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 |
Monday, October 31, 2005
We got lots and lots of unpacking stuff done this weekend. Friday night we had two couples over for a dinner party. B roasted a big pork loin, which was quite tasty. Saturday morning we took the kids to Storables and bought a bunch of things to help organize our new house. Afterwards I took Isabel to her dance class, and we spent the afternoon and evening unpacking boxes, moving holiday boxes and baby stuff up into attic storage. On Sunday we went to the Zoo to see them feed pumpkins to the hippos, it was neat to watch but the crowds were pretty crazy. Once we got home I fed the kids nachos for lunch then took off to go to Home Depot with a friend to get a bunch of things. Afterwards I build a 6'x2' shelf above the washer and dryer in the laundry room so we can store all the glassware, christmas plates, and other kitchen crap that doesn't fit in the kitchen. I still need a desk for my office/den/computer room/library upstairs, so in the meantime I am going to make a cheap sturdy desk. I bought a 3/4" 4'x8' sheet of MDF, and will cut four 4x4 posts for legs, 2x4s for the frame between the posts, Simpson Strong-Tie connectors to hold the frame together, and cut the MDF down to 3'x6' for the desk top. It won't be pretty but it will be beefy and large, and under $50. I can probably use it as a workbench if I ever replace it. My current favorite Seahawk statistic is that Mike Holmgren is 7-0 the week before the bye as a Seahawk, but 0-6 the week after. I'm almost certain we're going to lose to Arizona this weekend. Gah! That will suck. Last night after much delay the kids and I went to buy them some pumpkins. Safeway was sold out, and Isabel nearly started crying, but I convinced her we'd find some somewhere. QFC had a bunch, so they each picked out a monster-sized one. We took them home to carve, and YUCK!!! Isabel's was filled with goo, it had started to rot inside. I've never seen that before. It was pretty disgusting. Not horribly bad, since I think it'd only gone off a few days earlier, but still a lot of mild icky smell. Harry's was fine. They're both carved up and the kids were SO excited. Isabel had me do a "happy face", and Harry wanted a "silly face". I'm a terrible artist, but I do alright with a pumpkin. Nothing like this, the 2001 pumpkin that Thom carved from a picture of me, B, and Isabel. Friday, October 28, 2005
Ah, my 1,000th blog entry. When Mr. Nosuch lured me into blogging four and a half years ago, I didn't know that I'd have this sort of tenacity, but after doing it for this long I don't see myself stopping. It helps that I have a relaxed blogging schedule, not trying to hold myself to a ludicrous "500 words a day" (zing!) or any other standard. I suppose it also helps that my life is relatively full, if lacking in drama. I will say thanks to my loyal readers. Comments definitely fuel my blogging. I was thinking about going back and seeing what my favorite blog entries were, but that requires time and effort. The other day we stopped off at my hippy brother Dan's house to get the last of the plants he was house-sitting for me during the move. He and his girlfriend are leaving shortly to spend a month in Columbia with his daughter and her mother, then a few days in San Francisco, followed by a month in Bali. He just finished up his last landscaping project for the year, turning a blackberry bramble hillside into a beautiful set of terraces. Last night B and I got dressed up and left the kids with my mother-in-law to attend the 2nd annual fashion show held by the wife of one of my drinking club buddies. It was pretty similar to last year, but this time they had some funky cocktail that sorta tasted like apples, had blueberries as a garnish, and took my edge right off even though I couldn't taste any booze. Of course, an empty stomach helped with that. We got totally lucky on the parking. We took the Union street exit off I-5, and after getting stuck in traffic, made it through one light and was waiting for the next when I noticed all the empty spots next to me were NO PARKING 4-6PM, and it was 5:59pm. Wooo! Almost the whole row I was in moved over and parked. Free downtown parking 2 blocks from our destination! There was sushi at the VIP after-party again this year, a much fancier spread. Holy hell it was good. I mean really really good. I 'm pretty sushi ignorant, I know I like it more each time I have it, but I usually have the stuff from the grocery store, I've still never been to a sushi restaurant because B doesn't like it much. This stuff was the best I've ever had. I had to laugh at my friends there, two of which don't eat sushi. Sucks for them. One of the kids left their dome light on in the minivan yesterday, and when we were about to leave the van wouldn't start. Gah! We took the truck downtown, and then when we got home I called AAA for a jump, since the van was facing in the driveway where I couldn't get my jumper cables to reach. D'oh! 12 years, first time I've needed a jump. I'm going to get a new battery for the van, I want one that's beefier anyway. The beefy battery in my old truck could run the high beams for 4 hours and start right up (don't ask how I know this for a fact), the stupid dome lights should be LEDs anyway, and not use up any power. Sigh. Stupid car makers causing me trouble while they save a nickel. Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Once again I got a lot accomplished last night. Got all the rest of the boxes out of the living and dining rooms, called the support line for the new programmable thermostat to find out how to wire it up with the slightly wacky wiring configuration of the old one, and Fishpimp came by for ~30 more boxes for his move. This is blog entry #999. Tuesday, October 25, 2005
This morning B had an appointment with some uber migraine doctor at UW Hospital. She learned a bunch of good stuf, got some recommendations for dietary things she's doing wrong (no more peanut butter and bananas), and 4-5 new drugs to try. Her migraines have been better these past two weeks, and the reduced stress may help as well. I stayed home to watch the herd this morning. It was the first time in a loooong time that I've fed babyfood to a baby. Alex is 10 months old, cute as heck, and one damn fast crawler. Set him down and BAM off he goes. I need to get the kid gates installed. Monday, October 24, 2005
Mmmmmm. I guess seeing those giant king crab legs on Fishpimp's blog got me cravin' king crab, because we bought some when we were at Costco yesterday, plus a pair of dungeness crabs. I donned latex gloves and spent half an hour extracting all the crab meat from the pair of dungies and the huge chunks from the king crab legs. MmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!! It was awesome. Basically all the crab I could eat. Last night B and I got a lot done on the unpacking front. Having a housewarming party (38 guests rsvped so far!) in two weeks is powerful motivation to getting things accomplished. Man I do love this new house. Sunday, October 23, 2005
Well, the charity poker tourney wasn't that great. There were 20+ tables of 8, so over 150 people there, and since it started at 8:30pm and ended at 11pm, they had the blinds double every 15 minutes. Combine that with no dealers, so deal rotated, which meant 4-5 hands per blind period, and you've got the recipe for an all-in luckfest. I mean, you may as well draw for high card. If you don't get good hands frequently, you're done. I was slowly bled to death by calling stations (bad players who stay in and get lucky) and when down to 4x the big blind, finally got aces and queens, so obviously I was all-in. Unfortunately, the guy I was there with was at the same table and called me with pocket queens. Gah! The first card on the flop was the last queen, so I needed to catch a pair of aces to beat him, and of course that didn't happen. He busted out not too long later, so we went looking for a place to drink. Our first try was Von's, a cool downtown hotel bar, but there wasn't a table to be had, so we said 'F it' and went to back to our suburb to go to the Wedgewood Ale House. We'd grabbed the bistro table by the dart board, and after being there a while somne people asked us if we'd be willing to move so they could play darts. Sure, what the hell, we aren't rude, they asked nice, and some seats at the round bar had opened up, so we happily migrated. As an unnessary added bonus, they bought our next round, which frankly after a few beers at home, 4 beers at the poker tourney, and some beer there I did not need, but I'm not one to turn down free beer. Saturday morning I woke up with that not-so-fresh feeling. I watched the kids watching TV while B went to her jazzercise, then we all went to Home Depot to pick up a bunch of things we need for the house. I barely made it back to meet up with a friend to go to the Husky game. USC had come to town to put on a football clinic for my hapless Huskies, and and let me tell you, Reggie Bush is damn good. I mean, everyone gave him a standing ovation when he got wrapped up in a big scrum then burst out for a 80+ yard punt return for a touchdown, it was flat-out amazing. I haven't had that good a time at a loss in a long time. This morning we got up and got a bunch of things accomplished around the house, and made some errands back to Home Depot and to Costco. After getting the hanging pot rack hung I invited Corey (aka WOPR) over to watch the Seahawks-Cowboys game. Holy crap. What a game. The first drive our offense was awesome, then a really lucky interception on the 5yd line stopped that drive. Both teams stunk it up for most of the rest of the game, the highlight being Dallas missing an easy 28yard field goal that would have won the game, until with the score 10-3 we got the ball back with about 2 minutes to go. We proceeded to march down the field almost solely due to Dallas defensive penalties, and got a beautiful touchdown to tie the game. With 30 seconds left, Dallas tried to get into field goal-missing range, but threw an INT that was returned 25 yards with 5 seconds left, and we made the 50 yard FG as time expired to win the game 13-10. Almost the exact opposite of last year's offensive shootout, when Dallas came back from a 9 point deficit to make a TD, recover an onside kick and make another TD. Wooo! My Hawks rise to 5-2, still two games ahead in the NFC West. Friday, October 21, 2005
It was finally dry enough to get a first-pass mowing of the back yard, which hasn't been mown in months and was getting rather overgrown. I don't expect much from the yard until we can sink some time into it in the spring. I also got the BBQ reassembled, which was good because B had bought steaks and artichokes for dinner and couldn't find our roasting pan. I also got my booze cabinets(link goes to April 2004 view) up. They are glass-doored bookcases from Ikea (their 'Billy' style) and have a notch in the back on the bottom so they fit flush against the wall with room for trim, but wimpy typical American trim, not 1" x 4.5" fancy trim like I have, so I had to take my jigsaw and enlarge those notches on both cabinets. Now they fit flush, and the earthquake straps are installed, and the shelves put back in. I got 3 boxes of booze put back in the cabinets before I ran out of energy and vegged out. B and I watched the documentary Breasts on the Sundance channel. Interesting and well done. I'm glad I'm a guy. Tonight I'm going to a charity poker tournament, and tomorrow I get to watch my Huskies get demolished by the number 1 team in college football, the USC Trojans. Watching Reggie Bush do his thing will be fun, even if we're on the receiving end of the punishment. Thursday, October 20, 2005
Last night I wasn't able to get poker going since one of my poker buddies is semi-permanently on a 1pm-midnight shift at work, and another is in Hawai'i, and two of the others were lame. There were four of us, not enough to play poker, but plenty to play Settlers of Catan. This is a great German boardgame where resource tiles in the shape of hexagons are laid out to form an island, and the players try to aquire enough resources to build things to either win the game or screw over your buddies. Honestly, it's a remarkably well balanced fun game. Too bad Americans don't play boardgames. We played two rounds of it. The first game had no freakin' bricks. People struggled to build roads. I had a surplus of ore, wheat, and sheep, so I produced a ton of Development cards. This lead to me easily having the Largest Army, plus I aquired three +1 victory point cards and a Monopoly card (where you get all of one particular resource from every other player). I was already the Sheep King, being the only player who got sheep, and after a particularly fruitfull couple of rolls everyone was rolling in wheat, so I played my Monopoly card and aquired 13 (!!!) wheat. I was exactly able to turn those into a settlement and upgrade to a city, so I went from an apparent 5 victory points (3 settlements, +2 for Largest Army) to victory (3 settlements, city, largest army, three +1 victory point cards). Nice stealth win, especially with everyone gunnin' for the obvious 'leader' who was showing 8 victory points! The second game I started next to a 6 Brick and an 8 Wood, so I obviously became the RoadMeister. Some turns I'd build 2 roads just to get rid of cards. I ended up with 5 settlements, but couldn't build more without ore, and my ore mine needed a roll of 4 to pay off. Fortunately, my roads lead to a 3-1 anything port, so I was able to turn enough cards into ore to build a city for the win. Woo! Now I've played this game 4 times, and won all four. My only complaint is the long time some people take to figure things out, which I'd hope would improve with practice. Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Well, I got a bunch of stuff done yesterday. More boxes unpacked, empty boxes broken down and sorted by size, and then Fishpimp came by to get them for his upcoming move. This morning I walked in to work for the first time from the new house. 55 minutes, 3.34 miles using Google Maps. I'll have to study to see if I can find a better route. Man I love the new place. It's so great. EDIT: Cool, using Google Maps, I was able to shave 0.3 miles off the walking route, down to 3.04 miles. (Pretty good considering the "crow flies" distance between my house and my office is 2.76 miles...) That should save 5 minutes at my walking pace. Monday, October 17, 2005
Whew. What a weekend. I spent lots of time yesterday giving house tours to friends who stopped by. Anything to avoid unpacking, or hanging pictures, or work. I am SO happy to have my couch back after six weeks in storage, as well as my beer fridge. Sitting on a comfy couch, kicked back, watching high definition football on the TV while quaffing a cold one on a nice brisk fall afternoon, it doesn't get much better than that. Well, if the kids would stop screaming... Crickey. Those damn kids have simply way too many toys. Their "toy room" is ludicrously packed full, to the point where you can't walk. Uff-da. Isabel found an old unicorn purse, and stuck a princess wand inside it, so she could carry the unicorn around upside down, legs flapped everywhere, with a stick sticking out of it, saying "Aw, my poor Unicorn died." It was awesome watching the Seahawks perform against those hapless Texans last night. Shawn Alexander is always up for those prime-time games, and 140 yards and 4 touchdowns was certainly impressive. Man, my list of things to do is very very long. Uff-da. Saturday, October 15, 2005
Whew. Most of the moving is done. On Thursday I spent the morning at the new place with the cable installer, getting cable modem working and verifying which cable jacks work. We've got 9 working cable jacks, one of them direct-feed for the cable modem, the rest off an amplifier to an 8-way splitter in the basement. I spent most of that afternoon loading the truck with weird-shaped or delicate objects and moving them over. Man oh man it sucks to climb two sets of stairs to haul stuff from the driveway to the 2nd floor. I didn't sleep much Thursday night, constantly thinking of things that needed to happen. Friday morning was more of the same. "Does that corner bench we assembled in the kitchen actually fit *out* either of the doors?" "Crap, I need to remove the swinging door and the doors off the fridge to fit it out.". "Crap, I need to disassemble the kid's bedframes for them to fit out". The movers showed up at 9:30. Four mexicans and two trucks. Man those guys worked their butts off. It ended up taking 11 hours, and we got charged an extra 5%, but that was easily one of the best $2000 I have ever spent. I suspect it'll be a damn long time before I move again, but I am hiring movers. It's SO much nicer to have them haul all my boxes of books up two flights of stairs. Uff-da. After they were done dropping the fridge from this place back at the old house last night, around 8pm, I stayed there for two hours loading the truck with misc crap and filling trash bags with loose debris, closing off room after room. I went home at 10, got to sleep just before midnight, and woke up at 4am. After not sleeping for an hour, I said fuck it and got dressed, went downstairs, unloaded the truck, then drove to the old place. I got two hours of work done there this morning, almost everything is out except some garage stuff and cleaning supplies. Every room is done except a very few bits in the kitchen, and some in the laundry room and garage. Mostly the house needs a vacuum, the floors swept, the kitchen and bathrooms spot-cleaned, and we're out of there! The new owners will be relieved to get the house by noon rather than 9pm, I think they have to be out of where they are living by Tues. Oh yeah, and I'll need to do a dump run for sure. Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Assuming all goes well, both my house and the new place close today. We were supposed to get the keys to the new place at 5pm, but the sellers are being jerks and keeping them until 9pm. They're also being really weird. There is a custom-made cabinet that fits around the weird-shaped space around the furnace in the downstair laundry room. The inspector and I had to pull it out (it wasn't attached) to inspect the furnace. The sellers are saying that we "unscrewed" it during the inspection and since it's no longer attached they're going to take it. Ha! I'm laughing. I mean, I don't care either way, it's kinda nice to have but it does get in the way of the furnace, plus it's part of the MIL space anyway, I flat out don't care. I laugh thinking about them pulling it out tonight, what are they going to do with it? It only fits that one weird space. Whatever floats their boat. I am SO glad I won't have to deal with them anymore. Speaking of funny, I got a spam mail today asking if I wanted to know the value of my home. Um, since they close TODAY, I know their exact value, thanks for playing. I doubt I'll be blogging much the next few days, tomorrow I'll be moving odd shaped stuff and the computers, and meeting with the cable guy tomorrow morning. The movers show up Friday morning. We have to be out of our place by 9pm on Saturday, but I'm still hoping to be able to give it to them much earlier than that, ideally we'd be done Friday night. Not being jerks, we've mowed the lawn, raked up all the leaves, pulled all the weeds, cleaned the bathrooms, and will sweep/vacuum/clean the kitchen before we turn it over. Tuesday, October 11, 2005
For our anniversary last night B and I decided we'd take the whole family out to dinner. Normally we go away for a weekend trip, but NYC counted this year. I figured since we were taking the kids we may as well go to Red Robin, but B said "I am NOT going to Red Robin for my anniversary" so we went to Chinooks instead. While driving there my mother-in-law saw a sign for Fisherman's Terminal, and asked what that was. Being a sarcastic shit, I of course answered, "That's where the fishermen with fatal diseases go." I ordered calimari as an appetizer to continue my quest to get my kids to eat squid. This time it wasn't just rings, it included the tentacles. Both kids were very excited to be eating 'little squid buddies', and especially so about the tentacles. "Daddy, this looks just like an octopus!!". Heh. This wouldn't work if they were 7. If I keep this up, they'll be able to gross out their friends in elementary school. My dinner was a Hawaiian Tombo Tuna filet seared on the outside, served with a wasabi-ginger sauce, and was freakin' awesome. When we got home I took the kids on a commando-quick expedition to the library, and B and I got crackin' on packin'. Almost everything is out of the upstairs of our house, we're getting ready for Friday. Monday, October 10, 2005
Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. It's been awesome. The only "itch" I've got it for Bridget. I wish everyone could find their Bridget and am happy for those who have. Yesterday we did a lot of packing, and for a break I used the DVR to watch the Seahawks play. Man, they looked darn good. Their biggest problem that I can see is they are not putting NEARLY enough pressure on the opposing quarterback. Next week we play Houston on ESPN's Sunday Night Football, and Alexander always gets up for those games, wouldn't surprise me if he goes for 5 or 6 touchdowns. Uff-da. We'll see in two weeks againt Dallas, if both teams keep playing well that should be a heck of a match. The Pac-10 was really weird this weekend, USC rolled like normal but Cal lost to UCLA, and ASU lost to Oregon, and amazingly Stanford beat WSU. I would have been 1 for 4 in picking those results. Our current house has a sort of narrow and steep stairway upstairs. A queen mattress barely makes it up, and a queen boxspring has to be disassembled and rebuilt upstairs to get it up. No, none of the windows is big enough either, or I'd do that. Our boxspring is really nice, with actual springs instead of just being a frame like the cheap ones, but I had to take it apart to get it downstairs, then I put it back together wrong, so I had to take it apart and rebuild it correctly the second time. This morning B and I spent an hour at the escrow place signing all the sales documents on our current house, and the purchase documents for the new one. They both close on Wednesday, and we should get the keys of the new place by 5pm that night. We've got until 9pm on Saturday to be moved out, I'm actually hoping we'll get most everything done with the movers on Friday and be down to just cleaning and yardwork on Saturday. My dream is to be done at noon, so the new folks can have more time to move in. I think they're out of their place the following Monday. Sunday, October 09, 2005
The flight home last night wasn't too bad. We left for the airport at 2:30 for a 6pm flight, because it was pouring rain in Brooklyn and we wanted time to deal with traffic if it was bad, but B's uncle dropped us off at the Newark airport just after 3pm, the roads were full but not slow. There was a bar at the concourse, and when I went in to get a beer while B and the kids ate ice cream, it was fairly full, but not crazy, and there was a lot of waitstaff, but they dinked around and dinked around, and after 15 minutes, I got fed up and left. I mean, any airport bar that won't serve a guy a beer in 15 minutes obviously doesn't want my business. I mean, I only expected to be away from my family for maybe 20 minutes total anyway. One nice thing about not having a big beer was I didn't need to pee on the flight... The flight wasn't full so we got two whole rows to ourselves, which was really nice. The kids did stickers, coloring books, played with their leappads, and watched a DVD for an hour while B and I read, played with the kids, and I listened to my iPod. I got Harry to fall asleep with his head on my lap with about 2 hours to go, and he was racked out cold the whole rest of the flight. The plane landed on time at 9pm, and after getting a shuttle to our offsite parking we drove home, arriving a little after 10pm. Both kids fell asleep in the car, and were successfully transferred to bed. B was exhausted and immediately went to bed, but I had a keg party some friends were throwing to attend. They'd teased me about saying I couldn't come by saying the party wouldn't start until 10:30pm anyway, so I figured I'd been denied a beer in Newark I may as well have one here. I had a great time at the party. They had a pony keg of MGD and one of Red Hook ESB, and the host was very concerned about them not being fully consumed. He'd gotten quite toasty, and it was pretty funny to have a Federal Prosecutor harassing people to drink more beer. Most of the guests were lawyers, but they were pretty fun anyway. About midnight, which felt like 3am to me, I was turning into a pumpkin so I headed home, stopping at the store to buy a gallon of milk for the kids. Saturday, October 08, 2005
Last night we had a fun dinner, some of B's cousins who I hadn't met yet came, as well as the cousin and her son who had come to the zoo earlier in the week. Her boy had been working his mom over, saying things like, "I wish *I* was Harry. Having brothers and sisters sure is special, isn't it Mom? " Nothing like having your only kid beg for a sibling. This morning we went out in the rain and met up with one of B's Peace Corps friends who works at a preschool in NYC. We went to a local cafe for breakfast, I had some superb huervos rancheros. Mmmmm. The place had a sort of rustic theme, and something I've never seen before, varnished sheets of OSB for a flooring. It looked kind of cool, but I could see where the varnish wasn't protecting it from moisture perfectly, I doubt it will last very long. Of course, it's pretty cheap to replace as well... Speaking of funny things, yesterday I saw a shop that said, "Drop your extra stuff off here and we'll eBay it for you!". Wow, what a business model... I wonder what the split is. We're packing and getting ready to fly back to Seattle tonight. Our flight leaves Newark at 6pm and arrives in Seattle at 9pm after 6 hours in the air. Hopefully the kids will nap. I hate how the trip back takes an hour longer than the trip there due to prevailing winds. Tomorrow is packing packing packing. Friday, October 07, 2005
Last night we walked down 5th Ave to a new Thai restaurant with B's granma and uncle, and had an awesome meal. The kids grubbed down on their phad thai and steamed rice with soy sauce, while the adults indulged in a mixed appetizer platter, some fried calamari, panang curry beef, chicken with garlic oyster sauce, clay pot shrimp with rice noodles, a chu chee shrimp and scallops platter, and pineapple fried rice. So nice to have a lovely meal and have the children behave the whole time. Lovely to hear about a terrorist threat to the NYC subway system involving backpacks and baby strollers. Lovely. However, not being one ruled by fear, our plan of attack today involved lots of subway travel with a backpack and a baby stroller. I mean, the news report said it was specific as to mid-October and subways and strollers, but it's not mid-October yet, and with the huge media blitz about it we figured that if they were planning on doing it today, they'd probably bump the plan and let people become complacent again. Also, the thought that 4.5 million people a day take the subway, what are the odds that our non-rush-hour train is going to be one of them? Pretty damn slim. We started the morning going to the Park Slope Cafe, half a block away on 5th Ave. Tiny little hole in the wall diner. Huge breakfast for all 4 of us totalled $12.25. Afterwards we unloaded the backpack to the kids jackets and an umbrella, for the forecast was to finally turn from the sunny and 75-80 we've had to overcast, dark, and rainy. Still freakin' mid 70s, and 100 humidity makes it feel like a sauna, but not in a good way. I'd be a lot happier if I could walk around stark freakin' naked, that's what this weather is designed for. I figured we'd have to stop and get searched each time we got on a subway, but other than a few entrances being closed we didn't see any increased police presence or security. Neither our backpack or stroller were searched, I'm guessing the fact that we are wonderbread white had something to do with it, "searches" in this country are usually aimed at blacks and other minorities. We caught the F train again, getting off at 42nd street and walked over towards Times Square. There we walked around gawking like all the other rube tourists even though we've seen it before, it's still pretty gawdy. Sort of Vegas Lite, (1/3 less evil than regular). I often wonder what it was like in the seedier days before it was cleaned up. We stopped in the flagship Toys Backwards R Us store because they have a 50' diameter indoor ferris wheel. We took the kids for a ride on that, we were in a Mr & Mrs Potato Head car, sadly not the Barbi or My Little Pony cars Isabel wanted or the Fire Truck car Harry got so excited about. Still, it was fun and the kids could see all sorts of things from the 15 minute ride. B bought Isabel some magnetic "paper dolls", Cinderella and her Prince with magnetic clothes you can stick to them, a modern take on paper dolls. Harry got a few Thomas the Tank Engine cars for his wooden train set. Up on the 2nd floor they had a life-sized animatronic T Rex that scared the shit out of Harry but was cool as hell, and a bunch of NYC landmarks each made out of 140,000 Legos, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and a life-size hot dog stand. Uff-da. The Lego section also had bulk bricks, pick the pieces you want out bins, fill a bag for $20. B found a Lego Duplo Bob the Builder set that she and her mom have been looking for for ages, and were unable to find online. (Note to readers: I found it online in about 20 seconds just now, for $7 cheaper with free shipping...). I thought she was crazy since they have this newfangled intarweb, but B said they weren't able to find it either anywhere in Washington or online, so she wanted to buy it and ship it home. Fine, whatever. We buy it, go down to the lower level where there is a UPS store, and those fuckers charged her $45 to ship them to our house. Fuckin' $45. Mind you, it took over a fuckin' half hour for them to get to us, since the one guy there took over 10 minutes per customer. Crickey. They didn't even have the common courtesy to give me a reach-around when they fucked me in the ass. Sigh. Ah well, it wouldn't be a trip to NYC if the rube tourists didn't get fleeced at least once. After that ordeal B and the kids needed food, so we went further up Times Square and they decided they wanted McDonalds. Sigh. Harry eats so slow, too, so that took another half hour. Afterwards we walked around, seeing Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and some of Park Avenue, before taking the #6 train at 51st and Lexington up to 77th. No searches. Getting out, we walked west over towards Central Park and then north to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We mostly kept the kids in the stroller through the Met, and I don't think they appreciated it much, but damn there are some awesome things there. The original "Washington Crossing the Delaware" painting is freakin' enormous, I'd guess it was 15' high by 30' long. Awesome. I was dying of thirst and sick of the kids so we stopped at a cafe inside and while the kids shared an apple I had a Brookyn Pilsner and a Snapple Iced tea. Mmmm, 28oz of liquid with alcohol, sugar, and caffeine put me back in my happy place. We exited the museum, crossed over to Lexington on 82nd, and up to the subway stop at 86th, where after no search we caught the #4 express through downtown, changing to the R train at Atlantic/Pacific, and then two stops later we were home. It had finally started to rain, but not hard. Holy smokes it's steamy however. Extra steamy. Uff-da. Thursday, October 06, 2005
This morning we got kind of a late start, the kids slept in until 8:15, and I was slugabed until 9am. We eventually got showered and ready and out the door, catching the F train the other way to it's last stop, Coney Island. While we were still in Park Slope the weather was darkly overcast with a few drops of rain, but when we got to Coney Island, the weather was 70 and clearing, eventually reaching the high 70s. I was wishing I'd brought my hat, fortunately Harry's head is so big I can mostly wear his hat, which fits a normal adult head. When we got there we headed towards the boardwalk. I know it's the offseason, but man, most places were closed. Towards noon a few more bars and shops opened. We looked out at the Atlantic Ocean, the kids stopped to play at a play structure in the sand. We were getting pretty hungry so we headed back off the Boardwalk and to a gift shop where B bought the kids some cheap $4 t-shirts and got directions to Totonno's Pizza, a pizza place we'd heard about from B's uncle. Totonno's has been around since 1924, with a big old brick coal-fired oven. They make the dough and cheese by hand each morning, and after the dough is spread they cut thin slices of cheese, put those on the dough, then put on a tomato sauce. The theory is the cheese prevents the sauce from making the crust soggy. Anyway, it's thrown in the 850F oven for six minutes, and immediately served. Oh my god. This pizza is so freakin' incredibly awesome. The crust is crispy and as thin as a playing card, the cheese and sauce are light and simply devine. The edges of the crust are as good as a rustic Italian bread. Man, I wish I could bring a fresh hot slice to Thom and Chip, two of my friends who make their own pizza. I ate three big slices but since the pizza wasn't thick it was a perfect portion. I ate the second half of Harry's second piece after it had sat for 25 minutes, and after being cool it was still damn good pizza, it wasn't the perfection it was while fresh and hot. Sort of like a Krispy Kreme, it's most worthy when hot. After lunch we headed over to the NY Aquarium. It's pretty comparable to the Seattle Aquarium in size and scope, but it was fun to visit because they each have things the the other doesn't, including an Isopod called Bathynomus Gigantea, which is a deep-sea (3000m) freakin' pill bug, like the ones you find in the garden, except this sumbitch was over a foot long. Let me tell you, a foot long pill bug is a dang creepy critter. Oooga. After the Aquarium we went to Nathan's Famous hotdogs where I had a hotdog and a soda, and almost ordered their 64oz draft beer but didn't want to get that drunk with the kids. B went next door and got me some swedish fish, the kids got lollypops, and she got a carmel apple and some saltwater taffy for her mom. I had to laugh, the "Coney Island Salt Water Taffy" is made in Boston.
Yesterday we hopped the F train to 4th street, switched to the C train to head up to the American Museum of Natural History. There we met up with one of B's Peace Corps friends and her husband and 3 yr old boy, and B's cousin and 4 yr old son from the day before. The first place we went was the Oceanic room, with a full-sized blue whale hanging from the ceiling, and lots of dioramas of various sharks, walruses, seals, dolphins, etc. Each one had the kids freaking out with excitement, "Dad!! Dad!!! Look! Giant Squids!!!". They were pretty much on a tear all day long, running from one thing, back to us, and back to the diorama. We went up to the 4th floor to see the dinosaurs next. That would have been first but the oceanic display was closing at 1pm for what I assume was a soiree of some sort, that room was the cafeteria last time we were here and is a great place for a party. There was even a dance floor set up under the blue whale. The kids were even more excited if possible about the dinosaur skeletons. They had a total blast. Amazing to think the apatasaurus skeleton there was mounted 100 years ago and was the first ever dinosaur skeleton to be mounted like that. After buying some dinosaur coloring books at the dinostore gift shop, it was time to eat. We went down to the food court where B got the kids and herself some food, and I got myself a beer, a tuna melt, onion rings, and a jello parfait. The adults laughed at me for getting jello, but hey, I like it, especially with cool whip. I *am* guessing that it was intended for children since there was a gummi octopus on top of the cool whip, and a large gummy shark embedded in the jello. The shark was the same blue as the jello so I didn't know what it was until I dug it out. After lunch we took a look at the North American Mammals dioramas. "Daddy!! Daddy!!! A WOLF!" etc. We were waiting until our 2:15 time slot at the Discovery Room. This is intended for kids 5 and up, but has a ton of cool things. They have a spot where kids can pretend to dig up dinosaur bones, which they did for like 10 straight minutes. They have a framework for a dinosaur skeleton with magnetic attachment points, a drawers full of various leg, rib, etc bones, so you can build up a dinosaur skeleton. It was super cute watching the young attendant working with Harry to show him where bones attached. That would have been fun for adults to build. After that Harry had a pretty serious meltdown. Unfortunately the Discovery Room time slots are only 40 minutes, and although he was working on something else when we got booted, he wanted to play with the dinosaur skeleton some more. Poor little guy is pretty overwhelmed and exhausted. B decided she didn't want to fight traffic on the subway so we caught a cab back to Brooklyn. $30 in cab fare was less than I'd expected, and the cabby made better time than I would have guessed as well. The kids both fell asleep in the cab, which was nice. For dinner B found a local pub rated as kid friendly and about 10 blocks away, so we loaded the kids in the stroller and had a nice walk. I put the kids to bed at 9pm while B was downstairs talking with her uncle and grandma, and I lay with them in bed rubbing their heads, 15 minutes later they were both out cold. Much nicer than their struggles to stay awake at 11pm, but they better not get addicted to head rubbing, it's not going to be the regular bedtime routine when we get back home. Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Today was super fun. Well, except for the subway... Heh. After B's cousin Laura and her 4 yr old boy Daniel showed up, we headed out down to take the subway to the Bronx Zoo. The first time we were pregnant would have had us having a baby right about at the exact same time as Daniel was born, but instead we had a miscarriage and then Isabel. I wouldn't give up my sweet Isabel for anything, but I still get sad sometimes about that little baby who never was. Our planned route was to catch the R train here at 4th Ave and 9th street, take it two stops up to Atlantic & Pacific, switch trains to the #5 train, riding that all the way to the Bronz zoo. Unfortunately, after three #4 trains went by we figured out the #5 only comes to Brooklyn during rush hour, so we hopped the next #4. At 125th we changed trains to a #5, getting off at Tremont Ave a few blocks from the Zoo entrance. Not a bad experience, but a loooong trip. Subways work best over shorter distances. The zoo was great. Isabel, Harry, and Daniel were soon thick as thieves, having a grand time. It was near 1pm, so we'd headed to the food court for some grub. I sat with the kids while B and Laura got food. I'd asked for a footlong Nathan's Famous hotdog and an order of curly fries. B forgot the fries, which was OK but I ribbed her a bit about them... Things like after eating some of the kid's fries saying "man these are good, I bet the curly fries here would have been awesome..." I mean, I can't be the perfect husband, it's not in me to resist the little shit EVER time. Daniel had a slice of cheese pizza, and he took one bite and said "no way, this is terrible, i don't want it". Laura was a little distraut with him, but we gave him some of the fries we got for Isabel and Harry and he was happy. After downing my delicious hotdog (Nathan's does make a good 'dog!) I figured I'd eat the pizza slice. Picking it up, I thumped the bottom of the crust with my index finger and it made a whacking noise, like I'd hit a piece of wood. It WAS terrible pizza, Daniel has good taste. We were laughing about that. Laura also got a dig in on me... She was concerned that we might run out of fries, and I said if we did we could easily order more. She said if we did, maybe we should get curly fries... Touche and d'oh! I deserved that snide comment. The zoo had some cool stuff. The reptile house was really neat, with a freakin' huge type of crocogator called a "gharial", that sucker was easily 12' long and 3' wide. Big sumgun. They also had snake-necked turtles, they swim around and have footlong necks that undulate like a snake. Another great feature of the Bronx zoo was in their children's zoo. They had a prairie dog hill with a bunch of prairie dogs eating near the top, and a few clear tubes that connected to a tunnel under the hill. Kids could go into this tunnel and pop their heads up like prairie dogs, with their face just inches away from the real ones. They'd alway howl with glee, and looked cute as hell. Of course, this was the time the batteries in the digital camera died.. D'oh! C'est la vie. The trip home from the Zoo wasn't as much fun. It was rush hour, and to make matters worse, there was something wrong so they had to re-route the #6 train onto our tracks, causing tons of delays while we waited for the tracks to clear. Then as we progressed into Manhattan, the train kept filling and filling, reaching critical mass at Grand Central Station, where our completely full subway car arrived at a platform overflowing with a sea of humanity, all wanting to cram onboard. Crickweasels. At least the car was air conditioned and nobody near me stunk. The rest of the trip was fine, but it took 90 minutes total. Uff-da. Well, a cab would have been probably $40 and taken almost as long.
Last night we headed back to the subway, but since we were going to a set location and not walking around a ton we didn't brin the stroller. Mr Nosuch and I had figured taking the F train to 4th, getting off there and onto an A, C, or E train to 14th would be the best bet. That went off flawlessly, and once we got to 14th we started walking west towards the Hudson river. As we were walking Isabel proclaimed that she had to go pee RIGHT NOW. Oh great. We passed an upscale corner bar and B got permission to use their restroom. Meanwhile Harry and I were standing outside, with Harry pointing out every city bus, taxi, and tow truck to drive by. At this point Mr Nosuch called, quite apologetic, but 14th was not where we wanted to be, rather 23rd. Ooops. When B and Isabel came out we snagged the next taxi and a few minutes later we were up at our destination. Hidden on the Hudson near the Chelsea Piers is an old railroad barge. They have a bunch of tables, some couches, and a bar set up on this barge. It's a nice place to sit on the water, have a burger and a brew, and just relax. It wasn't crowded at all, I'm sure due to the obscurity. Mr and Mrs Nosuch were great, I was just sad that with our kids we had to leave after an hour, we were having a fun time. One thing I was asking about was this sign that is in all of the subway cars. Across the top it says "Please", and there are three things in circles with slashes below. The first is obviously a lit cigarette. No smoking, no problem. The third one is obviously a boom box, no loud music, I can understand that. The middle one is a figure of a guy with one arm extended, with dots emanating from under his arm. Huh? I swear it looks like "no pit reek", which would be an awesome thing to ban from the subway. B thinks it means 'no littering', which is probably more accurate. We all agreed that we'd rather have smokers and boom boxes and littering if they'd get rid of people with body odor... Of course, one strange feature of the East Coast is that when we got home at 9pm, Monday Night Football was just starting instead of almost over. I tried to put the kids to bed around 10-10:30, but they weren't up for it. Finally by 11 we got them to lie in bed, but neither would sleep and they were endlessly fiddling around and bitching and moaning about it. Eventually Isabel fell asleep, but Harry was fighting it as hard as he could. I crashed before midnight when Carolina took their lead to 32-13, I figured the game was over. Of course, the Packers got two touchdowns later and lost on their last drive, 32-29. I don't know how MNF almost always has great games like that, but it happens often enough that I should know not to turn the game off. B got Harry to sleep sometime after midnight, then before 7am he was up again raising a ruckus, so B had me take him for a walk so she and Isabel could get some more much-needed sleep. I didn't even bother to dress him, just stuck him in the stroller and off we went. Eventually we ended up at Prospect Park, which is a pretty large park, but kinda shabby. Lots and lots of dog owners out at that time of the morning. One other weird thing was that most of the bicycle riders were not wearing helmets. You almost never see people on bikes without helmets in Seattle. On the way back we found a place called the Bagel Hole, got some bagels and juice, and headed back. In a few hours we're meeting up with B's cousin and her 3yr old boy for an outing to the Bronx Zoo. Monday, October 03, 2005
It's sure nice having wireless DSL here. Makes looking things up in Google maps or getting the subway map easy. This morning after a quick breakfast we loaded the kids into the collapsible double travel stroller and headed down the block to the subway station at 4th Ave and 9th St here in Brooklyn. B's grandma lives on 12th st right almost on 5th. We figured out where the R train platform was and got on for the trip to Cental Park. 527 stops later we were there. Uff-da, the subway would be better if I stopped to figure out how to find express trains, but it's still pretty darn easy. Once we got to Cental Park, we got a map and started walking around. We found the zoo, looked at polar bears and penguins, ate hotdogs for lunch from a cart, walked up the Mall towards a big fountain, had ice cream bars, walked back, rode the carousel, then took a horse-drawn carriage ride. After all that it was about 2pm and we didn't want to fight the rush hour crowds so we took the R train back to Park Slope. There was a deli right there that advertised fried calamari, and B went in to get herself a BLT and me some fried squid, but they put a very spice pepper red sauce all over it, I'd have preferred the calimari without any sauce, just fried nice and crisp. After we got back to B's grandma's house I ran to a quickiemart for a couple of beers to wash my snack down with. The place was beyond tiny but still had a decent selection of microbrews. I was most impressed. This evening I'm meeting up with Mr and Mrs Nosuch, finally meeting the man who has hosted my blog this past 4.5 years. Sunday, October 02, 2005
Last night we had the annual meeting for my "drinking club with an investing problem". We met at the Maple Leaf Grill, a little restaurant/bar that is located in a converted house in north Seattle. We had reserved what we called the "boob room" since there was an old painting of a reclining naked chick on the wall. We started off with some appetizers and they had some tasty baguette they were cutting up nearby, but they kept throwing the bread heels away. We finally told them to just give them to us, several of us including myself prefer the heel on crusty bread. The staff was awesome, bringing us pint after pint and manhattan after manhatten. I overheard our waiter one time as he was walking to the bar for round 4 saying "Alright!! Finally someone who knows how to DRINK!". I laughed. True, most of the rest of the restaurant was quiet tables with older couples. The Husky football game was on the TV, they were down in LA facing UCLA. The Bruins were favored by 21 1/2, and I expected a blowout, but we actually had a decent showing, keeping the lead for 57 minutes, only losing on a last-minute TD. Of course, for the 4th loss this season our score was 17. We've scored 17 points in each of our 4 losses, and twice 17 in our one victory. Afterwards we went down the street to the Reservoir Tavern, a fun dive bar. They had an oldschool full length shuffleboard table, we played a number of matches, I won 3 of the 4 I played in. Admitttedly I wasn't great shakes on offense, not scoring much, but i was able to prevent the other side from scoring a few good times, so I wasn't totally worthless, especially considering how drunk I was. I bummed a ride home, leaving my truck parked across thes street from my friend's house who lives nearby. Theoretically another buddy is going to bring my truck home today, but frankly I don't care, I got home safely. This morning I was very hung over, and we had to leave our house for the airport by 6:30am. We were mostly packed, and still aren't missing anything critical, so off we went, dropped the car of at an offsite parking place and took their shuttle to the airport. The kids did great, we had seats 11A &B, and 11E&F, since our mindset was on when they flew with carseats and they had to be at windows, but we figured out that doesn't apply anymore. Fortunately the couple who had the two aisle seats took 11A&B, leaving us with 3 seats together and the aisle across. B and I took turns sitting with the kids. Tonight we landed at Newark airport and met up with B's uncle Bobby, who looks EXACTLY like his brother, B's Dad. He drove us to his mother's place in Brooklyn, it was my first time through the Holland tunnel. Lots of tiles in that. Tonight we had a tasty pasta and sausage dinner, and lots and lots of fun conversations. Right now I'm sitting in a room on the 2nd story of the 3-story brownstone, waiting for the kids to fall asleep. Apparently tomorrow we're heading to Central Park to wander around. I figure when we're ready we'll just walk down to the nearby subway station and catch the R train into Manhattan and figure out where to go from there. Tuesday is the Bronx Zoo, and Weds is the Natural History Museum, or maybe those two are swapped. Saturday, October 01, 2005
Wooo! Last night B's mom watched the kids and we went out on a 6 hour date. After making chicken fried rice for the kids, we left at 6:30 and drove by the new place just to oogle it a bit, then went to Bengal Tiger, an Indian restaurant over at 65th and Roosevelt. We found parking across the street, in front of the Scarlett Tree restaurant that had a fire a while back and was closed. Funny, it looks like they just totally abandoned the place afterwards, I mean, the tables in the windows have place settings, salt, pepper, silverware, sugar packets... The fenced-in outside eating area still has tables, blown-over umbrellas... You don't usually see abandoned places like that this side of New Orleans... The whole place totally reeked of smoke, however. The last time we'd eaten there was before we had kids, and both of us love Indian cuisine. The meal ended up being alright, but not great, I thought I remembered really liking the place but I now know that for Indian food I vastly prefer to go to Tandoori on the north part of the Ave. After dinner I put the leftovers in the car while B perused the table in front of the used book store next door. We didn't find anything we wanted, and we had over an hour to kill before meeting our friends to see 'Serenity', so we looked for a bar. I knew there weren't any decent bars near the theater, but right next to Bengal Tiger was a new place that looked nice when driving by. We stepped in to check it out and were immediately assaulted by smoke. Dang old dang old I haven't seen a smokey pit like that in many a day. Most places that have smoking have ventilation, this place was amazing. It looked *really* nice, too, which is funny. Eh, maybe when the 'tyranny of the masses' aka the citizen's iniative bans indoor smoking in Washington this fall (I see no chance of it failing), it will be a fun place to go. I flat-out think the law is a terrible one, people should be allowed to choose, not have it forced upon them. The owner of that smokey hellhole can choose to allow smoking or not, the employees can choose to work there or not, that's how it should be. Not having the majority decide they don't like what a minority is doing so we'll just ban it. Sigh. The erosion of our rights makes me sad. We went a block and a half away to another bar, "Pies and Pints'. They have a restaurant in front that serves a ton of pot pies, chicken, beef, steak-n-kidney, curry, all sorts of pies. They also have a number of tap handles, serving Mac-n-Jack's African Amber, Lagunatis IPA (what I chose), Baron's Heftyweasel, Deschutes Black Butte Porter, Guiness, Stella Artois, Pabst Blue Ribbon (I know PBR was the Seattle cheap beer in vogue a few years back, dunno if it's still 'in') and a few others. B and I grabbed one of the few tables, and after waiting a bit figured out that there wasn't waitservice. The place was nearly packed at 8pm, amazing. There were several groups of old ladies who appeared late 50s early 60s, possibly a work group. A very eclectic crowd. While I waited at the bar for a pint of IPA and a Thomas Kemper rootbeer for B, she saw someone pawing through a pile of games and snagged a backgammon set and set it up. Meanwhile, the bartender poured 3 shots of Jager for this couple and the three of them pounded them. Not very often I see a bartender drinking on the job... I haven't played backgammon since back when we were dating and she got to borrow her boss' cabin on Port Gamble Bay over across Puget Sound. Man oh man that was a fun cabin, I wish I had a place like that. Back then, you could buy an empty waterfront lot over there for $40k, I should have done it. I'm sure you can't get a anything for under a quarter mil now. Mind you, Port Gamble Bay is about a 10 minute drive from the Kingston Ferry dock, so it's super quick to get to other than the ferry ride. B and I fought neck and neck, well matched, but I got lucky right at the end, she needed a pair of 3s and I needed a 4 and a 1, and I rolled 4-1. Woo! In your face!! Hee, not really. One weird thing about Pies and Pints was there were two restrooms, both unisex, no way of knowing if they're full other than trying the handle. When I finally got into one, I was freaked. It had a toilet, a sink, and TWO freakin' urinals. Apparently it didn't used to be a single bathroom. Weird. After the pint and the game, it was time to go, so we went to the theater, met up with our friends, and saw the movie. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and B had a total blast. My favorite movie of the year, but I don't think it'd had much if any competition. I hope it does well, a sequel would be fun. |
|
