Gradual Improvements

I'm am feeling better. Still symptomatic, but better. At least this time I don't feel so strongly about going back to bed. Sure, I love to go back to bed instead of going to work, but who wouldn't?

I went to a dinner/awards show last night put on by the Auburn chapter of the Masons. It was honoring juniors from all three of Auburn's High Schools that they had selected with a small scholarship award. Basically, if you were invited you were winning an award, and Sarah and one of her good friends were one of the chosen students. I don't remember the wording on the plaque that she won, but still--It's good to have any kind of organized function like Masons or Rotary Club or whatever present you with an award. It's a good thing to be able to note on your resume I would think. I'm still not sure on the monetary amount because that goes through other channels, but I think they each won $100. Like a boob, I forgot my camera. They had so many good setups for photo opportunities and I missed out. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I'd like to think I'm one step closer to figuring out what ails my truck. I've long suspected the ECM, which is the infamous onboard computer that controls practically everything that has to do with running and driving. Trouble is, you can't just scavenge one from a junkyard unless the vehicle you're taking it from has the same equipment (vehicle type, transmission, engine, carburetor, etc.) or it won't work. I located one on Craigslist last night and negotiated a price of $40. I hope to go get it this weekend and see if it does anything to fix the beast that has taken over my driveway. I believe it still has at least one full tank of sub-$3.00-a-gallon gas in it!

Yesterday morning I tried out my new Schick Quattro razor that showed up in the mail last week. I know I probably wasn't in the best mood to try out something like that but I did anyway. I shaved most of my face before throwing it in the garbage can and picking up my trusty Trac II and finishing the job. Why? It clogged up, that's why. In my humble opinion, Schick has always played second fiddle to Gillette. When Gillette announced (whenever it was) that they had come out with a 3-blade design called Mach 3, Schick immediately "bettered" them with their 4-blade design. Forget it Schick. Although I'm still a hold-out when it comes to the new design (money reasons mostly) Gillette's razor does work. Pack 4 blades together on a razor head and there's just not enough room for the hair to pass through. Three blades has plenty or gap between.

This consumer opinion provided free of charge for your enjoyment.

Being an Adult Sucks Sometimes

Being an adult isn't a very good thing sometimes. When you're an adult you can't just lie in bed and recover from sickness until you're totally healed. You have to go to work as soon as you are humanly able.

That's about just where I'm at now.

My Sunday night/Monday morning sleep was filled with blinding pain and coughing. The coughing probably had a lot to do with the fact that my nose wouldn't stop running and it had blood in it too. Every 10-15 minutes all night long I was sent frantically grabbing at a kleenex and wincing while I waited for my coughing to subside enough to lie back down. All during this my head felt like it had a wood maul buried up to it's handle in my left eye socket. My head hurt, my eyes hurt, my teeth hurt--You name it. It takes a lot to get me to call in sick at work--Partly due to my work ethic, and partly due to not having paid sick days. I called in sick yesterday and had no problem doing so. I would love to do that again today. I spent almost all day yesterday in the horizontal position. Apparently, it did some good because 90% of the pain and runny nose is gone, and about 50% of the wracking cough. Now I'm mostly dealing with joint/body aches and lack of energy. It's not going to be a fun day.

My blogs have taken quite a hit in the last several days--Partly due to illness and partly due to just being busy.

Friday after work found me in the garage putting the finishing touches on my Harley, getting it ready for what was supposed to be a good riding day on Saturday. I still had to finalize the rear wheel installation and put the windshield together. Everything went well and I had it put together just in time for Suzie to show up. I wanted it to be finished so we could spend our Friday night together as we always do.

She was having trouble with her brakes not wanting to release, and that usually points towards a stuck caliper. I decided that we'd address it the next morning before going for a Harley ride. A little investigation revealed that the right front was indeed hot--Much hotter than the left front one was, and that confirmed to me that the caliper was sticking badly. The next morning we wheeled & dealed with the parts house and got some new parts. We were just finishing up when Steve rode up on his Harley. It was only the second time he had ridden it since he had a knee replacement, and he had to be pretty careful and deliberate when he got on and off his bike. He and a bunch of the usual riders were going to be riding around the area (mostly bar hopping) and wanted to know if I wanted to come along. As per his usual style, he ribbed the hell out of me for being in love and changing my bike around to accommodate Suzie.

After Steve left and we hit the road on our own, we ended up making a big circle. From here we went to Spanaway, Roy, McKenna, Orting, South Prairie, Buckley, Enumclaw, and finally ended up at Sue's house for burritos. After we stuffed ourselves reasonably, we went back down to my place. I was tired so I lay down on the couch and dozed. Sue was excited to dive into her new scanner that had just arrived on Friday.

Sunday morning was filled with puttering in the garage mostly. I tore my air compressor apart to see if I could find out what's causing it to slow down as it runs, but to no avail. We found that Sue's car still wasn't fixed. Apparently she had mistakenly put some power steering fluid into the brake reservior at some point in the past. She caught herself while she was doing it and only a teeny amount got into it, but that was probably enough. She swears she told me about it when it happened a couple months ago, but I guess it didn't register with me at the time. At any rate, I did a complete flush of her brake system, giving it all new fluid to thrive on. From what she says it did the trick and the brakes all work fantastic now. That's good.

I wanna go back to bed...

Still Whining

But not as much as yesterday. At least I didn't awake with a splitter of a headache this morning.

Yesterday actually went well at work up to a point. I could tell what it was too--It was when the Excedrin that I took the instant I woke up wore off. As the afternoon wore on, I got worse and worse. By the time 2 o'clock rolled around I wanted to leave right then. When I got home, I think I may have stayed awake almost an hour. A couple of beers and a snack and I was out, not waking up until about 8:30.

I chatted online with Sarah for a few minutes and sent her a couple of tennis pictures. Seems that tonight will be one of her teammates' last match and she wondered if I had any pictures of her that she could use to make a card. She lucked out. Tuesday was the first time that I took any pictures of any of her teammates, so I did have a couple of the girl she asked about, and they were pretty good ones too. I guess I should take pictures of all of them for just such a reason. After all, it's not like taking pictures with a digital camera costs money...

After yakking online with Suzie for a few minutes I was out again. I managed to still go to sleep at my usual bedtime after sleeping that long during the afternoon/evening. That tells me I needed that nap pretty badly.

Today is going to be a pretty exciting day for Suz. Well, I hope it is anyway. Her new Harley jacket will show up at work today! I hope it fits perfectly. If it doesn't we'll send it back for alterations, but nobody wants to have to deal with having to do that. She's also expecting her new scanner she ordered to show up today as well. Don't you just love those days that are like the UPS man is Santa Claus? Ha, that's funny--Our UPS man as Santa... What a visual. My "goodie" day was yesterday apparently. I received a free Schick Quattro Titanium razor in the mail that I had signed up for a month or two ago.

I hope my day goes somewhat smoothly today. Sarah won't be playing a match tonight so I don't have to worry about that later. It might be another nap afternoon when I get home. We'll see.

A Time for Whining

I hate being sick. People who know me know that I don't get sick very often, and I think that makes me even more susceptible to whining about it.

It's not like I can really stay home and immobilize myself either. I don't have one of those jobs that affords me the luxury of paid sick leave. I had one once: Boeing. Even then I remember having trouble staying home. I guess it's my work ethic or something. I figure if I can get out of bed I can go to work.

I took the camera with me again to watch Sarah play tennis yesterday and took over a hundred shots, most of which came out fairly decent. While I was there I went over to where Teresa was sitting in her car watching the match and motioned for her to roll her window down so I could take a picture of her puppy. When the pup heard the click of the camera she cocked her head sideways the way dogs do and I got this picture:


Sarah and her partner ended up winning their match, playing best 2 out of 3 sets. It was cold out there and I was glad to get home.

Fortunately Suzie had stopped by to help warm me up.

Well, I'm already doing better than I was when I woke up. It probably has something to do with the headache pills I took when I awoke. I think I'll survive. Gotta earn a buck right?

Okay (sigh) I'll Write...

I know it's been a while, and I'd be lying if I said that nothing much has been going on. Truth is, when I let my posts lapse it's hard to figure out where to start. It's also hard to squeeze it in before I leave for work. I had this post complete and ready to go this morning, but when I was ready to post I found that my internet was down.

Today is my dad's birthday, but unfortunately for him he has to spend it in the hospital getting worked over. Some sort of exploratory surgery for his cancerous lung. According to my mom, all the tests and things that they've done up until now have been good. Today they're going into his chest with a camera (if I understood her correctly) to see exactly what they're dealing with before they hit him with chemotherapy. Fun way to spend a birthday. I stopped by their house yesterday and gave him his present early just in case they wouldn't be available today, and I'm glad I did.

We've been bombarded by weird weather around here. We've witnessed more hail and snow mixture stuff in the last two days than we get in some whole winters, and it's nearing the end of April for crying out loud! It's like living in Oklahoma where the weather can do a 180-degree turn in a half hour's time.

I got my Harley jacked up Wednesday after work and took the front wheel down to R&R Cycle to have its new skin put on. On Thursday I swung by on the way home from work and picked it up. I got back to work in the garage as quick as I could after getting home and got the front wheel put back on. It looks way different with blackwall tires on it instead of the whitewalls I'm used to! After a little cussing and fussing I got the rear wheel off and hurried it down to R&R so they could get going on it, making it there about a half hour before they closed.

Friday was a very busy day at work, but a smooth one. Things went the way they were supposed to for the most part, and the day went by quickly. On the way home I swung by R&R, hoping to get the rear wheel to the Harley, but it wasn't quite finished. Instead of waiting, I opted to come back for it later. It worked out well because I had ordered a pizza for me and Sue and at about the time it was to be ready for pickup, R&R called and said the wheel was ready too. With gas prices the way they are, the more you can get done in one car trip the better. I had no interest in getting the rear wheel on, but I did get a little bit done towards reassembly before Suzie showed up.

I don't remember what drove us to head out when we left after having our morning coffee time on Saturday. I love that time of day when we just sit around talking about things. Anyway, we may have went out with Fry's Electronics as our first stop or not--I can't remember--But that's where we went. One thing led to another when we left there. On a quest for an 18" wide dishwasher for Suz, we started winding our way across town looking for appliance stores. We stopped at the Tukwila Harley dealership for lunch (our timing was perfect and we were in the area) and I finalized the parts I needed for my windshield installation, which made me very happy. When we left there we ended up at Albert Lee appliance where Suz dropped a few hundred on a dishwasher. It should be arriving at her house today, where it will reside in peace until it can be installed by her team of sons.

After a stop at my house we ended up at her son's house where other family members were busy doing upgrades and things while they were out of town for their anniversary. I helped put up some blinds in two bedrooms, Suzie did some work on shortening and hanging some drapes, and her son-in-law Tony was doing some electrical upgrades (his profession). Blinds, drapes, outlets--Those were some pretty nice anniversary gifts to come back to.

Yesterday was a usual Sunday, starting out with laundry, shopping, etc. I managed to get the windshield hardware put on the Harley and was very happy about that. I still have to assemble the windshield itself, but that's very easy--It's just bolting all the little criss-cross bracketry back onto it. After my laundry was done I spent a few hours up at Suzie's house taking pictures. We enjoy being camera nerds. It's always fun to put both our new pictures on the computer and browse them doing the usual "Oh, nice" and "Eww... Delete" comments.

Once a nerd, always a nerd--Computer or camera!

Small Chuckles in a Small Town Paper

You have to admire a small town newspaper. (Okay, it's not really a small town, but the paper is small.) The Auburn Reporter paper comes out a few times a week and is available for free at various places around the area. Although they do have a website, it only contains a few of the top news bits. The real news is in the written version!

One section that's in the paper each time is called Police Blotter. Apparently, the person writing the Police Blotter is an aspiring comedy writer. Or maybe he or she just assumes nobody reads the stuff anyway, so why not dress it up a bit? I picked up the latest issue yesterday when I was at the library and here's a sampling of what I found:

Police blotter

April 12

Theft from vehicle: Overnight, 400 block of 8th Street Southwest. Suspects unknown forced their way into a car and stole unspecified motorcycle racing equipment of equally unspecified value.

Vandalism: 9:13 a.m., 1400 block of 8th Street Northeast. Unknown persons vandalized a person of unspecified gender's vehicle of unspecified make in a way police would just rather keep to themselves.

Assault: 3:25 p.m., 3030 R St. S.E. Police arrested a person described only as male for assaulting in some way a juvenile coincidentally also described only as male.


April 11

Vandalism: 1 p.m., 800 block of R Street Northeast. A male - youth, adult, who knows? - reported that somebody poured a sugar and water mixture into his gas tank about a week ago, doing his car mischief.

Traffic offense: 9:54 p.m., 1406 Lake Tapps Parkway S.E. Police arrested a man for reckless driving after he was observed doing donuts at a high rate of speed in the moderately-packed parking lot of Top Foods. The guy told police he was "just testing out his new modified exhaust system." He was additionally cited for his newly modified exhaust system.


April 8

Shoplifting: 1:45 a.m., 101 Auburn Way S. Police arrested a person for stealing a razor from Safeway after a store security saw him so doing.

Shoplifting: 2:58 p.m., 801 Auburn Way N. Police arrested a juvenile female at Fred Meyer for shoplifting clothing of some undefined type worth an amount we can only guess at.

Doncha just love small town comedy? Even if it's not comedy, you have to appreciate them trying to make it somewhat comedic. I may have to keep a sharp eye out for this sorta stuff.

Tuesday Stuff

It was a good day at work for a change. Still busy, but a little more predictable and less stressful thanks to the fact that Bruce was back from his week in Florida. I felt myself feeling a slight bit better as the day wore on too as far as my sore ribcage went.

The day turned more interesting after I got home though, and started with a phone call from Sarah the instant I walked in the door.

"Daddy? Do you still have the spare key to my car?"

It turns out that she was going to move her car to the opposite end of the school grounds to where the tennis courts are, and when she dropped her armload of stuff into the hatchback of her car and closed it her keys were no longer in her hand. Been there, done that! So I hurried up there and got her into her car so she could get changed and join the rest of her tennis team at practice.

When I got back home I got my house all vacuumed like I've been meaning to do for several days. When that was over I was a victim of a "vacuum hot flash" and felt the need to go outside. What is it that makes people hot when they're vacuuming? It's not much exertion at all, and it seems that no matter how slow you do it, vacuuming makes you break a sweat. Anyway, I felt that was a good time to go out to the garage and get one of the wheels off the Harley to drop off for its new tire. I was just finishing that when Suzie drove up. Good timing!

We were just inside for a short time when the doorbell rang. Chris from next door was there, and the instant I opened the door, in blew his whirlwind of a daughter, Kailey. I'll tell you what--She is quite a handful. It was very funny watching her "interact" with Moana. She would actually walk up and say "hi" to her. When I wanted to take her picture next to Moana, she was a little hesitant, looking up at her as she cautiously inched herself closer to her.

The reason for the visit? Chris brought me some RAM for my laptop! Yep, "just like that" I went from 256K of RAM to 2 gigs. Pretty nice thing to do for a neighbor I'd say. We both agreed that the laptop was probably not sold with that little bit of RAM in it--Someone probably swapped the original sticks into their new machine when they sold this one. At any rate, now it's running much faster.

Thanks, Chris!

Under and Around the Weather

My work day got off to a weird start yesterday. I was feeling pretty good when I got there, but it did a 180° pretty quickly.

One of my coworkers moves the trucks out every morning, and when he tugged on the chain of the door nearest my desk the small chain came off the gear mechanism way up above. Because the van was still inside and in the way of using a forklift to repair it we were forced to use a giant ladder. Let me tell you, that ladder is heavy and long. By the time we got it in place, repaired the chain, then put the ladder back down and stowed, I had a huge throbber of a headache. I never got rid of it all day long.

During the course of the last several days I've been dealing with something I did to my ribcage. I was coming down the stairs one morning (I think it was Thursday) and my foot slipped off the bottom step, sending me off balance. Somehow I hit hard on the end of the steel banister a few inches above my left nipple. Ow. I never got any visible bruising, but I definitely did something there because I haven't been able to take a deep breath without pain ever since. I figure I bruised a rib or cracked one, and any time you do something like that it effects movement, strength, and breathing. Not much sense in ever going to a doctor for something like that though, because they just give you a prescription and tell you take it easy. Anyway, add that to yesterday's headache and I was having a fun day.

Yesterday was a scheduled tennis match in Sumner, about 15 minutes south of home. As usual, Teresa texted me and asked if I was going, hoping to get a ride. I replied that I was going on the Harley and never heard back. This is our shower time of year, and Sarah texted me from there saying they had just arrived and the courts were soaked so they weren't sure if they'd play or not. I decided I'd go for it anyway, figuring it would be a good excuse for a ride. I started to have second thoughts when I saw huge rain squalls sweeping the area I was headed toward, but I kept going. When I got there it actually was pretty decent, but even though the sun came and went, it was cold because of wind. When I got there they hadn't gotten the courts totally dry yet. By about 4:30 they were just starting to play, but by that time the clouds were looking pretty bad and I was feeling a little vulnerable. I told Sarah I was going to take off and see if I could beat the rain back home. Fortunately I did beat it--Only catching a few sporadic drops here and there.

When I got home I didn't feel well and ended up taking a nap for a while. I never got anything done that I wanted to do yesterday, and that frustrated me. I hope I have a better day today. At least I awoke to a smile when I saw Suzie's blog post.

I needed that.

Instant Summer!

That's what it felt like. Thursday I heard the first robins doing their monotonous and repetitive chirp when I went out to get in my car to head to work. Although the "powers that be" tell us when the first day of spring actually is, the song of the robin is my yardstick.

Well, apparently we went from Thursday being the first day of spring to yesterday being the first day of summer! Okay, well, It sure felt like it...

When we got up yesterday, me and Suzie knew we would be on the Harley at some point during the day. The weather report pretty much explained that to us. While she was anxious to go for a ride in nice weather for a change, she still didn't have much biker lady garb yet. After all, she only had new Harley boots and a little leather ponytail wrap. While we were sitting there drinking our morning coffee and talking, we formulated our plan of attack to get the day going. The first order of business was to make a stop at Eagle Leather and buy her some chaps. As it turns out, we drove into their parking lot just as the doors were opening at 10 o'clock. After getting fitted for some nice chaps, we wandered over to another section of the store where she picked out some nice deerskin gloves.

We made a stop at the Tacoma Mall JC Penney store on the way back home. They had a shoe sale going on and I wanted to scope out their stock. I tried on a few things, but I didn't find anything that totally worked for me. They had a half-off sunglasses sale going on too and Sue bought a pair of sunglasses for her son so the stop wasn't a waste of time. He had been wanting some for quite a while.

We buzzed home and got ourselves all decked out biker style. Suzie looked really good wearing her new chaps and new boots! She still doesn't have a new jacket yet so she wore the fringed one that I have here from an old Ebay purchase that didn't work out. The look was really complete (at least in my opinion) by the leather hair thing around her ponytail. She looked good and it was apparent that she was feeling good too. I planned on us hitting the Harley dealership in Tukwila for lunch, and I also wanted to check on a couple windshield parts. On the way there we stopped at R&R American Cycle and bought her some new riding sunglasses. Hers were not doing the job at all because they weren't close enough to her face. Even though we had only been on the bike about 5 minutes when we got there, she already had watering eyes. While I was there I verified that my new tires were in. When we hit the road again we were both happy to learn that the new glasses were doing a great job. After all, what good is having all the right riding apparel if you're miserable and can't see? Now she was really feeling good about riding--Everything was working for her. The first time she rode with me she was miserable. Cold weather coupled with not having the right clothing, and having watering eyes the whole time. I'm surprised that she even lasted through that ride.

I wasn't prepared for what greeted us when we rolled up at Downtown Harley in Tukwila. I knew it would be busy because the weather was so nice and they always have free lunch on Saturdays, but I didn't expect the crowd that was there. As it turns out, it was an anniversary bash. The line for lunch was long, and had I seen that before we parked I probably wouldn't have even stopped. Suzie got into line while I went inside to use the restroom. While inside I also bought a few hardware items to help me with my detachable windshield installation. Suz had a great time people-watching and was feeling good about her new look. When you start wandering among a crowd like that you start to realize how "slapped together" some people are and everyone knows how ladies like to compare things. After having ourselves a good little bite to eat we again hit the road.

We wound our way eastward with the intention of putting a little more civilization behind us, and for the most part it worked well. It was a very good ride, especially when we put most of the traffic behind us and the speed limit inched its way up to a better level. We basically did a sweeping loop that took us to Suzie's neighborhood. Her son lives just a few doors down and I wanted to give her the opportunity to play show-and-tell with her new biker persona. As luck would have it, her daughter and her husband were there also, and everybody got a kick out of it. Mom's a biker! We hung out there for a little bit and everyone decided that it was a day for a barbecue. We went back to my house, where we switched back out of our leather goods, once again becoming ordinary citizens.

A stop at the store and we headed back up to Denny's house. It was a most excellent way to complete the day. Good food, good people... Good times. I must say though--I never would have predicted in a million years that I would ever take part in the act of rolling a full-size trampoline over a house! Yes, that's what I said. Sue had a trampoline in her back yard and they had determined that we would turn it upside down on top of my Neon and drive it down the street to Denny's house where it would live out the rest of its useful life. Trouble is, it wouldn't fit under some of the structure that went over her driveway alongside her house. What to do? We could take it apart (which is how it went in there after all) but no, that would be too much trouble. We decided to stand it up on edge like a coin and with two people on the roof, rolled it up onto her house, over the top, and down to a couple of us waiting on the ground in the front yard. We then finished the original plan of putting it on my car and driving it down the street. That was wild. The whole thing was documented on Suzie's camera, so it's possible that we may see as slideshow of it in the future. I know we certainly got some good pictures. I'll bet the neighbors probably got quite a kick out of that one!

I was picturing in my mind the lady up the street that Suzie lovingly refers to as Gladys Kravitz (remember her on Bewitched?) for her snooping and meddling.

"Abner, come look at what they're doing now!"

What a killer day!

Powder Power

My mind works strangely--At least to me it does. For all I know, everybodys mind works strangely. Mine tends to be somewhat fragmented. Did you ever hear about the book, "If you give a moose a muffin"? That's kind of how my mind works. It skips around.

Take yesterday morning for example. I was on my way to work and was a little miffed when I found pretty heavy ice on the windshield that I had to scrape. When I was nearing work and drove by a local 7-Eleven, I remembered I wanted to stop for gum. The problem was because I scraped the ice before leaving home I no longer had time to make a gum stop. While thinking about gum, my mind went rummaging in my desk drawer at work where I keep the gum, then left actually left the desk drawer and wandered to my boots sitting under the table waiting for me. That's when I remembered that my boots were starting to squeak yesterday before I left work. Hey wait a minute, I used to have a thing (this is what we call a container when we don't know what else to call it) of Dr. Scholl's foot powder in my tool box there, didn't I?

When I got to work and sat down to put my boots on I remembered, "Oh yeah... Foot powder." I opened up my tool box and looked around and there it was. It hadn't been used in a while and it was pretty hard to spin the top to line the "shake holes" up so I could pour it. My work boots have insoles in them and they are usually what squeaks so I took them both out and sprinkled a decent amount of powder in the boots before putting them back in. I'm the kind of person that believes in doing anything I can to increase personal comfort if I can (like my using hand cream at work, having my own easy chair for lunch, etc.) so naturally I'm going to put powder in the boots before putting my feet in them too right? Of course. I didn't skimp either. I used lots of it.

Ahhh...

It's funny how something like that can make you smile. I spent the day being constantly reminded about how great my feet felt every time I walked somewhere. Every time I bolted out of my chair back onto my feet I noticed the difference. It truly put my into a good mood. I put a lot of miles on walking all around that place, and even though I wear Red Wing boots (far and away the most comfortable boots I have ever owned in my life) it can still take its toll on feet.

I don't know if I owe my revelation of foot powder ownership to scraping ice or missing gum or what, but I know I'm going to leave it out as a reminder and use it again. And again.

Getting The Jump

Almost a month ago I ordered myself a new printer (which I love BTW) on Buy.com. I was able to save an additional $50 by signing up for yet another credit card I didn't need. Fast-forward 3 weeks... Still no word from them. Call me paranoid, but I know how credit card companies like to operate. If you pay your bill in full, either early or on time, they don't make any money off you. To slant things in their favor they like to give you a very small "window" of opportunity to pay your bill on time. My experience has shown it to be typically one week until due date when the first statement will show up. Well I was getting a little concerned because I still hadn't heard anything from them, so I went online and did some digging. I was able to find the right website and register there with a password. Once I was in I found my outstanding balance of $36, but it still showed zero due. Hmm... I still didn't trust em so I paid it off right then. Yesterday things started showing up. I opened the first envelope and it was a letter explaining that they were changing banks or something, and it apologized for people with autopay setups that would have to change their information. The other thing from them that also showed up was the new credit card itself. It remained whole for approximately 30 seconds before the attack of the scissors.

Still no statement.

I did find, however, that their late fee was $35. I can just imagine that--Hit with a $35 late fee on a total bill of $36... It's possible my bill wouldn't have been due until next month, but better safe than sorry right?

Other news is Harley-related. I placed an ad on Craigslist a couple weeks ago asking if anyone wanted to swap windshield brackets. Harley makes two different varieties of brackets for my bike--For bikes with passing lights and those without passing lights. I have been communicating with a guy way up north of me and we have struck a trade. He needs the type I have and he has the type that I need. Because attaching hardware is also different between the two varieties, he is also including all the mounting bolts and hardware! That in itself is over $60 if you buy from Harley, and I just assumed I was going to have to buy that stuff regardless. Anyway, he's got his boxed up to send me today and I have mine boxed up to send as well. I included a 20-dollar bill to thank him for the hardware he's throwing in.

I'm planning to stop on the way home from work today to buy a couple tires for the hawg--We'll see if that actually comes to pass. I'll order the tires then once they're in I'll take the wheels off the bike and take them in to have them mounted one at a time. My bike is very unstable when you take both wheels off at the same time and it wants to not sit on the jack very well.

Although the weather isn't showing it very well, it's almost riding season and I have a lot to accomplish.

When Words Can Fail

That was the basis of conversation between me and Suzie last night as I was hungrily wolfing the best-tasting homemade soup I have ever eaten.

How can a person possibly describe to readers something that tastes so good? You'd have to be a poet to even come close to being able to get such point across to someone in a blog, and even then it would be subject to whether or not the reader had ever experienced any of the descriptive words that were used to explain it. Like I've said before, could you explain a spiral staircase to a blind person that doesn't know what a spiral is?

If you haven't guessed by now, we had a killer soup for dinner. Sue came over at a little after noon with all her fixins and proceeded to fill my entire place with mouth-watering aromas all afternoon. At best I was able to lift the lid and stir it every now and then, inhaling the intoxicating smells that wafted up from the pot. When it was finally determined time to eat, we also enjoyed a baguette fresh from the oven.

It was sure a great way to bring a killer weekend to a close!

Suzie Scores a Deal

Yes, yesterday was indeed her day. We were drinking our morning coffee yesterday and getting ready to go to a camera swap meet in Puyallup when I spotted an ad on Craigslist. When I told her it was just up the hill in Federal Way and what was included, she ran back into the room and read it over my shoulder. Here's a screen print of the ad (you can click on it to read it full size):

"Did you email him yet? Email him!" she said excitedly.
She already has a zoom lens for her camera, but it's only an 85-200 or something, and she really needed an extra battery as well. After emailing him with our desire to look at it and her cell number so he could contact us while we were out and about, we proceeded to the Puyallup Fairgrounds.

It was actually a pretty cool swap meet. The people there reminded me a lot of the geeks that used to swarm over computer swap meets back in the 80's when computers were in their infancy. Yep, a lot of camera dweebs just like us (sorry Sue). I found a cool "star" filter for my camera, and Suzie found herself a couple different filters for hers as well. We had a good time poking around through all the stuff and admiring all the antiques and photography-related stuff from down through the years too. We were just about finished when her phone rang. It was the guy from the ad! Apparently we were first to call, so we headed up to his place after making a stop for cash.

We got there before the guy got back from his errand run. He said he had realized that there were still pictures on the camera cards so he stopped at a store to print them out or whatever. He showed up on a scooter a few minutes after we got there and let us into his apartment. While he went to get all the gear we looked around. There was a collection of Barbie-sized dolls called "Living Dead" dolls (Google them... Pretty unique) still packaged in their casket-shaped boxes and standing on top of a shelf. There was also a statue of the 3-headed dog from the Harry Potter movie. Quite the place. When he returned, he explained that all that stuff was his roommate's stuff.

When he started laying out all the camera stuff, it was quite the pile. At one point he remarked, "I have this wide angle lens I'll throw in too." I thought Suzie was going to lose it at that point. She has been craving a wide angle lens for a long time. Bonus! While I was playing with the camera and Sue was investigating the other things, he said, "Oh, I also have a bag" and disappeared into the other room once again. After he left, Sue and I made eye contact and did the "open-mouth/flabbergasted" look at each other. By the time we got out of there, she probably had $1000 worth of stuff in her hands! After we got back to my place and laid it all out, she was so tickled. She gleaned several items out of the purchase to keep for herself, and still has a very impressive package to turn around and resell again--Possibly for even more than what she paid. She gave me the owner's manual that came with it. Mine didn't have one when I bought it and I had been searching for one for quite a while. That was nice of her!

I felt the urge to spend some money myself yesterday, and went back up to Federal Way to our local computer store where I bought myself a new monitor. While my free Dell LCD monitor (remember? My neighbor Chris gave it to me) was a clear improvement over the old CRT monitor I had, it lacked clarity and brilliance. Anyway, when I first got it home and hooked it up yesterday I wasn't all that impressed--It seemed overly bright and washed out. I ran Adobe Gamma on it to set it up, which is a monitor setup utility that comes with Photoshop. It looks good now!

Yesterday was quite the day for sure. Suzie is probably still excited about it! Me? I'm going shopping for Living Dead dolls...

So Many Things...

...Where to start? It's Friday--How about that for starters?

When I went to work on Wednesday a coworker brought be a computer motherboard that he was going to throw out after his upgrade. I was very surprised to find that he also included the processor, cooling fan, and a gigabyte of RAM in it as well! I don't like my current computer, and this might be just the "base" I need to tie my computer together into a good machine.

That same day, I went to Sarah's tennis match up at her school. I got home from work, switched over to the Harley (it was sunny but cold) and rode up to her school. Imagine my surprise to see her not there! I was sitting there on the bike watching the other players and I heard my phone make the "beep" the sound it makes when I miss a call (like I would ever hear it while I was riding the Harley, right?). It was from Teresa so I called her back. She told me that Sarah's team had a playoff of sorts within their team, and the loser (Sarah and her partner) would play with the JV team at the opposing school's court. In this case it was Auburn High, which is right near me here anyway. I jetted down and watched her play her first ever singles match. She lost, but still--I had never seen her play singles before. While I was there Teresa walked over and told me that her new puppy had broken her leg and was at the vet a few towns away getting fixed up. She's not sure what happened, but thinks it was badly startled by a neighbor dog charging the fence. It would have had to have gotten a leg wedged or twisted weirdly or something I would think. She had to leave early to go pick the dog up, so I invited Sarah to come by for dinner. I told her that Sue would be there too.

When I rode home it was obvious that Sue was hoping to have a much more intimate evening that it ended up being. Food was cooked and the hostess with the mostess was looking good. Unfortunately for us Sarah showed up about 15 minutes later and stayed until about 8:30, doing homework and filling out SAT testing applications.

Before going to the tennis match I managed to remember to call for a doctor's appointment, and that was scheduled for 3:30 yesterday afternoon. I also ended up setting up an appointment with my parents to photograph one of their vehicles so they could sell it on Craigslist. Both of those things happened right after work, so I took my camera with me to work so I could just stop by their house on the way to the doctor. My dad was in his usual surly form--Hollering and bitching at everything. He started bitching at my choice of where to take pictures of it at, and I basically told him, "You want me to take pictures of your truck or not? It will be fine right here." When I left he was screaming at mom about not instantly having the keys to the truck in his hand or some equally ridiculous thing. I was glad to leave and boogie over to the doctor's office. Besides refilling my annual prescription I also got him to prescribe some amoxicillin to me. I told him that I thought I had a recurring sinus infection, and after some conversation he concurred to the possibility. I'll give this a shot and see if it helps my occasional headaches and other symptoms. I was dismayed to find out when I got home that he had given me a prescription for a different size than I had been getting. That means basically that I only have a 30-day supply instead of a two-month supply. I don't have to cut these in half before taking (a good thing) but they will cost me a copay every month instead of every other month. Crap.

I sold another little trinket on Craigslist last night. Some guy that lives nearby came down and bought a circular saw blade I had for sale for $20. I don't know why, but it gives me a strange sort of hoarding satisfaction when I open my safe and put more cash in there. I should be careful--I'm starting to behave like Teresa or her brother...

My new cell phone is finally all programmed in with it's phone numbers and such, so now I can call and activate that. That's a pretty tedious process, but at least it got me more familiar with using it. My old phone was apparently very weird by today's standards.

Things are suddenly looking very busy at work. Bruce is gone for the next week or so, so I'm picking up a lot of the things that he normally does. Even besides that, however, things are still ramping up again. It's looking like I may be a lot more involved in paperwork-type things in the future. That's just as well--Things have been very slow lately, and given the choice I'd rather be "groomed" for white collar than blue collar. Looks like overtime in the future.

Busted!

Yes, Suzie and I were caught yesterday, and our office romance was killed. It was just a matter of time and we both knew it, but neither of us expected it to happen quite like it did.
I was upstairs in my usual easy chair and had just finished my sandwich when I heard her familiar footsteps. She had no sooner bent down and gave me a big kiss when she looked up over her glasses toward the area behind me that she had just come from.
"We've been caught," she said.
"Who?" I asked.
"Phil."
The word sent a chill.
He and Bernie took us both into an office and gave us a 5-minute stern lecture, admonishing us for "acting like high-school kids" and so on. We were basically put on a "no contact" order. While he was plainly pissed at us both, I was a little miffed that most of his ire was directed toward Sue instead of me. I'm sure it was partly due to the fact that it was her work time that we were caught on, but I think it's also that they tend to look down on women in the workplace.
So, touching when we pass each other, kisses in an empty hall, lunchtime hugs--All gone.

I received my new cell phone yesterday, so that was a good thing. I haven't transferred service over to it yet though--I still have to figure everything out and enter all my personal info before I start using it. I may keep my old one in the kitchen to use as a timer or something--I don't know. If nothing else I can keep it for a backup if I lose or break my new one.

It was nice to finally sell the tripod I've had on Craigslist for so long. Some guy came all the way down from Everett to buy it! We're talking a two-hour drive during the time he drove it. When he got here, he had a standard little digital camera that he was using to test it with. Talk about overkill! The tripod is easily twice the size of the one that I use for my picture-taking. It's more of a tripod for video than for still photography. Oh well... A sale is a sale as far as I'm concerned.

I hope nothing hits the fan today...

Surprise Tennis

Yeah, it was a surprise. They don't usually have tennis on a Monday, and I had taken advantage of the opportunity by doing up a crock pot full of pork, knowing (so I thought) that I would have plenty of time to mess with dinner. I had plans of oven-roasted garlic potatoes too. I had just finished a beer and was just about to go downstairs to start prepping spuds and something made me check the online school sports calendar.

Varsity tennis at Riverside High School. Damn.

I looked at the time and it was already 3:35. With a sigh I grabbed my stuff and headed out. It was a beautiful day for it, but that didn't help them win. They played very well, but the other team played just ever so slightly better to win both sets. One of them was only won after an 11-point tie-breaker. At least I was able to deliver Teresa's child support check to her without going over to their house. Right before I left I invited Sarah over for dinner.

She didn't waste much time. Apparently she jetted right down to my house as soon as the bus got back to their school. She arrived with a skateboard (just the board) under her arm as well. It's a project in her art class that I find kind of unique. All the students buy a plain, standard curved skateboard base and decorate them any way they want. She wanted me to do a couple of coats of white gloss spray paint on the bottom side. Knowing Sarah, her board will be a knockout when she's done. I guess it's up to each student as to whether or not they actually buy hardware (wheels, etc) to finish the board when they are done, but I'd like to be able to see them all at the end of the project.

I noticed this morning that Sarah has inherited her mother's knack at missing the trash can. There were several tissues near the downstairs bathroom trash can, but none in it. Between the two of them, it explains why their house looks the way it does I guess...