Home again...

Good to be home again, safe and sound.

Very tired.

Will try to re-cap and post something entertaining in the next few days.

I need to recover from my vacation!

Go, Spit!

Trav and I made it to Homer yesterday. We had lunch at the Sunrise Cafe, not far from Summit Lake, but before Soldotna. It hasn't been raining all that much, and there also hasn't been a huge amount of traffic, so it was a pretty nice drive.

It wasn't raining by the time we got into Homer, so we drove all the way down to the spit so that Travis could take some pictures without getting wet. It sprinkled and rained most of the rest of last night, and well into this morning. It is supposed to keep raining until after we leave. Oh well.

We had dinner at Captain Pattie's last night.
www.homernews.com/dining/captainPatties/

This is right on the spit. The windows overlooked the inlet, and you could smell the sea air coming up. We didn't have reservations, although they weren't absolutely needed, we did end up at a smaller table off on the side of the room. The place was full of plenty of fisherpeople and tourists. Food was awesome. Their service was good, but I think they were having problems in the kitchen. Our food took a long time, but the waitress gave us some free smoked salmon dip to soothe us. We weren't in any hurry anyway, so I don't think either of us would have complained anyway. It was a nice gesture, and she got a nice tip out of the deal.
Excellent food. I had fresh Alaskan prawns, and Travis had a seafood alfredo medley with salmon, scallops and halibut. We both left the restaurant very very stuffed!

After that we just hung around the cabin and watched some old movies on tv, had a few drinks (really bad bad bad alcohol out of a can, and some beer).

Today we have a few more adventures in Homer before we depart tomorrow.

Civilization

We made it back to Anchorage yesterday afternoon.

It was a fun couple of days at the cabin with the folks.

It was rainy for the most part, but the sun would shine through the mountains every now and then. The mosquitoes weren't too bad, and I don't think I got bit, for a change.

We were going to drive up to Palmer creek, but it was so rainy that there is no way we'd be able to see anything, as we'd be in the middle of the clouds. And since it is a one lane dirt road ( the word road is kind of an exaggeration ), if anyone were to come down, we'd have to pull off the road, and in the mud and snow, yes there is still snow up there, we might end up stuck.

We headed into Hope and wandered around the Hope museum. As we were wandering around past the museum, there were several old structure that have been moved / salvaged by the parks service.

A nice older woman came at us, she has lived in and out of Hope since 1969, and is a member of the Hope Historical Society. We were guessing that she likely doesn't get to talk much about her knowledge since there probably aren't a lot of interested people who go looking through the buildings. She talked to us for a pretty long time. She was very pleasant, and had lots to say about the buildings, the salvage going on, and what they were doing to restore things. We'll have to look her up next time we are there.

People were on the waterline fishing for 'pinks'. Mom and Dad were having a good chuckle. If you don't know, in Alaska, Pink Salmon is what you feed to your dog. Its not good fish. Ick. Glad the tourists love it. They can have it. (They can have all my salmon too, I never was a fan....)

Had dinner Saturday night at Bear Creek Lodge....
http://www.bowmansbearcreeklodge.com/

I had some of the best halibut I've ever had in my lifetime. I think everyone really enjoyed the food. It was awesome. They always have good food. It is pretty high cuisine, so don't go expecting burgers, its fancy food. Excellent though. Not what you might expect in Hope, Alaska. We were so stuffed though, we couldn't have dessert.

Travis and I drove alone back to the city, my folks drove my dads truck back in to Anchorage with the trailer. Along the way, Travis managed to see / get pictures of some moose on the side of the road.

We also decided to stop at Portage Glacier since it was actually sunny yesterday. Also, it was on the way back to the city, so it worked out. Got some good pictures along the walkway, but it was pretty windy and cold, as usual.

Had dinner last night with my younger brother, he came over to the folks house. He brought a bottle of bourbon. Yum. We all shot some pool for a while, and then wound down for the evening.


Have plenty of things planned for today / tonight, and then tomorrow we head to Homer for a few days. I'll try for another update then!

Over the hill...

... and through the woods, to the folks' cabin we go.

Long day, but fun.


Lunch with Gramma Nori, Great Aunt Reva, mom, me, Travis.

The Alaskan's Pioneer home was much nicer than I had expected. I'm glad that Aunt Reva is in a good place, certain good for her.

Went out to The Pepper Mill for lunch. 1/2 lb burger with Jo-Jo potatoes. Wow.... was I stuffed.

No dinner, we spend the rest of the afternoon running errands, and packing to come to the cabin.

Got to the cabin by about 10 pm tonight, then had cheese, crackers, margaritas and salmon and beef stick as a snack-like dinner.

(Found Susans too, small round short bread cookies with a huge glob of chocolate frosting covering them. I could eat a ton of them all by myself.... soooo goooooood...)

Moved a recliner, my old recliner that I gave to my folks when I moved to Oregon, up the cabin property with dad, and it is now sitting nicely in the cabin living room. Mom is very happy.

Tomorrow will be dragging the new utility run / pole / grounding rod so that dad can get the new electrical run for the cabin.

The folks did get the new well drilled, 130 feet. A bit more than they wanted, depthwise, but still short of the neighbors 288 feet. That would have left them with zero extra money for the year.


Cabin is great.
Travis is great.
Looking forward to being alone though.... :)


More tomorrow.


(DSL at the cabin kicks ass, and I even have 1 bar of cell phone signal....)

Made It!

Flight went really well. Travis was a trooper. We only had a slight bit of turbulence, and even though the flight was full, it seems that mostly everything went off without a hitch.

Can't confess that I'm overly fond of the Alaska Airlines 'credit card' only money payment scheme for inflight services (food, drinks, etc.) Seems grossly inefficient and slow. I realize making change and such is not fun either, but what can you do?


Mom picked us up at the airport. New truck looks nice. I like the grey color. Works.

Went to Gold Rush liquors and stocked up on all of our beverage needs for the coming days.

Dinner was salad and pizza from Pizza Pete's.

Tomorrow, lunch with Great Aunt Reva and Gramma Nori. Don't know where yet, but we'll figure that out as the time comes.


Mom and Dad got me a pretty seriously awesome serigraph from my cousin Dick Clifton, long since passed away. It is a nice piece of art over Multnomah Falls. Dad is going to frame it, and that'll be my birthday present, most excellent gift. I'm stoked about it! (Even though now it means I have to put a hole in the wall...... taboo.....)

Off to the cabin in Sunrise tomorrow evening for a few days.


More later.

Cell Post: PDX Airport. Breakfast

Cell Post: PDX Airport. Breakfast with Travis at Gustav's. Kicks Ass. Servers name: Fabio. Wow! Mmmmm Schnitzel!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Bon Voyage!

Tomorrow is the big day. Taking Travis to Alaska as my graduation present to him.

He's nervous about meeting the family, and he's not too keen on flying, so tomorrow will be a full day for him.

I've been trying to keep from getting overly excited, myself. So much to get done, not sure how everything was going to work out, fitting everything into one smaller suitcase to avoid the temptation of bringing 100 pounds worth of crap.

Tomorrow, excited about tomorrow.

I have a few new stories to post, but I will need to write them out first, they are fairly in depth and not something I can monkey-bang out in just a few quick sentences. I need to give full attention to detail, or my saucy and snide wit is lost in translation.

(Yeah, I'm modest too!)

Looking very much forward to showing Travis where I grew up, and all the fun places I remember from my youth, adolescence, and delinquent days.

This first weekend will probably be playing tourist, shopping for trinkets, and maybe hit the Alaska Zoo.
Tuesday we leave for Homer to spend two nights at my Aunt and Uncle's cabins (which they rent out for tourists... www.glacierviewcabins.com ) , and then we are driving back, with my 10 year old cousin and her best friend.

Hoping also to spend a few days at the folks' cabin in Sunrise.

Should be a full trip!


More from the road later...... stay tuned for more updates....

You never call, you never write....

Wow time flies! I've been lazy, but also busy. Have you missed me?

Travis seems to be feeling more comfortable with life in and around the house. I know it is pretty daunting to have moved across the country to start over again, especially without friends or much of a support network. I am looking forward to him starting school so that he can have a peer group that will give him a view of the area that doesn't share my own biases. It would be good for him to hear other people's take on Portland and the surrounding areas. I have my life experiences here, but I am not an expert, and sometimes I can be a bit of a shut-in homebody.

He and I rode the 'Max' light-rail line right to his college campus. It was a trial run for the real thing, after we return from our August Alaskan adventures he starts classes at Pacific University.

Last weekend we had a small get-together with a few of my friends. Derek was also entertaining and out-of-town visitor. Pizza, chips, home-made punch, and my famous chili dip. To round out the evening, I served my gourmet blackberry swirl cheesecake. Good stuff! The evening climaxed with the 8 of us sitting around the living room table playing the 'pop culture' edition of Trivial pursuit. Not entirely sure how much I like the set. I missed a good deal of pop culture in the late 80s through the early 90s since I was working so much. The game seemed to take hours upon hours. We even were playing the abbreviated method, the one where you get a pie piece for any correctly answered question. All in all, however, it was a good party.

To all of my friends, thank you for welcoming Travis into the circle of friends. He is going to be around for a good long time, so it makes me feel good knowing that you like him as much as I do.

I think the next big party will likely be Thanksgiving. Travis asked me to cook this year so that he could experience my traditions and cuisine. I know he'd also really like to help out on some of the cooking. It will be fun! Stay tuned for deep fried turkey, and probably booze-cake.

Alaska! We are slowly gearing up for the Alaska trip. It will be good to be back 'home'. I miss my family, and all the insanity that ensues when we are all sharing the same airspace. I am really looking forward to showing Travis around all the places I got into trouble when I was younger. Travis isn't too keen on flying, but the drive up would have been a tad expensive these days considering that gas is hovering around the price of platinum. We'll drive that road someday, though. I really want to be able to drive it at a normal pace.

Should have much more to write once we get back from Alaska, should have some good pictures too. Stay tuned!

Settling...

Travis is settling into the house and routine, I am still adjusting to having to share my space, but it is a good thing.
He has been organizing his 'study', we put up a book case, and set up his computer desk, so he has a quiet place to study and read when his classes start in August.

Sharing a bathroom is new, it has been a while since I've had to do that. He hasn't yet spit toothpaste on the back of my head yet, so I think we're doing pretty good.


Last weekend we went to the Japanese Gardens, in the same area as the Portland Zoo. Beautiful place, very authentic according to all the literature. I would never have found it on my own, but I'm glad I went. It would make a supremely lovely place to host a wedding / reception. (Although I am sure it would cost you tons of money).

Travis is getting me to watch 'Queer as Folk', and I'm getting him to watch 'Dexter', so we are rubbing off on one another. We will eventually run out of episodes of Dexter, so now it will be a debate as to whether I torture him with 7 seasons of The West Wing, or if I slowly maneuver him into watching the 35 or so episodes of Twin Peaks. (He will watch TWW sooner or later, as its one of my faves, I tend to watch it in my regular rotation, although I don't 'power load' the episodes.)

Beau seems to be doing ok, I had to double his medication levels to keep him stable. The good news is that it seems to be working and he is clearing back up from his latest outbreaks. The bad news is that now the medication lasts only half as long, so it costs me twice as much. It really is a punch in the gut to shell out $320 per month on my dog for pills. (And that doesn't include the other pills he's on, plus his Rx food.) It is a good thing he's so cute. (He's been super stinky lately, his belches have cleared the living room twice now.... egads. How can something so cute create something so foul?)

Today is the weekly grocery shopping trek.

60 days until I take Travis to Alaska.

I can't wait!

Cheez and Whine

My company is hosting these huge series of events to celebrate 125 years of operation. As one of the events, they solicited all of the employees (myself included) to submit their favorite personal recipes. They were going to compile them, review them, and eventually put them together into a cookbook that will be for sale later this year, with the proceeds going to the company charitable foundation. (We give water, food, supplies, grants and donations to communities, projects, and disaster aid areas).

Out of 3,800 recipes, they picked 300 to go into the book.

The recipe I submitted was selected to go into the book.

Pretty cool, huh?

Except that now I have to have my picture taken to go with my recipe. Yuck.

My mother and I perfected a white wine cheese fondue recipe years ago, and that is what I submitted.
The secret ingredient?

That will cost you the purchase price of the cook book.

I'll let you all know when they are available. =)

Home, Sweet Home

We made it!

Boise was nice, but it sure feels good to be home. Plus, I really missed my dog.

Friday was very low key, just unpacking the truck, and trying to de-compress after racing across the country.
I am so glad that we were driving opposite the flow of traffic on the holiday weekend.

Derek decided to go out to Hermiston to go 'mushrooming' with a bunch of his pals.
Travis and I stuck to the house most of yesterday, going out to get his Post Office box set up, along with opening him a local bank account so that he can access monies and pay bills easier.

Watched a few episodes of 'The Office', amusing, not sure if I like it yet, it made me laugh in a few spots, but also reminds me in a tiny way of life in my office.

Watched Kingpin and ate Round Table pizza last night. All in all, a nice quiet evening.

Today will be grocery shopping, and probably some house re-arranging. Need to set up Travis' study so that he can unpack boxes of books.

Going to have to work on the jealousy issues with Beau, he's cautiously happy, but obviously in transition.

Today is bath day for Beau, methinks. Will play it by ear.

No work tomorrow due to the holiday.
I'm so glad that I picked a holiday weekend for us to return on.

Home Stretch

We made it to Boise.


Yesterday was a big storm in Cheyenne, and the greater 'metro' Wyoming area. Guess there was even a tornado. Had to drive through some of the worst fog I have ever experienced in my lifetime, then followed by a ton of rain. By the time we hit the upper plains of Wyoming, we even saw snow still on the ground.

All in all, not too bad. Most of the Utah highway system that we drove on was under construction. That really puts a kink into the ability to keep at highway speed and on schedule.

We made it into Boise, at a nice hotel, and had dinner at a nice place.


Sooooo ready to be home though. Just a few more hours until we leave Boise, about 6 hours of driving to Portland.


More later...

Wendy & Shy Anne

Good grief.


I had, until yesterday, never ever seen a tumbleweed. Wow. They really are everywhere along the rural plains.


Today was Mount Rushmore. Pretty spectacular set up, nicely laid out, neat monument exhibition, fun flag displays, and a decent gift shop. It is too bad that we couldn't witness the lighting ceremony at night, but we had to get on the road and get to our destination.

Very very very windy all day. Along one of the rural state routes there was dust and debris flying everywhere. Nasty stuff. 65 and 75 mph speed limits though. Still, it was a good feeling to be back on 4 lane inter-states again.

The hotel room in Cheyenne is impressively nice, new, clean. It puts every other place I have stayed to shame. I think it was too much of a build up, because the rest of this town....... eh.

Major winds kicked up last night 40 mph sustained winds with 60 mph gusts. Aweful stuff. Then came the rains. Ick.

This morning we are off to Boise, hoping to be in at a decent hour tonight. Friday is Portland. We are nearing the finishing line.


More tonight or tomorrow morning.

Welcome to Wherever You Are....

Made it to South Dakota.

The thriving metropolis of Sioux Falls..... quite a city.


Yesterday we drove a good ways, driving through Missouri, Kansas, part of Iowa, and finally South Dakota. I have to admit that we had a bit of a rough start due to a most unruly tarp, and lack of sufficient bungee cords. We have hopefully remedied that by a trip to the local Target.

I think we were almost willing to like South Dakota, after all, the speed limit here is 75. 75! WOW. Me likey!

However, the town is a tad on the hickey side. There are odd frontage roads on either side of most of the main drags where we are at. There seems to be a wealth of hotels and lodging, but not much housing. Weird. Is this whole town built on conventions?


Went to dinner, where we were able to overhear, in the adjacent booth, that the guy was really not as much of a beer drinker anymore since he just got a DUI and beer makes him do bad things. Sounded like a first date.

Way to go!


Today is Mount Rushmore, and then Cheyenne for the evening.


So far so good!

Balmy St. Louis

I made it to St. Louis without too many problems.
I had opted to ship all of my belongings to my friends well in advance of my trip, since United Airlines had decided to change my flights, and left me with a layover of less than 30 minutes at the Denver Airport.

I wish to go on record as saying that I really dislike the layout of the Denver airport. It isn't very helpful when you have to go, say, 60 gates in less than 30 minuts. It is a real pain in the ass to have to run all the way when you are toting your laptop bag and your backpack at the same time. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't whine about having to travel, what with people that can't even afford to do that.


Flight from Portland to Denver..... what exactly is your definition of hell?

How about loathing children, and having a window seat, and then being seated next to a 5 and 7 year old. Whee. Luckily I was moved to an exit row so that I didn't have to deal with them, otherwise they might have needed an air marshall.... (just kidding....)


Went out to dinner with Travis and his parents last night. That seemed to go pretty well. It is obvious that they are decent, good, and kind people. We talked plenty about lots of things, nothing specifically odd, just normal interaction.


Tonight was group dinner / goodbye night. I cooked, and we had people over. All in all, a pretty low key night.


Tomorrow will be spent packing up the truck, shipping anything else out.

Hitting the road early (5 am) for South Dakota.

More later.


J

Cell Musing: Hard to discern

Cell Musing: Hard to discern between crazy muttering homeless people & blue-tooth using cell phone addicts who walk alone.

Random thought IM: Instant web

Random thought IM: Instant web postable snippets made from my cell phone, like this one, could prove dangerous or helpful.

Holiday

A gas tax holiday?

Are you serious?


It amazes me that people want to hear things to make them feel better, regardless of that fact that it will make things quite worse for the world of the working class and the poor.


What happens when you lower the price of a good / product? Generally, if the product is a commodity, then demand for that item goes up, sales go up. As sales and demand goes up, the price goes up, because the manufacturer can get away with raising prices because he / she knows you are hooked.

So, drop the price of gas by the federal tax / state tax amounts, and what do you think will happen?

A> the price will drop, people will go back to buying it with the cavalier attitudes they had. As such, and the demand increases, and the supply dwindles more, the prices will shoot right back up

B> the price will drop for the wholesaler, but the retailer will likely not drop his prices in a effort to offset the higher energy and fuel prices they have been absorbing over the last few years.


The net result, the price of gas will stay where it is, or even get higher.

I'm not an economics major, and I certainly don't know everything about everything. I barely know anything.

Sometimes, however, things are so simple that adults can not grasp them. In an effort to deny a problem, many refuse to utilize some critical thinking. Add a healthy dose of skepticism and re-read the above if you don't believe me.


We are hooked on oil. The president knew it, he said so.
We all know it.

Yes, I love my SUV. Yes, I will probably buy another one. Yes, I can afford expensive gas because I don't commute large distances to work. However, I have curtailed my extra-curricular driving. I have resorted to shopping online for things I would normally run to the mall for. I consolidate my trips out to the grocery store, and I'm able to go over two weeks without filling up my tank, and even then I still have nearly 1/3 of a tank left.


If you want gas prices to go down, stop buying gasoline. Stop buying large amounts of it. Stop driving around like a lunatic. Consolidate, conserve, and relax.


If the demand goes down, the available supply will go up, and then the prices will drop.

One final ranting note, the dollar is weak. As such, the cost for that same barrel of oil is more expensive for us to import. If the dollar came back up in value by about 10%, our gas prices would likely drop a healthy amount as well. Think about that next time you ponder charging something on your credit card, and pay cash for your purchase instead. And if you can't pay cash for it, you don't need it.

*ranting complete, enjoy your day*

Minty Death!

If you click on the above link, you will be taken to a website for 'Planet Natural' products.

Wasps have been flying around lately. Since March, we had noticed them hanging about around the house between the foundation and the wood siding. Derek asked me yesterday to get some bee killer, since he was pretty sure that they are building a nest up inside the house. He saw far too many of them for it to be just a fun place for them to warm up in the sun.

Since we don't have any brake-kleen (long story, but that stuff melts their wings right off), I went to Fred Meyer to collect Amdro ant block, along with bee killer, and something for dinner. Killing a colony of bees can work up an appetite!

Among all of the products on the shelves, I spotted this 'Poison Free' brand of goods. Looking at the label, it is packaged very nicely, I was drawn to it since there is supposedly no harmful or nasty petro-chemicals or other nasty things, in fact has no poison. If you look at the ingredients it is very basic :

Mint Oil
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (its in detergents, toothpastes, etc)
Water
Carbon Dioxide

That's it. Amazing.

Being a good skeptic, I also bought a bottle of some heavy duty, instant death, big skull and cross-bones hornet and wasp spray. (Can shoot from 50 feet, and causes neuro-toxicity and instant paralysis in the bees, immobilizing them until they die).


When I got home, I gave Derek the natural stuff. He glared at me. He gave me that look like "you're kidding? Right? You expect me to kill bees with natural stuff? No way! You can spray them, I'll be calling 911 when you are swarmed'.


I handed him the bottle of death.

He smiled.


He opted to try the natural stuff first.

To our amazement, as soon as he shot it out of the can, the wasps fell to the ground, they rolled around slightly, then died. Nearly instantly. Not long enough for them to fly up and sting anyone. Amazing stuff. Amazing.

So Derek emptied the can along the cracks of the foundation, and up along the boards where the foundation joins together. Mmmm, minty fresh death! The smell of mint was heavy in the driveway. Amazing, truly no other word fits.

So, fast forward 20 minutes, I go into the basement to do some laundry. The *entire* basement smells of mint. And not good mint, overpowering 'I just broke a bottle of candy cane juice' mint. Wow, instant headache. The cracks in the wall also allowed the 'scent' of the mint to flood the house.

Now, everything in the basement has a smell of mint. Including all of my clothing. *sighs*
I smell like a rejected worker from a the York Peppermint Patty factory. As I type this, I smell mint.

At least it isn't liquifying my lungs into gelatinous goo.

The good news, it kills bees.
The bad news, it is Minty Death!

School Bus!

So the above link is only slightly relevant. It is the start of a very inside joke that Derek and I have perpetuated over the years.

It started with the 'School Bus' video (click on the purple link above and you can watch it in all its glory). First we got each other little School Bus ornaments for the Christmas tree, and then we started randomly screaming 'school bus'! Well, you can guess that it got old, but the video still makes me laugh.

Last night was simply strange. Derek had decided that he didn't feel like what I was going to cook for dinner and told me he wanted to go to the local divey Mexican (sort of) restaurant. We go there all the time because they are fast, affordable, and not bad food. It is a bit pricier than fast good, but its actually a decent sit-down meal. We usually always have great service, rarely wait long for a table, and almost never have any complaints over the service.

Off we go, arriving to find the place fairly busy, but not packed. Not too bad for a Thursday evening at 6 PM. As we were seated, a white waitress took our drink order. This immediately filled me with dread. In all of our experiences at the taco house, the bad ones always corresponded to the waitstaff being non-Latino.

She filled our sodas and took off. 15 minutes roll by, and we hear her talking to the table next to us. She wanders off. She seats another table and takes their drink order. She wanders off. Another 15 minutes roll by, we've now finished our first basket of chips, one of the table attendants was nice enough to fill our chips up. We thanked him. Waitress wanders back from the back with beers for another table. She proceeds to take their order, place it on the counter for the line cooks, and wanders off. Another 15 minutes go by, the waitress now stops by the adjacent table to give them their bill and take their money, as we try to make eye contact with her, she wanders off, again.

Derek and I had reached our limit of waiting, we decided that we would just go to our old standby, a chinese place (dive!) that we love, that is on the same block, just in an adjacent building. As we wait at the cashier to pay for our two sodas (and possibly pay for a couple of baskets of chips), Derek tried to politely explain to the girl at the counter why we wanted to pay her for the sodas. She didn't understand why we weren't paying the waitress. He was calmly trying to tell her of the ordeal, but I had reached my limit.

Another waitress came over, one who recognizes us as a regular, and listens as I explode into a volley of anger and frustration.

"We have waited for 45 minutes for someone to take our order, and we feel we have waited long enough. We just want to pay for our two sodas and the chips we ate, and get out of here."

I didn't yell, but I think my tone was fairly ascerbic.

'Don't worry about it honey'.

Yeah, sure. We won't. We'll be back, but I will not allow some blond bimbo white chick waitress to wait on us.


Derek and I head to the Chinese place, hoping our luck will improve.


As we enter the place, we see that it is absolutely swamped. The place is so busy that the old man, who normally hunches over behind the stovetops and work surfaces, is actually taking orders. Amazing. We place our order, and drink some tea, and try to relax, while venting about how horrible the taco house was. We lamented that we had only really had one other bad experience, which culminated in me leaving no tip, and writing on the credit card slip (in the tip area) 'bad service = zero tip'. The beauty of writing that on a credit card slip is that most restaurant managers review the slips to ensure the tips were compensated accurately.

Our food took nearly 45 minutes to arrive at our table. By this time, we are both ravenous and tired, and at least a little bit frustrated with the whole evening.

Out of the window I see a short school bus pull into the parking long. 5 people get out, most of them fairly round, middle aged and older, and head towards the restaurant. They walk in, and sit at the table directly next to ours. They are talking loudly and are all fairly obnoxious. The bonus is that they bring with them the smell of engine cleaner. Mmm mmm mmm. Yummy hydrocarbons.

Another, full sized, bus pulls in to the parking lot. 3 people get out, and head towards the restaurant.

I'm speechless at the sheer bizarre reality unfolding before us.

Derek and I try to finish our food so that we can get out of our own personal Twilight Zone episode, we overhear the bus drivers talking. They have all just driven down from Seattle. They are all congregating in Portland. There is apparently a big bus driver's swap meet that they all are planning to attend.

I'll say it again.

They have all just driven down from Seattle to congregate in Portland so that they can attend a big bus driver's swap meet.

So, they drove down in the big yellow school busses. Is this an officially sanctioned company event? Where exactly would they park a big bus when staying at the Motel 6?

It all makes my head hurt just to think about it.

Cart before a horse...

Travis and I were shopping in the local grocery store while he was here. We were wandering up and down the aisles to look for some spa salts, since we had planned at some point to be heading in to a hot tub / spa.

Having picked up a red hand basket, we were gathering food items and some other necessary supplies for traveling out of town. We finally happened upon the skin care aisle, where we began comparing items for purchase.

This was a Tuesday morning, and for some reason the store was a flurry of activity. Who knew Tuesday mornings would be so busy?

We kept having to dodge people moving up and down the aisle around us, and as we were intent on selecting the best items, we did spend a fair bit of time browsing.

As we were standing on one side of the aisle, obviously looking at the other side of the aisle, pawing through items on the shelves, a cranky old lady came barreling down the aisle with her shopping cart jutting out in front of her. She stopped exactly in front of where Travis and I stood. We could no longer reach across to put the items in hand back onto the shelf. She stood there, hunched over her cart, wheezing and yammering on to another old lady with a shopping cart, nearly behind her on the same aisle. They stood there for a few minutes bickering back and forth, and I tried to be patient as they went back and forth.
She left her cart parked where it was, right in front of me, and started to wander off to chat with the lady behind her, debating between which type of ointment they needed.

Finally, I couldn't handle the fact that they charged up in front of us rudely, and just ignored the fact that I was trying to get back to the spa salts! This was a dire emergency. I did what any reasonable person in my position would have done...

So what do you think I did?


I very loudly announce 'excuse me!', and then I proceeded to pull her cart away from her, in the opposite direction, down the aisle so that I could reach the shelf in front of me.

The old hag shot me a death look, snarled some, and with a horrified twist to her mouth, stomped down the aisle, retrieved her cart, and huffed off to another aisle, likely mumbling at how rude I was.


Travis was taken a tad by surprise, not expecting me to have done such a bold thing to some little old lady, but not entirely shocked at my behavior.

Our trip to the coast was nice. The hotel was fabulous. And the spa salts were really worth it. More details on the hotel in a later post.

OCD Flashlight

Warning! The link above has an icky picture on it, don't click if you are grossed out easily.

My dog has recently taken to licking and chewing at a part of his front left leg. He's been in such good health recently, considering all the things he suffered from in the past, that I gave him a little leeway in his healing time.

Unfortunately, he didn't heal timely, nor properly.

Upon taking him to the vet, the vet tells me he has a lick granuloma, likely caused by an OCD reaction with an associated endorphin rush. He told me I'd have to but an e-collar on my dog and give him antibiotics.

So, my dog is now a big flashlight-head, knocking things over, tripping, falling, looking generally pathetic. He has been smacking me in the face whenever he can, and doesn't understand that he can not currently squeeze between my legs anymore without causing me some crotch trauma.

Funny enough, they theorize that my dog gets an endorphin rush from licking himself into a bloody sore, much like kids who cut.

Really?

I thought my vet might perhaps be smoking too much of something herbal, but wikipedia reports the same thing.
(And we *all* know, if it is on wikipedia, it MUST be true!)



So, for a few more days, my crazy ocd endorphin addicted dog will be smashing in to things around the house.

It sure is a good thing he is so cute.

Face Lift!

Thanks to my older brother, Eric, I have a banner image.  He was nice enough to create it and send it to me some time ago.  I finally got around to figuring out how to put it up.  I'm new at this, so it'll take me some time to get the true hang of things.

The colors will change some in the coming days, too, as I find something that I like. 

Other cosmetic changes are on the horizon, but learning first. 

Change, growth, and the future.

Yes, I realize I have been quite absent lately. I've been a bad host, and very neglectful. Apologies to all my fans.


It is now official, the company is going to get rid of my payroll system. Sort of. They want to move all of the users off of the payroll piece, while still keeping the other pieces (health and welfare, HR system functions) in place. This will mean that jobs will be moving to Hutchison, Kansas.

I will *not* be moving to Hutchison, Kansas.

In no way will I entertain the backdrop of Kansas. I am just not that big a fan of Dorothy. I much prefer earthquakes and the occasional flood.

This means, basically, that I will get severance at some point in the next few years. Don't know when, though. A big integration project like the company is undertaking could take years, as many as 4. The track record of the parties involved in integration don't lend me any optimism in expediency. Time will tell.

On a more personal side, Derek and I have officially split. We are living separate lives, under the same roof. We just couldn't work out the details of dog custody, and we are still friends. Besides, we just couldn't deal with trying to split things up. Maybe at some point we might pull away from one another, but for now, separate rooms.


Travis spent a week here, and we all discussed his moving in for some time. He will be going to school at Pacific U. He flew out last week, interviewed on Saturday, and was accepted into the program on Friday.

Way to go Trav, I'm so very proud of you.

Travis will be living at 'Holgate House' with me on a trial basis. If we can all be amicable to one another, we'll see what the future holds. I'm optimistic, but not unrealistic, about the challenges ahead. We are all adults, we'll work it out in a way that doesn't require a restraining order.

I will be flying out to St. Louis in May. I will be there to help Travis finish packing thing, and then we will be driving back to Portland. I have our route all planned out, and am assembling a 3-ring binder. I ought to make my father proud.

I'm looking forward to driving through the midwest again.

I have some fun stories to publish in the coming weeks, but I wanted to provide an update for those who were waiting.


More to come.......