Happy Birthday Suzanne!

Suzanne, I hope you have a great birthday and get through this weekend's work event.

In other news, David beat me at scrabble last night. I think his cautiousness is paying off and my impatience is costing me. The spread was about 50 points, I think. You'd think with all I read that I'd be able to come up with some good ones, but when you have RR LL NN and A in your hand...your options aren't fabulous for scoring well.

I'm going to lunch today with my co-workers and a woman from the National Science Foundation. I'm a little nervous. Sometimes I get tongue-tied in situations like this. We are going to get some feedback from her on an idea for a grant proposal. We've submitted 4 grant proposals this summer, and we are looking at submittng another one by January. Boy, I hope we get at least one of these! It would take some of the pressure off.

Last night while I was watching Smallville on the WB, I saw a preview for the Harry Potter movie. It looked awesome! Lots of cool images and fun stuff. I believe the movie opens in November, so it is coming up soon. I'm excited to see it. We'll definitely see that one on opening weekend!

Possible fun plans for the weekend: art show saturday night, greek festival sat. or sunday day

getting sucked back in...

I'm getting sucked back into TV now that they are starting to show new episodes. I quite enjoyed my summer when we didn't even turn on the TV most nights. But part of me really enjoys vegging out for an hour in front of the "boob" tube.

I know, I know, all I have to do is just not watch, or don't turn the TV on. But there are some shows that are my guilty indulgences. I really enjoy watching them. They are probably the worst shows on TV, but since we really only get 3 channels, I don't have much to choose from.

I need to get over this guilty feeling, and be okay with watching shows maybe twice a week? At what point do I become a total couch potato?

Interesting, amusing, frustrating, whatever…

Liz and I have repeatedly observed that there are an awful lot of people our age in Seattle who are driving luxury cars and living in $400,000 homes. On these occasions, we ask ourselves “what the hell are we doing wrong?” I mean…we’re pretty smart, right? Well, at least Liz is.

Anyway, I have found the answer. Check these articles out:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/15/pf/training_pay/

http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2005/07/14/overpriced-cities-lifestyle-cx_sc_0715home_ls.html

In case these links have expired, I’ll tell you the gist of the articles.

The first one identifies jobs with the worst return for your investment. It singles out three careers, and guess what…Liz and I have two of them! Architects and academic research scientists make the list for their substantial education requirements, the cost of this education, and the dismal salaries that are offered after all your time and effort.

Couple that with the second article, which identifies Seattle as the most overpriced city in the U.S. (for the second year in a row), and I think we have a winner…or loser, whatever.

Kind of makes you want to pull your hair out…maybe that’s why I’m so thin on top!

paddleboat

Check out this picture of a paddle boat that we saw last week. It was really weird to see something this huge on the lake. It sort of reminded me of Cincy's "tall ships' thing that they do.

I know grams and gramps loved the Tall Ships event in cincy.

Under Construction

Hey everyone,

I just thought I'd take a minute to share some images and photos of one of my projects that's currently under construction. I've spent a lot of time in design and production, so it's exciting for me to finally see things getting built.

This is the existing house before demolition. We often tear a house down to the foundation and build up again from there. That's actually considered a "remodel", even though you're getting a substantially new house.

These are examples of images that I create for a client during design development. This project had several looks before we arrived at what you see here.

Photos of the new house roughly 6 weeks after demolition. The windows have been delivered and will probably go in next week.

Photos of the east and south views from the master bedroom. You can see a substantial amount of Lake Washington and the Cascade mountains, looking east (all the upstairs bedrooms have this view). Mount Rainier, the Space Needle, Husky Stadium, and tops of downtown skyscapers are visible to the south. And the Olympic Mountains can be seen to the west. They've got it all.

I'll post more photos when the windows and siding are done. Also, I'll post some images for another one of my projects that's still in design development. It's going to be a handsome Dutch colonial...in other words, it has a gambrel roof. I'm really excited about that one.

Thanks,
David

good deals!

Just got back from the Seattle Public Library book sale. You'll be shocked at the deals we got.

We bought 46 books for 26.50!

David even found a book in perfect condition that he has been wanting for awhile and almost bought at barnes and noble last night for 8 bucks. Yep- that book was only 50 cents at the sale.

I was out of the office all day friday on the east side of washington for work, so I wasn't able to post at all.

I think I'll start putting the books away in the bookcase, and organize them into genre's or something like that. I'm excited!

quick rant

Yesterday I stayed home sick because I was feeling sick (go figure). At one point when I dragged myself out of bed I turned on the computer to check my email. It kept on saying no dial tone. I checked the connections to the computer and to the wall-all was fine there. So, I figured I'd call David and see if he had any smart ideas about what to do. Picked up the phone and...DEAD. It had no dial tone either.

At this point I figured it had to be a whole building problem so I went down to the condo of the association president and asked if her phone was working. It was. hummphfff! What was the problem? She loaned me her cell phone (yes-we are still in the dark ages without a cell phone) and I went up to call david and the phone company.

On my way up the stairs, I remembered that the condo below us is remodeling. So, I went and knocked on the door and very sweetly asked "You don't happen to be working with the phone lines do you?" He gave me a funny smile and asked "do you live above this unit". I said yes. He said that they had cut our phone lines. He took me into the unit and sure enough it looked like a ponytail of wire that had been cut off. He said they thought they might be extra wires so they cut them.

WHAT!!!! You don't just cut wires and not know where or to whom they belong?! Seriously! As david pointed out--what if we ran a home business? We would have had about 6 hours without any way to do business. What if I was working from home instead of being sick from home? Would they reimburse me for hours lost? No. It took about 6-7 hours for them to fix it.

The owner of the condo came up to our that evening and apologized for his contractor. Of course, the contractor blamed it on the owner and the owner blamed it on the contractor. The owner brought a nice red wine from south africa as an apology and he gave me a tour of his remodeling. I won't hold it against him ---and I would have been fine with it if we had known ahead of time. Wouldn't it make sense to let someone know there MIGHT be a problem with their phone lines on a day when you are cutting wires that are coming DOWN from another unit?

alright, so it wasn't a "quick" rant. But at least I got it out.

Birthday Shout-out to Mom!

Here's wishing my mom a wonderful birthday today! She's hard at work all day today, but she'll get to spend some time with Em and Mel this weekend.

Primaries

Today is the day to vote in the Primaries here in Seattle. David is an absentee voter, so he already sent his ballot in, but I haven't been signed up as absentee (although I would like to), so I have to go to the polls to vote.

Going to the polls was a fun experience the first few times, but it is more of a hassle now than anything. Have to find a place to park, have to find the place, have to wait in line. I really need to get signed up as an absentee voter.

Not much to report. Maggie is still itchy. Spoke to the vet today, they are going to try a steroidal spray first before going to oral steroids. So we'll have to spray twice a day for a while and then just once a day. I wish so much that we could figure out what is causing all this itching.

Made myself a list of things to do for this week. Right now there are 17 things to do. I'm hoping to accomplish about 90% of them. Better hop to it, huh?

Scrabble

I've never been a great scrabble player. I think it is because I lack patience. I don't want to sit around and stare at the board for 10 minutes to find the best possible play. I just want to find a reasonably good play and play it and move on. David and I played scrabble last night. It was fun, but it lasted way past my bedtime. I was thinking about making up rules for "speed scrabble". You have a buzzer that goes off every 4 minutes and if you don't have a play by then you lose your turn. I guess we should get better at the game before we start making it harder.

We are not scrabble aces by any means. No memorizing of 2 letter words, etc. But we did look in the dictionary under 'x' this morning while we were eating our breakfast. Funny..I can't remember any of the words I 'learned'. one might have been xebar? I'm not sure. Probably won't ever use one. Oh well.

A day without shadows

Walking to work today, I realized that we have begun the seasons without shadow. In the wintertime here (and sometimes fall), the sky is so gray that all light coming through is diffused and creates a situation where there are no shadows. It was raining this morning so that didn't help matters. But it wasn't a hard enough rain that I had to get out an umbrella. My waterproof coat with hood worked just fine.

I can't say that the whole day has been like that. The clouds have lifted and you can see some blue sky right now. That means that there are even some shadows out there. I personally prefer days with shadows, but I accept mornings like this morning as part of the cycle of nature in this part of the country. Without such mornings, we wouldn't have the lush greenery that is everywhere here.

Forecast calls for a weekend with shadows....Yea!

delayed

I was feeling pretty yucky yesterday and so I went home from work a few hours early and slept. Thus the reason I did not post. I was feel really nauseous, and I've decided it is from post-nasal drip. I don't know what to do about that, so I'm going to ask my doctor tomorrow. I could hardly sleep last night for feeling sick. Finally got the pepto out (should have done that sooner) and it kicked in after 30 minutes or so and I finally fell back asleep.

I'm getting pretty excited about the Seattle Public Library book sale that is coming up. Next weekend they have a huge book sale that fits in an airplane hangar. Most books are about a buck, but some are 50 cents. I only have 3 books left from the last sale I went to. I told david that this time we need to bring a rolling suitcase or something for me to put all the books in. Last year we had to buy a box for a buck and I ended up carrying it around with all my books in it. Not the most ergonomic solution-but the only option we had. But this time we can plan ahead!

Clearing my plate

Okay, maybe that is not the most appropriate title. Perhaps making some space on my plate fits better. I'm feeling pretty good today. I got two big projects off my plate at work, and I'm hoping to get another one off my plate tomorrow. It feels like it has been a productive day. YEA!

Of course, I still have about 7 other projects I'm working on...but finishing three of them is a good feeling!

I made lasagna for dinner last night. It was goooood. Maggie liked it too. Oh wait, she isn't supposed to eat lasagna for dinner. ;-) But she doesn't know that, and she sneaked into the kitchen and ate more than her share of it. There is still enough without doggie slobber to eat for one more night. Would you have tried to save the rest of the lasagna for another night? We were planning to eat off of it all week, so I had to try to salvage some of it!

Gross or smart?

Four O'Clock already!

This day has just flown by. I don't know how it got to be this time and how I still have so much to do. The day started off badly and I was just sort of feeling down and not great physically either. But I'm feeling better as the work day is drawing to a close. (Is there a connection here?)

We didn't do much this weekend. Rented movies, long walk/fetch sessions with Maggie, went out to dinner last night. We went to our favorite Mexican place, aptly called "Mexico". They were having a 9/11 remembrance ceremony. They had 4 violinists playing beautiful music, a bag piper, and the seattle firefighters who had a flag ceremony... and they darkened the dining areas more than usual and had extra candles out on the table. They had little note cards on the table to write a note to the firefighters, which we did. It was a nice dinner, although I probably ate too many chips!

And then I woke up this morning to the sounds of our downstairs neighbor demo'ing part of his condo. It was 7am for goodness sakes! That really made me crabby this morning. Maybe that is where the day went wrong.

Hopefully I'll be more chipper tomorrow and have a more uplifting post. I'm just not feeling 'it' right now.

Vancouver Pics

Here are some pictures from our trip to Vancouver.

The top picture is of the bridge we walked over on our way to Granville Island. More like a highway with a sidewalk than a pedestrian bridge, but oh well. See the rain clouds in the bridge picture? We got a bit wet walking home in that rain. Just above is the main market at granville island.

Part of the city with the marina and a cool bridge.

A picture of our view from the hotel room, looking toward the left

This is the view directly outside our hotel room. Right on Robson Street.

It's Yo Birthday!

Happy Birthday Emily!

I can't believe you are getting so old! Just yesterday you were playing dress-up for hours in the closet on Jessup Road ;-) And now you are getting your master's degree in architecture! You've come a long way baby!

Vancouver was great!

David and I had a great time in Vancouver. Even though it was a little rainy on saturday and sunday (we even had to buy an umbrella on sunday), we survived and didn't let it stop us from exploring the city. And boy did we explore on foot- we walked everywhere we went. No cabs or buses for us! We were on the 37th floor of our hotel and we had a great view of the city. (Jodi-it was like the view from the Mandalay Bay club looking out at Las Vegas) Here are some highlights from the trip.

Friday night was the Pearl Jam concert. They were great, and came out for 4 or 5 encores. We lost track after the 3rd encore. The arena was packed and everyone was super psyched to see Eddie and the band. One of the guitar players, Mike McReedy (sp?), reminded me so much of a younger Jim K. We just about got high off all the pot smoke from people around us who were smoking. I think it is decriminalized in canada which is why there was so much of it around. Since we didn't get to Vancouver until 5 or so, we only walked 9974 steps (4.09 miles) that day.

Saturday was our Granville Island adventure. We decided we would walk across the bridge to the island...and we didn't realize until we were more than half way across that the bridge takes us to way past granville island market. So we backtracked after we got off the highway, and added some more steps to our pedometers. The market was great. We ate lunch at a place there and then took the aquabus back to the other side of the city (we learned our lesson about walking across the bridge). Did more walking around Yaletown and Gastown in the evening. Total steps for me: 24169 (9.91 miles walked)

Sunday we were able to go into the shops and galleries we saw in Yaletown and Gastown the previous evening. We wandered around those areas, and went and saw the Constant Gardener movie that night. Steps: 19930 (8.17 miles walked)

Monday we went to Stanley park. At first we were going to just walk around a part of the park, but when we were on our way there we saw bike rental shops with tandem bikes. David said he always wanted to try a tandem bike, and I was up for it-so we rented a tandem bike and biked all around the edge of Stanley park. We also did a ride in the inner part of the park. The tandem was fun, although I was riding in the back so it was a little scary for someone else to be in control of all the important stuff. My butt is sore today. It has been a long time since I rode a bike. Since our pedometers don't count bike riding our count is bit lower : 11804 steps, and 4.84 miles walked. We also stopped by the new premium outlet mall on the way home (They have great big name shops!), and we found David a Seiko watch that he has been wanting. It is his first "grown-up" watch. We'll keep the old ironman watch with the plastic band for memories.

I had a great time and it was truly a wonderful anniversary trip. I'll post some pictures soon-but our camera ran out of batteries on saturday, so we don't have pictures of most of the trip. Thanks to all of the well wishers who sent anniversary congratulations. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Off to Canada

We are heading to Vancouver, BC this weekend for a little getaway to celebrate our anniversary. We are leaving tomorrow morning. David got tickets to Pearl Jam and we've got a hotel downtown so we can do lots of exploring the city. And lots of walking. I'm going to make sure I bring my pedometer so we know how much we have walked. We also bought me some new running/walking shoes last weekend, so those will definitely be going with us too. I'll be wearing my bright white gym shoes all over Vancouver!

We'll bring the camera so we can take pictures to post here. Won't be back until monday. I hope everyone has a nice labor day weekend, and that you get to do whatever it is that you want to do this weekend.

Katrina

I am so saddened by the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. I read that New Orleans might remain evacuated for 4-5 months! What will those thousands of people who lived there do in that time? Where will they stay? How will they make money (to afford to eat)? Because when it comes down to it, food and shelter are really the most important. If you don't have those things, the rest of it doesn't matter. A set of encyclopedia's or a collection of thimbles won't provide nourishment or shelter from the rain.

The devastation from this hurricane is the worst I have ever seen. A co-worker's family is in mississippi, and she said they would be without power for probably 4 weeks! Just imagine-truly imagine what it would be like to be one of those people who have just lost everything material from their lives and has no home. I won't ask you to imagine being a person who has also lost members of their family. But to be without anything but the clothes on your back-and to not have power, clean water, etc. My heart goes out to the people affected by this hurricane.

Kate and Fran are 1 year old

Hey everyone!

My father sent us these hilarious photos of his two golden retriever puppies on their birthday. Enjoy!

Go doggies, it's yo' birthday!
We're gonna party like it's yo' birthday!