UMTravels

I can’t add, or count calendar days – seems I’m working 16 days straight, not 10. So really the 6 of 16. I guess I can look forward to the cruise in May that I arranged off as part of the job acceptance.

First day off – the 8^th of April.

Worked at the print shop, and should have come home and taken a nap, but instead I cleaned up the deck as the sun was out and tonight is BBQ. Swept, rearranged, drained the water off the top of the hot tub – might fill it up this week! But I’ve got to get another cover – the old one is looking… ugly.

Speaking of BBQ – Jill is the dinner guest for a small two-person mixed grill. Couple of chicken breasts and three lamb T-bones on the grill – add a salad (since Jill and I are in the high-protein, no-carb world) and a little wine, and presto.

Dinner was sort of a working dinner – Jill reading scholarship applications and then talking about how to turn a working business into a foundation that kicked off scholarships for college students. Sort of a great combination since she just graduated from the UW MPA program (I believe) with an emphasis in non-profit administration. Great conversation, more work to do. Who knows, I might get an ongoing job out of this, and Jill might get a consulting gig. Win-win.

My after dinner activity? Topping off the barrels in the barrel room:

It took 1500ml to top off the four casks…

• 750 (on the left)
• 1 liter (with the strap)
• 2 liters
• 3 liters

Work tomorrow isn’t until noon. No alarm tonight – whew!

[209.4]

At the print shop at 10, left at 2:30.

Then the plan was home for a bit, then off to a Wine Tasting downtown from 5-6 PM –a nap was a better option

Got up and did a little electronics project – making a liquids alarm for the initial catch jar for the still. I hadn’t done any electronics soldering in almost 40 years – since high school:

First couple of joints…

All soldered up – the backside…

Finished product.

Then it was off to the wine shop for a private wine tasting from 7:30-9:30 – Events and Adventures was the group.

Maybe I’ll have time to work on the new folder tomorrow. Printed out the manual today:

Home for a nightcap and to bed.

[209.4]

At the office at 10, lunch at a little after 1, off the clock at 2:30.

Feels like four jobs today. Print Shop, Consulting, Faeries, Wine Shop.

Work, then UW Surplus sale (Tuesday 12-6) which netted the following:

• 8550 Yellow Toner Cartridge (normally $175, today $10) for Scotty Dog
• Duplo 11×17 folder with electronic settings ($95) for me

Then off to Safeway for fish for my new boss (the pescaterian), then by the shop to pick up boxes for recycling….

Boxes on the back, printer in the front, sun out above.

Home by 4:20 with no place to put the folder – that’s another day’s problem.

A lovely pork chop for dinner and off to bed for day 5 of 10.

[210.4]

First day on the new job – training day. But also day three of ten days running with no day off.

In at 10am – out at 6pm. A stroll for lunch that put me over the “30 minutes” for lunch. Not that much workload early in the season so assuming no grief. Just less money out of employer’s pocket.

Came home, collapsed, made dinner, set alarm, went to bed.

[207.2]

Sunday at the shop wasn’t too bad, not as good as the last three Sundays, but respectable for a Sunday.

A big shout to Swanda – today’s “whale” who called in two orders (first was six assorted Sauvignon Blancs under $15, second was for two Proseccos, also under $15) over the course of the afternoon. It’s nice to have some people’s credit cards on file in the safe for these “emergency” white wine orders.

After work it was off to dinner with Bliss – grilled chicken, asparagus, salad, wine – after a martini, of course. I’d ask him to read scholarship applications but he’s an International Baccalaureate teacher a local high school – just what he needs: MORE papers to grade.

Left around 7:30pm so he could get back to grading those papers – a task that fills most evenings and weekends. After seeing his workload I have extreme sympathy for every high school English teacher.

Next stop the apartment – two weeks til Swanda moves. I see boxes awaiting filling, but with only 600sq/ft it won’t take long. He shared some interesting news which I’m not going to share – let’s just say, things are looking up.

Home by 9:30, in bed by midnight, for tomorrow I work at 10.

[207.2]

Opened the shop today, and it was dead until 1pm, so basically two hours of quiet time, then, by 1:30 when Jim showed up, $450 in sales. The “whale” showed up – he tends to by his wine by the case and half-case from the Saturday tastings and then picks them up the next week. We love our whale – wish he’d find a pod to bring in.

Left Jim running the shop after the tasting and headed home for dinner with Roxy – my soon to be boss.

Tonight’s activity before and after dinner is to read the scholarship applications that arrived on Friday. I did my reading last night so I’ll be cooking while he’s reading. Apparently, reading scholarship applications and awarding money based on those application is on Roxy’s “Bucket List”. I mean, I like doing it, but not sure I’d consider it a bucket list item. Apparently in his job interview at Nordstrom he said is eventual goal in the Corporation was to end up in their philanthropic wing.

And he’s pretty good at it – he caught two applicants that shared exact wording between their two applications:

Both were in their cover letters. Not knowing who filched from whom, we disqualified both of them – but even my initial rating of the papers, they were at the bottom of the rankings.

Since Roxy is a pescatarian, it was a fish meal – guess I should have had him over yesterday since aren’t we in Lent?

An amazing after-dinner conversation about the direction of the company that we both now work for (well, for me, starting Monday). Seems the owners want to divest themselves of the company and Roxy thinks it should be turned into a Foundation like the Newman Foundation, with the profits of the business going for scholarships at the various schools we service which would make a GREAT marketing pitch tool to get other schools to join in. Roxy on the operations end, me on the sales/management end, the original owners on the board of the foundation. I guess I know how my next seveal months are going to be filled – working on a business plan.

To bed too late as usual – must start retraining body to be out of the house by 9:15am.

[209.6]

Took off around no one to run errands (Post Office to drop off taxes and other things and Safeway for food) and on my return found CaddyDaddy waiting for me. Usually he comes up mid-afternoon. Not this trip. Luckily he knows the combination to the side gate and the code for the key box with house key inside.

Lots of things on our agenda in addition to dinner:

• Book his trip with his mother to San Diego using my last $99 companion fare that can be used for First Class
• Find a rental car that doesn’t cost a fortune
• Print out all the booking confirmations
• Book what might or might not be my birthday trip – the reverse course of my May Princess Cruise coming up in six weeks
• Talk about his budget for my birthday trio ($1200)
• Talk about maybe the Trans-Canada ViaRail run instead of another cruise
• Or maybe cruise from Seattle to Vancouver before the one we booked… which we would have to do on a different ship since for some reason they wouldn’t let us book back-to-back trips on the Golden Princess. I suspect it’s because you clear US Customs in Vancouver.

Followed by more cleaning and organizing – mostly so I could unbury the spare bed in the office.

More lamb for tonight’s dinner – this time those little T-Bones. Salad for me, salad and saffron rice for CaddyDaddy since he’s on a diet management plan to keep his diabetes under control.

Stayed up way too late reading scholarship applications for my endowed scholarship at The Evergreen State College. Not sure why there were only 6 applicants this year, last year we had 24 (which was painful as it took hours of reading). Also not sure why next year’s scholarship amount is half what this year’s is. Will need to follow up on that.

If you want to read an article they did on me four years ago, here is the link: http://www.evergreen.edu/annualreport/2009/souder.htm

Too bad I couldn’t get CaddyDaddy interested in reading as well – last year we read them all on the deck of the military hotel in Waikiki…. Ah, sun, I remember that.

[208.8]

Well – once again it’s time to put the massive pile of papers in order and get the tax information to the accountant. And what a pile it is:

While I was sorting paperwork, the still was gurgling with another run of H²0Blanco’s Elderberry Wine. Now that’s multitasking.

Finished the taxes after a nice lamb dinner with a side salad.

All is good.

[208.0]

My plan was to get caught up on some stuff before work begins next week. And to organize my tax documents. Instead I got the blog caught up and some stuff cleaned up, and opened the other box that arrived yesterday…two at-home HIV tests. Every time I go to the doctor my out of pocket is hundreds, as he does tests which aren’t covered on my insurance.

So you can guess the results of the test because if it had come back as being HIV+ I probably wouldn’t be announcing it here. The photo is linked to the Amazon page where you, too, can purchase the product.

Then more bedroom organizing swapping the shoe rack for the pay phone booth:

And then the unexpected, well, it was expected, just not today. A call from my buddy H²0Blanco that he was in town and when could he come by with a couple of cases of Elderberry wine to run. Turns out if was tonight – so much for my plans of organizing paperwork for this year’s taxes.

Here is a photo from after dinner – the AIX Rosé we had with the chicken, a sample from tonight’s run (at 100 proof!), and a sample of my Asian Pear Brandy to compare it to:

He’s off skiing in the morning so it was early to bed for him.

[208.8]

Spent most of the day trying to get the damn Excitation (my new job). Got it to work once, and then after a reboot, nada. At least I got the procedures manual printed and the calendar to consistently load into a browser.

Spent a couple of hours hanging out with Swanda having cocktails after I picked up my packages.

One of the things that arrived was a second shoe rack:

Lamb chops with spinach for my iron-rich dinner. Unfortunately the wine from the Sunday pasting had passed its prime. Luckily the moonshine hadn’t.

[208.8]

Big day in the wine world. As its Washington Wine Month, two of our distributors are showcasing their French Wines (well, a few Spanish and New World Wines thrown in).

Two hours of tasting (and nibbles) at the Corinthian Yacht Club (two floors, probably a couple of hundred bottles open) and then a half an hour drive to a warehouse for another couple of hours of tasting wines (small, probably a hundred bottles or so). I did try a local whiskey at the end – Tatoosh, not bad, but boutique bourbons and whiskeys run to the $35 a bottle range – a little rich for my blood.

After all the wine, whiskey, and food I had to go home and take a nap. Even with swirling, sipping, and spitting (unless it was over $50 wholesale, and there were a bunch of them) you still tend to get a bit of a buzz on, if only from a contact high.

As evening rolled around I checked to see if my miles had posted from both my Hong Kong trips. They did:

Now the decision is do I go for Gold for 2014 as I already have Silver. That would mean another 20,623 flight miles (two more trips to Hong Kong)by December 31^st (or is it end of January for United). If I want million-miler status it would mean another 83,303 miles or six and a half trips to Hong Kong. Apparently Hong Kong is my new measuring stick.

At the moment it’s all for naught as I start working a week from today (a week before I thought, but money is money). Got email today with email setup instructions (mac shop so it still isn’t quite working) and my work calendar which showed me working next week through June 19^th, with Friday the 29^th of March off (to work the shop while Jim has company in town) and the four days in May for the cruise to LA with CaddyDaddy, DancingBear, Swanda, Jill, Punch, Fluffernutter and his Mom – still need to flesh out the whole list. I wonder how many of the people I’ve forgotten.

It should be interesting.

Another quiet evening around the house, trying to get stuff off my place – like getting the latest round of proofs of to one of my clients. Here is the back of their card (but without the proper icons for each of the categories):

With the last round of comments they wanted a QR Code on the front and a Tag Code on the back – which layout wish I did but told them it looked like crap, and provided one with both tags on the back which works much betters.

Wow, a regular job, and clients coming back.

Let the good times roll.

[208.8]

Good day at the shop – third Sunday in a row following a not so bad Sunday four Sunday’s ago – confused yet?

There was an art opening from 3-5pm, but you know artists – they aren’t buying the expensive bottles. Interesting art, still need to find out if any of it is for sale.

Click on the picture to pop over to the Madrona Wine Merchants site with show details.

And every time there is an Artist Reception they are never out the door at 5 when we traditionally close on Friday. Basically I got home around six in time for the national news on CBS – yes, I know, liberal-biased media (followed by that left-wing 60 minutes).

While watching the boob tube I put together a piece of furniture that came to the apartment last week:

A little rack for my Imelda Collection of custom shoes. Too bad I have twice that many pairs – time to order another unit since they stack. Not sure about the location of the rack yet, but at least that spot will hold another rack without hitting the painting.

Just a quiet night around the casa.

[211.6]

I was just out of the shower when the phone rang… delivery of feedstock:

It was supposed to be 10 cases (which was on the bill), but turns out it was 10 1/3 cases. A free extra four bottles.

Le Conte des Floris Ares Blanc 2005 which is 60% Marsanne, 15% Terret Bourret and 25% Carignan Blanc. Let’s face it… most white wines don’t last eight years in the bottle unless they are pricey White Burgundies. See previous posts on expensive French White Wines.

$1 a bottle doesn’t count in this category. I also have H20Blanco showing up next week with a couple of cases of his Elderberry Wine that isn’t as good as it should be. Looks like it’s going to be busy in the kitchen next week.

I close the shop today, but by the time I got there I was feeling sort of green – semi-nauseous. Apparently I looked it as well – Jim commented that I didn’t have much color. I declined his offer to just go home. We don’t have a wine rep today so that would just be crazy.

OK day at the shop – cleared the lower hurdle for an OK Saturday. Let’s pray for another good Sunday tomorrow.

Home at 7:30 to make a little chicken dinner and update all sorts of stuff.

Still lots of stuff on the plate for tomorrow at the shop. Some of it even wine shop related.

Back in the saddle again.

[211.4]

I love my clients – one day I get a “we are slammed, check back in a couple of weeks for our comments”, and then less than 24 hours later… comments come in. Something for me to work on this weekend.

Meanwhile I’m on the search for replacement plastic bags that we use at the shop… ours are two thin to meet the cities ban on plastic shopping bags….

Alas, no easy solution.

Well, the easy solution is to use up the rest of the two bottle bags (above) and then use up all the four bottle bags (at least a six month supply) and then switch to paper – thicker plastic are almost twice the price and you all know how frugal Jim and I are (old bags were .06 each, new closer to .12).

Lots of catching up on email, snail mail, you name it.

Patrick showed up a little after seven for night number two – he’s off for DC in the morning.

And for today’s picture, one from the lobby of the hotel in Hong Kong…

Vinotherapy – what a wonderful concept. That would be about $15USD.

[214.0] Blame all the sushi rice.

Hong Kong to Seattle via Tokyo. That’s today. Up at 6:30am, checkout and check-in at the desk… which didn’t open for 15 minutes after I got there. The good news? My boarding pass now says Star Alliance Gold (on the way out it said Silver) which gets me into the Club Lounge.

Picked up some cheap Chinese cigarettes for the freezer at duty free – have to wait for booze until Tokyo where I won’t have a connecting flight.

As I’ve said, the Chinese are wild about buffets. I’ve never seen a lounge buffet with shumai (little dumplings), spring rolls, sausage, sushi, all those breakfast pastry type things, cereal, all which morphed into lunch items including hot dogs (odd choice), curry chicken, more sushi.

Lucked out on the flight to Tokyo – exit row with reclining seats with the middle seat empty after the window seat didn’t show up. Sweet.

The Club Lounge at Narita was huge and packed, and the food not nearly as good. Maybe I should have tried the ANA lounge.

The one thing the United lounge did have was a shower:

Nice to have a break, get out of painful socks – never again will I wear tight socks on long flights.

Watched one movie, washed down an Ambien with Chivas (out of a real bottle, not a mini), the joys of flying another nation’s carrier slept for four hours or so, woke up had another meal, watched another movie.

Global Entry made it easy to get back into the US, but Sparky the USDA dog got a scent off my bag so I was off to ag (agricultural) inspection – the guess by the officer was that it was the scent from the sandwiches I grabbed in Hong Kong that I disposed on the flight from Tokyo to Seattle. Hopefully this won’t affect my status.

Even with the delay out of Tokyo, we were almost on time getting back which is good since I’m meeting Alicia at baggage claim. She’s going to see her father in Idaho, and leaving in an hour or so, so it’s a quick visit.

Alicia leaves, I take a quick nap, and Patrick is knocking on the door – he’s in town for two nights for a green building conference… no rest for me. Well, yes, rest for both of us – he hadn’t slept last night (flew in from DC) and I could use a little more sleep for dinner at Swandas, well, dinner and package delivery.

Dinner, oddly enough was sushi from downstairs – how much sushi in two days….

And for our last picture… shadows on Swandas wall.

Long damn day.

[? ? ?]

Stayed at Disneyland until around 5 then grabbed a cab to the Novatel Citygate. Here is a great shot from the bathroom, through a glass shower wall, past the bed and out onto the bay view. The clerk was right when he said he’d given me a nice room.

And here is the “odd” thing about this hotel… they give you an ice bucket, but there are no public ice machines… you have to call housekeeping and they bring you this:

Well, I won’t run out of ice.

Michael knew about this hotel because of its great buffet – something I didn’t know when I booked this room. Look at some of the lovely items available:

And my first plate…

And there were many plates to follow, including another couple with more sushi. Not bad for $30US.

Tomorrow it’s back in the air.

[? ? ?]

Today is all about Hong Kong Disney.

Started out with an “odd” breakfast. What I ordered:

What arrived…

Yes, that is macaroni soup. Too bad the eggs weren’t in the shape of Mickey Mouse, everything else seems to be.

Met Michael at the front gate at a little after eleven and it was lunch followed by a couple of Buzz Lightyear rides followed by a couple of Space Mountains, followed by It’s A Small World, the teaups, then the new Slinky Dog ride, than the parashoot ride, then the river cruise and then another new ride (for Michael), the new mine coaster ride, then Autopia and another Buzz and we were out of there at a little before five. I think we did our 10,000 steps today.

Here are some of my favorite photos:

And in the weird signage category, apparently, no disco dancing on the ride:

And you must be sober to ride this ride:

All the photos are on FaceBook for those who do that.

Posting this now so I don’t run out of minutes on plan.

More about this day tomorrow.

[? ? ?]

Hong Kong trip number two starts again at 5:30am… this week’s flights are timed differently because of daylight savings time, meaning I have more time for the layover in San Francisco. Which, of course, means I don’t need the time.

Slept most of the way to SF which is good because I was up until 2am packing. Still feeling full from breakfast in the Board Room in Seattle, stopped by the Yankee Pier for a cup of clam chowder before heading to the International Departures wing of SFO.

Even had time to do a little duty-free shopping. This week it is the Jim Beam Double Aged Bourbon for $25 a liter. This time I remembered to bring all my 3oz containers to pack any leftovers.

An uneventful 14 hour flight – only one free drink this time. When I checked in, the seat next to me was open. By the time I boarded there was a nice, but plump lady occupying it. Oh well, it’s only 14 hours.

The downside of taking the same flight two weeks in a row that doesn’t span the end of the month is that you’ve already seen the movies:

• Cloudfall (the latest Bond movie, which I hadn’t seen in the theaters)
• Life of Pi
• Wreck It Ralph
• And some movie about a guy to goes on the cage-fighting circuit to save the music department of a local high school. Sort of a bromance sort of picture.

The first three I saw last week. The last one this week. Luckily my return flight to Seattle is via Tokyo so a different set of movies for those flights. Downside is that for the Tokyo-Seattle portion is on ANA, which was supposed to be a 787 – and we know that isn’t happening. The other downside is that EQM (Elite Qualifying Miles) for that flight is only 50% as is the contribution to Lifetime Flight Miles. Didn’t know that when I booked, but I’ll still be Premier Silver for 2014.

Smooth arrival, Hong Kong immigration never seems to take more than about 15 minutes, then it’s off to find an ATM, and then to find the Hotel Transfer desk for the bus to Hong Kong Disneyland Hollywood Hotel – a very faux Art Deco style Disney creation. It was nice for Disney to welcome me with fireworks (OK, the show is at 8pm every night). Here is some of the detail work from the hotel:

Wasn’t totally hungry so I went to the bar for a light dinner. The other choices were the buffet (the Chinese are mad for buffets) and a limited menu quick dine option. Tons of kids in the bar, eating with their parents, so needless to say, there was a Disney movie on a big screen above the bar:

That would be my seat… with book, martini and tandoori chicken Caesar salad, complete with croutons in the shape of Mickey Mouse:

The salad was amazing good – you could actually taste the anchovies in the dressing – and the tandoori chicken was an interesting choice (other would have been salmon).

And this shot might be my new FaceBook profile shot:

Going to bed at what in local time would be 11:30 or so – standard bedtime. Think I’ll try it without the Ambien.

[210.4]

Not a bad Sunday at the shop – two Sundays in a row with good sales (well, for a Sunday.

Headed home after work to cook dinner for Nita who was supposed to be finishing up the detailing on my Miata…. Well, not. Guess that will be Monday now.

Nice pork chops and a salad for dinner – much chatting, much catching up. Hard to catch up with someone when they just pop into the shop for a bit.

After dinner was packing for my next Hong Kong adventure.

Why does it always take me until 2am when I have an early flight?

[210.8]

Time to open the shop this morning… and exactly two sales from 11am-2pm, and then the tasting started. That saved our bacon. Sold all but 7 bottles from the 5 cases, and took special orders for 3 more cases.

Luckily the bottles made it to 4pm – I was worried. What was really fun was that the importer was here to tell about the wines (as well as the distributor’s rep) and he brought along a couple of “library” wines to try. Library wines are older vintages of the same wine that aren’t in distribution, or very limited distribution. As he said, that the 2004 was a personal bottle of his, and the last one.

Then at 4pm the crowds dropped off so I was able to get off a little early and check into The Camlin for the night. The plan:

• Cocktails at the Camlin (though not in the Cloud Room champagne glass that I brought to give to place for their little museum in the basement)
• Dinner at DragonFish (to work on getting my sake punched)
• Monorail to Seattle Center
• La Bohomé at the Seattle Opera in my lovely box seats (last season for those)
• Cab back to the Camlin
• Nightcaps
• Bedtime

All dressed up:

Hard to believe that he is 30. He got carded at the Opera House when we ordered drinks. Later in the evening (nightcaps) when I mentioned I was 56 he was shocked. Apparently he thought I was in my 40’s — nicest compliment in a long time.

And on the monorail:

My big worry is remembering that it’s Daylight Savings Time and not oversleeping in the morning since I have to open the shop.

[210.8]