a long walk to nowhere

I walked last night for over an hour. I went nowhere and yet i went really far.

how is that?

Nowhere: I was on a treadmill.
Really far: I watched "fight club" while i walked. Weird movie. Weird.

message in a blogger

To the guy driving the acura in front of me this morning on 148th...

The bottom one is green. The top one is red.

Keep it in mind.

Aikido update

Not in pain this morning except my wrist a little bit. I think next wednesday we'll watch and see who is teaching before bringing our Gi's in... :)

aikido night 1

We started Aikido. The whole family.

We began our study on the wrong night.

Oh it was beginner night on the schedule, but sensai is out of town at a camp. The class was small but the teacher wasn't a teacher (and told us so to start with).

There was no basic instruction. At least none that I saw. I was pretty disappointed with the class in fact. No basics work just a warm up and right to technique. I really wanted some instruction on how to fall properly.

I'm just bitching.

Botom line: We will keep at it through august.

When something annoys me, I like to: "Blog it and forget it"

Thanks for reading.

did someone offer you something?

Think back because maybe you asked for that million dollars, some kind of car from your parents (think way back), or a random sexual favor from someone (etc.) and the response you got was not about folding something til it had sharp corners, but rather contained the words "blue moon".

As I am told: A blue moon is the second full moon in a month. August 31st might just be that blue moon in which your then steady significant other in Jr. High agreed to ... well...

You might say that the full moon i think is on July 31st instead of August 1st. Well then I realize we've passed the airline's 21 advanced day purchase that you might need to get that cheap ticket to visit your old girlfriend, but in that case July is our blue moon.

This nutty moment was brought to you by the gregorian calendar and teh heavenly body known as "Luna".

You may no return to your normal only somewhat nutty lives...

Ain't that occasionally the way?

nothing like fried ignorance in the middle of the day...

it's not hard to be a customer at the grill here at work for lunch. It's not nothing you have some responsibility. To be clear though there isn't much you have to do.

Here are some helpful guidelines:

1. order when they look at you. If you don't do this at least order when they fucking greet you. Come on people dude is up to his ass in grease meat and Styrofoam (I wish I were referring to the plates) when he says "hi" this translates roughly into "What the fuck do you want?". Order it and order it now.

2. Move the fuck down. Don't stand there like an idiot in the order window with 4 people behind you. Move down. This happened at breakfast and at lunch. Order then move. not "order then stand there looking stupid waiting for the guy to take your money" move. K? #2 is move down after you order. Got it? (I'm mostly speaking to the lady in front of me at lunch. You don't know who you are and if you did you'd be highly offended, right? so stop reading now if you know who you are. k? buh bye)

3. ok got rid of her. Pay attention (shit she needed this feed back too, and I got rid of her, oh well). If they want to ask you a question, be prepared to answer them once and quickly. These are not questions like "What is the sound of one fry frying" or even "If I burn that burger and there is nobody here gonna eat it, does it still taste bad?" kinda questions these are "What kind of cheese?" fucking answer them. American. Swiss. Or if you want to be fancy (and likely get your food spit on if you aren't paying attention) you can ask "what are my options?" and at the end you belt out "Cheddar". For the record if you get a list of cheeses you better order something like peperjack or havarti rather than fucking cheddar. They had fucking cheddar and you knew it. Asswhipebuttmuncheridiot. I sometimes respond to the cheese questions, "American because I have no class." It occasionally gets a laugh. One lady went as far as to tell me that it tastes like plastic (right after i ordered it) I told her "you have to remove the individual wrappers before you eat it." Where the fuck was I? oh ya pay attention. Another
great question is "what kind of fries with xxx" the xxx is what you ordered. Guess what people the xxx is their subtle way to make sure they didn't fuck up your order. Just say tots and move on, the other choices are irrelevant. tots. Hear me? tots. Nothing else. Why do they ask you ask? well to make sure you're paying attention (see this is #3).

4. When they try to subtly confirm your order. Do not confirm someone else's. Now I really regret getting rid of today's grill line patron lady who was in front of me, she really fucking needs to hear this. If you ordered a burger and they say "What kind of fries with your grilled cheese?" then something should click in that little drug addled brain of yours (i'm making some assumptions here) that they are fucking up the order right then. Do not under any circumstances say "regular". Why? because 1. you didn't have a grilled cheese I DID. NOT YOU. so shut the fuck up. Or look at them and go "Grilled cheese?" and they will get it they are professionals. Then the general query will go out "Who had the grilled cheese?" and I'll step up with "That was me, I'll have tots, thanks very much."

See how smooth that was? easy even. No worries. Do not say "regular please". Reason #2 see #3 you should have said tots then i would not be handed my grilled cheese with regular fries you dumb ... (ok i don't really use *that* word). no clue. I have tried to eliminate this problem by suggesting everyone say tots. see why can't we just get along? 

5. Take your food and leave. Most people get this right, but i thought i'd mention because I didn't get a chance to see the lady in front of me leave with hers because I got mine first. If they fuck something up. Just take it anyway. Ok within reason. Just do it. You owe it to the people behind you. In my case I delt without tots because bitch lady ordered for me without realizing.  I smiled and thanked them and took it. As an aside if they had been curly, heaven (usual atheistic disclaimers apply)  knows I would have given them to her and asked for my fucking tots because we all have to draw the line somewhere.

6. pay for the food. If you get into the dude's line do not correct him when he calls you "Kerry"... trust me. Just don't.

7. Get your ketchup (you need ketchup for those tots, do you not?) Use the wonder bar (tm) on the right the one on the left is too soupy. Not sure how they manage to do that, but it is. You can remember it with this clever saying. "Right is Right" or better yet this insightful one "The wonder bar on the left sucks less because it's less soupy" k?

8. do not sit down. go back to your office and type a blog about your experience and spill ketchup on yourself and forget your drink, but damn all of that because you have something to blog about. boo ya.

9. Eat. blog and be merry.

10. (bonus tip) Choose an annoying co worker (um not your boss) and put your tray in his office. If you really don't like this loser throw the left over grilled cheese and tots in his garbage too.

You're done! Now wasn't that easy?

Maybe tomorrow I'll get my tots... bitch.

I didn't forget

I know i need to redo my template, I just haven't done it yet... doh

early bunny gets smacked by a car (almost)

So I think the eddie baur headquarters shipped their bunnies down to us. I was pulling into campus bright and early. You know what comes before bright and early? Dark and early. Thats what. As the sun is headed south for the autumn/winter seasons it gets darker at 5:00 when I get up. You think that would make it harder to get up, but NO. I'm stupid like that.

If I get up early and it's still dark then I feel like I've got the jump on the world (I do in fact), but when it's light out it's so hard to get up.

Anyways pulling into campus today there was what I guess was a rather young bunny who had a rather indecisive moment trying to cross the street in front of me. Luckily I wasn't distracted by any shiny objects or turtles or John Curly because I managed to miss him. It was work though. I have a feeling that bunny will not be passing on his road crossing genes to any other bunnies...

Last night slothdom

So we had multiple things we were invited too last night and we were just lame.

We had a lovely invitation to listen to live music at Bothell landing with Carol & Rick. We had also been invited to Corinne's house where her and husband host a Six Feet Under party.

It was just too hot.

What did we do?

We went and had dinner at coyote creek pizza and dragged our heels with deonn and the kids and a child deonn was watching. Her name was jessica (Deonn kept telling everyone that it was pronounced Shar-Day).

From Dinner we went to Deonn work. Guess what's at the Bellevue Children's Theater (No I will not spell it theatre lots of brave people gave their lives so that we could edit the spelling any way we saw fit, so there.)

I went to the cheesecake factory by myself to retrieve some... well... cheesecake. while the kids and Tammy and Deonn stayed and just enjoyed the air.

When they say factory they fucking mean factory. Those people are on a mission. Henry Ford might have had an accident when he saw the cheese cake assembly line that I was so expertly directly to by someone who was likely named "Heather". There I ordered 3 slice of cheese cake and 2 ice creams. Um... It's a factory, but it's no outlet store. This desert cost more than dinner at the high end pizza place. I was a bit floored. Oh also they use wireless communications to cooredinate the factory of fat cals. The funniest part was the manager had one of those clear ear pieces in and ran around checking on things. He was like the secret service cheese cake Mofo. From now on he will be known as SSCheeseCakeMF.

I paid and we enjoyed the coolness of the theater, the cheese cake (no we didn't get the low carb one goddddammmmit. splenda(tm) might have been created by the devil, if there were one, but no) and we watched Max and Sam practice the play they are working on at... bellevue children's Theater.

So appologies first: C&R sorry we didn't make bothell landing. C&B sorry we couldn't make 6FU, maybe later in august we'll make one.

Shout outs to CCPizza, Cheese Cake Factory, Henry Ford and SharDay for "high foot"...

Ford unveils new features....

I've mentioned before that Tammy has a new Ford Expedition. It's the one that got busted into. Yes we're over that except we have to go back and get the door fixed again I think and likely one of the wires got cut in the removal causing one of the power outlets to be useless. Magnolia is going to check that out. This was not a tangent. new car.

It's hot. It's really fucking hot. OK I'm from Ohio and now I'm required by law to go on and on about how 'not' hot this hot is because it's a dry heat and these people don't know heat. No. fuck you if you think that 100 is hot anywhere anyhow. I mean this is fucking hot people, I don't care if sweating works as it should. It's still hot. I think it's 88 right now in our coolest room. Thats two eights, not one.

So I'm hot and I'm driving a new car. You know where this is going now?

This monster has mutherfuckingcoolingseats. Cooling seats. Cool. You've heard of heated seats... well this is cooling. OK so perfect day to try this out, right. Tammy brought the car down so I could pick the kids up at camp. We're headed back to work and we try out the cooling seats.

Nothing. OK so fine whatever. Move on to futzing with the car in other fun ways. My fave is to program random way points into the newly restored gps and laugh like a monkey when I pick the icon for them. I'm easily distracted.

A strange sensation came over me. Well part of me. If you must know, it was my ass. It felt really weird. I couldn't figure it out. I thought maybe I had grown a giant sweatgland that was working overtime where the sun doesn't shine.

Is my butt wet? I squirmed and it felt really weird.

I remember oh... cooling seat.

So when one small part of you (your ass) is cooler than the rest it feels wet.

Oh thats how I want to feel while tooling down the road... Hi there. I have a wet ass.

And not in a good way. Sitting by one's self in a truck it's not good to have a wet butt.

Are we clear on this?

Tammy and decided to give it a good chance and we ran the thing at full blast.

Did it feel cool? yes
Did it feel nice? no.

it feels like you sat in the bench right next to the waterfountain at the park after the ass hole ran it at full blast just to splatter the area and make the rest of the world wait for that cool or rather luke warm goodness on such a hot day.

Did I mention it's hot?

Is my butt wet?

ah the state of my birth...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/07/22/arm.alligator.ap/index.html

This is why I don't live in Florida anymore.

and Why I hate yard work... it can be dangerous.

this old blog

he played one...
 
OK so the whole revising the template is going to take a bit longer than I thought. Not a quick point and click and add my links kinda thing. I have to create a staging blog. I never thought I'd need a test blog, but there ya go. I'll keep you posted.
 
fixed width sux.

template tear up

I'm gonna rip up my site... don't worry the blog will still be here. It will look different and tell you different stuff. Kinda like the voices in your head, only me. or maybe it's the voices in my head....

 
update: OK not going so good. Blogger seems very attached to fixed width stuff now. I like the sidebar to be fixed width (um... why... because it doesn't change) and the main body to flow.
 
Are the new templates designed with this in mind? no. not so nice.

Yet another ugly car

Two words:
 
Buick Rendezvous 
 
two more words
 
ick ick
 
friends don't let friends drive ugly...

Outback fact...

We were at the outback in bothell and at the end of the meal I was signing the check and I realized that the total was too low. It was barely enough to cover the entree's without tax let alone the kid meals/drinks/sundaes so I got the server's attention and pointed it out. She was very grateful that we had caught it. When I talked to her after it was corrected I asked her if they would have charged her for it. She was hesitant to answer but she did say she would have had to have paid for it at the end of the night. I'm really glad I noticed.

So if you think your bill is light and you don't say anything because you think you're cheating the corporate entity think again. It's coming right out of your server's pocket. (This is not something I would have believed.)

So if you're going to the outback in Bothell, dining in: ask for Sarah; Carry out: ask for Liz; and tell them JR sent you.

what if

If three joggers pass you in the woods arguing about the latest reality tv show you should:

a. Realize that much as project the fact that they want to be players they are not.
b. Wonder if they would make any sound at all if you weren't there to hear them.
c. trip them and run the other way, as you're sure they aren't going to catch you as they are just joggers.
d. a and b
e. all of the above.

I'm a nice guy so I went with d.

Isn't it cool that if I want to go to lunch in another building I can opt to 'take the trail' where the landscapers here have in a very disney style made it feel like you're in the woods... being passed by joggers... who were not real at all... it's coming together now.... in the future you won't jog, you're robot will for you while arguing your point of view of the latest tv show with the other guy's robots... I'll stop now.

I'm blue

I got my teeth done yesterday. I went to put a verb where done is in the last sentance and there are too many to fit. I had the wires taken out then I had them cleaned then I had them tightened.

It was the Orthodonist who is the father of the father/daughter pair. He's a bit more... well lets just say he tightened up the wire ties in my mouth so much I don't need a powerchain.

I went with all Medium blue. I couldn't think of a holiday or a theme. I'll get someone to snap a photo later and I'll post it. Maybe. I mean it is just blue. Oh ya and nickel titanium... For the record magnets will not stick to these wires. So you know.

I'm back on the braces diet.

Hand Foot

Hand foot:

Have n+1 or 2 decks (or more) where n=number of players.

Deal two piles of 5 cards to each player.

Each turn you draw 2 from the stock (can be split into multiple piles for reach) or pick up the whole pile (threes and all) and you play any cards down onto the table you can then you discard one card. Draw 2 drop 1 that is. Your hand grows.

You play down sets (melds is a word sometimes used) of the same number. No runs allowed.

Any card played down >=7 is worth 10 <7 is 5 with the exception of jokers (which are wild and can be played on any number, but are limited one per number) and aces. Both Jokers and aces are worth 15.

3's may not be played as a set (meld).

3's are worth 50 and because they may not be played that makes them negative.

When you've played all the hands in your hand you announce you are in your foot and pick up those cards which have been face down up until now and if you have not yet discarded you may continue to play. Once one player has first gone into their foot and then played all of their cards they are 'out' and play for that hand stops. The score is then counted.

You subtract any points in your hand (2,4-6 -> 5; 7-K -> 10; A&Joker -> 15 and a 3-> 50) from the points on the table you've played.

We usually just cancel cards on the table with those in the hand then make piles of 100.

Oh you may not play anything until you have accumulated at least 75 points in your hand. You do not have lay them down (or as we say 'throw down') at that time. You can in fact be a prick and go into your foot all at once which will piss off the neighbors. Not always a bad thing.

Also always picking up the pile will irritate people on your left. Keep that in mind if they are armed or your boss.

We usually play to 1000 if we keep score at all.

Some terms we have developed that might help your play.

Drawing 2 threes in any turn is known as a "butt munch"
A single three is often known as a '1/2 butt munch' or for short: '1/2 butt'

If you pick up your foot after some asshole has gone out and you find 3 or more threes and/or jokers/aces hiding in there this is known as an "Rectal Smorgasbord" (I had it as "Anal Smorgasbord" and Jon, who coined the phrase, sent me the correction. Thanks Jon. BTW now both will show up as my blog on google)

Good luck.

Oh try and find a casino that will give you cancelled decks as it will save money.

Also if you suddenly feel like you've done something stupid, look knowingly and say to all the others "I have a system."

thats it.

This just in

Circuit city edges out Best Buy on supreme stupidity...

I was buying Tammy a replacement PDA. I'm an easy sale. I point at the $500.00 piece of electronic mobile goodness and I say "I want that one". Dude checks the computer and says, "We have 2" he then announces my total with tax and I give him my card. He runs it. We have some trouble getting the electronic signature thing working. He has to hold it just right and I have to write really fast. If you've seen me sign anything this is not a problem for me.

He then looks in the locked case for my unit. Notice how I use the word "my" see it became "my" unit when I fucking paid for it. Paid for it. PAID for it.

Not there.

Oh ya you take this receipt to the front and they will give you the unit, they are in the warehouse.

k

Dude who looks just like Rico on six feet under goes looking. He comes flying out of the back and goes to look in the same case signature man went through.

Then he goes back to the back with an encouraging word of "We'll find it!" as he passes me by. We're on like 10 mins now.

10 more mins go by.

He comes really flying out now... and says to me without stopping. I think it's on the other side of the store in the wrong department.

5 mins running around (i see his little rico head pop up here above the shelves very much like a whack-a-mole game works.)

Then he passes back to the warhouse again and I have my card out and he says "one more place to look" and i respond "if it's not there I want a credit so I can go to Best Buy". I was actually looking forward to getting to best buy.

The line above "We'll find it!" was as you can guess by now a lie.

So at least at best buy they know they don't have it (They didn't, had to go to compUSA). At circuit city they can't find thier asses with both hands.

I think it's on "Aisle Six"... "Aisle Seben"...

When a joke falls in the woods

I made a joke this morning and it was like a tree falling in the woods with nobody around. I was talking to some people I work with on the other side of the globe. (it was kinda late for them) and I said at the end of the conference call: "Be careful out there."

Nobody got it but me. Or they got it because hill street blues is big in India and the just don't think I'm funny.

Either way, I was amused. That's really what's important right? That I am amused.

I'm not a sports nut

I do like to follow the mariners... well sometimes

Check out the photo of their manager on this page.


Now go back there and look how many games back they are. As of right now when I wrote this they had just got their asses handed to them by some canadians. This put them just a mere 14 games back here at the start of July.

I think they should have a variety of photos of the man giving different emotions based on the direction of the trend and the absolute value of how far ahead(ha!)/back the team is.

Right now he should have a "I'mgonnalosemyfuckingjobanyminuteandlosemyhouse" kinda look.

I'm not a sports nut, but I am a geek.

HWBD

I wrote this stuff on the road. I haven't edited it or anything so it's of the usual and expected low quality...


Thursday

We got up kind of early for a vacation day. For me it was 6:00am and for Max it was the same. He and I went out and scored a geocache find. It was in a park that was super close to the house, but we didn't even know the wild life preserve existed in the north creek area.

From there we went home and hung out for a while and then went down to the market and saw Tom do a show. It was great. We got back to the car late and no parking ticket… We headed out to the science center and drove all the way around it using the nav system to find the carpool lot. We always liked that lot. I doubt we'll park in it again. We parked around 1:00pm

We had a nice lunch in the center house and then went into the science center. About 3:40 or so we lined up for Harry Potter. Even Sam enjoyed herself. Granted she spent a fair amount of time under her rain coat, but it was pretty scary. The dementors were pretty bad for someone her age.

After the Movie and a hard sprint to the bathroom with Sam we headed back to the car. When we walked up to it I saw it was unlocked and I thought "fuck I screwed up and left it unlocked" but no. I opened the door and called back to the back that the hatch was open and then I saw the dash looked funny. I said that the car had been broken into and people didn't believe me. I mean it sounds like a joke because you never think it's going to happen. The panel was peeled away from the dash and the lovely LCD screen that I had grown to love was gone. I was really upset for a few seconds. I about had a melt down. I had a rush of anger and hurt that was almost overwhelming. Tammy later said that I looked like I was going to cry and while I wasn't ever going to cry because the kids were there and it would scare them, I was certainly feeling pretty awful. The rent a cop security guy drove up and he was of very little help. He couldn't even tell the police dispatcher on 911 where the lot was. Talk about overpaid at minimum wage. The seattle center security guy came and filed his own report and was able to help get the officer where we were. He showed me how they had gotten into the car by simply slamming the lock out of it. Lots of skill there. I did feel better because that meant I hadn't screwed up and left it unlocked. Tammy had in fact locked the car. We inventoried what we'd lost and the bad news was Tammy's Sister's new video camera was among the loss. I felt horrible, it was brand new and $2000 of digital video electronics all wrapped up in a pocket size. The truly worst thing in the end was Tammy's wallet and hand held computer. Gone. We found her checks (the thieves were apparently unable to comprehend what they were). Max and Sam's build a bear gift certificates were left. Seems our thug punk ass mutherfucker inbreed aholes don't care for plush toys. Good. By the time the officer arrived I was all back together. My mantra was that nobody had gotten hurt. And the car had not been stolen. Yes for those of you who are wondering the keys were in fact in the car. Let me say that again, the keys were in it.

When the officer arrived it wasn't like in the movies. I totaled the loss for him quickly and he nodded and said don't touch the car. He asked us some questions about what we had touched and he fucking dusted for prints. I shit you not. I mean you always see on the movies where they the cops are apathetic and all, but not this guy he went over that car with a fine tooth comb and dusted and dusted and came up with exactly nothing. They are really looking for tools left behind by the aholes. He mentioned that they are hoping to put a bait car in that very lot to help. I'd like to point out that 3 other cars were hit besides ours. One of which had a fucking gun stolen. A gun. Under stupid? Jeezus fuck you idiot gun owner… what the fuck was that about? I mean a gun? In your car? So our punk kids are now armed punk kids. While I was talking to the insurance agency and the police offer Sam found Kristy and Eric's video camera. I felt so much better. Take my shit, I'm mad. Take a guest's beloved stuff and I was hurt and feeling very guilty. Now were back to my and Tammy's shit so I felt better.

We got home and went to the outback to eat. We were tired and driving the car wasn't very pleasnt and hey we didn't have to lock it! The food was great and we were so tired when we got home we just crashed.

Friday

Oh don't fuck with us. Can you stop us? No. can you slow us down by committing grand theft? Yes. Can you stop us? Nope.

Tammy and I were on a mission and that was to get our vacation back on track. Our first stop was state farm where we got the body work estimate on getting the car fixed. They gave us a check right then and there and they will replace the stereo as I have the receipt and they took a copy of it. We then headed to innovative audio and the body shop. Little innovative audio update: they went the fuck out of business. Made me feel real good about that 5 year warrantee on the labor, but whatever the ahole punkassmutherfuckeringstereotheivesfuckers destroyed the labor they did so it's really a moot point, don't you think? So next was the body shop. The guy at the body show was very nice and saw that the door was actually dented as well that wasn't on the adjuster's forms. So that's getting taken care of. He got us a rental car of the same size and we were on our way. We'll be getting the dash taken care of this week then Magnolia HiFi will replace the stereo with the same model. Next stop the DMV to get Tammy a new driver's license. We pulled #028… now serving #026. In and out in like 10 mins.

You can't stop us.

We wanted to leave at 9:00am. We left at noon. You can slow us down but you can't stop us. We had to adjust the rails on the rental Yukon to put the roof top on. I even had to call G for tech support on how to yank one of the back seats. We rock. Eric helped me by mounting the roof rack and loading it. 12:00 departure. 3 hours. We were catching up.

We did the fast food thing and there was some back and forth because Wendy forgot Sam's burger. Bitch. I was driving because by the time we left the fast food area I had finished eating. I ended up driving the whole way to long beach. It was getting kinda late when we got all settled in and we ordered a pizza. It sucked. We played hand foot. We didn't keep score just played hand by hand. Sleep came hard.

Today

We stared off with a cache find. Then we went to breakfast at Diane's. By the time we got there it was 11:00 am so we had lunch instead of breakfast.

We went south and down to Cape of Disappointment. Not sure why it was named that. We found another cache and I had an incident with the new gps that I don't really want to go into, but suffice to say I know what the low power behavior of the Rinos are. We couldn't find the last one. We went to Oregon after that. I drove over the 3 mile bridge at the mouth of the Columbia and we had supper in Astoria. After that we headed back and cooled off a little bit. We took the kids to Scooper's ice cream and I had peach ice cream. I couldn't bit the waffle cone so when I got down that far I had to throw it away. I packed up to get the 9:10 pm sunset photos. I hiked back down the dunes and got some good stuff. I learned a very valuable lesson, but my shoes are getting ahead of me again. I headed out with a full pack (almost full) and I lined up on the dune and I tried to line up a nice sunset in a few minutes. I decided to shoot out the roll and reload for the sunset. Um… you want to reload… take the fucking film. I left the film pack behind. I don't want to talk about it. I'll go out again tomorrow night. Then I decided to write all this up. So here ya go….

You win some lose you some.

7/4/2004

We got up and went to breakfast again at Debi's. (we keep eat there… see "lunch")

After that we came back to the room and Kristy and Eric were ready to roll. We drove up north and just did a car tour of the top of the peninsula then back down through oysterville… then back home. We walked from there into down town Long Beach and Sam, Max, Tammy and I went on a free horse drawn wagon ride. After that we ate lunch… at Debi's again. This time we were on the porch, it was very nice. I wish they had a frequent diner card.

We did the 'ride' thing and I played a game of Simpson's pinball. We headed back to the room and took a bit of a rest. Sam went to sleep and Max rested some but was then awake. Tammy fell asleep so Max and I took the dog out for a final cache hunt.

Not 30 yards from the room Timber started limping really bad. I took a look at his paw and there were all these thorns in his paw. He sat still while I removed them all. When I was done his paw was bloody but seemed ok. He seemed like he was walking fine so we took off again. One hint later we made two finds for the price of one. While it wasn't a multi cache it did have 2 locations of stuff. We found and signed both Logs.

We headed in and had sooo much sand in our shoes. I hate sand. We drew 3 inches of bathwater and we stood in there to rinse off the sand. Now we're prepping to try and get the next sunset. It's 8:25 right now and the sunset is 9:11

YayHoo Fireworks 2004

We went to the beach for the fireworks. We settled in on the dune where we were last night. Well the next dune over. We had the dog and the camera. I did some shooting with long exposures, but I have no idea if anything is going to come out. Imagine for a second a nice long beach. Like 3 or 4 miles of beach. Now throw in a whole bunch of red neck yay whoos who brought their own artillery. And beer. I saw more 12 packs headed for that beach than gumballs in one of those big ass gum ball machines. Lots of beer and fireworks. There were dune to dune yaywhoos.

As the sun set they were already shooting them off all over the place. I mean they just couldn't wait. It was still daylight and they were going to town. I have to admit I really like the shaped smoke trails it leaves in the sky. There were so many of those little clouds the stars (Arcturus in particular) seemed to be moving because the wind was so strong.

As it started getting dark the Amatuers Yay Whooo Pyro's (hereafter known as AYWP's ) got a move on. They were going nuts. Let me be clear here they were not so safe on the beach. Eric said when he got back from the beach that he thought there were more shells shot there than at Normandy in WWII.

At 10:00 the pro's started. At first the AYWP's didn't let up. I would have been pissed at first if I was a pro and the AYWP's wouldn't hold their fire. The pro's let them have it with a serious opening salvo and they were dazed or maybe they were shocked and/or awed. They didn't let up 100%. The pro's really went all out. Easily six figures in the 20 mins. It was really cool. Again I tried to shoot some stuff, but who the fuck knows if any of it is coming out.

The dog was fine. He hates it when we split up. He is a herding dog through and though and he can't stand it when we're apart. Sam was scared during but was fine as we walked back. The dog again was pretty fine as long as we were together. I only saw one ambulance leave, so that's good.

Got back home and put the kids and dog to bed. Had to hunt for my room key. I found it in the car. Good thing it didn't get broken into.

My kingdom for the internet.

oh if you got this far and you're still wondering what HWBD means its: Holiday Weekend Blog Dump.

Thanks for reading.

car trouble

Theives broke into the expedition this afternoon and really fucked up the dash. I know it's only money. But still. I'm really hacked.

oh the lock is missing as well