Babes and Beer |
||
|
Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
Family Pictures Active blogs: Carpe Datum Cognitive Dissonance Dubious Quality Joe Delta Fishpimp A Clan Lord Journal Fun Turns to Tragedy! A Stitch In Time Free Market Fairy Tales Timmerov LJ & her dog The Phone Booth Chuck Pierce T-Homo The Brad Hole Greg Costikyan Phil Steinmeyer Ty Robin Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools Mostly inactive blogs: WOPR Spring Tide The Tangential Jeff Schell Clan Lord blogs: Fierce and Furry: The Adventures of Hor |
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Leavin' for Mexico in the morning. Wooo! My 'Hawks are now 8-4, with an excellent offense, and our D didn't give up any points today.
The Ravens seem to have found their offense as well. Saturday, November 29, 2003
Wooo! On Monday we fly down to Cabo San Lucas for a week in Mexico. I'm very much looking forward to being there, not exactly looking forward to flying with babies for the first time. At least it's the same time zone so we won't have to deal with that.
Dos grande cervezas, pour favor! Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Yesterday I went with a few friends down to the Seattle waterfront to tour a Soviet Foxtrot class submarine. Built in 1974 from a mid-1950s design, it patroled for 20 years until it was decomissioned in 1994, and subsequently bought by a canadian (eh?) who had it in Victoria, BC for a while and moved it to Seattle last year.
It's freakin' awesome. Nearly 80 people at a time lived in that tiny tube, crawling around inside it could be very claustrophobic if you suffer from that. The watertight doors inside are maybe 2.5' in diameter, funny to crawl through. No showers inside, the only shower was a saltwater one outside on the deck, I'm sure it stank to high heaven in there. Tons of woodwork inside the pressure hull, amazing to see in a sub so recently. Truly it was obsolete before it was built. Amazing. I also had the joy of going to my dentist. I'd broken a filling, but it turned out the filling was OK, it was part of the molar that broke off, and I'll need a crown. We'll do it after the new year. Tuesday, November 25, 2003
When I got home last night, Isabel was very excited running up to me. "Daddy! daddy! Are you ready for some football? It's monday night football daddy! It's monday night football!" I was laughing my ass off. ABC would love to hear that. I asked B where she got that, and B had no idea. She must have figured out that after the weekend comes Monday, but that seems like a pretty impressive mental leap for a 2.5 year old... Monday, November 24, 2003
Well, while that Seahawk game sucked, at least the officiating crew came out and admitted they fucked up and the Seahawks should have won. They stopped the clock and failed to restart it, giving the Ravens 45 seconds more than they should have had, which was the difference. Bah! I hate it when a game is won or lost on a bad call.
What really angers me is at the end of the game, when the Hawks went for it on 4th and inches and failed. Obviously it failed, Hasselbeck weenied out. However, in the scrum pile that resulted, long after the play was blown dead, one of the Ravens defenders was on top of Hasselbeck. He proceeded to lower his forearm carefully under Hasselbeck's chinguard and press down, choking the shit out of our QB. That's not football. That should simply be felony assault. I heard about a Ohio State player getting caught doing that, and he got a half or one game suspension. I'm sorry, he should be banned from college football. That is so not right. Saturday, November 22, 2003
Wooo! What an amazing Apple Cup. Despite being down 7-16 at the start of the 4th quarter, and being behind the whole game except the last two minutes, my Dawgs pulled off an *incredible* win against the Cougs, 27-19, with a last-second interception run back for a touchdown capping off an insane night. Wooo! Go Dawgs! Friday, November 21, 2003
Watched the rest of the Two Towers Extended edition last night. It's just plain damn good. A few minor nits include Gollum fingering Frodo's elf cloak outside the Black Gate, Gollum shouldn't be touching elf products.
I *really* wish I hadn't gotten screwed for tickets to the Trilogy on Dec 16th. ER last night was interesting, to say the least. So was the West Wing. I tried a bottle of Bridgeport's Old Knucklehead Barleywine, it was pretty good, but I simply don't enjoy barleywine as much as I once did. Thursday, November 20, 2003
Twenty years ago tonight I, along with half of the TV-watching population in America, watched "The Day After". It was scarey, but what was way more scarey was reading today that watching it changed Ronald Reagan's mind about the possibility of winning a limited-scale nuclear war.
He thought we could win one? Holy crap! No wonder the Russians were scared of us, we were being led by a nutcase. Uff-freakin'-da!
Bah, I knew it was cold out this morning, but when I got up and looked outside, it was dry, but a freezing rain had started before I was ready to leave. I weenied out of biking in freezing rain today, and drove in.
Last night we went to Costco and picked up the Two Towers extended edition and watched the first disk. Ho! It's so freakin' good. Man oh man I wish I had tickets to the Trilogy on the 16th. That would be so awesome. Hey, I noticed that in addition to the 4-DVD extended edition, they have a 5-dvd "collectors edition" with a Gollum figurine for $50. I simply don't care what that 5th DVD contains. I faintly remember them having something similar for Fellowship. I'm so excited about Return of the King it's not even funny. Isabel's potty training is coming along nicely. She's getting very good at it, and we didn't have to bribe her with anything besides praise. Yesterday when I got home she pulled out her prettiest dress and a pair of tights and told me "Daddy I need new clothes on. I need to wear this dress". Heh. Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Apparently the Wrath-of-God rain yesterday was 2". A record for that date, but nothing compared to the 5" we got in a day last month. Still, with the leaves blocking drains everywhere, the commute was nasty for those who drive.
There are two grocery stores near my house, not counting Whole Paycheck. The Safeway with cheap prices, and the QFC (Which used to stand for Quality Food Centers and now stands for Krogers Owns Us) which is more upscale, and prices appropriately. I've always shopped at Safeway, because I don't understand paying 20% more for the same thing. Occasionally I'll go to QFC to buy something Safeway doesn't stock. They've been remodeling the store because it's been there all of five years and that's horribly ancient in the upscale grocery store market. Some mouth-breathing moron decided it would look impressive to do the entire store in 12" tiles. It does look good. However, it lacks in functionality. Many people who shop for more than a single 6oz piece of $20 cheese and a bottle of wine use a device called a shopping cart. Let me tell you, a shopping cart on a tile floor is like a paint shaker set on "destroy". I had Harry in the cart and it about rattled his teeth out. My beer was converted to 357 cubic miles of foam. Plus, as my friend Jeff pointed out in his blog, by rearranging where everything is in the store, you can't find anything.. Gah! Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Man, it's been really raining today. Biking in was a very wet experience, with runoff down the curbs kicking up whitewater when it hit parked car tires, and several cases of flooding which are a joy on a bike. Fortunately my waterproof raingear was mostly up to the task, after changing into dry socks I was good to go.
Heavy rainfall at this time of year causes all sorts of flooding issues, since the fallen leaves damn up everything. Today is the release date for the extended edition of the Two Towers on DVDVDVDVD. A friend's boyfriend got a copy last Wednesday, he reports that it's unbelievably better than the theatrical version. OOOOOO! Must go to Costco tonight! Monday, November 17, 2003
Wooo! My Seahawks won again, going to 7-3. One more win and we won't have a losing season, unlike my poor Huskies. Sunday, November 16, 2003
We had babysitting last night, my sister in law and her husband and 7 month old baby were here, so we watched and fed the little guy while they went out to a nice dinner, then after our kids were in bed they watched 'em so we could go out. We were going to go to a friend's 35th birthday party, but she got the flu so they bumped her party to next week when we can't go, but any parent knows not to waste free babysitting.
We went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. (With a title like that, you expect a few Far Side jokes... heh). Anyway, we both loved it. As someone who loves Age of Sail naval stories anyway (I've read Master and Commander) I was pretty sure I'd love it, but B loved it as well. Fun, well-done movie. I also watched Princess Diaries on TV on Friday night while B went to a friend's party. I liked it, but uncharacteristically I'm a sucker for disney-formula movies like that. My Huskies got one of their worst thrashings ever yesterday. They gave up over 700 yards of offense to the freakin' Cal Bears. Our defense has been thrashed by injuries, but giving up 8 plays of 30 yards or more is just insane. Anyway, it wasn't as close as the 54-7 score sounds. Looks like we'll have our first losing season since 1976. Our first time not going to a bowl game since 1988. I predict we'll lose next week badly, by more than 30 again. Friday, November 14, 2003
Wooo! My blog is back up! Thanks Mr Nosuch!
Last night I had to get the kids out of B's hair for a while, so we went to the mall and walked around. They love it there, Isabel was especially excited to see they have chrismas decorations up. "Look daddy! Christmas trees!!!" Harry chimed in too: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Thursday, November 13, 2003
Poker last night saw the return of Kurt, one of the original poker gang from 10 years ago. I got cleaned out again, losing another $30. Plus $20 on Saturday, and $35 last week, means I've lost $85 in just over a week. Gah! Of course, last night Dee could not %&$* lose to save his life. The only other guy to win got $3. Dee won $95.
Isabel is very funny. She has a miniature stroller for her doll. Lately, she loads it up as much as possible. Large doll in the stroller. Smaller doll and some plastic animals in the cargo area. Pots and pans from her kitchen set on top of the sunshade awning. Then, she insists on dragging it around backwords over the books and blocks Harry has strewn everywhere, looking exactly like a young miniature bag lady pulling a shopping cart with cans over a curb. Oh, and a word to the wise to married guys: If your wife is in the bathroom at night when you want to brush your teeth, yelling "poop faster!" isn't considered helpful, and you're unlikely to get any afterwards. Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Monday was the 228th birthday of my beloved Marine Corps. Once again, we had seven guests over for a Marine Corps Birthday celebration. The menu was prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, asparagus, and garlic bread. The garlic bread was an amazing new Costco creation, where they take a flat loaf of cibatto(sp?), slice it in half, heavily butter both sides, and liberally apply roasted garlic bits. So freakin' yummy.
(Note to self: 8lbs of rib roast took ~4:15 to get to 122F internal temp in 250F oven) (after resting for 15 minutes, it was put back in 500F oven for ~10 mins for tasty crust) We also had a pitcher of 1775 Rum Punch (4 cups rum, 2 cups rose's lime juice, 1 cup maple syrup, a bit of grenadine for color) which is just plain nasty stuff, tastes like cough syrup, but it's traditional. A good time was had by all. Thus, yesterday I woke up with that "not so fresh" feeling. Ugga. It's nice working for the state, I get Veteran's Day off every year (as a veteran, I prefer to call it Eric's Day). We took the kids to the zoo, they had a blast. Harry's latest thing is to yell anytime he's excited. "hey, harry, look at the gorilla!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" "look at that giraffe!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" etc. Pretty funny. At least we can't lose him. I was sleepy after lunch (mmm leftover prime rib) so I took a nap, ended up sleeping for 3 freakin' hours. Uff-da. Monday, November 10, 2003
I must say that using a chainsaw is a very cathartic experience.
On Friday our monthyl work kegger had the theme "food on a stick". They had shish kabobs, corn dogs, cheese cubes on toothpicks, and tootsie pops. The corn dogs were frozen and they tried to grill them, bad plan. Finally someone figured out that you should just nuke them. Isabel and Harry were VERY happy to get a lollypop. They love to clink them together saying "Cheers!" The beers were from Hales brewery, one of the larger Seattle microbreweries, but not one that makes good beer. Their pale ale is lacking in character, and their Wee Heavy tastes like syrup. However, mixing the two made for a drinkable beer, plus free is always good. Now that my 10 year old plastic Round Table Pizza cup finally broke, I switched to an insulated Husky mug and enjoyed the advantage of being able to take "one for the road". After the kegger we went to dinner at Azteca, a local mexican chain, with a few friends. The kids do really well there, and the food was pretty darn good. The one we went to was at one end of Northgate mall (they claim to be the first real mall in the US, back in like 1948 or something) and after dinner we took the kids on a walk through the mall to tire them out. On Saturday we drove down to Olympia again to visit with B's mom. She's recovering from her knee replacement surgery very well. Saturday afternoon I started feeling really depressed. I dunno why, it's just something that occasionally happens, the solution is to go to bed and sleep, I wake up happy again. It didn't help any that my Huskies sucked ass losing to 1-8 Arizona. However, I had to go to the poker tournament. I lost shortly after 11pm, after two hours of texas hold'em, I was never once dealt a pair. I finally knew I had to go all-in on a four-flush after the flop, hoping to make the flush on the last two cards, but lost. Ah well. I don't even know how it ended, since I had to get up early on Sunday I left by midnight. Sunday morning I got up early, put on old work jeans and boots, and went to my friend's place. He lives out of town a ways on the Redmond-Fall City road, on a 6 acre plot, much of which is trees. He needed a tree dropped and some that came down last year were dried and ready to be cut up, but he doesn't have much experience dropping trees. Ho! I tell you what, I REALLY like chainsaws. RRrrrrRRRRRrrrRRRRrrrrRRRR!!!! (image of Beavis pumping his arms up and down). His was especially sweet, a nice 2horse 16" Stihl with a brand new chain. Ah, I've used chainsaws with freshly sharpened chains, but my lord that new chain cut like a hot knife through butter! First we hiked up into the hills past his goats and llama to where the tree he wanted dropped was. It was a maple I think, but really gnarly with three trunks grown into one. I'd never dropped a triple-trunk like that, but how hard can it be? Gravity does most of the work for ya. One of the trunks was on the side and didn't appear to be that load-bearing, so I chopped a 1' log out of it to get it out of the equation. I then notched the trunk that was on the side I wanted to drop the tree, and made a cut on the opposite side, and sure enough, BOOOOM! it dropped right where I wanted it. Unfortunately, it was just tall enough to knock a huge (12" diameter) branch off another tree, that was still held on by a strip, and leaning on another tree. The mother of all widowmakers, several thousand pounds hanging 30 to 50 feet in the air. Uff-da! I told my friend there were two options for getting it down, the cheap way and the expensive way. The expensive way was pay $2k to a tree service, the cheap way was marking the impact area with caution tape and letting a winter storm take it down. Fortunately, we came up with plan C. There was another leaning tree that needed to come down, and it was tall enought to solve our problem. A few judicious cuts later it started moving, so I backed away behind another tree. It wasn't falling, but you could hear creaks and snaps inside the trunk. Well over 60 seconds later, the snaps were increasing in frequency and volume, and finally it eeeever so slowly started to lean further, and then WHAMMO down it came. It knocked the widowmaker branch down, which hit, flipped, and crashed down again. BOOOOOM! What a noise! It was almost as cool as watching the Kingdome implode. I felt like I needed a cigarette. Last night we had a lovely fondue dinner party with some of B's friends. B had made a cherry pie that was very yummy, forgetting we were having chocolate fondue for dessert. Mmmm! Chocolate fondue dripped over cherry pie is VERY yummy. Friday, November 07, 2003
Ugga. B got Isabel involved in a pull-up diaper study since Isabel is going through potty training. We get a few weeks supply of free diapers plus like $70, but we have to put all the used ones in ziplock bags and give them back to the poor bastards. I can't imagine being the lab schmuck who gets to aquire data on them. Thursday, November 06, 2003
For poker last night, we held a mini practice No Limit Texas Hold'em tourney. The guy who talked smack about winning went out first, and I made it to the final three, but only the last two split the money. Ah well, it was fun. Our new rules of increasing the blinds regularly should go far to ensuring the tourney on saturday doesn't last until 3am like last time.
Dang it. Seattle's Museum of Flight got one of the three Concorde planes for north america, and it landed yesterday afternoon, but I'd forgotten so I didn't get to see it land. On the college football front, I just have to laugh at TCU bitching that they deserve a BCS bowl. Of course they're undefeated. Crickey, this is a team with the easiest schedule possible. They barely beat Arizona, which is 1-8. My Huskies would easily be undefeated with that schedule, but that doesn't mean they deserve a BCS bowl. If by some miracle they make it to the BCS final six, I predict they'd get clobbered 55-0, of which the only good part would be to finally put that whole argument to rest. If you want to play in real bowl games, beat real teams during the season. It's that easy. If they'd beat Nebraska and LSU, nobody would begrude them a good bowl game. Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Today was the boy's 18 month checkup. 37.5", 32lbs. About average for a 36 month old. Uff.
We all got flu shots as well. Isabel was funny, after B and I got ours, she said, "I want a flu shot! When do I get a shot?!?!" Heh. You got it girl! They did great with the shots, neither cried, and Isabel was very happy to get a Beauty & The Beast sticker. Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Funny. My younger brother Dan who knocked up a 19 yr old in Columbia last winter went down to meet his new baby. He was met at the airport by the girl and his new daughter. He brought his US girlfriend (they hooked up this summer). I'm sure it was awkward.
I'm laughing that I have a neice who I may never meet and won't speak English natively if at all. Monday, November 03, 2003
What a great weekend.
Friday afternoon B took the kids to the local mall for trick-or-treating. I had figured they were too young to appreciate it, but they loved it. Isabel was totally excited when she got home, she loves lollypops. "Daddy! I did it! Look! I got candy!!!" They both spent the weekend carrying their plastic pumpkins around. Isabel was great about sharing her stash with Harry. "Harry needs one too" What a sweet girl. After the kids went to bed on Friday B cooked up a fabulous romantic dinner. Steak tips with bloody mary dipping sauce, baked cauliflower with swiss cheese, and spinach salad. Yum! On Saturday I got up early to watch the kids, we had a good time. They both had yogurt and cheerios for breakfast, both chowing down. Harry is hilarious to watch eat, he takes the spoon, gets a huge amount, then turns the spoon sideways right before it reachs his face. Half of it goes on his face and front, but he's very determined. What a mess. I got the idea that we could drive down to Olympia (~1hr drive) to visit B's mom who is out of the hospital after her knee replacement surgery. I got B up, she loved the idea, we got the kids dressed and headed on down. We spent a little over two hours down there, the kids loved seeing Grandma. They watched Snow White on the DVD player on the drive down and back. "Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho! It's off to work we go!" Saturday afternoon I watched some football and talked to my brother in Albuqueque for over an hour. I sure hope he moves back here once he finishes his PhD. The Husky game was at home at 7pm. Mind you, it was like 35F. BRRR! We were playing the Oregon Ducks. Oregon hates us, and considers us their #1 rival, we're the established tradition, they're the young upstarts. Lots of UW fans hate Oregon, and I sure don't like them, but they're just not that big a deal to me. Since it was going to be so cold, I planned on buying a souvenier insulated mug of hot chocolate, and needed somethng tasty to add to it. I mixed a shot of vodka, a shot of peppermint schnapps, a shot of vanilla schnapps, and a shot of Godot chocolate liqueur in my flask. Damn that mixes with hot cocoa very well. The game was awesome. Last year, we let them get up 14 to nothing, and proceeded to score 42 unanswered points. This year, we let them score 10 points, including a 85 yard touchdown play when our defended fell, and at halftime we were down 7-10. Sometime during the second quarter a light freezing rain started, it was slow enough at first that we couldn't quite tell if it was snow or rain. It didn't make things any warmer. At halftime our senior QB was taken out. Apparently he suffered a concussion in the 2nd quarter, was getting nauseaus, and didn't remember the game. They put in the second string QB who had zero real-game experience, and the butt-kicking was on! He led the team to 5 scores on 5 possessions, 4 touchdowns and a field goal. Our starting tailback was out with an injury, so the two backups each racked up over 100 yards rushing. The defense came up big, causing many 3 & outs and recovering a loose pump-fake for a touchdown. BAM! Next thing you know, it's a second year in a row of scoring 42 unanswerer points again Oregon. I like this trend. Sunday morning I got to sleep in until 9am, when I was awakened by B sneaking up to give me the sports section to read about my Huskies glory. Ah, heavenly! Shortly after that I went downstairs, and Isabel asked me, "Shall we go to the Aquarium, Daddy? We can see octopus and SHARKS!" Who could resist that? Not I! Off we went. The kids are hilarious at the aquarium. They run back and forth, looking this way and that, squealing at everything. To top it all off, my Seahawks won again, bringing them to 6-2. Of their remaining opponents, half have winning records, and half have losing records. If we can split the difference, going just 4-4 in the second half, a 10-6 record should be plenty to make the playoffs. Woo! That'd rock. |
|