When did I start getting old?

I bought an album of Christmas Music today. I used to hate Christmas music and now I'm listening to albums that are 45 years old and debating whether I want to buy more. Answer: No, if I buy any additional albums it won't be until next winter at best.

The kickball team has a white elephant party and this was the second year I went and the first with Jessica. I ended up with a couple of airplane bottles and a book of cocktails for an occasion that requires a drink. I gave much more inappropriate gifts as was the theme for this party but it was fun and I got to laugh a lot.

I'm going to my second Hardwood Classic on Tuesday. The Hardwood Classic is the annual Washington State game they play in Seattle for local WSU grads / fans. My buddy Aaron is a huge fan and I go with him every year. They play LSU so it should be a fun enough game to watch but it won't be a substitute for Marquette games. They won this weekend at least. (Stupid Vikings!)

Dear Santa;

All I want for X-mas is a snow day.

Thank you.

Holy Mid Week Post Batman!

That's right! I'm posting in the middle of a week bitches!

I just heard a headline that Detroit has nearly 50% of it's population unemployed. So if you're keeping score: the Auto Industry will probably never be able to pay back their bailout money, Michigan football finished tied for last in the Big 10(eleven), the Lions suck, the Tigers blew a huge lead and lost to the Twins in a 1 game playoff, the Pistons are down, and even the mighty Red Wings a middle of the pack right now.

Michigan: you're on the clock. That's right Michigan, you've become a drag on the states around you, they're picking up your misses right now and covering your ass. You either need to pick up the pace or risk being relegated English Soccer Style. If you don't step it up in the next 6 months you are running the risk of being returned to Territory Status. Puerto Rico has been stepping up very nicely lately and is a much more desirable tourism destination and would replace you quite nicely I think. Michigan you're on notice, and Ohio, don't think Guam isn't watching very closely.

I love Trader Joes. There I said it. It's a crazy company owned by some German lunatics. It's not quite as crazy as the whole Adidas - Puma thing but it's up there. They have the best sugar cookies, dried fruit, cheap wine, and don't even get me started on the potato chips. Best ever.

Mmmmm. Trader Joes.

I have a tree

Yep, I actually put up a Christmas tree. It is a few years old, made of cheap plastic, and has the lights already attached. What can I say, I'm lazy.

I saw the Fantastic Mr. Fox and it was excellent. It was stop motion animation and it was worth seeing at any price. I will be buying it when it comes out on film soon enough. George Clooney, who I normally dislike in films, did a very excellent job with the voice-over work and made me laugh several times.

The Vikings won again, over the Bengals, and have now cliched a spot in the playoffs which is outstanding but there is still work to be done. Get 'er done.

Jay was giving me crap the other day about the various things Beutler, so I looked my surname up and will provide a few links.

1. Beutler Corporation Heating and Air Conditioning in Sacramento CA. The best page is this one.

2. Beutler and Associates Real Estate in Idaho, oddly enough I'm pretty sure I'm related to them. I'll dig a little deeper since I do have relatives in Idaho.

3. Beutler Auto Serving Northern Utah since 1946.

4. MEAT! Serving Lafayette since 1953. Get your X-mas gifts here.

5. Prove your a Beutler with Beutler Genetics at the Scripps Research Center.

6. Need a bull? Go here if you read a little you will see "Beutlers will continue to be a part of rodeo's folklore."

7. Wikipedia Beutler and you get a few links. Most notably the current Mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska.

I could keep going and listing individual Beutler's but I'm getting tired and I've certainly amused myself to this point.

It might snow in Seattle overnight and people are going to freak out over and inch or less of snow. Tomorrow could be fun.

Turkey Day

I love turkey day. I think it is my favorite holiday because is about food and watching football and being low key unlike x-mas.

Last year I didn't do much for Thanksgiving. I went out on Wednesday night with some Seattle friends and over to some other friends for the food on Thursday. I think I even went to work on Friday. In fact, I know I went to work on Friday because I left early and bought an Iphone I think and that was really it for the week.

This year, I went out with a friend on Tuesday and flew to Minnesota with my girlfriend and spent the holiday with my parents and little brother. The weekend went something like this.

Thursday - Food, Football, MU Game, nap, Racko, snacks.
Friday - Coffee, food, MU game, various sports, leftovers, Elf, Monopoly Jr.
Saturday - Coffee, food, various sports, food, and a ride to the airport.

Today, Sunday, there was more football and general relaxation with some laundry thrown into the mix. I'm tired and sleepy and I have to go to work tomorrow. Bah. I want to retire. Also, the Vikings won today and Marquette lost. I don't like it when MU loses games they should win and they should have won today. Grrr.

I don't really know what else is going on the rest of the week. Work is busy as it is the busy time of the year and my company is heavily tied into the 4th quarter and in particular the next three weeks.

The weird thing lately is my phone is being a flirt. I don't know why my phone isn't happy with me but I keep getting weird texts and a lot of phone calls from strange guys in Milwaukee trying to "pick up" my phone. What I think is happening is my phone is sneaking out some nights and going to Milwaukee and getting drinks from weird/strange guys. My phone kind of likes these guys so it says here is my number, why don't you give me a call but when they call I pick up the phone and say "wrong number." My phone is two timing me but I just wish it would stop giving out my phone number to strange men in Milwaukee.

It is also obsessed with Aerosmith, but that is a story for another day.

Yay, time for sleep soon.

Dallas

I had to go to Dallas last Monday for work and rather than leave Sunday night and return Monday night I decided to go down a little early and spend a day with my college buddy John. I've been to Muenster 3 times now and every time it's fun a reminds me a little bit of Lisbon. I got to eat some BBQ and some cleverly named shots and just have a blast in general. I spent Sunday with my old boss from Roundy's, coincidentally also named John, and had some solid Tex Mex. I learned that 7 year old kids have a different sense of humor than adults, thanks for the surprise Smith.

I'm heading to the Cities for Thanksgiving and there should be turkey and fixings. That's all I need. I'm going to watch football (and Marquette) while gorging myself on food. Mmmmm.

This Thursday I went to a Seattle U basketball game. The Redhawks play a few blocks away and have super duper cheap seats because they are transitioning to D-1. They are going to lose a lot but I might look into getting season tickets for next year because you get a lot for your money AND people can hear you heckle because it's a huge arena that is only partially full. Hmmmmmm. Heckling!



Since I wrote a post last I think my crown story has taken place in full. 3 weeks ago I realized I had what I thought was a sharp spot on a lower moral. Being the smart person that I am I figured it was related to a recent filling on that tooth that may have fallen out or something. The dentist corrected me and said it was decay and a chunk of tooth might have been lost and I would need a crown. Great. I went back a few days later and got a crown (and temporary) and just this week I had the porcelain crown put on for what I hope is a really long time. It freaking hurt all the way around. I would recommend brushing your teeth to prevent crowns because they don't feel good. I imagine a root canal to considerably more awful so I think I'll brush a floss a lot from here on out.

The Vikings destroyed to local Seattle Seahawks today. I'm still not sure I trust Brett Favre but I'll share bandwagon duties for now.

The origin of my name has a Wikipedia entry as well.

Things

I went to the MLS (that's Major League Soccer) playoff game on Thursday and ended up sitting in the Family Section (Code named No Alcohol = No Fun). It was pretty exciting and ended in a tie. Go Sounders! Honestly, live soccer is pretty fun and way more exciting to watch than I would have ever expected. That was my 4th game of the year and it was worth the money.

Thursday was also the day I resumed my Big Brother / Big Sister (BBBS) role at a local Seattle school. The way the program is designed my "little" from last year moved onto the 6th grade and I get a new "little" this year. To refresh: I go in for about an hour worth of chatting/playing every week during the school year and generally hang out with a elementary student to provide some stability. Go kids. This years kid is hilarious and is a reason the program exists. A good kid with a weird situation who could just use somebody to talk to. School lunch is STILL awful and the teachers at the new school seem a bit sharper than last year's already.

Saturday (Halloween) I went to a party with some friends. They added us onto the party list because it had an RSVP attached to it. Unbeknownst to my friends it was a surprise wedding. We arrived to a party that had catering, photographers, magicians, and a real circus performing emcee. After some general discussion is was discovered that Frankenstein would really be marrying the Bride of Frankenstein in a relatively bizarre ritual. The Bride and Monster spent over $1000 having a professional Makeup Artist apply their makeup, apparently he was the artist on the Van Helsing monsters. I only took a few photos with my phone but they will give you the gist. It was probably the coolest wedding I ever crashed - open bar, a giant costume party, I didn't have to provide a gift since I crashed, and it was a surprise for almost everybody involved.











The Wedding Ceremony




















The First Dance


















The Crowd 1



















The Crowd 2





























Scary Jess (the Pig) and Scary Kelli (the Dark Queen)

I'm too lazy to get the formatting right so these captions correspond with the pictures in sequence.

I also have downloaded some other random photos worth posting.











The Kites from the Kite Festival in August.



















Adult Toys on a desk at work. We sell these oddly enough.



















I was part of a team that won a small award at work called a "Door Desk" and you get a mini desk signed by the boss man.



















I'm a gnome this Halloween. It's felt, a snuggie, and some hot glue to hold things in place. Jessica is a master of hot glue.




















If you ever see an Elmo like this - you should return it. It is obviously unsafe.

The Vikings also defeated the Packers today and the Brett Favre experiment is working out well so far. The season is far from over and I'm still skeptical. When we make the Super Bowl I'll change my mind.

Screw the Yankees.

Exciting Things! Not really.

There hasn't been a lot going on since the last post. I did go to an all out Halloween party last weekend on the East side. East side of Lake Washington that is! My friend Kylene has crazy parents who throw an all out bash complete with "shows" consisting of Magicians and card trick type stuff. Jessica and I went as lawn ornaments, I was a gnome and she was a pink flamingo. Pictures will follow shortly, and I actually mean it for once.

Thursday, I'm going to a MLS soccer playoff game. While I've never been a huge soccer fan or anything I find myself somewhat interested now that I have a team in close proximity and they happen to be winners. Live sports are great if the fan experience is either all out like College BB or something low key like a baseball game in mid season. Anyway, The Sounders are playing the Houston Dynamo and it should be fun.

Speaking of College BB, I got my season tickets in the mail today. This will be my third season not living in Milwaukee but this year I changed how the tickets will be working, no more "good" seats for me. I downgraded to 2 seats in the upper deck for much less money and intend to give them away for less desirable games and sell them for more interesting games. I figure I should at least be able to recoup my money on these seats since they were only $99 apiece for the whole season, and compared to my old seats, these are dirt cheap.

I need the Vikings to keep winning and beat the Packers this weekend. That is about the most important thing happening in my sports fan world in the next few days. I'm going to watch the World Series but I don't really have a rooting interest other than cheering against the Yankees which sort of makes me a defacto Phillies fan.

Apparently the NBA started playing tonight. Shows how much I care.

I did get to witness a bit of excitement the other day I guess now that I think about it. I work in a huge building and there is a bank branch in the lobby. Yesterday somebody tried to rob it and it resulted in a standoff and shoot out of some sort. How does a cop blow it and let the guy get away?

I'll try to get in a routine and post more often again. It was decent for a while.

Iceland Photos for real

OK. So I went to Iceland with my girlfriend Jessica about a month ago, where in the hell does the time go? Anyway, I loaded about 190 photos from Iceland into my Picasa account with captions on most of them and there are some really cool ones there.

I'm not going to recount the entire trip but it goes something like this.







Waterfall, Glacier, Waterfall, Hot Springs, Waterfall, historical stuff. Seriously, Iceland was very green and amazing to walk around with waterfalls all over the place.













































































Pictures and Ads are hilarious when you can understand the what they are about.














Whale is tasty. Iceland takes like 20 - 30 whales a year for traditional things and mostly to feed to tourists. It was really good and I can see why it was hunted. Cow of the see if you ask me.


Puffin, on the other hand, tastes like SHIT. I thought it smelled bad and tasted worse. Liver is the closest thing that comes to mind. The breast meat was RED. Gross.




Dracula Candy is the worst candy in the world. Jessica's reaction was pretty much the same as mine. It's gross and you can't even come close to finishing it. So gross.




About 300,000 people live on Iceland (Island in Icelandic) and it's about the size of Kentucky so it's pretty sparse outside of Reykjavik and all of the places we went had almost no people around other than the tours we were on. No fences either so you could walk right up to most of the natural attractions and touch them if you were willing to fall in or get burned.

Things learned:

It's weird to pay for cold water. Hot water is so abundant they charge you more for the cold water coming into places because they mix it with the hot water to cool it off for showering etc.


Viking, Gull, and Tuborg beer are drinkable beers. I would say the Coors Light, Miller Lite, and Bud Light of Iceland except with about 5.7% alcohol and in 16oz cans. I would drink them again.


Icelandic is one of the oldest languages in the world and nearly impossible to understand. Thank you Iceland; I'm glad almost everybody speaks excellent English.

Everybody really is related and they still use Patronymics, meaning they don't have last names. My dad's name is Charles I would be Tyrel Charlesson. My brother would Owen Charlesson, and if I had a sister her name would (Girl's name) Debrasdottir. Crazy to understand - and they only have about 10 names there.

I don't have a picture of it somehow but if you ever have a chance to try Skyr do it. It is delicious and sort of a cross between cheese and yogurt in texture. I loved it.

Hot dogs in Iceland are excellent. They have a little bit of lamb in them we were told and it made them excellent. I think I ate 4 or 5 while I was there over 8 days.

Here is the Geyser, Strokker, going off.



Here is the link to all the of the photos.

Iceland Photos

Are loaded but I haven't added the captions to them so another day or three might be needed before I put them all for public viewing. 182 photos made the cut so it will take people a while to go through them all and there are a few videos that I need to load as well.

I'm all caught up from Iceland in terms of sleep and it appears there was no big news in the world since I left. I finally got rid of most of the worlds worst candy - Dracula - which is the flavor of Salty Licorice. If I wasn't clear Salty Licorice is awful. I'll move on to the Brennivin, otherwise known as black death. I'm not sure when I'll try it though.

The fate of mankind hangs in the balance of the Packers - Vikings Monday night game tomorrow. Brett Favre decreed it, so it must be true. I'm not quite used to cheering for Mr. Favre when he chucks the ball deep down the field and doesn't really have a receiver in sight. I guess that's why he's a gunslinger.

The Twins try to further beat down Detroit by winning a 1 game playoff on Tuesday. Detroit must be an awful place right now.

I like both MN teams to win.

That's all I have for now but there will be another post in the next few days I hope.

Puffin....

... smells like liver tastes like shit. Sorry mom.

Any bird that eats fish for a living is probably going to taste like crap and puffin was not all that good.

Whale on the other hand, I get why it's endangered. Mmmmmmmmm. Happy cows come from the ocean. Smiley face because I can't find the colon key on my Icelandic Keyboard. )

P.S. Owen, we're waiting!

I HATE WIND!

I'm in Iceland and it's great but I'm going to complain about the wind. Screw you wind. Anyway, Dracula Candy is terrible, and Icelandic beer is tasty and I'm going to eat Puffin in a few and my girlfriend is going to eat some whale. Whale, the mammal that is sometimes protected by less seafairing people.

It is about 50 degrees here and the weather has cleared up dramatically and I know how the Reykjavik system of mass transit works.

Good times are had by us.

P.S. - Owen, 3 *good* sentences in the mail within 24 hours of reading this.

Sunday Night!

I'm writing a blog entry come hell or high water!

Really since Friday nothing super exciting has happened. It was a quiet weekend of watching sports and relaxing, which is a good thing because I needed a quiet week.

I spent most of the weekend researching Iceland since I'm going there in a less than 2 weeks, which is pretty awesome! People have been asking, "why Iceland?" a fair amount lately so I figured I would explain a tiny bit. The gist of the story is going somewhere people haven't been before. Everybody out here has been to Hawaii or Alaska and I know tons of people who have been to Italy, or Paris, or London, et al. Nobody I really know has been to Iceland so that chance to go somewhere that hasn't been visited by a ton of my friends first is nice. It also helps the value of the currency has gone down by one half so it will be significantly cheaper to go now than it was this time last year.

I still haven't gotten rid of my old TV yet. I think I'm going to work from home one day in order to have it picked up by a recycling group as there is supposedly a ton of mercury in the old TV tubes. I'm not sure however.

As a side note: I've been watching The Wire and it an excellent show. I'm about 1/3 of the way through Season 4 (of 5) and it's riveting. Netflix it or something people it's worth the effort.

NPR is excellent. Listen to it as well.

Beer Friday

My place of employ is providing beer today for the underlings to drink. It's a shameless attempt to build team spirit and camaraderie; but it worked. I'm drinking a beer at my desk thinking how much I like working here. Beer is tasty.

I also got a filling on Monday that was hella deep. I almost felt guilty about eating out of the 5lb bag of gummy bears on my desk. Is it Gummy or Gummi?

There is a channel in Seattle called KIRO2 which apparently is RTV or Retro Television and I'll be watching a lot of Maghum PI, Simon & Simon, and Airwolf now that I've found this channel. If they start doing The A Team I might have to quit my job. Speaking of The A Team, my mom called me at work not to long ago to tell me they were making a live action movie of the TV Show. She might have been more excited by seeing a new Murdoch than I was.

This weekend can't come soon enough.

Calling It A Career

Yep. I threw away my Dreamcast today. I checked, it's not worth the time or effort to sell the stupid thing so I threw it away. It was all part of my "I should unpack the stuff from three moves ago" Sunday night that saw me throwing away lots of crap. I don't have a ton of space so I need to periodically go through my stuff and chuck stuff to prevent me from being a total pack rat, if i haven't needed it after 2+ years in Seattle it might as well go in the trash. Whatever I keep will end up a little more organized at that, like the POS voting notebook.

The rest of the weekend was spent thinking about kites. On Friday a trip to the Long Beach (WA) Kite Festival was undertaken. A few thoughts.

People take their kites seriously. There were maybe 500 - 1000 kites in the air along the beach and some of them were seriously the size of school bus. There were competitions for sport kites and performing aerobatic tricks and it was pretty impressive and it kind of made me want to get a kite but I didn't, see first paragraph.

Long Beach Washington is pretty cool by itself. There is a lot of history around the area because Lewis and Clark finished their trip along the Columbia there and with the serious tides and currents there are a ton of ships wrecked along the coast. After screwing around in the surf for and hour or two I would attest that the currents are strong. After we were done the Kite Festival people were very adamant that going in the surf was tantamount to trying to yourself drowned. I managed to sunburn the top of my feet as well. That hurts.

Nothing else exciting happening. Going to Iceland in 3 weeks so the countdown continues. I'll remember to bring my camera to Iceland - unlike Long Beach.

Feel like that's it for this week. I'll try to post more but that usually ends poorly.

Another post

I'm trying to get into the routine again. It's a pain in the butt to be sure.

This week was relatively active however. I went to a Mariner game on Wednesday that ended in the bottom of the 14th with one Ken Griffey Jr. hitting a game winning single to drive in the winning run. It was a little surreal to think Griffey is in his late 30's and still playing baseball but I guess even a ghost of ones former self can have some talent. It was a weird game since it was a 1 - 0 final. I saw a guy get throw out at home, various double plays, and several people picked off, Podsednik got picked off third in maybe the 11th which was just surreal to watch.

This weekend I went to Tacoma and saw the Museum of Glass, drove over the Tacoma Narrows bridge, not this one (here is video), and went to a Tacoma Rainiers game. The Rainiers are the AAA affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. For a mere $25 you can sit in the second row of a AAA baseball game and it's a hell of a deal. The Rainiers were playing the Iowa Cubs so between the two teams I recognized maybe a 1/3 of the players. So Taguchi still stinks.

This weekend is also hempfest but I will not be attending this year. I can would only go down to laugh at the weird stinky hippies but this year I had stuff going on on, and frankly, the hippies aren't really all that cool. Maybe I'll head down again next year. I hope the little shits don't pull the fire alarm in my building again... man do I sound like and old man.

Rachel - great boob post.

5 Weeks

That's how long it will be until I leave for Iceland. That's right I'm going to Iceland for a week or so and it will be awesome. Reasons for going to Iceland:

1. I can always go to Hawaii / Alaska since I'm Seattle.
2. It was way way cheaper than I would have expected for a direct flight.
3. Europe / Asia and various other places are well traveled.

I just wanted to go somewhere different and do something that not everybody else does. Like eat a Puffin. I'm not sure if Puffins will be in season but they sure look tasty.

Right now I'm drinking a Mt. Dew but it's a special throwback edition made with real sugar instead of using HFCS - High Fructose Corn Syrup - and I can actually tell the difference between regular Mt. Dew and "throwback" Mt. Dew. I'm not sure which one tastes better to be truthful but they're both delicious. Mmmmm.

All those trips to Scranton paid off. One of the events I went to PA for was really successful and the team I was on was rewarded with an All - Company award. Since most of the rest of the team was in PA I was selected to go in front of our Quarterly meeting and receive the award in front of about 2000-3000 people which was a little disconcerting but it was worth it.

This last Wednesday I went to a "friendly" soccer game between FC Barcelona and Seattle. 66,000 people went to Qwest field to watch one of the best English Premier League teams crush the Seattle MLS team. Soccer in the states has a long way to go but it was fun to see a world class team and the crowd was great. I'm not the biggest soccer fan in the world or anything but as a sports fan in general I think I'm starting to get the appeal of soccer. Watching it live is far superior than watching on TV (which is ok at best) but it reminds of Hockey with the constant motion and the way the game is fluid. Far fewer stops and starts than most American sports and generally cheaper too. Go Seattle FC I guess.

Nothing else really going on. I still have to get rid of the giant old TV. There are ways to recycle it and ways to throw it away. I'll figure that out this week I guess.

It's a post.

Once again it's been a while since I've posted, mostly because summer is a busy time and there are other things going on but here we go.

The 4th of July came and went and Seattle does a pretty solid firework show. They shoot fireworks off of Lake Union from a barge in the center and they do it right. Constant shells instead of spreading it out over way too long. The Sunday after I went to a Everett Aquasox game. The Aquasox are the short season (SS) Single A team of the Mariners and for $15 you sit about 5 rows from the game and can heckle the ump. Minor league baseball is well worth the money and effort to attend because you are much closer to the action and it's more about the fan experience than anything. The Aquasox ended up winning 15-14 in about the highest scoring game I've ever attended at any level that I can remember.

The was a kickball tournament and the Sexual Harassment Panda's went 2 - 1 but ended up getting screwed out of the playoffs due to some bad management out the kickball tourney. They did have party buses to drive people to and from bars for the enjoyment of the kickball participants and fans. It was good times and people had fun on a hot day which is about all you can ask.

The next weekend was a trip to North Dakota for the wedding of a cousin. My family is huge so I'll spare the details but Andrea is my age and we did a lot of stuff together back in the day at the various family events. Yay to Andrea for having the biggest family wedding I can remember in forever. I drove around a fair amount and saw Lisbon, Sheldon, Enderlin, and quite a bit of Fargo. The Red River Valley Fair is a great view of humanity in ND and a good reminder that people are grown big out there. At 6ft I'm usually towards the top of the height scale at events but between the wedding and the fair I felt positively average and that doesn't normally happen to me that often.

I went to Scranton PA for the 7th time since November and I've come to the conclusion that the greater Scranton area isn't that terrible. I'm tired of going there for work so I am no longer a happy camper when I go there. Good things have happened as a result of all those trips out to Scranton but I'm still hoping not to go back there anymore if I can help it.

Seattle hit 103 this last week and while it gets that hot most other parts of the country it's not supposed to get that hot here. Seattle has very mild temps and extremes are not really common events. 103 is particularly bad because most of the city doesn't have air conditioning so it's not that people can't handle the heat it's that they don't get a reprieve from it at all. The worst part is I have a window AC unit that won't fit into any of the window's in my place. Suckage. It's still in the 80's everyday which people bitch about, whatever, I don't really complain unless it hits 90.

Does anybody know how to recycle / throw away a 32 inch big screen old school TV? Mine blew the tube a few weeks ago and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. Taking it to the dump seems wrong and it doesn't actually work so I can't give it to goodwill either. I'm thinking I'll probably have to pay to get it taken away and disposed of properly as I'm sure this beast has some nasty crap on the inside. I got this my sophomore summer of college when I was working at UPS and because Jay cares about these things I know it's 10 years old as well. RIP football TV 1.

Today I had a leak problem with my garbage disposal and managed to spread all over my kitchen floor. It has been an eventful day to say the least. Between a good breakfast, some grocery shopping, laundry, a disposal leak, and eating Ice Cream I am totally pooped and this has been a long ass blog.

More to come - I promise.

Something

I was told to post "something" so there it is.

Long time no post. I don't know, I haven't been into it lately and that's the entire battle. I got out of whatever routine I had and I didn't have the motivation to start up again. Don't have it now either to be honest but I figured what the heck here goes.

Here is the trip to Vancouver from January. There are some funny photo's in there but I didn't really do anything with them. There are lots of randoms.



Here is a Curling adventure in March. Some blurry ones - the ice was slippery.



My birthday was not all that long ago and some friends gave me 30 balloons for some reason. Here is the adventures the balloons went on.



The waterfall was really fun.

Enjoy.

Throwback

Last weekend I was in Bellingham WA for a BBQ at my cousins place. She finished up her second year of Law School and decided to throw a little shindig at her place about 90 minutes north of Seattle. It was excellent times and I saw some wildlife, stars, and got annoyed with a 9 year old.

My car had an issue with a low tire and I screwed around and didn't air it up as soon as I noticed it. Big Mistake. I took it in after a little while and ended up buying $900 worth of tires and alignment. Stupid Subaru with their all wheel drive and fragile transmissions. Grrrrrr. Mostly I'm just annoyed with myself though.

Right now I'm in Scranton PA (actually Hazleton PA but who's gonna notice, right?) drinking a "throwback" Mt. Dew, which means they are using real sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup because people thinks a real sugar will end up making you less fat than a processed sugar. Mmmmm, sugar. There is not a lot to eat in Hazleton PA but we ended up with Chicken Wings and Yuengling beer. Now I'm doing work in a hotel room and watching the NBA conference finals. Blah.

I'm back in PA in just a few weeks too; double blah.

I turned 30

As a reward for turning 30 a few of my friends sent 30 balloons to my office to make sure people knew it was my special day. Well, the balloons got a tour of the town and saw quite a few funny things. Here is a small sample of the larger series of pictures to follow.








Balloons on the march.
















Watching the Space Needle













This random guy was going to turn 30 too!













His wife really liked the balloons - that's why he ended up with them
















Japanese tourists LOVE balloons - she didn't speak English

















Purple and Shadows!


















I sold a balloon for a quarter




















No comment

Mmmmm Bacon

I have Bacon Lip Balm on my desk at the moment. Maybe I'm way to big of fan of Bacon Salt related products but I think this stuff is hilarious. I have no intention of using this stuff but it's a logical extension if you love the taste of bacon that much.

In case people have forgot, I went to a Baconaise wrestling event not to long ago so you can see this not just a passing fad for me.

I sent some Bacon Salt to Afghanistan around the same time to a relative in the military. It goes well on popcorn I was told. Mmmmmmmm Bacon.

34 Cards, 30 ballons, 1 party,

Priceless.

That's what turning 30 was to me. To date I've received 34 birthday cards from a variety of people ranging from my 3rd grade superintendent (maybe principal I'm not sure), middle school gym teacher, various relatives, people I've never met, and one card with no signature and no return address from somewhere in New Hampshire. My mother claims not to know the origins of these cards but I don't really believe her on this one. Thank you to everybody who sent a card. I intend to send thank you notes, which is very rare for me, but I think people deserve it for the effort they put into this exercise. I don't believe you mom.

I did get 30 Balloons sent to me a work as well. Friends from college got together and conspired with friends from Seattle to figure out my work address. There was a singing princess balloon, which was a popular thing to set off at work during the course of the day. Tomorrow I intend to walk around with the balloons and have people take pictures of me in front of Seattle landmarks. It should be fun times and similar to Amelie.

When I got home I went over to my friends place thinking it was to meet up for drinks before dinner and heading to dinner. I was wrong on that count too. It was a surprise party and I was 100% oblivious even though the receptionist was trying to ruin it by asking me "are you here for the surprise party?" I still had no clue. It was well played by many people so it truly was a surprise. After heading to a bar and getting a few shots and and drinking a fair amount of beer it was an excellent birthday. I didn't do 30 shots before you ask.

May 2nd was the first Saturday in May and that means the Kentucky Derby is being run. As a random event a few of us went down to Emerald Downs, the Seattle horse track, to play the ponies and watch the Simulcast of the Derby. I didn't win any big money on the Derby but I did hit a Trifecta Box on a race in Seattle that payed out over 40 to 1 so most of my random bets were covered. It was a good way to spend my birthday weekend. A little sushi and some kickball rounded out my weekend.

I'm 30 and, frankly, it doesn't feel any different that 29 and 360 days old felt. 30 was a hell of a lot scarier when I was 18, 21 or maybe even 25 than has been for a very long time. I think 40 is a lot scarier than 30 and I'm sure once 40 starts to approach on the horizon I'll push the scary age out even further. Whatever, age is all relative. I'm still one of the youngest people at work and I can do plenty of fun stuff without having to worry about the repercussions. I'm not that old.

Good times were had by all. I did overhear a good conversation today at breakfast about a neighbor kid stealing Oxycodone from the medicine cabinet. People watching at its finest.

"This is an earthquake"

So Seattle is in earthquake country. It's not like Northern California with tons of active plates and the "fall into the ocean" scenario but since I've lived here there have been small quakes up and down the coast. Not the kind that you notice or would wake you up if you were asleep but still quakes nonetheless. A few years back, in 2001 I believe, there was a pretty serious quake called the Nisqually earthquake, which was nearly a 7.0 on the scale, which is getting pretty far on the shaking and banging scale and it did some serious damage.

I'm not scared though. My building just had it's annual earthquake simulation at work. I work on the 13th floor of a 80 story building that reaches nearly 1000ft up so practicing for various emergencies truly makes sense... but I'm not sure this test was the best example. The intercom starts clicking and goes static-y for a second which is weird because the intercom is never used, so something is up. A creepy voice comes over the air stating,

"This is an earthquake. The building has just started shaking, you realize what is happening and you crawl under your desk or find a doorway if you are away from your desk. BANG! A book has fallen of a shelf and crashed onto the floor. Eeeeeeeekk! People are screaming. CRASH! Someone's monitor just fell over a smashed the glass. Dust is everywhere AND the building is still shaking. Pause for a few seconds. It has only been 20 seconds and the average earthquake lasts 30 seconds, can you handle the stress for that long? 5 second left. 3 seconds left. The earthquake is over. In the event of a real earthquake, you should find your floor captain and begin to evacuate the building in an orderly fashion. Thank you participating in our annual earthquake preparedness test."

Nothing like dialog to simulate an earthquake. I know they have to do it that way but people didn't follow any of the guidelines AND when people were "screaming" people started screaming in jest on our floor, well, actually I started running around screaming "it's an earthquake, the rapture is upon us, repent sinners, we're all going to perish." I enjoyed this way more than everybody else in the office I think.

RIP

Bea Arthur

Park Checkers: just jerks,or minions of the devil?

I got a parking ticket the other week and my reaction reminded me of all the things you see or hear about interactions with the devil.

They hand you contracts that are nearly impossible to contest without appealing to a higher power who has much better things to be doing with his spare time.

They do a bulk of their work when you're not around and more specifically in the dark of night when nobody is awake.

No one really believes you when you explain your side of the story. All people see is the mark (on the tire/of the devil) and the rest is just excuses.

The list goes on and on but I'm pretty sure park checkers are either huge jerks in real life or modern day minions of the devil. Assholes.

In real life that was the first ticket I got in nearly 2 years in Seattle and with the amount of street parking I do by my friends place I'm surprised I haven't gotten a ticket prior to now, that doesn't make me hate parking checkers any less though.


In real news, it would appear my hometown of Lisbon ND is going to survive the flood of '09. In 1997 I sandbagged around the town and our house with various members of town and my classmates. The river got almost 20 feet that year and it was a record high; and it sucked because that was the second major flood since we had moved into the house. Well, my parents moved to MN in '01 and left Lisbon behind, but the house and the river remained. This year the flood waters got nearly 3 feet higher than in '97 and the town passed on the sandbagging and moved onto clay dikes and some serious barriers. I'm going back to ND for a wedding in July and I'm going to make a detour to Lisbon to see what everything looks like.

I would download and link a bunch of pictures but that would be a lot much harder than just linking to a website of somebody from Lisbon who lives pretty close to me. Like this one and the actual blog with a ton of pictures is 3brats.

Last Sunday I spent a bunch of money to go see the Seattle Symphony play with Joshua Bell, a really excellent violin player. This Sunday I'm going to play kickball in a few hours and probably watch a lot of sports. I'm weird and I know it.

I promise to post more.

Too Long

I know the posts have been pretty few and far between. That's a problem because if I'm not posting something fairly regularly this gets to be a pretty boring infrequent read, but, if I post smaller stuff more frequently posting won't seem like work and it will give people more reasons to visit I guess.

A few random thoughts of late worth mentioning.

1. In almost every way Chipotle is superior to Qdoba, unless you're talking about nachos. Qdoba has the best chicken nachos and Chipotle doesn't even have a queso sauce and with a Qdoba on my way home now I know where I'm going to be getting my chain Americanized Mexican food. Mmmm. Queso.

2. Kickball has started again and there is something about kickball that means you have to have a great team name. In Milwaukee I played on team Kick Me In The Junk or KMITJ and the team I play in Seattle is the Sexual Harassment Panda's and/or the Habitual Offenders (HO's). There is just something about kickball that leads to clever nicknames. We don't have a good logo for the Panda's like we did for The Junk but I'm sure one will be forthcoming.

3. It was 70 and sunny today in Seattle. Winter here isn't bad at all and I wouldn't trade it for.... Goal! Calgary goes up 2 - 1! .... winter in North Dakota or Milwaukee but it really does last a long time. The sooner it's 70 and sunny everyday the happier my pale self will be.

I'll work up to longer and better posts once I get into the swing of things. Maybe even some pictures will be forthcoming! I swear they will.

To John, Happy now?

On my desk

I have a picture of me with my friends as we went out to dinner the day before I moved to Seattle. I also have a dancing cow, a Bratwurst Beanie Baby, a Drake the duck Beanie Baby, a Dwight bobblehead, a Miller Park racing Hot Dog bobblehead, a can of inappropriately named energy drink that makes me laugh, 3 Mr Bill plastic dolls that are shrink wrapped together. Odd indeed, sort of like me,

Yesterday, for April Fools, I posted a status in my various from of electronic communication implying I was going to be moving back to Milwaukee and I was sad about it. I feel this is a good to say April Fools to the people who might have noticed that but not asked.

I've been in Seattle just over two years and things are going well. I have no plans to leave and it's been an interesting time all the way around. Onward and upward I guess.

Laundry Taking Forever to Dry

So I might as well post to the blog.

I went curling again this last weekend and this time I have pictures! Again, the key to pictures is being ambitious enough to download, format, and post them so it might be a day or three.

Time changes mean it stays lighter later, which is awesome, but I'll be damned if I didn't end up late to a meeting because I forgot to update my watch. I can't be the only person that happened to either.

Leaving for Scranton next Monday and heading to Vegas from Scranton. It's going to be a long fun week. March Madness in Vegas - does it really get any better?

Cake: Why aren't they one of the biggest alternative bands of all time? OR are they?

Stephen Lynch, one of the best comedians out there in on tour. Go see him if he happens to be in your neighborhood.

IKEA serves something called Lingonberry Juice. What the hell is Lingonberry?

Sorry for the chaotic nature of this post. My laundry is STILL drying and I didn't have a coherent plan coming into this.

Photo's coming soon.

I lied

I had these grandiose plans of posting a few entries in a row... That didn't happen so I'm going to write long ass post covering nearly the last month.

January. I went to Vancouver BC at the end of January with some friends from Seattle for a weekend. Scott is from the Twin Cities and a pretty big hockey fan and on January 31st, the MN Wild were playing the Vancouver Canucks in a Northwest Division matchup. Crossing the border proved to be anti-climactic and I was following a Marquette game on the internet so it was a quick trip up. I was riding with people so I wasn't even driving - it was nice.

The highlights are:

Eating 2 steaks in one day, one for lunch and one for dinner. That's over a pound of red meat folks... I think I could feel my cholesterol going up.

A really excellent hockey game with a last second goal by the Canucks to send the game into OT, followed by a Wild goal in OT for the win.

Getting a beer tossed on me. Yep, you read that right, I got a beer tossed on me because I was cheering for the victorious Wild.

Coming home just in time to watch a pretty decent Super Bowl.

The story surrounding the beer toss isn't even all that good. I've gone to more than enough sporting events as both a home fan and as a road fan to know that I didn't deserve a beer getting tossed on me. They were annoyed the Canucks lost and people decided to chuck a beer at the guy in the Yellow Northstars hat. Whoever threw the beer got me in the hat, no worries, but also managed to hit everybody around and several rows in front of me. That angered LOTS of people and nearly resulted in a brawl amongst Vancouver fans. They weren't mad someone was a D-Bag and chucked a beer at me - they were just mad they got hit as well. And people think all Canadians are nice...

On Monday I got on a plane and went to Scranton PA for work. There aren't really a lot of highlights from a work trip but I did eat Chicken Wings two nights in a row, and I've remembered why I don't eat chicken wings in Seattle. They can't compare to wings on the East Coast. Shenanigans and Bottlenecks have some pretty decent wings. MMMmmmmmmm chicken wings.

I decided this trip was a perfect chance for me to spend the weekend in Chicago. I decided to miss my connection and buy a one way ticket home on Sunday. It worked pretty well and this was a great weekend. I stayed and David and Emily's for the weekend even though Emily was out of town and it was pretty fun. We went out on Friday for the MU game - they lost - and a birthday party for one of David's Flag Football teammate who also went to MU. Saturday we went up to Mundelein to my friend Drew's place to make beer. Drew is an aspiring brewer and Bill, David, Ron, Drew, John, me, and Drew's dad stood around for a few hours drinking beer, making beer, and grilling out. It was excellent! We headed down to Goose Island and drank more beer.

After we left Goose Island went over to my friend Rachel's 30th Birthday party. My snowboard post is in honor of her 30th birthday and I know she'll learn someday. It was a long day but very fun and I got to see Jay and Mary as well. Good Times.

We met Emily at the airport and I left for Seattle on Sunday. For Valentines Day I went over to a joint birthday party and lost money on Poker and won at Euchre. It was a really enjoyable alternative to most weekends. I need more card nights in my life.

The next night, Sunday, my friend Fletch had a going away party at an authentic German bar. There were many boots of beer being consumed. A boot is two liters of beer and that's a lot of beer and it's a communal thing and it's delicious.

Sooner or later I'm going to have photo's of a lot of these events posted. Again going back to lazy.

My 30 Things

Ok, I’ve been away for a while so there will be several posts detailing the past few weeks because there are a few things worth mentioning including Vancouver and more. The first installment will be about my snowboard lessons last week.

You may have noticed on my links there is a blog called 30 Things To Do Before I Turn 30. Rachel is a friend from college and her birthday snuck up on her this year. One of Rachel’s 30 things was “Learn to Snowboard” but that isn’t going to happen before her birthday but she has sworn it will happen.

I happen to have some recent firsthand experience so I’m going to write about my experiences in as she would. I’m going to do my best to channel her voice and tone so bear with me. I’ve been reading Rachel for a while but I can’t say I have the entire style down yet so this is going to constitute my best efforts.

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In case nobody noticed I have this list of things I wanted to do before I was thirty. I figured with my summer off and family in the mountains learning to snowboard would be one of the easier options. Well I had to make a special effort to do this because my birthday is coming up really soon and you know what is awesome about a new sport? I get to go SHOPPING! I went shopping because I needed to look the part of a snowboarder and also not to freeze but that was secondary. If I’m going to meet a cutie on the mountain I need to look the part of a snowbunny.

I’m going to detail my thought process on picking out snowboard gear.

Step 1 – I asked around to figure out what I needed to buy versus what I could rent once I got there. Result – lots of conflicting advice. Go figure. Step 2 – go to the store to shop around. Result – I didn’t buy anything but there was a cute guy who offered to help me. I’m going back tomorrow to flirt with him some more. Step 3 – return to the store to buy essentials because I was a little overwhelmed. Result – I spent way too much money buying gloves, snowpants, a jacket, and goggles. Secondary result – cute guy is dating someone. Suckage! But he wasn’t that cute on second glance anyway or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

You might not know this about me but I don’t like to embarrass myself all that much so rather than go on a busy weekend I decided to take a day off of work. The kids won’t even know I’m gone – I’m just going to give them some crayons and leave to snowboard and be back in time to hand them back to the parents. Actually, I used a vacation day and a Sub came in to handle the kids but seriously some days I think the kiddies would have no idea if I left for a few hours. On top of the clothes I decided to take lessons with my learning to snowboard experience because, well, I figured I would rather spend the money and fall intelligently to make up ground on people who I know already snowboard.

What the hell!? I have the day off I might as well kill two birds with one stone and see the Dr. before I head out to the mountain right? Well I’m not going to die so don’t ask me all worried like. That did give me a little bit later start than I wanted because you know really, who wants to fall in the afternoon when you can fall in the morning. And because I figured the earlier I went the sooner I would be going down the mountain in no time.

So I get there and it’s an awesome day – like 30 and sunny and I’m thinking how lucky it is that I randomly picked a good day. That got me thinking about how I spent an hour driving uphill the entire time because the hill I chose is on the backside of Mt. Rainier. How bad ass is that? I mean seriously there is a glacier at the top year around! Take that garbage piles in the Midwest! You suck you know that!? You’re made of garbage piled really high – ugh – how gross is that? Seriously how did they decide that making ski hills out of garbage was a good idea, I mean couldn’t you come up with something else to do with the garbage or a different substance to pile up and make a ski hill out of?

I spent money to rent a board and get two hours of instruction and it was awesome. The first they teach you is how to put on the gear – which is ironic because I had the clothes and looked like I knew what I was doing – ha – little did they know. Anyway, I had a young guy assigned to me, heretofore referred to as cute snowboard guy or CSG for short. CSG was great; he taught me all the basics of getting on the board, starting, stopping, turning, and most importantly looking good on my board in my awesome snow garb. I picked out some awesome stuff as it turns out. CSG was jealous but he also turned out to be a complete ski (snowboard bum) – he was 21, lived with his parents during the winter, moves to Alaska during the spring, lives on a glacier and takes gives sled dog tours to cruise ship patrons during the summer. After all that is over he takes all his money and travels overseas until he runs out of money of snowboard seasons starts again, whichever comes first. Actually, now that I think of it, I want to be him. He has no responsibilities and gets to see the world. If CSG wasn’t so young I think I would have tried to eat his face off but he also has a girlfriend of some sort. Silly Cute Snowboard Guy.

I went up and down the disco run, which is the Discovery Run, which is a green bunny hill, all day and got pretty good at some turns but the faster you go the harder you fall as well. I was a little sore in lots of places the next day but I loved it I’m totally going to back. I don’t know if I’ll take more lessons but there were some really cute guys hanging out there so it might be worthwhile to really know what I’m doing so I can chat up people on the longer chair rides. I'm going to call it the Disco run because that sounds cooler.

SOTD: is Falling In Love by Aerosmith. Because, like snowboarding, it's hard on the knees.

Feelin' Kinda Sunday

It's a happy go funday...

National Marquette Day was Saturday. There are tons more MU grads in Western Washington than I would have ever guessed. It was kind of fun watching a game with a lot of MU grads but I got the sense most of them don't watch all the much Basketball, which is fine, but that explains why I don't know most of them. Another game tomorrow against Notre Dame. ND is evil and must be destroyed.

Our team at work had our company Xmas party on Friday. Good appetizers and the opportunity to see people from work in a non work environment is a pretty solid way to spend the night. Nobody got silly and did anything regrettable however. It never seems to happen the way it does in the movies.

That was pretty much my weekend. I saw Gran Torino tonight and Dirty Harry is a grumpy old man when he retires. There is some funny dialog, a little inappropriate but you'll laugh if you see it in theaters. Clint Eastwood does a pretty good acting job but any time you hear moderately military sounding drums in the background you know something is about to go down.

Countdowns. Wednesday: falling on my butt/face otherwise known as snowboarding. Saturday: going to Vancouver for a Wild/Canuck game. Sunday: Superbowl, who really cares though? Next Monday: heading to PA for a weeklong work trip... nothing super exciting in there but I'll be pretty busy for the next few weeks.

I might post after snowboarding provided I haven't broken my wrist or something.

Clever Title

I couldn't think of a clever title so I decided this would be good enough. It's not supposed to be snarky or ironic or intended to be funny. I'm just lazy and not creative tonight. It's been two weeks and mostly it has to do with me being lazy - very similar to the title - sometimes I'm not in a hurry to post.

A few friends have been in town for either day trips (April), or passing through (Liz) so I've been spending a fair amount of time with Chicago natives lately. April was here for work and we had about enough time for a quick tour of town and dinner at a local watering hole. I went to Ireland with April, Pat, and Jen just prior to moving to Seattle so we go back a while. Liz was going to Whistler BC for some outdoor snow fun. We managed to have dinner last night before she flew back home (Liz has family here) and we enjoyed some Vietnamese food. Mmmm.

To partake fully in the West Coast experience you need to do snow sports. I decided on snowboarding since I know more people out here who board. In order to start I had to go shopping this weekend and buy the appropriate clothes and damn, they're expensive. Granted I spent more on my glasses so I can't really complain too much - it's all a matter of perspective (and I spent too much on the glasses as well). So I have pants, a jacket, gloves, and goggles now. You might have noticed I didn't mention what you would think was essential - the board. My plan is to rent a board and fall on my face a few times before I buy a board, hopefully at the end of season so it would be discounted. That's the plan anyway. A few broken limbs or falls could change my mind - maybe I'll be selling gear on here in a few weeks. I already took a day off next week to fall on my face on a less crowded slope.

Vegas! I'm going to Vegas for March Madness. Having a friend in Vegas really helps with the planning so thanks to Matt for living in Vegas and of course what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Work calls as well. Going to Scranton again in two weeks - I found that out about an hour ago. It should be a good trip because it's for practical reasons and should make my life easier down the road.

As a good side note my new boss is married into the Evel family. I have lots of questions but I'm pretty sure she's never jumped over any buildings, buses, or fountains but I'll find out soon. I just watched Hot Rod so I have lots to go on.

Also watched the Inauguration this morning. Nothing like having brunch and mimosa's on a Tuesday while watching a change in the leader of the free world. It was a pretty good speech. If nothing else Barack Obama is a tremendously shrewd politician.

New Year New Me

Not really but I thought that was a clever title. I went home for Christmas and it was cold in MN/ND. It served as a good reminder that the weather I was leaving in Seattle was certainly winter but the Midwest, where I'm from, gets a hell of a lot colder and a hell of a lot more snow. I'll take my 45 and cloudy and gladly complain about the inch of snow or temps approaching freezing. Such is my burden. I went up to Bellingham WA to spend New Years with my cousin and her finance at their new house. New house like they had only moved in 24-48 hours earlier and it was still be explored. Good times were had by all - happy 2009 to me. I think my goal is too buy snowboard equipment, take a few days off, and learn what the heck I'm doing.

In other news I'm a frequent flyer now on Northwest Airlines. I guess if you're going to fly on a crappy airline a lot you might as well do it with the occasional upgrade to first class or extra leg room. I got some free booze on my redeye home and enough space I didn't bump it to person next to me, which is nice.

I'm adding a new feature onto the blog as well called the reading to do list. Every so often I read fast enough and/or post infrequently enough that I'll read a book before I get to update the sidebar. I'm not sure how this is going to work because I'm kind of always changing the list around depending on my mood and because I usually have 10 books I'm waiting to read at any given time. I liked The Tipping Point and I'm Blink going to read next. The reason for the new addition is I read Apollo 13 in the space between posts. I don't know why I hadn't already read the Gladwell books since I loved Freakonomics so much.

That's enough about books. There probably should be lots more stuff to post about but my motivation seems to be waning, similar to the Minnesota Vikings. They are the ultimate tease - just good enough to get your hopes up but crappy enough to lose when it counts. I'm glad I had low expectations for them this season but it appears Brad Childress might keep his job. Blah.