My wife has decided to join the ranks of bloggers by sharing her knitting and housecleaning adventures. She's been updating her blog every day, which is far more than I've been able to manage--though with my recent woodworking projects, I might be able to find something I'm interested in telling the world about. That or politics. Everyone loves to read about politics, right? :)
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Getting Settled in Boudler
Well, as anyone reading this has probably guessed, we arrived a while ago, and are well settled. Except for the boxes everywhere, which don't seem to unpack themselves.
I'm still working on getting my desk set up to be ideal, but that seems to be a journey rather than a destination, so I need to learn to stress about it less. My requirements for a desk are exacting enough that even if I did spend $500-$1000 on a "real" desk, I'd still end up modifying it--and if I'm going to be working on it, I may as well start with good materials. To that end, I'm meeting with someone on Friday who's going to show me some wood removed from bowling alley lanes as a possible desk surface, which sounds like it could be ideal.
Our old condo in the Bay Area sold last week, which is a weight off. I've been quite convinced for some time that the housing market was going to take a serious downturn. The Feds must agree with me, having lowered the rate by a half percent this week. I don't think that will stop the housing-crisis-in-progress, but we'll see. I thought it would crash a few years back, but serious rate reductions threw more fuel on the fire, and housing prices got even more phenomenally high, so we'll see what happens this time around.
Deborah has been canning things as a hobby, and luckily we have a garage for storing the fruits--and vegetables--of her labors. And I've started a new sport: Ultimate Frisbee. It's a lot of fun, but it's the kind of fun that leaves you sore for days...just long enough to last until the next time you play.
Otherwise we're still unpacking boxes, still flying out to San Francisco once a month for work, and still working on my community-building project. Life goes on.
I'm still working on getting my desk set up to be ideal, but that seems to be a journey rather than a destination, so I need to learn to stress about it less. My requirements for a desk are exacting enough that even if I did spend $500-$1000 on a "real" desk, I'd still end up modifying it--and if I'm going to be working on it, I may as well start with good materials. To that end, I'm meeting with someone on Friday who's going to show me some wood removed from bowling alley lanes as a possible desk surface, which sounds like it could be ideal.
Our old condo in the Bay Area sold last week, which is a weight off. I've been quite convinced for some time that the housing market was going to take a serious downturn. The Feds must agree with me, having lowered the rate by a half percent this week. I don't think that will stop the housing-crisis-in-progress, but we'll see. I thought it would crash a few years back, but serious rate reductions threw more fuel on the fire, and housing prices got even more phenomenally high, so we'll see what happens this time around.
Deborah has been canning things as a hobby, and luckily we have a garage for storing the fruits--and vegetables--of her labors. And I've started a new sport: Ultimate Frisbee. It's a lot of fun, but it's the kind of fun that leaves you sore for days...just long enough to last until the next time you play.
Otherwise we're still unpacking boxes, still flying out to San Francisco once a month for work, and still working on my community-building project. Life goes on.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
To Yosemite and Beyond!
After we visited the California Caverns we started our drive to Yosemite. The drive was uneventful, and we reached Yosemite close to dinner time, so we thought we'd enter the park, grab dinner, and go for a hike. Silly us.
We first took the free bus around to a restaurant in the park. Now on foot, we find that the first restaurant was closed--the quick sandwiches from a refrigerator we were hoping to grab were locked up and beyond reach. We thought we were lucky, though, because upstairs was a pizza restaurant; not ideal, but, well, we were hungry so we stood in line. For. A. Long. Time.
We weren't prepared for how slow it would be. It turns out that they were training new staff that night. Or I should say that one manager was training the entire staff. Each group in line took 5-6 minutes to place an order. About 9 orders and 50 minutes later, we finally reached the counter. Needless to say the food took a while as well.
By the time we finally managed to eat our food, the two hours we had alloted to spend at Yosemite were gone, it was getting dark, and it was time to move on--no hike for us, and $20 of park-entry-fee paid for a quick look at Half Dome, a couple glimpses of waterfalls, and access to a restaurant with terrible service. It would have been faster for us to have driven out of the park to a nearby town, eat there at a sit-down restaurant, and return. Live and learn.
We first took the free bus around to a restaurant in the park. Now on foot, we find that the first restaurant was closed--the quick sandwiches from a refrigerator we were hoping to grab were locked up and beyond reach. We thought we were lucky, though, because upstairs was a pizza restaurant; not ideal, but, well, we were hungry so we stood in line. For. A. Long. Time.
We weren't prepared for how slow it would be. It turns out that they were training new staff that night. Or I should say that one manager was training the entire staff. Each group in line took 5-6 minutes to place an order. About 9 orders and 50 minutes later, we finally reached the counter. Needless to say the food took a while as well.
By the time we finally managed to eat our food, the two hours we had alloted to spend at Yosemite were gone, it was getting dark, and it was time to move on--no hike for us, and $20 of park-entry-fee paid for a quick look at Half Dome, a couple glimpses of waterfalls, and access to a restaurant with terrible service. It would have been faster for us to have driven out of the park to a nearby town, eat there at a sit-down restaurant, and return. Live and learn.
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