Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Saturday, September 30, 2006
Last night B decided that she didn't want to cook dinner, so we ended up going to Tutta Bella for some more damn tasty pizza. After the kids were put to bed B and I watched "The Aviator", we'd had the DVR record it a few weeks ago when one of the pay channels had a free weekend. Pretty good movie, but Howard Hughes was as crazy as a pack of French weasels. I did hate the fact that each part of the movie was colored using a simulation of that era's coloring, which looked like a pile of steamy dogshit. Friday, September 29, 2006
Man, I have flat-out too many books to read in my "ready rack". I'm currently in the middle of "Balance of Trade", the latest Sharon Lee & Steve Miller "Liaden Universe" paperback. Meanwhile, for some reason last week I checked to see if Dewey Lambdin had written any more Alan Lewrie books, and sure enough there was one just this month. I reserved it from the library, and when I picked it up on Tuesday, I noticed the stamp on the inside was 9-25-2006, so the book had been in the library's hands only one day. Meanwhile, I want to read "Crown of Slaves" by David Weber to finish up his Honorverse backstories that I'm missing, "Growing Up Weightless" by John M. Ford who died this week, "Dies the Fire" (and it's sequel) by S.M. Stirling who is showing what happened to the rest of the world from his "Island in the Sea of Time" series when Nantucket goes back in time. I've also aquired a copy of "Mr Midshipman Easy" by Captain Frederick Marryat, an 18th century Age of Sail novel written by someone who'd been there. Oh crap, I've also finally got the 4th of the Nicholas Seafort series by David Feintuch, and I have the 5th and 6th of that series as well. That's what, two I'm currently reading plus 8 others. Oh, and I have "Day of the Triffids" as well, haven't found "Alas, Babylon" yet. I guess that makes at least 9. Oh glub, when I was uncrating my last six boxes of scifi paperbacks (authors N-Z) the other day I found "The Gnomewrench in the Peopleworks" by Nick O'Donohoe that I'd bought and never gotten around to. That makes 10. Crickey, I've also got "The Wind Rider's Oath", the latest in David Weber's Hradani series. That makes 11 plus the two I'm currently reading. I need more reading time. Thursday, September 28, 2006
The grass is starting to sprout in our back yard. B's been watering it 3 times a day, and the weather has been a very agreeable mid-70s and sunny. Gah! We managed to get invited to two different events Sunday night. NotMe is throwing a pizzafest for the football game, and B's friends are having their monthly dinner party. B and the kids are going to her friend's party, I'm torn between the two. Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Well, 25 pounds of corn nuts officially lasts me 6 months. I guess that means I eat about a pound of corn nuts per week. Time to order some more. Last week during poker some of my friends mentioned there was a new post-apocalyptic TV show this season, "Jericho". Of course, the show is on at like 8pm on Wednesdays, and they told me around 10pm, so I'd missed the pilot. Fortunately, they rebroadcast it on Saturday, so I watched it last night. Definitely creepy, but not super great, at least yet. I don't hate it like I hate Lost, so I'll give it at least another episode. I do love "Studio Sports Night on the West Wing Strip", however. Sorkin writes TV shows I enjoy. I'm not even sure that I'm trying to watch anything new this season besides those two. Tuesday, September 26, 2006
While biking home last Friday I had an epiphany: I need another drinking club. This time, I want one with zero requirements, so I decided I'd start my own "Book Club". The third Friday of every month I'll go to the Wedgewood Ale House with my fellow "Book Club" members, and we'll discuss anything but books. It's only a book club in that some of the members might need that excuse for their spouses. Two drinking clubs is obviously better than one. Monday, September 25, 2006
Geez, I have to turn in my Man Card. B went out drinking with some friends at the Wedgewood Ale House on Friday. She got together 6 girls, and they closed the place down, she didn't get home until almost 1am. After the football game, my friend and I took the 65 bus up 35th to the Wedgewood instead of the 75 to my place. I used my cell phone to call every guy I knew. I was able to get a grand total of 3 people there, include myself and my friend who'd gone to the game with me. We drank until about 10pm. That means I could only get half as many guys, and we only partied half as long, as my wife. Owowowowowow. Time to hang my head in shame. Sunday morning we drove to Home Despot, I bought ten 1"x6"x8' #2 pine boards to make another 40 feet of paperback book shelves for my computer room. I still have 7 boxes of books that haven't been unpacked since moving, and have aquired more books. B got a bunch of bulbs to plant in the new beds in the backyard. The Seahawks game was pretty cool. With 4 amazing wide receivers, we can be in a 4 wideout set all day long, and someone is always uncovered. Geez. We took the NY Giants to 42-3 at the end of the 3rd quarter, talk about a thrashing. They're a really good team, too. If we can deliver like that on the road at Chicago next week I'll be amazed. It's looking like another great season. Sunday, September 24, 2006
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man, that Husky game yesterday was AWESOME! It started out terrible. The UCLA Bruins drove down on their first possesion into the red zone, but we held them to a field goal. The Huskies went 3 and out their first four possesions. The only semi-bright spot was that in four trips to the red zone, the Bruins were held to field goals 3 times, so instead of being buried 0-28 it was "only" 0-16. With 5 minutes to go in the first half, the Huskies had 3 yards of total offense, and their only first down was due to a penalty. The Huskies proceeded to drive 95 yards down the field for a TD, almost completely with passing plays, and go into the half down 7-16. I don't know what happened in that locker room at halftime, (out on the field the Huskies retired Warren Moon's jersey) but the Huskies came out all fired up. We outscored UCLA 22-3 in the second half to win decisively 29-19. The stadium was f'ing loud as hell every time the Bruins had the ball, and our defense just started to smother them. Awesome. The Huskies are now 3-1, that equals our win total from the previous two seasons combined, and have a Pac-10 conference win against a real opponent. Our shot at a bowl game increased immensely, and the team showed some real guts after being completely and totally ineffective on offense for nearly half the game. Hands down the most amazing play of the game was when on a 65 yard punt that overshot the coverage, UCLA had their kick returner juke around several Huskies and go sprinting down the sidelines. Greyson Gunheim, a 6'5" 265 pound defensive lineman ran down the sideline after him AND MADE THE TACKLE, inside the 10 yard line. He didn't have the angle on him, he flat out OUTRAN the kick return guy. Unbelievable. It's sorta shocking to see a giant beast run like that, but Gunheim is an amazing player, I'm sure he'll make the NFL barring injuries. No wonder he's so good. Saturday, September 23, 2006
Been a busy week. My Seahawks looked a heck of a lot better last week, we'll see how they do against the Giants tomorrow. It's rained most of the week, really the first serious rain we've had for a long time. On Monday I was down in the garage getting ready to bike to work and noticed it was raining harder than I thought it was, so I took my backpack off to get my gortex pants out. After putting them on, I started biking in the rain. At the traffic light by my house where I turn left to go up to the bike trail, a blonde chick in a SUV honked at me and waved, like she knew me. I'm guessing she had to be one of B's mom friends, but out of context I am terrible at IDing people. I have zero idea how *anybody* can ID people off watchng shows like Americas Most Wanted. I mean, I couldn't give the police a good description of my wife if she wasn't in front of me. Anyway, I smiled then went on my way. Most of the way to work I was just happily flying along, when my brain finally said, "Um, something's wrong. Why do I feel so light? D'OH!!! I forgot to put my f'ing backpack back on!! GAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Then I tried to figure out if I could do without it, but since it has my clothes, shoes, and breakfast, I was truly f'ed. Sigh. I had to turn around and bike back home. Fortunately after drying off I caught a ride into work with our friends who were dropping their kids off with B. On Wednesday we had poker with a new guy. He was pretty funny, and won over $20. I won $23 myself, mostly at WOPR's expense. He had what's known in the industry as a really REALLY bad night, consistantly getting trips cracked by runner-runner flushes, full houses cracked by higher full houses, etc. Lots of very expensive second-best hands. The yard is done. It looks great, but it'll be better when the grass seed sprouts. We failed to get good "before" pictures, but you can see what we've got a B's Shutterfly site. I need to build my new shed in the back corner, and hopefully we'll have the money next spring to build a Trex deck as well. Oh, and we need to plant a hortload of plants in the new planters, right now we've got a shrub, a butternut tree, Wally the walnut tree, and our rosemary. Need more plants! Today my Huskies play UCLA. For some bizarre reason UCLA just has the Dawg's number. We've lost 8 of the last 9 matches. It totally drives me crazy. The kids love that wildlife encyclopedia set that I got last week for nine bucks. Harry is always walking around with one of the volumes or another. Last night B went drinking with some of her friends. They met at the Wedgewood Ale house at 8pm, and she didn't roll in until 1am. Sounds like she had a great time. It's the only place she can get her favorite cider, the Spire Mountain Dark and Dry. They only offer it in kegs now, no longer in the 22oz bottle. I measured Isabel this morning. She's 48" tall. 5 years and 3 months old, and already 4 feet. Harry is 4 years, 4 months, and 46". Uff-freakin-da. Tuesday, September 19, 2006
My back yard looks awesome. They've finished putting the cap on the wall, all that's left in hauling in soil for the new lawn and seeding it. Hopefully the "wrath-of-god" type rain we had last night is over, it would have washed my poor lawn away. Last weekend was the Friends of the Library semi-annual book sale in an old aircraft hanger at Magnuson Park. Tons of books, ex-library ones and donated ones. On Saturday they were $1 for hardbacks, 50 cents for mass-market paperbacks and 75 for larger paperbacks. They also have a room with sets and rare books for more money. Sunday was half price. On Saturday B found they had cardboard trays filled with a particular author, and she found one for Catherine Coulter, so she picked up 26 mysteries (for $13!). The kids each picked out a few picture books, and we bought a complete set of Anne of Green Gables for Isabel in a few years. I also got an incomplete set of "My Book House", a 12-volume series of kid's literature that I had as a kid. On Sunday I went back and since everything was half price, I got a book on airplanes with a chapter on my favorite, the 1930s Ford Trimotor, a book on subs of the world, a funny book on WWII battles from 1986 with "stunning computer maps" aka crappy wireframe pixelated maps, a 1980s British book on cars, a 25-volume wildlife encyclopedia for $9, and 22 volumes of the Time/Life "The Epic of Flight". I considered buying a 56-volume "Great Works of Literature" set, but even half price it was almost a hundred bucks. Our living room shelves are looking better as I fill them with cool books. Saturday, September 16, 2006
Wooo! My Washington Huskies beat the Fresno State Bulldogs 21-20 to go to 2-1. I love games where the fans make enough noise to affect the result, it was a loud as I've heard it for a long time, causing several false start penalties late in the game. I have zero idea why Pat Hill (Fresno State's coach) would repeatedly call passing plays on 3rd and 5, when he's got a tailback that gets 7-12 yards every single carry. Totally baffled me, if they'd run more they'd have demolished us. Thursday, September 14, 2006
The back yard is starting to look awesome. Dan and Manuel got the first two layers of retaining wall blocks down. Dan had one problem with a ~1" galvanized pipe he dug up. It was going from near one corner of my house along the fence towards the back fence, and was right in the way. I could not think of any possible reason for the pipe's existance, so I took some nylon stop-pipe-leak wrap and my drill out there. My plan was to drill a small hole, and if water came out I'd slap the nylon wrap on temporarily then go to the hardware store for a repair clamp. Drilling found nothing, then we hacksawed a larger hole to confirm that it wasn't conduit with wires inside. Nope, it's some empty pipe for glub only knows what reason. There was barely any rust inside, so if it was every used for water it wasn't for very long. B was worried it was a sewer pipe. I laughed and said, "Um, honey, if sewer pipes were 1" in diameter they'd plug up next time I took a dump..." Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Holy crap. Peter Jackson just optioned Naomi Novak's Temeraire series. She's got links to the Hollywood Reporter report and an AICN interview with Peter Jackson about it. One thing that makes me laugh is when people try to describe fiction as "unique". I heard that all the time about Harry Potter, and Peter Jackson says that about the Temeraire series. I just don't find either of them to be super unique, they're just a relatively standard "life is mostly normal in this universe except X". Speaking of Harry Potter, I laughed during Isabel's school tour to see an entire shelf unit in the library there was Harry Potter books. I found it strange that the library is just a converted classroom, I'm surprised there isn't/wasn't a dedicated library. I know the two elementary schools *I* went to were built with libraries. Tuesday, September 12, 2006
My brother and his crew did an awesome job on the yard yesterday, hauling out 12 yards of dirt a wheelbarrow at a time, loading them into a dump trailer, and taking them to some guy a few miles away he found on Craigslist who bought a house with a duck pond he wanted filled and was accepting all free fill dirt. The lawn is approaching level. Half the retaining wall blocks got delivered today. Woo! It's going to rule having a nice yard next year. Monday, September 11, 2006
Well, the Husky game was a loss, as expected, but Oklahoma didn't have a lead the entire first half, so it wasn't a complete blowout. The 3rd quarter collapse sucked, but I can see a lot of progress. Our offensive line is looking pretty good. We'll see how our recovery is going this Saturday against Fresno State. A win will show we've got a good shot at a 6 or 7 win season and a bottom-tier bowl game, which would be amazing after going 1-10 and 2-9 the past two years. 4-8 (double last year) is all I really ask, as long as we go 8-4 next year. Heh. Saturday night we took the kids to a friends birthday party. It was a lot of fun, lots of booze, BBQ ribs, and many of the guys migrated down to the basement to watch Ohio State put on a football clinic for Texas. We were all sayin' "Hook 'em!" and laughing the whole time. We were of course jealous that Texas has, hands down, by far the coolest sign in college football. I wish we had something as cool as "Hook 'em". Oh well. WSU has a better fight song than the UW does too, but I'm still proud to be a Husky. On Sunday we had a brunch party for the Seahawks first game of the season. My cheese fountain is a thing of beauty. I was laughing my ass off watching the molten cheese pouring out the top and down the falls. Unfortunately the heating element isn't quite up to keeping the cheese at the right consistency, maybe I'll add a heat lamp or something. Still, it was awesome. We had bacon to go with breakfast burritoes, and I tried sticking some bacon into the oozing Que Bueno. Damn, it was amazingly good. I'm not sure why I'm surprised, nearly everything tastes better with bacon or nacho cheese, so those two together should be awesome and they were. All is right with the world, as long as I don't have a coronary. Saturday, September 09, 2006
You can take the trash out of the trailer, but you can't take the trailer out of the trash. Yesterday I decided that I absolutely must buy a chocolate fountain. In case you don't know what these are, it's a heated bowl filled with molten chocolate, some form of pump to pump the chocolate up to the top, and some number of ledges for the molten chocolate to cascade off of, so you can dip things in the stream of molten chocolate. Now, I don't give a rip about chocolate fondue. The reason *I* bought one is for football parties, and I plan on loading it up with molten jalapeno cheese dip, the kind of artificial goo they serve with 7-11 or stadium nachoes. It's going to rule. We went to Macy's last night to buy one because I didn't want to wait, the Seahawk's first game is Sunday Sunday Sunday! Lucky for me, they're on closeout at Macys, a nice stainless steel one originally $90 is now $40. It's got seperate controls for the heat and for the Archimedes' screw that moves the goo to the top. Afterwards we went to Cash and Carry (wholesale grocer and restaurant supply, but open to the public) to buy some #10 cans of jalapeno cheese goo. I was going to get Que Bueno, my favorite brand, but it was $13 for a #10 can, vs the two I did buy, "Chef's Choice" and "Moniticeto", which were on sale for $5.75 and $5.99 for a #10 can. I'll try them both and if they suck, I'll go back to Que Bueno. I know NotJeff used to live off Que Bueno when he was in college. This morning I took the kids to the farmer's market where we bought huckleberrys. All the way home I kept pretending to twirl a little cup on my pinkie while saying "I'm yer huckleberry". After we got home we drove to Bellevue to Mutual Materials to look at blocks for the retaining wall going into our backyard. My brother and his latino workforce showed up yesterday with sodcutters and removed all the lawn from the backyard. We're getting the yard leveled, a retaining wall put in the back, and french drains installed for proper drainage. We choose RomanPisa for our retaining wall. The cap pieces are very smooth and look nice, and we like the tumbled look of the wall blocks. The color we're getting is "rustic", a reddish color. It's going to be awesome next year having a smooth level lawn and beautiful terrace. Friday, September 08, 2006
Isabel took the bus home yesterday. She initally followed a friend onto the wrong bus, but they caught that and put her on the right bus. B was a little distraught, she doesn't want her daughter to be scared ever, but we both know it's important for Isabel's independence to be able to do things like that on her own. Isabel was very proud of herself, as well she should be. This weekend my Huskies play the Oklahoma Sooners. The only other time we played them was the 1982 Orange Bowl when we beat them. I seriously doubt that we've got any chance this weekend, but it should would be nice to be wrong. The Seahawks open their season where they played their last game, in Detroit. I'm all ready to grow my goatee back once we get a win. (I shaved it off in protest over the shitty officiating in last years Superbowl.) Ooo! I nearly forgot that I now have a Seahawks jersey to wear on game days! I got my new Mac Pro here at work. It's pretty nice so far, not screamingly fast but decent. I had to rebuild Pine, and install a newer Logitech mouse driver, but that's it so far. Fortunately System Profiler has a Applications section where I can see what is Classic, PPC, or Universal Binary. Must hunt down Classic and PPC apps and kill! Thursday, September 07, 2006
Isabel's first day of kindergarten went well. She had a good time, and B didn't break down. Afterwards my brother Kurt came over to fly kites with the kids, but when we got to kite hill it was dead calm. We went home and implented alternate plan B, or should I say plan B E E R. B had told Isabel we'd take her out to dinner to celebrate so we took Kurt with us to Red Robin. Harry was very happy with that, insisting on sitting next to his favorite uncle. Afterwards my brother Dan came over to discuss our backyard remodel. Earlier in the day after dropping Isabel off at kindergarten B and I had visited one rockyard and gotten a retaining wall block catalog, as well as visiting three walls my brother had done in Queen Anne. It's a tough choice between looks and cost. Gah. About an hour into our discussion Dan drops in a side comment that he got married a few weeks ago. Ha! Now, we love his wife Liz, I'm very happy to have her as a sister-in-law, but this means I've now missed 75% of my brother's weddings, or 60% if you count my oldest brother's first wedding to the crack whore. He scheduled his second wedding for the day after Isabel was due, which turned out to be the day she was born. My next brother eloped, the next brother's I got to go to in Vegas when B was hugely pregnant (seems like 2001 was a big year for brothers getting married...), and now another elopement. Looks like I have a new sister-in-law! Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Last week I'd mentioned to B that we didn't have any plans for last weekend and it was a 3-day weekend, we should throw a BBQ. B looked at me like I was daft, apparently the party the week before sapped her will to entertain for a little while. She said someone ELSE should have one, and I suggested our friends whose kids B watches. B was like, "YOU can ask them, I won't.". I'm not proud, I asked them to host a BBQ. They said sure, so that's what we did on Sunday. It turned out to be super super fun, we got a great mix of people who weren't camping and had a blast. About noon on Sunday we got a call from one of my poker buddies. He'd won a wine tasting party with appetizers at a school auction a year ago, and it was on Monday afternoon. Ooops, sorta late inviting people, but his kids have been out of town for a week and everything in his house was stacked in the kitchen so they could get their hardwood floors refinished, so he was a little distracted. B and I were more than happy to go. It was at the E.B. Foote Winery down in Burien, under a strip mall parking lot. Their wines were pretty tasty and decently priced, we ended up buying a mixed case. Very fun. Last night we went to Isabel's elementary school to see where her classroom was and get a tour of the school. The building had been shut up all day and was beastly hot. Uff-da. Today I'm staying home because B is sorta a basket case dealing with her daughter going to her first day of kindergarten. I don't get it, but it's huge to B. Sunday, September 03, 2006
I overheard Isabel singing today. "Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily merrily merrily merrily I'm a submarine"
Wooo! My Huskies are now 1-0, winning their opening game for the first time in about 5 years. It was only lowly San Joser State, and we didn't look super great, but better than we've been in years past. We had nearly 300 yards on the ground, when we averaged like 50 yards per game the past two years. Still, we gave up 3 turnovers (one was crazy, one a bad call) and only had a 6 point lead when we ran the clock out at the end with them driving. Too close for comfort. Well, a win is a win, and while I fully expect a thrashing next week at Oklahoma, if we can pull off a victory in two weeks at home against Fresno State we may be able to pull off a 6 or 7 win winning season and bowl game. That'd be amazing after having 3 total wins the past two years combined. Honestly, I'll be OK as long as we double last year's win rate with 4. I took B to the game with me since it's about our last chance to take advantage of the babysitting, her mom is going to Colorado Springs for the next two months. Before we left I took out the 3.5 pound rib roast that we'd bought on sale for $5/lb two days earlier, rinsed it off, covered it with oil, heavily coated it with kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, and garlic powder, and stuck it in the oven in a roasting pan with instructions to Peggy to turn the oven on at 250F at 3:30pm. When we got home the house smelled awesome. When the roast reached 118F internal temperature, we took it out, wrapped it in foil, and got the sides all done. When dinner was nearly ready we heated the oven to 500F and put the roast back in for 15 minutes to get the outsides all perfectly crispy and delicious. Mmmmmmm. I had the leftover ribs off the roast for breakfast. Yum! Saturday, September 02, 2006
Woo! Ok, last weekend when I was driving around running errands for our party I was listening to the car radio since I'd failed to bring my iPod. There were ads for Crank, a new movie starting yesterday. The premise I got from the ads was that there was an assassin who'd been given a fatal poison by some other bad guys which would kill him if his heart rate slowed below a certain amount, and he wanted to get some revenge before he died. I thought that sounded like a hilarious and relatively original ("Speed" with a guy instead of a bus) plot, and decided although it had to be crap I wanted to see it. B didn't object, glub only knows why, and so we went to see it last night, both expecting a seriously crappy movie. B's review afterwards, and I quote, "That movie was fuckin' awesome!". I'd agree. I was laughing my ass off the whole time, it was scene after scene of over-the-top him trying not to die while trying to track down his killers and get revenge. Everytime he slowed down, his vision got blurry and he had to do something to get his endorphins pumping, whether it was washing down NoDoz with Red Bull and Rockstar, driving too fast, getting in fights, having sex with his OH MY GOD awesomely played ditsy blonde girlfriend, or suffering extreme pain. By far the most fun I've had at a movie since, oh, glub, probably since I saw Pulp Fiction. I give this movie two thumbs up, and totally want to see it again. There were a ton of scenes I'd like to rewind and watch in slow motion. It was the debut for the two writer-directors, and they did throw in every cinematic device they'd ever heard of, some times to an extreme. (Changing locations by zooming out of a satellite view of Google Maps, complete with Google Maps logo, panning over, then zooming back in). It's not perfect, but I'm convinced it'll be a cult classic like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Pulp Fiction. Super super fun. Friday, September 01, 2006
Hrm, not too much going on. We've practically done nothing since our party last Saturday, which has been kinda nice. I did have poker on Wednesday for the first time in many weeks. Since NotMe got married in June and quit playing poker, we're now down to 5 players, so we need everyone to show up to have the minimum. We either need to recruit new players or give up. Speaking of NotMe, I wish he'd hold another poker no-limit poker tourny, it's been six months since the last one. Sigh. |
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