UMTravels

Drop by number one: Me

Reason: Dropped about 20# of frozen meat to Missy who lives on the corner. With her recent rounds of surgery she hasn’t been working. It’s easy to grow vegetables, it’s not so easy to grow veal chops.

Drop by number twp: Dancing Bear

Reason: To go through all the gathering registrations and make a list of who’s doing what (talent, auction, clean-up, love lounge, etc)

Drop by number three: Jill

Reason: To drop of a seriously cute salt and pepper set. Actually, they are both pepper grinders, I just put Kosher salt in one of them

I added a black dot to the one with pepper in it. She found them on some sale rack and instantly thought of me. And they are MAGNETIC which means they will stick to the range hood.

All I had for Jill was a handful of letterpress advertising slugs.

After all the company was on the road, so was I with a run to the Eastside to pop a check in the bank and grab some bottles of salad dressing at Trader Joe’s — my basket of dressing was down to three partial bottles and the basket holds six.

Quiet dinner at home, just me, some pork cutlets, a salad, and a couple of glasses of wine. It seems that I’m moving back towards an Atkins style diet — trying to cut out carbs, and still taking the Alli to stop some of the fat absorption. Seems like most people I know are headed that way, some because of diabetes, some just to shed pounds. Protein and salad, my kind of dinner.

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I had an interesting conversation with Magnetrocia about when does a vacation turn into boredom. Apparently for me at the same time the ice runs out and I’m seriously in need of a shower. Each morning here at American Ridge after the morning pot of coffee, I’ve cleaned out the filter and run a small batch of plain water through the coffee maker to get a nice amount of HOT water for a shave. My pits may stink (though I use some of the hot water on those as well), but at least I’m clean shaven — it’s ALMOST like a shower.

I slowly packed up camp while reading New Yorker number two (of what feels like twenty — Swanda was behind for several months), chatting with folks, gnawing on some beef jerky. I actually managed (unlike on the way down) to get all but the cooler into the trunk.

Contents:

• Small duffle bag of clothes, camera, magazines, liquor
• Sleeping bag
• Air-filled sleeping pad
• Talisman in box
• Coffee-maker, propane, and adapter.
• Shoes
• Coffee Mug
• Tent-cot
• Camp chair.

Not bad for the trunk of a Mazda Miata MX-5. Thanks Dad for showing me how to pack when we did all those 3-week family camping trips as kids.

Got out of camp around 1pm and got some more great “tourist shots” on the way home.

Next time maybe I should pick up the pace when the timer is on! This is on Highway 410 headed west up to the Chinook Pass. I made a U-Turn so fast to park I totally drenched the passenger side floor with melted water from the cooler. Seems the zipper leaks under pressure.

Looking east from Chinook pass down through the valley to Naches and Yakima. And another obscured shot of Mt. Rainier (the best shots of Mt. Rainier are from window seats on planes landing at Sea-Tac):

And back home by 4pm to go back to working on The Summer Gathering (after a nice steak and salad dinner).

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The first night in the Tent-Cot. Wrong sleeping bag — I should have brought the big-ass cotton lined one. Between the nylon of the sleeping bag and the nylon covering the mini-air mattress and the nylon of the tent, lots of sliding around. And I forgot a pillow so I had to stuff every spare thing into a stuff sack (for the sleeping bag).

A serious protein breakfast — ½ pound hamburger patty with a sunny side up egg on top. Yum. Makes up for the pasta last night. And the coffee tent-side was stunning.

One of the features of the American Ridge Lodge is the 30-hole outhouse. I kid you not.

And the main lodge:

And the nightly bond fires:

Tonight’s group dinner was a full Thanksgiving Dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries, cauliflower with a cheese sauce, and a cucumber salad.

Night number two was a little easier in the Tent-Cot.

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At Chinook Pass:

That would be a partially obscured Mount Rainier (Mount Tahoma to the 1^st nation’s folks) and the yellow cord to keep you from sliding into the mostly frozen Tipsoo Lake. The lower parking lot and bathrooms were still 5 foot snow right to the outhouses (which are in the middle of the parking lot).

Here is a chunk of the Wikipedia description of the pass:

The pass provides the east entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, and carries State Route 410 between the towns of Enumclaw and Naches. Because of the high elevation, Chinook Pass is usually closed in November due to very heavy snow and significant avalanche danger. It usually opens in mid May and is not uncommon to have a snow depth at the summit of up to 15-feet.

As part of the All-American Road program, Route 410 through Chinook Pass has been designated by the U.S. government as the Chinook Scenic Byway. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful routes in the United States. Because the summit is above the tree line, there are many places to park along the road to view the scenery. As commercial vehicles are not allowed through the National Park section of State Route 410, this route is also favored by summer tourism.

For driving routes, for me, it’s right behind the Going-To-The-Sun Road in Glacier National Park.

Left the house around 1 and got to American Ridge around 3:30 with all the stops along the way (gas, car wash, liquor, groceries, ice). Got the camp site set up in time for cocktail hour:

Tent-Cot to the left. Me in the center (with cocktail). Bar (both whiskey and coffee) on stump to the right. Roughing it in the woods with a propane powered 10-cup coffee maker.

Tonight’s group meal was a spaghetti Bolognese for 15 people. So much for Atkins — and anything resembling meat in the sauce.

Like I said. Roughing it.

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Well, I have lungs full of dust, and it still isn’t done. It is done enough to get the talisman safely to American Ridge tomorrow. The progress so far:

It still needs the walnut trim, a little more work on the felt, and the latches.

But not this week.

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Back into the wood shop today. The goal? Glue the slabs of the box today, and then recut the ends because you are designing on the fly.

More brown snot. Really. I should use a breathing apparatus or put in a dust collection system. And even when I move the car out of the garage it still seems like there is dust everywhere.

Why didn’t I take any pictures! All this because I’m going camping with the faeries starting Wednesday and want to take one of the talisman for circle.

Well, I do have a great picture of one of the steaks that Graf and I plowed into:

And for some reason my card reader won’t load my card, so in a day or so there might be a picture here.

The wonderful thing about having dinner with Graf is that he gets off work at 4pm, which means he shows up at 4:30 just in time for the start of cocktail hour. Fresh bread, salad, and those massive steaks. Life can’t get better.

Now if I could get all the cedar dust out of my lungs.

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Today’s word is DADO. It’s a variable width blade for a table saw.

A dado set or dado blade is a type of circular saw blade, usually used with a table saw or radial arm saw, which is used to cut dadoes or grooves in woodworking.

There are two common kinds of dado sets.

The first kind, known as a stacked dado set consists of two circular saw blades fixed on either side of a set of removable chippers. As the dado set spins, the two outside blades cut the dado walls and the chippers remove the waste material between and smooth the bottom of the dado. The chippers are added or removed to the set as required to make a dado of the desired width. Chippers can also be interspersed with spacers to finely adjust the dado width. Consequently, changing the dado width requires the complete removal of the dado blade set from the arbor, disassembly, addition or removal of chippers and/or spacers to achieve the desired width, reassembly and reinstallation onto the arbor.

Probably more than you needed to know. The one thing they don’t mention is the ton of dust and debris that a dado set makes. At the moment it feels like most of it is in my lungs. YES, I should wear a dust mast. Think dark brown snot from going through bunches of old growth cedar.

The project? To make a cedar box to transport the various talismans to gatherings so it doesn’t break. 6″x6″15″ is the outside dimension.

The progress for the day was actually getting the old blade off the table saw, getting the right number of blades for a ½” cut, and doing all the edges of the panels.

Dinner tonight was working through the left-overs, first up, all the chicken, now deboned and a load of soon to be stock sitting in the fridge.

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Today’s big adventure is to ride a stream train to nowhere.

That would be the Chehalis-Centrailia Railroad. Take about an hour and a half to do the nine mile route up and back.

What can I say, it was a Groupon Coupon which basically made it a 2 for 1 Special. We took the longer ride ($3 extra each in addition to the Groupon). A silly way to spend an afternoon, but the weather was stunning.

Big ass steak dinner afterwards at CaddyDaddy’s place while I installed his new wireless router. Did I remember to get my old router back, no. But then again I now also have a monitor in need of a power supply in my trunk so I’m assuming we’ll meet up again soon.

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Before I get onto the day, dinner, and what-not, I have to post this “odd-car” picture:

Why do I want one? If you click on the photo you get to an article featuring 10 weird and wacky cars.

And now back to our regularly schedule blog post…

Today’s package run is something I’ve been anxious to see all week (somehow, toner cartridges don’t get me that excited):

Would you believe a propane powers 10-cup coffee maker? Just in time for my camping trip next week (and it looks like it’s going to be a sunny camping trip!)

Dinner tonight is with DancingBear and a little gathering work. Here is a shot of the first complete dinner on the dining lift:

Let me tell you, there isn’t enough space on the table for all the stuff you need on a dinner table, like food. There was enough room for the plates and glasses, but most of the bowls of benches next to us. Maybe I just need to make a nesting bench.

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A very full day today that started with the City of Seattle showing up for the initial weatherization appointment — FOUR HOURS LONG. It seems that my neighborhood and income bracket qualify me for free weatherization. The four hours was spent pressurizing the house and looking for leaks, testing for carbon monoxide (and mounting a free detector), and figuring out of the walls are insulated. The findings and the cure:

• Insulate the walls
• Insulate under the floor
• Add another 10″ to insulation to the ceiling (except for a 50 sq. ft. storage area)
• More attic vents
• Seal all the gaps in the registers
• Insulate the pipes in the crawlspace
• Put down additional vapor barrier in crawlspace
• Install bathroom fan.

Not a bad list of freebies, and it should be done in the next couple of months, just in time for winter, assuming summer ever comes and stays.

Here’s a surreal shot of him pressure testing my house:

Next up on the agenda was dropping off an opera ticket (Porgy and Bess) to Wonderful, the Acer Netbook to Graf to see if he can get the operating system to load, and then off to dinner with the Jims to talk shop, wine shop that is.

Jimmy did a nice dinner of BBQ’d chicken, great salad, garlic bread ¯ and the other Jim brought three different bottles of his 2007 SodoVino wines (he is a commercial winemaker).

And then it was back home to work on the damn photo directory.

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One phrase for today: billable hours

But more unbillable than billable, enough that by the end of the evening my neck was hurting. Nothing like editing a hundred thumb-nail photos into something that will print nice in black and white. Yes, I’ve started on the photo directory for the gathering.

Another run to the apartment for packages… a 2TerrByte External Drive that I snagged for $89 and a black-toner cartridge for the beast (the 11×17 full-color laser printer). The printing for the gathering has taken its toll on my cartridges, luckily they aren’t inkjet!

Because of comments left yesterday, there are a couple of variations on the theme.

Well, that’s it for today.

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Ah, a quiet house again. An office that I can actually use. Peace.

More Madrona Wine Merchants stuff today, thing logo revisions and tax consequences (no, not of the logo). Three more possibilities:

Now it’s out to “committee”. The joys of multiple opinions, but it’s all for the better good.

And I took another print project to the “formerly known as Kinkos” for a little trim. It’s the front and back cover for the upcoming gathering:

Sorry that I had to “blur” parts of it, not that this is a “family” blog, but still.

A package run to the apartment, then a little business meeting about the client that is still in my life after firing them a year ago, then cocktails, then a lime basil tilapia dinner with a big salad, then home to try various version of merging directory records and photos. At least I’m learning new skills!

Talk about a geek evening (well, except for the gourmet meal).

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With everyone in bed early last night we were up early, fed, and out of the house by 11am to take the boyz to the hound, the Grehound that is:

Thanks DancingBear for the use of the car! Hope you had fun with the Miata. I dropped the car off in the north end and returned top down for a quiet evening at home. I even tried out the new headset for the massive phone:

That’s a shot of me chatting with Wendy from Kansas City about life, love, and New Orleans.

My quiet dinner was pork sandwiches on the left over dinner rolls, slowly cleaning out the leftovers from cooking for three for three days.

Almost done.

{227.5]

Another late night. Bottom line, breakfast closer to dinner.

The boyz are headed into the city on their own, on the bus, goddess help them.

Some silly pictures from the last night (no wonder I took a nap after they left for the city):

OK ¯ that was creative editing of pictures. Apparently we are ALL having way to much fun, and everyone’s clothes are still on.

So, Max came back from the city with a guitar and case so he can record a “road album”, and returned to me smoking a rack of ribs on the grill to give them a taste of the US, or at least the US Midwest:

Yum.

It was an early night for the boyz as they are leaving tomorrow, and with jet-lag and lack of sleep… Max crashed at 9pm, Mike at 10pm, me at midnight.

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I must say that staying up late leads to getting up late which means breakfast is closer in time to lunch.

Today’s plan is to play tourist with my favorite driving tour. South to Tacoma with a stop at South Center for 35mm film. Yes, real film. Mike has a couple of non-digital SLRs with him. So odd to even have to say non-digital. I haven’t had an old school SLR for at least 20 years, but I know who still has mine: Jimmie.

After the film stop and traffic hell of a torn up South Center area, it was across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, made famous from the original span, Galloping Gerty:

We got across just fine on the replacement bridge, though it was amusing that Mike had seen the footage of the bridge collapse.

I opted for the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle as it’s a little longer and a prettier than the Bainbridge Island to Seattle run. It’s been a while since I’ve been to that terminal — they have seriously spruced up the waterfront!

This isn’t the best picture, but it’s the only one I took on the boat of the boyz:

Back on the Seattle side we plunged into the traffic from both a Mariners game and a Sounders game trying to get to the apartment for me to pick up a package, and show off Uwayjama while shopping for the veg to go with tonight’s meal. The boyz were quite impressed with the geoducks (aka Horse Clam).

While they are both musicians, Max was having a field day with both my ukulele AND my concertina. Damn talented. Poor Mike is limited to the guitar and the uke.

Dinner was a huge pork roast on a bed of potatoes, and a massive salad and a couple of baguettes fresh from the oven.

Damn fine meal and damn fine house guests.

[? ? ?] scale is buried in the disaster of the boyz room

Hectic day with a growing waitlist for the gathering and picking up MaryBeth from Swedish Medical Center and taking her home to Tacoma. She was in for a sort of hernia and touchup on her reconstructive surgery. And you know how much I hate hospitals.

Which gets me onto all things plumbing. How do you test toilet designs to make sure they are up to the stuff? Miso paste and condoms. From this month’s Popular Mechanics:

“The standard toilet-testing load — known as a unit — is a condom full of 50 grams of miso paste. Engineers flush six units to simulate a typical man’s demands. At trade show demos, folks toss in 10 units at a time. The ½ kilo test proves the loo can handle even the toughest encounters.”

By the time I got back to Seattle, think Friday afternoon traffic in two directions, forget picking up a prescription at Costco (again, on a Friday afternoon, a bad idea).

I left for the airport at 7pm as the Boyz (Mike and Max) plane was running a little late. It wasn’t hard to get their attention (having never met them) with this sign:

Yes, they are British, Oxfordians if that’s what they call folks from Oxford. They are friends my college-era buddies, husbands, daughters, boyfriend and his gay buddy. Confused. I’ll let you assign who’s who to the picture:

We had a much needed for the boyz late dinner of lamb chops, roasted potatoes and salad.

Ended up staying up wayyyyy too late. The joys of company.

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Another typical Seattle summer day, it can’t make up its mind if it is going to be sunny, cloudy, or dripping.

Spent the day tidying up gathering stuff, picked up paper for the cover (which will be printed oversize and then trimmed so it bleeds on all four sides) and started cleaning up the house getting ready for tomorrow’s British vistors.

I don’t know when the last time I actually saw the coffee table with room for coffee! It also provides a reasonably safe place for the talisman until I get boxes built for them.

Dinner tonight is with DancingBear (DB) and BreticusMaximus (BM):

Marinated roasted turkey breast, roasted potatoes, challah rosemary dinner rolls and a big green salad. A little more starch than I like, but those boys do love their carbs.

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Half a chicken roasted in a hot sweet chili sauce.

Yum !

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Here is today’s photo of the day taken at night:

Drinking and watching TV twenty feet above the back deck during a rain storm — hanging out under the umbrella.

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This morning about noon I closed registration to the gathering by turning off the PayPal link page, redoing the web site, and sending out announcements on the NWRadFae, FaceBook, BushFaerie lists. And then I got the daily mail (after a run to Jimmies to drop off printed paperwork and an example of “extreme wine sampling”) to find more checks and registrations. More juggling and phone calls and everybody has a place to stay.

The Gathering if FULL, and from here on, it’s ONE OUT, ONE IN. Gee, do I should like I’ve reached my limit. Yes.

While I was on my run to Jimmies’ place, I stopped back by EarthWise to pick up a sauna heater with my $10 off coupon (off $65 purchase). Yet another project! The sauna heater unit (70’s, but without rocks):

The space that it MIGHT go into, next to the hot tub:

Wow, it’s like the Capital Hill house all over again… if the Capital Hill house and amenities was wool, and I washed it an put it in the dryer.

A quiet dinner with me, some lamb chops and salad.

And the evening was spent finishing up of gathering paperwork and making a “devil’s deal” with my sauna/hot tub/stove repairman who will visit after the gathering to evaluate the sauna heater and adjust the “free” Wolfe range oven thermostat that he put in on his last trip north.

OK.

The people that make my life work:

• MoonSong: Maid, plumber, concrete worker, masseuse, electrician
• H20Blanco: Hot-tub/sauna/stove repair guy

Wow, I’m a lucky guy.

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