Aliens from America

Went to Canada two weekends ago: Taylor's team for to bowl, me and Pearl for to find trouble. Canada is a strange and wonderful land, baffling to Amer-aliens.

Some Canadian similarities to US
* They have Starbucks shops everywhere.
* The hotel coffee was indescribably horrible.
* They have dollars, quarters and pennies.
* They have pranksters with dish soap.

Some differences in Canada:
* Gas is only $1.20
* Speed limit is 100.
* They call Canadian money "money".
* They have a $2 coin that looks a lot like a quarter, the first time.
* Restaurants offer abuse as their speciality.

On morning #1, I staggered out of the hotel and to the next door Starbucks. I ordered two coffees, paid with a Canadian $20, because American currency is not exactly welcome in Canada at the moment, got a handful of quarters and odd change, and dropped it in the tip jar. Then, I noticed that I had a five dollar bill left. WTF--I thought it was Europe where coffee is $8 a cup. Oh crap...those weren't quarters, they were $2 coins. Hey, have a nice weekend kids, pre-caffeinated Americans are great tippers!


Moulder and Scully ate at the elbow room. Wow, I wish I could have been the one abusing Scully...rarrrr.
Pearl & Xtine at the Elbow room, ready for breakfast and verbal abuse.



Fast times in Canada, eh?

Pearl does "Minnie Pearl", with a Canadian twist.

Oh, and Taylor bowled pretty well too. Out of a few hundred participants, she won 14th in singles and 4th in doubles. Soon, the valuable Canadian prize money will arrive and we'll be able to retire.

Bunch of other stuff happened too, most of it legal (I did commit at least one traffic infraction of which I am aware). But you know what they say, "what happens in Canada...st 'eh s in Canada."

Sealing the leaks

In the upstairs, we have a little attic space with a little plywood door off the side of each little bedroom. They lead into attic areas. We finally got around to putting insulation on the little doors last fall. I did one MY way, Taylor did one HER way. I copied my way from what I saw in Mike-the-engineer-for-Boeing's house. Taylor copied hers from how she saw it in her head. I think they're both approximately equivalent, but mine way is easier to deal with (glue foam to the inside of the door). Her way involves hooks and strings and crap (she CLAIMS that the hooks and strings and crap happened when I hijacked her design, whatever...how ELSE would it stay put).

Anyway, Taylor has been gloating about how HER door is air tight now and mine CLEARLY leaks all the cold air in and all the warm air out. Her evidence comes from when I shut her in the dark crawlspace behind my door and said: "Sit in this dark, cold little cupboard and hold the foam against the door until the glue dries." That's her version of events. Of course, here is what I REALLY said: "Honey, would you please find it in your heart to help me help the polar bears by insulating this door." Whatever, anyway, she's in there complaining about kneeling on old boards and the cold and the dark and helping polar bears and how she can see light coming in around the edges. So, for one thing, this is proof that it wasn't dark in there! But ever since, she's been gloating about how my door isn't REALLY INSULATED because the little, bitty slivers of light, which I think of as clean air vents for the maintenance of indoor air quality, are letting all the warm air out..ALL OF IT.

Today, I decided to show Taylor that, not only is a one piece insulated door easier to manage than an outer door with an inner foam-and-string-contraption, but that the leaks can be sealed. During my lunch break, I went up with my box o'weatherstripping, indoor air quality be damned! I first closed my own self in the small, dark, cold cupboard and assessed the light leakage. Then I started about my task. Little bit of foam here...little bit of that plastic V-stuff there...but it didn't completely seal the light leaks (note, not air leaks, LIGHT leaks). I decided that maybe if I put that V stuff along the edges where the pink insulation fits, it will not only seal the gaps, but hold the door shut. And DAMN if I wasn't right. That door is shut now! It is SOOOO shut. I can't get it open. I pulled and wiggled and yanked, but that weather stripping sure keeps the door shut. It felt like if I pulled any harder, the handle would just come out in my hand. So, I have decided that the little cupboard in the spare room can stay shut. There are only a few things in there that I might ever need to see again anyway:

1. Box of old tax records
2. The toilet plunger
3. Scruffy

Help, I'm sober and I can't get drunk

Had a problem last night. I made myself a nice cosmo. And then...dammit....I couldn't get the shaker open. Imagine my PAIN. My cosmo is TRAPPED inside the shaker. I did all kinds of tricks...run hot water on it, run cold water on it, pull on it, twist it, swear at it. Eventually, I got the big part (whatever that's called) open, but not the top, pouring part. So, I got most of my cosmo, minus the part that went all over the counter. As for that stupid shaker, bugger is already in the recycling bin. Hope it can find a new life as something that WORKS, like a government contractor!

Apology, American Style

So, I called you a troll. And you did NOT think this was funny. In fact, it hurt your feelings. I quickly backpedalled, because I did not REALLY mean "troll". You took that comment out of context. If you look more closely at the context, you will see that I meant "dirty old man". Somehow, that is better. And now you are calling me "Geraldine".

The problem though, is that if you consider the matter closely, Geraldine's comments were pretty much right (my opinion, maybe not yours, your milage may vary). She meant something like (I think): "He's a great package and if you add the blackness, it's a winning combination for the times. Without the blackness, he's just another articulate politician but probably not somebody who would have a good chance at a presidential nomination at this time." She did NOT say: "Barack Obama's success is entirely and solely because he's black." I mean, that would be like saying: "This is good soup. It's the salt. The salt is why this is good soup." Oh yeah? Then save my time and drink sea water.

Or like telling me: "So...you like margaritas eh? Well, it's only the tequila."

Maybe not the best example.

Anyway, sorry. You're not a troll. You're just a dirty old man. Feel better now?

Finn-ished

I told Tony that I decided to pass on the free Finn sailboat. This leaves me stuck on terra firma for the moment. However, there's a silver lining. The prospect of a scary olympic class sailing boat led Taylor to say something she has never said to me before: "You should just get yourself a boat. Try to find one you can handle." Coming from Taylor, this is big stuff.

See, many of you may not know this, but last summer we had a sailing trauma. I signed us up for a sailing class. Within five minutes of anchors away, the boom beaned Taylor in the coconut with extreme malice of no thought. (translated---Taylor got whacked in the head). Taylor was so traumatized and concussionized, that we didn't go back to any more of the classes. It's true, I didn't have a head injury. It was just too hot out for my liking, wah wah. And I was traumatized because I paid about $400 for these classes and we didn't even go. Usually when I want to throw money away, I invest in the stock market.

I did learn one essential fact before skipping out on class. I discovered that there is a boat for me. It is called the Club 420. This is the kind of boat used for the sailing class. Yes, Club 420. A club that might allow me for a member. There's even a Club for Club 420's. The Club 420 Club, or some such: http://www.club420.org/

They have a magazine too! http://www.420magazine.com/

Some day, I'm going to get me a Club 420 and name it Bogart. And some day, if you feel like it, you can come sailing with me and maybe be inducted into Club 420 too!

nuthin at all

I don't know what's gotten into me. I'm blogging like...all the time. And there's NOTHING to talk about! In fact, in between getting the idea "hey, i think i should write about that" and actually signing in, I forgot what I was going to write about. Yet here I am, typing away. I'm the keyboard chatterbox.

It's 11:10 pm. I'm sitting in the recliner, weighted down by the cat and the laptop. It was a rough day. This morning, I discovered that a package I had released was the wrong software version, and that was embarrassing. And it was supposed to only take about 2 hours to fix it, except for the part about having to grovel to the people who had already installed the wrong version. It's not a simple upgrade, more of an "erase it all and start over". And then the new rev won't install because it can't handle the extra daylight savings time (see....it's Y2K for a few weeks every year now). And all the usual whiners were whining at me extra. And the boss was mad at me cause I'm not supposed to talk to the whiners (why is that so hard to do????).

Um, still trying to remember what I was going to write about.

Strictly Rated G

Thank you to those of you kind enough to send notes in response to my recent promotion. I'd like to respond to a type of question that has arisen from a few different camps. The question goes approximately like this: "You should write about 'this event' or 'that episode'?" I will now take this opportunity to explain why I have not written about "this" and/or "that". It is because my blog is rated G (or maybe PG). Because that's how I like it. "This" and "that" strike me as rated R material. In these virtual pages, I get to present events in the way I would like them to be perceived (yes, you may read between those lines what EVER you want). For the record, these stories are, for the most part, true. Although my memory isn't exactly the most precise organ in my body. Some settling of contents may have occured during shipping.

Therefore, if you would like to hear about two people laughing uncontrollably for an hour over nothing (that can be divulged) in the paninininini restaurant, or whatever it is called. Or the time when somebody got a little over-excited and experienced a severe, public wardrobe malfunction. Or the time when something happened at work that the boss must NEVER find out about. Or anything sporting "adult themes"..you will have to come and sit on my unfinished deck with me and visit in person.

And...if anything untoward should transpire during that visit, you can rest assured that, by the time it hits these airwaves, it will be a properly presentable tale.

How to Wreck a Nice Beach

I remember the first time I ever came to Oregon. It was 1988, fall semester of my sophomore year of college. I went off for adventure and educatin' at the Oregon Extension. This is a one-semester college program, located in the southern Oregon Cascades in the town of Lincoln, population 21 (or so).

I lacked a clear understanding of what lay ahead for me at the Oregon Extension (OE). Al Gore hadn't yet invented the internet, so all I had to go on was a small packet from the OE folks and my own fantasies about the wild west. Truthfully, I had never thought much about Oregon. It's just filler in between California and Washington, right? So, my family and friends prepared me with the following factoids:

• It rains 366 days a year in Oregon (SO not true, but don't tell...)
• Oregon is full of hippies (loosely based in outdated fact)
• Oregon has more sheep than people (confusing Oregon with New Zealand, an easy enough mistake to make)
• Oregon is composed of rolling, heather-covered hills and criss-crossed with walking paths (now, confusing Oregon with the Yorkshire Moors, whatever)
• The woods are booby trapped, vietcong-style, by pot growers guarding their stashes (this "fact" supplied by my own dear dad, but I didn't believe this one.)

I am not making it up. That is what I was expecting. When I stepped off that plane at the Klamath Falls airport in late August of 1998, I had the image of hippies frolicking on the lush green hillsides in the misty drizzle with throngs of fluffy sheep. And I brought duck boots, so bring it on!

On the first day of school at the Oregon Extension--which had rugged, rocky mountains with tall trees, brown grass of late summer, no sheep, no heather and definitely no rain in sight--the professors, who did seem maybe a little hippy-ish to my east coast eyes (phew, not COMPLETELY wrong about Oregon) gathered all us students together for orientation. These professors seemed nice enough at first. Things were going ok. That is, until they warned us about the BIG DANGER. I can feel my blood pressure rising right now as I think about it. They told us, in all seriousness, to watch out on cold mornings for THE BLACK GUYS ON THE ROAD IN THE SHADOWS.

Me (in my mind): What? HUH? ????

Prof: Yes, it's true. In the mornings, black guys sometimes get on the road in shady spots, posing great danger motorists and students.

Me: Now that I think about it, I can't remember seeing any black people since I arrived in Oregon. Why do they hide and only come out in the mornings? Why do they stay in the shade? This place is nuts. I think am not fully prepared for the seriousness of the Oregon situation.

Prof: Be mindful of the vehicles when you walk on the road in the mornings, because sometimes they can't see the black guys. And if they hit some black guys, they might lose control of their car and hit you.

Me: Looking around the room, I see that nobody else appears alarmed. I am now quite concerned. I know that racism still exists in America, but this is off the charts.

Prof: And, the logging trucks can be the most dangerous of all. In fact <...I SWEAR I am NOT making this up...>, once a few years ago, Howard was out walking one morning and a truck hit some black guys. The driver lost control, hit a horse, the horse FLEW through the air, landed on Howard, and broke Howard's leg. But don't ask Howard about it. He doesn't like to talk about it because the horse died.

Me: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BLACK GUYS????? You know, the ones who were just run over by the truck!!!!

And that concluded the part of the orientation concerned with warning of dangers lurking in the shadows on the cold, hard streets of Lincoln. I was so baffled and scared by the sheer calousness, and the fact that nobody else appeared the least bit troubled, that I was afraid to ask anybody: "What is going on here???"

For several weeks, I tried to act normal (a challenge even under the best of circumstances) and pretend to watch out for these supposedly dangerous black guys. I didn't see any black guys, but how are you supposed to know if they are there. The professors say they blend in and can be impossible to discern.

Having paid in full up front, I persisted with the program, which seemed otherwise fairly reasonable. Until one day, a good several weeks into this education, a small voice came to me. The voice said: black ice, my dear, BLACK ICE.

Oh! OOOOOOOOOH! Um, so, yeah. Black ice. I've never heard of ice-of-color before. This could kinda make sense. ha ha ha! I get it now! Wow, that was quite the misunderstanding. Hey....did everybody else already know this? Was I the only one who got that wrong? Oh dear.

And that brings me to the actual point of my story, which is: It's not always easy to recognize speech.

Nautical Update

The boat is cleaning up pretty well. Although the trailer wheels are a lost cause. The tires are flat and off the rims, but the wheels are so rusted I can't get the lug nuts off. I may need to wait for the next "great flood" to get this thing launched.

Tony told me it is a "FINN" sailboat. So, I searched to see what kind of boat is a Finn. Here is what I found:

"A one-man centerboard dinghy, the Finn requires tremendous physical exertion and mental concentration. This combination of excellent craft with sophisticated competitor makes Finn racing unique.

Finn sailors are strong, fit and tolerant of long periods of concentration and physical exertion. Averaging more than 6' in height, they weigh in at 175+ lbs. and are unusually tough."
(quoted from http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/classes.htm, hope that's allowed).

So, let's see:
Finn sailors: over 6' tall
Me: significantly UNDER 6' tall

Finn sailors: 175+ pounds
Me: not EVEN (although, I suppose this is more adjustable than height)

Finn sailors: Unusually tough
Me: wuss

So...I'm getting increasingly intimidated by the prospect of cutting my sailing teeth on an olympic class heavy sailing ding-ee. The more I think about it, the more I get a scared feeling in my stomach. That's where the scared feelings live, not in my heart. That's where the cholesterol lives. On second thought, I'm not scared of trying to sail this boat as much as I'm scared of trying to back it down the boat ramp. I have a mental image of launching not only the boat, but also my car, into the river. I just don't know if I can face the prospect of having to get my car towed out of the Columbia, all radioactivated and glowing. I know....I'll drive Taylor's car. Good, problem solved. Now, how to fix those trailer wheels.

Spring is in th'hair

Scruffy engaging in her second favorite hobby--birdwatching:

Her first favorite is bird CATCHING.

Enemy doing recon:

Fraternizing with the enemy (how COULD YOU):

My Weekend

What I did this weekend, by Xtine....

I had a very nice weekend this weekend. I worked a teensy bit on my never-to-be-completed deck, drove the stinky VW, played in the yard when it was sunny. Normal stuff.

Then....all great weekend hell broke loose. Taylor & I walked down to the nursery to look at plants. On the way home, I FOUND A TEN DOLLAR BILL!!!! yes yes YES...crispy ten dollar bill. New and crispy and authentic. Oh, the feel of finding paper money...glglglgllllllllllll. The happy chemicals went shooting into my brain. You can't plan this kind of stuff. That's the best part, it just sneaks up and BAM. Credit goes to Taylor who actually spotted it, but I got to pick it up. Yippee....

For those of you who may fret for the dear soul who had a less good weekend and managed to LOSE a crispy new ten dollar bill, there was nobody anywhere nearby. We couldn't have given it back if we wanted to. Once I found $2 in DC and gave one to a begger sitting nearby. See... I can share.

Oh, and Tony gave me a sailboat. Technically, maybe it's just a boat. The sail is missing. And it needs a light cleaning. (click on the pictures for a larger view). I bet that ten dollar bill will take care of any necessary maintenance this thing needs. The universe provides...