Unemployment, Day 60

Wow. I've not been working for 12 weeks.

Time really does fly. Even if it isn't all fun and games....

Unemployment, Day 59

Had lunch with people from the office today, went down there and hung out on their lunch hour. It was good to see them, but damn if I haven't started to really hate that place. I don't miss the place at all. I miss a few of the people, and some other people I could have done without seeing.

They are having some final big 'goodbye' party for everyone in a few weeks, and I've been invited.

I said that I would go, but I am still debating as to whether or not I will show up.

It just irritates me to be around all the people crying and hugging and sniffling. C'mon, suck it up.

I did it. You can too.

Dunno. Might go. Still debating in my head.

Unemployment, Day 58

I bought two tickets earlier in the month to go see Storm Large's one woman show performance, Crazy Enough. This is a performance based on her life, so it is a semi-auto-biography.

Laurie bought dinner since I had purchased the tickets. She took me to Jake's Grill. We shared a few drinks, and a cheese plate. Then I had some steak medallions and she had a prime rib plate. Full, we waddled over to the theater. There are no real assigned seats, so it is first come, first serve. Sort of. If you are a VIP = season ticketholder or Package ticketholder, you get let in first.

Good thing she and I were there early.

The performance was absolutely awesome.

I bought two more tickets, and I'm taking Travis in a few weeks. I want to see it again, and I convinced him to go with me.

Crazy Lawn-mower Man

As most of the people in my family will readily confirm, I am very anti social. I don't really hang out with the neighbors, nor do I socialize with them. I tolerate them. I know that I am supposed to be all nicey nicey with them, but I don't like most of them, and I just detest being fake. I'd much rather that they think I was a hermit.

Travis and I were sitting on the couch, watching Milk on Saturday evening. Great movie. Kind of long, though. 2.5 hours is a long time to sit for a movie. About halfway through the movie, I got up to take Beau outside. While I was in the back yard with Beau, Travis walked up the driveway to look at the spot in the lawn that he mowed. He said that he had missed a patch and was looking at it.

A friend of the neighbor, probably in his early 20s, chatted Travis up. He was talking to Travis, asking him if he could borrow the lawn mower. Travis explained to him that it wasn't his lawn mower and that he couldn't allow him to use it. He then, apparently, asked if Travis wanted to come over to the house and hang out and drink with him, since he had 'a bottle of vodka and a bottle of 'sec' '. Travis declined, and the guy kept talking to him for several more minutes. Travis eventually snaked his way back up the driveway, entering in the back door, where I had let Beau in just a few minutes before.

We went back in to the living room, to continue the movie, and Travis was telling me about his conversation with the 'obviously drunk' neighbor. Mind you, this was at 9PM. The sun had set, and it was slowly getting dark outside.

Then we hear a knock on the front door. Here is drunk neighbor boy. He wants to know if he can borrow the lawn mower. He really needs to mow his lawn. I tell him 'absolutely not'. He prattles on for a few minutes about how badly he needs it, and I said again, firmly, no. I then bid him good night and close the door. Incredulous, I looked at Travis.

Again, a knock on the door.

Drunk boy again. He wanted to know if I wanted to come over and drink with him, since it was the 'neighborly' thing to do. You know, hang out and drink with your neighbor. I politely declined. He then starts in again, and wants to know why he can't borrow the lawn mower. I said 'You're drunk, its dark outside, and you want to mow the lawn. Thats a liability. No.'

He shuffles off back next door. Travis and I continue watching our movie.

The rest of the evening was pretty quiet, except for an issue across the street, our other neighbors. Something happened, and there were 4 or 5 cop cars and a bunch of people out on the sidewalk. It was like a Cops episode. (Not unlike an earlier time when we had house guests.)

Fast forward to last night. Derek comes back after chatting with the next door neighbors. Apparently they had left town for the weekend, and left their 'friend', the law mower dude, in the house. After we turned him down to use the lawn mower, he wandered across the street to talk to those neighbors. When they asked him to leave, probably because they realized he was drunk, he got a little uppity. They asked him to leave again, to which he apparently claimed that it was a public sidewalk. Then he suggested that they fight. So they called the cops.

It wasn't until the cops were going to taze him that he submitted to behaving. The cops took him to the drunk tank to sleep out the night. I guess that he had no idea where he was 'staying' so he had a hard time getting back home. Travis and I did notice him weed-eating the yard Sunday morning.

The lawn still hasn't been mowed.

Unemployment, Day 56-58

It was a nice long lazy holiday weekend, which continued up through, well...... now. Not having a job is really just one long vacation. Kind of.

The weather has been nice, and mostly sunny, and pretty warm.

We had a good weekend hanging out, Travis and I watched Milk on Saturday.

Sunday we just hung out some, I tried to cook some sirloin filets on the bbq, but I'm not very good at the bbq. It was edible, but not as good as I had hoped.

Monday was home made pizza (kind of).

Tuesday Travis and I ran around, ran some errands, went to the mall, JCPenneys, and CostPlus. He goes back to school on Wednesday.

We're catching up on NCIS on the DVR. Last night's episode was a buzzkill..... with a character death. Oh well.

Unemployment, Day 55

I was going to put hot dogs in the crock pot for dinner, but after I ran out to get some nice big onions to season them with, I returned home to find that my dirty crock pot was still sitting around in the dishwasher. Forgot to run it. DOH! Decided that after the soup, I would like to have the dishwasher indeed clean and disinfect the pot. Travis agreed that we could have hot dogs tomorrow, so instead we went out for Chinese food. It was decent enough.

We then watched NCIS on the DVR, which I've become addicted to. (Both the show AND the DVR.) I had a glass of Baileys. Mmmm. Looking forward to the nice weather this weekend. Travis will have to mow the lawn, its gone crazy!

Unemployment, Day 54

My friend Tom needed a ride up to Seattle since he's leaving the country for work. Since I don't have a job, and I wanted to test out the new transmission on a road trip, I decided that I would help him out. I loaded up the iPod, and my lunch box, and took soda and munchies.

We had a nice drive up, aside from traffic. Coming home was hell. I sat in Sea-Tac traffic, and Tacoma traffic, and Bellevue traffic for more than an hour. I ended up getting home around 8PM.

Travis was nice enough to have picked up some take-out pizza for dinner so that I could cook when I got him, he had already eaten. (I told him not to wait for me.)

Unemployment, Day 53

Lazy day. I did some laundry, because I'm such a party animal, and then I decided to fill the crock pot up with ingredients, and complete the process for making German Lentil soup.

It took me a while to cook, and I realize now why I used a stock pot last time, because the recipe makes a huge pot of soup. It came out really excellent though. That made me happy. I figure one or two more batches and I'll have the seasoning and the taste just perfect.

Unemployment, Day 52

Anniversary Day. I took Travis to his favorite drive-in, Sonic. We had lunch, and then we headed for Oak Knoll Winery, out in Hillsboro. After a very nice wine tasting, as well as buying plenty of wine, we headed off for another wine shop, and then did some shopping. Travis had been wanting to get some new cologne so we stopped at Macy's in Tanasborne. Wow, the whitest place ever.

Chicken and my baked rice pilaf for dinner.

Unemployment, Day 51

Saturday night Travis and my friend Laurie and I went to see Stephen Lynch live at the Aladdin Theater in Portland. Great show. It was his '3 Balloons' tour, and a great deal of the material that he performed was new to me, and probably a lot of people. I didn't by the CD yet, though I will, but I wanted it to be a surprise instead of knowing a lot of the material already. It makes it funnier, in my opinion. He actually ejected a heckler, after warning him 2 times. That was impressive on its own accord.

Sunday was just grocery shopping and hanging out. I made burgers on the BBQ for an early dinner, since Travis had a school event to go to in the evening.

Today was lazy. I did take Travis out to Catedral Tapetia for dinner, since tomorrow is our anniversary. Events are also planned for tomorrow (which is the actual date), but I'll report on those later.

It was very warm today, but tonight is cooling off very quickly, it will likely rain on us tomorrow. Life goes on. It is Oregon after all.

Unemployment, Day 50

A fairly low key morning.

Travis got home from class early, after being able to take an earlier time slot. We ran to Zupan's to get some things to cook dinner with. When we got home, Derek was packing up to head out of town. Instead of cooking, we decided to head to Mickey Finn's for dinner. It is a local brew pub type establishment. They have a bit of a 'fish' theme to the place. The food is usually decent, and the onion rings are the best by far of anywhere I have ever been. Their service is usually lacking, and this evening was certainly no exception. I thought I would order something different for dinner, only to be disappointed when my halibut sandwich arrived over sauced on soggy break.

C'mon people. If you are going to go to the trouble to toast some bread, why wouldn't you toast it adequately. And why would you put a gallon of tartar sauce on a sandwich that you know is going to sit on the line for a few minutes before serving? Travis and I had a small debate about where to eat before we left the house, neither of us being able to be decisive. We flipped a coin. I didn't realize that yesterday was opposite day. We should have stuck with option B.

After dinner we walked from the pub to the liquor store. Travis bought some very tasty Southern Comfort Liqueur and I got a replacement Baileys, size large. The girl at the liquor store counter didn't look old enough to drive, let alone sell booze. Damn I'm getting old.

Once home we watched 'Being John Malkovich'. Travis had never seen it, and I got it on Netflix. It is a fairly odd and bizarre, twisted, and yet funny movie. I think he liked it. I always thought it was funny.

Unemployment, Day 49 - I drink your milkshake!

Did a lot of running around today. Beau and I ran down to the post office. I needed to mail off a package from Amazon that needed returned. Couldn't use the product.

Then we ran over to Best Buy where I bought an ethernet switch so that I can have both my Xbox360 and my BluRay-Live connections active at the same time, without having to swap cables back and forth. (Especially since I'd have to unhook the cables from the back of the tv cabinet as well as where the wall jack is.

Then we ran over to Freds where I took back the coffee carafe that didn't fit the coffee maker. I found a better universal style one that does fit. This all happens after I broke the original pot and Krups doesn't have an easy way to get a replacement. Damned thing. I don't even drink coffee. I still managed to break the pot by dropping it against the porcelain kitchen sink. I hate that sink. It destroys too many items to make me happy.

Travis and I watched 'There Will Be Blood' after dinner. The movie was visually stunning. There seemed to be an odd over emphasis on the score / music. It didn't seem to fit at times, and seemed unnecessary and overkill at other times. The story was good. I'm not entirely sure I understand 100% of the moral of the story. I'm still thinking about it.

Unemployment, Day 48

Low key day. Watched a movie on the Streaming Netflix. I could see this becoming a problem, so today I am making myself leave the house. I also found this morning that Netflix will stream the first 3 seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Oh boy.

I made a coconut cream pie as well. That was pretty satisfying. I used a cooked pudding as the base, and added some coconut. I think it came out pretty awesome. It'll be good for breakfast as well!

Derek and his friend were going to another friends house for dinner, so I opted to eat some applesauce for a dinner snack, and I waited to make a real dinner for Travis. He gets home late on Wednesdays due to his class schedule. Luckily he got out early, so he was home around 945 PM.

I made a ranch baked chicken, and a oven baked rice pilaf. The rice was pretty damned good. I was a little disappointed that the chicken didn't really have all that much 'ranch' flavor. I don't think I could screw up this rice dish though. Damn it was good. We watched two episodes of Law and Order : SVU - Season 1 on the streaming Netflix.

I'm the only guy in the future who can't be cured of balding?

Your results:
You are Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard 85% Spock 65% Beverly Crusher 55% Geordi LaForge 55% Deanna Troi 50% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 45% Will Riker 45% Worf 45% Data 40% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 40% James T. Kirk (Captain) 35% Mr. Scott 25% Chekov 15% Uhura 15% Mr. Sulu 15%

A lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

Unemployment, Day 47

Did some shopping today. Went to Pastaworks and got some fresh pasta. Wandered around the Hawthorne Freds. Still being remodeled. I bought some nice bagels for Travis (topped with cheddar cheese and jalapeno slices), and got a few bottles of wine for me.

Ran a few other errands and then came home and vegetated for a bit.

Hooked my bluray player up to the 'internet'. I'm not officially a member of Netflix. I can stream items, tv shows as well as movies, directly to my player. Lots of items have to still be 'ordered' in the mail, but a few I can have instantly on the tv. That is pretty cool. I am looking forward to catching up on a few TV episodes.

Any movie suggestions that anyone may have would prove helpful. I only have 10 movies on my list right now. I need to build that up somewhat. (But not too much.)

Unemployment, Day 46

Derek's friend is visiting for the week, so i did some housecleaning this morning just to make sure that everything was in good shape to have a visitor.

I made tacos for dinner, nothing special, but actually quite tasty. (And I hate that ()#*#)* word.

Travis and I then went to see the new Star Trek movie. Don't worry, I won't give away any spoilers, but I was not as happy with the movie as Travis was.


Travis said that he really got into the movie and that he really liked it.

I was a bit more critical of the movie. I am displeased with one of the major plot devices that they used. I understand why the writers did it, but it just seemed like a lazy way to write a plot and assure the future of the 'rebooted' franchise.


I guess that I should be happy that there will be more movies. It is obvious that there will be at least another one.

Got home late, after midnight. Haven't done that in quite a while either.

Frost / Nixon

Today Travis and I ran around a bit, and then had an early dinner at Red Robin. We were seated in the bar area, which I intensely dislike. Oh well, what can you do?

They have these new garlic parmesan fries. Travis thought they were greasy, but I thought that they were pretty good.

Afterwards, we hung around the house for a bit until we had to run downtown for our play.

Frost / Nixon was playing at Portland Center Stage.

I'm glad that we went to see the play, we had really good seats, and it was fun to watch. Being a big fan of that area of history, especially Watergate, it was fun to get some of the funny inside jokes and humor that was interjected. Travis felt a bit self conscious that he was the youngest person there, but I think it was still a good time by all.

Unemployment, Day 45

Terminator 3 was pretty good. I say good, but what I mean to say is that it wasn't anywhere near as good as T2.

If you look at T3 purely as a standalone movie, it was great, if you look at it in context of the series, not so good.

Otherwise, a pretty lazy day. I'm so boring. :)

Unemployment, Day 44

Watched Terminator and Terminator 2 on the Blu Ray.

Pretty boring day otherwise.

Terminator was pretty dated, but not horrible. I'm trying to get Travis up to speed for Terminator Salvation. (Which I don't hold much hope for, it will probably be horrible too...)

Terminator 2 was pretty good on blu ray.

We finished up West Wing, so now we'll have a few series to choose from. :) Now we just have to pick which too.
So far, unless we can find a firmware update for the blu ray player, Season 2 of Dexter might have to wait.

Unemployment, Day 43

Slept in today, which is good considering I didn't get any sleep the night before.
Beau wanted out at 7 AM, so that is where I got up, and slowly woke up. Felt groggy most of the morning.

Worked on cleaning up a few boxes around the house, what with the new blu ray and surround sound. Still trying to work out the bugs on the surround sound system, and it is definitely going to prove to be a bit of a learning curve. I think I'll get it eventually. I was hoping to only need one remote for all. And while I can use one remote for *most* of the items, since the cable box has no reality to the rest of the equipment, I may have to just guy a good universal one.

Dinner was a disappointment. I made chicken cordon bleu (from the freezer, not from scratch). The chicken was gristly.... ick. Then the mashed potato dish I made was off. Maybe I got out of the habit of cooking? I just feel really uninspired too. Ick.

The light bulb in the dryer burned out, so I will need to replace that. You don't realize what a big difference a damned light makes in such a thing. Wow. It is freakish to look into that giant stainless steel drum when its pitch black in the depths.

I'm digging the HDTV. I'm watching all of the 'free' complimentary HD On Demand items.
I'm watching Matchbox20, and one of them is using an AutoHarp. I love that. I can play an AutoHarp. That is too cool for school.

Unemployment, Day 42

The flight went smoothly, I'd say that the plane was barely over half full. My row happened to have 3 people of course. Luckily the guy on the aisle seat moved up a row to have a row entirely to himself. That meant that we had 3 seats between the two of us, so that was kind of nice. Didn't get any sleep on the flight. Just don't sleep well in motion. I'm very happy that my next flights up to Alaska will be during waking hours so that I won't miss sleep. I have plenty to keep me entertained in flight. By then maybe even WiFi on board! (Not likely though....)

Travis picked me up at the airport and we headed to breakfast at Shari's. (It is a fair bit like Denny's, but a bit nicer in my opinion.)

Beau was thrilled to see me, making squeals and yips and barks. Luckily he didn't pee on the floor.

Travis and I spent a great deal of the day catching up, setting up the surround sound and blu-ray system in the living room. That was a fair bit of frustration. We had to get more HDMI cables, which seem to be outrageously expensive. I'm still not entirely sure how to set up the damned system. Pretty frustrating.

Travis and I ended up going to Hawthorne Fish House for dinner. He had an excellent fish sandwich, and we shared some fish tacos with some pretty excellent chipotle may. I ordered fish and chips, however my fish was undercooked, and not crispy at all. Not as good as usual. I guess maybe next time will be better.


Going to bed early. Very tired, up way too long.

Air Puerto

Sitting in the airport is certainly one of life's little annoyances, especially when you are all by yourself. At least I have my spiffy laptop. The laptop itself seems to think that it could stay happy here for well over five hours without a charge. I would challenge that assertion. I know that I don't have to sit in the airport for five hours. It is 11:36 PM, and the plane should board in about 50 minutes.

I'm sitting in about the middle of the plane, so I'll have to wait a bit before I even get on at all.

Life goes on.


I feel a large volume of bacardi will be needed to survive the plane ride. Hopefully at least I will sleep.

It has been a fun few weeks in Anchorage. It was pretty awesome to connect and hang out with relatives.
I felt like I ate my way across the state. What can you do?

I'll be coming back to Anchorage in June for 3 weeks. I'll be helping to plan things for my Dads birthday and other fun events.

Now, I think I'll pull up the Sudoku on the free wi-fi provided form the Ted Stevens International Airport.

Unemployment, Day 41 (Media Headlines Edition)

Eat it bitches! Eat a big bag!

I will now quote CNN.Com:

Swine flu no worse than regular flu, Napolitano says

I'll repeat it again :

Swine flu no worse than regular flu, Napolitano says

I hate the over reactionary news-media. Gone is journalism and reporting, now it is sensationalizing and ratings garnering.
The Swine Flu might kill, but only in as much as the REGULAR flu might kill.

Now, it might turn out that we do have some pandemic at some point, maybe even next week from H1N1, in the mean time I am happy to see that the world panicked and over reacted. Ever hear about the story of the boy who cried 'Wolf!'?

I hope that in the future a new strain of extra-terrestrial death flu falls to Earth and has a penchant for only those in the major news media who would rather hype and sell advertising rather than investigate and report responsibly.


In other news (HAH!), Mom and I met Eric and Gramma Nori for lunch. Had an 8 oz burger (Watch Out! MAD COW!!!) on ciabatta bread, tater tots on the side (Wacth Out! STARCH KILLS!). Very filling. I'd give it 7.5 out of 10. It was above average, but not the best I've had. The rest of the early afternoon was spent talking with Gramma and hanging out. Then Mom and I headed to visit Aunt Reva one final time before I leave town. I cut her a piece of the Lemon Meringue pie that I made yesterday. (Watch Out! SALMONELLA!) Hopefully she enjoys it.


Only thing left for today, really, is to finish up folding my laundry and pack up my suitcase. Heading to the airport around 11 PM. (Watch Out! CRASHING INTO THE GROUND FROM 35,000 FEET IS FATAL!) I should be back in Portland around 5:30 AM tomorrow morning. The flight leaves Anchorage at 1:00 AM. I probably won't get any sleep in the plane, so I'll be a zombie tomorrow. (Watch Out! ZOMBIES EAT BRAINS AND PAL AROUND WITH THE UNDEAD!)

PS. WTF? My mother applied duct tape to her hands in order to go rake leaves out in the back yard as an attempt to avoid blisters. (Watch Out! BLISTERS CAN FILL WITH PUS AND GANGRENE AND SORROW AND MAKE YOU CRY!)

Week Ending

Saturday and Sunday were incredibly nice weather. Nearly 70 both days.

Saturday Mom and I finished up running around doing our shopping for Sunday Family Dinner after Mom and Dad and I all went to Costco. Dad bought a new paint sprayer. Came back home, unloaded all the goodies, then ran off to Home Depot to buy paving stones for the cabin, and get some lime and fertilizer for the home lawn.

Dinner Saturday at Simon and Seafort's. So gooooood. I ate way too much food. It was sooooooo good. :)
I had a good Caesar Salad and some Peppercorn Steak Medallions. Burnt Cream for dessert. I'm going to have to use a shoe-horn to fit into my airplane seat.

Sunday Family dinner was good, I cooked way too much food however. Lasagna, home made Caesar salad, and home made lemon mergingue pie. I've been doing a lot of cooking.

I'm sorry that Jennifer couldn't be with us for family dinner, I hope that she is having fun in Japan! I was able to look at her online photo album. Looks like she's getting to do some sight-seeing while she is away working.

Unemployment, Day 40

Has it really been 8 weeks now that I've not been working? Damn.

Mom and I picked up Gramma Nori and then Aunt Reva, and headed over to the eye doctor. Aunt Reva's eye has been bothering her, apparently she has an infection. They gave her a new prescription for eye drops, and wrote orders to stop the once she was currently using. Hopefully they will be better by next week. If not it'll require some tougher options.

We all then went to lunch. I had possible the best roast beef sandwich in my entire life. I will describe it, and it sounds odd, and like it wouldn't be any good. It was fantastic though.

Thick sliced wheat bread spread with stone ground mustard and mayo, slice of tomato, slice of cheddar cheese, roast beef, sliced dill pickles.

WFT? Sliced dill pickles on a roast beef sandwich. Are you insane?

Maybe. Was it the most best thing I've put in my mouth recently. (At least sandwich wise?) Yeah. :)

Dill and beef go together very well. I put dill in my stroganoff meatballs.

The sliced dill pickles gave the sandwich a nice crisp crunch, and a nice dill flavor. Plus the salty garlic brine in the pickle really goes with the beef.


Dropped everyone off, headed out to run a few more errands with Mom, picked up pizza, came home and chowed down.

Back to Portland in a few more days.