UMTravels

First the random quotes.

From this month’s Wired Magazine:

Caloplaca obamae

n.A lichen found in California’s Channel Islands, it’s the first species named for Barack Obama. Bush an dCheney have been commemorated taxonomically — the the scientific names for slime-mold beetles.

And from Adam’s (one of the dinner guests) cellphone:

Hey baby, wanna come over to MySpace so I can Twitter your Yahoo until I Google all over your Facebook?

Speaking of dinner. Guests were Jonathan and Adam who gave up lesbian bowling for steaks and Wii bowling. It was an impromptu meal made from whatever was in the fridge.

After dinner was Strip Wii Bowling. Who ever bowls the best during a frame loses a piece of clothing. If two people bowl the same number of pins, the neither removes any clothes. I won, or is that I lost?

[218.4]

OK. 4am is WAY too late to go to bed.

I popped awake at my usual 8am — and cursed. I do need more than 4 hours of sleep. I got a restless two more hours. And no nap, either.

Thank goodness my dinner date and I had a “malfunction”. Last night is was PezPunko bowing out, tonight it is me crapping out. No energy for anything other than a little stir fry chicken on salad with a side of leftover roasted potatoes.

When is the last time you heard of me being glad for no dinner company.

The update on our hiker:

• found 500 feet down a ravine
• alive, but with MANY twisted, sprung, broken things
• but alive, a miracle judging from the terrain I saw at the trail head

So, that’s my weird day. And it will probably get weirder with the marketing meeting in the morning that I’m not prepared for, unless you consider several half completed projects progress.

I really need to go to bed.

[219.2]

Tonight the dinner party moves over to Swanda’s place after a relaxing day around the house avoiding paying work and catching up on magazines that have been stacking up.

Firecracker salmon, some orzo salad, cucumbers in vinegar, corn salad… too bad I forgot to bring the wine.

Hell, I was even home by 7:30!

And then, all hell breaks loose at 9.

Fluffernutter had called during dinner which rolled over to voice mail. When Swanda retrieved the message it was not good. A member had gotten lost in the woods on a hike with a dozen or so other members.

Fluffernutter was on the way out to the trail head, family had been tracked down and notified. I was assigned two channels to watch to see if there was any coverage (negative), and by 11:30 Swanda and I were headed out to the trail head with more pop, water, sandwiches, chairs, a canopy — apparently a dozen of his family showed up to help.

I got home at 3:15am and got the text that they had found him a 4am. At least now I can sleep with some ease.

[218.3]

An update to yesterdays post…. which I wrote in the afternoon before things changed, as they are want to do.

Dinner turned out to be steaks, salad and roasted potatoes with Jill who needed a little cheering up (and a lot of scotch) having been laid off from her job yesterday morning. Having someone else cook for you is good for the soul.

Tons of back to back errands today:

• return the still to Jacob in Ballard along with several cases of the bad beer so he can play
• get the van washed now that the window glass has “set”
• groceries at Safeway for dinner tonight
• Jimmies for computer issues with Graf — still having problems even with both of us there
• home to start the bread for the evening

So, tonight’s meal with with Debbie, someone I went to high school with 35 years ago (though it marvels me to say 35 year, can’t really believe it). She had a friend she was visiting drop her and her granddaughter Angelica who she is raising since her daughter died. I scored a hit with Angelica when I mentioned the possibility of Wii Bowling after dinner (whipped her butt).

Salmon on the grill with a basil mustard glaze. Roasted red and white potatoes. Big loaf of challah which I sent home with them. A nice bottle of red (yeah, I know, white with fish). All out on the deck as the house was hot as hell.

The funny thing about her visit is that it might be called the Homo Tour of the Northwest. Her friend that she was visiting is a partnered gay woman who was quite charming when she picked them up at the end of the evening and stayed to chat for a bit.

A lovely evening that then expanded when Wonderful showed up with a USB memory stick of photos to upload for the Great Art Party website, and before I knew it I was down the street at the neighbors drinking wine and having berry pie. Needless to say I slept like a rock.

[217.0]

This morning I booked my return flight from San Francisco to Seattle on September 20th on United. Those last 678 miles are the ones I needed to push me over the 25,000 Elite Qualifying Mile barrier to maintain my Premier status for 2010. In the progress I set a new personal best for least dollars to elite status. The old record was under $1000 on Alaska last year. The new record is $635 on United. Damn I’m good.

So I now have elite status on both Alaska and United Airlines for 2010. And I’m thinking I might get MVP Gold on Alaska since I’ve got the Hawaii trip coming up next weekend, and now Swanda is trying to talk me into a Fall-B-Que tour of the southeast. That would mean flying in and out of Atlanta which Alaska Airlines starts service to on October 23rd. The tour is basically fall colors, b-b-que, visiting friends in Kentucky, staying at the Biltmore, visiting one of his old teachers and visiting a lintype shop run by a friend of mine. If we flew down First Class on my $99 companion fare (meaning about $650 each) that would put me within striking distance of the 40,000 EQM I need for MVP Gold. Guess I’d better figure out my budget!

And since I haven’t posted a picture in a few days, here is one of the new BBQ that is going up to the cabin on Lake Cushman:

Two burners for the BBQ, plus a side burner for the beans. Additional accessories include:

• Fish cooking basket (for Neil who fishes)
• Vegetable basket (because vegetables are good for us)
• Grill cleaner brush thingee
• Big honking UW surplus spatula

Dinner tonight is a repeat of last night. Tomorrow I’ll shop for dinner for Deborah and her granddaughter who fly in from San Diego today.

[219.0]

Early morning… traffic was a mess, I was running late, went down 4th to 90 to avoid a backup… made it to the office for the marketing meeting in under 30 minutes… better than my return trip because of the I-90 lane closures.

Gee — that three month contract for part-time is now running to more like thirteen months. Thanks Swanda.

Just a quiet night at home with a little “protein on lettuce” as someone has remarked on.

At 11pm it is 82 inside the house. Is this because I have someone I knew in high school coming up from San Diego? Did she send the weather ahead of her?

[219.2]

Take two steaks out of the freezer. Wait an hour. Take out another. Wait until just before dinner to take the fourth steak out of the freezer and nuke defrost it.

Swanda was the original guest.

Then it was BBHa for cocktails, but then stayed for dinner.

Then it was Jonathan who was on the fence because of traffic but made it.

It was a good dinner — the challah tonight was a 50% rye challah. We did have one wee (not to be confused with Wii) accident with one of the empty bottles of wine. If you are going to chuck it into the yard to recreate the old habit at the Capital Hill house of rolling the empties into the kitchen — try and miss the paving stone on the way to the garage.

Guess we were just having too much fun.

[218.5]

My neck. Ouch. Symptom = Pain. Reason = too much time at the keyboard.

To get away from the keyboard I ran errands.

• Costco for pills and to check out cheap gas BBQ’s for the Cushman place
• Arvey’s for printer paper — ended up with other stuff off the bargain rack
• Office Max for more cards for BBHa who is working on a documentary film (www.bigjoy.org)
• Sears to see if they might have a scratch and dent one upstairs (forgot to check their scratch and dent store!) That worked. $132.93 down from $199 — and it was already assembled, but never used. Good thing I had the van.
• Art opening for Kristina Hagman (link the left hand column) that I tried to go to but got frustrated with parking and traffic downtown so came home and had a cocktail.

Josh was supposed to come over and pick up jars, but he was beat so that’s Thursday or Friday now. That just left me eating a steak and salad dinner. Yum.

And tomorrow is another day.

[219.9]

Happy Monday All.

One of the pieces of email in my inbox today was a request to complete an online survey from my insurance company, Farmer’s Insurance. I still haven’t taken the survey, but it did remind me to finally call the claim center to get the windshield on the mommy van replaced.

Here is where we get into stunning customer service. I called at 2:30pm. By 3:30 I had four different emails (two from Farmer’s and two from SafeLite) and a technician at my front door with a new front window for the van. The reason for four emails was that I was also getting a chip in the Jag’s windshield fixed as well. That technician showed up at 5:30 with apologies for running late — and both called to say they were on their way.

Same day service — had I known I would have done this month’s ago. I figured it was going to be like the last time — a three week wait while they found glass. Instead, the Farmer’s rep had access to SafeLite database of what they had in stock and got someone out almost instantly.

I did gain one thing by waiting — my deductible for glass went from $200 to $120 when I added the Jag in January.

So, if you need a good Farmer’s agent, contact John Bledsoe at jbledsoe1@farmersagent.com or (888) 644-6674. He and his partner are Portland-based by licensed to insure people in both Washington and Oregon.

How nice to be able to continue working while getting my glass done. Oh, and they were able to remove and remount my Good To Go pass!

The day finished with a lovely BBQ dinner with Jonathan. Something like five pounds of pork… and for once a little of it was left over.

[219.6]

Ross survived the night!

After another lovely breakfast (thanks Rich!) we have accelerated our schedule for leaving the lake. Basically, as soon as we can get it together.

That turns out to be a litle before noon after we clean the refrigerator (no thanks to Michael Neil), get all the recycling in the cars, pull all the sheets for laundry, all the stuff you need to do when you have a vacation house.

Here are the photos from the weekend:

And here is the report about the injuries….

“Two days of fun, two weeks of bed rest with painkillers and a note from the doctor” for Ross. We spent a chunk of the afternoon at the Urgent Care center for Group Health Olympia. Good service by the way.

Sunday weekend traffic snarls all the way home even rejoining the freeway at the Nisqually Delta….

A sandwich and some wine for dinner, and, of course, some blog work.

[? ? ?]

Wow — a glorious day in the Northwest. Sun, sun, sun!

A bit of  a chore getting the cabin in working order. Never let a straight man and his high-maintenance girlfriend shut down a cabin.

Dust bunnies were the minor flaw. Closed (and rotting) fridge, previous linens not pulled, gas cans not filled, boat covers not weighted down (or the boat tied two ways)…. man am I glad I don’t own a vacation property. Many, many lists of things to open/close the place.

So — here is a great shot of us on the porch:

So — the framing of the shot isn’t the best, but it was the self timer on the picnic table. All of our meals were “al fresco” on the covered deck.

What I didn’t know when I signed up for this adventure was that this year there is a ski-boat for use at Cushman. Now we can check out all the folks at the diving rock! We went out in the morning for a cruise to the rock, and found that we were lacking one major component of a ski boat — a ski rope.

Back to the cabin for lunch and a run to the marina for a ski-rope (in reverse order of that). I had a nap while they went for the rope.

Late afternoon we are back on the water — and after a brief run by “the rock” to look at the boys, it’s time to ski.

Or not. Here is the first attempt for Ross to get up on the water skis:

It didn’t go well. This shot was actually after he was in the water for 15 minutes after “pulling something”. Yes, this is why you should ALWAYS wear a ski vest when water skiing — YOU FLOAT, and the cold water feels good when you hurt something.

Actually, the shot above was taken when we got back to the dock and I grabbed a blanket for him to keep off the wind as he tried to relax enough to actually get off the boat. Ouch, ouch, ouch. And I brought him scotch as well.

Dinner tonight was steak, asparagus, salad (which we didn’t even touch), wine — and Ross was not long for the evening. It might have been the pain, the scotch, the painkillers, us.

[? ? ?]

Work in the morning, then heading out to the Lake mid-day.

Lake? What Lake? Lake Cushman. Property of Tacoma Power and Light, and most of the property around it is on 99 year leases — not unlike what Duke Power does in North Carolina around it’s reservoirs. I understand a public utility doing this, I’m not so sure about Duke Energy as it’s now known. I only know about it because my father owns (or did) stock in Duke, and I have an old friend who I believe still lives on Duke Shoreline.

So, Lake Cushman. It’s an off the grid cabin, if you can call a 3-bedroom, 2-bath double a-frame a “cabin”.

Yeah, that’s a little lakefront cabin. Use my mommy-van as a gauge to size.

Tonight’s dinner is pork chops on the grill, spinach salad, a couple of bottles of wine, and mosquitoes everywhere.

[218.7]

After a truly crappy night sleep — it was the marketing meeting after a quick steak and eggs breakfast. Thank the gods I had done my meeting notes yesterday. At least I was prepared for the meeting.

A minor 15 minute nap before heading to Jimmie’s place for round two of getting his new computer up and running…. a think there is a round three coming, hopefully I’ll get Graf to do round three, or technically it would be round four since I forgot the Saundi round. Oy.

At least I got a wonderful dinner of tamale pie, tacos, salad and serveral different Domain Dendoins wines. Looking forward to having a couple of days this weekend off the grid at Lake Cushman. Well, off the gird with a BBQ and a three bedroom in-holding inside Olympic National Park.

[218.1]

How can you have a crappy day when it includes a massage.

How can you have a crappy night when it includes dinner with friends.

I managed to have it.

[221.3]

So today’s amusement — I should have taken pictures — was going on a tour with Jill of a new condo complex coming on-line.

1111 E. Pike should you want to check it out.

Stunning views from the roof deck — but the penthouse unit opens onto the shared deck, and the bedroom looks out onto it. Odd. Also odd was that all the floor to ceiling windows had blinds that ran from the top down rather from the bottom up so that you might actually be able to walk around you house in your birthday suit without the entire neighborhood seeing you.

Very modern with massive sliding walls — one of which they forgot to put the end cap on so it was resting on the floor. Which brings us to the “fit and finish’ of the place. I’m guessing that they are going to have on-going water infiltration problems judging from the seams I saw on the siding from the roof deck. One of the units on the 5th floor had pieces of blue tape (typical “pick” list method”) stating window handle leaks, leaks around the edge of the window. Opps — and for a new building. Bad. And the fit around outlets on the wood walls (bad), unenclosed ducts from the free-standing range hoods (which will probably be fixed before they are sold), just lots of little detail stuff that wasn’t handled well.

Plus, there just some odd design flaws (which is odd since the architect has a book out about his designs). No bathroom storage space unless you count the medicine cabinet. Nice tubs — but they had a bench at one end where I would have gone with the longer tub… or for me, a giant shower. Interesting semi-floating sinks, but then the P-trap wasn’t enclosed — which would be OK if it weren’t plastic rather than chrome.

I’m guessing prices from $350,000 for the studio and way up for the Penthouse were the reception was staged (the one with the bedroom looking out to the communal deck) with appetizers and wine. The wine was surprisingly good — a vertical tasting by a local winery Cedergreen Cellarswith their owner pouring reds of their 2004, 2005, 2006 vintages (plus a white or two). The open house was hosted by 360 Modern (the folks who specialize in selling “modern” style houses and condos) and had enough appetizers that the steak in the fridge is saved for another day.

Guess you’d say I was underwhelmed by everything other than the view from the communal deck. It truly did make me appreciate what I have here in South Park.

What the tour did make me do was to see what was for sale with a view of Boeing field. Yikes – there are TONS of houses for sale on that side of Beacon Hill and down here in my valley — at prices lower that a year ago when I checked — and more pointedly, the interior shots showed a lot of EMPTY houses. Me thinks a speculator or two are sweating. If I had the spare capital I might just go ahead and pick up the next project house. I did already turn down one opportunity in Long Beach, Washington near the WorldMark — too much money, and why buy when I can just use points and stay right on the beach.

[221.3]

Well, changes keep happening to Son of Bob otherwise known as SOB.

Today silver stripping got add to one of the sides — with the other side to come later this week.

I think it adds a little interest to the side. Breaks up the mass of black paint. An additional monitor shows up at Swanda’s on Wednesday that I found for $80 including shipping. Hopefully this one will work better than the $105 one from Fry’s that arrived Fried.

Work was work.

Dinner was a repeated of last night.

[219.7]

While trolling one of my more successful Internet dating sites, I ran across this Tennessee Williams poem in one guy’s profile. I hadn’t ever read i before, but it rung a bell with my recent dating spree:

Life Story

by Tennessee Williams

After you’ve been to bed together for the first time,
without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance,
the other party very often says to you,
Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you,
what’s your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do

sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up
a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you
lying together in completely relaxed positions
like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.

You tell them your story, or as much of your story
as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say,
     Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, until the oh
is just an audible breath, and then of course

there’s some interruption. Slow room service comes up
with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee
and gaze at himself with the mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.
And then, the first thing you know, before you’ve had time
to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story,
they’re telling you their life story, exactly as they’d intended to all along,

and you’re saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming
no more than an audible sigh,
as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left,
draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion
and stops breathing forever. Then?

Well, one of you falls asleep
and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth,
and that’s how people burn to death in hotel rooms.

Makes me glad that I don’t smoke, and generally don’t date those that do.

The quote comes from The Collected Works of Tennessee Williams — click on the link and Amazon will ship it to you (and give me a few pennies).

SOB got it’s final polish, so did my knob — now onto the silver striping on the side to break up the mass of black. One strip or two?

A quiet dinner at home, hopefully working on airplane reservations for an additional party on my Hawaii trip. I definitely need your happy thoughts on that one!

[221.9]

And we start our post late in the evening:

This would be the view from the boat chartered by Events and Adventuresfor the Lake Union fireworks display. Great location, good food, great people (including the club members and other guests). A little problem with the bar but it just meant you had to order a double double scotch on the rocks — which came in a pint glass. Curt went with me as a guest and Swanda and Fluffernutter were working the cruise, as I sort of did by taking all sorts of candid party pictures and a couple of videos (like the one above).

It seems I can’t stop working even when I’m playing.

Happy 4th everyone. Hope yours was well.

[220.2]

I didn’t think that is was possible, but four of us polished off eight pounds of pork ribs… so much for my theory of having leftovers for tomorrow.

The ribs when on a little after 4pm and came off at a little after 7pm. A nice slow smoke on those ribs. Maybe that’s why they all vanished.

The bread started at 5pm and was timed to be done at the same time as the ribs, and for once, it worked.

Salad with fresh raspberries thanks to Cody’s picking of my bush. Lots of ripe berries, and some that had gone too long on the vine that stayed on the vine.

Bottle of champagne to celebrate nothing thanks to Swanda and a lovely red from Fluffernutter.

Definitely a group effort.

[218.7]

I must be exhausted.

I got back from the marketing meeting and errands and immediately laid down and totally zonked out for an hour. My guess is that I was snoring up a storm. Don’t know what is was, but I needed that down time.

Luckily I didn’t have to worry about dinner this evening — Jimmy is cooking! And what a dinner it was. Appetizers of clams in a butter sauce, the first artichoke from Jimmy’s garden, stinky cheese and crackers, salad (also from his garden), and a little marinated pork tenderloin. Add two bottles of red, and Suzanne, and you have a fabulous dinner.

And for me, an early evening into bed to recharge some further. Maybe it’s just the hot weather that’s taking it out of me.

Short and sweet today.

[218.9]