theboywil

Day whatever Wednesday 13th May 2009

2009-05-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

A few pints after work makes me a drunk in the rain.

Fight Me....

2009-05-04T13:50:00.001-07:00

http://theboywil.mybrute.com

Day xxx - Wednesday 22nd April 2009

2009-04-22T22:05:00.002-07:00

I like big toys and I cannot lie...

Day 110 - Wednesday 15th April 2009

2009-04-15T13:19:00.010-07:00

We're off to see Paul Weller in a few hours... I'm quite excited...

It's a surprise for Sunny, a couple of months ago I asked her to keep the date free (and to make sure she wasn't out of town.)

Then a few weeks ago we were sitting in the pub enjoying a couple of pints and looking at one of Seattle's entertainment papers and she saw the advert (she had mentioned that she wanted to go when it was first announced, but then forgot.)

When she saw the advert her face lit up and she announced excitedly that she knew where we were going on April 15th, and pointed at the advert. So, as I didn't want to spoil the surprise I looked down at the page and noticed that the musical 'Cats' was also opening on April 15th. I put on my best "oh dear I've made a mistake" face and said that I had bought Cats tickets (as we both love our pet cats). Sunny assumed I was joking about the Cats tickets, which spurred me on to look sad and offer to sell the tickets on ebay and see whether there were any Paul Weller tickets left.

Being the great wife that she is, she bolstered up and said that Cats would be fun, all the time looking a little disappointed that we wouldn't be going to see Paul Weller.

So since that day I've not been able to drop the charade, to reveal the secret. I bought the special Paul Weller package (which is basically a couple of CDs and some badges) which I intended to give to her in preparation for the show, but not wanting to reveal that we are not going to Cats I've not yet given them to her.

I did mention that we maybe should wear black noses and whiskers to the fictitious Cats show. (Sunny joined in that we should wear cat ears headbands too, sounded quite excited...) So tonight we might have to wear the Cat ears (but I will stop the idea of black nose and whiskers..)

I am now slightly worried that the idea of the Cats show has grown on her, and that she will be disappointed when we walk to the other theatre...

I have been back and forwarding about whether I should reveal where we are actually going, so I figured if I write this up here now then Sunny may or may not see it before we go out, and therefore I have left it in the hands of fate as to whether she finds out before we actually leave the Elephant and Castle pub downtown and start walking the 'wrong' way.

Day 102 - Tuesday 7th April 2009

2009-04-07T21:13:00.003-07:00

Cycled to work this morning, without having to wear a fleece for the first stretch to Fremont (usually as you hit Fremont you hit the first of the small hills which warms you up enough).

And on the way home there was no Jacket Required, Just a nice Marmite cycling jersey... The sky had turned over by the time Sunny got home, which was sad, but gave us a perfect excuse to stay in, order a pizza and watch the Tale of Desperaux, which was really rather good... (Pretty looking any upliftingly fairytale-like..)

Day 101 - Monday 6th April 2009

2009-04-06T21:13:00.002-07:00

The weather is still fantastic, sad to spend a large amount of it in the office.

And sadder still to spend an hour of the evening sun after work at the bank, talking to a mortgage advisor to work out whether it was worth re-financing our mortgage to take advantage of the lower interest rates.

As we already have a reasonable deal on our mortgage it wouldn’t really gain us much partly due to re-financing/closing fees and partly due to the $300 per month PMI (private mortgage insurance) which due to the new rules we would have to pay. We didn’t have to pay when we bought the house due to slightly different rules and putting down a large enough deposit. So overall I think we have made the correct decision not to refinance.

We have made the positive step of setting up an auto-pay to increase the amount we are paying against the principle of our Mortgage, which effectively drops 15 years off the life of the mortgage. We’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but never quite gotten around to it. If in the future we can’t sustain the amount we are putting against the principle we are not committed to it so can cancel/reduce it at a moments notice.

The thought of being mortgage free in 13 years instead of 28 years is very uplifting/exciting.

Day 100 - Sunday 5th April 2009

2009-04-05T21:12:00.001-07:00

Today was a great day.

Woke up early (partly due to our bedside clock being one of those which adjusts itself automatically for Daylight Saving. Sadly it does it based on calendar, and as the daylight saving date shifted a couple of years ago it doesn’t take this into account. So even though we are already on Summer time, the clock sprang forward an hour.) We knew before we got out of bed that this had happened, but that first start of looking at the clock and assuming that we had slept later meant that we were up.

Having been sick we have fallen off with the running, so we quickly dressed and headed out to pound the pavement in the beautiful sunny almost summer feeling morning. The smells of the trees blooming, and the feeling of spring life starting was wonderful. I insisted on only doing our standard short run up to the overlook of golden gardens. The sound/ocean was looking really pretty with the twinkling sunlight on the water, (this means we only ran four miles, but four miles is better than a skipped run.)

We got home and had a nice chat with my folks over skype then went for a summery walk down to Ballard, it was nice to see the farmers market packed with people who, just like us, were clearly enjoying the warmth and the sun.

Lunch comprised of a Carrot Cupcake for me, (as Mum asked that I have one for her) and a Chocolate cupcake for Sunny (which was for Dad, as there were no Pretzels available). The Cupcakes were from Cupcake Royale, as Mike & Alison’s heavenly bakery didn’t have a stall on the market (which was as we had expected).

We headed home, and spent the afternoon enjoying the Sun in backyard, listening the BBC Radio 4’s Saturday and afternoon plays, streaming from the iPlayer… (I am so happy that most of Radio 4 is available to listen to online and onDemand.)

I had been hankering for a good old fashioned Sunday Dinner, so that’s what we had for our evening meal. Roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, Carrots, Peas, beans and half a veggie burger all drenched in onion Bisto (which my parents brought over last year).

Great day…

Day 99 - Saturday 4th April 2009

2009-04-04T21:11:00.001-07:00

Woke up bright and early this morning, with a huge desire to be practical and do stuff. Over the past two years the pantry has become a disorganized mess of cans, sauces, pasta & all general foodstuffs… Today was the day to empty it, clean it and restock it in an organized manner.

It now looks wonderful, is totally organized, isn’t rammed full (but has more stuff in it than before…)

As we were going through it we made shopping lists and went out shopping. The precise lists meant we had a super efficient shopping trip in the afternoon

Drove to IKEA to exchange a broken light plug from a few weeks ago, just walked in, got it done and walked out; all in less than 10 minutes.

We then went to the Big Wall Mall which is around the corner from IKEA (and is effectively a huge Asian supermarket). We often spend a long time wandering round trying and buying new stuff, but not today. Efficiently walked in stocked up on coconut milk, sushi vinegar, sushi nori and cans of weird tofu based fake meat (all off our shopping list) and were out of there in again roughly 10-15 minutes.

Headed back towards Ballard, knowing that we had the horror of Costco at a weekend to encounter before we got home. (Costco is kind of like a Cash and Carry bulk items type store when canned food comes in slabs of 10, everything in Costco is sized large. It is open to the public, and usually best avoided at busy times). With our shopping list in hand we grabbed a trolley and went directly to each item on the list grabbed it and moved on. We lucked out on a reasonably short line, and while this in and out wasn’t quite 10 minutes it was significantly shorter than any previous visit.

Then to Fred Myer for Baked Beans, it’s unbelievable to a Brit that the vast majority of baked beans in the States contain either bacon or some other meat product. So even though they did have a nice cheap 12 pack of beans at Costco they happily declared that they had the extra flavour that only bacon fat can deliver. L In the UK I would assume that Beans are vegetarian, where as over here, we have to make sure that we pick up the special ones which are marked ‘vegetarian’ as their flavour…

Our final stop on this shopping spree was the Liquor store to replenish our Vodka and Rum stock… (In Washington State the only place where you can buy spirits, or ‘Hard Liquor’ as they call it, is from state owned and operated Liquor stores. Supermarkets carry beer and wine…)

I got carded (which is pretty standard, as I was buying), but the clerk also wanted to see Sunny’s ID as we were obviously together, so she had to come over to the checkout to show it… We must have been looking so youthful.

Day 98 - Friday 3rd April 2009

2009-04-03T21:11:00.002-07:00

Friday, Friday, Friday…. Sooooo looking forward to a weekend of taking things easy and doing a bit of house work (two sick people is a good excuse as to why the standard household tasks have been getting less attention than they need for the last week or two)

Xbox is fixed/replaced, the repair status has been updated and the warranty has been extended, hope they have sent me a new one with the Jasper chips inside it (doubtful, but at least it should have all the new heat sync stuff that mine didn’t have).

Day 97 - Thursday 2nd April 2009

2009-04-02T21:10:00.002-07:00

Sunny stayed home safe and sound in bed today. I trundled through my day… My xbox has finally got to the repair shop in Texas… Yay….

Day 96 - Wednesday 1st April 2009

2009-04-01T15:03:00.005-07:00

I heart Magenta Day for spirit week… The day Sunny had been looking forward to, here she is on the way to work.

Wednesday is also her big day of meetings so the poor sick thing is going to have to make it through the full day.

Seattle had snow again today (here’s a pic from my office window, can’t really see the snow, but it is there mixed with rain..)

Day 95 - Tuesday 31st March 2009

2009-03-31T21:02:00.001-07:00

I feel better (finally) Sunny is getting worse (sadly)

Today is Twins day for spirit week. So my lovely wife wore her standard clothes including a nice Pirate t-shirt. We have two of these Skull & Crossbones shirts one ‘Female’ cut and one ‘Male’ so she took the other one in for her Twin to wear.

I had bought the male version some time last year, (Sunny already owned the female), however I acquired it when it was on sale and they only had Mediums left. Now I can usually fit into a medium male shirt, maybe a little too snuggly, but as I was intent on losing weight I thought it would be worth the $2-3 that it cost.

When we got it home and I tried it on, it soon became apparent that this was a skinny fit medium intended for teenager, and was maybe always going to be a little too snug to ever be appropriate for a guy travelling through the early years of his late 30s…

Sunny made it through to lunchtime before heading home to her sick bed.

Day 94 - Monday 30th March 2009

2009-03-30T21:01:00.002-07:00

Felt poo at work, but good enough to stay all day. Sunny helped organize a “Spirit Week” at work to lift morale. (Spirit Week is apparently a common high school thing over here in America).

Even though she was in a less than ideal state she wanted to go in. She looked amusing as the first day of Spirit Week was a wear your Pajamas to Work day. So there she is with a head full of cold, red runny nose walking around in nice leopard print flannel PJs and a black dressing gown… Looking to the entire world like she was too sick to actually get dressed :-)

My wife is Ace…

Here is a picture of a massive bridge being floated across the sound

Day 93 - Sunday 29th March 2009

2009-03-29T21:00:00.004-07:00

The morning was Sunny and nice (if a little cold), so we thought it would be a nice idea to get out and get some fresh air. We didn’t really have too much of a plan of where to go, so pointed ourselves towards Alki & West Seattle.

On the way the idea of North Bend became more appealing, pretty little town surrounded by greenery, a few antique shops, not a huge amount of walking but a lot of feeling as though we are away from the big city.

North Bend also happens to be the place which is known to millions of TV viewers as Twin Peaks.

It’s not very far away… 47 minutes by car

Halfway there (and as we gained altitude) it suddenly became apparent that over the hill the weather wasn’t quite the crisp clear sun that we had woken up to. In fact North Bend had received a coating of snow overnight.

Needless to say, two sick people looking for a little walk (wearing sandals) were not going to do much pleasant wandering on the slushy sidewalks. So we basically turned around and had a quick look around the outlet mall on the edge of town (bought nothing). Then headed back to Ballard, where the sun was still out, and had an afternoon of Hot-Tub and watching the fantastic 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express (which we had picked up from the library on Wednesday).

Day 92 - Saturday 28th March 2009

2009-03-28T21:59:00.001-07:00

We had tickets for Tricky at the Showbox tonight (with Steve and Judy). When Allisen texted to ask if I was looking forward to the show it prompted me to make the decision that the last thing that sounded like fun was an evening of beer and loud music in a crowded room full of people. Sadly while I am getting better, Sunny has finally picked up my sickness, and that sealed the deal.

We had a nice early night rather than going to see the guy who made one of my top ten Albums of all time (Maxinquaye)

Day 91 - Friday 27th March 2009

2009-03-27T21:57:00.001-07:00

This sickness is getting less day by day, but still needs a nice big Alieve-D to get me through the day.

Day 90 - Wednesday 25th March 2009

2009-03-25T21:56:00.002-07:00

Feel horrible… Stayed at home sick with a totally blocked head, I did get up at one point as UPS dropped off the box for me to send my xbox to be fixed. Even the idea of walking down to sip and ship felt like it would be too taxing.

The Cats seem to be able to sense my need of a nurse, and stayed close and affectionate all day.

When Sunny got home I did finally make it out of the house and she drove us down to drop of the xbox, visit the library and pick up a couple of cupcakes… (Yummy Irish Cream cake..)

Day 89 - Tuesday 24th March 2009

2009-03-24T21:55:00.001-07:00

We went to lunch for Judy’s lunch, Jeremy sounded awful, with a head full of cold… After lunch both Judy and I started to feel very blocked up. :-(

Day 88 - Sunday 22nd March 2009

2009-03-22T21:21:00.002-07:00

We woke up nice and early, I couldn't bear the thought of a long run, but a short wasn't such a dreadful prospect. I put it to Sunny we should do our standard 3 - 4 mile circuit and she agreed, we set off trotted around and completed the circuit in good time.

Almost as soon as we had finished it started to rain (but not before I'd trimmed back the Raspberry bushes). We spoke to Mum and Dad (Happy UK mother's day Mum..) I tidied while Sunny went through he annual tax fun for the rest of the morning. We then spent the rest of the day happily lounging around on the couch with either Reno 911 or Buffy Season 1 playing in the background... (Sunny had never watched Buffy and after seeing Twilight I was inspired to go through the whole Buffy saga from beginning to end again..)

Day 80 - Saturday 21st March 2009

2009-03-21T19:14:00.000-07:00

And the inevitable happens.... After just under two years, (as I bought the xbox 360 Elite on the day it was released, April 29th 2007) I get my Red Ring of Death... :-(

Luckily there is a three year warranty, but the customer service was just as irritating as I had been led to believe. (I did try to do the online request for repair, but somehow my xbox was registered and registered to me, but not displaying in my online account, forcing me to call and speak to an actual person) Spelling and respelling my name, explaining that even though I registered at a different address that I now live somewhere else, and sending the return box to the registration address would be useless, trying to work out why the machine that I registered was showing as registered and registered to me, but not actually visible when I logged into my account online (I had to give up on that and phone back and speak to a few people to get that resolved..) etc etc.

Still, I now have my packing box on the way to me, and hopefully the return process with be no more irritating than a couple of trips to the UPS office..

Day 79 - Friday March 20th 2009

2009-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

First day of Spring, my Arse... Was sitting in a meeting looking out of the 27th floor window over the sound, and thinking that we would defiantly be running outside (I hate running on a treadmill in the gym), it was lovely somewhat clear sunny day. The meeting took 90 minutes and in the course of 90 mins the weather had changed from the nice to torrential rain and thunder, which then passed to a mostly clear (but threatening) sky and strong winds... We ran on a treadmill in the gym...

Day 78 - Thursday March 19th 2009

2009-03-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

Today was a grumpy day... At least I managed to talk us out of going for a run, and went to the pub instead...

Day 77 - Wednesday March 18th 2009

2009-03-19T07:17:00.001-07:00

I was listening to Julie and Julia on the way home, and decided that it would be nice to visit Carmelita's on Greenwood (especially as Wednesday is half price on all of their wine selection). I waited for Sunny to get home, and told her to get changed out of her work clothes and that we were going for a walk.

We Meandered around until we reached Phinney Ridge (where Sunny thought we would be hitting La Chupacabra, and was slightly dismayed when we walked past). Then down to Carmelita's, where not only was the wine half price but they have a 3 for 30 special running in March so starter, main and dessert are $30. We started by sharing standard (and fantastic Antipasti platter) then I had the special which was stinging nettle ravioli in a lemon sauce topped with shaved fennel and Sunny had a squash flatbread pizza. To end we had (again our standard) chocolate Muck Muck to share. Yum yum yum yum....

Then headed on back home to another couple of glasses of wine, a hot tub and a listen to a BBC Radio 4 afternoon play...

A great Wednesday night.

(And sorry to Alan that even though I had sort of arranged for him to pop around for a few games of Scene-it, which had totally slipped my mind as I was hatching the Carmelita's plan)

Day 76 - Tuesday March 17th 2009

2009-03-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

We watched Milk tonight, it was a fantastic movie, and makes me really sad that this country has a very recent history of passing anti-discrimination laws and then repealing them following public votes.

(I am reasonably new to the country and so believe that it is somewhat valid to be finding out about recent history through hollywood)

I used to believe the referendums were the simple/fair way to make descisions in a democracy, but with the proposition 8 situation (and seeing, through Milk, that the recent Prop 8 debacle is nothing new) I can't help thinking that the majority can not be trusted to make descisions about the how the minorities live, especially when that 'living' does not grant them the same basic rights and protections that the members of the majority take for granted.

Day 75 - Monday March 16th 2009

2009-03-16T22:27:00.002-07:00

I can't say that I am enjoying work at the moment, we are in the process of converting and closing down; so it is not expected that anyone will be in the most positive of mindsets, but sadly I am allowing my lack of enjoyment spill over into worrying outside of work too.

Need to work on my positive mental attitude as Linford would say...

:-)