A lazy holiday morning for the boys in the condo. Up at nine, bloody marys and breakfast at 10ish, followed by reading and a nap, and more reading and lounging about.
Tonight’s dinner guests are Solus (a priest) and Epick (a kilt-maker).
And what’s on the menu after a huge poopoo plater? Veal chops, a large salad, some black olive bread, and copious quantities of both red and white wine. Can’t legally bring the extra back home if we want our entire duty free allowance.
Today’s pictures aren’t from this evening as I totally spaced taking any, but are me and Epick at camp in May:
And here is an older shot of Solus and I — he wasn’t in priest drag this time.
I was pretty well packed by the time CaddyDaddy showed up at 10:30. Breakfast we in my, so out the door we went, destination: Vancouver, BC and the WorldMark Vancouver at The Canadian.
A stop at duty-free (one bottle of Alberta Springs Rye Whiskey and one Balenie Double Wood single-malt scotch) before encountering something I’ve never seen before. The line in the Nexus lane was longer than the other five open lines, mind you only 3 cars in front of me and it went quickly, but I’d never had amusement of Nexus having more cars queued up.
After picking up a couple of bottles of red wine and a pint of vodka (for the bloody marys in the morning) and stocking up on the rest of the groceries for the trip at Safeway, off to the condo were we for a 3:15 early check-in to our two-bedroom, two bath compact unit. They are all compact units. A couple of the units don’t even have a dining area and they provide TV trays.
Tonight’s dinner company is Hummingbird and BamBam, and the meal is broiled tri-tip, pepper-roasted garlic bread, and a big salad. Damn fine.
Chatted into the evening, and even got BabBam to donate some artwork for the photo directory cover for the summer gathering. Humorously, they also gave me their registration to the gathering since Canada Post is on strike.
Lessons learned from session two. Shorter day, two food breaks but only each half the sandwich each time, more water, do the martini glasses with stems in the morning when it is cooler, and you re fresher. Who knows, maybe there will be a day three unless my billable hours pick up.
I’m still waiting to publish this mulit-gig video that puked loading. Will try again from Canadaland tomorrow.
Stopped at three junk/antique shops on the way back to the freeway from the studio, not good, but the one right in Stanwood was truly weird with surreal paintings and old electrical medical equipment.
To pooped to make a proper dinner, just went up the street and grabbed three fish tacos from the taco truck.
All caught up on registrations, at least until I’m back from Canadaland on Tuesday.
Apparently several people thought my post yesterday was a little on the cranky side.
Probably. No one can be happy every day and be sane.
I spent too many un-billable hours working on Cabin Assignments, but at least the cabin layout sheet is now useable and linkable to the main mailing database.
As you can see, we have about 50 slots filled. From here on out it should be a little time each day rather than a couple of hour slog. If you look close, you might actually be able to see some of the assignments. And I did have an early evening conversation about possible future billable hours so that is good.
I also found this other video from Tuesday’s blowing session which got me excited for tomorrow’s session:
Ran by the apartment to pick up packages. A Blu-ray player that I picked up for less than $60 that fits in the stack of equipment (which I took a crappy picture of not worth posting) and a six-pack of wine that is pictured below. Keep in mind that those are 50ML bottles, yeah, that’s the size of an airline bottle (though on the airline they give you 150ML bottles of wine).
It comes from a place in California that bottles up all these minis from small vineyards as “tasters” to get you to buy a full size bottle. It was basically $16.50 as they were having a half-off sale with free shipping. http://www.tastingroom.com is the place. Not sure I’d have done it if it was full price, but can’t wait to taste them (after I show the presentation to Jimmy).
A quiet dinner at home — breaded sauteed cod chunks, a little salad, a bagel — yeah, working through the refrigerator getting ready for the Vancouver Trip.
To bed early, take a sleeping pill, wake up early for blowing.
Got all caught up on registrations for the gathering after the daily mail call and could put off no longer the dreaded lawn mowing. With storm clouds approaching it was either do it now, or wait a couple of days for it to dry out and be a foot tall.
We are about a third full for the gathering and DancingBear is coming over for dinner and cabin assignments and bringing BreticusMaximus along.
Dinner was a simple marinated chicken breast tenders, salad, roasted potatoes, some leftover bread from last night… nothing fancy.
I should have spent the day working on concepts for a client’s launch site, but didn’t. I did get the gathering registrations up to date and made a couple of stunning loaves of bread:
Fresh from the oven.
SurfBetty was running a little late from one of his clients and didn’t show up until 7:30, but did show up with a box full of all the stemware that we blew yesterday.
Three tall ones, seven short ones, and an orphaned bowl from a bad punte removal. No word on final pricing (assume north of $50) yet so if any of you loyal fans want a martini glass that Uncle Markie helped craft, get those wallets ready as we’ll be blowing again on Saturday.
Dinner was a couple of veal loin chops, oven roasted potatoes, a big salad, a bottle and a half of red and much good conversation, as usual.
Out of the house at 6:45am for a couple of Sausage Burritos from McDees to nosh on the road.
8:15am to 6:45pm in the studio being trained to be a “glory hole bitch” ¯ OK, that’s my phrase. The “glory hole” is the opening with much big flame from which all things arrive.
Here’s a great little video of SurfBetty making martini glasses with me as the assistant:
I didn’t get home until 8pm, didn’t get a steak into me until 9:30pm, which meant I stayed up late.
As all you reader know, I dislike early days, but a boy has to do what a boy has to do to have a good time.
Bailed on the bed at 3am to get some serious REM sleep before TWO long days.
Thank you Fernando for making coffee in the morning that eased me back into the day well before I’d like to be up.
Luckily I’d prepped all the breakfast materials (eggs cracked, mixed with the cubed chicken and cubed goat cheese) so it was ready to warm the pan and fry, popping toast into the oven.
We were out of the house at 8:30am, half an hour before my self-imposed deadline. Suddenly we have dinner plans for CaddyDaddy before Fernando goes to the airport. I also packed sandwiches last night for the road, and Fernando’s bananas (with STRICT instructions that they were to be EATEN BEFORE the border).
The signs at the border said 60 minutes at the Peace Arch and 40 at the Truck Crossing. As much as I wanted to show Fernando the Peace Arch (much prettier crossing) off to the Tuck Crossing we went. And they give me a 10% off as a Nexus Card holder (except on sale combos, like the two Weiser Whiskey liters I bought).
Border was actually a half hour when we skipped the line (which you get to do with a Duty Free purchase) and off to lovely Bellevue for a taco run, a bank deposit, then a short tour of the Microsoft Campus (he’s a MAC guy), and then home to start cooking dinner for now three.
Here’s a great shot of Fernando and I before dinner:
I’m guessing I should put a shot of last week’s guest in the same location, but that will have to wait until I remember.
Tonight’s dinner is a slab of ribs that I put on the grill/smoker, a loaf of rosemary challah out of the oven, some roasted potatoes and onions, a massive salad, a little Gruet Rose method de champagne from New Mexico and a ton of good conversation.
Nothing like sleeping in until 10am… those extra REM cycles you need when sharing a small bed with someone else.
That put brunch at 11am… bacon, toast, sunny-side up eggs, orange juice.
Fernando is headed off to do one of the zip-line tours. He would have combined that with the Peak-To-Peak, but we got a late start to the day. I guess that means he’ll have to come back to Whistler!
As for me, my day was spent exploring the city (well, the village, Whistler Village that is).
Fernando got on the earlier tour than he’s booked, so his lunch was a burger and a beer, mine, at a different place, the fish and chips. And then there is dinner:
Marinated chicken breasts on a bed of spinach, salad, bread, more wine. Life is good.
Surprisingly (for me) we made it out of the house and onto the road at 10am. That even included a full breakfast service.
At Duty-Free, picked up two bottles of wine (yes, I know, wine) and a bottle of Bacardi Reserve Rum — seems that my house/road guest being from Puerto Rico originally means he likes his rum. The reason for the wine (two bottle limit) is that we are only up here for two days and that’s a bottle for each night, and drinks before and after. The goal is to have nothing left.
NO ONE in front of me in the regular (non-Nexus) lane which was a shocker. The traffic coming back into the states looked like about an hour delay. My guess is that with the hockey finals and a soccer match last night that there was extra traffic for a Saturday.
Made a pleasant discovery in the first town over the border… a reasonably priced sit down lunch place, a chain, but good. Boston Pizza would be the name. Fernando had a small pizza with a pint of beer, I had the bacon wrapped steak chunks with a small amount of onion straw fries with a Cosmopolitan. It was just the right sized meal rather than something to put me into a food coma.
The reason the discovery is so important is that when headed to Whistler, it’s just at about the perfect lunch time since once you get on to the still-torn-up Highway 1 there isn’t much of an easy-on easy-off area.
The weather turned nice enough that it was top down for the rest of the way to Whistler.
Needless to say, this was taken by Fernando from the co-pilot’s seat.
A quick stop for the final groceries in Squamish (wasn’t I just here a couple of weeks ago?) and off to the WorldMark Cascade Lodge at Whistler Village. Here is a cute shot of the 2010 Winter Olympics Stone God:
After checking in and setting up the wireless node, I flopped on the couch and crashed for an hour. I love driving, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take something out of me.
Dinner was a pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and a big salad with a lovely Greg Norman Cabernet Syrah from Australia.
Add dip in the hot tub after dinner and you have a fine day.
A leisurely morning in the condo with eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast before heading back to Seattle via Bainbridge Island.
Here is a great shot of me on the ferry with the skyline in the gloomy background:
Yeah ¯ showing Fernando the truly grey Seattle summers.
After an afternoon snack at the taco wagon here in South Park, it was back to work for me. I arrived home to a several inch thick stack of registration forms for the gathering. Luckily DancingBear called about a dinner date, which I couldn’t do, but he did swing by and pick up about $8K worth of checks for the gathering.
Dinner tonight was a local feast of Copper River Salmon and Kumumoto Oysters, both done on the grill along with some baby bok choy (also grilled) and some cole slaw (not grilled). I spaced out and forgot to bake bread so I did some roasted potatoes and onions as a substitute.
A little hot tub soak after dinner and off to be we went.
Nice to sleep in a bit. We don’t have to leave for Discovery Bay until early afternoon, so the morning is of conference calls and breakfast. Unfortunately both happened at the same time, but when Boltive calls, Uncle Markie answers.
Scramble eggs and toast for breakfast and lunch was a fast food drive-through in lovely Bremerton — we took the southerly route rather than the ferry — we’ll take the ferry tomorrow on the way home. Destination? The WorldMark Discovery Bay which is between Port Townsend and Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula.
Top down day the whole way with me slightly worried about the sun on the very pale Fernando.
While I took a nap after we settled in, Fernando took a walk around the grounds and grabbed some shots:
Those two are my favorites.
Dinner was grilled corn on the cob, veal chops, salad, and a little wine. Not bad for roughing it.
To bed comparatively early as opposed to last night.
Company is coming and the house is a mess. Stuff stacked everywhere. Not the best time to have a ½ hour commitment each day to 3M for a customer panel on structural adhesives. Oh well, the things I do for Visa Gift Cards.
Groceries to buy, liquor to stock, stacks to clean up, blogs to write, washer/dryers to fix (finally got it fixed!), loads of laundry to do, steaks to cook, guests to pick up at the airport.
A full day of work, most of it unpaid unfortunately. Most of the day was given over to getting the Summer Gathering ducks in a row with deciding on Access or to just modify the current Excel files. I went with modifying the current mailing list spreadsheet to include summer gathering financial information. Means only one file to update/change addresses on, and means that the photo directory should be error free. Now if I can just get DancingBear to get the electronic call out in the mail.
Picked up a package at Swandas before joining him for dinner with him, and the sheets from my bed. Yes, I’m during laundry while cooking dinner for us. The package I picked up is a new door handle for my washer/dryer combo. An expensive $40 plus $12 shipping, all for some Italian plastic and metal bits. Though, as Ken who is the maintenance manager for the apartments said, $40 is cheap in the world of appliance parts.
Dinner was a stunning broiled Cooper River Salmon with a sort of Greek-style salad on the side (tomatoes, cucumbers, but a blue cheese vinaigrette dressing). Yum, yum, yum.
Got home around 9pm and started to work on fixing the dryer door… two tries later, I gave up and dropped a note to the company asking for help.
Woke up to a lovely hack… not a cold, but I think minorly dripping sinuses and slowing lodging in my lungs. The morning phone calls sounded like I was a whiskey and cigarette laced night club singer and I can only claim the whiskey soaked part.
Those calls? Things like ordering a new dryer handle that I managed to snap off… $40 plus $12 shipping which seems a little expensive to me, but because the distributor is in Oregon it will be here tomorrow. The call I forgot to make, to ClearWire to disconnect service. Like all weasel services, it’s impossible to cancel online, so that’s a call for tomorrow.
Ran some errands today — adding to Swanda’s collection of Schilling Brand products, and grabbing Bol Kolgi at Shilla while BMW Seattle was removing all the bugs from the weekend of driving with one of their free “courtesy washes” for people who by cars from them, which apparently includes my 2006 Mazda Miata MX-5.
All day I’ve been listening to this new album/cd that I ordered pre-release because of an NPR segment — was pre-release at $9.99, with a price guarantee — and when it released on May 31st it had dropped a buck, so I have an Amazon credit. I’ve been listening to it (almost on repeat) all day. My love of the ukulele combined with the collection of “broke my heart” songs has me entranced.
The album starts with a cover of the Pearl Jam song “Can’t Keep” and ends with a cover of a Momma’s and Papa’s song “Dream a Little Dream”, and is mostly original work in between. Clicking on the photo will take you to the Amazon page where you can listen to various tracks or buy the album, which has now gone up to like $11.99. I guess that pre-order stuff really works.
By the afternoon I’m working on the registrations for the Faerie Gathering this summer, working on database designs, the master excel spreadsheets, figuring out how to keep multiple files updated and trying to add photos. Luckily I only had to add the first three people three times.
But duty calls. My friend MB has a son graduating from high school tonight (SOTA in Tacoma):
I actually got a crappy phone camera (remembered flask, forgot camera) of him receiving his diploma. What followed was a reception (after a cluster-fuck in the lobby) at the Foss Waterway Seaport Museum (cookies, punch, not enough bathrooms) and then onto The Rock, a pizza, pasta, beer, drinks place that was so dead on a Monday that 20 people could show up and they were happy (and no 18% mandatory large party service charge). Our server BETH gets a big shout-out for dealing with a huge last minute late dinner party.
MB’s Mel was at the wheel on the way home. One glass of wine, the kids (underage to drink) drive. Good training. I had a bottle of Yakima red in the trunk of my car that we opened when we got home… and for the first time in years… it was corked. And I love this winery so I’m not saying the name, but I did get it on closeout at Grocery Outlet so that might have something to do with it. It was a nice lesson for Mel to actually be able to compare a corked wine to a decent wine (yes, 16-year-olds need training, too).
But it was midnight by the time I drove back from Tacoma. Late for me. But at least I sold another of my old laptops. Delivery next week.
Originally it was Sunday night just for the night. Then it was Saturday and Sunday nights. Then, relative not arriving until Tuesday so we are up to three nights. All is good. Then other relative wants to see him and get him to mow her lawn which is what I wanted him to do for me, so we are back to one night.
Jeez.
On the upside, I had time to work on the Wine Shop Project getting docs scanned in and OCRd (Optical Character Recognition) and even found time to work on a little sewing project.
Those shots make the halibut and spinach dinner seem tame.
Out of the house at 11:30 for a day of driving, luckily the sun is out and the top is down.
Driving in a fairly large circle to/from Seaside, Oregon to put up a friend and do a little antiquing on the way down since I have time to kill since he doesn’t get off until 4:30.
The route:
The view:
Got back to the house around 9:30 which is really late for me and cocktail hour. Wouldn’t you know there would be a call at 12:30 in the morning from Wonderful and SongBird wanted to help me deplete my liquor cabinet.
And early breakfast with Jameson and the babe — 8:15am, which is good because I have a flight back to Seattle this afternoon.
Out of the condo at 11 with a stop in Carson City for lunch, and to do the train museum located there, but somehow when I got to the parking lot I’d lost my momentum to go in. Maybe I needing an nap, which I also didn’t get.
Next stop is the Sierra Trading Company Outlet Store, and just like before the Grand Canyon Raft Trip of years ago, I found nothing at a price that I was willing to pay. And the same at the Goodwill across the highway. Just not my day.
Headed to the airport with hours to spare, got the car turned in (saving $20 since I didn’t need the extra hours on the rental with my delayed arrival on Tuesday), and went to check in. Or went to TRY and check in. With limited flights the counter didn’t open until 3 so I was surprised when someone actually showed up at 2:15.
Gambled a little. Put in $5, cashed out at $9.25, then got bored later and lost the four singles. Up 25 cents.
Flights on time, be crowded, but not crowded enough to bump me. Damn, it really isn’t my day.
Finished Running With Scissors on the flight home, what an ODD, ODD memoir. Trying to think who to pass this on to, possibly Swanda.
Speaking of Swanda, I swung by the apartment to pick up four packages and hang out with Rob and Jodie for a bit before heading home to start installing various bits and pieces of today’s arrivals.
The most important piece? The new Qwest DSL modem. With not much trouble I got it set up, names and logins changed, and most importantly changed its IP address to match all the network printers that I have connected. Simpler than changing all the printers. So, by the time that David Letterman was done with his monologue I was done with the installation.
How’s my speed doing?
Old ClearWire setup:
3.95 mbps down, .48 mbps up
New Qwest setup:
6.15 mbps down, .73 mbps up
Not as fast as Swanda’s cable set-up (but twice my old speed):
16.08 mbps down, 2.18 mbps up
Now, if I hadn’t broken the handle on the washer/dryer off, but that will be an adventure for tomorrow.
Ah, the ever changing Tahoe weather. The sun is out but in the morning there is occasional snow flurry.
I spent the day billing clients, dealing with Seattle public utilities, on tech support with Alaska to get my $300 credit deposited in my account, shopping for a vegetarian entré for Jameson’s lady friend, and most importantly, booking my birthday bash for this year.
And what is that birthday bash?
September 25 fly to Santa Fe (25,000 frequent flyer miles)
September 28th (my actual birthday) drive four hours to a massive art installation to spend the night
September 30th fly home
October 1st host a little overnight shindig in the Penthouse at the Camlin downtown
With the weather being nice I decided to shoot a little video of my pad here in Tahoe:
That shiny red car in the video preview is the rental car they gave me with only 250 miles on the odometer.
Jameson and his lady friend arrived around 7, just in time for a beautiful sunset.
Many bottles of wine, then onto whiskey in the hot tub, and eventually bed.
Nice to catch up on some sleep, but feeling sorry for Jameson who needs to be out of the condo by 8:15 every morning.
Today the plan is to wander down to California, which is about 8 miles away, and all downhill. Checked out a bunch of thrift shops with no luck, but did swing by Ross Cross Dress For Less and found a 100% Silk shirt for $11.99 (plus tax), and the CVS Pharmacy for a 1.75 liter bottle of Evan Williams for $14.99 (plus tax, which is basically the price of a 750ml bottle in Washington).
Seriously changing weather in Tahoe. One minute this:
And a little later, this:
Of course when it was time for dinner, the snow storms are howling:
Since Jameson has a vegetarian guest for dinner tomorrow I thought it would be a good idea to have the obnoxiously huge chucks of cow flesh tonight and save the rather tame pork tenderloin for tomorrow night.
Once again after dinner we headed for the hot tub, and then back to the office to get someone to unthaw the lock so we could actually get in. The maintenance guy shook his head and said he thought we were crazy, but in a loving tone.
Nice destination Uncle Markie!