Visit home!

Matt and I are leaving tomorrow for a week in Juneau, for One Last Trip to the Ol' Homestead... but mostly because one of Matt's besties is getting married.  We are very excited for them- they are adorable together and it's going to be a great Juneau wedding.  I want to specify that the few details I have heard about the wedding make think it's going to be a Juneau wedding- they are getting married at the Thane Ore House (converted mine, now local fish feed place), the mother of the groom is leaving her car at the ferry terminal for the band to drive themselves in on and the bride asked for help picking wildflowers for her bouqet.  Right?  You wish you were coming to this wedding too...

While Matt is going to be adventuring around with all the assembled friends all week, I am taking a working vacation- hoping to put in some hours on my current contract.  And can we talk about how much I dig this contract? The work is really enjoyable- I spent this week reviewing new material and then coming up with test questions to assess the learning objectives.  Learning AND being creative, brilliant!  And the work is pretty high through-put, I get assigned tasks from an unending list of things to do, and most tasks are 1-3 hours.  I feel like I am accomplishing things, which is great!  The bulk of the content is IT related, which you might think I would feel underqualified for.  (I'm not OVERqualified, it's true.)  But having spent so many years thinking about educational standards and assessment, I actually feel like I have something unique to offer.  At least I feel like I've come up to speed pretty quickly.  The other awesome side of this work is I am finally in a position where I need to find one of those people who helps you figure out what you are going to do come tax time, is this an accountant or a financial adviser in my case?  Yeah, I've got self-employment problems. 

So I will be working as much as I can stand, and Kelsey is coming in, and Mom and Dad are moving and it promises to be a pretty wild week.

Final fix-ups...

Maybe 18 years ago, when we first moved into the beach house, we hired a local contractor to expand the front yard and form a seawall out of beach rocks. Tucked into that project was the placement and connection of a new septic tank. In order to redirect the "blackwater" to the new system, we had to dig under the edge of the house near the second deck. I was watching when the backhoe reached in to the foundation just a little too close and broke the siding board on the edge of the house. For the last 18 years, that missing chunk of siding edge has faced the world like the unapoligetic face of a toothless hockey player. Today, I fixed it. Can't remember why I waited so long but with the fresh paint job from last summer, the new board looks seamless. For some reason, selling the house makes me want to fix it up a bit for the next people. You know, to show some pride in ownership and to honor 20 good years of family life. Very satisfying.

Life is looking good!

What a lovely week!  Rae Ann was in town to visit, which means we had TWO excuses to get together with the family, and one of those times Rae Ann showered us with outlandishly delicious food.  Grilled Shrimp AND Steak!  Grilled Veggies AND Grilled Peaches & Apricots!  I remember there was more, but not what it was because it sent me into a food coma.  What a great way to start the week!  Rae Ann is in town for her annual association meeting, but has been hanging around doing fun stuff with Nana all week.  Running off to Ikea, or to Gig Harbor or just sitting around reading companionably are pretty much what I imagine a fulfilled retirement looks like. 

Of course, Tuesday Matt passed his CDL test, so we got to go and celebrate, and on Wednesday I went to an AWIS social.  Of course, all of this out-and-about-ness is a side effect of my current work.  I'm contracting from home which means, well, I am at home all day.  So when I am Done With Work, I prefer to leave the house a bit.  It puts a nice bit of a break in there, and prevents cabin fever.

But the work is really good.  I may have mentioned this new company is very organized, has given me a lot of guidance, and generally has their act together.  We are using SharePoint.  I get weekly team updates.  I have an editor who basically responds to me within minutes of my questions.  It's grand.  I'm helping with a career development class for high schoolers.  The work is the right kind of challenge for me as well.  It's hard to write good assessments for some of these abstract concepts, but it also feels good to include some basic mentoring advice in the coursework.  I'm still not sure how much more work they will have more for me (pretty sure I've got stuff next week, not sure about after that...), but I'd like to keep working with them.

This weekend will be filled up with the types of activities one must willfully avoid from the home office, and becomes quickly negligent of when you spend all their free time gaddying about.  Yes, it's time to clear the mountain of tea mugs.  And possibly attend the farmer's market. And visit Nana some more.

Matt's a Truck Driver!

The great news of today is that Matt passed his Commercial Driver's License Exam!  Yup, he's a Real Big Rig Driver now. 

If you aren't familiar with the test- it's a LOT harder than the exam you took at 16 to get your license.  It starts with a complete safety inspection of the entire vehicle.  He let me help him study the  20-some pages from the text that cover this.  You check every vital inch of the truck for any signs of damage or wear.  And you must verbalize that you are "checking the pins are in place, the unit is not cracked or damaged and it is securely mounted" or whatever the details are for each component.  It really highlights how many different ways a truck can fail, when you think about it.  Matt did fine on this part, because he is actually paid to think about how trucks fail these days.  But to give you a sense of the scope, when he and I were doing this out of his book, it took about 45 minutes.  And we didn't have to walk around a truck.

Then you do the reverse testing.  Did parallel parking Mom's minivan make you nervous?  To get a CDL you have to back the truck into THREE different positions.  Directly behind you, 90 degree angle and a parallel park maneuver.  Did I mention that he had a 28-ft trailer in his test (they call it the short trailer.  Ha!)?  Matt actually spent the last week focused on this part- you loose points for every foot off the mark you are, and if you can imagine it's a little hard to know when to stop parking when the back of the truck is more than 30 feet behind you and your mirror.

If you haven't failed yet, they let you do the driving test.  It is mostly city driving, and it also took about 45 minutes.  You automatically fail if any of your 18 wheels hit a curb (or a person, or another vehicle), or you are out of gear for more than a couple seconds.  This is probably because once you miss a gear shift, it gets much harder to find the right gear to get into- there are 18 to choose from and the longer you wait, your engine changes speed and you should get a different gear.  Yikes!  Fortunately, Matt did none of these things.  He just drove the truck around town like he belonged there and a couple hours after the start, he passed.  Now he gets to go back to the Department of Licensing and get ANOTHER new drivers license.  This will be his third trip there since we moved, and I don't think he has learned to love the wait yet.  At least he has a reason to be happy in this photo.

What does this mean for Matt's professional life?  Um, nothing too wild.  It means that next time they ask him what he wants to do for professional development, he'll pick something else to work on.  Knowing a bit more about the main audience for their product seems pretty relevant for his work, and surprisingly, not many of the people he works with have their CDL.  And sometimes when they are putting miles on a truck he might be asked to drive one around a bit.  I'm hoping it also means he gets a radio call sign.

I am supposed to find a place with a beer and a burger for us to celebrate, so things are looking pretty good here.

Pink Flamingo Update

Anyone who has spent any time in Juneau, AK has probably seen the Pink Flamingo House. Things have changed quite a bit this year for these little plastic entities. The first news was the obituary for Dave Ingram. Dave was the owner of The Yellow House where the flamingos lived. There were rumors that we had seen the end of our favorite flock of plastic pink flamingos.

But! After the snow melted the flamingos all piled in a boat and paddled over to the northern neighbors. They ended up flipping over and the poor little pink guys were all over the neighbor's yard. They pulled themselves together after about a week of confusion. And they had a lovely party with drinks and several coolers. All the Pinks seemed to have a good time; they had gathered into little conservation groups bringing their drinks with them. After the party (which lasted for days) the flamingos ended up on the deck on the second floor. They had obviously made themselves at home.

The next week was graduation week and the Pinks were involved. They all lined up across both lawns with their mortarboards on. We were watching the Pinks so intently that it may have taken us several days to notice that The Yellow House was gone. Not a pile of rubble just a smoothed bit of dirt with a garage on the left side of the lot. The garage had been behind The Yellow House so we had never seen it before.

The Pinks are now huddled under an umbrella. It has been a very wet spring. And they are in front of their new home, The Blue House.

A change of pace

A kinda cool thing happened lately that I wanted to share.  I've got a new contract in curriculum development. 

On the one hand, it's a total success.  This is a field that I pretty much asserted myself into, and as a result has provided me intermittent contracts.  This is by far the best pay I've ever earned, and with luck could earn me at least some more contracts.  I like the work, but it is a field that is generally powered by off-site contractors.  Which is to say I like the work, but I hate working from home.  It's hard to stay motivated, and then I beat myself up for not getting enough work done, and by the end of the day, the only person I see is Matt.  And I really like him, but he doesn't like being the focus of so much attention.

This is relevant because I am taking some time off from both of my other positions (at the bank and the internship) to make space for this contract.  It's about time in the whole job hunting affair to reassess what the heck I am doing with myself.  It's been about a year since I defended and I never could have imagined I would have this much trouble finding a job.  Both the internship and the bank job have been nice stop gaps, but... dang, I want a real job.  So I need to figure out what that means, and how to get that.  I still feel like I am starting from square one, which is frustrating.  But I've got another year of experiences to shape this new restart- maybe I will come up with something different.

Maybe he should get a Certificate

So anyone who has seen the little tyke on Skype knows that Tyler is very much a toddler. I can think of no better noun to describe that happy little walk he does. He has, unfortunately, been stuck in the baby program at Day Care for too long, however, being as they are trying to organize a lot of kids moving around at the same time that the building is getting remodeled. Well we took it to the highest authority (and asked nicely) and today we got the news that Tyler will be moving up to the Toddler classroom at the beginning of next month. Even cooler, he gets to move in with Ben, one of his current friends from his current classroom and he gets to re-unite with August, one of his friends that moved up to toddlers many months ago. He also lives a little bit down the street from us. So that's exciting.

Jess and I also got to play hookey from school today to watch one of the great rituals of summer in a Texas day care: Splash time! They actually have a neat little area in one of the playgrounds that has a gentle slope that fills with an inch or two of water, and the whole thing is surrounded by sprinklers! Jess and I sent Tyler to school with swim diapers and his swim gear, and went over to see how he would fare.

Tyler's baby group got to head over with the Toddlers (see, they know) and the whole group, most of whom hadn't done this before, broke down into three sections. One group ran right into the middle, splashing and having a great time. One group stood around the edge of the pool staring and occasionally getting hit by the sprinklers, but not really joining in the party. And another group stood off to the side and cried like crazy. Tyler was, of course, in the adventure group. We got more than a few pictures of him running around and kicking up his splashy feet. It was really cute to watch.

So now that Tyler is getting older, and maybe also now that he has tubes in his ears and can hear us better, he's starting to take the first, halting steps towards 'mastering' the English language. Which is kind of a bummer because let's face it, English is a mess. I wish I had a better language to teach him. Is it to late to bring back Esperanto? Anyway, for your edification, I have attached Tyler's first dictionary. It's not organized Alphabetically because Tyler doesn't know what an alphabet is yet.

Ba-Ba: 1) Bottle (if said around 6:30 PM)

2. Bye-bye (all other times)

Da-Da: 1)Daddy

2. Look at that!
3. Mommy
4. I want that thing

Ma-Ma: 1) Mommy

Buta-Bita-Bita: 1) Blanket

Doo! 1) Shoes! Put them on me and let's go outside to play.

Git: 1) Cat!

[Standing near something and lifting up one leg while making grunting noises] 1) I want to go up here.

Ah! Oooooh. Ah! Oooooh. 1) Nothing, but he likes to parrot mommy and daddy when we make that sound at him.

[Crying] 1) What's wrong with you, why don't you understand my perfectly enunciated English? Give me what I want!

Jess is off at ice hockey, the first game of the summer season on her new team the Peter North Stars. If you get the joke behind that name, don't tell anyone else, lest they figure out too much about you. I'm hoping her game goes well and she has a nice time. I'm also hoping I get some sweet loot drops as I'm going to go play some Diablo 3 while I have the house to myself.

-N

Stuff we've been up to lately

I totally neglected to mention how awesome our Memorial Day weekend was.  Matt and I both had Monday off, so we decided to spring for one of those "We should do that sometime" activities that sounds like fun, isn't that hard to pull off and we normally never get around to.  But first, we were compelled to do something fun and relaxing because we wanted to celebrate having been together for TEN YEARS. Traditionally, I think we usually manage to pull off a picnic in a park to catch up and enjoy eachother's company a bit.

This year, to get things started, I finally gave Matt the PhT gift I've been working on.  What I gave him was the balance on an account he didn't notice I'd opened.  I've been putting all my money form contracts in there since December, and I finally got paid from a couple contracts that pushed the balance up over the mark for a new bike part.  Not just any bike part, so I wanted to make the presentation special- I used two springs (Dual suspension) to FRAME the balance. ... Oh yes, I am this cheesy in my real life.  Matt is going to pick out the frame of his dreams and bike happily ever after.  Hooray.

Our weekend was also super fun.  We picked up Nana and took a different way up to Concrete, this time through Darrington.  It's more of that rural, farm-land-by-the-river-framed-with-abrupt-mountains type scenery that does good for the soul.  We hung out with Betty, taking in the FOUR hummingbirds feeders (seating for 23!) host a deafening parade of hummers.  When you see that many birds all at once, and as close as we can get to them, there is such a moment of humbling awe, just like when you see whales breaching or first catch the glimpse of an entire mountain pass.  I had that feeling a lot this weekend.

The main event, however, was to drive over the Hwy 20 pass to Winthrop.  I didn't know what to expect, but I was told there would be ice cream on the other side.  The views on Hwy 20 were spectacular.  And it's quite obvious why this pass closes from October to April every year- there was still FEET of snow packed high along the sides of the road.  At appropriate distances, there were hiking trails and camp sites that made we wish we had different gear with us.  We did get out to look at the view at lots of places, and otherwise Matt just guided us over the winding and wild road to the East side of the state.  We got out to see Mazama and Winthrop, both of which were overrun with people enjoying the sunny weather and the start of summer.  The four of us just jumped into the fray, doing a little shopping, and eating and loving the scenery and the weather.

Well, its semi official....

...we signed the papers across 4 time zones and agreed to sell the Juneau House to some folks who really wanted it. Our agents both work in the Re-Max office in Juneau. When our lady told their lady, she passed the information on to the buyers and was assaulted with firework/emoticon e-mails all afternoon. These folks wanted to be on the beach, they lost a bid on a house several months ago since they wanted to sell their previous house before they took on another mortgage (smart), so they were frantic not be outdone for this house,ergo, the generous bid. Hard to refuse when that's what we asked for. So now we look for a place to stay, a fifth wheeler perhaps? We have to excavate ourselves from 20 years of imbedded residency and consider what's to come south and how it will get there, all by the end of July. And suddenly we are on to step 3, how does Gordie wind up his professional life and receive some value for the enterprise at the same time being fair to his partner and considerate to his patients? Hopefully an exciting problem to deal with. And this stupid Blog won't accept my paragraph returns............. Gordie