What Lies Beneath...the fridge

PB and I did some serious demolition yesterday. We removed the dishwasher and fridge, after taking off some molding and part of a cabinet. The dishwasher was not as hard to take out as I thought it would be. The fridge was a real bitch to move because it was completely wedged into its space with no give -- that's why we had to take off molding around the doorway and floor. I also removed the wooden backsplash. The caulk/glue that was on that stuff was pretty serious.

Anyway, I think I counted five large spider carcasses (carci?) behind the dishwasher and fridge. And there was about a pound of hair and dirt (and golden retriever fluff from the previous owners) underneath the fridge, caught in the grill. Yuck. Also, there was about 76 cents and several family photos from a previous family.

More kitchen arrivals

Tomorrow our new appliances arrive. Yay! Dave the Handyman has almost finished moving outlets around and putting in light fixtures. We removed an upper cabinet to discover a giant hole in the drywall behind it. We took down the microwave cabinet to discover that the oven fan wall duct was made out of a couple pieces of duct tape. Get it, "duct" tape? Har...

The new cabinets are still sitting in the garage. The flooring company called and the marmo click is on its way. I'm getting ready to paint and patch and sand and clean....

On Thursday PB and I are heading off to Portland for an ultrasound with our fertility doctor. This will probably be our last appointment with him, since we have a local midwife. I'm going to miss him -- he was a really nice guy and great doctor. I was uneasy about having a male doctor for this, but he has been very good to us.

After the appointment, we head to Seattle for the long weekend. PB is attending a training about how to do appeals for veteran's benefits cases. I thought it sounded interesting and was thinking about going to it, but it requires that you agree to take on a pro bono veteran's case. This would be ok, except the brochure said the typical time investment is about 50 hours. I don't even have 50 minutes to spare most day!

TGIF

So it's 6 am and I'm at work. I had to drop PB at the airport - she's taking a day trip to Portland. There's work I should be doing, but hey, it's 6 am. Today I'm expecting to have to do a Grand Driving Tour of Central Oregon, featuring the best sites in all five major cities -- the Jefferson County jail, the Redmond airport (twice), the Crook County courthouse (twice), Anthony's fishhouse in Bend's Old Mill district (for my buddy's going away lunch party from work -- everyone gets lobsters to compensate for the lack of a salary increase this year), and my lovely under-construction home in Sisters. I should be able to make good progress on my latest audiobook (HMS Surprise -- yes, another Patrick O'Brian novel).

I'm grateful that it's Friday. And I'm extremely grateful that my coworker is returning next week. I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be to staff this little office by myself for a month. TGIF, if I believed in G.

On the remodel front, I wrestled with Sears about delivering our appliances. They can only be delivered during some inconvenient time, such as Wednesday between 7 am and 7 pm. Doesn't a typical Sears customer have to work? I mean, those appliances won't pay for themselves.

Last night we removed all of the old upper cabinets in the kitchen. It wasn't too difficult, except they were grossly dirty. We took down the microwave and the stupid useless grease-collecting cabinet above it. Whose idea was it to install microwaves over a stove? I think that's lame. Anyone want some free used cabinets and appliances? Anyone?

They're heeeeeere!

Yay! Our new cabinets have finally arrived. They look great in their cardboard boxes, all 30 or so of them. Now we need to get on the stick and get ready for installation. This is kind of complicated and involves moving electric outlets around, checking the floor height to see if the cabinets need to be raised vis-a-vis the new flooring, having the new appliances here so the cabinets can be fit to them, and removing the old cabinets and appliances. Oh, and finding a place for all of our kitchen crap. That last one could be tricky.

So where are we in this giant to-do list? Um, well, I did some of the dishes this morning. And Dave the Handyman is coming by either today or Friday to do some outlet moving and miscellany. The appliances are ordered and arrive on Friday allegedly. And that's it so far.

As an aside, isn't it funny how cats will do whatever they can to get your attention? While I've been typing, Nutmeg was in my lap trying to bite my hands (a charming habit). Then she got up on the desk and placed her little furry body in between the keyboard and monitor, directly in front of the screen. She just stood there and looked at me until I moved her out of the way. Pest. I love this cat, despite her annoying faults (like biting, trying to get into my dinner plate, and rubbing her gums on everything including beer and water bottles). Last night she ate a moth and I let her lick my face anyway.

An evening with David Sedaris

Tonight PB and I went to see David Sedaris at Bend High School. The best part about going to see him is his voice -- you really don't expect a voice like that to come out of his body. He read stories I hadn't heard before (except for one) and had some fun commentary and audience q&a. There's really no way to describe him except "hilarious."

It's been a busy week. The kitchen remodel is about to happen. Cabinets and appliances and flooring have all been ordered and get delivered this week (well, the flooring? who knows at this point). Then it's a whirlwind few days without a kitchen. Hopefully just a few days.

Work is completely insane, but my coworker returns in a week. I just have to make it a few more days, then my job goes back to its normal level of crappiness. As opposed to the insane craptasticness it has been for the past month.

Iditahazard

Here's a cool picture that PB forwarded to me. It appeared in a newspaper story recently in the Juneau Empire.

According to the story, a young woman training for the Junior Iditarod was out running her dog team on the road just outside of Nome when they came upon a herd of musk ox crossing the road. As you can see, the oxen were annoyed and at least one ox charged some of the dogs. A couple dogs had minor injuries, but the woman and her friend the photographer were able to get the dogs back and away safely. As part of the training, the dogs were pulling her truck, so the women jumped out and put all of these dogs in the truck bed and drove off. Never a dull moment in Nome!

Lazy

Wow, what a week it's been! Work has been super-crazy. Did I mention my co-worker is away in France for a month? She deserves the vacation, but that leaves me all alone covering the office. I have twice the caseload I normally have. I also have several people in jail -- meaning I have to drop everything I can to try to resolve their cases quickly. Oh well. I knew it was going to be like this.

So now that it's the weekend, I am totally unmotivated to do anything. PB is happy and healthy. We had an ultrasound on Wednesday. Only one baby! Yay!!! The doctor said he refers to embryos at this stage as "Uncle Bens" because they're about the size of a grain of rice. According to one of our books, by this weekend it's about the size of a chocolate chip. Always food. Anyway, very exciting.

I got disk 1 of the first season of Heroes from Netflix. Good show, so far. Hiro is my current favorite character (this is probably intentional on the writers' part -- his name after all is Hiro). Speaking of names, do you think this is a reference to Hiro Protaganist, the character from Snow Crash? I love Neal Stephenson's books, though I burned out on his Baroque Cycle and stopped right in the middle of the second volume (the Confusion). I was too exhausted to continue.

Lunch break

So I've indulged my bad fast food habit, and here I sit at my desk, wolfing a quarter pounder with cheese and surfing the internet. My pants are getting tighter -- but maybe that's my imagination?

I didn't realize it, but McDonald's is having their annual (?) Monopoly promotion. So I'm sipping my dr. pepper and staring at the game pieces stuck to the side of the cup. A woman on the other side of the cup pronounces that she won $50,000 and that even small town girls can win big. Along the top of the cup, cleverly concealed by the lid, is some smudged fine print that I can't read.

I'm going to see if I can get through the day without unpeeling the game pieces to see if I won. Take that! I wonder how long I can last before curiosity kills me. There, I just threw the cup away.

Oblivion: first impressions

Along with my new xbox 360, I purchased the fourth Elder Scrolls (aka "Lizardface") game -- Oblivion. My first impression is twofold -- the graphics are an incredibly major improvement over Morrowind, and I feel a little overwhelmed at the scale of the game. There's a lot to take in and the first several hours of gameplay I spent exploring around and experimenting.

I'm impressed and sucked in to the gameworld already. Oblivion seems more polished than Morrowind -- more thought-out, somehow. I admit to "gaming" my character a little bit. I get OCD when I play games like this -- I strive to complete every quest and collect every knick-knack and gee-gaw. I can't help myself. So, when I created a character, I have deliberately made it so that I will gain levels slowly. The enemies in the game are supposed to "level" as the main character levels, meaning their toughness increases and their equipment gets better to track with the main character. Right now I would prefer to explore without getting my ass kicked too severely.

So I've made a character that levels up whenever I get skill increases in block, blades, heavy armor, destruction, and restoration (a spellsword -- fighting mage type character). However, I am actually playing the game as a sneaky, back-stabbing, fast-talking, light-armor-wearing, blunt-weapon-using rogue type character. This will ensure a slow level-up process while I explore the world and get my feet wet.

Is this "power gaming"? Or am I playing the game within the game -- the inevitable stat-tweaking and inventory shuffling that occurs in every computer rpg. The fact is, after the introductory dungeon at the beginning, the game recommended that my class be Acrobat, but I chose Spellsword. Why? It sounds cooler.

Prime Suspect - The Final Act

We watched Prime Suspect season 7 this week and it is Teh Shit! It was so good. Helen Mirren's emmy or whatever it is that she won for this was richly deserved. The best part about season 7 is that it incorporates characters and storylines from earlier seasons. It's a very rewarding experience for viewers who have watched all of the previous episodes. I would highly recommend watching the earlier seasons (even the first one, on the grainy no-frills dvd) first, if you are new to the series.

It had a great story, with fantastic acting and tons of twists and turns. This season brings Inspector Jane's alcohol problem to a head. Jane finally retires after one last twisty case. It was a fabulous way to end this series, although I was sad to see it go. Amazing that the first season was 15 years ago.

So cute!!

There's a post at Boingboing today about some unusual, yet super-cute baby Halloween costumes. Here's the link:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/11/tree-air-freshener-a.html

You owe it to yourself to look at the "Peep" costume. There's also a little infant chili pepper costume and one shaped like a hot dog. Adorable!

Edit: Figured out how to post the peep picture. yay!

Mystery solved

The mysterious skin problem I developed recently has been diagnosed by my nurse practitioner as pityriasis rosea, a common harmless noncontagious skin infection. What causes it? Nobody knows, but apparently it could be viral. Also, it's extremely common, though I've never known anyone else who had it. For more info, check out the link (no, the picture doesn't look like what I have, although the nurse said I had a "textbook case" of it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pityriasis_rosea

PB has started calling me "specky." It doesn't hurt or itch, but it's highly annoying that I will be covered in spots for the next 4-6 weeks.

The going rate...

A couple days ago I was appointed to the first prostitution-related case I've ever had. It would probably surprise you to learn that the going rate for hetero intercourse in Troutdale is $100. Interesting, in a kinda gross way.

We can get civil unionized!!!

Today's big news is about the failed effort by a group (lightly labelled "anti-gay") to get a referendum on the ballot regarding the civil union bill recently signed into law. This means the law will go into effect on Jan.1, 2008, as planned. If someone wants to vote on it, the petition drive will have to start over again next year. By that time, it will be too late. Bwa-hahaha!!

Here's a link:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/10/domestic_parternship_opponents.html

To say I'm surprised that the petition drive failed is an understatement. Oregonians like to have ballot initiatives about every freakin' thing.

In other news, I had to get a flat tire fixed. This involved the folks at Les Schwab breaking off one of my highly annoying (because I don't have the key) wheel locks. Cost of this enterprise? $20 for a replacement socket. I love Les Schwab.

In yet other news, I have a strange, possibly fungal-derived rash all over me. It looks like chicken pox spots. Oh goody.

w00t!

Today I broke down and bought an xbox 360. PB and I were out shopping for appliances, but we heard from the helpful salesgirl that there's going to be a bigger sale in a few days. So we decided to wait. To ease our spirits, PB said we should get an xbox. I feel guilty about dropping such a chunk of change on something so frivolous, but on the flip side it is something I enjoy and will probably suck up a good bit of my future life.

Yesterday we got a new water heater. Not too exciting, I know, but when your water heater breaks, you are damn glad to see a new one. It was a painless installation with friendly plumbers.

Top songs about lost women

I was thinking during my commute this morning about songs that have to do with women who live their lives boozing down at the bar. I came up with these great songs that have to do with that subject. Typically, they are all country songs. I'm sure there's some rock and roll songs that have the same topic, but I couldn't think of any. Rock songs about alcohol usually have a celebratory or encouraging tone, but the songs I'm thinking of are more cautionary. Also, it's hard to find songs about alcohol (or drugs) that focus on women.

So here's my list:

1) Queen of the Silver Dollar -- Emmylou Harris
2) Dim Lights, Thick Smoke -- performed by Ricky Skaggs
3) She's More to be Pitied than Scolded -- performed by Ralph Stanley & friends

The song She's More to be Pitied is actually an old folk ballad, probably dating at least to the turn of the 19th century. I found some old-fashioned lyrics online that are pretty amusing, but would be hard to sing in a modern style. The Stanley version is much better.

I would have posted a top five if I could have come up with five songs. Any suggestions?

EDIT: PB suggested "Little Maggie," a great bluegrass song. "Yonder stands Little Maggie, with a dram glass in her hand." I'm not sure whether this is a cautionary tale -- I'll have to think about it.

Loooooonnng day

So it's 1:40 pm. I just finished lunch. I've been up working since 4 am, and I've been in court from 9 am until 1 pm. Now I have to go back to court for some more bullshit. I'm not sure that I get paid enough to do this.

Rome season 2

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Guitar class again

I did in fact make it to the second installment of my guitar-making class. A few people in the class were like me -- not really sure if they were going to continue with the class. My expectations were pitched pretty low for today's class, and I actually had a lot of fun. We did nothing except bullshit about random guitar stuff for three hours. We also looked at some design plans a few of us actually completed, and we looked over some wood samples. There was a cool wood called cocobolo (spelling?) -- very hard and dense, heavy as a gold bar and probably costs as much.

I got a guitarmaking book over the weekend -- strictly steel-string and classical-style acoustic guitar-making. I think I want to make a little parlor steel-string guitar. Parlor guitars are tiny compared to a typical acoustic. It seems like a complicated process, but also fun. We'll see.

In other news, it looks like we need to get a new hot water heater. The one we have started to leak a little bit just a few days ago. The beginning of the end. So maybe we'll get a solar heater, or maybe one of those tankless ones.

finally

Yes, it's true. PB is finally pregnant, after about 18 months of trying (well, only 12 of those months were with a doctor's help, so the other months don't really count). This is very exciting, and does not yet seem quite real. I just hope everything goes well and that mom and baby stay healthy. Yeah!

Exciting news

We got some exciting news on Friday. Let's just say that one of our long-term projects has come to a successful conclusion. More news to come!

deer-proofing update

I was looking at some of my older posts and came across the one about the new plants we put in on Labor Day. For the record, the deer did not eat the barberry or the Russian Sage. However, they ate the Echinacea down to the ground and pretty much did the same to the ordinary sage plants. So, no more echinacea for sure, because they really seemed to like it. I can't figure out why they eat the sage but not the russian sage. Sage smells a lot stronger than russian sage, so it doesn't make any sense. But, as I said in the original post, deer are stupid.

So we bought more barberry and grasses to replace the nibbled up plants.

One project down...

Dave the Handyman finished painting the outside of our house today. It's a nice shade of forest green, just like it was before, only less faded and much less crappy-looking. Dave did a nice job and completely underbilled us for the job. It took him twice as long to do as he thought it would, and he still asked for his estimate price. He also installed some new outdoor light fixtures.

Apparently the work has paid off with the neighbors already. Dave said a couple of guys walked by and said they loved the color of the house. Well, as I mentioned above, IT'S THE SAME COLOR! But I guess it stands out more now because the paint is fresh and everything looks clean and bright.

We're thinking now we will order Marmoleum "click" and do our kitchen floors ourselves instead of hiring a professional installer to lay down a Marmo sheet. It was just too pricy, plus we'd have to put in a new plywood subfloor. Too much.

First impressions: Build a Guitar class

Last night I went to the first meeting of the guitar-building class that I signed up for with the local community college. It was definitely not what I expected. First of all, to say that I'm in over my head is putting it mildly. Second, it seems that many other people in the class are in a similar boat.

There's an odd mix of people in the class. There are two people taking the class who have made instruments before. One, a guy, went to a luthier school in 1983, but dropped out. The other, a woman, is hardcore and has made a dulcimer and a banjo -- also she mentioned casually that she has built a boat. O...K..... Then there's a old scrawny dude who knows everything about electric guitars and how they're made. There's another woman, who brought her 10-year-old daughter to be bored to death, who neither plays guitar nor has any woodworking experience. Then there's the rest of us, with a varied background in guitar-playing and wood.

I must confess, I'm a "work the plan" kind of person when it comes to projects like this. My ideal experience would be a box of lego pieces with a little plan sheet showing exactly which brick goes where. This, however, is not going to be that kind of experience. First of all, there is no plan. We're supposed to figure out what kind of guitar we want to build, and then draw up a design. Uh, right. Second, I imagined that I might build an acoustic guitar, something I might play. Now I find out that acoustic guitars are insanely difficult to make, and that the class is geared more towards electric solid-body or semi-acoustic (eg an archtop) guitars. I know squat about electric guitars and how to play them.

So my task for next Monday is to design the guitar I'm going to make and sketch a full-scale drawing of it on graph paper. I'm going to see if I can find something on the internet to help me. The teacher is a "do your own thing" kind of guy, which explains the class format, but hopefully there will be some actual teaching and learning during this experience. I guess I will get out of it what I put in.

Another observation about Pirates

So I played Pirates, the computer game, again yesterday. I realized that the last time I played it (which was "talk like a pirate day"), everyone in the game kept saying "Shiver me timbers." I didn't really think about it because, hey, it's a game about pirates. But when I played it yesterday, nobody in the game said shiver me timbers or any other kind of pirate talk. So I guess that's kind of an easter egg in the game -- the fact that characters in the game have extra dialogue just on one day of the year. Maybe that's not super exciting, but I thought it was kind of cool. It shows the game designers were thinking about what would be fun for the people playing. You know, that they care.

Cold and flu season

I've been really sick the last couple of days and haven't felt like doing anything. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately) the handyman is here painting the house, so I feel awkward about doing anything fun while he's outside sweating in the hot sun. He's been here for a few days fixing our siding and painting. So far so good.

PB has two cooking projects going at once. She's making peach jam and also making a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. The cake recipe is from Cook's Illustrated. PB has signed up to test recipes for them. She's supposed to make the recipe and then send them her comments. So she's finally going to make this cake, but the deadline for commenting has already passed. Whatever.

So now I'm just staring into space under the haze of my cold medication.

Happy pirate day

Apparently today is the day when everyone is supposed to go around talking like a pirate. I can't bring myself to do that, but I did bust out Sid Meier's Pirates and started up a new game. I was also inspired by the Patrick O'Brian audiobooks I've been listening to during my long daily commute.

Pirates is kind of a funny game. I haven't really scratched the surface of it. I mean, at first glance it looks like you just float around and shoot at other ships and swordfight and sell your booty. But you can also try to invade a city with ground troops (I tried once and my crew mutinied). If you're on the outs with a country, you have to sneak around inside their city and avoid the guards. And then there's dancing with the various governors' daughters. And the various find your lost relatives/find the lost cities, buried treasure, etc. quests. I haven't been sucked into the game enough to play it for very long. I always quit when my crew starts to get unhappy. But it's a beautiful, very charming game. I want to love it.

Finally, an obscure music reference:
"Professor, what's another word for pirate treasure?"
"Why I think it's booty! Booty, that's what it is."

Shortbread and Nutmeg

Yes, I've finally figured out how to post images. It turns out that the hard part is finding the frickin things on the camera and computer. But here's Nutmeg in our freshly painted guest room. I really love this color. The room gets a lot of light, and the sun on the paint just makes the room glow.

work sucks

I had the shittiest morning today. Ironic, because when I arrived at work I was thinking about how work hadn't been so bad lately and that I could keep working until next spring (my three year anniversary at this firm). I was in the door five minutes and the phone started ringing off the hook. I was in the middle of making coffee and some asshole called and just ruined everything. Then I got irrationally upset with my co-worker, who was only trying to help.

I cooled off by the afternoon. But then this evening I heard from a co-worker friend that he gave his notice today. He's leaving in early November. I wish I could! Damn this mortgage payment! I feel like I'm chained to this house and have to keep working at this crappy job just to get by. Ugh!

Emmys

So Jon Stewart won an Emmy last night. Much deserved. Also Helen Mirren won for the last season of Prime Suspect, which is in our Netflix queue. We got hooked on Prime Suspect a few months ago and watched them all (all seven (?) seasons, the last one isn't out yet). The very first one was made in the 80s and is absolutely no frills. It's awesome, though.

We finished the first season of Dexter. There were a couple of rough patches in the story, but on the whole it was excellent. I think the second (?) season is about to start on Showtime.

PB had an electrician come out to the house to look at where we want to move the circuit for our fridge. Apparently he grunted and said to call him when we're ready for him to do the work. PB wasn't impressed, so I think we'll try to get a second opinion.

one more thing about hood river

I forgot to mention the coolest thing about Hood River. We saw several dozen people windsurfing and kite-boarding out on the Columbia. It was extremely windy when we were there -- thus the wind-surfers. For those not in the know, windsurfing involves a heavy contraption that looks like a surfboard with a plastic sail attached. When the wind is right the windsurfers can really haul ass, just like a sailboat.

Kite-boarding seems to be another animal altogether. There's a big kite or parachute-like contraption that the boarder holds in his hand. The kites were flying hundreds of feet in the air. Then when the wind is right, the boarder steps into something like a snowboard and skims off across the water. The advantage of kite-boarding is that the boarders can jump in the air, do flips and tricks. It looks a lot lighter and more fun, but who knows.

Another key piece of equipment appears to be a wetsuit. It's damn cold out there, with whitecaps on the river and the wind blowing hard.

One last cool thing about Hood River is the Full Sail Brewing Company. Some day I want to take a tour of the brewery. It's one of my favorites, especially their special seasonal brews that they put out in 22 oz. bottles. "Nugget Ale" is my favorite.

and we're back

Back home again. Hood River was nice, though there were no pear dumplings to be had. Oh well. It's time for the pear harvest there, but unfortunately it seems like they don't have enough workers to pick the fruit. Is this a consequence of the immigration crackdown? Probably.

We went to Portland for another installment of the baby project. Ahem. This month marks the twelfth month that we have been going to a doctor for monthly IUIs. I think we took one month off as a mini-vacation from this project, but we've been trying for 11 months. Before that we were trying at home (ha! how naively silly we were) for five months. Here's hoping this is the month.

Dexter is shaping up to be one of the better TV shows I've seen in a while. That and Deadwood. How I wish Deadwood would come back!

road trip

We're off for Hood River today. My mom & her boyfriend and my aunt are meeting us there. Should be interesting!

I love Hood River. It's such a beautiful place. Plus you can get pear dumplings at a little roadside store there! Yum!

Here comes the new kitchen

Another step forward for home improvement today. Mike from Lowe's came out and measured the kitchen for our new kitchen cabinets. He recommended that we install flooring before installing the cabinets, so now we are scrambling around to order some Marmoleum. We were going to order the "click" kind so that we could install it ourselves, but now that time might be of the essence we're going to see about having sheet Marmoleum installed by a pro. We also have to figure out what the hell we're doing with the planned built-in booth we want to put in. Everything's happening at once!

The sad thing is that I know it will take several weeks for everything we order to get here. So really, the stressful thing is planning it and writing the checks, but then we have to sit and wait. I'm a little concerned about our ability to live with a kitchen that's being remodelled, but PB is not worried.

I'm at work in Bend right now. I have already been to Prineville this morning. No one is here. Why am I here?

Berserk llama bites woman...

Berserk llama bites woman -- 8 year old daughter watched in horror as animal terrorized Terrebonne resident...
Yes, this is today's actual headline from our local paper. Front page, above the fold. Apparently the llama suffered from "berserk llama syndrome." It knocked a woman down and bit her -- spit at her, too. The animal was described by state police as "brown, hairy and aggressive." I am not making this up.

Another day, another dollar. Actually, today I got a mileage reimbursement check for about $1200. That's for two months, but still. All I do is drive around all day. No wonder I don't get anything done.

I had a pretty good day today, though. Nothing special happened, I just felt good about it.

PB and I are in the middle of watching the first series of Dexter. I really enjoy it, even though the subject matter is a little grim (Dexter is in fact a serial killer, but the show is contrived so that you're rooting for him pretty much all the time).

OBL's beard

You know, it's funny, that latest video clip from Osama. Doesn't it look like he either dyed his beard or he's ten years younger than he was in the previous video clip? Why hasn't anyone mentioned that? I mean, it's weird, right?

Today was a major day for home improvement tasks. Somebody from Lowe's is coming by soon to do final measurements for our kitchen cabinets. PB came home early so that a plumber could install a new water line for the fridge ice maker. Apparently it took him about 25 minutes to accomplish this task. Then we had a handyman come by to look at our board and batten siding. The plywood is delaminating in places and needs to be replaced. He also suggested that we need to repaint the exterior of the house.

We just struggled to use Amazon Unbox with our Tivo. It's the best idea ever, but the execution needs a little work. Have you ever actually tried to find a movie on Unbox? It's like they took all the popular hit movies and threw them together in an unorganized pile with a ton of B movies you never heard of. After 30 minutes of mouse clicking, you might actually find something. They really need to take a page from Netflix. Which also has downloadable movies.

3:10 to Yuma

We just went to see this movie at the Sisters Movie House. I thought it was great. The acting, scenery, action, everything was extremely well-done and exciting. Also, the movie made me think about it after we left the theater, another sign that it's a good movie.

Russell Crowe is just made to be in westerns. He's so scruffy and dirty looking in this movie -- just like The Quick and the Dead.

In other news, I tore out the carpet in the guest room with PB's help. PB put insulating foam around the window, inside the frame. We've never used it before, so she used maybe a little too much. I guess we can just cut off the excess after it dries, but that's a project for another day.

We also uprooted the kitchen island to make way for new kitchen cabinets and appliances. The plumber is allegedly coming by this Tuesday to install a new water line for our new fridge. The minute we moved the island the kitchen felt 50% bigger. I don't know why we didn't do this before.

Nerd alert

My great accomplishment of the day is finally finishing the main campaign in Elder Scrolls: Morrowind. PB refers to this game as "Lizardface," which is appropriate. Anyway, after playing this game for many many many hours (I think I started it back in 2004 when we still lived in Fairbanks), I finally decided to do the final quest (of the main game, not the expansions - hah!). I had pretty much done just about everything else and had been delaying the inevitable ending. Only it doesn't end. You kill Dagoth Ur and destroy his feeble little plans of world domination, then you step outside and keep going. The only difference before in after is that every person in the game starts calling you "Lord Nerevar," like the very second you killed Dagoth Ur everyone started instant messaging each other with the news.

Anyway, it was anti-climactic. I still have the two expansions to finish up. I've done quite a bit in the Mournhold expansion, but haven't really scratched the surface of the other one. The name escapes me. You know, the one with all the Norsemen (excuse me, "Nords") and werewolves. The game isn't as fun as it was when I started because my character can kill any person or thing in the game pretty much with a rusty razor.

In other news, it looks like good old Inspector Bucket left a comment. Perhaps you should start a blog, eh Bucket old chap?

For the record, the audiobook by Patrick O'Brian that I'm listening to is called "the Nutmeg of Consolation," which is funny because that's my cat's name. Not funny ha-ha though, just funny.

another day

Today I had to go to Madras for work to visit somebody in the jail. Whee! This semi-monthly trip is a serious downside to my job. There are many others. Downsides, I mean.

The upside is that I recently discovered audiobooks. I hadn't really tried them before, figuring someone's droning voice going on and on would put me right to sleep. And then on a whim I checked out a Patrick O'Brian audiobook -- and it's great. It's very exciting, with pirate battles and hours of chasing French frigates on the high seas.

We watched a funny movie last night -- Driving Lessons. It's got the actor who plays Ron in the Harry Potter movies, as well as the actress who plays Ron's mom. And Laura Linney with a British accent!

Well, that's about it. It's been a slow week for everything.

Jury duty

First off, Black Butte Ranch was un-evacuated yesterday. It rained yesterday morning, thank goodness. The fire is still going, but just smoldering mostly. So everybody got to go home.

I found out last night that I had to report for jury duty today. Whee! We all sat there for three hours, only to find out that the case settled. Well, at least something happened with it, I guess.

I signed up for a class today about how to build a guitar. It's something of a two semester class, so hopefully I can stick with it.

Also, I just this week discovered how awesome audiobooks are. My long commute is a lot more fun now.

Black Butte Ranch evacuated

A few days ago a lightning storm started a fire in the Deschutes National Forest, the forest that surrounds our neighborhood. It's called the "G.W." Fire, maybe because it's burning in the Mount Washington wilderness area. The fire is now bigger than 1000 acres and is one mile west of Black Butte Ranch, a resort community a little bit northwest of Sisters on Highway 20. Apparently the residents of BBR had to be evacuated this afternoon.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/09/fire_forces_evacuation_of_blac.html

Last July PB and I had to evacuate our house because of a similar fire, the Black Crater fire complex. We were out of our house for a week. It was not fun. So far it looks like the GW fire won't be coming our way, but I hope it gets contained soon. Currently it is 5% contained. Yikes. This is life in central Oregon, unfortunately.

Happy labor day

Today PB and I celebrated labor day by working on our front yard. This is a more challenging project than you might think, for several reasons. First of all, we live in the high desert region of central Oregon, nestled in a ponderosa pine forest at the base of the Three Sisters, mountains that are part of the volcanic Cascade range. This means 1) we live in a desert so we have to irrigate everything, 2) we live in a forest with a resident deer population that likes to wander through our yard and eat everything down to the ground, and finally 3) every time we dig a hole we dig up massive volcanic rocks (which we have put all around the house as rock walls, decorative rocks, decorative borders, shade rocks, little rocks, big rocks, etc.).

Today we planted several things that we know the deer won't eat: artemisia (Silver Mound), Russian Sage, and ordinary sage (well, they do nibble on that a little). We're also trying out Barberry and Echinacea. We have tried all kinds of things to keep the deer away, to no avail. We tried deer sprays, but just killed the plants. We don't really like to use cages, but we do have some. The persistent buggers knocked one down and ate our Mock Orange plant (supposedly deer resistant - hah!). All of the plants we use are labelled deer resistant, but usually the deer will take a bite out of everything just to see if they like it or not. There are several "resistant" plants that the deer population here seem to love -- potentilla and lavender, to name a couple.

Anyway, we also went to Redmond to the super-lame farmer's market. The only cool thing there was a guy with a mobile wood-fired pizza oven. Hand-made? Maybe.

I would kill for another day off. Unfortunately I have a bunch of court hearings tomorrow, so I guess I have to go eke out a living.

Welcome to my house!

Howdy all! I decided to start a blog after spending a lot of time reading many other people's blogs. I live in Sisters, Oregon, with my partner PB. We're both lawyers for low-income people. There, that's pretty vague.

My current projects include renovating our house and finding a new job. I've made progress on the first, not so much on the second. This weekend PB and I finished painting our guest room a nice shade of yellow (Shortbread, if you must know). Maybe if we can get it together we'll post pictures.

We're also trying to have a baby. This is challenging because we are both women. We have been trying for quite some time and I hope to post updates on this subject, hopefully with happy news one day.

I've got a brother in Arizona, my mom lives in Portland (and has a boyfriend who lives in Salem), and my father (whom I haven't talked to in many years) lives in North Carolina with my step-mother. PB is an only child and her recently retired parents live in Florida. PB and I also have a completely cute tortoiseshell cat, who can be a total bitch when she isn't trying to be cute. Her name is Nutmeg. I don't think cats care about their privacy (except when taking a dump).

Some things I enjoy include playing video games, playing musical instruments, home improvement, woodworking, reading good books, watching movies and tv, and grilling. I have a ton of funny client stories, but sharing them here is going to be tricky. PB loves to cook and bake. She aspires to be a pastry chef. She loves to watch movies of all sorts. She also has a terrible memory, so she could watch the same movie multiple times and be totally content.

I think I lead kind of a boring life in which I cross paths with very interesting people of all sorts. Hopefully any readers of this blog will be somewhat entertained.