UMTravels

No, it’s not that hot in Seattle, I’m talking about a Sunday Roast — a big old chunk of meat in the oven.

A nice article about South Park in the Sunday Seattle Times for any of you interesting in what my neighborhood is like:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2015464442_pacificpsouthpark10.html?cmpid=2628

It is true about it feeling like a multi-ethnic Norman Rockwell kind of place. Neighbors watch out of each other, smile and wave. But the comments are all over the map about crime statistics — depends on which chunk of the neighborhood you are in.

So, that Sunday Roast was a Caribbean spice pork roast and salad that I shared with Wonderfool who showed up with a nice bottle of white. Lots of gossip about who’s going to the gathering, who doesn’t want to room with whom (Wonderfool’s list was long, but it didn’t need a separate sheet of paper). By tomorrow we will be full and starting to take waitlist names while I browbeat the people who are slated in but missing payments. Oh the joys of being the point person Queens Registrar as opposed to the one who just deposits the checks and lines up all the folks to handle the heart circles, auction, talent show, fashion show hosts. That end of stuff isn’t my specialty.

Off to bed.

[227.8]

One of the projects I’m working on is one step closer:

Such an appealing (or is that appalling) typeface they use.

Other than that, not much other news than the lawn mower is dead, dead, dead:

Looks at Lowes and HomoDepot — $199 for the cheapest electric. $135 on Amazon with free 2-day shipping — or since the hot season is here maybe I’ll just let the lawn go brown and save even more money.

Kobe steak and salad for dinner — got to love the mark-down rack at Uwayjamaya.

[226.8]

My day was spent wrestling with paper:

• Business Plans
• Operating Agreement
• Limited Liability Forms
• IRA Pass-Through Forms

The nice thing: we are pretty much done with them! And I was working on a possible logo:

It’s still a work in progress and needless to say, fixing the lawn mower got put off another day.

Dinner tonight with The Girlz and Roscoe The Wonder Dog, one of only two dogs I like and allow into my house. I didn’t get a picture of us at dinner, but here is a great one from when we were in Hawaii last winter:

Jerked lamb blade steaks, salad, fresh dinner rolls, corn on the cob and a couple of bottle of wine dinner was.

After dinner amusement was going through some of my Grand Canyon photos to give them an idea of what they are getting into in a couple of weeks — two week rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. I did a three-week trip in October of 2007, and my buddy WhiteWater is doing a 5-week trip this October.

Brought back lots of good memories.

[227.7]

My Inbox this morning brought a good deal. $129 round-trip (including taxes!) Seattle to San Francisco. I even got as far as choosing dates and seats before I pulled the plug. I’ll be seeing Mark and Onyx in mid-August at the gathering, and am hoping that by early September I’m booked with work because later in September I’m gone for a couple of weeks.

Today’s happy picture, Mr. Lobster, a gift from Fernando.

And no, he isn’t dinner, nor is anymore chicken. Tonight it’s a boneless blade cut of pork and a bunch of spinach.

The evening was data entry correcting the last of the 200+ bounced emails from the last Gathering campaign.

[229.4]

It was a day of details, details, details, and leftover chicken for two out of three meals.

Lots of work on business plans, operating agreements, logo work, culminating in a two-hour late afternoon meeting with a potential third partner.

Add an evening sitting in front of the computer and sorting through forms finds the August Gathering almost full, and most of the cabins assigned. Details, details, details.

Like I said, stacks of paperwork.

[230.5]

With the Canadian and US birthdays over, it’s time to get back to the grind stone and finish up a business plan and logo for on on-going project that while not lining my pocket at the moment, it should going forward.

It’s a marvelously sunny week here in Seattle. What a rarity. It’s enough to make one mindlessly spend the afternoon running errands with the top down.

• Apartment to pick-up tooth brush heads from Amazon
• Jimmie’s to drop off printed documents and strategize
• Lowe’s to check out charcoal prices ($7.90 for a 16# bag — NOT a good sale) and have a Chicago Bratwurst from their stand
• Home Depot, again on a charcoal hunt ($7.99 for TWO 20# bags — NOW THAT IS A SALE, bought two sets)
• Liquor store because Evan Williams 1.75ltr. is on sale this month
• Bank to drop off Boltive check

That didn’t leave me with much in the way of nap time… but I’m finding 15-30 minutes is nice and refreshing.

As for dinner, think leftovers. Think leftover chicken for the next several days.

Rest of the evening was spent on the Summer Gathering details — popping people in cabins. I have all but like 8 people unassigned, waiting for people they want to stay with to register. It’s filling up nicely — we are down to mostly double beds, so many people are going to get lucky and have one to themselves.

Today’s picture courtesy of Wonderful wanting a high-res copy of a picture from our Hawaii cruise in January of 2007. It’s a shot of me making “coffee” in the morning:

Where do I put the water in?

[228.4]

Spent a good chunk of the day working on a business plan after starting to mow the lawn, only to have the lawn mower crap out (again). Looks like it’s time the take it apart and re-solder the wire that goes to one of the brushes. But not today.

Here is a quick little tour of the completed lift:

And here is some of the fireworks action from after dinner.

Dinner? Imagine six people for dinner and food for twelve:

• Buffalo/veal burgers
• Italian sausages
• Home-made hamburger and hot dog buns
• Devilled eggs
• Pasta salad
• Green salad
• Bean salad
• Some other salad I’ve already forgotten
• Watermelon
• Apple pie

Really — for six people.

[228.4]

Another day of dealing with the deck. Nothing like a bunch of people coming over to get you off your butt and onto the lift.

By noon the table was built:

Then a run to Homo Depot to Grocery Outlet to get a hammock for the deck for when it’s just me in the loft. Only one major problem: what I thought were hammocks yesterday turned out to be hanging chairs. Oh well. Just to see what was new, swung by Earthwise which is a house parts store, but in the past they’ve had interesting vintage electrical stuff like my Charlie’s Angel speaker phone that restarted my phone craze. Today’s TOTALLY COOL find even though it means more work on the deck:

How cool will that be when I get that mounted as the up/down switch for the lift. Of course, now I need to run 12v to the panel so that the lights work as well.

In other adventures I unpack the cot/tent combo so see how easy it would be to set up. I didn’t actually attempt the tent, but getting the cot set up was a snap.

Add a little cornmeal breaded tilapia for dinner:

And you have a fine evening meal.

Rest o the evening spent dicking around with the registration database. It seems that we had over 200 email bounces from the first email campaign so I had to pull the report and now am manually going through our database cleaning it up. The thankless jobs a Queens Registrar is forced to do.

[228.6]

Folly according to Wikipedia:

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs. In the original use of the word, these buildings had no other use, but from the 19th to 20th centuries the term was also applied to highly decorative buildings which had secondary practical functions such as housing, sheltering or business use.

Here is the complete article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly

And speaking of Follies, here is today’s status:

That slab you see to the right will be the new trestles table to go between the benches on the lift. If you look at the base you can see quick release pins to remove both of the benches. The trestle table will be free standing so I can use it on the main deck’s dining area as a side table.

The bench on the entrance side is hinged in two places, the bench and the legs. The second photo shows (albeit with bad shading) the bench laid flat for boarding.

My workday was interrupted by a call from one of the colonels with bad news… they aren’t going to do the week they/we had booked in Cabo San Lucas. I’ve been offered the condo so I guess I’m looking for someone for the couch (that was to be my place in the condo). So, no table tonight. But I did figure out the dimensions and which lumber it’s coming from.

So far the bill for the “folly” changes are under $20 from Homo Depot for a 3/8″ drill bit and some sand paper… and from Grocery Outlet, a “market umbrella”, sorry, no pic yet.

The second and final interruption was WonderFool who was in the neighborhood watering another friends plants… cocktails, then we were out the door to Jalisco with a $10 off coupon. It had been too long. The staff missed him and I hadn’t been there for years.

Back home and just dealing with the stuff of life in the internet age.

Oh, and the new vamping cot fits in the trunk when it’s all folded up.

Guess it’s time to start sewing some custom packing bags for the back of the Miata. Another item for the list.

[227.3]

Besides doing the hour or so of registration work, with company coming on Monday it’s time to get the “Dining Platform” a little closer to finished.

And other paperwork related to loan refinancing (still haven’t heard back from weatherization) .

So when all else is done, work on the house projects because company is coming on Monday to celebrate “Blow Up SouthPark”, aka, 4^th of July.

Here is the work so far:

That would be the new bamboo fencing around the stairs.

And then the bamboo fencing at the end of the deck, and the starts of the supports for the benches, which I’ve located the wood for (in the garage) and figured out dimensions. This project might ACTUALLY be done tomorrow! It would have been quicker except that I’m doing “finish” work that most people won’t notice. Unfortunately my hope of a surround for the scissor lift base with the existing bamboo is out. I have patching material left, that’s it.

I gave up on the project (except for measuring and stuff) at 5pm and started the evening self-medication process, followed by a filet mignon dinner (with salad), and some junk tele.

Rest of the evening just dealing with registrations, email, Facebook, the usual crap.

[228.2]

Just another day of screwing around on the ranch followed by an impromptu dinner invitation from Swanda. It a great deal: I bring the protein; he provides the salad and booze. And I pick up my accumulated packages while I’m at the apartment. Of the three packages awaiting me, one was for Swanda, one was for Hummingbird (from Canada who also uses us as a mail drop) and the one for me wasn’t the one I was expecting, so it was unexpected, as you would say. A t-shirt from the Oregon Department of Kick Ass from their last Kickstarter campaign and a Ring sweatshirt that I’m guessing belonged to her deceased father as we are/were about the same build.

Dinner was simple peasant fare of little lamb chops and a lot of cole slaw, washed down with a little whiskey for me, and not sure what Swanda was drinking (could have been water!).

It was an early meal and an early departure, which was good since SurfBetty showed up to drop off the talisman that we blew on Tuesday morning and picked up all the sample martini glasses for sorting, grading, final punte remains to grind off, feet (opposite of the bowl) signing and separating the firsts and the seconds (for pricing).

The first picture is of one of the talisman (filled with black beans to also make it a ceremonial rattle) and this semi-hand-blown oversized Cuervo 1800 Tequila margarita glass that I found in a thrift shop on my way home from blowing the talisman. I find it humorous since the wraps we were trying to apply are almost exactly the same colors as the ones on the margarita glass. It’s a cheap thank-you present for SurfBetty for the four days of blowing.

And our second and final shot of the day is of the talisman themselves shown in the order that they were blown. The first with its intense orange wrap over the swirled globe and filled with black beans, the second a plain swirled globe (the unopened martini bowl) filled with un-popped organic corn kernels, and the third (also filled with black beans) with a plain clear globe at the top and single bands of orange and black on either ends of the stem.

They are so gorgeous that now I have to make presentation boxes for them. And SurfBetty still has to swing buy and do a bit of grinding on the top and I need to find a better seal than a piece of scotch tape (cork? rubber? silicone?).

Just another fun-filled day at the ranch.

[227.6]

Today was cleaning day with Moonsong. Slowly but surely he is scrapping 50 years of accumulated burnt on crap off my Wolfe Range. Not my burned on crap, the previous owners burned on crap.

After a year of nagging from MoonSong I finally ordered replacement filters for my vacuum cleaning… the set of four set me back almost $50 with shipping. Good thing I only need them every 10 years (should probably do them every couple of years.

Another purchase was for car camping. I would have stayed longer at the Longhouse Gathering this May, and probably longer at American Ridge last year had I one of these puppies:

I was online looking for camping cots when this popped up on Amazon. I’d really like the wider, longer version of this, but it has a different folding leg mechanism which doesn’t break down small enough for my trunk. This one clocks in at 7″x7″x39″ when packed in its bag, or you can just use it as a cot. And yes, you can click on the tent and go right to Amazon and order one for yourself.

Here’s the description:

Versatile Kamp – Rite Collapsible Combo Tent Cot spells elevated comfort! Fully assembled, it’s a Tent and comfy Cot in one for full “above ‘n below” protection from weather and wet ground. Don’t need the cot? Simply unzip the tent and use it separately. Using somebody else’s tent? Of course the cot section works by itself too. Smart! More: Sets up in about 3 minutes, however you use it; Heavy-duty powder-coated steel frame; Rugged 210D nylon tent material, with no-see-um mesh on all windows and entries; Fully taped seams and included rain fly make sure you stay dry; Folds down to just 39 x 7 x 7″; Bed size is a roomy 80 x 28″; Triangular windows can be closed while inside the tent; Superior-quality clips, buckles, and corrosion-resistant buckles; Includes ground pegs, rain fly, and carry bag; Fully-assembled size is 80 x 28 x 42″h. Weighs 15 lbs. 300 lb. weight limit.

And in TRULY INTERESTING NEWS my former house a.k.a. “The Church on Lopez” is back on the market after the current owners truly pimped the place out. New roof with rigid insulation, skylights, hot tub/spa, and all for only $100K more than I sold it for, and I’m guessing they spent most of that in the upgrades. Check out the pictures:

http://www.windermere.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=listing.listingDetailUpdated&listingID=130115991&paginate=true

Tonight’s dinner guest is Bliss (as his last name) for a roast chicken dinner with broccoli and some fresh bread. And, of course, we had to do more product testing on the martini glasses before dinner.

[229.1]

I was up a little after 8, and into the studio by 9 after a piece of toast. Today’s goals — talismans for the Faerie Gatherings.

The original plan for the first talisman was to be a swirled globe wrapped in a cross-hatch pattern of orange and black threads. It was an ambitious plan and one that we abandoned after the second (and successful) attempt to put the orange bands on. No black band. It just too crazy trying to balance the rods, the heating, the everything. At least it came off the pipe easily in the end.

Talisman number two was just the “standard” twisted globe, chunk of glass, steam, chunk of glass, and another blown section with two sealed compartments and a glass tail. The top bowl has a hole at the top which will be cleaned up with a Dremel, filled with beans and sealed (cork? Clear silicon?).

Talisman number three was the same as number two, but no swirl on the upper globe, and a color wrap of orange near the top of the stem and a wrap of black around the bottle of the stem. Hopefully tomorrow or the next day I’ll have pictures to show off.

Left the studio a little before noon with five more glasses packed in the car: two single martini glasses, two double martini glasses and a beer mug.

Needless to say, these aren’t the final publicity shots!

The plan for dinner had been me cooking over at Swanda’s place, but with the weather being warm enough, dinner al fresco! Not exactly sunny, but overcast and warm. Apple cinnamon marinated pork roast, roasted asparagus and a big salad, and a last minute guest of Wonderful (who I bought my house from years ago).

A wonderful dinner and what a welcome home from two days of blowing.

Last random thought: coming back from Canada with Rich last week, I saw my old motorhome (Bob) headed in the opposite direction pulling a car. WOW. Though I can’t be completely sure, there aren’t that many Bluebird Wanderlodges from that era with that paint job left still on the road. It was good to see it, but I’m so glad it’s somebody else’s problem now.

[? ? ? ]

Out of the house at 8:30am and into morning rush hour traffic. I can’t imagine doing that drive every morning. It didn’t start to normalize until past the University District. I didn’t make it to Camano Island until 10am.

By eleven the studio has been rearranged to move from a one-person blowing operation to a tag-team of blower and glory hole bitch. In the four hours that we blew we were able to make two of the tall double martini glasses, two of a single martini glasses, and two cordial glass prototypes. At three, SurfBetty’s ex-wife and still good friend took over for another couple of hours (this after she spent a couple of hours mowing the acre and a half of lawn).

Being relieved of my blowing duties, I moved to the kitchen to prep dinner while they continued to work.

Here is a wonderful shot of one of the whiskey glasses SurfBetty blew with another green assistant a couple of weeks ago:

Dinner was a pork loin roast with Caribbean seasonings, steamed asparagus, a green salad, and wine for SurfBetty and myself, and grape juice for Joanie.

The plan for tomorrow is that SurfBetty will get up early and blow, I’ll get up when I feel, and we’ll work on a new project for a couple of hours before he goes back to blowing for a bit before needing to clean up the shop, clean up the house, clean up the lawn trimmings as the studio owner returns tomorrow night.

The new project? One of the piece and SurfBetty and Joanie blew over the weekend was a superb screw-up. Putting the foot on a wine goblet, it broke off the blowing stick but didn’t hit the ground, so they grabbed it and put it in the annealler. What I saw reminded me of a shaman’s rattle, or talisman there being just enough of a hole to insert dried beans and then seal the hole. So, tomorrow, that’s what we are going to try and recreate on purpose.

[228.5]

Got the lawn trimmed up today… in three chucks. Trim, read novel, trim, read novel, trim.

Had a long call with the HOPE folks about getting a refinance on the house. Paperwork on hold wil I scrounge up some more regular income.

With the new martini glasses, guess that means we have to have martinis! And look what Jill noticed in the fridge:

Really. Stuffed Queens. I’ll have to remember that for the next time there is more than one queen for dinner. And speaking of that dinner, here the best of the shots, even showing the martini glasses in action:

Though actually we were having Gimlets, and ribs, and salad, and wine.

Followed dinner with a viewing of the Peter Sellars movie: Casino Royale, a 007 spoof from the 60’s.

[229.0]

DancingBear was over just after breakfast to pick up about $10K worth of checks and PayPal transfers. Well, that, and a Bloody Mary since it’s pride weekend, or since I had some mix handy.

By the time we were done, there was a change in my birthday celebration in September. Just add two days to the beginning of my trip, cancel Amtrak, add $50, and sail from Seattle to Vancouver to catch a different cruise ship to Los Angeles. Oh, and we have to figure out where to stay in Vancouver, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

With the screw-up on paying for the longer cruise, DB also dropped off a check for his portion of Part Two — Cruise To Nowhere 2011. I added a trip to the Eastside to drop off the check, drop off mail at the post office, grab some taco-truck tacos, and gutted the Safeway Clearance Sale rack for dinner tonight, and many other dinners. Even found some more pork ribs.

In the afternoon reading of the Wall Street Journal (instead of weed-eating the borders of the lawn) I came across this great photo:

First Class service on United circa 1970. Here is what I wrote when I forwarded the link to friends:

Ah yes, I remember when they used to roll the cart down the aisle offering “Mr. Souder, would you like your Chateaubriand sliced (seat-side) from the middle where it is medium rare, or from the end where it’s medium… this, of course, about an hour after the Beluga caviar and Dom Pérignon course.

Here is the link to the entire Wall Street Journal article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576397582468372202.html

Just a little steak and salad for dinner before spending the evening filling the 400 DVD player with something other than G-NC17 DVDs.

And I actually got it done. Though after printing it out I have some blanks to fill in.

[229.5]

With the lawn wet in the morning, I spent the time putting the finishing touches on the new living room drinking shrine:

I still have to put the wires into sleeves (thinking of sewing some Velcro closer ones), and the ORIGNAL idea was that the ice maker would go on the counter for “one-stop-drinking”, but:

1. Turns out I mounted the TV too low
2. There would be no room for the bottles

The ice maker is on the counter behind the wall the TV is mounted on.

By the time I got to the lawn, the dark clouds were rolling in again, just finished the mowing as the sprinkles began, so much for weed-eating/edging, maybe tomorrow.

Dinner was a chicken vegetable soup from some toasted olive bread. It was stock that I made from the half chicken. The rest I froze into “pucks”, each one which equals ½ cup.

After dinner it was another living room chore. Updating the database of G-NC17 DVDs in the 300 DVD player and getting them loaded. That player is now up to 239 movies (and the random “extras” disc).

At least I got to bed at a decent time.

[227.5]

Back from Bamboo Hardwoods with a piece of bamboo plywood ($52):

Yes, I drove home with a piece of plywood wedged in the car, now you know why I own a convertible.

The start of the bar-building process:

Off to the airport to welcome the inaugural flight of Condor Airlines coming in from Frankfurt. From the gate, which meant getting a letter from the Port of Seattle verifiying that I was NOT on either the Selectee or No-Fly List. Here is a picture of Jill and I at the gate:

Yes, there are other silly people who go to airports when they aren’t flying.

And the picture of the Port of Seattle Fire Department firing the water cannons to welcome the jet. Too bad they didn’t pick a better gate so all the party attendees could actually see something:

And my dinner (add the wilted spinach in your mind):

Got the rest of the bar put together, sanded, and sealed for tomorrow we install. Which means I got to bed VERY late (or would that be early?).

[228.2]

Just a day of getting lots of things done… like additional birthday plans. The list is now:

• Seattle to Vancouver on the train with Dancing Bear
• Vancouver to San Pedro on the Carnival Spirit with Dancing Bear in a suite
• Long Beach to Seattle on the plane with Dancing Bear
• A couple of days later a Frequent Flier ticket to Santa Fe
• My actual birthday at the Dia Foundation’s Lightening Field site
• Fly back to Seattle
• Pick up Joe from Tucson the next day and check us into the Camlin Penthouse suite
• Return Joe to the airport following Monday
• Following Saturday fly to Tucson to celebrate Joe’s birthday
• Return following Tuesday.

Once again I’ve managed to turn my birthday (55) into a several week occasion. Out of pocket? Less than a grand.

And dinner — just a small steak:

And then onto getting the new wall mount for the TV as the stereo equipment stack keeps getting bigger and cutting off part of the screen when I swing it to watch from bed.

As you can see, to boost it up to bolt it I’ve got it stacked on a bunch of stuff. No wonder the installation instructions say to use two people.

But it’s all done. Now all I have to do is redo the table top making it longer. Might even move the bar to the living room in a final attempt to find a place where it works.

[229.9]

Another lazy morning with CaddyDaddy doing all the morning kitchen work (as I usually do all the evening kitchen work).

We were out of the condo at eleven, and a little after noon we were through duty-free, and through the backup in the Nexus line at the border. Maybe 15 cars in front of us, but better than the 50 minute wait for regular folks crossing.

Next stop is the glass studio on Camano Island to pick up some of last Saturday’s glassware (hopefully pictures tomorrow). SurfBetty was finishing up a beer mug with no assistant, just him juggling two hot rods. Hung for a bit, talked about me coming up again (Monday, I think).

A short stop at this junk store on the highway yielded a couple of small things (which is good because CaddyDaddy already had the box of glassware on his lap).

Yes, another poo brown Western Electric Trimline phone. $2.00

Backup vacuum sealer. $6.00 Works!

Lunch at the Viking Diner, luckily we were early enough that the karaoke hadn’t started yet. I had the Rueben, CaddyDaddy has the French Dip – both quite good.

My plan for a quiet dinner at home was replaced with an invitation from Jimmy and Suze for bar-b-qued snapper. Much easier than cooking. Didn’t stay long as the drive always takes a bit out of me.

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