Phone books.
Why does every phone company on earth have to send me a new phone book every couple of months? In the past month I have gotten no less than 5 phone books. I still have the 5 from the month before and the month before that and…. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but really, how many phone books do they think I need? And the funny thing is I never use them. If I’m looking something up I use the internet. What a waste of time, energy, trees, and money. How do I opt out of the phone book list?
Gas prices.
I know I have ranted about this one before, but it bears repeating. Why the hell is gas $3.35 a gallon in Washington State? It's more expensive than HAWAII! Why is it $3.17 a gallon at the cheapie Arco where I usually go? Why is the price of gasoline going up by 10 cents between the time I go to work and the time I come home EVERY DAY?? Why are the gas companies showing record profits and then saying that they have to raise the prices. “So sorry, American Consumers, there has been a (fill in the blank with stupid excuse number 71,452 here) and we have to raise the gas prices again!” I’d better not meet any of these gas company executives at a party one day (okay, I admit this isn’t very likely to happen, but whatever). I’ll have a few very strong words for them. “crook”, “monopoly”, and “rapist” are a few of the nicer ones I might use. I can’t believe it is costing me over $65 to fill up my car. It makes me sick. Then I read stuff like, “Well, get a car that gets better gas mileage” or “don’t drive so much” or “take mass transit” and I want to hit something. Like I’m EVER going to have the money to buy a car that gets better gas mileage when I’m paying $65/week in gas! I just tried to figure out what my commute would be like if I stopped driving and took mass transit from my house in Vancouver to work in Gresham. It can be done...barely. I would have to change the time I start work because I can't figure out how to get there by 7 a.m. It would take at least an hour and a half each way. And that doesn't count walking and waiting.
Hoo boy. This is one hot topic for me.
Boom boom music, crotch rockets, and other neighborhood noise
Who decided that it was really cool to turn the bass up on your car so damned loud that I can hear it in my house? When I have a migraine? And BTW, those stupid 4x4 off-road bikes that sound like someone is driving a chainsaw around? They are ILLEGAL in neighborhoods. And REALLY annoying.
Okay, that's it for today. Just had to get that off my chest.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Trimesterly Check In
When I first posted this, I thought that was a very clever title, since I meant to do a quarterly check in, but kind of missed it. I realized after seeing the title that there might be some confusion. Just so we are all very clear...I am NOT pregnant!
Now, on with my real post.
So back in December I listed the following goals for 2007. I thought you might be interested in an update on how I'm doing. Or you might not be interested at all. But I'm going to tell you anyway!
1. Read 125 books
4/29/07 - Have read 44 books
2. Listen to 125 books on tape
4/29/07 - Have listened to 33 audio boxes
3. Find 250 letterboxes
4/29/07 - Have found 113 letterboxes
4. Get back to Flying
4/29/07 - Um, I printed out my daily lists, but that's about it. Need to work harder on this one!
5. Finish some open craft projects
4/29/07 - Not even close. I should have made this one more specific.
So there you have it. Deb, I think I'm almost up with you on books I've read vs pages you've made!
Now, on with my real post.
So back in December I listed the following goals for 2007. I thought you might be interested in an update on how I'm doing. Or you might not be interested at all. But I'm going to tell you anyway!
1. Read 125 books
4/29/07 - Have read 44 books
2. Listen to 125 books on tape
4/29/07 - Have listened to 33 audio boxes
3. Find 250 letterboxes
4/29/07 - Have found 113 letterboxes
4. Get back to Flying
4/29/07 - Um, I printed out my daily lists, but that's about it. Need to work harder on this one!
5. Finish some open craft projects
4/29/07 - Not even close. I should have made this one more specific.
So there you have it. Deb, I think I'm almost up with you on books I've read vs pages you've made!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Letterboxing Hawaiian Style
I did another page tonight (shut up, Deb!). This one is all me. No ploppers, templates or help. What do you think?
Happy Administrative Professionals Day!
I am so lucky. I got a calla lily plant from our department director, a Border's gift certificate from my boss, some hand lotion from the IT department, and a cute butterfly candle holder from the Title Leins & Collections coordinator. Did I make out like a bandit or what? I guess all those hints ("There are only 20 more shopping days until Administrative Professionals Day!") really paid off.
I just work with some really great people, that's all.
So to all you administrative professionals out there, whatever your job may be, we thank you! The world could not run without us. Believe me. I know.
I just work with some really great people, that's all.
So to all you administrative professionals out there, whatever your job may be, we thank you! The world could not run without us. Believe me. I know.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
One Little Page
I'm working on more, but thought I'd give you something new to look at.
This is the "Pub Rats" team for our Rat Race letterboxing extravaganza.
This is the "Pub Rats" team for our Rat Race letterboxing extravaganza.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Comments!
Hey, why aren't you people commenting on my blog? I know you are reading this. Leave me comments, please! Or I won't write any more. Ha!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
The Rat Race Has Been Run
Yesterday was the big day. The one you've all been waiting to hear about. Yesterday was the First Annual Rat Race! Rat race, you say, what the hell is a rat race? Well, let me tell you...
Back at the end of 2006 I was on one of my letterboxing websites chatting online with some friends here in the PNW. We were comparing who had found the most letterboxes in one day in 2006. The general conversation soon turned into the idea for a gathering that would pit two teams of letterboxers together to see which team could find 50 letterboxes in one day first. Since the site I was on uses a rat as its mascot, the Rat Race was born.
Since most of us participating live in the Portland area, we decided to have the race here and set Gabriel Park as our center and allowed any boxes within a 10-mile radius of the park to be eligible. Then we decided that no team could count boxes planted or found previously by a team member. That narrowed the list down a lot, let me tell you. We would have from the official sunrise to the official sunset to find 50 boxes. Some impartial judges and planters were brought it to keep things fair. 25 new boxes were planted specifically for this event so we knew there would be at least that many for us to find, and then each team chose 25 previously planted boxes to find.
For you non-letterboxers, finding 50 letterboxes in one day is a LOT of boxes. My personal best before yesterday was 23. That was a normal day of boxing with a bunch of friends in various places. I've done more than that at a gathering, but that doesn't count. All those boxes are in one area, so you don't have to do much planning or driving to get those.
Our race started at the official sunrise on 4/14/07: 6:27 a.m. That is the butt-crack of dawn, people, let me tell you. My team was the Pub Rats consisting of Happy Papaya, Ant Teri, Bookworm (me), Gerlfren, Der Mad Stamper (the one and only guy) and Raqs Enigma. My teammates were to meet me at the park, but they got lost ended up being LATE and we didn't find our first box until about 7:00. It was not an auspicious beginning.
I'll spare you the box by box description and move ahead to the end of the day. My team kept track of our finds on the back of Papaya's van window with that chalk paint stuff. I have to tell you that stuff is seriously cool. So here is a picture of the car at the end of the day:
Let me decode that for you. The ones in red marked with a "N" are the number of new boxes planted for the event we found. The ones in blue marked with an "O" are the number of old boxes we found. The ones in yellow marked with a "S" are the boxes we got skunked on, and the one ones in white marked with an "E" are the extra boxes we found but couldn't count for the race. In the end here is our tally:
New Boxes Found: 12
Old Boxes Found: 21
Boxes we looked for but didn't find: 4
Geocaches: 2
Bonus stamps: 2
Boxes we found along the way but couldn't count: 2
Our official count was 33 boxes. Unofficially, we found 39.
Other interesting happenings were kept track of inside the car.
Number of U-turns: 27
Number of Mini's spotted: 25
Number of boo boo's requiring first aid: 2
Number of times we had to send Der Mad Stamper back to the car to retrieve clues and the stamp: 2
Number of times we saw our lives flash before our eyes: 7
Sadly, we didn't win. Our rival team, Something Fierce, came in with 39 boxes, beating us only by 6 boxes. I never really expected that anyone would find 50 boxes in one day. The boxes here are just too spread out and require too much driving in between and hiking for boxes. That's okay though. We had fun and that was the main point.
Here are a few pictures I took.
This is a skid mark from one the best movie parking stunts I have ever been a part of. 40 to 0 in 10 feet. It can be done!
The whole team stamping in
A trillium in bloom.
We stopped at the Tualatin Hills Nature Preserve for a potty stop and got caught up in an Earth Day celebration. We all got some free juice or pop and free gardening gloves. This is our whole team with an Eagle (don't know who he was or why he was there, but hey, it made a nice photo op). The kid we grabbed to take the picture did a good job, didn't he? Oh, note my t-shirt here. It has the image of our team stamp on the front.
Really, really muddy feet.
All in all it was a great day. My calves are killing me today, but I survived. A good time was had by all!
Next year I want to be a judge. This was a lot of hard work!
Back at the end of 2006 I was on one of my letterboxing websites chatting online with some friends here in the PNW. We were comparing who had found the most letterboxes in one day in 2006. The general conversation soon turned into the idea for a gathering that would pit two teams of letterboxers together to see which team could find 50 letterboxes in one day first. Since the site I was on uses a rat as its mascot, the Rat Race was born.
Since most of us participating live in the Portland area, we decided to have the race here and set Gabriel Park as our center and allowed any boxes within a 10-mile radius of the park to be eligible. Then we decided that no team could count boxes planted or found previously by a team member. That narrowed the list down a lot, let me tell you. We would have from the official sunrise to the official sunset to find 50 boxes. Some impartial judges and planters were brought it to keep things fair. 25 new boxes were planted specifically for this event so we knew there would be at least that many for us to find, and then each team chose 25 previously planted boxes to find.
For you non-letterboxers, finding 50 letterboxes in one day is a LOT of boxes. My personal best before yesterday was 23. That was a normal day of boxing with a bunch of friends in various places. I've done more than that at a gathering, but that doesn't count. All those boxes are in one area, so you don't have to do much planning or driving to get those.
Our race started at the official sunrise on 4/14/07: 6:27 a.m. That is the butt-crack of dawn, people, let me tell you. My team was the Pub Rats consisting of Happy Papaya, Ant Teri, Bookworm (me), Gerlfren, Der Mad Stamper (the one and only guy) and Raqs Enigma. My teammates were to meet me at the park, but they got lost ended up being LATE and we didn't find our first box until about 7:00. It was not an auspicious beginning.
I'll spare you the box by box description and move ahead to the end of the day. My team kept track of our finds on the back of Papaya's van window with that chalk paint stuff. I have to tell you that stuff is seriously cool. So here is a picture of the car at the end of the day:
Let me decode that for you. The ones in red marked with a "N" are the number of new boxes planted for the event we found. The ones in blue marked with an "O" are the number of old boxes we found. The ones in yellow marked with a "S" are the boxes we got skunked on, and the one ones in white marked with an "E" are the extra boxes we found but couldn't count for the race. In the end here is our tally:
New Boxes Found: 12
Old Boxes Found: 21
Boxes we looked for but didn't find: 4
Geocaches: 2
Bonus stamps: 2
Boxes we found along the way but couldn't count: 2
Our official count was 33 boxes. Unofficially, we found 39.
Other interesting happenings were kept track of inside the car.
Number of U-turns: 27
Number of Mini's spotted: 25
Number of boo boo's requiring first aid: 2
Number of times we had to send Der Mad Stamper back to the car to retrieve clues and the stamp: 2
Number of times we saw our lives flash before our eyes: 7
Sadly, we didn't win. Our rival team, Something Fierce, came in with 39 boxes, beating us only by 6 boxes. I never really expected that anyone would find 50 boxes in one day. The boxes here are just too spread out and require too much driving in between and hiking for boxes. That's okay though. We had fun and that was the main point.
Here are a few pictures I took.
This is a skid mark from one the best movie parking stunts I have ever been a part of. 40 to 0 in 10 feet. It can be done!
The whole team stamping in
A trillium in bloom.
We stopped at the Tualatin Hills Nature Preserve for a potty stop and got caught up in an Earth Day celebration. We all got some free juice or pop and free gardening gloves. This is our whole team with an Eagle (don't know who he was or why he was there, but hey, it made a nice photo op). The kid we grabbed to take the picture did a good job, didn't he? Oh, note my t-shirt here. It has the image of our team stamp on the front.
Really, really muddy feet.
All in all it was a great day. My calves are killing me today, but I survived. A good time was had by all!
Next year I want to be a judge. This was a lot of hard work!
Dead Satanic Butter
I have been a big fan of the B-52's for ages. I just love their quirky song topics, boppy music and amusing song lyrics. One of my favorite songs of theirs is Rock Lobster. I love this song. When I was in high school it was a really big song to play at a dance. It's just this fun song about people at a beach party. My favorite part has always been these lines:
Put on your noseguard
Put on the lifeguard
Dead Satanic Butter!
I never could figure out what exactly "Dead Satanic Butter" was, but hey, that's just the B-52's. They throw all kinds of weird things in to their songs. For some reason it really struck me as amusing. I don't even know if butter can be satanic, let alone dead, but I was willing to believe it could be.
When we were 13 or so, my friend Stacy and I just loved this song and would yell "DEAD SATANIC BUTTER" at the top of our lungs when this line would come along. And we'd giggle line lunatics. I guess it's just one of those teenage girl things.
Then the other day I was listening to my B-52's anthology at work and picked up the cnclosed booklet to look at it. Lo and behold, there were lyrics printed in it! Since Rock Lobster was playing and my favorite butter line was coming up, I looked ahead to see if there was some explanation of the words. You have to admit "Dead Satanic Butter" sounds more like a Mad Lib than a lyric. There just had to be some really great story behind it.
Imagine my shock and dispair when I beheld the ACTUAL lyrics:
Put on your noseguard
Put on the lifeguard
Pass the tanning butter
"Pass the tanning butter?" What the hell? "Pass the TANNING BUTTER?????" Where's the good butter, the Dead Satanic Butter? Oh. My. God. I have been yelling "Dead Satanic Butter" at the top of my lungs for the past 25 years when this song comes on. No wonder people looked at me weird.
"Pass the tanning butter" is just not the same. I think I must have lost the last shred of my childhood last week with the knowledge that there is no Dead Satanic Butter.
Next thing you know someone will be telling me there is no Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or Tooth Fairy.
Put on your noseguard
Put on the lifeguard
Dead Satanic Butter!
I never could figure out what exactly "Dead Satanic Butter" was, but hey, that's just the B-52's. They throw all kinds of weird things in to their songs. For some reason it really struck me as amusing. I don't even know if butter can be satanic, let alone dead, but I was willing to believe it could be.
When we were 13 or so, my friend Stacy and I just loved this song and would yell "DEAD SATANIC BUTTER" at the top of our lungs when this line would come along. And we'd giggle line lunatics. I guess it's just one of those teenage girl things.
Then the other day I was listening to my B-52's anthology at work and picked up the cnclosed booklet to look at it. Lo and behold, there were lyrics printed in it! Since Rock Lobster was playing and my favorite butter line was coming up, I looked ahead to see if there was some explanation of the words. You have to admit "Dead Satanic Butter" sounds more like a Mad Lib than a lyric. There just had to be some really great story behind it.
Imagine my shock and dispair when I beheld the ACTUAL lyrics:
Put on your noseguard
Put on the lifeguard
Pass the tanning butter
"Pass the tanning butter?" What the hell? "Pass the TANNING BUTTER?????" Where's the good butter, the Dead Satanic Butter? Oh. My. God. I have been yelling "Dead Satanic Butter" at the top of my lungs for the past 25 years when this song comes on. No wonder people looked at me weird.
"Pass the tanning butter" is just not the same. I think I must have lost the last shred of my childhood last week with the knowledge that there is no Dead Satanic Butter.
Next thing you know someone will be telling me there is no Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, or Tooth Fairy.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Soda...
...isn't as great as I remembered. I had a diet Pepsi today. It really didn't taste all that great to me. I can take it or leave it now. Ha! I'm no longer addicted!
The Big Move
Crap. I forgot to post the message I wrote on Tuesday. Well, just pretend I did.
This week we are reconfiguring our cubicles at work. I was going to post the floor plan for you, but I can't figure out how to put a .pdf image on here. Don't think Blogger will let me.
So I was running around packing things and moving things all day. It’s amazing how many people I work with who are injured in some way and can’t move stuff. I’m not being sarcastic either. I think there are 5 healthy people out of 13. One appears to be rather lazy and hardly helped at all. Butt head. Luckily the other 3 were really helpful and we got everything moved out pretty quickly. We had people running everywhere. The electricians were here running wires and working in the ceiling doing some mysterious electrical thing. More electricians were running data lines (I think). The facilities people were running around moving the heavy stuff (file cabinets, printers) and taking down our old cubicles. I was trying to move all the books and things from our reference items, chairs, tables, bookcases and other light furniture. The accountants were moving their files and all the stuff that accumulates on top of our desks. It's amazing no one ran into anyone else. Two main things I learned from today:
1. We have a lot of crap.
2. You don't get much work done when your computer, phone, files, and chair are taken away.
I have a tank on my desk with 4 fish in it. Christine has a beta fish at her desk usually. His name is Lunch. Because of the move, Christine moved Lunch up to my desk and put him next to my tank of fish. Lunch has spent the last two days showing what a big tough beta he is. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched beta fish, but they are aggressive with other fish (they are also called Chinese fighting fish...and for a good reason). When they see other fish, especially ones with floaty fins, they go into fight mode, dropping their fins and puffing up the gills around their face. The fish in my tank like to hang and look at Lunch, but it annoys him and he goes speeding around the tank with his fins all fluffed up to go after them. I’m sure he’s saying “I’m going to kick your fishy ass!” every time he does it. He is going to be exhausted by the time our cubes get rebuilt if he keeps this up, not to mention bruised from running in to the glass so many times. Fish TV is always fun.
This week we are reconfiguring our cubicles at work. I was going to post the floor plan for you, but I can't figure out how to put a .pdf image on here. Don't think Blogger will let me.
So I was running around packing things and moving things all day. It’s amazing how many people I work with who are injured in some way and can’t move stuff. I’m not being sarcastic either. I think there are 5 healthy people out of 13. One appears to be rather lazy and hardly helped at all. Butt head. Luckily the other 3 were really helpful and we got everything moved out pretty quickly. We had people running everywhere. The electricians were here running wires and working in the ceiling doing some mysterious electrical thing. More electricians were running data lines (I think). The facilities people were running around moving the heavy stuff (file cabinets, printers) and taking down our old cubicles. I was trying to move all the books and things from our reference items, chairs, tables, bookcases and other light furniture. The accountants were moving their files and all the stuff that accumulates on top of our desks. It's amazing no one ran into anyone else. Two main things I learned from today:
1. We have a lot of crap.
2. You don't get much work done when your computer, phone, files, and chair are taken away.
I have a tank on my desk with 4 fish in it. Christine has a beta fish at her desk usually. His name is Lunch. Because of the move, Christine moved Lunch up to my desk and put him next to my tank of fish. Lunch has spent the last two days showing what a big tough beta he is. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched beta fish, but they are aggressive with other fish (they are also called Chinese fighting fish...and for a good reason). When they see other fish, especially ones with floaty fins, they go into fight mode, dropping their fins and puffing up the gills around their face. The fish in my tank like to hang and look at Lunch, but it annoys him and he goes speeding around the tank with his fins all fluffed up to go after them. I’m sure he’s saying “I’m going to kick your fishy ass!” every time he does it. He is going to be exhausted by the time our cubes get rebuilt if he keeps this up, not to mention bruised from running in to the glass so many times. Fish TV is always fun.
Doctor Day
I had a doctor day today. I had a “woman’s wellness” exam in the morning and a check up on my CPAP in the afternoon. Doctor’s visit in the morning was about what you’d expect. Doing okay, eat better, loose some weight, get some exercise. Blah, blah, blah.
When I went to the sleep doctor I found out the following:
1. Insurance allows me to get a new cushion for my mask every month.
2. Insurance allows me to get a whole new mask every 3 months.
3. Since I can get a whole new mask every 3 months, I can try different masks without having to pay extra.
4. When your cat chews on your hose and leaves big holes in it, it only makes you loose 1 measure of pressure.
5. I am not the only person in the world whose cat has chewed on their hose.
I was using the Mirage Ultra II mask.
I went through several masks to find this one and I thought it was the best thing ever. I was happy with it and saw no reason to change. Ever.
I am now using the Mirage Swift.
Yeah, I changed.
Last night was my first night with the new mask. I am in love! It’s so light and airy (ha ha). It didn’t even feel like I was wearing anything on my face. Way more comfy.
Now if I can just keep the cat from chewing on the hose we'll be in business.
When I went to the sleep doctor I found out the following:
1. Insurance allows me to get a new cushion for my mask every month.
2. Insurance allows me to get a whole new mask every 3 months.
3. Since I can get a whole new mask every 3 months, I can try different masks without having to pay extra.
4. When your cat chews on your hose and leaves big holes in it, it only makes you loose 1 measure of pressure.
5. I am not the only person in the world whose cat has chewed on their hose.
I was using the Mirage Ultra II mask.
I went through several masks to find this one and I thought it was the best thing ever. I was happy with it and saw no reason to change. Ever.
I am now using the Mirage Swift.
Yeah, I changed.
Last night was my first night with the new mask. I am in love! It’s so light and airy (ha ha). It didn’t even feel like I was wearing anything on my face. Way more comfy.
Now if I can just keep the cat from chewing on the hose we'll be in business.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Forty-Nine Days
I did it!!!
I made it all the way from Ash Wednesday to Easter without having any soda. Woo hoo! Yay me!
I think I kicked my pop habit’s butt. I was going to have a celebratory diet Coke today, but I have my annual tomorrow and thought I should at least have something positive to tell my doctor. “Nope, haven’t been dieting, exercising, or eating right, but I kicked the diet Coke habit!” Not sure he’ll be too impressed, but what can I do? I yam who I yam.
We didn’t do anything for Easter. I have had a bad headache since Friday and it was really bad yesterday. Thought it was a migraine, but the meds didn’t help it any, so I guess not. I slept for a while. Greg took the girls to the park. Then it started raining. Ho hum. We didn’t even go to Greg’s family for dinner like we had planned. Could we be any more boring?
I made it all the way from Ash Wednesday to Easter without having any soda. Woo hoo! Yay me!
I think I kicked my pop habit’s butt. I was going to have a celebratory diet Coke today, but I have my annual tomorrow and thought I should at least have something positive to tell my doctor. “Nope, haven’t been dieting, exercising, or eating right, but I kicked the diet Coke habit!” Not sure he’ll be too impressed, but what can I do? I yam who I yam.
We didn’t do anything for Easter. I have had a bad headache since Friday and it was really bad yesterday. Thought it was a migraine, but the meds didn’t help it any, so I guess not. I slept for a while. Greg took the girls to the park. Then it started raining. Ho hum. We didn’t even go to Greg’s family for dinner like we had planned. Could we be any more boring?
Friday, April 06, 2007
A Little Excitement
At the end of our street there is a house - a pink house, no less – inhabited by the Darryls. We have no idea what the real names of the people who live there are (and we don’t want to, either) so we just call them all Darryl. They are VERY blue collar. They drive old beat up trucks. They have many cars in their yard. You never see the wife Darryl without a cigarette. You never see the husband Darryl without a cigarette and a beer. The daughter Darryl is out of high school (20ish) and quite a skank. The son, Darryl Jr., also out of high school, is about what you would expect out of a 20-something of such an environment. We’re almost sure they sell drugs out of one of the cars parked in the backyard. They got a puppy (some big dog breed, of course) and staked it out in the (unfenced) front yard, where it was bored and barked and got yelled at a lot. The kids, who still live at home have obnoxious friends that come over in their cars with really loud mufflers (that’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?) and play really loud music, drive too fast in the neighborhood and do other annoying things like that. Some of our neighbors suspect the kids and/or their creepy friends are behind the things that happen in our neighborhood like pumpkin smashing, car thefts, and other fun and frivolity.
Anyway, last night I stayed up a little later than normal because I was finishing a book that was due back to the library today (Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. Number 4 in the Dresden Files series. Very good). I turned out my light about 10:30 and tried to fall asleep. I had my headphones on for a while, but soon took them off. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I heard this really loud “WHUMP” sound. It kind of woke me up and I thought, “Huh, hope Greg didn’t just fall down the stairs.” I cracked open an eye and didn’t see a light or hear any swearing so went back to sleep. Then I thought I heard a diesel engine and thought, “Huh, hope the idiots across the street didn’t just back in to one of our cars,” then settled back to snooze without checking. About 10 minutes later, while I was in that zone in between sleep and awake, Greg opened my door and asked me to get up and look at something. From the office window I saw a bunch of red flashing lights and a lot of people standing around looking at something at the end of the street. Being curious I walked out on the porch and found what looked like a fire truck and a group of neighbors in their jammies watching something. I took a quick inventory, decided that I was presentable enough in my pajamas, and wandered over to find out what was going on.
Turns out there were TWO fire trucks and the fire chief’s rig with all those flashing red lights. No one knows exactly what happened, but the neighbors and I stood around in our jammies and shared the pieces of information we did know. Here’s the story as I was able to piece it together…Darryl Jr and his gang were doing something with some other delinquent and his gang. I think there were harsh words and then somehow the pickup truck full of hay which was parked by the Darryl house (I have no idea why) suddenly caught on fire. The other gang took off in their car. The hay, as hay will, started to burn. Mrs. Darryl got out her handy garden hose and watered down the fence (while smoking a cigarette). The fire crews show up and start putting out the fire. Apparently the “WHUMP” I heard was the gas tank blowing up. Well, at least that’s what someone said. I missed all the big flames. By the time I got there it was just glowing and smoking. So I hung out with Matt for a while until things got boring then went inside, reported to Greg and went back to bed.
This morning I decided to take some pictures to make this story more interesting. There was still fire foam in the street and a big pile of burned looking hay on the street. The fences was charred and the tree looked a little singed. Without further ado here are pictures of the aftermath. The pictures suck. I did the best I could, but I had some major problems with the focus and the flash. Only the two most important things in picture taking. You will notice a complete lack of any kind of vehicle that may or may not have blown up. I'll probaly never know what really happened.
Anyway, last night I stayed up a little later than normal because I was finishing a book that was due back to the library today (Summer Knight by Jim Butcher. Number 4 in the Dresden Files series. Very good). I turned out my light about 10:30 and tried to fall asleep. I had my headphones on for a while, but soon took them off. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I heard this really loud “WHUMP” sound. It kind of woke me up and I thought, “Huh, hope Greg didn’t just fall down the stairs.” I cracked open an eye and didn’t see a light or hear any swearing so went back to sleep. Then I thought I heard a diesel engine and thought, “Huh, hope the idiots across the street didn’t just back in to one of our cars,” then settled back to snooze without checking. About 10 minutes later, while I was in that zone in between sleep and awake, Greg opened my door and asked me to get up and look at something. From the office window I saw a bunch of red flashing lights and a lot of people standing around looking at something at the end of the street. Being curious I walked out on the porch and found what looked like a fire truck and a group of neighbors in their jammies watching something. I took a quick inventory, decided that I was presentable enough in my pajamas, and wandered over to find out what was going on.
Turns out there were TWO fire trucks and the fire chief’s rig with all those flashing red lights. No one knows exactly what happened, but the neighbors and I stood around in our jammies and shared the pieces of information we did know. Here’s the story as I was able to piece it together…Darryl Jr and his gang were doing something with some other delinquent and his gang. I think there were harsh words and then somehow the pickup truck full of hay which was parked by the Darryl house (I have no idea why) suddenly caught on fire. The other gang took off in their car. The hay, as hay will, started to burn. Mrs. Darryl got out her handy garden hose and watered down the fence (while smoking a cigarette). The fire crews show up and start putting out the fire. Apparently the “WHUMP” I heard was the gas tank blowing up. Well, at least that’s what someone said. I missed all the big flames. By the time I got there it was just glowing and smoking. So I hung out with Matt for a while until things got boring then went inside, reported to Greg and went back to bed.
This morning I decided to take some pictures to make this story more interesting. There was still fire foam in the street and a big pile of burned looking hay on the street. The fences was charred and the tree looked a little singed. Without further ado here are pictures of the aftermath. The pictures suck. I did the best I could, but I had some major problems with the focus and the flash. Only the two most important things in picture taking. You will notice a complete lack of any kind of vehicle that may or may not have blown up. I'll probaly never know what really happened.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Cat Basket?
For Christmas my parents gave Greg & I a really cool basket with crackers and dips. I finally opened it one day when I had the munchies, pulled out the dip mixes, crackers, and the bowls and left the basket on the counter with the red paper stuffing still inside. Somehow Cleopatra decided that this basket would make a wonderful cat bed. Now she sleeps in it all the time. It's just the right size for her and she writhes around it in joyously. Here's a couple of pictures:
Cute, huh?
Cute, huh?
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Two Years
April 2nd marked the 2nd anniversary of the day we had to put BC to sleep. I really miss my little guy. BC was the most laid back cat ever. He could always make me laugh. I miss how he would meow at you when you would peek around the door at him.
I miss him sleeping under the covers with me. I even miss his obsessive licking.
I made this page a while back and posted it, but since it is my favorite page ever, I thought I'd put it on this post once again.
Putting him to sleep was the hardest thing I've ever done. I know we did the best thing for him, but a little piece of my heart died that day with him.
I hope you are keeping Jesus company and licking him like you used to do Greg & I. I miss you every day.
I miss him sleeping under the covers with me. I even miss his obsessive licking.
I made this page a while back and posted it, but since it is my favorite page ever, I thought I'd put it on this post once again.
Putting him to sleep was the hardest thing I've ever done. I know we did the best thing for him, but a little piece of my heart died that day with him.
I hope you are keeping Jesus company and licking him like you used to do Greg & I. I miss you every day.
Olympic Club
I realized I didn't post my pictures from the Spring Flinger letterboxing gathering. I went up Friday night with my friends Melanie & Dave (known to the letterboxing community as Maiden1974 and Tarnished Knight). We had a get-together dinner in the evening on Friday, the gathering on Saturday, another get-together dinner Saturday night, and went home in the early part of Sunday.
We stayed at the Olympic Hotel in Chehalis. It's a neat old building with quite a lot of interesting history behind it. I guess it has been a bar and a brothel, and is now a Euopean-style hotel with 26 guest rooms. They are tiny rooms, each named after a famous, or infamous as the case may be, person that had something to do with the hotel. My friend Elizabeth (also know as gerlfren to her uber-special letterboxing buddies) and I stayed in the Nugent Room. These gentleman were known for not quite following the law around Chehalis, and got in a spot of trouble over it.
So here's the room. Tiny, huh? And yes, European Style means you share the bathroom. Oh, and guess who got the top bunk? Um, yeah. I'm not exactly built to be climbing up bunk beds these days. The hotel does have rooms with Queen sized beds. I'll take one of those next time!
Here are the Nugent brothers. It was just a bit weird to have these two guys staring at us all night. I forgot to grab the sheet of paper that told their story, so I can't tell you what it was.
I tried to capture the story that was painted on the walls, but didn't quite manage it.
This was my bed. Note the lack of a pillow case.
More of the story.
I didn't take any good pictures at the gathering. I was too busy letterboxing! Here is one of the sign, followed by one of the clover.
And that's the end of my picture travel log of the gathering. I know my friend Leslie (known as Miniles in letterboxing circles) took a bunch of pictures and posted them on one of the letterboxing sites. I'll see if I can go snag some.
Okay, now I've posted more today than I have in the past month. Enjoy!
We stayed at the Olympic Hotel in Chehalis. It's a neat old building with quite a lot of interesting history behind it. I guess it has been a bar and a brothel, and is now a Euopean-style hotel with 26 guest rooms. They are tiny rooms, each named after a famous, or infamous as the case may be, person that had something to do with the hotel. My friend Elizabeth (also know as gerlfren to her uber-special letterboxing buddies) and I stayed in the Nugent Room. These gentleman were known for not quite following the law around Chehalis, and got in a spot of trouble over it.
So here's the room. Tiny, huh? And yes, European Style means you share the bathroom. Oh, and guess who got the top bunk? Um, yeah. I'm not exactly built to be climbing up bunk beds these days. The hotel does have rooms with Queen sized beds. I'll take one of those next time!
Here are the Nugent brothers. It was just a bit weird to have these two guys staring at us all night. I forgot to grab the sheet of paper that told their story, so I can't tell you what it was.
I tried to capture the story that was painted on the walls, but didn't quite manage it.
This was my bed. Note the lack of a pillow case.
More of the story.
I didn't take any good pictures at the gathering. I was too busy letterboxing! Here is one of the sign, followed by one of the clover.
And that's the end of my picture travel log of the gathering. I know my friend Leslie (known as Miniles in letterboxing circles) took a bunch of pictures and posted them on one of the letterboxing sites. I'll see if I can go snag some.
Okay, now I've posted more today than I have in the past month. Enjoy!
Pictures
Okay, so here are some pictures from the beach. My friend Ritha brought down some really good photography books. I thumbed through a few basic ones and tried to use some of their suggestions. Not sure I made it, but hey, I can keep trying. Obviously I missed the entire chapter on taking pictures and not putting everything in shadow.
This is my "artistic" shot.
This is a cool piece of driftwood. Unfortunately I didn't take the angle of the sun in to consideration so there are shadows on this.
Deb on the beach. She's so cute!
This is a replica of some weird fish supposedly caught in Newport Bay. It just made me laugh, so I had to take a picture.
A cute walrus.
This store had a Bastet statue outside, so I just had to take a picture of it.
A busy scrapbooker. Actually, I think she was "watching a movie." She will not appreciate that I posted this picture on my blog. Luv ya Char!
That's Yaquina Bay lighthouse waaaay off in the distance.
The beach. Obviously. Notice how empty it is. I wish the dogs had been able to come with me. They would have had so much fun running around.
More later.
This is my "artistic" shot.
This is a cool piece of driftwood. Unfortunately I didn't take the angle of the sun in to consideration so there are shadows on this.
Deb on the beach. She's so cute!
This is a replica of some weird fish supposedly caught in Newport Bay. It just made me laugh, so I had to take a picture.
A cute walrus.
This store had a Bastet statue outside, so I just had to take a picture of it.
A busy scrapbooker. Actually, I think she was "watching a movie." She will not appreciate that I posted this picture on my blog. Luv ya Char!
That's Yaquina Bay lighthouse waaaay off in the distance.
The beach. Obviously. Notice how empty it is. I wish the dogs had been able to come with me. They would have had so much fun running around.
More later.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
And A Good Time Was Had By All!
I'm home from a terrific weekend of scrappin' at the beach. We had such a good time. I didn't get a lot of pages completed, but I did learn a lot while working on these, so that was good.
I picked Deb up at the airport on Friday about 11:00. We went and met my mom for lunch (although we all had breakfast) and then hit the road for Newport. I had planned to stop at the tulip festival in Woodburn so we could take some pictures and bask in the beauty of the flowers. When we got to the exit there were cars all the way out to the freeway waiting to head towards the farm. We decided that we would skip it and try again on the way back on Sunday. We continued on to Newport and got down there about 3:30. We got unpacked and set up our computers and started scrappin!
I just love this house. It's on a cliff above the beach and you can barely see that there are other houses nearby. It has a beautiful view and is set up so well for a group of people. Oh, and it has a hot tub.
We didn't really do much besides scrap. Deb & I took a walk on the beach on Saturday afternoon. We watched a couple of movies. We soaked in the hot tub. I read some when I was creatively blocked. It was wonderful.
So without further ado, here are the 5 pages I completed.
This is me and my Uncle Lee
This is the house we stayed at. Hmm, think I need to change the font color on the words.
This is the inside of the house
These are my friends at the beach
This is my favorite page. This picture is of me and Deb in Canada in 1988. Weren't we young?
So that's the sum of my pages. Not too bad, huh? I downloaded a bunch of free scrapping elements off the web, too, so I have lots to play with once I get it all organized. I'll post some of the pictures I took next time.
TTFN
I picked Deb up at the airport on Friday about 11:00. We went and met my mom for lunch (although we all had breakfast) and then hit the road for Newport. I had planned to stop at the tulip festival in Woodburn so we could take some pictures and bask in the beauty of the flowers. When we got to the exit there were cars all the way out to the freeway waiting to head towards the farm. We decided that we would skip it and try again on the way back on Sunday. We continued on to Newport and got down there about 3:30. We got unpacked and set up our computers and started scrappin!
I just love this house. It's on a cliff above the beach and you can barely see that there are other houses nearby. It has a beautiful view and is set up so well for a group of people. Oh, and it has a hot tub.
We didn't really do much besides scrap. Deb & I took a walk on the beach on Saturday afternoon. We watched a couple of movies. We soaked in the hot tub. I read some when I was creatively blocked. It was wonderful.
So without further ado, here are the 5 pages I completed.
This is me and my Uncle Lee
This is the house we stayed at. Hmm, think I need to change the font color on the words.
This is the inside of the house
These are my friends at the beach
This is my favorite page. This picture is of me and Deb in Canada in 1988. Weren't we young?
So that's the sum of my pages. Not too bad, huh? I downloaded a bunch of free scrapping elements off the web, too, so I have lots to play with once I get it all organized. I'll post some of the pictures I took next time.
TTFN
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