Category: blahblah

Boston was great. We’re home now, but it wasn’t easy. We took the train to Logan Airport, then managed to swap tickets to catch a flight that left 2 hours earlier than our first flight. Everyone was seated when the pilot announced that the plane was having air conditioning problems, and that they were working on it. They expected it to take only a few minutes. We were allowed back into the terminal after an hour of sitting on an unairconditioned plane. Michelle got us switched back to our original fight, which got to O’hare before the earlier flight.

Then our flight in Chicago was delayed by 30 minutes. Once we boarded, the pilot let us know that the smoke detector in the lavatory was broken, and was being fixed. We waited another hour before it was fixed. We got back to Portland an hour later than expected. Such is life.

Not surprisingly, United Airlines is experiencing problems. I heard on the news that the big airline bail out wasn’t enough. United is still around, and I think I know how. They have gotten in the mail delivery business. Our plane spent nearly half an hour loading up two luggage trailers full of US Mail boxes. If United ships the mail, then the postal service doesn’t have to spend money on flying and maintaining planes. They’re both in trouble, and they’ve both found a solution. Did I mention it took longer than normal for our baggage to show up?

I’ve got more I’ll share later. We went around a cool thunderstorm, and saw the Red Sox play in Fenway. Fun Stuff.

The neighbor kid was sliding down his driveway in a recycling bin. It’s about a 2 second ride, maybe a drop of 3 or 4 feet, but he rode down it for about half an hour. He’s a unique child, but a blast to watch. He’s always so happy, and always hitting things with sticks; even people’s cars.

He’s funny, but the guy who lives in the apartment next to really takes the neighborhood freak cake. I think he was recently laid off or something. He sits in his apartment without many clothes on, drinking, and rocking out all day. Michelle and I have been trying to think of a nickname for him, but we’ve unsatisfactorily decided on “classic rock.” He’s always singing to the rock radio station. He harasses neighbors, even the cute kid. One time he kept yelling “shit” and variations at me after Barley took a dump in our yard. He yelled at me for not picking it up, and then continuted to yell various feces related rants at me while I grilled dinner. His dog takes a crap in our yard every day, and he’s never picked it up. Jackass.

In the future, colors will be represented by interest groups. Colors with strong lobbies will have a tremendous share textile and acryllic representation. Big corporations whose identity is tied with a specific color spend lots of money to encourage the use other colors; especially the colors of their competitors. IBM has spent a lot of time and money trying to convince people that blue is too formal for everyday wear.

Colors weren’t originally intended to be a corporate interest. The original idea was for bodies of concerned citizens to promote the color of their choice. The problems, the near color warfare, errupted because paint companies were creating imposter groups. These imposter groups would promote the use of colors that were clearly the result of an accident in the pigmentation of paints.

Disgust with the paint lobbies gave most americans a sense of futility. A small group of concerned citizens began lobbying for white, which technically isn’t a color, but it had been so under represented that even notebook paper no longer came in bleached white. There was a slowly building effort to bring white back to favor. People were tired colored undies, and the printing prices for books with multi-colored pages was outrageous. The return of white pages of the newspaper had a calming affect on people. The insomnia crisis that was making americans unproductive was fledging.

The natural reaction was a public outrcy agains the multifarious remnants of the color strife. Surplus colors were blended together to get another non-color: black (technically, it makes brown, but this is fiction.) Seeming normalcy returned and interest groups disbanded. The color ticker on the bottom of many news channels, once keeping americans keen to what color was sexy, were replaced by financial information. People started paying attention to the financial information. people got really caught up in finance, but that’s another story. You know how it goes.

When I got home from walking Barley today, there was a message on the phone. Its usually one of Michelle’s friends, but this one was different. It was weird. I’m not sure what you do when you get a message that really isn’t for you, but must be important because the person talks for two minutes in a different language. Anyway, listen to it and you can decide.

Some close friends of ours got engaged in Venice today. Or yesterday I guess… Time differences. Michelle and I are so very excited for the both of them. They’re traveling in Europe right now; Prauge I believe. Either way, its wonderful to see. We’ve watched them flirt, start dating, fall in love, and now this. Congrats.

Makes you wonder who might be next… them? him? them? him?

Anyway, this can be attributed to Michelle’s killer arm. She knew exactly where she was throwing that bouquet.

I went to Jiffy Lube to get an oil change today. I went there because they did it last time, not because I like them. In fact, I don’t think I’ll go there anymore. I think they use a commision system for employees.

The guy who was “getting my information” tried to sell me all sorts of stuff, including a new belt because mine had cracks in it. He showed me the cracks. They were evenly spaced, every 2cm or so for the length of the belt. I asked him why they were all so evenly spaced, knowing the answer, and he told me that’s just how they wear. I quit listening to him after that. He followed instructions with pictures on a computer screen, trying to sell me all sorts of things, because the computer showed that I hadn’t had any of them recently. I really was getting a lube job.

I miss Oil Can Henry’s in Yakima. They never wanted to sell you extraneous crap, and they had newspapers, and I enjoyed going. Sadly, the Oil Can Henry’s here doesn’t service Previas.

Michelle and I were watching the Food Network last night after taking Barley for his evening hill climb. We had already had dinner, but the urge to make food was almost overwhelming. We decided to make dinner tonight, and borrowed ideas from some of the shows we had watched, and elsewhere.

I ran to the store today to get some lime, cilantro, ginger, red chillies, and shrimp. We had everything else. Sadly, I forgot my wallet, but the nice mini-Mr. Clean checker watched my bag as I ran home. I went over to Scott’s to keg my beer. It looks/tastes like it’ll be good, I keep you posted on that.

Anyway, after I got back, we started cooking. Stir fried shrimp and pork in a red chilli, sesame oil, fish sauce, ginger, peanut and coconut milk mix. Smelled heavenly. Mixed that with rice noodles and a mess of fresh cilantro, chillis, garlic and ginger. It was really great. And there are left-overs.

Yesterday Michelle, Barley, and I drove to Hood River to meet my parents for a picnic. It was really nice, and Barley got to swim in the Columbia a little. Afterwards, we toured the Full Sail Brewery. It was cool, and humbling. I can’t imagine how bad I’d feel if I scorched 650 barrels of beer, versus the 5 gallons I scorched on Saturday.

Right now I’m waiting for some insight as to how I can upgrade WebCT. A hastily changed cron job changed the apache error logs so only root can read, write, and execute them. This is bad, because it caused Apache to die, and I can’t start it until we change the owner back to WebCT. The sys admin is in Colorado on a bike ride for 2 weeks.

I’ve been working in my office all day, and I’m quite cold. I just got an e-mail from Michelle saying she was going to go swimming because it was 92F, and its expected to reach 100F tomorrow. I was quite startled at this news, because my fingers, hands, and arms were numb from chill. I promptly went outside and sat on the concrete, where I was quickly heated like a rattlesnake.

Now I’m sitting back down to work, and I can feel the cold the cold return as my warm clothes radiate their remaining heat. Everyone in the library had a small heater/fan because it was so cold, but the fire marshall said we had to turn them in. I guess warm hands are the devil’s workshop or whatever.

Today was the Rose Parade. Its the grand floral parade for the Portland Rose Festival, which is one of Portland’s many “things”. Michelle is volunteering with Oregon Natural Resource Concil, and today we walked around before the parade and asked people to fill out postcards that will be sent to Sen. Smith and Sen. Wyden. asking them to re-designate Oregon lands as Wilderness. Since the roadless acts from the last adminnistration have had problems, ONRC and other groups have been trying to accomplish this themselves.

It was really hard for me, because I’m quite personal about my beliefs, and avoid forcing them upon strangers on their day off before a parade. I’m glad I went, because I should be more active as an evironmentalist. I’m also glad I went because Michelle filled out the most postcards, and won a $150 gift certificiate to Breitenbush Hot Springs. We get a free night. Cool.

The parade was pretty typical parade, but I really enjoyed being downtown, seeing the people and the buildings. I enjoyed watching the kids playing out in the streets, the people in their chairs, on fire escapes, and in apartment windows. Portland has a beautiful downtown.