Busy Bee

Oh man it's been a while since the last posting. Not that I'm lazy, Lindsay and I are busy and contemplating moving so we've really been sucked into the quicksand of it all. Visits with agents, visiting comp houses, driving by houses that look good online (not so great in person) and all that. The pic is of a house that we're going to go look at this afternoon.

Both of us also just watched the things to do list get longer at work too. Lindsay is doing some HR duties and I've moved over to a manager role, so we're nose to the grind stone. Not that we're complaining, we both are excited to have opportunity, but our opportunities are stacking up fast! The good news is I get to use a term that I've been looking for a chance to use. I'm issuing a mea culpa and promise to get my butt in gear and blog more.

A Lot Like You

A local Seattle insurance company has started running a new ad campaign that's spot on. It's defining some of the more colorful stereotypes around here quite well. If you want to get to know Seattle, learn it, love it and consider your indoctrination complete. View it here.

Kind of reminds me of the subversive wit of the Seattle Weekly's tongue in cheek "Ask An Uptight Seattle Guy" column. Getting the stink eye, while you're in Queen Anne or Ballard for not driving a Prius or not bringing your own bags to the store isn't uncommon. But I love Seattle for all this and I'm glad it's starting to poke fun at itself. Should Larry the Cable Guy get ready for a PC ass beating from the Uptight Seattle guy someday soon? Is Seattle's over zealous PCness ready to take on the world? It might...if it can find time between his yoga classes and organic food shopping.

touch it

So I rail in Apple just as much as anyone in the CE industry, but when they released the new crop of iPods...I had to tip my hat. Then I broke out my credit card. I've been holding out for years, passing by all the cool kids and proclaiming my indy status with MP3 players from every brand you can think of, Creative, Archos, SanDisk and all the rest. But when Apple in their holy than thou way rolled out the touch (Note that proper style indicates it's written with a lower case "t") I gave in. Damn them for doing what everyone wants. Sure they're restrictive DRM is a pain in the ass, but on the other hand they listened to what the masses said, and they said, "just make it work" and it does. Movies, music, Wi-fi and holy crap a Starbucks alert! Amen. Any day now my new toy, the Apple touch will arrive. I'm pretty sure I'll be just as unool then as I am now, but hey bottom line - I'm watching movies on the bus! Warning, you want one too, you just don't know it yet.

PS: Mom, this one is for you. Now you know about the new stuff, and therefore you're cool.

Widget Testing

Amazon rolled out some widgets today, for it's Associates program. I might be a little opportunistic, but I'm experimenting with them on the page to see what they look like in a blog. They'll take you to the normal Amazon site, they're perfectly safe and all. the one at the very bottom is kind of neat, the CD art slide show. Dunno. Just something I'm fooling around with.

Cop Fuel

Speaking of cops, check out this real ad I ran across on my local BMW dealer's web site, for BMW police motorcycles. Note the sign behind the officer and the BMW proclamation that it "Runs on any fuel!"

Texas Outlaw

Let's see...I took the picture, so I'm sitting in the passenger seat, and the Highway Patrol car has a Texas logo on it. The math says my sweetie has a lead foot. But she also has soft Texas accent and long eyelashes so she's able to only get a warning.

Got Wood

The chill is in the air. Temps are peaking at 65 and the rain is around the corner. We're looking forward to it really, it's a nice time to snuggle on the couch (in front of a 40" LCD TV hopefully) watch football and have a fire. Not wanting to run low on wood (last year's 3 day power outage ate up my reserve wood supply) I decided to buy a truck load of cut and seasoned stuff. After a little research I discovered BLW Firewood near the airport in Burien and really had a great experience there. Anthony, the guy that runs it, is super friendly, fast and fair. Loaded up my truck tossing out logs that were too big or too thick (knowing I had a stove not a fireplace). I'll be buying my firewood from him for a long time thanks to the great customer service. He'll even give you a deal on greenwood in the off season so you can dry it yourself and save a few bucks. Anyways, I've got quite a bit of firewood now, so let the cold come.

We're Getting Married

I know what you're thinking. Nothing could top Friday night's bowling date night. Well, how about asking Lindsay to marry me? Yep. I did. She said yes. We're getting married.

I woke up knowing this would be the day I'd ask her to marry me. I've known from the first day that I met her that I'd marry her, but getting the moment just right and trying to make the moment I ask her perfect, was hard (but worth it). I suggested we go to lunch at Ray's Boathouse for lunch, as it was near a park that I thought would be beautiful for asking her. Lunch was great, and I suggested we walk on the beach at nearby Golden Gardens Park. Of course I had planned that we go to this beach, at this time, and just happen to have a diamond engagement ring shoved deep in my pocket.
We walked from one end of the beach to the other, stopping along here and there to admire the view as the day was warm and sunny and the beach was packed. Each time we sat down I thought "This is it. This is the spot.", but each spot failed to produce the magic that an 'ask her to marry me spot' needs. The worst one really failed. Lindsay and I sat on a log between the beach and the grassy park. I reached into my pocket to feel that the ring was there, thinking it was game time...until the real truth came out. Lindsay put it best, "You smell that? It smells like poo here. Yuck." She was right. Well that wasn't going to be the spot, and we moved on. I didn't want her to recall the smell of poo for this moment, the rest of our lives.
When we first walked down the beach we passed a spot, nestled privately between some grass, facing West Seattle across the water, and with a view of the Olympic Mountains, but it was occupied by two rather burly men laying next to each other embraced arm and arm in a deep kiss. Now, on the way back the dudes had vacated and the spot, and it was ours. A little house keeping to de-man the place and we laid down to a beautiful afternoon and whispering sweet nothings to each other.
Now I knew this was the place, now it was up to me to find the right time. Hours passed as I tried to get the universe to work with me and align everything just right. At one point I had secretly slipped the ring on my finger and hid it in my fist ready to say those 4 important words, only to have something douse my romantic fire with bad timing. Just as I was about to present it to her, the sun went behind a cloud and it got dark. No way was I introducing her to the big rock when it was gloomy out. Try again. Then, as I got the courage and the sun came back out a guy flying his kite started backing into our little sandy spot, nearly joining us in the moment. Try again. A quiet descended and the time was right, until the a freight train rolled by and downed any sound. Try again. A park service quad drove up and scolding the guy the next dune over about his camp fire. Try again. Ok, here we go...no wait. There's no way that I can interrupt her story about names of her cats, interesting, but no segway into marriage. Try again.
Finally, after the rainbow appeared and then disappeared overhead, the sun came out and it was time. I reached into my pocket, slipped it on my finger, took a deep breath listened to the silence, felt the warmth of the sun on us, and asked her if she'd marry me. She said yes. Quietly, confidently, she said yes and everything stopped as I took her hand in mine and with shakey hands slipped the ring on her finger. My heart was beating fast and a huge smile spread across my face, and hers, and everything was just as it should be. I knew as soon as I met her I'd marry her, and here we were, engaged.
We kissed, smiled, kissed, smiled and kissed a bit more enjoying the moment. It was good to stop hiding the ring, trying to keep her off the trail of my shopping (No it wasn't a trip to Radio Shack, it was a trip to the jeweler, dear!) and share with her the happiness that I'm so glad had finally unfolded.
As you can imagine, we're on cloud 9. I'm happier than I've ever been, and so thankful that somehow the universe conspired to let our lives connect. We'll get married somewhere near Dallas, sometime in the next 6 months or so as we don't see the need to wait. No other plans than that. Right now we're just being dewy eyed lovers.

So yes, this has been a good weekend. The girl of my dreams said yes when I asked her to marry me.

No Labor On This Day Ride

All of us on two wheels (motorcycle people) are watching the end of the dry season grow near here in Seattle. To make the most use of the dryness JP gathered up me and Steve and we all headed over the pass to Eastern Washington, near Yakima, on a Labor Day ride. I had to break from the group at the halfway point to get back to Seattle for a dinner I had scheduled, but got in a great ride all in all.

Party Like it's 1959

Before all the mayhem with the house next door (previous post) Lindsay and I had a nice date night. Originally headed down the loaf-around-on-the-couch path we resurrected ourselves and chowed down on some pizza from Spiro's on California Ave. We had some nearly healthy vegetable thing that was surprisingly good considering it had cucumber on it. Then went bowling at West Seattle Bowl. Yep, bowling. We decided that we're proto-cool, as in cool before people even know it. We're proto-cool because we got there at 8:30 and the nice guy running the lanes gave us our own private side of the house. Everyone else he stacked on the other side. We were alone that is, until 'The Professional' came and set up shop a few lanes away from us. The guy was dressed like the unabomber who came with his own black ball, black shoes and bowled silently by himself. Ignoring The Professional and playing game after game at our own private bowling alley. We downed a pitcher of beer, knocked a few pins down and had a good time.

Party Like it's 1999

The kids renting the house next door threw a big party last night. Lindsay and I are alright with that, they've even invited us to their Toga parties in the past, but last night was a bad scene. I woke up at 2:30 hearing the yelling of 5 guys, at another group of guys. Apparently someone had put either a baseball bat or a brick though his driver side window and he wanted to go retaliate. Somehow the house where the party was at had it's huge (6' x 6') view window smashed as well at some point. The neighbors had called the cops at 9pm and 11pm as well just for the loud party. When I called at 2:30am 5 patrol cars showed up. It's not illegal to break glass, and the drunk guys from the car with the window broken out had driven off already so all the cops did was chat and leave. Not much for them to do under the law really. I called the FD this morning at 11am when a neighbor told me about a guy slumped over into his passenger seat, from behind the wheel a few houses up, that wouldn't respond when they knocked on his window. The FD came and performed a difficult skill only taught to firefighters called 'poke him in the head and yell "hey you!" real loud'. That worked and even after a warning to not drive because he was still drunk, once the FD left, he drove away. Exciting night. Let it be known that all the other neighbors on the street are super. We love the all, but this one house is a bad apple.