UMTravels

What a seriously slow day at the shop. I blame the first decent weather in weeks. 90% of the days sales were in the second hour with one customer making probably 75% of the days sales. Couple of nice bottles of Dunham, a grower Champagne, a $47 bottle from the tasting. In all, six really nice bottles. Of course, being from Canada, all our wine looks cheap compared to what they have to pay in BC – just means they are drinking much nicer bottles down south.

Funny thing — the Canadian, when I mentioned I’d be in Vancouver tomorrow and staying at The Canadian, he laughed and said “Me, Too, we have one of the townhouses (3 stories with roof-top deck, NICE). I should have gotten his number and invited them up for a drink.

Speaking of sunny days, yep, got off work, fixed a drink and immediately headed out to mow the lawn. By the time I get back next week, it would have been a jungle. It was a bit of one as it was.

Pork loin chop (again), but this time with sauerkraut that had been marinated in white wine (Camus Conundrum). Quite tasty.

Next up – PACKING.

As you can see, Mister Lobster is going along for the ride. He’s a nice pillow if nothing else.

[209.4]

Slow day at the shop and I’m blaming the sun. With the first rainless day in a week, everyone was home mowing their lawns before they get out of control – I know because mines on the edge of losing control but 8pm isn’t the time to start mowing your lawn even with the full moon for light:

Too bad I forgot which setting I had the camera on. Aperture Control? Shutter Control? All I know it was the “Happy Heart” easy mode.

Did a little more packing for the trip, trying to sort out what the weather is going to be like:

• Monday – Vancouver, 63 and partly cloudy
• Tuesday – Vancouver, 58 and partly cloudy
• Wednesday – Jasper, 49 and partly cloudy
• Thursday – Saskatoon, 48 and rainy
• Friday – Hornepayne, 63 and partly cloudy
• Saturday – Toronto, 61 and partly cloudy

Of course these are just the cities that I’ll be in mid-day on the train.

Thinking corduroy pants and dress shirts for five days.

[209.9]

Up and out of the house for my monthly Friday workday (first Friday of the month for those keeping track).

Not a bad day at the shop for a Friday, barely had time to finish today’s Wall Street Journal with all the deliveries coming in, stocking to do, customers to call with their special orders. But that’s a good thing.

It’s weird that when I get off at 7pm, its well after 8 by the time I eat. Almost nine tonight. I guess it isn’t that weird, it’s that it isn’t my usual schedule.

Most of the evening was filled with writing postcards and getting a couple of packages ready for the mail. Mother’s Day present to Mom, train stuff to Dwight, checks to the bank.

Tonight emergency was an email from United that they’d changed my next Saturday flight from 4:30 in the afternoon to 9:30am – which would be bad since the train doesn’t get in until 9, and last May when I was on the same route, it was running several hours late, making for VERY tense customers.

Half an hour on the phone and I’m back on my original flights – seems that they added 5 minutes to the flight time which left me with under an hour between flights, 55 minutes. It will be tight, but customs/immigration is in Canada and I’m sitting in the front row on both legs. If I get to the airport early I might try and snag the earlier flight even if it is in coach. Hell of a thing to do to your customer a week before their departure. Oops. No earlier flight unless I get to the airport REALLY early.

Off to bed.

[209.9]

Out of the condo at 11:30, just before the noon deadline.

Out into the pelting rain.

Many stops later looking for Alli I came away unfulfilled, a.k.a. no Alli. Apparently there IS a serious shortage. Might try CanadaLand next week.

Out of lettuce – and I stopped at three Safeway stores – I text Swanda in search of a dinner date. He says: I have salad and asparagus. I have chicken thighs which I could easily defrost in time after arriving home at a little after 4pm.

Evidence of the dinner below:

And here is a shot of Swanda’s new ride – found by Fluffernutter at UWSurplus, but it had already been sold last week – to the guy in front of him in the line, who offered to sell it to him for twice what he paid for it — $80. A steal. Came with the promise to sell it back to him at $80 when he was done with it. Go Fluff.

Left early so I could make an appointment with someone trying to sell me knives – he needs practice on his pitch. I’m not sure he knew when he asked that I’ve got a lot of experience in deflecting sales pitches. How many AMEX gift cards have I scored from WorldMark (turned down one in Seaside as it was only $50 and a breakfast that is mostly starch).

By the end of the evening there were several halves of pennies on the floor (one from his scissors, one from mine). I’ll give it to him that he didn’t give up. Turns out he’s also hocked WorldMark and Kirbies.

And he left his “self-healing” cutting board. I hope it’s dishwasher safe since that’s where it is at the moment. Will take to the shop this weekend.

Nice to be back in my own bed.

[? ? ?]

As you can see from the picture below, it’s not too sunny in Seaside for my visit:

Which is OK since I’m mostly in the condo and not out sightseeing.

The boy returned this morning at 9 to spend the day before heading back to his Uncles for the evening. His Uncle, not this Uncle. A swing by Safeway for some bargain meats after running him home.

Steak on the grill (see picture above) and the remaining ½ bottle of wine from last night – still good.

Quiet evening.

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It was an alarm day. Enough said.

Brother was out of the house at 9:30, me fifteen minutes later. Corvallis for him, Seaside for me.

I ended up in Seaside a little before 2pm,but with the rain and wind howling, so much for a little fun at Fort Stevens with the SeasideBoy.

Fortunately the room was ready well before 4pm. They are still working on renovating the exterior of the WorldMark Seaside, so expect construction noise and possible obstructed views for the next several months – according to the letter stuffed into my registration packet – a letter I’ve gotten many times in the year plus this renovation is taking.

No dinner together tonight for us – he is off to his sister’s place for the evening, but he’ll return in the morning for round two.

On the way back from Sunset Village to drop him off, I hit the Safeway and the RiteAid looking for Alli, the anti-fat absorption pill that I take – no stock at either place. Apparently GalaxoSmithKline ran short of some key ingredient that it isn’t expecting until June. Yikes. Not even Amazon has it for anything close to retail.

As for me, beef fajita over greens was my meal of the evening, that and a little more of that lovely SodoVino wine.

[207.7]

It’s always amusing to try and coordinate your morning routine with other people in the house. Sometimes you just have to crash in while the shower is going.

Brother’s quest this morning is a cast iron wok as he and Norma are moving to all cast iron cookware in their kitchen. Mission not accomplished, but it did give me the chance to check out on of the Asian restaurant supply stores. This is sort of what he’s looking for:

Got Brother back to the house by 1 so he could go off and teach a class at the University of Washington. That gave me time to swing by the apartment and drop off some parking passes – apparently he is going through a ton of them with all the nurses physical therapists coming through. Of course, that as AFTER an afternoon nap.

A couple of bone-in chicken breasts served as the protein for dinner. Add a big salad and a loaf of fresh-baked challah (for Brother, not me) and you’ve a fine meal with a lovely bottle of the So’Syrah from SodoVino.

[209.8]

Left Brother to his own devices today while I worked the store. Odd day. Little traffic, but that traffic was generally spending at least $50 a crack. By the end of the day, it was a decent Sunday. Lots of slow time for me to fix the typos on wine cards, read magazines and format the May Wine Club selections list.

Home by 5:30 for another session of “Cooking For The Brother”. Tonight’s episode is a rack of ribs in Arthur Bryant’s sauce done on the grill, and experiment two of “cauliflower pie” as I’ve started calling it, and a nice romaine salad with bits of left-over bacon from this morning’s breakfast.

Damn tasty.

Looks like Brother will be headed to New Mexico in June with a small trailer to retrieve items from my parents place. The BIG NEWS is that they have put the house on the market, and signed papers for the waitlist at El Castillo (The Castle) which in centrally located in Santa Fe a mere .9 mile from the WorldMark property. Brother and I spent the evening puzzling over the 180 degree switch my father made over giving up the house.

Tomorrow Brother is off to UW to teach a class – the main reason for his visit.

[210.4]

Silly me rushing around the house to open the shop on time – only to realize it was my week to CLOSE the shop not OPEN it.

Left Jim in charge and went and took a nap on Swanda’s floor – seemed simpler than going home.

Brother got to the shop around 3:30 for the wine tasting, all McCrea offerings, and a rarity as their “low-end” wines start at $25 and head up to $40 for their flagship Syrah. That meant that we had $142 worth of wine open for the tasting (usually it’s half that).

I didn’t get home until 7:30 and dinner wasn’t on the table until eight: pan-fried pork loins was the main, spinach was the side. No bread in site.

[209.8]

Today’s major event is a Vodka and Grappa tasting with Ms. Jill out in Woodinville – another Groupon tasting coupon.

That would be Matthew, the master distiller and sole full-time employee of Soft Tail Distillery. For the “barrel tasting” it was actually a unlabeled (unless you count blue painter’s tape) of a Viognier Grappa. Damn tasting, and the grappa tasting glasses were pretty cute as well (note: not as cute as the distiller with his Scottish accent).

Had to run home before heading to Swandas for packages and dinner – seems I foolishly left my phone at home when I headed to the distillery.

Steaks and slaw for dinner tonight.

Tried to find the energy to clean up a little for my brother who arrives tomorrow, but alas, not.

[208.2]

More running around town today – Swanda’s to drop off Handicap Placard, Jim’s in install DropBox that didn’t install yesterday, liquor store for Swanda, Wonderful’s to pick up an item of clothing for next week, and then home to start marinating the boneless country style pork ribs for dinner tonight.

Today’s humorous picture – Jim’s home desk and his collection of readers:

I admit that I have a few pairs – though they don’t usually end up all in the same place.

More organizing and labeling. At this rate, by the time my brother arrives this weekend, there might be a clean office for him to crash in.

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Now I’m done.

[209.1]

The day off errands and organizing:

• Apartment to drop off wood for chair support
• Shop to drop off foam to keep gate next door from banging
• Jimmies to attempt to install DropBox (failed, will return tomorrow)
• Two file drawers of jumble hardware and cables dumped on bed
• Cables bagged and separated by type
• Hardware bagged
• Move it all to bins in the garage

Now I just need to remember to make labels so I know what is where.

Quiet evening at the house with steak, salad and wine – after three nights of company with dinner, nice to have a breather.

[208.7]

Elkerton and I didn’t get the scanning done until after 1pm when it was time to break for the taco truck. Torta for him, three fish tacos for me.

For some reason (like looking for a pcmcia card) I decided to sort, organize, and bag all there various computer cables and small bits of hardware and move them to the garage. I got so wrapped up in the project that when I looked at my watch, it was 5 o’clock and I was late for Swanda’s and in danger of not being able to pick up my package at the office.

Got the apartment in time for the package, with Fluffernutter arriving shortly after to lower the bed by two inches per nurses’ orders – which amount to just flipping the concrete blocks that hold the supports on their sides. We did discover that the box spring was cracked in a couple of places, so that was spun so it faces the window side of the bed.

And as for that dinner:

• Cole slaw
• Asparagus with Alfredo sauce
• Two pork loins (of which we ate a little over half of one, LOTS of leftovers)

No wine since that’s not back on his diet yet, and it has carbs. Funny that vodka doesn’t.

Home by nine to spend more time playing with my new Windows 8 machine – it really would benefit from a touch screen. And it’s a radical change from the current system.

[207.8]

With the sun out it was time to knock back the lawn. While I was at it, I dumped four wheelbarrows full of gravel in the ruts down the alley a bit. Trust me, four is about sixteen too few.

Did a little shopping in advance of Elkerton’s visit, Safeway for meat, Liquor Store for Bourbon.

We have a project for tonight – scanning in an 80-page scrapbook that his foreign exchange student made for them at the end of her stay. It’s a really cool piece. The plan is to take the scans and turn them into a book (or two) for her, Greg’s mother, etc. Here are a couple of images from the project:

We got maybe 20% of the pages scanned tonight before and after dinner.

Speaking of dinner, that would be steaks on the grills, grilled red peppers, salad, and a new items on the menu – mashed cauliflower (think mashed potatoes but with cauliflower). I need to work on the spicing and get the moisture down a bit, but this will be an interesting dish for Swanda as he removes carbohydrates from his system (and you all know I avoid them).

Stayed up too late, think it’s going to be a slow morning.

Needless to say, Mr. Elkerton slept on the bed in the office.

[209.7]

Opened the shop this morning and we were pouring four wines in honor of Earth Day, and on the way out I packed out some of the excess boxes – a constant problem. What you can’t see is that the front passneger seat is full of recycling as well.

Tonight’s dinner is with Mr. Bliss – and this is the view from his rooftop deck (well, the building’s roof top deck):

And with Mr. Bliss himself hanging out in the sun having a cocktail:

Dinner was a lovely large salad of greens with some chicken breasts and the remaining wine from the tasting bottles.

I have a great idea for a hallway table for him, now I just need to sand and finish the slabs of black locust, which apparently glows under black light.

[210.4]

Opened the shop this morning, pretty slow until about 1:30 when things started jumping.

Got out of the shop a little after 4 so I could pick up packages at the apartment and have dinner with Swanda and Helene who is in town for ballet performances. A little low-carb Chinese food and a bottle of rosé bubbles.

To get the new computer which is an All-In-One into the Miata I had to take it out of the box. Didn’t want to leave it sitting in the car with the top down, or even with the top up – I don’t need to give anyone an excuse to use a pin-knife on the soft top.

Here is a shot of the new beast:

One of the things I like about this one (beside the price which was $219 including shipping) is the support of legacy ports like a serial RS-232, parallel printer and PS2 keyboard and mouse. What it didn’t come with is an operating system so I installed the beta of Windows 8. So far, so good. Got Office and Streets and Trips installed, tomorrow I’ll put the Adobe Suite on it.

Here is the link, looks like they still have some in stock:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=A410-C2D26-AIO-17-R&cat=SYS

My day, in a nut shell.

[210.4]

Never again will I take that red-eye flight – it just ruins the next day.

I slept most of the way back from Bellingham. CaddyDaddy would have liked to, but alas, he had to wait until we were back in the city and I was on my way to the shop.

The first hour and a half was my duty time so Jim could attend a tasting. My original plan was to do the tasting as well once Jim made it to the shop. Instead it was back to bed. Like I said, a ruined day for getting anything (like mowing the lawn) done.

The late after found CaddyDaddy totaling up the bills from the trip so we could split them up:

Since I had my calendar with us on the trip, it made an easy way to keep track of who paid what. It didn’t include the two bottles (one vodka, one gin) that I bought at the Post Exchange located inside the hotel. The total? $1400 for two of us for four days, including airfare. $175 a day. A little spendy for the frugal me, it was all that eating out because of no kitchenette in the room.

CaddyDaddy and I split an almost 2 pound rib steak, a salad, and I even made bread for the first time in the months since the old bread maker died. Yes, the $5 bread machine from the thrift store works as promised – it even came with the manual.

After CaddyDaddy left, off to the store for me. For $23 I got 6 bags of groceries, most of the items were from the 50% off bins – my savings were 64% according to the receipt. Luckily it was all stuff that I needed.

[210.4]

Nothing like checking email and the standard morning sites to stumble across a friend of mine on CNN:

But the rest of the day is just hanging around waiting for the red-eye back to Seattle.

My form of amusement is taking the Hilo Hattie Trolley to “go shopping”. Nothing is on sale, but I got a great couple of pictures in the process:

And the Star Princess which was in harbor, I think for two days:

And then me at Hilo Hatties (I look so petite):

That would be next to the 400xl shirt in the background. Expensive (but good) lunch at Sam Choys (a block from Hilo Hattie) followed, but still lots of time poolside trying to finish the last of the whiskey so we don’t have to pack it.

Got to the airport around 8 after a GREAT shuttle ride. Cocktails for an hour in the Delta Crown Room before heading to the gate, but, alas, no upgrade. We are in steerage, but at least we are in exit rows.

[? ? ?]

Well, I needed something with a W for Wednesday, since Tuesday was Tanks.

The big goal today is to tour the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island, which is located on Pearl Harbor. Click on this for a 10% off coupon.

Here are a couple of pictures to give you the feel of the place.

CaddyDaddy and I in front of their photo kiock – post direct to email, Twitter, FaceBook. Cool concept, and you know it collects email addresses (though you can opt out of special offers).

Really good displays. But my favorite was the restoration hanger:

And one that they just got in – a DC-3! Just like the one I took in the Northwest Territoriesa couple of years ago.

They were power washing it when we were there. Here is the same airplane in 1993 at the Honolulu airport:

Made in 1942 for the US Air Force, it has more than 55,000 hours on its airframe. Click on this for a link to its entire history.

But enough about airplanes.

Got back to the hotel around 5, just in time for cocktail hour. We got off the city bus and saw this Whale of a tourist trolley:

I want one!

Before long we were off to dinner (fish, crab cakes, claw for me, ribs for CaddyDaddy) with a little Malbec:

By the time the evening was over, all the scholarship applications were read and graded by both of us. Final answer, two ties for first place and two ties for fifth place.

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We still haven’t left the grounds of the hotel. With 72 acres, why bother:

Here is CaddyDaddy on the beach:

And if you look closely in the background you can see one of the “Koa Beach Services” guys. Full service?

And, of course, beach volleyball:

Next up we are off to the US Army museum, which is also on the grounds:

Apparently they tried to knock down this old gunnery, but the wrecking ball didn’t make a dent in it as it was built to survive a direct hit. They finally decided to turn it into a museum since they couldn’t tear it down without tons of explosives (which would have knocked out all sorts of windows in Waikiki.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reading scholarship applications:

Steak dinner on the grounds, then junk TV, then slumberland so we can get up for another day in paradise.

FYI, not looking like an upgrade on the way back. Oh well.

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