02-27-03
during
after (kinda)

Noah went to Banff and all he got Monica was this stupid scarf (just kidding, Noah)
The roof is done and now we need new gutters, but first we need to replace the wood that runs along the edge, which we'll do next weekend. The guys who do the gutter estimated $1500 to do the edges for us. To nail 6x1's to the house. Jeez.
Thursday night at 6rms the major topic was circumcision - yes or no? And why or why not? It was great because the tables were full of couples, and we had a Jew, a Muslim, and some Germans, plus a bunch of us white folk. So you can imagine the diversity and debate.
I know a lot of couples went home that night going *hmmmm*

Sam
 
Josh& Emily, Alexandra & Matt
  

(William, Todd) Marc
 Friday at Johnston Architects we did a tour of our Capitol Hill Library project (which Marc calls his "Home on the Hill"). It's coming right along!
After the tour we walked to a Japanese restaurant and I forgot I still had my hard hat on so I was sportin'.
Things at JA have not been smooth lately. The last few tasks they've given me have combusted in my possession. Then my computer got switched and....ah.... I'm just in an adjustment period I guess.

Sportin the hard hats

I love pigeons.
Especially these brown ones.

Todd and Chris chillin' at JA

Lunch after the tour
William, Me, Marc, Rashmi, Todd, Alison

Dan the Landlord
 After work Friday I went to pay rent and Dan informed me that he read my website and I felt *so bad*. We hadn't told them that we were moving to Vancouver yet, and he saw it on my website. He also didn't know the bathtub was broken and I had also bitched about it here.
I'm such a jerk.
I also broke down crying talking about moving and leaving the house and Seattle.

Punchdrunk
So then I drive to a warehouse space all the way down by Starbucks corporate and I'm still shaky and sad. I was there to see Valerie's brother's band practice. They are called Punchdrunk and Valerie's brother is the drummer. I know Valerie via JA - we needed a new phone system installed (you know - cool phones with multiple extensions and voice mail and all that). I had researched tons of companies and all of the companies HOUNDED me for weeks after. One company even sent THREE men in FULL SUITS to tell me about their system (this is for an office of NINE people). It was like an attack of the phone mafia. I debated and did pricing spreadsheets and function spreadsheets and all this research and the best company was Warner - and Valerie was the person who had met with me - once - and I never heard from again.
I loved it.
So since she (and her brother) installed the phone system, we've become friends since then, and we try to hang out when we can, but our schedules make it a bit difficult. It was nice to see her outside of work (it was also nice to see her because we need to add another phone - we hired another architect who starts in a couple weeks). The band was pretty good - I could tell that the lead singer had a lot of influence from Stone Temple Pilots and Alice in Chains. I look forward to hearing how they sound after a few more months together (they are a new band).
After this I rushed to Industrial Coffee to meet Jon and Amy to watch a band called Squat - some guy that Amy works with played guitar. That's all I'm saying about the band.
It was nice to see Jonandamy - they are both always so busy. I was also still emotional from my visit with Dan and got all clingy with them.
Saturday morning Sean had a meeting for work. I slept in till 10:30 and Sean came home and went back to sleep around one - so I did too. We slept until three. So basically, I slept the day away. And I'm not complaining.
That afternoon I went to play (watch) pool with William from JA and he had a horrible losing streak going until the very last game. That's when I realized I was late for my Starbucks meeting at Romio's Pizza.
Turns out it wasn't a meeting - it was our anniversary party. I need to pay more attention to what's going on there.
After we ate like pigs we went to Leilani Lanes - it's all here.

02-24-03
What I need to get done in the next thirty hours:
- yank contacts out of my eyes
- make CDs for Graham
- Eat the artichoke Sean is making for me
- Send Dinner Project notebook and camera for Nervousness
- Finish other Nervousness project tomorrow with Nicolai
- Send salt caramels to the Candy Critic in Toronto
- Work at Starbucks 4:15 a.m.
- Pick up Nicolai at 3:00 - take to Gasworks Park, take pictures
- Take Nico to Fremont Troll, take pictures
- Get groceries at Central Market, Nico and I make manicotti
- Talk Sean into going to dinner with us as opposed to playing basketball
- Dinner at 7:30 with Germans at Josh & Emily's
- Homework assignment for Flash class
- Reorganize Johnston Architects supplies area, sort magazines and library
- Update this page with all stuff from last weekend (a daunting task)
Oh yeah, and sleep.
Warning: Do not Hand-wash
Warning: Do not Bleach
Iron on Low
Dry clean - Normal Cycle: Any Solvent except Trichloroethylene
Warning: Do Not Tumble Dry

Thanks, Graham.
Graham will receive his mug on the front page of my site for a while, plus some Seattle CD's!

The death of Oolong made me cry. He had one of the most fabulous lives you could ever dream of for a pet. That's one of the things about these personal web journals - you can get so attached.

02-18-03
It fells kinda weird putting this next to a picture of cookies, so I apologize to those of you who don't know this yet. (Plus, I'm proud of my cookies.)
Sean and I plan to move to Vancouver, BC by next spring. It's something we've been planning for a long time for multiple reasons, and it's time.
Sean's been here with me for almost 15 years, and we always planned on living in Canada. But I need to get immigration paperwork done, and it's not cheap (even though I'm married to a Canadian, it doesn't give me a free ride - there are a ton of forms and fees ahead). He had permanent status for the US so it was easy, lazy, whatever. We just stayed here much longer than we planned. (Since 1996)
In the process of staying here so long, I got really really attached to this city - it's music scene, my friends, the weather, the people I see every day. I wouldn't miss a Thursday night Six Arms for the world. I can go to any gig I dream of. I can dance until 5 a.m. John Richards on KEXP teaches me everything I need to know about every band that's worthy. I like rain. I like summers that only go up to the 70's. I go to Central Market and say hi to everyone as I walk through because I adore the employees there, and there's always at least two Starbucks customers of mine in there as well - I feel like the freaking neighborhood mascot sometimes.
My point is, I like it here.
I finish my multimedia design certificate in June, and after that, it's just a matter of finding jobs and a place to live, and hopefully by then my immigration paperwork will be ready.
If you know any design firms in Vancouver that are hiring, let me know!
Thursday night we went to see Interpol at the Showbox. The venue was too big and the volume was too low. Valentine's night we went to Jonandamy's for dinner - we had pasta and chocolate fondue. I ate too much.
I was supposed to go to an 80's prom Saturday night, but I honestly don't recall doing anything that day except for making about 5 batches of cookies and loafing. It was wonderful. But I missed the prom.
Sunday night we had the Germans over for dinner.... Joe and Bev were also over. We are going to see the dreadfully depressing film "Love Liza" tonight.
Kolja and Alexandra have a friend visiting them from Germany - Nicolai. He sneaks pictures of you when you aren't ready. So I did the same to him.

That's Nico and Kolja on the right - one of the few "prepared" photos I got of them that night. They are touring Joe's Coast Guard ship (the Polar Star) Wednesday evening. I told them to disguise their german accents when they go *heh heh*.
Hey I'm gonna interrupt here because I just got a phone call from Qwest offering me some long distance deal and it reminded me that I should tell you all about Working Assets long distance service. It's 7¢ a minute but it donates to a whole bunch of charities - mostly environmental. They also send you coupons for 60 minutes free long distance, AND, MOST OF ALL, they send you a coupon for a free pint of Ben & Jerry's every month. THAT sold us. So if you want to set up new long distance service, look them up.
/end sales pitch
And now regarding this site - I'm considering making Daymented a blog.
I've been inspired by quite a few blogs out there lately, and I'm torn.
1. I would have to set it up
2. People would write awful things on my site

Your opinions, please?
Oh! Some of you don't know what a blog is. A blog is short for Web Log - it means you can read my site then click a button and type your own comments below each journal entry. For instance, I can tell you a really funny incident about something that happened in high school, then Cyndi can just click a button and type "That's SO NOT TRUE! It was ME that bailed HER out of jail!" or something like that. Just an example.
More pictures from my corner of the world:

The old ditch circa last year. No more mowing that WHOLE section!
Whoop dee doo!                           The new ditch --->

Looking up the side of my house

The ditch full of rain the other night

I finally gave up on the fireplace. It got cracked in the earthquake of whenever-the-hell-it-was. I questioned it's ability long before that, though. It's an old house and the chimney is a bit crooked and there are cracks on the inside. Defeated, I finally just moved some houseplants into it. I really liked having fires in it though. Sigh
When it rains, it rains on our computers, in a puddle by our front door, and sometimes in our bedroom.
And our bathtub has been broken since December and I miss it. Ugh, let's go back to talking about improvements....

Leak above the front entrance

This is the back yard before Sean & Shane screened in the patio last summer. I still want to put a garden here, but I've been saying that for four years now.                     Here's the new patio -->
Last night I came home to this mess at my house. I thought we were getting a new roof, as we were told we were getting a new roof. Nope. New shingles. But they're going to "patch the soft spots" on the roof. Goody.
It will only take a couple days, which isn't bad. But today I got home from Starbucks and didn't get any sleep. The trick to finding soft spots on the roof seems pretty simple. They scrape the shingles off with a pitchfork, then take a hammer and go whamwhamwhamwham! Then I say to the cats itsokayitsokayitsokay and we all calm down until they go whamwhamwham! again.

poor old gal.
 
I woke up in a fish bowl similar to my fishes' aquarium. This bright blue plastic hung in all of the windows, and the house was still shaking. I went outside to take some pictures and I learned how to say Hello in Polish (it took about 4 tries, and I'm not going to bother trying to spell it - if you meet someone Polish, just say "hello" - they'll understand). Some of the roofers are Polish. Not the guy above, however, so I felt like a nimrod trying to say hello to him in Polish and he said "Hi - I'm American" and I said "Oh".
Thanks again for the camera Jonandamy.
This site is getting loaded!
   
02-09-03
Want to know how many trays of cookies I threw in the garbage so far this weekend? EIGHT. Seven trays and two half trays. I've been burning everything. It doesn't help that the bottom of the oven gets 900° and the top gets 200°. I took it apart last week to try to find the fuses, but I never found them.
A helpful cooking lesson for those of you out there - after grinding raisins in a coffee bean grinder, carefully remove wet soggy mass from machine and place directly into the garbage. Then, after soaking and scrubbing raisin gunk from said grinder for ten minutes, place grinder along with the raisins into the garbage, as you just drowned the motor with water. Wasn't that fun?!
Oh! And cream cheese and white chocolate make a surprisingly horrible tasting icing.
Through these trials I did finally make a highly approved copy-cat of "Dad's Oatmeal Cookies". I think I'll add the recipe to the Daymented Recipes page. They come really close to tasting like store bought crunchy cookies.
02-06-03
Do you see how excited my cats get when I get home? They love the days that I work at Starbucks, because I come home in the morning and get into bed just as Sean is getting out of bed, so the cats get about 15 straight hours of napping with humans.
I've had a pretty busy week - there's one more Dreamweaver class to go, then we get into Flash. I'm still not quite sure what I learned in the Dreamweaver class, though, besides hand-coding cold fusion and SQL. Yuck. I also made some changes to the Johnston Architects site that I'm pretty happy with.
Turns out we are attempting to have a Six Arms Softball team again this summer. Maybe we'll win a game this year!
(....maybe.)
02-04-03
I am slowly getting better. Sinusitis is really gross.
Last weekend I got a visit from Truly and I made loads of cookies that all turned out crappy. I've drawn the conclusion that using a Silpat for cookies may not be wise. It keeps crunchy cookies from getting crunchy. It's taken about 12 batches of cookies to figure this out.
Automaton and Jason get ready to rock
Saturday night we went to see Juno perform - I haven't seen them play in months since they took a hiatus last year. Jason was playing bass for them. Automaton also played, and I was surprised to hear some new songs with a new set-up: James is no longer drumming for them, and they got a new guitarist and keyboard player. I spent as much time as possible with the bands - I hadn't seen Automaton for a long time, and Juno (with Jason) just got back from Japan a couple weeks ago. Gabe had a few tips for Jon - Jon's taking Amy to Tokyo next month for some Mariners games.
Sunday Sean and I had lunch at the DeLuxe Bar & Grill on Capitol Hill and it was absolutely terrible service. Later that day, we took everything out of our kitchen cupboards and wiped them down, re-lined them, and put everything back where it makes sense. We are such exciting people.