Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Sunday, August 27, 2006
Ugga. Our party was a lot of fun, but I was pretty exhausted by 4pm after working hard all day to get things set up. I failed at getting a keg, but I did get four one-gallon to-go beer boxes of BigTime beers, their IPA, Stout, Porter, and Pale Ale. They were delicious. B estimated the turnout at about 40 people. We definitely had critical party mass, and everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time. Wel.... except some of the parents weren't so happy seeing their kids wallow in the dirt pile. It's amazing how dirty some of those kids got. Heh. *I* was laughing. Isabel and Harry turned the bathwater nearly black today. Saturday, August 26, 2006
Wooo! Today's our big Century Party celebrating our house's 100th year. We've got a ton to do. If you're in the Puget Sound area, you should come! 4pm to 2am! Last night we ran a bunch of errands. We went to Display and Costume to get some decorations, to Target to get some 11x14 frames for the 1939 picture we have and the current picture we need to take and have printed. I need to get a keg, we ludicrously still need to figure out what all we're doing for food (right now we've got a spiral ham, crock-pot BBQ pulled pork and beef, with rolls for three kinds of sandwiches. The house is mostly clean, the yard needs to be mowed and the awning and chairs there set up, I need to pick up some chairs from NotMe, I need to figure out what booze and mixers I need, we need probably 10 bags of ice... Crickey. Gonna be a busy day. I'm letting B sleep in, she needs all the rest she can get. If I am extremely lucky I'll squeeze in a nap this afternoon. Thursday, August 24, 2006
Ugga. Ok, so our Century party for our house is this weekend. Looks like we've got over 50 people coming, about half of B's goal of getting 100 people in a day, but still a flaming metric buttload to plan a party for. At least we've done practically nothing to prepare. Gah! Last night we went to Costa-a-ma-co, and got some Mike's hard lime for the chicks and limp-wristed guys, a spiral ham, and, um, crickey I don't remember. Something or another. One thing I *do* remember is they had an uber-cool plastic boxed Erector set, 600+ pieces and a motor, for $40 with a $10 off coupon. That was one toy I always wanted and never got as a kid, and B let me buy the set. Harry thinks it's for me and him, but he'd be wrong about that. It's MINE, all MINE! I'll let him play with it when he's not 4. My poker group is basically down to five guys now that NotMe got married. (RIP). Five is our minimum, so if any of them get nutless and let their wives plan a girls night out on a freakin' Wednesday, which has been the sacred holy Poker Night forever, and thus such activities are strickly verboten, we're screwed. That happened last night, and since we hadn't successfully had poker in nearly a month and I had so much fun at that cardroom in Spokane a week ago, I went with WOPR to go play in a cardroom. We first checked out Club Hollywood, but they were in the middle of a no-limit tourney. Immediately next door is the Drift On Inn, a roadhouse established in 1930 that is now a poker room. Same owner as Club Hollywood, because there is a state law saying that card rooms must be closed 4 hours a day. They offset the closing hours of the two joints so the dedicated gambler doesn't have to go home. The Drift On Inn only had one table running, $4-$8 limit hold 'em. I've never played higher than $3-$6, but figured I'd give it a try. WOPR and I each bought in for $100. WORP did well early, working his way up to $160 or so, and I played very passive, never raising, only calling and never calling raises, working my way down to about $45. There was a wildly aggressive player who was taking pots by making preflop raises, then making a straight with 47u. I saw him lose a big pot by playing 4th pair and figured if I could get some cards I'd make my move. I got pocket aces, the flop was K77, I raised preflop and every chance I got, he re-raised, and I re-re-raised to the limit. Nobody had a set of 7s, so I took that pot. I made a few straights and flushes as well, totally milking the crap out of this guy. Then I started to bluff. With total crap I'd raise preflop, he'd re-raise me, I'd re-raise him back. By the turn or the river, he'd fold cuz he *knew* I only played the nuts. Cha-ching! I worked my way over $300, then I wasn't getting as good of hands and slowly worked my way down to $200 at 10:40pm, so I called it a night. Up $100 and had a hell of a lot of fun, not too shabby. WOPR ended up down $50, but at one point with pocket 7s the flop came out AJ7. He had a set, but the turn and the river were suited and filled in a straight, so he lost that $100 pot. Runner-runner cards to break his set. Gah! Wooo! My boss gave me permission to buy a new Mac Pro. Must get it ordered. Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Gah I've got to get back to blogging. Vacation ruled, but it was very tiring. We took the boat out several times a day, the kids spent tons of time playing in the water or in the sand on the beach, B spent a ton of time in a chaise lounge on the dock watching them, while I racked out in the hammock on the porch reading or napping. On Thursday afternoon we packed up, then went into town to meet one of my brothers and his family at Savageland, which is a pizza place that is sorta going for the Chuck E Cheese vibe, with tons of carnival games you can earn tickets from to spend on worthless crap. They had a large 3-story kiddie-Habitrail like some McDonald's do, Isabel had a blast climbing all through it. At one point I was looking for B and the kids and found them with Isabel playing some driving game, driving a Hummer at 60mph through an obstacle course and doing a pretty decent job at it, with a maniacal gleam in her eye. I'm doomed when she gets to be 16. The pizza my brother ordered was pepperoni, sausage, and bacon. Mmmm. Bacon makes everything taste better. Afterwards we drove to B's sister's house for the night, but I got dropped off in the lovely "Felony Flats" neighborhood in Spokane (a nice methed and cracked-out run-down neighborhood near the courthouse and jail) where my oldest friend (28 years and counting!) lives now. We spent a few hours talking and drinking beer, then he dropped me off at my sister-in-laws house. Friday morning I had to help my brother-in-law run electricity under his sink so he could get a sink beaver. I had tried previously to help him install one but the drain was too high and needed lowering, which I wasn't willing to tackle, so I punted to a plumber. The plumber said he wouldn't start until there was power. Crickey. *That* I'm willing to do. 2.5 hours and two trips to the hardware store later and he had a brand new GFCI outlet under his sink on the same circuit as the one we pulled years ago for the dishwasher I installed. Man his tools sucked. Afterwards we loaded up to head out for our weekend camping trip with B's relatives. On the way out of town we stopped off at my mom's new apartment, they're in the same building but moved from the river side of the 6th floor to the downtown side of the 10th floor. They can still see the falls, but head-on now, and have an awesome view of town. Pretty cool. I switched my mom from dialup to use Spokane's free downtown wireless. The camping was at Sun Banks Resort on Banks Lake near Grand Coulee dam. Unfortunately, I was never given the name in writing, and I'm sure I was told "Sun Lakes resort", which is a resort about 30 miles south, right next to Banks Lake on Sun Lake. Bah! Fortunately, the driving directions we got from B's sister took us to the right place, but when we got there I was sure we were 30 miles out of our way. It's a private for-profit campground, with some cabins for rent, RV hookups, and people packed in like sardines. Not my usual thing since I don't have an RV needing hook-ups. They had a stage right across from our campsites, and about 6pm on Friday this gap-toothed unclefucker starts playing music really really fucking loud. Like concert-loud. Apparently from 7pm-10pm they do karaoke. Gah! It did NOT need to be so loud that you couldn't talk to the people around us. Fucker. Every time we asked him to turn it down a little he turned it up. The only people who did karaoke were little kids, who shouldn't be around music that loud. Nothing like hearing an 8 year old mumble every 5th word to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". I tried to drown my sorrows but just kept getting more pissed off. Fortunately my kids can sleep through anything but it took them a while. Saturday night the stage had a live band, but they were really good and the volume was much more reasonable. I left with some of B's relatives at 8:45pm to go see the "laser show" at Grand Coulee Dam. They open all the spillways to cover the dam with white frothy water then have what was basically a laser version of the old-style filmstrips we used to see in elementary school back in the day. Weirdest laser-show ever. A documentary about the Columbia River and the building of the dam, but narrated by the river. Oh, and with musical interludes that sounded like a boss at the Bureau of Reclamation let his daughter record something on a casio keyboard. Totally NOT Laser Floyd. When we got home on Sunday it was somewhat of a relief, my "vacation" of 10 days was fun but exhausting, we always burn the candle at both ends. B asked me what I wanted for dinner. I laughingly suggested Phad Thai, a running gag since I always either say "Phad Thai" or "Steak!" when asked. B checked her email and found out that we were invited to have dinner downtown at a Thai restaurant with my friend Mel who is in town from Florence, Italy. I mentioned before that he'd had stomach problems the day before the reunion, but I forgot to mention he failed to come to the reunion because it turned out he underwent an emergency appendectomy that day. D'oh! Anyway, that gave us our dinner plans. B fed the kids and mom-in-law, then we took off. The restaurant was at 1st and Mercer, base of Queen Anne hill near Seattle Center. WOPR wasn't there, and a half hour later I knew he was lost. I had tried to call him earlier, but he never ever answers his cell phone. It turned out he'd come down to 1st and Mercer, found a closed Thai restaurant, tried to call a friend who was in a movie at the time, and then gave up and went home. I made him come back and call me when he got there. He gets there, I'm standing outside on the corner, and he says he's at 1st and Mercer. Um, that's where *I* am. Suddenly it occured to me that since the numbers counted down to me, two blocks over they start up again in the other direction. I'm at 1st North and Mercer, WOPR was at 1st West and mercer. That whole lower Queen Anne neighborhood has at least 20 Thai restaurants, but I'm glad I brought the name and actual address. Anyway, I figured it out and got WOPR there too. Mel's neice was there. Back in college when she was like 9 we picked her up after school (like 3rd grade) and took her down to Seattle Center, went up the Space Needle (my only time), etc. Every time I've seen her since then I've had a hard time accepting that she's not 9. I mean, she's 27 now. Crickey. After the restaurant we went to a nearby bar because some of the people wanted to do karaoke. Gah! B was laughing, she'd never ever been anywhere with karaoke and now she's been exposed to it twice in 48 hours. Mel's neice had a hell of a voice, the karaoke there was of MUCH higher quality. Last night B and I met up with two friends for dinner. We went to Morton's Steakhouse, because they have a deal until the end of September for Steak and Seafood for 2 for $99. You each get a filet mignon, your choice of 3 jumbo baked shrimp or a crab cake, salad, you split a potato and a veggie, and you each get either chocolate cake or creme brule. Everything was awesome, the filet was perfect, there was bearnaise and hollendaise sauces in case your arteries hadn't exploded from seeing the food, it was a damn fine meal, and less than half of what it would cost otherwise. Afterwards the four of us went down to Shilshole Marina. Our friends' friend's brother owns a million dollar boat down there that they have access to. It was an old Canadian research ship, shaped like a tug boat, something like 55-60 feet long. It's been refurbished amazingly, tons of polished wood, Viking stove in the galley, SubZero fridge, everything money can buy. Three staterooms, nice galley, nice living room. It's good to be the king. When we got home finally we checked on the kids. Harry is a nut. He moved his pillow to the middle of the bed against the wall, and was sleeping perpendicular to the bed, with his and lower legs sticking out into space over the side. Crazy. I should have taken a picture. Tuesday, August 15, 2006
On Sunday there was a reunion picnic and tour of the high school. Apparently the reunion committee paid the janitors $200 or something to open the school to us. I hadn't been back in 20 years, and it was pretty bizarre walking those halls again. Afterwards everyone met at the park next to the high school and chatted while the kids played on the playground equipment and they have a "spray pad", a concrete pad that slopes to a drain with a lot of water jets, waterfalls, a thing that fills these buckets up and when they get full they tip over dumping out, etc. Unfortunately the water coming out was friggin' icy cold. Brrr! We packed up and headed out to my folks' lake place. The weather the past few days has been awesome, 85F and sunny. Monday was gorgeous, today was the same except a bit more wind than I would like. My dad got a used boat to go with his new dock, it's like a 17 foot bayliner with an 85 horse outboard. He got it from a friend of my brother's for $600, but the upholstry was thrashed. Fortunately the airway heights prison has a program where they'll re-upholster stuff for cost of materials, so for $700 more it's got a sweet new interior. Very nice, runs strong. We've been having fun going out in it every day. B and I have been using the sauna every night as well, cranked up to 190F with lots of water ladeled on the rocks for steam. Mmmm. Isabel is a swimming fool with her little swim life jacket on. She'll jump off the deep end of the dock and swim the 60' to shore. Harry prefers to jump off the start of the dock where it's only 6" deep. Sunday, August 13, 2006
Reunion story, part 2. Sorry about this being in two parts, it was time to check out of our hotel this morning so I had to wrap that up. Ok, so I was hung like a french monkey. WOPR came over and we decided we desperately needed food, and that we were going to try out Sonic Drive In. We've seen their ads during bowl games, but I'd never been to one, and didn't understand it was a 50s style drive in, where you order through a speaker next to your car and a girl on rollerskates brings your food out to you. Getting some much-needed food into me helps immensely, and then I noticed that about 15' in front of where we parked was one of my older brothers, his wife, and his daughter. I laughed and went to talk to them. Very funny running into them at random like that. After lunch we went to visit my friends new wacky old junk shop. They sell old toys, vintage bicycles, old records, collectible books, old lunch boxes, tons of weird shit. Tons of Star Wars toys I had as a kid. It was nice to see it open for business instead of the in-process mess it was when I saw it last, um, May I think it was. He wasn't there, his friend said that when he showed up at 6:30am for their regular Saturday morning estate sale run (how they aquire the weird crap they sell) that my friend was still drunk and pretty surley, and at the moment (it was like 1pm by then) he was back home napping. Ah, at least I wasn't the only one paying the piper! A few minutes later another friend sent us a text message that his brain hurt. Another victim! Too much booze 4, me and my friends 0. Eventually we made our way back to my brother-in-laws place, hung out in the moho for a while, then WOPR went to check into his hotel room, and B and I said goodbye to our kids and went to the hotel. We showed up to the reunion right on time. It was at a big new indian casino near the airport, typical conference room. They have a really nice poker room in positive-pressure sealed non-smoking room, and were floating limit texas hold'em in the $1-$2, $3-$6, $4-$8 kill pot, and $10-$20 varieties. Damn, you don't see $10-$20 very often. Those guys were maniacs. The reunion itself was a lot of fun. There were about 140 people there, some of whom were spouses but there were over 100 people from our class of 370. Amusingly some of the people from the night before didn't go to the actual reunion. Crickey, if you can't afford $86 once a decade when you are 38, you have issues. There were definately people grouping together with their friends from high school, but I'd say well over 75% where mingling around, I talked to all sorts of people that I never talked to much in high school. I hear other reunions aren't like that, but everyone was very cool, and had basically outgrown the cliquish bullshit of being a teenager. Things wound down around 1am, and they shut down the booze and basically kicked us out. Crickey, it's a 24 hour casino, why not give us the room until 6am and have the morning shift clean it up for the next event. Anyway, a friend of mine took B back to the hotel while WOPR and I played $1-$2 limit hold 'em. He figured the low stakes would be good for how drunk and tired he was, and I was just having fun. By 3:30am I determined that I had just proved that I enjoy poker more than sleep. I only had $80 left on me when I bought in, and had nearly worked it to $120, but then it was down to $89 when I bought out. WOPR bought in for $100, built it up huge, then pissed it away to about $55, losing $45. This morning came far FAR too early. Speaking of which, it's 10pm, I gotta get some shuteye.
Uff-freakin'-da. Friday we loaded up the truck and drove across the state to Spokane. We stopped for lunch in Ellensburg, and B wanted to go to Subway but they were ludicrously packed so we went to a family restaurant a block off the highway we could see. It was a in a failed Red Robin, the decor of which made us laugh, but it was Bavarian themed, and I had an absolutely incredible bavarian stew. Mmmmmm. When we got to Spokane we went to B's sister's house and basically dropped the kids off. WOPR had recently hit town and came by, and since B and her sister's family were ordering pizza and I'd already determined that I'd kill every last one of them for one bite of onion ring I took off with WOPR to The Onion, a bar/restaurant downtown. We had some dinner and beer, then we met up with B and her friend at 8pm at The Viking, one of my favorite bars. Our high school reunion didn't have anything planned for Friday night this time, so months ago B had emailed the reunion committee asking about that and suggesting meeting at the Viking. She never heard back, so she emailed the 19 people we had access to their email addresses (mostly through another friend) saying the spread the word. Well, on Thursday we got email from one of the reunion committee guys saying they'd booked a room at a bar downtown. Gah! If they'd said they were going to take care of it we'd have been fine, or if they'd announced their bar a few weeks sooner rather than the day friggin' before we could have notified people. Gah! Anyway, there were 8 of us at the Viking, and by 9pm we figured we'd caught any but the most agregious stragglers so we all migrated downtown to the gayest-named bar I'd ever heard of, "Heroes and Legends". There must have been 80 people there that night, and we had a great time. The idiots didn't bring any "Hello my name is:" tags, so nobody could figure out who the hell anybody else was, but we slowly figured things out, assisted and impeded by huge quantities of beer. My good friend Mel had flown in from Florence, Italy, where he does something with his law PhD, or whatever you call a the doctorate in law. He was feeling poorly, with some serious stomach issues, but he thought it was because of his 3 days of travel to get to Spokane, escaping Heathrow a mere 6 hours before they shut it down. B just told me that apparently he's teaching law there, for some program for Spokane-based Gonzaga University's law school. Huh. Anyway, we got thrown out of that bar at 1am, an hour after closing. They had a hard time kicking us out, at one point turning out the lights and threating to just lock us in overnight. Saturday I woke up in the back of my brother-in-law's motor home (aka the moho) that was parked out in front of their house, feeling seriously SERIOUSLY majorly hung like a french monkey. Like nearly hurling, but not quite. Very delicate. Ugga. Far too much beer and not nearly enough hydration. Thankfully my brother-in-law had left gatoraid and water in the fridge in the moho, so I was able to live to walk to the house. Ugga. Aw crap I'm out of time, more details later hopefully. Wednesday, August 09, 2006
This weekend B and I are going to Spokane for our 20 year high school reunion. We met at our 10 year reunion. Next week we're going to stay at my parent's lake house, then next weekend we're going camping with B's relatives. To save ourselves an extra trip across the state, we're just going to bring all our camping gear with us, so to save time B and I spent an hour last night loading it all up in the back of the truck, just leaving room for clothes. We'll figure out what we'll need for food later next week. I got the booze cabinets put back where they belong in the living room after B's painting, and most of the booze reloaded. Moving 180 bottles of booze ends up being a hell of a lot more work than you'd think. Monday, August 07, 2006
Whew. We had 11 hours of Seafair parties last weekend, and got to see the Blue Angels perform both days. Both parties had crazy amounts of people, over 50 at the one on Saturday and nearly 80 at the one on Sunday. The kids did great both days. I drank something around a dozen pints of Deschutes Mirror Pond pale ale on Saturday, and immediately went to sleep when we got home. Uff-da. I was a dehydrated hung-over monkey on Sunday morning, but a few more beers and lots of great BBQ set me mostly straight. At the sunday party the hosts had rented an inflatable bouncy room set up in their back yard, the kids had a blast in there, as did B. She was one of the few adults to cut loose in the bouncy room. Very amusing. The saturday party was serving excellent Hebrew National hot dogs grilled up, nearly the best hot dogs I've ever had. They had a ludicrous number of toppings, I think they had 30 different toppings besides ketchup and mustard. My brain locked up every time I saw them, so for my second dog I just had it plain on a bun, it was excellent. The sunday party was at one of my poker buddies' house, they'd just finished a second story addition, so it was basically an entirely new house. All I have to say is it's good to be the king. They're in the financial bracket I like to describe as "socially secure". Very fun weekend. Our big party is in 3 weeks, and we're out of town the next two weekends. In addition to going to 5 hours of party yesterday, B got the kitchen floor cleaned, she painted the living room, did a ton of laundry, and got the bathrooms cleaned. Amazing. I got fuck-all done besides partying. I am on the hook to move the booze cabinets back in the living room and reloaded the nearly 200 bottles so we can reclaim our dining room table. Saturday, August 05, 2006
Last night after work B picked me up with the kids, and instead of going to my work kegger, we drove down towards Fremont to meet up with some friends of ours. They have a 32' boat they moor under the shadow of the Aurora Bridge, and we loaded up, unmoored, and started boating around Lake Union on a gloriously sunny cloudless summer afternoon. First we headed east, towards Lake Union. Along the south side there are the ubiquitous houseboats everywhere, and lots of places renting moorage. Boats galore in every size, people sailing back and forth. Drydocks, commercial ships, fishing vessels, tugs. Along the north end of Lake Union is Gas Works Park, an old gas works that they left in place when they turned it into a park. We headed further east, towards the majestic double-decker I-5 Ship Canal bridge, and the University drawbridge. The Skansonia Ferry, where NotMe got married six weeks ago, is moored on the north side. Passing the University bridge, we enter Portage Bay, with houseboats and two yacht clubs covering the south side, and the UW on the north side. The kegger at my work is in full swing, we can easily see the crowd of people on the deck imbibing, and the smoke from the half 55-gallon-drum BBQ cooking burgers. Ted and I are up on the flying bridge, with the kids and wives down on the back and in the main cabin. Sadly, B hadn't brought my new Husky baseball cap, (my 10+ year old one was lost at sea in Cabo while marlin fishing earlier this year) so the sun was pretty bright even with sunglasses. We turned the boat around and headed back, passing through Lake Union again and under the George Washington bridge (aka Aurora Bridge) and the Fremont drawbridge before entering the Fremont Cut. The south side of the cut is the campus of Seattle Pacific University, and man would it suck to sit in class all day long with your windows having a view of boats going past. I'd *never* be able to concentrate. The further down the cut you go, the more industrialized it is. There's still houseboats, but there are the drydocks where Foss makes tugs, other shipbuilding concerns, some huge seafood processing plant, and on the north side you've got the industrial part of Ballard, with Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel taking up a huge chunk of waterline. Once under the Ballard Bridge (another drawbridge) we swung immediately south into Fisherman's Terminal, to stop off at Little Chinooks to pick up some dinner. Little Chinooks is the fried-fish fast-food portion of Chinooks restaurant. We got some fish-n-chips, and I stopped in the Quick E Mart there for some milk for our friend's toddler and a large Corona for myself. We ate on the back of the boat, and the kids threw the extra fries at the ducks, geese, swans, and seagulls that surrounded us as soon as the kids tossed a fry at them. After we left Fisherman's Terminal and the zillions of Alaska commercial fishing vessels docked there, I drove us back down the Fremont Cut and into Lake Union, heading south towards downtown. The west side is Queen Anne hill, covered in condos, with houseboats and moorage along the water. At the south end of Lake Union we passed McCormick and Schmicks Harborside, where B and I had our wedding reception. We went up the east side, past more drydocks, Kenmore Air's float plane service, and the burned hulk of the NOAA dock that caught fire a few hours after the 4th of July fireworks show. Purely coincidental, cause of the fire was a frayed electrical cord. In the middle of the north end of Lake Union is a large rectangular area demarked by four yellow buoys, it's the high-speed test run area. The entire rest of the water there has a 7 knot "no wake" rule. I lined us up and juiced the gas, apparently without warning the folks below, causing some things to spill and nearly knocking the kids over. Heh, my mission accomplished! Ted and I were laughing at the screams from below. We docked around 8:30pm, after a 3 hour tour where the weather never got less than awesome. Super fun! Their dream is to buy a 60' boat someday, and take their kids out fo school for two years to boat down the West coast, through the Panama Canal, through the Carribean, up the East coast, through the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, and back through the Panama Canal to home. Friday, August 04, 2006
Last night after dinner B took Harry to his last swim class of the summer season, and I took Isabel to run some errands. Our first stop was to Schucks Auto Supply to buy a new battery for my '71 Olds Vista Cruiser station wagon. The current battery had been getting weaker and weaker, and now won't take enough of a charge to start the beast, so it was time for a new one. They no longer sell the exact form factor of the old battery (and lord knows they thankfully don't sell anything like the original one) but I got one that was close enough. The Vista battery terminals are the screw-onto-the-side type, but I spent the extra $5 to get a battery with both side screw holes and top posts, for easy jump-starting, both giving and receiving. That reminds me, I need to get a new battery to replace the POS that Kia stuck in our minivan. Anyway, after that we went to MegaPetMartCoWhatever. B had gotten a little 2-gallon mini aquarium from her sister for the kids' goldfish, Spike and Spike, and it needed both a new light bulb and an airstone for the filter. The pet store is right at 45th and I-5, in the location that used to be Silo, the old chain of electronics and applicances that I bought all my crap in before it went tits up and Best Buy moved in. Isabel had a grand time looking at the fish, snakes, lizards, turtles, hermit crabs, cats, rats, guinea pigs, ferrets, mice, and hamsters. She wants a hamster, she thinks they are ridiculously cute. When we got home I got the aquarium parts installed and the light still didn't work. Turned out the switch needed repair, so I did that. Guess I have some spare bulbs now. I cleaned out the cruft from the battery compartment on the Vista, sprinkled in some baking powder, and installed the battery. Turned the engine over for a bit to get the fuel pumped forward, and once again it starts and purrs like a kitten. Sweet! Next I need to get some new tires, the ones on it are pretty sad. Full Metal Jacket: Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Holy Jesus! What is that? What the fuck is that? WHAT IS THAT, PRIVATE PYLE? Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, a jelly doughnut, sir! Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: A jelly doughnut? Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, yes, sir! Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: How did it get here? Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, I took it from the mess hall, sir! Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Is chow allowed in the barracks, Private Pyle? Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, no, sir! Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts, Private Pyle? Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, no, sir! Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: And why not, Private Pyle? Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir! Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Because you are a disgusting fat body, Private Pyle! Private Gomer Pyle: Sir, yes, sir! A week ago monday I got on the scale in the morning and was 204.2. Gah! I immediately thought of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman saying "You are a disgusting fat body!" "Sir yes sir!" Apparently camping had been very VERY fun. Heh. I do not want my weight exceeding 200 pounds, if just left to my own devices I'm sure I'd soon weigh 300 pounds. Thus, when I hit 200 I start emergency weight loss procedures. For me, that involves eating my normal breakfast, my normal lunch, a slightly smaller than normal dinner portion, and NOT scarfing down everything around that isn't too difficult to un-nail. I'm pretty happy with the results:  Thursday, August 03, 2006
Last night B had jazzercise, so after dinner I took the kids down to U Village for their summer concert. Harry's plan was to have a bath then go play in the dirt pile again (in that order, too) but he was happy enough going to listen to music. This week it was The Nowhere Men, a local Beatles cover group. They were OK, but they're not the Beatles. Either I don't know that many Beatle's songs or they were playing deep into the backlist, since I only recognized about half the songs. The kids had fun, they made me park on the roof of the parking garage. U Village's newish (built 3-4 years ago probably) parking garage has six levels, A-F, each named after an animal. (Anteater, Bear, Cow, Dog, Elephant, Frog). They love to pick which level to park on, since pressing the elevator call button on that level makes a sound for the appropriate animal. Dunno what noise an anteater makes, from that level I take the escalator. From the roof (aka Frog level) you have an amazing view of Mount Rainier over Lake Washington, as well as a panorama of the mall itself. It's sort of a pain in the ass to get high up in that garage, you have to drive the length of the garage each way to go up a level, but there is a spiral exit that lets you out quickly. B joined us part way through, but when it was time to leave she went shopping at Victoria's Secret for a new bra. I think her quote was, "I need an amazing new bra for the reunion next week. I want everyone to know your wife has cleavage!" LOL. I was going to go straight home but I decided to stop off at QFC. Two weeks ago they had an end-aisle special of Full Sail's Session Premium Lager half racks for $9, but I didn't have time then to pick up more than two. That sale had sailed, but it was still only $11 for a halfrack so I picked up another pair. Session is a great session beer, easy-drinking, just enough flavor, basically american megalager done right. Perfect for hot weather, and the old-school 11oz stubby bottle rules. We ended up getting home after B, right before bedtime. Strange things I've seen in the last few months biking on the Burke-Gilman trail: * Woman jogging along holding flaming torch. Actually flaming. * Not one, but *two* guys commuting to work with those bike attachments that is a seat and third wheel for a kid. (REI calls them Kid' Trailer Bikes) I've never seen this in eight years of bike commuting, and then twice in one morning. I thought they detached from the seat post easily, so why pull the extra weight to work, but who knows. * Guy biking in blue spandex shorts. No underwear, and the spandex was tight enough to render it see-thru. Nasty. * Gal jogging in white t-shirt and no bra, totally sweat-soaked like she was having a one-woman wet t-shirt contest. She won, handily. Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Our backyard is sort of a mess. The lawn is OK, but very lumpy and sloped. The planters around the sides of the lawn are all weeds right now. We haven't put any work into it mainly because we're hiring my brother to destroy the whole thing this fall/winter and level it out and terrace the back. No point planting/weeding/etc if it's all getting torn out anyway. There are two about 6'x12' planter beds along one side, they most likely won't be touched by the new lawn project. Both are 4' high with weeds. I spent about two hours last night pulling all the weeds out of one of the, then raking it over a bunch of times, and finally using a spade to till the soil over. I know I loved playing in dirt patches when I was a kid, so why not make a perfect dirt patch for the kids to wallow in. Heh. When I came home from work today, Harry was filthy. His face was covered in dirt, he'd obviously been out there barefoot, and his fingernails will never be the same. He had quite the smile on his face, however. Well worth the two hours. Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Woooo! I am super happy today, and that's because I am NOT hung over! I've been dancing my "I'm not hung over" jig all morning. Of course, I'm normally not hung over, but last night was my drinking club meeting (err, drinking club with an investing problem) and the host member is the other single malt scotch fan, and he'd recently been on a two-week tour of distilleries in Scotland. I tried six new scotches, plus I'd had two beers, so I was pretty happy to wake up feeling fine. I guess scotch is my only *true* friend. (Homer Simpson quote: "Beer will never leave me. Beer is my only TRUE friend." Wooo! The Risk-like game Dice Wars is pretty fun, if pretty random. (Gotten from Phil Steinmeyer's blog) |
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