UMTravels

Honest — the rental car is still in one piece.
In other weird news, today I bought a skateboard — a collapsible skateboard made from aircraft grade aluminum. I got the one in red — Stupidiotic was finally open.

Maybe it’s a second childhood coming on.
Curt is cooking dinner tonight for 6 or 7 with cocktails at [...]

As they say, the best laid plans….

Boat cruise — OUT, wind and rain looming
BBQ Lunch — IN, though with a huge breakfast, later than we thought, leaving us not wanting diner until after 8pm
Shopping at Stupidiotic – OUT, not open even through the sign said they should be. They had a seriously cool collapsible aluminum [...]

How’s this for a money shot:

Greetings from the WorldMark Big Bear Resort. Rich shot this pic of me at my Big Bear Office — scotch in hand, cell phone to ear, table littered with booze, speakerphone to the right for tomorrow’s conference call (and new pre-paid calling card from ATT — BILLABLE), swim trunks (Speedo [...]

WHY do I book early flights! Why do I insist on being to the airport two hours early (oh yeah, free food and booze).
6am out of the house, 6:30am the bags are checked, and shortly after I am working on:

1 Red Baron (champagne and cranberry juice)
2 Bloody Maries (with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to keep [...]

Out of the condo by 11am, queyed up at the border for 35 minutes, home by 2:30pm. Not much time at the border booth with the new Enhanced Drivers’ License. By the time you hit the window they already know who you are, and when you entered Canada.
Here is a little short about the The [...]

I got out of the house a little afternoon with a quick stop at Subway for some road food since the refrigerator is bare.
Next stop was Safeway for gas ($2.82 for the mid-grade!) in Smokey Point and duty free at the border for some McCallum scotch. Was $32.75 for the 750ml bottle, but I had [...]

Woke up feeling like death — maybe that was because of an 8am phone call from Swanda making sure I got home OK.
Today’s agenda focusing on finishing up the bedroom remodel, making some bread for tonight and tomorrow (going to refrigerate half the dough), and getting my taxes done (quarterlies for the state).
It being the [...]

For some reason I was up at 6am. It’s amazing how productive you can be with those extra couple of hours.
Billed 5.5 hours today. In real terms that would be a 10 hour day is a regular office since you get about 50% of an employee’s time.
MoonSong bailed on work today, but here is the [...]

Many billing hours today. The weekly marketing meeting followed by several more hours of revising all their intake forms and take aways (other than the membership manual which was done last month). I’d only been trying to track down these files for a month, only to finally ask the right people at the right time.
And [...]

The fence project is moving mostly forward, with the occasional step back — but it is getting there. Suddenly I’m thinking about extending the steel roof down as a car port… interesting concept. I’ll have to think further on that one. Meanwhile it took (yet) another trip to Lowes for electrical parts. It seems that [...]

Billable hours for Events and Adventures, followed by a laundry list of errands.

UW Surplus to check out junk (yes, lot’s of junk, none of it made it into my van)
Radio Shack to locate an 8″ woofer (no luck)
Subway (lunch)
Safeway (groceries)
Speaker Lab (for that 8″ woofer to replace the ripped on in the Bose)
Swanda (dropping off [...]

The post is in, the post is in. MoonSong arrived this morning and by the afternoon the new fence post (the beefy one that the gate will swing from) is in, complete with concrete and wiring. It’s really starting to look like a gate. Work continues on Wednesday with more supplies needed (and moving a [...]

Well — I didn’t think it could happen, but South Park 2.0 is here.
The chaise is moved in to the living room. The new bed is installed — which required rebuilding thebed frame. The audio system is finally set-up (after a year and a half). The combined remote is sort of working. I have a [...]

The morning “chore” is John visiting for “computer work”. Think of this as lending a hand to a Luddite to explore the modern world. I must have made an impression… he doesn’t have a land line, nor cable for his Ethernet. Cell phone and ClearWire are his new realm.
In exchange for dealing with computer stuff, he [...]

Lots of stuff going on today. Day Four (a record) for MoonSong — we are plowing through on the automatic gate project. Yes — that DOES make me lazy — an automatic double gate opening into the back yard. The side benefit of this project is that it makes it possible to park a car [...]

I really have to stop doing these early morning meetings. If they’d stop paying me to attend, it would make it easier. For the mean time — I’ll keep taking the money.
I’d chat about the meeting, but that wouldn’t be prudent at the moment.
Dinner with Helene and Swanda tonight, maybe I’ll learn more.
I’ve actually had [...]

Man do I hate getting up early. Chas and I needed to be out the door at 6:30 so that he could get to the conference by 7:30 — it was so early we made it in a little over half an hour. With the marketing meeting both a day and a half an hour [...]

More business today…
MoonSong shows up for cleaning. Runs to IKEA and Target to look at frames for a quote. Development Director over for a fundraising call. Technical Writer to look at Bob for hopeful purchase.
At least I got a CD full of pictures out of the Development Director.

This is one of the shots from the [...]

Lots of work today, most of it not paying, just paying off my trade with the Quillayute River Resort — but now they have a fabulous TVGrid for their new DirecTV service, and a great new animated web banner here on the site (look to the right).
I was hoping to get to IKEA but that [...]

What a relaxing weekend. The only downside of going with friends is that the time I get to spend with Chip and Linda is minimized. Guess that means I’ll have to go back!
Got out of there at 11:45 and got home around 3:15 or so.

Too bad I couldn’t go as the crow flies — it [...]