just the stem, for one doesn't want to heat the wine up with one's fingers. Steve responded by cupping the bowl of his wine glass with both palms. A few minutes later in our conversation, Mom was holding her wine glass by the bowl, and Steve said that was just improper. Mom does that little bit where you pretend to scratch along your nose with your middle finger, flipping the person off, then she stands up, turns around, and drops trou, mooning Johnny, Steve, and myself. AAAAAAAAAHHHH! My eyes! My eyes! The horror! We immediately covered our eyes and started calling out for hot forks to gouge our eyes out with. I guess the moral of the story is watch out when Mom's been drinkin'. You know, Bridget's relatives don't act this way. Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it.
I got lots of great presents. A flashlight that plugs into the cigarette lighter in my truck, some cargo tie-down straps, some humidification tubes for my cigar humidor, four DVDs including Strange Brew with Bob and Doug McKensie, (take off you hoser!) as well as a 3-DVD set of Beavis and Butthead cartoons, 53 episodes (they'd call 'em epichoads). I also got a new cocktail shaker (my old one was from I-ke-ke-kea and has completely seized up, you cannot get it open) and a Le Cruset enamel-covered cast iron cookpot. I got the 2.5qt one, I got B a 7 quart one, so we're set for now. Isabel absolutely loved presents. She got a set of four Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals and just freaked as she opened each one. Eeyore was first, and she was saying "Eeyore!!! Harry!!" trying to show Harry what a great present she got. She got more excited opening Piglet, and then Pooh. Tigger was almost an afterthought. Dang0 that girl now has way too many toys. Yesterday I was sent off to find a stocking and a few toys for Harry, so I went to a Walgreens, they had stockings. I went to their pet toy aisle to find a few dog chew toys for Harry, heh. Monday, December 23, 2002
Here I am at my folk's place in Spirit Lake, Idaho, using their old bondi-blue 233Mhz first-generation iMac wiht a *shudder* dialup 56k connection. Even worse, Mom keeps the screen at 800x600. Blarg.
Anyway, on Saturday I went shopping with Isabel for a present for Bridget. We went to the mall and found nothing, but I got a great idea and found what I was looking for at another place. When we were at the mall I got Isabel a child's size tripleberry smoothie at Orange Julius, she loves them, but she didn't drink hardly any of it, and she hadn't eaten breakfast. Slightly odd, but she goes through not-eating phases as well as eat-more-than-adults phases. That afternoon we were going to go to a christmas cookie exchange party at a friend's house, and were all loaded in the car, the car was started and just backing out of our driveway when she started choking a little bit and then puked all over herself. Poor little girl. That put paid to any plans for going to the party or over to B's sister's for dinner. She acted like she felt fine afterwards, and we gave her some gatoraid which she kept down, so we didn't cancel our plans to drive to Idaho. Our plan was to pack the truck saturday night, I'd get to sleep by 10pm, and set the alarm for 4am. We finished the last-minute packing, B got Harry up and breastfed him, and we got Isabel up, all got in the truck, and hit the highway. We were on the road by 5am, and both kids fell asleep within a half hour. B even got a small nap, and we were almost halfway there before they woke up. The rest of the trip went fine, we stopped at a Sharis for breakfast and let Isabel play and run around, she was acting fine, and neither kid complained much about the 6 hour trip. The disadvantage of this plan was it made for a very looonnng day, the last hour before bedtime for the kids was torture. Uff-da. Today B has been feeling nauseaous, and I've been saying she's preggers again, driving her crazy. Friday, December 20, 2002
Yesterday morning, before I got dressed I notice there were helicopters hovering around. When I was biking into work, I ran into what appeared to be every fire truck for a 3,000 light year distance, and the one major thoroughfare(25th Ave NE) I cross was blocked with emergency vehicles. I could smell smoke in the air, but couldn't tell what was burning. Fortunately my bike trail wasn't blocked, traffic near the University suffered pretty much all day.
Just past 25th I biked into a huge nasty cloud of black smoke. Cough cough blargh! Fortunately I was through it quickly, but I could smell smoke on myself for at least a few hours afterwards. It turns out a building leased by the Univ of Washington Extention burned, the building was a total loss. I am totally wired, every year at work they have a free latte cart and today was the day. I had two cups of hot chocolate, I have never tried an espresso drink because I don't want to know what I am missing. I do NOT want a $3/day habit. I'll be in northern Idaho all next week, I doubt I'll be blogging much. Another picture of Harry Thursday, December 19, 2002
On Tuesday afternoon I headed down to the train station. I hadn't been there ever before, it looked like a really run-down bus station. The ceiling was maybe 15' up, lowered strained ceiling tiles and yellow fluorescent lights. However, there were a bunch of banners about how the "how important this transportation link was" and "renovations due soon!" and my favorite, "this false ceiling could be removed as early as 2000!". They had a section of the false ceiling with clear tiles so you could dimly see the original ceiling way above, of course it was beautifully ornately carved. Gah. I wonder what they were thinking when they ruined it. Other banners gave status updates on the project from 1996, with the last update being winter 1998.
However, coming off the train was none other than Johhny Payphone. We'd never met, so I didn't recognize him, but he had my cell fone, and I waited near the payphone bank for his call, at which point I was right behind him. We took his bag and headed back to my truck, dropped it off, and went down to F.X. McRory's, an oyster bar that claims the world's largest collection of bourbons. After having a drink we headed back to the truck and I gave him a quick-n-dirty tour of Seattle. We headed back to my house so he could meet the babes (B and Isabel) and the boy (Harry) and have a beer. We then went for a joyride around in my '71 Olds Vista Cruiser, picking up some burritos for dinner on the way. The rest of the evening was spent playing with my Fellowship of the Ring extended DVD, watching some of the cool documentaries on them. Yesterday morning we woke up, played with the babies for a minute, ate, my friend Jack showed up, and we drove off to the Cinerama to see The Two Towers. JP waited with us in line for a while, then I drove him down to the airport to catch his flight home, and drove back to the Cinerama before the movie started. Ok, that movie kicked SO much ass it's hard to describe. I don't agree with all of Peter Jackson's decisions, but he nailed plenty enough of them to satisfy me. I'd give a review but don't want to spoil anything for anyone. Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Last night after dinner we bundled up the kids and loaded them in the stoller for a visit to Candy Cane Lane. The other eleven months of the year, it's a small loop of road nestled off a tree-lined boulevard with a greenbelt ravine and park behind it. The houses all date back to 1910 or earlier, and they're mostly quaint cottages. There is a large grassy island in the road loop with a large hedge in it. Years ago we almost went to an open house when one of the homes was for sale, but at the time they wanted $450k, which was more than twice what we were shopping for, so I didn't waste our time. I shudder to imagine how much it appreciated since.
During December, however, that block has transformed into Candy Cane Lane every year since 1949. They decorate the crap out of the neighborhood, festooning the houses with lights, wrapping the utility poles in white with red stripes, giant faux candy canes everywhere. Oooh! I found some web info. Official Home page and QuickTime VR views. Cool QTVR, gives a good feel for it. Anyway, Isabel had a blast. She kept pointing out everything and having fun. She loved the 10-block stroller ride at night, Harry had a good time too, but he was silent, just smiling. The full moon was pretty as well, as Isabel had to point out to us innumerable times. Sunday I broke down and bought the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring 4-disk Extended Version DVD. I was going to rent it at my local Cockbuster, but as usual they were worthless and only had a single copy that was already rented. I was going to wait for all three in a box set in a few years, but Costco had it for $25, plus I figure I saved $5 by not renting it. B and I watched half on Sunday night and half last night. B read the Hobbit, but never LotR, and hadn't seen the movie yet. It was awesome. I loved the extra 30 minutes of footage, it felt right. She loved it too, always a good sign. I am *so* stoked for seeing The Two Towers tomorrow morning. Monday, December 16, 2002
Woof. Busy busy busy.
Friday night B and the kids showed up to my dept. kegger. They had two full kegs of Pyramid products, a lame lager and their winter beer, Snow Cap. Pyramid is about my least favorite microbrew, their product just doesn't friggin' taste good. Bleh. The Snow Cap was downright nasty. After the kegger we went straight to one of B's friends house for a little dinner party. The entree was a damn tasty chili, which brought up a great story from one of the couples. Some local radio station was having a chili pepper eating contest to celebrate the opening of something or another, and Ted entered. They had a wheel of pain they spun, and you ate the chili it pointed to. After a few rounds of everyone scarfing down jalapenos, anaheims, etc like they were nothing, the people holding the event figured out it wasn't going to be 2 chilis and quit for everyone. They started making each round as 1 whole and 1 half habanero. After 15 (!!) rounds of this, the third place guy finally quit, and three rounds later, Ted figured the other guy wasn't even quitting so he bailed at second place. He said it was an almost unbelievable amount of pain. Damn funny dinner. B's mom Peggy showed up as we got home, she'd brought a FisherPrice "Little People" nativity set for Isabel. She set it up on the coffee table after Isabel went to sleep. When we got up on Saturday, I took Isabel into the living room like I normally do so she can sit on my lap on the couch and drink her morning cup of milk. She got about halfway through it, just sucking and looking around, when she saw it on the coffee table. She pulls out her sippy cup, says, "Oh!! Toy!!", hops off my lap, walks over, looks at it for a second, and says, "Cuuute!!" She's damn funny. Saturday night we had B's family's traditional christmas eve fondue dinner, since we're going to be at my folks place this year. We started with a swiss cheese fondue appetizer, had meats for dinner, and chocolate for dessert. Our downstairs renter, B's friend Sophie, brought two guys, one she's starting to date and the other some past friend from out of town who was crashing with her. Both were buzzed cuz they spent the day at wine tastings and brewery tours, and both were in awe of my booze collection. We drank a few bottles of wine and did some booze tastings. One of the guys took a shot of the garlic schnapps my brother gave me from Germany, nasty stuff. Ha! What guys will do to "impress" women. I'm sure he didn't get kissed after that! Ha ha! On Sunday B and her mom took the kids down the street to a lady who does a christmas craft sale thingy every year. B bought Isabel a home made Raggedy Ann doll. Like Isabel needed more freakin' toys... Crickey! we had some more of B's relatives over for a pot roast dinner. After dinner we did a little present exchange/opening, and Isabel just freaking LOVES opening wrapped presents. She got more toys (basically any toy for Harry she commandeers) and didn't want to stop when there were obviously more presents under the tree... heh. Friday, December 13, 2002
Normally, on Thursday nights we have dinner with another couple, alternating houses. It's nice since it's so regular we never have to bring anything, and every two weeks you get a day off cooking and dishes. Plus it's more fun to try fancier recipes on guests.
Anyway, there was a deal going on where a dozen or more of the fanciest restaurants in town were having $25 dinners, and we decided we'd try someplace really nice we normally couldn't afford, but it turned out that deal was just for November, so we missed it. We decided since they are pregnant with their first and she's due in early January, we'd go out anyway, since we don't get out very often and they soon will join us. We had a fabulous time, going to the Union Bay cafe. I love it when a restaurant smells yummy when you walk in. We had the full deal, appetizers, salads, entrees, and dessert, I had a tasty glass of port for dessert, B had chocolate pudding. Er, mousse aka fancy pudding. On another note, I'm a bit nervous about early pregnancies. After our miscarriage, I understand both sides of the "tell people" and "don't tell people until 18 weeks" argument, but when people decide to tell us early, I worry for them. A close friend of mine who's been undergoing IVF recently lost an embryo at 8 weeks, I feel for her. Another friend recently told us she's 8 weeks pregnant, I don't know what all they went through but I know they've been trying for a long time and have had at least one miscarriage themselves. Fel and Perk, not a day goes by that I don't think about your little babies. Cripes, I know a half dozen pregnant women right now. I guess the "5-10 weddings a year" phase of my life is past and the "5-10 babies a year" phase is in full bore. Thursday, December 12, 2002
Wooo! I did some searching on the 'net and found a picture of the CGI Treebeard from The Two Towers. I can't wait for next Weds.
Dang, at poker last night I was down $25 with a half hour to go, and ended up $5. A near-record-setting turnaround. Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Today B had a doctor appt and I went with her to watch the kids. I managed to run a red light on the way (I was making a left turn, it looked yellow to me, except I waited for the oncoming cars to stop) but only got a warning.
When we got downtown B went to her appt, and the kids and I went around the downtown shopping area. It's a pain pushing a long double stroller around, you can't go up a couple of steps, you need to find wheelchair ramps and elevators. Friggin' TWICE when I was in an elevator, a woman would ask another woman if they were going to get Santa pictures. The other woman would say, "Um, they're not mine". HELLO! I may be a guy, but guys have kids too. Crickey. Look at the person pushing the stroller...
Oh yeah, here's a new picture of Harry at roughly six months. You can't tell in the B&W picture that his eyes are blue, but he's a cutie.
Isabel is so damn cute. She loves to walk into a room I'm in, smile at me, and say "Hi Daddy!". Yesterday when I got home from work she had a carrot stick in her hand. I asked if I could have a bite, she loves it when I share her food. She took the rest of it over to her toy kitchen, stuck it in a cup, opened up the 'microwave', stuck it in, closed the door, and started pressing the faux buttons saying "beep beep beep beep". Just like the real nuker. I love watching her play. She also trys to sing along with her favorite TV show, "The Book of Pooh", but only gets maybe 1 in 10 words, but it's really precious to watch.
"Hey, Isabel, who's that?" "Poooooh!!!" "Who's that?" "Tigger!" "Who's that?" "Eeyore!" "Who's that?" "Piglet!" Cripes, she says Pooh with about six or eight Os in it, Poooooooh. I have some advertisement with a Pooh bear on it sitting on the end table next to the couch, whenever I hold it up she points and says, "Pooooooh!!!" I was shopping last weekend, and she's got me doing it too. I see something Winne the Pooh, and can't help thinking Pooooooooh. Tuesday, December 10, 2002
My TiVo had recorded James Cameron's documentary on the Bismark, and I watched it last night after the Monday Night football game got lame. It was pretty cool, they had some cool deep subs and ROVs, and did an awesome job with CGI replays of the Bismark's final battle, and made a damn good case for the cause of the Bismark sinking by being scuttled by its own crew, not sunk by British torpedoes as the Brits claimed. Monday, December 09, 2002
I woke up on Friday with a cold, but after taking a nap Friday afternoon I felt a lot better.
We spent all day saturday cleaning up and decorating and preparing for our annual fancy-dress party. It's part holiday party, part Pearl Harbor memorial, and part 69th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. I wear a tux, ties are requested of guys. As part of the prohibition theme, shoulder holsters are appropriate for guys, and flapper dresses for women. This year we had two guys packin', (myself being one of them) and four women in flapper dresses or flapper outfits. It was a pretty good turnout, too, 31 people. Yesterday I got a chance to do some christmas shopping, and work on a pet project of mine. Some friends had oil heat, but their furnace croaked, so they got it replaced with a new natural gas furnace. They forgot to cancel their oil delivery, so their tank is currently full and useless. They offered the diesel free if I could get it out. I went to the hardware store and for $5 I bought a pump that hooks up to a electric drill for power. $10 got me two short chunks of garden hose to attach to the pump, and $32 got me four six+ gallon plastic gas cans. I used zipties to attach the end of the hose to a measuring stick to drop into the tank, I wanted to keep the hose off the very bottom of the tank where water and crud accumulates. There was 29" of diesel fuel oil in the tank when we started, and 24.5 gallons later there was 26" left. That means there is roughly 200 gallons left for me, eight more trips. However, at $1.50/gallon or so, it's well worth reeking of diesel for a few hours. Thursday, December 05, 2002
One of the disadvantages of small children is they like to watch kids tv shows, and listen to kid music. Why is that a problem? The damn theme music sticks in my head. Gaaaa! There is nothing that makes one want to stick a fork in one's ears like having Rollie Polie Olie's theme song stuck in my head.
The other day I had about the least unpleasant experience along those lines, I had the Northern Exposure theme stuck in my head all freakin' day. While I don't like having anything stuck, at least that wasn't annoying. I miss having a giant tv. Isabel's reaction was to insist the tree be turned on at all times, and to point and say "Pretty!" and "ball!" Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Bye Dan!
The younger brother who lives down the street from me left on Monday for Peru. He's due back at the end of March. No particular reason other than he likes to travel and he had fun down there the last time he went. It was maybe five years ago, he flew down to Peru and hitchhiked back, took him 14 months that time. He works landscaping these days so the winter is a good time to take off. He even managed to find some chick to sublet his room in his house so he's hardly out any money. We gave the guys renting our old house $100 off their December rent, they were quite happy. They've been good tenants, althought they have a quirk. The rent is due the 1st, but not late until the 4th. They have *always* paid on the 3rd. Man, that house cracks me up, they are three guys in their mid-20s, and they've got a ton of geek factor. The walls are covered in obscure cult-favorite movie posters (Howard The Duck, etc), they've got the old 20" high plastic Shogun Warriors and Godzilla toys from when I was a kid, tons of comic book stuff and other action figures, it's almost like I never left. Well, I don't have any of that particular bunch of stuff, but it's close enough. Last night we went to the local tree lot and bought our christmas tree. This empty lot is owned by the family that farms the trees, but it's right smack in the middle of a nice neighborhood, the lot dates back 50 years or more. It's worth a ton, every year I expect them to sell it for an apartment complex. There are fruit stands on it in season, but mostly it's empty. Funny. Nice tree selection, however. The house smells wonderful. I wonder what Isabel's reaction was when she got up this morning, since the tree was set up after she went to bed. Tuesday, December 03, 2002
Oh Boo hoo hoo. Oh boo hoo HOO hoo hoo. My lovely super-ultra-mega-tron tube of joy 36" TV went back last night. BestBuy didn't have a TV that fit my cabinet that had 3 A/V inputs, wasn't 32", and wasn't a freakin' grand.
Right now I need to decide between downgrading to 32" flatscreen, cutting a hole in the back of my cabinet for a 36" toshiba, or spending an extra few hundred on a 36" flatscreen. RrrrrrRrrrrrrRRRrrrrRRRRRRRrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrrr (mental picture of Beavis pumping his arms up and down) Ok, I've resisted, but this cold weather makes me think of: SKI!!!!!!!!!! Woooooo! I can't wait for the local resorts to open. Shooosh-a-licious! Monday, December 02, 2002
I had a fun weekend.
Thursday was great, I watched football, then went over to my sister-in-law's new house for the afternoon, watching more football, drinking beer, playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on his Playstation2, dismembering pedestrians in Vice City, and eating waaaay too much. On Friday we went to the Woodland Park Zoo, and Isabel had a blast. She recognized many of the animals, making the whole experience a lot more fun. That afternoon we rented Men In Black 2 (review: BORING. Lame. stupid. waste of time) and The Sum of All Fears (review: Yawn. NOT a Clancy movie, a lukewarm action flick). On Saturday we went over to our friend's parents for Thanksgiving 2.0. They have turkey day at a relatives house, so they always have another one later in the weekend at home so they'd have leftovers. YUM YUM. On Sunday B went to lunch with a friend, and I played with the babies. Then in the afternoon a friend of B's called, saying she was going to go see the new Harry Potter movie. I talked B into going, so she did and I played with the babies all afternoon and evening. B got home just in time to put Isabel to bed. |
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