The Good, The Bad, The Busy

Apologies, it's been far too long since I've posted. I've had a fair bit going on and been spending too much time in my head rather than putting what's in my head down. Lots going on lately since Lotus (and before). During the race my camel-back hydration pack rubbed my sides raw; the wounds are nearly healed, thankfully, just in time to rub them raw this coming weekend up at Gibson's! I stitched up a new pack out of fleece and bought some 2 inch wide webbing for the belt and made a fleece sleeve for that. Ok, just realized my mind is going in about 50,000 different directions at once and if I hope to get to bed at a reasonable hour I need to focus and try to reign in some order to my thoughts.

Fourth of July rocked! It was kinda more fluid in terms of planning than I had expected but it was all good. I'd hoped to go sailing with Scotty, but it was a bit too windy for my little sailboat. I ended up playing mini golf at Interbay with Diane, Dave, and his two daughters. It was lots of fun, they are always fun to hang out with, and I didn't suck nearly as badly as I expected. In fact, I got the second lowest score. Who knew! Scotty and I went up to have a wonderful supper at Mark, Nancy, and little Miriam's house. Grilled salmon, grilled and steamed asparagus, grilled and steamed corn on the cob, steamed kale with balsamic dressing, mmm mmm mmm. It was all excellent but the grilled asparagus was heavenly. They needed to get Mark's mother, Wynne, to the airport (flying back to Boston) so Scotty and I went down nearer my place, Magnuson Park, to light fireworks off. We found a very nice, large, empty parking lot and we having a lovely time when a parks guy rolled up and asked us to move along, we nodded and said sure thing. After he rolled off we proceeded to continue lighting stuff! A few minutes later he came back chastising us for disregarding his request to move on. We tried to find another part of the park where we could light stuff but he cruised by as we were packing our bags. We decided a total change of venue was in order at that point. We went over to Matthew's Beach and aside from the underage drinking that was going on and occasional fireworks lit amongst the trees it seemed like the perfect location. We went down to the water and had an excellent little show. The drunken youth even cheered! We scooted when a guy started lighting stuff behind us and it was falling over shooting firey balls in the direction of people. In all an excellent time! By the way, taking photos of fireworks is harder than you'd expect, but you can tell we had some fun!

We finally have sorted out our Gibson's crew for next weekend. Sabine from Seattle Outrigger will be stroking for us, we practiced with her last Saturday and I think it's going to be an awesome crew for the race. Anyway, following Sabine will be Lianne, Minnie, me, Chantelle, and Kristen will be steering. Our practice last Saturday was a 16 miler down nearly to the eastern span of the I-90 bridge. It was an excellent practice, a bit drizzley but perfect conditions otherwise. I need to get some sort of headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes. Sweat drips into my eyes and the burning was quite blinding. The new fleece hydration pack worked out just fine. I think it could use a few slight refinements but it should do me just fine this weekend.

Sabine and I will be carpooling up. Leaving around 9 am Friday, crossing the border (I finally get to use my new Nexus pass) and then up to the ferry at Horseshoe Bay leaving at 2:15. The boats will be on the 6:45 ferry so we will have a few hours to settle in and get some supper before we have to rig the boats. My neighbor Kyle will be looking after the dog boyz, thankfully. It's such a relief knowing she can take care of them and they will be in good hands.

The rest of Saturday was quite busy. I went down to Olympia to go through the last of the photos with Uncle Leonard and then a BBQ at Craig's house, a former co-worker. 16 miles is a very long way combined with lots of visiting and driving, I was pooped once I finally made it home.

Sunday I went for a nice easy paddle on my OC1 to try and loosen things from that long paddle. Finally got Steve out on his OC1, too. After the paddle we went down to Agua Verde for some lunch. One day I still want to try and paddle down there for lunch, it may happen.

Today was a day of emotional ups and downs. An offer was finally made on the Mother's house which has been on the market since last September. My brother made a counter offer which was accepted today! They want to fast track the deal and if all goes well the deal will close on July 25. Thank goodness. On the other hand things have been very slow at work for a lot longer than I have ever seen before, that anyone has ever seen before. The president of the company called a meeting for this afternoon which threw everyone into a dither, she never calls meetings and we have our regular staff meetings on Wednesdays. Until further notice we are having our hours (and pay) reduced by 20%. Projections are promising for September and October, but July and August are still looking very grim. I guess a 20% reduction is much better than 100% but it's going to be tough considering I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck. Well, please think good economic thoughts in my general direction and if you have any data that needs quality third party validation please let me know, we have a full staff ready to do quality validation work to suite your needs!

Run that buy me again

We haven't had much snow in Seattle this winter (knock on wood). And last winter the dogs had so much fun playing in it I thought I'd take a day trip up to Snoqualmie Pass for a run around in the snow. My friend Scotty joined us heading out on I-90 eastbound. We took exit 44, I think, or nearby anyway and headed south off the ramp. A couple of blocks in we saw a number of cars parked and figured this would be an excellent place to park. We geared up, I put on my boots, got the poop bags, toys to fetch, and my digital camera and off we went. It was a perfect day, bright and sunny. The dog boyz started racing up and back and peeing on every perceived thing that could be peed upon, you know how dogs are. Llelo started going turbo and had the snow been packed at all he would have gotten excellent speed, as it was he looked like a rear wheel drive truck on a patch of ice on an uphill, just spinning his wheels; only he would occasionally get some footing. He'd go a few steps and sink into the snow, stall a bit, and then regain purchase and continue on. You really had to see it. Gus was actually the chasee instead of only the chaser, he was really having a good time, too. Gus is on the right and Llelo on the left (full body showing). And the obligatory self portrait of Scotty and me.

After we were finished walking, both dogs had stopped running like crazies, we headed into North Bend to hit the outlet malls. Can't go all that way and not do a little shopping. Besides I had some coupons to the Jockey underwear store, that would expire the end of January, I needed to use them or loose them. Scotty found something he'd been coveting for a while in the Black and Decker store at a much better price than the big box stores. Riddle me this: I spent a flat $26 in the Jockey store and in doing so saved $105.54!!! How does that work? Well, you walk in the store and everything is 30% off lowest marked price, I had a coupon for 20% off any purchase of $50 or more, and I had a $20 gift certificate for having one of their club cards. A fleece pullover initially retailed at $28.50 cost me $3.05 and some underpants initially retailing at $8.50 cost me $0.91. How can they make any money? Is that why the economy does funky things? And we as a nation demand that kind of pricing forcing manufacturing overseas into ... , well, I'm just gonna stop here, because I do it, too. I like the low prices. However, I am trying to check labels more and am making an effort to buy more US produced goods. Just have to keep at it, the more you look for US produced goods the more the market will have to offer them.