Jay challenged me to a game of "let everyone know whats up" to the death, so here goes:
1) I bought a bike, and try to ride it as often as possible. When I know that I won't need to run errands or work late or need to get somewhere after work without being covered in sweat, I throw my bike on the front of the bus in the morning. Riding to work in the morning just wouldn't be practical, since we don't have a shower in the office.
The bike is a fairly new
Bridgestone that I found on
Craigslist. I changed out the seat, handle bars, tires, and pedals. I also stripped off a lot of the extra crap like reflectors. I have lights on the front and back, plus I flashing red light on my bag and a bright light that I can clip to the front at night. I also broke down and bought a pair of shoes with clips. Pedals that you can clip into are called
clipless pedals, because toe cages used to be called toe clips, its a convoluted history of language that doesn't make sense. In bike geek, I have dual platforms with
spd cleats.
2) Work is going well. The project in Canada is almost finished, which means my boss is on site most days. Typically I see him once a week. I haven't really been working on that project much, because I was doing most of the work on a remodel we are doing in town, not far from my house. Its been great to have the responsibility of running a project, and things are going well. I have a lot to learn, and it's stressful, but in a good way.
(image to come)
This is an image looking out from the front of the house toward the back yard. We ripped off the entire back of the house to extend the second floor for a master suite. The back of the house is the kitchen, and there will be a 15' wide sliding door (two 7.5' panels) across the back, so this is what the view will be like.
3) I stepped up to the world of iPhone, and it's fantastic. I love the fact that I can check email at a glance, surf the web, listen to music, etc. I need to find some cool apps, so I'm open to suggestions. I've downloaded one called
Geogopher, which is for
geocaching. Ive tried to find one cache, but it was micro and I couldn't find it. The
gps isn't as accurate as a proper
gps system. Plus I was downtown, which I think made it harder. The other cool app is
Shazam, which will sample music playing around you and tell you what it is. So if you are in a store and here a song you like, you activate
Shazam, it figures out what the song is, and store a record of it so that you can buy it later. I think it also has the option of launching the
itunes store.
Another cool aspect of the iPhone is that I have a camera with me at all times, which means I can snap shots of anything that catches my eye.
Like
grafitti-
The Wizard in
drydock-
The Northwestern in the water-
The two boats are from the show Deadliest Catch. The are both based out of Ballard in Seattle.
4) I'm considering buying a new car, but I've been too nervous to pull the trigger. My monthly expenses are high enough with the debt I have, I'm not sure I should take on more. If I do, my top choices are the Mazda 3 hatchback, the Honda Civic, and maybe the Toyota Corolla. Nothing too flashy.
5) I'm still living in dude house, with three other guys. One of them is getting married at the end of the month, one will move out around October when his fiance moves back to Seattle, and the other is going to Iceland for a couple months, and may not move back in after. Which means I have openings in the house. My friend Jeff is moving into fill the first vacancy, and we will deal with the others as they come up.
I've been working on sprucing up my room (although I'm moving upstairs when one of the guys moves out) starting with improving the artwork. I framed some of my dad's old comic books from the 50's. They aren't in mint condition or anything, so I'm not too concerned about protecting them as museum pieces. Still I didn't want to cut off the covers, so I cut two layers of mat to set them into. I had checked at a framing store to see how much it would cost, and the cheapest would have been around $150 each. I bought some frames at
IKEA and some mat at the
UW bookstore, and it cost me about $125 to frame 8. Two are in the kitchen eating nook, the other 6 are over my desk.
So that is an update. I'll try to post more often. I respond to
harassment, but even then it takes a while. If you read any of this, post a comment. I want to know I'm not a voice crying in the wilderness.
I'll also say that while I have been a lax blogger, I'm not a lax blog checker. I keep up with many of yours, though I don't comment very often. I've also listened to all 10 episodes of
TVLGFHF. I have
itunes set to download the latest. Maybe one day I'll be invited as a guest.
Apparently bringing a bottle of wine to the studio helps.
"Holga"
"1962- Your Dad's Camera"
This is the house yesterday, note the snow. We extended the second floor and part of the first to add a master suite and a functional kitchen. I particularly like the big-ass sliding door.
This is me trying to be artistic.
As usual there was way more food than we could eat, more surprisingly there was more wine than we could drink. Of course the fact that Sterling (white tshirt) brought a bottle of Scotch helped ease the demand for wine. I think we may have finished the scotch before we ever got around to dessert.
Can you believe that pile was actually $50.71!!! I went with the Amazon gift certificate option, which means they don't deduct the 9 cents per dollar fee. It also means I'll be doing some Christmas shopping on Amazon. Plus there is some extra promotion for cashing in over $40, you get an extra $10 somehow. I need to mail in the bottom of the receipt, then wait however many weeks for something or other. I'm sure it will be something lame like ten bucks off a night in a timeshare in Lake Tahoe.
5. Step two in my quest for Christmas on the cheap, used book sales. As I was finally getting my books off the floor and onto the fancy new cinder block bookshelves in the closet, I set aside anything I could part with and packed 3 boxes for a trip to Powell's. Last year I got about $250, but I doubt I'll get anywhere near that this time. It may end up a wash after I figure gas to and from Portland. Still it's a trip to the happiest place on earth.
My computer, lamp, coffee cup...really all the essentials. The door goes to the office next door, also a design firm. 
I get to host the office plant, which is nice for me.
I also sit at the front, which means I have the best view of the park across the street. It also means that I'm closest to the door and have to deal with the crazy people that come in selling stuff.
Turns out my jilted wife (standing by the door) killed me to keep me from laying hands on her recent mega lottery winnings.
I was a little nervous about how it would go, but everyone really got into it and we had a good time. Ted (above) was a slots player trying to move up to the big tables. Of course we had to play some cards, and being a flashy guy, I went all in on 5-6 off suit, and won with a straight. Good times.
Some time around 3 or 4 in the morning, Anna (left) and Angela decided that they should but boxes on their heads. It sounded like such a reasonable thing to do at the time...
It's a hot little number, the Scion TC. Its made by Toyota, as their younger, fresher, but also less expensive line. The guy at the dealership said that Toyota thinks of it as a way of seducing young car buyers into their first Toyota, with the hope that they will eventually buy minivans and crap like that.
Juli, Liz and Andy foolishly following my lead through the maze. We had split off from Jeff, Matt and Carly. Eventually we found Jeff and Carly, only to lose Carly again. Matt went off on his own and hasn't been seen since. Kidding, he eventually found the way out about 10 minutes after the rest of us.
CORN!
(Random photo of the food.)
(Carly and Katie on the deck at Redhook)
(Cat takes over the camera. I like the beer! By the way I bleached my hair a couple months ago.)
The Wizard in drydock-
The two boats are from the show Deadliest Catch. The are both based out of Ballard in Seattle.
