Memorial Day weekend pictures

As usual, I'm several days late posting about the previous weekend, but I'm used to it.

For the long weekend I took an extra day off to make it four days, and it made for a very nice weekend. Friday, Jayson left for Houston for a religious retreat type of trip. It seems like it was a good thing for him, and he also go to spend a little time with my father and step-mother. I spent the rest of Friday catching up on some chores at home.

Saturday Anthony and I took my truck and headed to the mountains. I wanted to do some exploring and found the Mountain Loop Highway outside of Granite Falls. The "highway" is a two-lane road through the Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest. It was definitely a pretty drive, but once we got to the top of the pass we couldn't go any further because the road was close due to snow. Lots of snow. In May. There was a road we could have hiked to the ghost town of Monte Christo but it was four miles and it was also snowy and we weren't prepared, so we headed back to the truck. We wanted to get off the paved road so we started scouting out forest service roads. We found a couple of nice, and muddy, roads. One ended up being snowed over, and the other ended at a bridge that was out. We at least got to do some hiking and getting away from civilization for a while.

Sunday Anthony and I started fixing up the exterior wood on the boat. It's already looking darn good and we started getting momentum on the boat overal. We did more work on Monday, and will hopefully be back over there this coming weekend.

As always, pictures of our trip out to the mountains:

Only a week late: pics of Portland

I was behind with everything last week, including posting pics of our day trip last weekend. So, here they are:



By the time we futzed around and stopped for breakfast and then for coffee and then for gas and then for coffee again and then for every rest stop and then again for coffee, it was almost 3:00 when we got to Portland. Anthony had wanted to see the Pittock Mansion, but the inside closed at 4:00. We found the Portland Chinese Garden which turned out to be a great place. It was a little busy, but it was a really nice spot. After that I suggested that we go up to the Pittock Mansion anyway since the grounds are open until dark. It turned out to be a good choice. We got to wander around the outside of the house and still enjoy the view and the park.

After such a strenuous day we found one of the McMenamins pubs in the city and had some beers and dinner. Anthony and I played a round of pool, which only served to reinforce how bad we each are at it. We didn't care since we were having a good time.

That was our entire day in Portland. We didn't leave ourselves much time to do much, but the day trip was a good one and it was enjoyable to be out of the house.

Weekend this and that

Just wanted to drop a few lines here since it's too easy to get into the habit of not writing anything. Well, a "few lines" with me is usually a couple of pages...

There hasn't been too much to report, and that's OK. I'm still obsessing over tires, but when it comes time to buy I'll do what I usually do and go with my gut instinct and end up bring right in the first place. But, it gives me something to do and process so it's OK. I received in the mail the leveling kit I ordered. It will lift the front of the truck so that it's level with the back of the truck. It looks like it's going downhill all the time, so I'm looking forward to having it level. Now the challenge is finding someone local who can do it. I have one place I found but it seems kind of expensive so I need to do a little more digging. Once that is done I'll get the tires put on.

We did some house cleaning this weekend, and it was definitely due. It's amazing how dirty the house can get, and how nice it is when it's clean. I still have to go upstairs and clean the shower in my bathroom, but I'll do that just before I take my shower tonight. Real exciting huh?

Anthony starts school tomorrow...yay! He was able to get approved for "commissioner approved training" through the state which means they play for his tuition the first quarter and then pay him the equivalent of weekly unemployment benefits for the two years he's in school. I think it will be good for him to get more training and be able to do something different when he graduates. It should open up more opportunities for him than he has now. Plus it's not a bad way to ride out the current economy spending it in school.

Sadly I don't have lots more to report, but I guess that's good. I'm hoping we get back over to the boat in the new future and start getting it ready for the summer. We're going to have a lot of cleaning to do outside, and we need to have it hauled out to have new bottom paint put on. Those should all be easily doable. Just more things to do of course, but oh well.

Another weekend < yawn >

After last weekend in San Diego it's been a relatively quiet weekend here. I started off yesterday by doing taxes for Jayson and myself. I didn't run into any problems, but mine are somewhat time consuming. Between the two it took about four hours...fun fun. But, at least it's done. I don't usually wait this late to get them done, but as long as I'm not late (which I'm not) I'm not gonna worry about it.

I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to figure out what new tires I want for my truck. The tires on it are shot, and after only 25,000 miles. I'd like to put it off but I can't any longer. As part of the process I'm going to be raising the front end so that the truck rides level; from the factory these trucks ride with the back higher than the front. I want to get rid of the lower front end and there are several companies that make kits to do that. By doing that I can get slightly larger tires than what's on there. I'm probably obsessing over the new tires but since they're rather expensive and I won't have a chance to change them out for a long time if I don't like them. I've narrowed it down to a couple of different brands and now my only hesitation is the size. I think I've got that narrowed down too. Now that I know I won't have to pay the IRS anything I'm ready to go forward. I'm hoping the truck looks every better once I'm done.

Anthony and I threatened to go to the gym both days this weekend, and then didn't. It's funny how laziness breeds laziness, but it sure did with us this weekend. Instead we took a nap yesterday and then did quick trip to the grocery store. Today I enlisted Anthony's help to remove a dead plant out front. We had a jasmine plant that had almost died in a pot on our balcony at our condo. Once we moved in here it took off after being planted in the ground and had grown up to cover a small fence by the front patio. Sadly it was no match for the snow this winter and it was completely dead down to the roots. So, we cut it off the fence and I pulled it out of the ground. I was sad to see it go since I've had the plant for almost 6 years, and it had such an up and down history. But, such is life so we'll get something else to go there.

So that's it for a boring weekend. We'll maybe get upstairs to fold laundry, and that will most likely be the highlight. I guess I won't complain about a quiet weekend once in a while.

Weekend in San Diego

Last weekend we were in San Diego. It was Anthony's first trip there and for Jayson and me it was our first visit in 10 years. The impetus for the trip was to visit Anthony's brother and family, but we also added visits to my friend Rick and Jayson's friends Jim and Khristie.

It was kind of weird being in San Diego again. It brought up lots of memories for me, some good some bad. I was surprised how much I remembered about the place and was able to direct Rick through areas he wasn't familiar with. Seeing the place again reminded me of the things I didn't like about it when I lived there. It's just not the place for me.

Thursday after we arrived we spent the evening with Jim and Khristie. Actually, we spent some time wandering around Old Town before meeting them for dinner. Old Town is kind of interesting, although it's really nothing more than a lot of shops and restaurants in old buildings. It still has a nice feel. I used to joke that when visitors would be in town and wanted to go to Mexico I would drive them around up and down the freeway and then end up in Old Town. It's really what people think Mexico will look like, although Old Town is much much nicer than Tijuana. Dinner with Jim and Khristie was great. It was as if we'd seen them just last week and we were picking up right where we'd left off. Anthony and Jayson had fish bowl-sized margaritas, and of course finished them. It's funny to see Anthony, who says he doesn't drink, down 64 ounces of margarita.

The next day we spent tooling around town with Rick doing some sight-seeing. We made a trip to to Balboa Park, which is still one of my favorite places in San Diego. Anthony, Jayson, and I spent some time wandering around the main prado area but had to keep the visit short. We spent the evening with Anthony's brother and sister-in-law, John and Amber, and their two daughters, Olivia and Elizabeth. It was the first time Jayson and I had met any of the family but it was nice. They made us feel very welcome and comfortable. We had dinner at their house and then "hung out" just chatting and getting caught up.

I should insert here that our "rental" car for the weekend was Rick's Mercedes E55 AMG. It's his weekend car and was very generous in letting us use it. I had a great time driving it, sometimes too great. I definitely tried to drive the car as it was meant to be driven, namely fast. It was a real treat to drive it, and the fact that John and Amber lived 50 miles north of Rick meant that I got to really enjoy the drive.

Anyway, spent Saturday with John and Amber again and this time John drove us around Camp Pendleton. We actually didn't get to see much of Amber as she was running errands a lot of the day. Camp Pendleton is huge and it took a couple of hours to just touch on some of the highlights of the place. Still, it was interesting to see the place, and to spend time with Anthony's brother. John and Amber had plans for Saturday night so it was back to San Diego for the evening.

We had made reservations to go to one of my favorite restaurants, Cafe Eleven. It's been there for, as we found out, 24 years and I've been frequenting it for about 18 of those. The food was just as good as I remembered, and some of the same people were still working there, and remembered us. It was a nice dinner and evening, other than the fact that somehow I left significantly less for the bill than I should have, but I got it straightened out.

Sunday Jayson was leaving around noon so we had breakfast at DZ Akins, a Jewish deli that's always good, and then dropped him at the airport. Anthony, Rick, and I played tourists the rest of the day going to Point Loma and Sunset Cliffs, and seeing a little of downtown. The highlight for Anthony seemed to be getting to drive the Mercedes from Sunset Cliffs to where we had dinner in Point Loma. I'm glad he got to experience it at least. After dinner we were all tired so we watched a movie at home and called it a night. Monday meant that Anthony and I had to leave so we had a big breakfast out and then killed some time driving around Mission Hills, just so Anthony could more of San Diego. Rick dropped us at the airport and we had an uneventful flight home.

It was a good trip, and made for a nice weekend. It was great seeing Rick, along with everyone else. Rick was very generous in hosting us and providing us not only his car to use but also a very nice and comfortable place to stay. It's like visiting family whenever he and I are together. I just wish he and I lived closer to each other.

As is usual, here are some pics from the trip:

Boat showin'

After a very uneventful Saturday we decided to go to the boat show today. There are at least 2 boat shows a year here, the one in January at both a Lake Union marina and the stadium exhibition center. The one at the exhibition center is indoors and therefore warm and dry. The one outside is, well, outside so it's at the mercy of the weather. Today the weather decided to be very cold (in the 30'sF) and very cloudy.

We decided to start with the outdoor section of the show first, and it's a good thing we did. Not long after arriving, it began to snow. And then it snowed harder. Luckily we could just go on board a boat and get warm since they all (at least all the ones we chose to board) had heat going inside. We toured several very nice boats, including one rather spectacular 86' trawler style by Nordhavn. I have a few pics of the interior in the slide show below. We eventually got tired of the cold and decided to catch the shuttle to the other venue. It was nicely warm inside, but there weren't that many interesting boats to see. The few large boats that were there actually had lines to get into, and they weren't that impressive after all. They were big, but not finished well, nor did they have very interesting layouts. There were only two sailboat large enough to have cabins and they were rather lackluster. Oh well. I wish we'd stayed at the outdoor venue...scratch that; I wish the outdoor venue had been warmer with less snow.

In any event it was a fun, but cold day. I always enjoy rummaging around on boats, and critiquing what the builders/designers do. It's also nice to get to go onto boats that I could never afford. Several of them had loan terms posted. With only $400, 000 down our monthly payment would be a low $6500 a month. Nice to know that there are still people who can afford that kind of fun. Or maybe they can't. That would explain why some of the boats we saw at the show in the fall were there again this time with lower asking prices!

Weekend getaway

Saturday the three of us drove up to Leavenworth for an overnight getaway. For those not familiar with Leavenworth it's a lumber town in the Cascades that's about 100 years old. In the 1960's the town begah dying because the railroad pulled out of town. So, the people in the towny agreed to re-invent the place as a Bavarian mountain village and make their primary industry tourism. It was a pretty successful idea. The town itself is cute and quaint, but in a Disney sort of way. You know it's fake and didn't always look like that, but the setting is nice and it's a fun place to go. In the summer it's swarmed with tourists and gets old really fast. However, in the winter and specifically at christmas-time it's very different. The real charm of the place comes out with the christmas lights, which were everywhere, and all the snow covering the town.

We left Saturday morning and headed across Stevens Pass, which turned out to not be the best idea. The faster route across I-90, Snoqualmie Pass, was closed that morning so we went the only way we thought we could get there. Stevens Pass is notoriously bad since it's almost all 2-lane road. We did fine crossing the pass and the conditions weren't bad at all. It was snowing but the road was mostly clear. However, as soon as we headed down the pass we came to a complete stop, and sat in place for almost 90 minutes. In the end, it took us about 6 hours to make a 3 hour trip. But no matter, it was at least pretty scenery along the way, and when we got there.

We had booked at a small hotel a block from the center of town. It was basic, but comfortable and the location couldn't be beat. We were able to wander into town any time we chose and didn't have to deal with parking. There's not a lot to do in Leavenworth other than eat, shop, and wander around and look at things. We did all of those, except we didn't buy anything in the stores. The town has such a nicer feel this time of year than the rest of the year. It was busy but no one seemed to be in too much of a hurry and it didn't seem overly crowded. Plus, it really is beautiful with the snow and the lights. For the first time after many visits to the place it made sense so to speak.

Saturday night we just wandered around, looked at lights and such, had dinner at Bären Haus, and then went back to the hotel and sat in the outdoor hot tub at the hotel. That night it snowed close to 6" overnight so we woke up to a refreshed winter wonderland. After breakfast in town we spent the rest of the morning wandering around taking pictures. We slid around most of the main street and then wandered some of the trails down by the river in the city park. Every view seemed prettier than the last.

On our way home we stopped in Roslyn, another little old town in the Cascades, this one where the TV show Northern Exposure was filmed. We had lunch at The Brick, which has apparently been there forever. After that we drove through our final snow of the weekend going across the pass. Of course it was snowing as we crossed but the roads were remarkably clear.

As always, here are pictures from the weekend.

Christmas and a movie review

As usual, I'm not very timely with this, but I figured I'd put together a quick update of my christmas weekend. I was lucky enough to have Wednesday through Sunday off, so it made for a nice break from work. The holiday itself was low-key, and that was fine. Anthony, Jayson, and I opened our gifts to each other that morning, then fixed a nice dinner. We had set spending limits this year for gift buying, and it didn't seem to diminish the gifting experience (at least from my perspective). I don't need or want that much stuff so whatever I get is usually a nice thing to me, and I don't see the holiday as an excuse to get free stuff. Jayson's friend Madhu(sp), whom I call Mondo, came over for dinner and they went to the cafe that Jayson volunteers for to serve food for the evening. Like I said, a very low-key day, but nice.

Before they left for the cafe we all watched Mama Mia! on DVD. I actually enjoy a lot of ABBA's music; it's a requirement in the contract I signed when I chose the gay lifestyle after I was converted. But, I'm going to say something that will threaten my standing in the gay community: I didn't like the movie. I know, part of being gay is liking Barbra Streisand, Cher, Project Runway, and this movie. But, I thought it was just not very good. It wasn't that half the cast couldn't sing any better than I can yet were still cast in a musical. It wasn't that I have a problem with the format of a musical where the cast breaks into spontaneous song and highly choreographed dance with an unseen band/orchestra hidden somewhere on the beach (I'm used to that from the classic, good, musicals like My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music). And it's not that I can't enjoy a lighthearted movie that is merely meant to be fun for a couple of hours. Meryl Streep did her usual excellent job - I would be hard pressed to find a role I didn't like her in - and the rest of the cast was quite likable as well as long as they weren't singing. In the end, I just didn't think it was a very good movie. It was nothing more than a vehicle with which to get ABBA songs out to a new generation of listeners. When there's one hour and 40 minutes of movie, I expect more than 12 minutes of story. The songs seemed gratuitously placed into the script, chosen not because they fit well but because it was a song that was popular and it needed to be in the movie. I found myself annoyed through much of the movie because the songs just seemed to be dropped into the film. The story actually seemed to get in the way of the songs at times. As for it being a happy movie, it was almost sickeningly deliriously upbeat. I half expected Hannah Montana to make a cameo and start bouncing around the scenes. I would have been happier putting on ABBA's Greatest Hits, which I do have on CD, and looking at some still pictures I took of Greece when I was there. I guess I'll just turn in my gay card now before the gay mafia knocks on my door and demands it back.

I hope everyone had a good holiday and enjoyed whatever they did!

More snow pics

After breakfast today I took a little walk with the dog to enjoy the snow some more. It was hard going since there's a layer of ice on top of the snow that is itself several inches deep. The dog was having a difficult time, and so was I, so we headed back to get warm. On top of that it's snowing again.

More snow!

It's highly unusual, at least since I've lived here, to have it snow in Seattle while snow from the last storm is still on the ground. The flakes started very lightly this afternoon around 3:30 and it's been snowing ever since. Luckily Anthony and I were just walking back to the truck to finish our errands when we noticed it starting. We were home 5 minutes later, and the roads were already starting to get a new layer on them. I took the dog out later after dark and we romped in the empty field that's just around the corner from home. Supposedly we'll get 1 to 3 inches tonight, but as of now there's already 2 inches (or more) here at home, and it's supposed to snow all night.

I have to say, I'm really loving this weather! It definitely feels like winter, as opposed to just the greys skies and rain we usually have. I took a quick walk around the block to try to get pics but they didn't turn out so I'm not showing them anyone. But, it's really beautiful outside. The city is almost always loud, but right now there are no cars on any of the roads and it's just silent outside. It's also so bright I could read a book from the light reflected from the snow. I'm anxious to see what's on the ground tomorrow morning. I intend to be out playing in it!

I guess I sound like I'm gushing, but this type of weather (which is common in many other parts) is a rare treat here.

Snowy morning coffee

Yes, I said coffee, not tea. With Anthony working at Starbucks and bringing home free coffee, I'm not only having a little tea in the morning but also a little coffee. So, I've joined the ranks of the coffee-swilling masses in Seattle. It feels good to belong to a group.

And yes I said snowy. It snowed about 2" here at home overnight. It started around 20:00 and probably snowed off and on all night. It's really pretty, especially since we don't see snow on the ground that often in Seattle. The problem is that for the first couple of hours of snow, the ground was too warm so it melted when it hit. As the temp dropped it of course turned to ice so there's 2" of pretty snow with about 1/4" of ice underneath.

I'm kind of hoping the snow and ice hangs around for a couple of days so I have an excuse to work at home. The sun is breaking through the clouds and I see some melt happening on some of the roofs but not much. It's supposed to not get out of the 20's tomorrow so we'll definitely have more ice. I would really enjoy a work at home day!

Luckily I don't have to go anywhere in the truck today. I think our plans today are all home-based: we still need to finish decorating the x-mas tree; we're trying to organize a load of items to give away before the end of the year; we've got to fix breakfast still; and we need to straighten up the house. Sounds like a busy day, but it should be OK. If we have to go anywhere out of the house, we'll walk.

My big project lately is that I have spent the last several weeks, off and on, ripping all of my CDs to MP3. I figure I've done about 475 discs and a total of about 7167 songs. I know that's not a lot compared to some peoples' collections, but it took a lot of time to go through every CD. It's actually nice to finally have everything digital. Now I'm thinking of ideas to be able to get rid of the CD player in the living room and use a laptop connected wirelessly to my server in order to play the music on the stereo. I think it would be pretty easy, and pretty user friendly. Sadly the sub-woofer on the stereo decided to die the other day, so there's no point in doing anything until I get that replaced. It's always something...

My other big project has been organizing the files on my PC at home. Jayson and I used to share the PC so there was stuff scattered everywhere. I've been organizing it all between the five hard drives I've got and trying to make the folder structure make sense. One of the biggest reasons is that I've got a backup job that copies everything to the large external drive and I want to make sure that it's grabbing everything I want. But, I also got tired of multiple copies of things in three different locations, all with different names. Folders named "New Folder 5" don't do any good when trying to find something! I've gained back at least 40 gigs of space across all the drives, which is pretty good! Now I just need to add more RAM to my PC to help it run better. Like I said, it's always something...

I pretty much have my x-mas shopping done this year. We all three agreed to a strict spending limit this year. None of us really NEEDS anything and money is tight all around. So, we'll each have a nice selection of things to open x-mas day without having gone into debt to do it. We always do fun things in stockings so I've got to pick up a few things for that. We're going to be spending the day at home that day which will be nice.

Well, time to get working here. Plus we still need breakfast and it's almost 10:00. And maybe we'll even go see if we can scrape together a snowball!

Did the Puyallup

It's become something of a tradition that we go the Puyallup Fair (whose slogan is "Do the Puyallup"). Yeah, the name is funny but that's the name of the town it's in. Generally we spend more time looking at the exhibits and the crappy stuff for sale in the various buildings, but this year seemed to be all about the rides. Oh, it was also about crappy deep fried food, but that's the same every year. It's always exciting to see what they will decide to deep-fry next, although this year I didn't notice anything new. In years past we had deep-fried pickles, deep-fried Snickers bars, and deep-fried Twinkies. I was hoping to find deep-fried butter but was sorely disappointed.

Anyway, the rides. Usually we'll do only one or two, but this year we hit pretty much everything we wanted to ride. Jayson likes to go in circles and I like to go up and down and upside down. Anthony doesn't seem too picky. So, he and Anthony got to go in circles while Anthony and I went up and down. OK, that sounds funny, but you get the point. Oddly, Anthony and I were a little light-headed after we rode our final ride, which went both around in circles, then up and down, then around in circles again. Of course, who wouldn't be light-headed after that?

Surprisingly we spent about 6 hours at the fair, thinking we'd only be there about for a couple or three. Was a fun day, but we were beat by the time we got home. Here's a few pics from the day:

Forgive the crappy quality from my cell phone

Scenes from the weekend

With Jayson out of town, Anthony and I spent part of both Saturday and Sunday at the boat in Edmonds. It was nice spending the night there since it was about 15 degrees cooler on the water.

The Edmonds-Kingston ferry on its way out.

The view off the back of the boat in the marina.

The view off the bow of the boat in the marina.

Anthony on our short hike Sunday morning.

OK, so some parts were less hiking and more climbing.

Heading back towards the marina.

A sandbar in the dog park at low tide.