UMTravels

Wow – nice bump from the end of the month – four figures to the left of the decimal point. Nice.

While I was at the shop (got out late – last minute customers) I got a call from DancingBear inviting himself to dinner since he was just down the street helping with Faerie stuff around the upcoming gathering – guess that means I’m going shopping on the way home.

Dinner? Chicken breasts in Alfredo sauce and a nice big salad, and oddly, red wine since they whites and rosés weren’t cold yet. It was just a shade nippy for an al fresco dinner, but we did it anyway.

After he left it was back to working on the Kenmore Air problem – got an answer. Yes, they can land on that beach depending on the tide. Now I just need to get a price! Here is what we are talking about chartering:

Cessna 180 Seaplane
The Cessna 180 is a small, three-passenger versatile and dependable seaplane that is a favorite to charter as it is the most economical price/mile. Produced between 1953 and 1981, our Cessna 180 planes are day V.F.R. (Visual Flight Rules) certified and equipped, including GPS, and have a maximum range of 500 miles at a cruise speed of 130 mph.

And their route guide:

Stewart Island is the upper left island on the San Juan Island inset. It’s listed as a charter destination only. I’m starting to get excited.

Car to the shop tomorrow – probably should have been in bed before 2am.

[206.8]

Possibly a record winning day at the wine shop, helped along by a wedding order for over $1700 of wine – which they picked up in the MIDDLE of the every Saturday wine tasting from 2-4. Not the best timing, but we’ll take the money and run.

Since I opened I was out of there at a little after 4 – off to pick up Roxy for a dinner date.

The order of service:

• Cocktails
• Start the bread going
• More cocktails
• Proof the bread
• More cocktails
• Bake the bread
• Work on dinner
• Pop some wine
• Eat dinner
• More cocktails

And for those of you who haven’t met Roxy in person, here is a photo:

One of the things I learned tonight is that he has a 1/6 interest in a beach house on Stewart Island:

His place is the brown one on the left – now I just need to research if Kenmore Air can land on that beach in a direct flight from Lake Union just north of downtown Seattle.

I sent him home with the station wagon so he could go to Whidbey Island for a concert tomorrow (and to do more of his laundry – though he did one load tonight). I’ll get the car back on Monday when I need to take the Miata into the shop.

Another late night.

[208.2]

It was a day of errands and puttering around the house cleaning, fixing, printing, binding, and a first step at the garage cleaning and organization – still not able to get the car in the garage, maybe someday.

Here are the binders for the next four trips:

Kansas City, Mexico, the Birthday Cruise, and the MegaDo – not done would be Boston, Honk Hong, and New Orleans.

By 7 I was at the condo of one of our customers for wine and nibbles – I brought home made short bread cookies (which were a hit). As the sun starting to go down, this was the view from her porch:

Yes, that would be Mount Rainier in the sunset smog.

And the turnaround for Number 2 Metro Line.

Home and settled in at half past nine.

[208.0]

The sunny streak continues. First top down errand is to Seattle Outdoor Fabrics for some interesting neoprene (wet suite material) to make a sleeve for the new tablet – didn’t come with on and with the big screen, worried about getting it banged up.

Found some 2mm (the thinnest they sell) in a shocking hot pink on the remnant rack. After a little sewing, here is the end result:

Swung by Fix Auto Collision to schedule the fender work (finally) and was most amused to see Jeff’s Lotus Elise also there getting fixed. Mine goes in on Monday and his will probably still be there since they hadn’t started on the work to fix the SUV that backed over the hood.

But, as for sunny days in Seattle and getting back home, this:

Can cause this:

Which causes this:

Two more cars and I would have made it. I’m the third back on the left hand side. At least the top is down.

An early light dinner as it’s off to the shop for a private event – Events and Adventures (a singles activity club) is having a wine tasting with 20 expected and 13 or so showing up. Twenty is really a lot for the shop when you add the event coordinator (Curtis) and Jim and I. Good sales day considering it was a paid tasting, and they bought a bunch of wine. Think we should add this service to the website – we already donate a couple of these to charities each year.

Was home a little before ten.

More sun tomorrow is the prediction.

[206.6]

Taxes – not difficult, just annoying. It really only takes about ten minutes to pull my quarterly income from FreshBooks then put the number into the Washington State Department of Revenue site and hit send. No stamps, no envelopes, all electronic.

Dinner tonight with Whoretense (who was over Sunday evening for drinks). He was pondering either the art car parade (of which he has two art cars) or a quiet al fresca bacon wrapped bison/veal meatloaf.

The meatloaf won. Sorry, no pictures this time.

I was poking around the web for pictures of the parade, no such luck. Did find some from 2007.

Oh well, just a lazy summer day in the city.

[205.8]

Finally got dates from Obrad as to which days he is going to be in Kansas City for the 40^th Anniversary American Field Service students placed in the Kansas City area. I’m not going to that, but I thought it would be nice to see Obrad for a couple of days (Monday through Wednesday). And, I need the Alaska miles.

Here is what my Alaska needs are:

Nowhere need enough miles to even try for MVP Gold this year. I’ll have to be happy with Silver MVP on Alaska, and Gold Premier on United.

Thinking of staying at the Savoy Hotel in Kansas City for the two nights. $105 for a suite, which includes a massive breakfast in the morning from the Savoy Grill next door (http://www.savoyhotel.net/breakfast.html). Years ago when I travelled on business to Kansas City I used to stay here.

When I used to stay here they had a bag of Gordano Mix and two minis of Bailey’s Irish Cream in a little basket by the coffee maker – hopefully they still do this.

Snagged a mini-SUV (oddly enough cheaper than the economy car) for $35 a day plus fees (total $98).

That done it was time to hook of with Magnatroica and get the rest of his Princess information filled out for the two cruises in September that CaddyDaddy was supposed to accompany me on before his untimely passing.

Next up UW Surplus where I found a couple of maintenance pieces for the faerie printer in the office. I’ve got plenty of toner, just not the maintenance kits.

And the final travel chore was getting Mags Amtrak Guest Rewards number on the Coast Starlight family room ticket instead of Caddys.

All done with planning for a while – more in late August when Alaska Airlines usually puts things on sale.

Chicken Fried Steaks from Omaha Steaks for dinner. Thanks RiverSong for the thank-you package for my work on the Winter Gathering.

[203.8]

Well, I’ve been putting off lots of paperwork for weeks now. The first order of business was dealing with the denial that I got from the National Security Agency (NSA) for any meta-data that they have in their possession with regards to me personally.

You can see a sample redacted Freedom of Information Act request for records here:
http://www.studio403.com/FOIA/NSA FOIA request-redacted.pdf

You can see the letter I received in response to my request here with links to the various statutes:
http://www.studio403.com/FOIA/NSARequestDenialWithLinks.pdf

My favorite line from the terse 3-page (it’s the government after all) denial was:

“Were we to provide positive or negative responses to requests such as yours, our adversaries’ compilation of the information provided would reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”

In my letter to my elected officials (view here: http://www.studio403.com/FOIA/Murray Letter.pdf) I pointed out that as a “trusted traveler and member in good standing of both Nexus (speed lane to get into Canada via car/plane) and Global Entry (speed lane to get back into the US bypassing immigration lines) that they already know more than enough about me.

If anyone wants the word files for any of the above, just drop me a note.

Got the letters in the mail, not that I think that it will do much good, though hopefully the winds of Congress will change.

Didn’t get my quarterly taxes done, that’s still on the list.

The always lovely Mr. Bliss came for dinner (filet mignon and crab cakes) and stayed to see most of The Thin Man before the computer stopped for some unknown reason – now there is another thing to fix on my list.

[205.6]

Up an Adam to the shop. Got a full day to sell wine and update various blogs with our upcoming tastings and art openings.

The usual 5pm rush – I just count on not being able to get out right at five, though tonight it would have been handy since I have an invite to Jim’s for dinner.

Unfortunately we didn’t have this bottle for dinner…this is what Jill and her buddy Dave from Hawaii were drinking tonight:

Jeff, who was also at dinner sold his 1990 Domaine Romanée-Conti for $10,000 six months ago… he could have gotten more if he had complete providence that it had always been cellared. Oddly enough when I looked up the 1972, it was only $2600 (http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=960116), but then when I went to Wine Searcher the 1972 average price was $9019 (rated 88/100 points) and the 1990 average was $20,513 (rated 98/100). Wow. Guessing the KLWines price was from when they originally had it in stock.

Back home early since we ate early. Whoretense swung by to pick up a little gift that I found him at the Chicken Soup Thrift Store (technically these day, the Life Long AIDS Alliance Thrift Store).

[208.0]

Back to work for me today – but first a stop downtown to look at “Big Bertha”, a giant tunnel boring machine. It’s a WADOT (Washington Department of Transportation) open house.

Apparently over 5,000 people showed up for the event – good thing they had food trucks as well.

And I even signed one of the sleeves that are going in the tunnel:

And then it was off to work for me.

Good day dollar-wise at the shop. Apparently Jim had done over $800 before I walked in at 1:30.

Closed up a little after 7 and headed home for a steak dinner. Got to love those Safeway 30% off bargains.

[207.0]

With the all in one Italian washer/dryer combo I have, it take many small loads to get them to come out dry. On the upside it uses something like $4 a year in electricity.

Sheets are done for the guest bed – I’d just moved to whole guest bed mattress into the station wagon for camping. That also led me to clean up the office a bit – still needs way more.

After I got the station wagon completely unloaded (yes, I’m slow) it was off to the car wash – yesterday I took the Miata through – both were looking seriously dusty (the downside of a semi-industrial neighborhood. Now what I REALLY need to do is clean and organize the garage so I can get both the Miata AND the Weiner Wagon to fit.

Dinner with Magnatrocia tonight – a simple meal of pork chops, salad and fresh bread (for Mags).

And just because I stumbled across this cell phone picture… Mount Rainier as seen from the Safeway Gas Station in Enumclaw:

[206.4]

I sort of miss not having to put clothes on until the late afternoon winds pick up, oh well – its back to the city life for me.

Lots of loads of laundry and dishes.

One final photo from the trip…

At the Highway 410 entrance to Mount Rainier National Park – no fees going in this route. $15 otherwise. Highway 410 is in the upper right hand corner of the map below.

Nice big steak and salad for dinner. Time to put down the carbs (the hot dog buns) and get back on the diet.

[207.0]

Last morning in the words. Time to pack up the campsite and return home.

Here is a shot around the fire (which burns all day to get rid of the trash):

Did I mention the 20-hole outhouse? And a last shot of the hot dog stand:

Can’t wait for screws to attach the right hand table.

Left around two for another stunning day of driving through the mountains. I love that drive.

Enumclaw found me at the Safeway (again) raiding the 50% off rack which included Aperitifs as well. Campari’s little brother Apernol. Should have bought the Campari at 50% off, but $18 plus tax, I got cheap. Did pick up (another) two 1.75’s of Evan Williams at $20.99 (plus another $10 or so in tax).

Home in time for the news. Car is a mess. Trailer is a mess (including two loose lug nuts). Lots of laundry and dishes to do.

It will take me days to clean the mess… and make room for both the car AND the trailer in the garage.

[? ? ?]

So nice to get up and not put clothes on while making coffee in the great outdoors… it is so warm that clothes are only needed in the evening when the winds pick up. Don’t worry, no photos of that.

But there are photos of the camp site and the Weiner Wagon:

And then of the Weiner Wagon set up and running…

And of my camp site – sleep in the wagon where it’s dry. Day time gives shade and cover from the occasionally thunderstorm:

Serving dogs during the day. Turkey, chicken, and the occasional pork/cheese brat on the roller dog machine.

Not a bad first run for the wagon and the stand. I did realize that now that I have an arm rest in that I can’t push the back seats forward enough to get the bed completely flat – and I’m parked on a bit of a slope, but not bad. I’m warm enough, that’s what counts.

If I needed (I don’t) there is a zip line across the valley that is constructed just for this gathering – I thought the Wiener Wagon would be another such “amusement”. Downside is having to run the generator. At least for today, a neighbor has a generator in his trailer that he can mostly shut the doors on to contain it’s noise.

Catching up on my reading during the day and chilling with my bros tonight.

[? ? ?]

Up early (6AM alarm) so I can be out of the house a little after 8, and to the land in time to set up for lunch and the initial run of the Uncle Markie’s Weiner Stand.

And what a beautiful day for a drive…

With Mount Rainier in the background.

A better shot of the mountain.

At Chinook Pass, which is generally closed from November-May (and sometimes July if it snows a lot).

More pictures tomorrow once my camp is all set up.

[206.0]

Good Sunday at the shop…seems we are on a run. Is it “Sunday Sippers” or my sales skills… jury out.

Stopped at Safeway on the way home from the shop – last minute shopping at Safeway for:

• Cheese Brats (to balance out the Ball Park, chicken, turkey franks)
• Red/white onions
• Pupu Platter cheese
• Fish for dinner

Add to that I stopped by on the way to the shop for hotdog buns at the Franz (Bakery) Outlet Store for a lot of buns… got the 55+ discount. She had to ask several times if I was “over the hill”… apparently my hearing is going as well. Too bad there weren’t any onion buns (they only come in hamburger) or potato (twice the price of the plain). 2/$3.00 for eight bun packs… think I got like ten bags of buns….

A little food in the belly, intermixed with some packing… got the trailer ready to roll (and checked the wiring):

When I get back from this trip I have to make a lid for this thing…

And here is what the back of the station wagon looks like after stowing all the gear:

Rundown of items in wagon:

• Overnight(s) bag with clothes, camera, reading material
  • Two blue Coleman coolers
    • One for liquid refreshments
      • (12) cans Diet Coke Caffeine Free
      • (6) cans Diet Verners
      • (3) Rosé Vinho Verda
      • (2) bottles of white
      • Brie, Paté, Cheese log for Cocktail PuPu Platter
    • One for dog stand supplies
      • 6 packages of various dog-like products (beef, turkey, chicken, pork cheese wurst)
      • Condiments
      • Cheese, kraut, mini-bell peppers, mixed red/while chopped onions
• Bag of dry goods (luckily all the buns are in the trailer)
  • (2) cans of chili (Amy’s Medium Hot Organic [2/$5.00])
  • (2) bottles of shine
  • (1) bottle of red wine
  • Gorilla Velcro (for the curtains?)
  • (4) Cocktail drinkware
• Bedding, tons of pillows, bunches of blankets
• 12×12 Canopy (to use at the end of the station wagon as a “dry” area, though with the weather, I’m thinking more sun shade.

Fried up the fish for dinner with last night’s leftover salad for dinner, along with the end of the tasting wine from today – apparently it wasn’t enough as a “taco truck” run was made around 10:30 (they close at 11).

Finally done packing. Yeah!

[204.8]

Well, dinner WITH Roxy, not a dinner of Roxy, though as a vegetarian I assume he’d taste quite nice.

Odd day at the shop, can’t wait to see the final numbers tomorrow. Was out of there a little after 4 to pick up the car-less Roxy. Actually, he has a car but his father transferred the registration into his name when mom/wife died… an illegal transfer since it was in the will to go to Roxy. Time to unleash the legal hounds.

So, someone dropped off a sample of a cinnamon flavored whiskey sort of like hot damn at the shop. Jim saved it for me being disgusted at the concept of adulterated whiskey. As for me, I figured out a cocktail of:

• 1 part Cinnamon Whiskey
• 1 part Perucchi Rosso Vermouth
• 1 part Ginger Ale
• 1 whiskey marinated Bing cherry

As for dinner, an Ahi Tuna Steak for Roxy, and a Strip Steak (beef) for me, plus some small round crab cakes, a big salad, and, of course, for the carb hound, fresh baked bread.

A lovely evening – but didn’t get any packing for tomorrow’s trip accomplished.

There is always tomorrow night.

[205.0]

And we are into the home stretch with the trailer:

Just need to run to Home Depot for a tarp and rope/bungee cords. Whew. Sunday after work I’ll do the shopping for:

• More dogs (have 52 now)
• Buns to match
• Chopped red and white onions

Everything else is in the fridge waiting, including a couple of bags of shredded cheese I found on the 50% rack the other day.

Worked the Friday shift at the shop – lots of deliveries, including three cases out of the front end of a Porsche driven by one of our reps. Something tells me he had money BEFORE getting into the wine business. A slow day for a Friday, but there are 10 cases of special orders in the back waiting to be picked up.

A quiet dinner of a pork chop and salad and wine – made two of the chops, one for tonight, one for tomorrow lunch at the shop.

[205.6]

Down to getting the finishing touches put together, like tie-downs and the flipping lock bolts to hold the stakes into the bed:

Picked up a tarp at Home Depot today to cover the top. Now I need to find my grommet set or its back to Home Depot for an ugly blue tarp.

Traffic was hell for the boys coming to dinner. Try an hour and a half for what should have been a half hour run. On the positive side (for me), Damon bought my old living room server for $100, minus the $10 I owed Swanda. One more thing out of my life. The new one is super quite – such a nice change, and I’m guessing it uses much less energy as well.

A lovely meal al fresco (you know him) with cocktails and the new, followed by steaks on the grill with a lovely green salad and some cole slaw for Swanda and I. Damon doesn’t “do” cabbage.

I’d post a pic of the boys, but Swanda’s Fabulous Blog is under construction waiting for pictures to appear (for me to swipe). Check back as Swanda has promised to post pics Friday night or Saturday.

[206.4]

Another day in the garage working on the Weenie Wagon.

The uprights painted and drying in the sun.

One side panel partially installed.

Starting to fill the drawers. Left has hot dog fork and tongs, right on has paper hot dog trays that I picked up today at Cash & Carry.

Still need hook and eye for the bottom boards – yet ANOTHER trip to Home Depot.

Got the spare tire mounted.

And starting to fill the remaining space with the three dog stand pieces that are assembled on-site:

• Sneeze guard
• Icebox for condiments
• Shelf on the steam table side

Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

A small break for dinner, that that was about it.

[204.6]

Time to get serious and get the trailer finished. I have less than a week before taking it camping.

Took Julian to the BoltBus “Terminal” to catch is bus to Vancouver, BC, then I headed to Pacific Iron & Metal to pick up aluminum for the trailer sides.

Today’s progress:

Getting aluminum cut for the trailer side walls.

One of the panels to check position.

Detail of the side area – on piece of the aluminum slides into the other, creating a bit of a foul weather barrier.

And the reward at the end of the day.

[203.2]