Spring is a comin’… The Girl Scouts are marshaling their pig-tailed, freckled forces for an assault on my waistline and dental health. I don’t need to check on the ground hog’s shadow. Spring for me comes with the first box of Somoas every year. In case I hadn’t noticed the change outside from confines of my sugar-coma, the new grass is starting to sprout in our yard and a local nursery is selling seeds and bare-root plants. I have spied a number of cyclists, clad head to toe in isolated spandex, on the bike paths and in the city. I cannot wait for the warmer weather, sunny days, cycling to work, trail runs on something other than mud, and new sprouts in our garden.
Cleared to Ride
No matter what the reason, sitting in a doctor’s office exam room is a stress inducing affair – even when expecting good news. I went to the see my Orthopedist yesterday and my shoulder is healing fine. I am now cleared to ride and run and even engage in limited climbing (though I am not sure what that means…). No more excuses for not getting off my ever-expanding ass and getting outside into the mud and just- sprouting greenery. My surgeon said that I will still need to have my supraspinatus tendon repaired, but that it could wait until fall and after summer cycling/road trips/our wedding. It will also give me some needed time to finish some projects at home. I think the key is listening to my body/shoulder and no pushing things over the limit – listening to the first tinges of pain and backing off before I hurt myself further.
Laurel has a list for me to take care of this weekend – in addition to my own projects, but I am going to spend an hour on the bike and will run in a park by the house on Saturday.
A new addition to the herd
There is a special place in Hell for people that wantonly abuse animals. Seriously, a small metal closet where Hitler holds their hand and whispers sweet nothings as they are tater-holed by a Santa suit-clad Mephistopheles.
Our first puppy was rescued after being mistreated and dumped at a shelter. He is such a lover and we questioned why anyone would ever part with him. He does get lonely sometimes with just the “bald apes” to hang out with so we started looking for a girlfriend for him (he is fixed, but two boy dogs in the house is a bad idea). We had met a female Frenchie in foster-care (Bulldog Haven NW) named Jasmine, who was extra sweet, but she had some serious problems and wasn’t adoptable when we briefly met her. Fast forward nine months and we were able to arrange a play-date between Jasmine and Brodie. They didn’t immediately try to eat one-another so we brought her home for a weekend visit that has now stretched out to a full blown adoption. There were a couple of initial scrapes – he wants to be Alpha and she outweighs him by 1/3. Size wins. They are both attention hogs as well and it took a few days for them to work out that it was OK for the other one to get a little scratch or rubbing.
We remembered that Jasmine was turned over to foster-care without any hair, she was under weight, and had a small scar on her rump, but we were unprepared for the reality of the extent of her mistreatment. She was a puppy mill dog and had two litters before she was a year and a half. At some point she was infected by the mange mite and started losing hair. She was thrown outside and someone attempted to get rid of the mites by pouring boiling water on her. It gave her a massive 3rd degree, full thickness burn on her rump. The “Treatment” didn’t kill the mites and she was left outside to die. Her wounds and ears were attacked by flies and she suffered terribly, but held on until she was rescued. The people at Bulldog Haven nursed her back to health and showered her with love.
She has to wear clothes all the time because she gets cold really easily – her hair will never grow back on her scars, so only her head and legs are fuzzy. It sickens us that someone would damage an animal like this and not do serious jail time – this is where the knowledge of the Karma-closet in Hell comforts us.
Jasmine and Brodie have a love connection and for the first time ever Brodie is playing like a puppy without escalating the play to a full on fight. There are still some jealously issues over the “apes” but they are working it out peacefully. If you look past her scars, you would never know she was ever mistreated. She LOVES to be with her people, sits in your lap, is super free with the kisses, nuzzles and shows her tummy as often as possible. We couldn’t be happier and now Jasmine has a home where she will never be mistreated again. A home filled with yummy bacon and salmon flavored snacks, a soft bed, warm food, and an annoying boyfriend that she cuddles with when they think no one is watching.
Lap dogs | Jasmine sleeping | They HATE cats together | Her scarring…
Evolution of the American Alpine Club
Last week there was an American Alpine Club(AAC) survey e-mailed out asking members their opinions about the current state of the organization and how they would like to see the club evolve. Being a member since 2004, I dutifully filled it out and sent it in, but it got me thinking about how I would really like to see the organization evolve. What are your thoughts? How would those of you who are members or past members do things differently if you were put in charge? My initial thoughts are below:
Rescue Insurance: I would like to see a much better insurance offering. It seems like the Club could take its member rolls and negotiate a similar deal with a national/international carrier as The Alpine Club (UK) has. I would gladly increase my dues if it meant that I wouldn’t have to worry about the uninsured cost of toting my carcass off a mountain and its affect on family finances (I get to keep living in that scenario).
American Alpine Journal: I would like to see quality writing and editing to kick it up a notch or three and include: fantastic trip reports, relevant historical climbing/mountaineering articles and bios of great climbers. In addition to the lower writing standards, I have also noticed the last few years that the binding has gotten cheaper and cheaper. My 2008 and 2007 editions both have cracked bindings after just one read through and ’08 let go of some pages as I was reading. I would pay more for quality and it would warm the cockles of my dark soul it a hard cover edition was offered.
Accidents in North Am. Mountaineering: Is a sad, sad little pamphlet. I 100% agree with its mission, but the execution of that goal is wanting. How many people took falls in Eldo or in J-Tree that were not documented last year? Seven accidents that required a hospital trip that I know of and I live in Seattle! Yes, I understand that they can’t go asking hospitals because of patient confidentiality, but how hard would it be to have an e-mail address for accident reporting and for a staffer to do a little follow up? What about pinging the climbing community on SummitPost, mountainproject, and super topo? If you are going to go through the trouble and expense (my dues!) to produce something, then make it the best possible book you can.
Local events: The AAC does a poor job of hosting local events and getting climbers in the same region together. Find a hall (or better rent a Pub’s back room) in Golden/Co Springs/New Paltz/Vegas/J-Tree/Bay Area/Seattle/Portland/Salt Lake City/Orange County/etc… give a talk by a local than a national or international climber, put up some posters, sell back copies of the AAJ, raffle something off for a climbing charity (Himalayan Trust, Central Asia Institute, et al…) have snacks, advertize well and charge at the door to cover costs. Again, the idea is to get local climbers together. While $200 a plate dinners can be nice, I prefer to attend one only if I can deduct the evening as a charitable donation OR if it happens to be in Paris or Venice and my wife is there sipping wine in a flowing dress. I only personally know two climbers that could afford such an event, well that and the airfare+ hotel to attend. The others could stretch those funds into a 6-week long trip food budget. Local events, for local climbers, less than $25 to get in.
my two-wheeled mistresses
I ended up going for my first test ride on the bike Saturday. It felt REALLY GOOD spinning the chainring. I made an easy 3-mile loop, jumped a couple of curbs – didn’t hurt – and made a few stops around the neighborhood. All was fine until I made the steep 500’ climb back up to the house. Holy shit! I am out of shape. I was on the single-speed and even with the 18t rear cog installed, the climb SUPER hurt. I almost puked. It is a long way from punishing Team Discovery-clad Freds on the Interurban this summer; letting them attempt to pass and then dropping into the 54t big ring and spinning up for a mile or so, watching them try to keep pace and then fading into the shrubbery, covered in sweat and despair, while I giggled at them. I will ride again this weekend, maybe going to Cedar Creek to stretch my legs a little and let my lungs burn.
Also, I didn’t get in trouble for riding before my Doc said it was OK. I got the stink eye a little from Laurel, but there have been no major repercussions thus far. I still get to sleep in the house and no mysterious locks have appeared on any of my two-wheeled mistresses 🙂
A Wine-soaked Wedding Do
Laurel and I are getting married, again. “But Matt, aren’t you are already married?!” Yes, yes we are and no I am not taking a second wife – I looked into that, but I sort of let it go when Laurel started making sawing gestures while looking manically at my lower abdominal region.
The story is that we had planed a fairly extravagant affair for the summer of 2007. We had accepted a job in Germany and had planned to come back to The States for the wedding that next summer. German residence laws squished that plan as Laurel could only stay in Germany for three months at a time with a six-month gap in between if we weren’t hitched. After weighing our options, we went to a courthouse in SoCal to make our relationship official in the eyes of the extremely uptight German Government and then spent a weekend in a B&B. Not the most romantic wedding tales you have ever heard, I know.
We are now back and settled and both of us felt that we would like to acknowledge such a huge event in our lives properly. We have rented heavily wooded parcel of land for a weekend this summer and will have an outdoor ceremony (I swear it will be simple and not California-kooky) and will spend the evening in a 1930s ballroom on the property cozying up to 2-3 kegs of GREAT beer, a yummy spread of food, a dozen or so pies, cake and enough wine to make Bacchus want to come and join the festivities. It is always a pain in the ass to attend someone’s do and have to get a pricey hotel room and rent a loud polyester outfit. So… to make things as easy as possible for our guests, we have rented enough cabins to sleep the entire wedding party in for both Friday and Saturday night. I swear that I will not make any of my buddies rent a pink tux, wear short-short lederhosen, kilts, nor do I expect any of them be on their best behavior – As long as no one does anything to make my hot little wife cry – then what happens in the trees stays in the trees.
To lure my elusive buddies out of their high mountain caves, I have floated the rumor that Mt. Rainer is 40 miles south, there is great sport/trad climbing in Leavenworth, some killer Alpine routes with glaciers on the Olympic peninsula, great fishing, whale watching, Canada to the north, etc, etc, etc. It would make a fine kick-off weekend to the annual summer climbing, beer drinking, rafting, cycling, suffer-fest that we all partake in.
Now, if some of our friends can’t make it, we TOTALLY understand and it is not like I will pour wax into small molds and make dolls that look remarkable like each of those who choose not to attend. It would be crazy to think that I have snippets of their cloths and cuttings of hair to paste on these completely theoretical dolls. And know that I would never heat up any pins and probe their wax parts IF for some reason they decided to miss our wedding. No, I wouldn’t even think of such…
Jonesin’ for My Bike
It has been almost two months since I ever so gracefully cart-wheeled down the basement stairs in my wife’s pink robe. I had my first shoulder surgery in December and go back in February for an evaluation for the second one. I feel a lot better that I did and really NEED to get on one of my bikes. It was sunny and warm this past weekend and I was shaking like a crackhead eyeing a fresh pipe, just thinking about taking a spin around the neighborhood. Laurel said “nuh-uh!” and I spent some serious time staring out the window like a kid with chickenpox watching his buddies play baseball – pouty bottom lip and furred brow included.
I am going for a little clandestine “test” ride this weekend if I can sneak out of the house, single-speed in tow, without getting caught by the wife. If she finds out I am planning to ride AMA, then all bets are off and I will likely get to mop and do dishes all weekend. Now, if she catches me AFTER the ride, we that is a whole different story. Then, at least I will be guilty of something and will smile as I wash and scrub, thinking about peddling. Better forgiveness than permission.
End of Year OCD
I did a decent job in 2009 balancing my inner geek with my outdoor proclivities. I did occasionally spend WAY too much time designing/drawing tools, writing html/java code, more than once found myself in an hours long vegetative state in front of the flickering idiot box at 2AM, and I spent entirely too much time surfing Wikipedia, cycling websites, WSB, and CNN, but… I did manage to occasionally pick myself up out of the techie gutter and run/bike in the sunshine, take a long and relaxed climbing trip with old friends, cycle in a 100+ mile charity ride, flirt with my cute wife, drink great beer, buy a new home, and I managed to read a bunch of really good books even considering we had cable TV for much of the year.
As you can see from the small spreadsheet below – even after allowing for the fact that I fell and tore up my shoulder again, I rode more and ran almost as much as in 2008. I traveled MUCH less for work in ’09 than I have in the previous eight years and that is a trend that I hope to continue. With all the time spent working and moving I didn’t make it to the gym like I should have, something I will rectify in 2010 since I need to get my shoulder strong and want to have a stronger core for climbing. I plan to read more and watch TV much less – my pile of books that I “have to” read in 2010 is already two feet high. Since I am ecstatic about having a job in the current economic climate, there is nothing that I can do about the number of overtime hours and they will likely increase next year as I need to pay the mortgage and save for the kid’s college funds.
|
2009
|
2008
|
|
| Running |
127.8 Miles
|
139.5 Miles
|
| Cycling |
1271.3 Miles
|
945.5 Miles
|
| Days Hiked |
7 Days
|
10 Days
|
| Books Read |
23 Books
|
|
| Days Off |
32.5 Days
|
98 Days
|
| Gym |
4 Times
|
33 Times
|
| Miles Traveled |
26,533 Miles
|
61,341.3 Miles
|
| Camping |
3 Nights
|
8 Nights
|
| Overtime Worked |
204.4 Hours
|
0 Hours
|
As far as the inter turmoil of nerdy/sporty that I have going on, I did better in 2008 than I did in 2007. A breakdown of the last year’s numbers looks like this:
2008
2007
Running
139.5 Miles
15.7 Miles
Cycling
945.5 Miles
346.8 Miles
Days Hiked
10 Days
2 Days
Books Read
41 Books
37 Books
Days Off
98 Days
59 Days
Gym
33 Times
11 Times
Miles Traveled
61,341.3 Miles
68,234.2 Miles
Camping
8 Nights
10 Nights
Overtime Worked
0 Hours
300 Hours
I rode more and ran more. Went to the gym and still managed to read a ton of books. Though I did spend entirely too much time surfing Wikipedia, bike sites, and CNN. I am learning to balance my inner geek, though the process is somewhat like a 12-step program where I fall off the wagon occasionally and spend hours designing tool jigs, watching episode after episode of Dexter or Heroes, or ogling over bike frame geometry on the net. I then pick myself up out of my techie gutter and go to a “meeting” by running in the sunshine, exploring a new trail, or flirting with my cute little wife.
Looking back on 2009
Moved from Germany back to US for job in Seattle
Drove cross-country in the middle of winter
Started new job
Lived in temporary basement apartment
Laurel took 1week trip with her mom
Survived lay-off at work
Laurel started new job
Started traveling for work
Laurel hated new job
Road trip to Portland
Laurel gets new job she likes
Stuff arrived from Germany – no damage
Found a house to live in
Started bike commuting to work after unpacking single-speed
Looked for a puppy to adopt
Found and adopted Brodie (½ Boston ½ French Bulldog)
Laurel laid off
Traveling for work again
Laurel found a new job as HR director
My daughter in Seattle for two weeks
Took time off
Did tourist stuff
Had FANTASTIC time with Madison
My daughter flew home, everyone sad
Started looking for a new house to buy
Work going great!
Found great house and put offer in, offer accepted
Went on most laid back climbing road trip ever
Had great time with friends
Laurel LOVES her job
Flew to rural Louisiana to help design helicopter system
Took weekend off while there and spent it with the kids
Reached 1,200 bike-commute miles
Brodie escapes twice and eats glasses
Brodie still a GREAT puppy
Bought small flat-bed truck for moving and yard work a new house
Halloween at work, took my Penny-Farthing and wore great mustache
Heat stopped working in Rental house, landlord waited 3+ weeks to have it fixed.
House closed 107 days after offer accepted – incompetent selling agent
Moved out of rental house and into our new (built in the 20’s) home in West Seattle
Fell down the basement stairs at 05:30 and tore up shoulder third morning in house
Got great painkillers from doctor
Saw 3 doctors in 5 visits. Had x-rays, ultrasound, and an MRI
Had shoulder surgery (4th on same shoulder)
Need to have another special surgery in 2010 to repair a tendon
First house guests come up for long weekend
Worked till Christmas
Grew beard
Brother&Mother-in-law come for Christmas
Heavily self-medicated due to acute mother-in-law induced stress.
Killed Zombies on Christmas Eve at the shooting range – new tradition started
Finished 23rd book this year
Gained 10 pounds since surgery
Father-in-law came in for New Years
Took 1st run after surgery – felt good, but not great.
Spent New Years Eve with Laurel, Donald, David, Lucy, Rosy, and Brodie.
Moved from Germany back to US for job in Seattle
Drove cross-country in the middle of winter
Started new job
Lived in temp basement apartment
Laurel took 1week trip with her mom
Survived lay-off at work
Laurel started new job
Started traveling for work
Laurel hated new job
Road trip to Portland
Laurel gets new job she likes
Stuff arrived from Germany – no damage J
Found a house to live in
Started bike commuting to work after unpacking single-speed
Looked for a puppy to adopt
Found and adopted Brodie (½ Boston ½ French Bulldog)
Laurel laid off
Traveling for work again
Laurel found a new job as HR director
My daughter in Seattle for two weeks
Took time off
Did tourist stuff
Had FANTASTIC time with Madison
My daughter flew home, everyone sad
Started looking for a new house to buy
Work going great!
Found great house and put offer in, offer accepted
Went on most laid back climbing road trip ever
Had great time with friends
Laurel LOVES her job
Flew to rural Louisiana to help design helicopter system
Took weekend and spent it with the kids
Reached 1,200 bike-commute miles
Brodie escapes twice and eats glasses
Brodie still a GREAT puppy
Bought small flat-bed truck for moving and yard work a new house
Halloween at work, took my Penny-Farthing and wore great mustache
Heat stopped working in Rental house, landlord waited 3+ weeks to have it fixed.
House closed 107 days after offer accepted – incompetent selling agent
Moved out of rental house and into our new (built in the 20’s) home in West Seattle
Fell down the basement stairs at 05:30 and tore up shoulder third morning in house
Got great painkillers from doctor
Saw 3 doctors in 5 visits. Had x-rays, ultrasound, and an MRI
Had shoulder surgery (4th on same shoulder)
Need to have another special surgery in 2010 to repair a tendon
First houseguests come up for long weekend
Worked till Christmas
Brother&Mother-in-law come for Christmas
Heavily self-medicated due to acute mother-in-law induced stress.
Killed Zombies on Christmas Eve at the shooting range – new tradition started
Finished 24th book this year
Gained 10 pounds since surgery
Father-in-law came in for New Years
Took 1st run after surgery – felt good, but not great.
Spent New Years Eve with Laurel, Donald, David, Lucy, Rosy, and Brodie.
Killing Zombies for Christmas
How did you spend your Christmas Eve? Ugly sweaters, annoying cousins, and family fun time? Well, at the Talley House we slept late, had breakfast for lunch, went to the gun range, “killed” zombies with a bad-ass, tack-driving .45, drank coffee, shot a hand-cannon/thumb breaking .357, deep fried a turkey, made cranberry and pine nut stuffing, drank lots great beer, played the ukulele, and went to a titty-bar… Ok, we didn’t go to the topless establishment, but one member of our gathering REALLY wanted to.
KFC and the shite they now serve
So every now and then my soul needs a little fried chicken – its a Southern thing. Of all the fast food chicken shacks around, I prefer Popeye’s, but KFC will do in a pinch. We picked up an order of strips and biscuits (there isn’t much better than a warm biscuit, packed with real butter and slathered with honey) at a joint somewhat near the house and I wasn’t able to enjoy the crispy fried goodness due to my outrage over the packet of honey provided for the biscuits. Those bastards now sell “Honey Sauce” instead of real honey. “Honey sauce” only has 11% real honey and is mostly High Fructose Corn Syrup. Really, how much could a packet of honey cost KFC?! If the price of honey is too great for them to bear, then please sell the packets to customers instead of providing fake honey – I would surely pay for the real stuff, honey being an actual food and all.
I dropped them a note on their customer site and will include the link below so that you too can tell them that Corn is not the same as honey.
HERE is the KFC Customer Service Comment address. Feel free to send your two-cents.
Bionic Shoulder
I sit by the fire at my Father-in-Laws home, nursing an aching shoulder with 10 or so milligrams of hydrocodine and a couple of good wheat beers. You might ask yourself, ‘why the self-medication?’ Well, that is a funny story:
At 05:30 on recent Monday morning, the alarm was buzzing in my ear, the dog (who has abandonment issues) was sitting on me shaking because my wife left the room without him and closed the door. My lovely bride had just tripped a breaker while using the hair dryer and was yelling at me from the next room to fix it. At 05:30 in the morning I am not the happiest being in creation – add to that general condition the above mentioned details, a complete lack of coffee in my system, and a VERY recent memory of a conversation concerning NOT using the hairdryer in the bathroom swirling in my fuzzy consciousness and I might could pass the Ogre Finishing School entrance exam.
I threw on Laurel’s thigh-length hot-pink terry-cloth robe, navigated the maze of boxes in the living room and kitchen, and stomped down the steep carpeted basement stairs. I flipped the breaker, turned around, and climbed back up out of the basement. I got as far as the kitchen when she turned the hair-dryer on again and “pop” goes the breaker. I snarled and roared and headed back down – yelling in no uncertain terms for her not to do it again. Halfway down I found myself floating for a brief second. My feet slipped and in the short expanse of time before the impending hard landing, time stood still for me and I thought of three possible outcomes – each brought me to the same conclusion: “Oh fuck…” I put my hand down to keep from breaking my ass and I caught myself on a step for about ½ a second before my already thrice-surgically repaired shoulder failed me. I felt an intense burning, heard a snap and a sick-ish sucking noise. I then found myself in a lump on the basement floor, my arm cocked awkwardly like a fast-food hot wing. The pink robe was gathered above my waist, letting all my man-bits show, my wife was standing straddle of me alternately seeing if I was OK (the falling noise, my screams of anguish and the lump of me on the floor was apparently not a complete enough answer for her) and trying to discuss the nuances of our 1928 electrical system. The thought of the paramedics finding me in that state, pink robe and all, snapped me into lucidity.
The dog was also there, happy to be reunited with his “Mommy” and when I came back to reality, I found that he wass licking my foot. As I lay there, frozen with pain, I think ‘does he know I am hurt and is he trying to make it better or does he think I am going to die soon and trying to figure out what part of me will be the tastiest?’ The thoughts that go through one’s head while crumpled on the floor… I am still not sure what the answer was and I’ve lately been eyeing him with a certain suspicion.
Fast forward a few days through a couple of orthopedic visits, x-rays and an MRI, and I find that I have torn two tendons, torn a muscle, and have ripped two previously placed screws out of the bone. Someone gets to have post-operative morphine again… I will get a surgery schedule date next week, just in time for Christmas!
SOLD!!
Ha!! Our home loan funded and was recorded today and we are now the proud owners of a GREAT Jewel-box house!! Our agent handed us the keys just after 6:00 and let us wander around our new place unmolested. I unloaded four boxes from the car, we let Brodie sniff all the corners, Laurel started a load of clothes, we ate our first meal in the dining nook, and explored every room of what we hope will be our home until we are both old and bent.
We are now officially Seattle residents, no longer denizens of the soul-sucking ‘burbs in Kent. Nope, we are living in a hip and trendy walking neighborhood with public transit, a fantastic public park, a NEW library branch, a local coffee shop house in a huge Craftsman bungalow, and a neighborhood pub where dogs are welcome and where the bartender knows what sort of glass to pour a German Weiss Bier into. I have a green yard that I can obcess over, Laurel has a vine-maple tree to sit under, we have a dedicated office, Brodie has cats to chase out of the yard, there are 6 coffee shops within ¼ mile, a grocery store almost next door, and we get views of the mountains, city lights, and the Puget Sound.
incompetent agent…
As of today, it has been 102 days since our offer on the house was accepted by the seller and we still do not have keys in hand or even a fvckin’ closing date scheduled!?! Pissed is only part of the paragraph that describes our state right now. It also includes: frustrated, mad, stressed, resentful, hopeful, happy, disappointed, thwarted, cheerfully optimistic, defeated, vengeful, sad, expectant, sanguine, angry, optimistic, confident and 50 other descriptive adjectives that still do not fully capture it all. It seems that the selling agent that we have to rely on has been in a stupidity-induced coma for the last three months and did not even know the name of the second Mortgage (the house is in short sale with two Mortgages lenders…) holding bank until I sent it to her last week. We would LOVE to walk away and tell her to shove her commission, but we like the house, love the neighborhood, see a 100K in free equity in the near future, and if we pull out now, the chance of finding and closing on a place before the end of the year has about the same odds as Newark, NJ becoming crime free.
We have actually looked at other places and none of them have the mix of package and potential that this one does. SHIT!!!
THIS is why pets eventually eat their owners:
Why do pets eat people? We have all heard the horror stories about someone found in their home after being missing for a few days, the authorities finding them in a ‘snacked upon’ state. Most people feel it happens because the animal is left alone, gets hungry, there is semi-fresh meat about, and nature takes its course… Well, I beg to differ!! Why do pets eat people… because people dress their pets up in sweaters, hats, booties, t-shirts, and fvckin’ Halloween costumes! I love my wife, God know that I love her with all my soul, but she is among this crazy sub-group of our species. She has been giddy for months about making Brodie a costume. I refused to let it happen, but using forms of torture, pressure, guilt, and persuasion that only women know, I sold my furry little buddy out and agreed to let her do her worst to our puppy. There was costume shopping, his humiliation at the pet store in front of the other dogs (the cats even laughed at him), alteration of the chosen outfit, and multiple test fittings. Front the look of helplessness he made every time she came at him it was like she neutered him a second time. As a precursor to the actual event, we went to a French Bulldog costume contest. The morning before said contest, she had her last fitting session. I will include a picture of his face, on which even a blind man could read his desperation and shame. There were crazier people there, but the guilt I carry over letting poor Brodie take part (he won 3rd place) will haunt me. It is a stain that I can’t wash off and I know that because of my lack of action and my cowardice in the face of tiny wife, I too am on the obscure ‘OK to eat list.’
Commuting with Bear Spray…
Man, Some days my bike commute (1200+ miles so far this year) is the SHIT!… Warm sunshine, crisp air, blue sky, mountains in the background, little traffic, all the lights are green, etc… Then there are days like today that I get home ragged, twitching, in a foul mood, and in need of quite time. I got off a little late so the sun was setting as I started the 40-minute ride home. Traffic was tight, exhaust fumes hung thick in the air, some asshole swerved at me to be funny – I hope, two douche-bags laid into their horns as they sped past me while I was climbing a hill, a lady in a Honda almost hit me in the cross walk, and finally this dick screamed at me with his head hanging out the passenger window of a truck as I was coming to yet another red-light. I got up out of the saddle and mashed the peddles for all I was worth, getting mentally ready for the beat-down I was going to give the ass-hat. Just as I got within reach of the bumper, the guy driving ran the light. I hate assholes!
I was hit 5 times in 3 years of living in California and I learned that you have to watch drivers like a hawk. After a while you become intuitive of their no-signal right turns and you can feel when that lady on her cell phone is going to look right through you and pull out, so you hit the brakes and avoid a crash that she was never aware of. The Burbs and industrial district south of Seattle is a whole other hot mess indeed. Unlike in the city proper, there aren’t too many of us bike commuters, lots of busy mid-level managers talking into the mobile phones, and it is a battle every time I get on my bike. There is a guy in a dark blue Chevy Malibu van that has the same schedule as me who will squeeze his van against the curb if he sees me coming so that I can’t pass him at red lights – no cutting in line! I get honked at daily, had a Burger King bag tossed at me back in June, and once had a semi-homeless (living in his car) dude (there are a bunch in S. King County, WA) try to chase me down and steal my bike – really!
Now, if I had caught the guy at the light I would have hit him at least three times before he got his door open. Then it would have been two good-sized fellers on a skinny guy in spandex and funny shoes. I would have given pretty good, but I would have bleed some and I don’t know if that would have taught them the proper lesson. Ruminating on that and the possibility of assault by one of our local street people, I have decided to not fuck around with my safety. I have a wife and kids and it is my job to come home safe every night (and contribute heavily to two college funds), so I sat down at my bride’s sewing machine and made (with her patient help) a snazzy black nylon pouch to hold my bike-commute insurance policy: bear spray. Yep, a big ol’ canister of Ursine-Off. If it can stop a charging grizzly, then some asshole that takes a swipe at me because I am on a bike and look like an easy target is going to have a very spice-filled evening. I see it this way: If you’re a prick and you try to touch me or run me over, you get a nice even coating of Oleoresin Capsicum, I call the cops, you learn a valuable lesson, I go home safely, have a yummy dinner, you may get to post bail, I have a beer, you spend the rest of your evening itchy and red. Everyone wins!
I needed new glasses anyway.
Apparently, all our puppy needs to be happy is a soft bed, warm yummy food, some ear scratchin’, and a $300 pair of glasses to chew on. We left him in the kitchen after coming home for lunch with the baby gate closed, his bowls were full, and he had a room full of friendly toys. Instead of chewing on his rope or gnawing at one of his m-a-n-y bones, that little M0TH3R FVCK3R climbed up on the table, grabbed my glasses, and used them for teething ring. He crunched up the metal frames and turned them into a paperclip. A couple of days later, he broke out of the kennel that he had been banished to and tore up a library book that had been left on the floor by the couch. As desert, turned Laurel’s reading glasses into confetti. Two weeks later, Houdini slips his shackles again, cozies up to Laurel’s sunglasses and after removing each earpiece like he had opposable-thumbs and a screwdriver, he began an assault on my back-up pair of glasses. I caught his hairy little rump square in the act. The glasses survived, but only barely – the polycarbonate lenses look like they were put in the dryer for a nice long spin. We are now out $500+ and he now has a taste for all things optical. My fear is that it is a condition similar to that of lions or tigers that taste man-flesh; once that threshold is breached, they crave it. I have noticed him eyeing my new specs with great interest and I know he watches me as I take them off and put them on a high shelf for the night. He is waiting for me to slip, to leave them on an end table or nightstand so that he can satisfy this growing hunger, his consuming urge to both piss me off and partake in the forbidden fruit of LensCrafters.
A normal day:
Alarm at 6:50
Snuggling for 10 minutes after the snooze
let the puppy out
shower/shave
make coffee
have breakfast
Kiss Laurel bye
Hang out with puppy for 15 in front of CNN
Get clothes together
Pack bag
Forget belt
Ride to work
Change
Discover belt missing
Say dirty, hateful things
Get dressed
Shirt untucked 🙁
Sit at desk and e-mail/draw for 4 hours
Quick lunch at desk
Walk to Starbucks
Coffee, coffee, coffee
Make a few calls about new house
Back to work
More e-mail, meetings and drawings
Work late
Change
Bike home
Kiss Laurel
Play fetch with Brodie
Talk about our day
Eat dinner
Clean up kitchen some
Watch part of DVD
Work a little on computer
Laugh at puppy
Organize some writing drafts
Get ready for bed
Catch up daily journal
Read a little
Lights out
Serious snuggling
Pass out ~12:30
Buying a house/in debt FOREVER!
After living in a1980’s Miami Vice-prefab over grown house in the endless suburbs for the last eight months we are done. We are trying to buy a place in the city, in an urban-ish area full of cute houses and green lawns, where we can walk to the grocery store, read a paper at a neighborhood coffee shop on Saturday morning, and would be within stumbling distance from a local pub. As an added bonus, it is about 500 yards from the first man-made rock-climbing wall in the US with views of the Puget Sound and Mt. Rainer at the end of the street. Just a few houses away is a branch of the King County Library – books, books, books! The place and location are great, but the buying process has been a nightmare!
The house is a rock solid 1928 craftsman and we made an offer about 6 weeks ago. It was accepted by the individual seller of the home, but still no official word from the mortgage holding bank or closing schedule. I have put something like 3-4 hours a day for the last 5 weeks (really!) getting paperwork ready, scheduling structural inspections, sewer line inspection, submitting paperwork, re-submitting the same paperwork, transferring funds, property surveys, title insurance, answering countless stupid questions and providing minute details of our lives in writing – I had to legally declare my middle name as an alias at one point before we could proceed. It is like having a second job as an air traffic controller that I pay for the privilege of going to after my real job everyday.
This is THE time to buy a house in the US: cheap prices, tax credits, lower property taxes, cheap materials for upgrades, carpenters and electricians with open schedules, etc… and we are having to BEG someone at to take our money and relieve them of bad debt. It is mind numbing and my cute little sweet gentle wife is ready to brain someone with a bat – really!
Tools on the Cheap
Yard sales are the SHIT!! This weekend we happened upon a garage sale and an estate sale in the middle of the afternoon. I hit the mother-load of man-nesting paraphernalia – yard tools! I loaded our Subaru down with a 2-Stroke weed-eater with attachments, hoe, two edgers, 3 shovels (two round end and one square, tree saw, hack saw, joiner fence for 1942 Homecraft machine, pruning shears, garden trowel, pitch fork, electric chainsaw, rake, yard-broom rake, two water hoses, sprinkler head, edging shears, two tablesaw miter fences, a bench top vise, a grinder base, an old-school milk crate, and the board game RISK with all the pieces still in plastic. I paid a grand total of… drum roll… $43. The weed eater alone is worth $200 – I made out like a bandit! There are a couple more things that we need/want concerning yard tools (splitting maul, pick, maddox, posthole digger, 1928 Model-A coupe, etc…) and you can bet that I will be hitting the garage sales and pushing the blue-hairs out of my way in my quest for bargains.
Water hose, a chain saw and RISK – the makings of a fine par-ty!
Laurel’s new steed
We finally got Laurel’s bike back from the shop. I built it from a found frame that I happened upon in Hamburg in August of 2008. I stripped it, sanded it down, put the base coat of paint on, and bought a few parts before our move to Seattle. After our things were delivered to the house here, it was my second project. I got it completely finished and took a test ride. She wanted a plush yet sporty ride and this was it! Big bouncy tires, internal rear hub, front suspension, upright riding position, special sparkly undercoat on the paint, comfy seat – oh yeah! The only one hitch was the hub was stuck in second gear… I took it into a SRAM dealer as the hub was under warrantee. Fast forward three months and 10 e-mails to SRAM later, we got her bike back.
Bamboo bar ends, the finished product, and a shot during the painting process.
homebrew and hotdogs
Well, we had our opening of summer BBQ with LOTS of home brew. We had all sorts of sausage, my buddy Dave’s wife is a sushi chef and she made more raw fish than 30 normal people could eat – luckily we had Daniel and Laurel who put a major dent in the sashimi.
The beer was mostly good. Daniel was the Brew-Master and the IPA beer turned out to be just as planned – I named it Hopocalypse. There was a special Double-IPA that Daniel named S&M IPA that was super-stiff. The PacNW boys seemed to like it though. My wheat beer (Between the Sheets Wheat) didn’t turn out as good, however. The taste was excellent, but we didn’t put enough sugar in during the bottling process and it was somewhat flat. A proper Weissbier should have a nice thick foamy head, my wheat had a John Waters pencil moustache sort of head. It hurt my soul a little, but there was plenty of other beer and everyone had a good time and waddled home at the end of the evening.
BRODIE!
We have a new addition to our Family – Brodie!! He is a ½ French bulldog and ½ Boston terrier. We got him from a bulldog rescue society after he had been turned over from a shelter and nursed back to health by a foster family.
My lovely bride has been not so patiently waiting on a puppy for the last four years. Our apartment lease in California strictly forbade animals, so we planned on getting a puppy in Germany. After 3 months of not being able to find an apartment, we jumped at the first one offered to us, but sadly it also came with a no pet clause (though we did have a dragon/weasel for a landlady…). Laurel was gnashing at the bit from almost the moment our plane touched down back in the US, looking for a suitable puppy to love and after three blissful days of pet ownership, she couldn’t be happier!
Brodie is a lover. He wants to be with people, he gives kisses, snuggles, hugs, and nuzzles. We haven’t heard him bark once, he is potty trained, leash trained, fetches (three retrieves are his max for some reason), naps a lot, is extremely calm, and has all sorts of personality. He has been sleeping with us and though a pillow-hog and a snorer, isn’t bad bed company.
Nope, not loved at all! Brodie has now attained a life of leisure. Warm food, soft beds, scratching, bacon, and lots of snuggling are in his future.
“…you sure do gots a purdy mouth…”
We spent the Memorial Day weekend with Laurel’s kinfolk in a cabin situated on a hillside above apple orchards that had an AMAZING view of Mt. Hood. It was a great weekend, full of laugher, campfire smoke, yummy fermented hop and wheat beverages, and good food.
1. Me playing the only three cords I know (the ones Leif just taught me)
2. The view from the deck every morning
3. A porch perfect for drinking coffee and playing the banjo…
Ich Liebe Weißbier
As I live in the beer capital of the world and great beer swirls all around me, I feel that there is no reason to drink sub-par beer. As my particular favorite fermented beverage is wheat beer, I thought about having a blind taste test that included a group of multi-national friends to see which of the most popular and available brands I should buttress with my patronage and financial support. The Beer Fairy (we are big buds – exchange Christmas cards and all that) stopped by our flat this past weekend and left eighteen (18) different quality brands of Hefeweissen (or just plain “weisse Bier” as we were repeatedly corrected by a German participating in the event). My darling bride graciously volunteered to be the beer wench/test focal for the evening along with another friend – both sporting dirndls, making for an authentic German beer drinking atmosphere (they are both getting some good stuff for this added and appreciated surprise detail). The tasting was loosely organized along the lines of a blind taste test – very loosely.
All 18 Hefeweissens we tested and a few other kinds of beer consumed after the testing. This shot was taken on the way to the recycling center the next day. I know my neighbors looked out their windows as I lined up the bottles for the picture and thought, ‘Crazy American, what is he doing now…‘
It wasn’t a test that would hold up to scientific peer review: Pallets were not cleansed before and after tasting, the beer was swallowed after the tasting (spitting good beer in my house unless you are having a heart attack will get one unceremoniously booted out the door!), the participants were seated together and were allowed to talk about the beer and/or each other’s mother if they so desired, food was served with the beer, there was not a control group given the same beer each time, no random sampling of participants from the overall beer drinking population was used. Multiple tests were not conducted under exacting standards, etc… This was a gathering of like-minded friends who just like beer. So, if you are reading this and you work for one of the companies that we decided sucked – sorry, but it is going to be real hard to sue me for posting an OPINION on my VERY obscure, almost NEVER read (…save for a couple of friends and a crazy English woman…) website/blog.
Just before 7:00pm on Friday, guests started showing up and we sat down for an evening of semi-scientific research. A few were late and a couple had to leave early, so the testing had to accommodate this flow of testers. All counted, there were three Americans, one Scot, one Swede, an Englishman, and three Germans who participated as testers and a good number of significant others and onlookers drinking wine and the hard stuff for the duration. Of those who participated in the actual testing: two were women, seven were men, and we ranged from twenty-two to thirty-six years old. Our dirndl-clad test administrators kept us well stocked, washed glasses between rounds, and delivered mini-pizzas and other snacks fresh from the oven. We had music playing in the background and a slide show of 350+ beer and weisse Bier related images scrolling on the big screen throughout the evening.
Going into this test I just knew that my personal favorite, Franziskaner Hefeweissen would come out on top and that my second favorite, Franziskaner Weissen Dunkel, would place well (I am brand loyal). Though, I was open to try other options to see how they faired against mein Lieblingsbier. I picked regular Franziskaner out the minute it touched my tongue and it was the only beer I gave the top score to, but I was somewhat surprised by the overall result. Here is a link to the results of the overall test and scorecard templates if you are interested, but the top five beers we tested, listed in ascending order, were:
#5: Franziskaner Hefeweissen (I was appalled!)
#4: Edinger Weisse
#3: Schneider Weisse
#2: Franziskaner Weissen Dunkel
#1: Paulaner Hefeweissen Dunkel
As you can see, the Dunkel Hefe’s scored the highest marks and that could either be because of the group of testers selected or because it just tastes better – not real sure… One thing to note though was that although Paulaner had the #1 beer, the brewery also produced the beer that came in second to last: regular Paulaner Hefe Weissen. Odd…
In dead last place was Schoefferhofer Hefeweissen. It wasn’t drinkable (one of the testers scribbled “never again” on his score card as a comment for this beer) and one would think that production of such a concoction would have already ceased due to an angry pitchfork wielding Bavarian mob storming the gates of the brewery.
The evening was a rousing success: lots of beer and food was consumed, there were no fights or broken furniture, no one got sick, no hookers showed up, not one person was locked out of their house by an angry wife/girlfriend, and we agreed to do this again in six or eight weeks to test the quality of local Pilsner (though I might expand the rules to include Czech beers as they are the ones that invented Pils…). Most of the credit for the successful evening goes to Laurel and Megan, who were so gracious to us all, even after we got loud – and I need to give a special note of thanks to Karin, who made all the yummy snacks and testing glasses possible.
Nesting with power tools
I have found that my nomad life over the last 6 years has recently left me with a need to nest and for a man that means I need to build stuff. I need more tools, some projects, and a shop! Right after we moved into our place I started laying out a garage shop plan that would allow me to take care of some home projects, refinish and build some furniture, do some bike building/repair, a little painting, and do some welding. I need a place to store wood, hang bikes, work on projects, and park the car. It has to be modular as we are only leasing and I want to take it all with me when we buy a place later this year. The design is done and so far it is about ¼ of the plan is in place. I am doing it little by little as I have time and funds. So far though I have rebuilt a 1949 table saw/joiner, a 1932 lathe, built a bike work stand, a squirrel feeder for Laurel, assorted shop jigs, and a nice semi-built-in book shelf on our stairway. I currently have a refinishing project going, a bike rebuild (the Penny Farthing), and a rock maple/purple heart topped kitchen-island for Laurel.
Next, I want to build a jig for wooden bike fenders, a honey oak art-deco hall tree, a couple of matching picture frames for some oils we own, customize my table saw further, and build a miter saw cabinet.
Vermaculture
Laurel and I have become farmers and we have about .00008 acres under cultivation right now. We are farming worms, that’s right – Vermaculture. We noticed that 40% or so of our weekly garbage was kitchen waste and didn’t quite know what to do with it all so into the garbage it went. While visiting some family in Seattle we spied their worm box and were impressed with how much the worms ate and how little maintenance they needed. We Googled worm farm instructions/problems, checked out some How-To videos on YouTube, and ordered a 2kg box of exotic red worms on the net. I built a simple worm box as per all the instructions, and they are happily munching away as I type.
I also built a compost bin out of old pallets and so far it is eating yard waste like a champ. We have a 15 gallon trash can and there is never more than 10” of trash in the can and it feels good to push a mostly empty can to the curb every Wednesday morning.
“…The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out…”
Homebrew
What is it about the Pacific Northwest and home brewing? Everyone and their dad either brews their own or has at some point in the past. As a lover of fine fermented wheat beverages, I am intrigued. There is an issue of time: I don’t really have any to start a new hobby where I have to buy a bunch of stuff upfront. I already have this bike addiction, way too many tools, enough mountain gear to outfit a full big wall Himalayan expedition (Really!), and at least 7 pairs of different sport-specific shoes. As the weather has started to turn it has let my mind drift to thoughts of BBQ, laughter, and beer. I started thinking about a medium to large gathering at the new house and how cool it would be to brew some beer for the shindig. It was just whimsy until I remembered that Daniel, my beer/coffee snob coworker, was a master brewer. I cornered him in his cube one morning and offered to buy all the ingredients and provide all the manual labor if he would brew 10 gallons of wheaty nectar for my party. Daniel is not a Weissen fan (we can’t all be perfect) and only agreed to lead the battle if we brew 1/2 of the planned 10 gallons (this will make 17.75 12oz bottle six-packs or 4.5 cases) as wheat and the other half as a heavy gravity IPA. I agreed and a couple of days later we took off at lunch and went to the local brewing supply store for all the ingredients. We bought the malt and wheat extract, yeast, sugar, and 15 ounces of hops. The hops were Kelly green in color and wrapped in rectangular one ounce C02 flushed clear plastic bags. When laid out on the table it made me fill like I was doing something illicit, as I have not seen that much green stuff in little baggies since college.
Bottle caps, hops, yeast, wheat extract and other brewing stuff.
Without the cost of labor or power or taking into account the cost of Daniel’s kegs, carboys, capper, etc… I am paying about $6.00 per six-pack for what should be GREAT beer with an alcohol content above 8%. Not too shabby. In addition to beer, we are planning on roasted meat, veggies, grilled corn, salads, fresh bread, wine, some store-bought brew (just in case there are Philistines about), music, a fire that night, and hopefully the cops won’t get called.
My sweet commute
My single speed on the edge of Interurban Trail with Mt. Rainer in the background. click on for large image
My 3-5 times per week commute to work on the bike is going great. Even when it rains, it is still a good time out and offsets the amazing amount of time spent in a chair in front of my computer at work. I have just put new wet-condition specific brake pads on my road bike as well as removable fenders and treaded commuter tires. I will swap out the wheels and remove the fenders for long fast road training rides or for any races that I do this year. In addition to my regular road bike, I have been riding my single speed into the office part of the time. I take off after work along the river trail and do 15 to 20 miles of flats before meeting Laurel in the valley after she gets off and put the bike on the roof for a hill-less, pain free ride home. On clear days, Rainer sticks up and I get to look at the snow-capped mountain for ¾ of the way home. There are worse views. “The Hill” is still there. It gives me a small sense of accomplishment everyday when I top it, but that fact doesn’t make it any less of a beast. I have tried a couple of other ways home (will try one more this afternoon). It is the same overall elevation gain from work to home no matter which path I choose, some routes have longer, more gradual ascents. The longer ride to the house is great on pretty days and lessons the chance that I will keel-over from exhaustion one fine afternoon.
a weekend away
Spring is here! We moved to the PacNW to enjoy more sunshine, but it has been slow in coming this year. Well, this weekend it got to 79 degrees, the sky was blue, and the sun was out. Quick rundown of the weekend:
Drove to friend’s place in Portland and had amazing dinner
Yummy warm Sake
Slept in single warm biological mass with Laurel (we can sleep comfortably together in a hammock all night!)
Breakfast in the sun
Newspaper reading
Lunch
Light shopping – new tools and bike parts
A productive Geocaching session
Beer drinking
Socializing at a local pub
Sleep
Woke up to glorious coffee
Walked to good local donut shop and retrieved fried stuff covered in sugar
Walk around St. John’s neighborhood with Laurel and friends
Stop in Cathedral Park
Lunch
Went to 5 bike shops
Bought parts for my commuter bike and Laurel’s new red bike
Work on friend’s bike a little to help out with the fit
Drove home to Seattle