We just zapped our scrubbers yesterday.

We still don't believe in microwaves though...

I don't really care what the truth is behind the world getting warmer.

What I do know is that carbon dioxide is not the problem.

The problem is with peoples' attitudes.

I feel like the last stable island in a digital sea of change...

Many, many, of those on my blogroll over there to the right have quit blogging... Some have died...

I'll have to go through and weed out the fallen and the stricken and the wounded and lame.

But until then, I'm pretty sure this guy wrote this.

I'm pretty sure it's the only POSSIBLE explanation.

Kind of funny anecdote...

In Dylan's book that I linked to two posts ago, he tells the story of how Woody Guthrie, who was more or less on his deathbed in the hospital, told Dylan to go get this box of lyrics that was stored in Guthrie's old cellar...

Needless to say, Dylan went to the house but didn't get the lyrics. They somehow got passed down to Billy Bragg and Wilco who cut the Mermaid Avenue series...

Fascinating stuff, twists and turns of history... Fate... I can't imagine NOT having that stuff done in that way, yet it was so close to falling into the hands of Dylan...

We keep running across this farm called EMANDAL... It's like our fates are intertwined.

My little brother had a field trip there, my buddy has a huge annual bluegrass bash there, and we just ran across job advertisements for it on Caretaker.org.

I finished Dylan's Chronicles: Volume 1 the other day. Thanks, Dmoose. (It was a Christmas present.)

I thought it was good. Some people accused the author of name-dropping, and there are something like 14 pages of glowing recommendations of others in the front...

But I still enjoyed it. It's worth a read. It's funny, considering Dylan's current stature, about how he looked up to various people, some of whom I at least had never heard of.

People keep looking at me funny when I say, "Well of course in Japan, they wouldn't, since they drive on the left..."

People seem to be universally mis-informed about the world-wide dispersion of the driving on the left side of the road habit.

Thankfully, The Internet helpfully has this critical information to guide all you wayward souls.

We have a whole entire house in near Brussels to ourselves.

In what feels like a strange twist of fate, my Wife and I have been left with the house while the parents are in Ireland for a wedding and the kids are at their grandparents.

We thought about taking the train to Paris or Amsterdam because Brussels is kindof like a train hub for western Europe, so there are lots of trains and apparently good deals on trains...

But we are both recovering from some kind of bug that we expect the kids brought back from kindergarten and the "creche." So we have holed up here and are getting healthy...

We have been doing minor repairs to the house and caravan, as well as blogging, playing guitar, and watching the obligatory-while-sick episodes of Family Guy.

And drinking lots of tea and juice and that sort of thing as well.

We also have been solving the world's problems.

So the four year old is screaming his head off in the kitchen...

While the two year old is pulling piles and piles of playmobile and legos off the dining room table. She is cackling with glee as each handful crashes to the floor and ricochets across the floor. It sounds like a plastic waterfall in here. The crescendo is almost enough to drown out the four year old's wails.

Oops, now she found the glue stick and is smearing it on her forehead...

Yes, despite all this, my Wife and I are still eager for children!

However, as this is not Nam, there WILL be rules. (But not TOO MANY RULES, because we do not do well with TOO MANY RULES).

(1) Our children will at least speak some of the same languages as us, and

(2) they will not have very many toys.

Sushi, anyone?

There is no such thing as complete Tolerance.

If you Tolerate people who do not Tolerate, then the sum Tolerance is ZERO.

So you cannot have 100% Tolerance, just Pretty Good Tolerance.

After all, LIFE ISN'T FAIR.

So the two-year-old is teething and the heat's been off since Friday.

The water heater/boiler thing is as high-tech as can be; it speaks something like fifteen different languages, is programmable, heats the whole house (via hot water in radiators) and provides the hot water for the kitchen and so on...

BUT. Because it is so complex, it practically requires an aeronautical engineering degree to navigate the menus on it, much less repair it.

I think that I could figure out how to fix it if I opened it up, but I'm afraid of voiding warranties and such. Currently it is reporting an error in the Burner Module F4, or in Flemish, STORING! BRANDERAUTOMAAT!

On Sunday we rode into Brussels with Frederic and the kids, and they dropped us off at the southern train station. Then we hot-footed it up through the sunny streets to the Cathedral of St. Michel and St. Gudula, which is massive, ancient, and beautiful. It dates from the 13th century and took over 300 years to build.

We made it just in time for Sunday Mass in French at half past noon. Those in attendance were warm and friendly to us, although we couldn't really understand what they were saying. There were large pictures of various popes saying mass in the cathedral, the new organ being installed via a crane, and several coronation (or maybe wedding) masses.

I was wondering why I couldn't find any Catholic Church websites in Belgium... Google Maps only gives me the closest ones in France and the Netherlands, which seemed bizarre. So, I was wondering if there was internet censorship here. There doesn't appear to be, but look at this. Geez.

We just went up to the Saturday market here in Dilbeek, with Frederic and the kids. We walked around the market and had a rice tart that was very similar to Finnish pancake. Then we walked up the rise to the city hall, which had beautiful and distinctive architecture and minaret-like towers. There was a lake with an island and geese and a park and a play structure, so we toured all of those.

We are in the Flemish part of Belgian so everyone here speaks Flemish (Dutch). Frederic is from France, so he speaks French to the kids, but Marjolein is from around here, so she speaks Flemish to the kids. They say it works well. Marjolein is on some kind of mission in Tunis, Tunisia, so we still haven't met her yet. She returns on the 18th.

The kids are cute. Borris, (4), was fishing in the pond for a "requin" (shark), and Nora, (2), was enthusiastically chasing after her brother, and going down wet slides, and falling over, and going pee in the bushes. We've been doing some babysitting, some household things, some garden/renovating type chores... Emma's been taking the lion's share of the cooking, I've been working on computers that are in California, nine timezones behind.

Anyone else notice this and this?

Surely there has to be a balance between having a free, democratic country and broadcasting war strategy. I suppose in Athenian times, the citizens would sit around in the city hall, or town center, WITHOUT the internet...

When we are done WWOOFING, maybe we'll try Caretaking. Then we'll never have to pay for travel accommodations again!

So our (French) host here in Belgium looks at us over morning tea and says... "You are not typical Americans."

YES!!!

People were telling us before we left that we should tell everyone we're Canadian...

...but I would rather have a few people, the ones we meet, realize that not ALL Americans fit the stereotype.

Oh, and while I'm linking great websites, this store has been cheaper than ebay for Volvo parts for the Ol' Silver Bullet. And they have a money-back guarantee. And they run a great core exchange system. And no, I'm not being paid for this plug.

This website plays host to a wide variety of tunes... I dig it.

Well, we safely made it to Belgium. After a bus ride, a train, and a walk in the dark/drizzle, we arrived here at 28 Wolsemstraat.

We feasted, bathed the kids and put them to bed, and were thoroughly introduced to the household.

Now it's time for some computer work; soon, much needed sleep.

The shift changed, and the buzz-cut-sporting, tough-Euro-dude bartender's first move was to cut the Titanic theme and blast Euro electronica.

We are sitting in the bar OSMOSIS, which is attached to our Euro Hostel, here in Glasgow. I'm working on computers back in California via wifi, in the middle of a test data migration.

Tomorrow we ship out to Belgium, where we should be for at least two weeks, WWOOFing.

I've got a lot of things to blog about, from the Angelic, Super-Human flight attendant, Stuart, who read our minds, and brought us what we wanted before we even wanted it, to the formidable warning of the "CHUNDER CHARGE" in our hostel in Edinburgh.

However, every minute of computer time that I have I am spending furiously trying to finish up this database project, so I have no time to blog. I'm thinking about keeping a physical diary again, like I've done on previous travels.

If you want to party with us tomorrow night, here's where we'll be.

Yup, that's right. We're spending the weekend in Scotland. Then, Monday we head to Belgium, where we'll be wwoofing for two weeks.

Cheers!

My wife had been to 11 countries before we got married. I had been to 13.

We are aiming to double those numbers or add them together in our newly wedded state.

Oh, and the neighbor told my little brother not to worry about the fence that I shot arrows through. He was about to re-paint it anyway. Which would be called me "landing in clover," as Auntie Trish would say.

We are in the UK, near Leeds. Our friends picked us up at the National Express station after our 10-hour plane ride and 4-hour bus ride.

I didn't write down their phone number, so we had to look it up on the computer (but thankfully not on the internet, just in my locally-archived emails). But in order to do that, we had to power on the computer, because its battery was completely drained from us watching Family Guy on the plane. So we had to plug it in to power, which we found in a Subway (yes, yes, I know). But in order to do that, we had to get money out, because they didn't take cards. So, after accomplishing all those steps, we ate a sandwich in Subway, got electricity, found the number, called the folks, and got picked up back at the National Express station.

So here we are. Then we slept for fifteen hours and missed the entire day's worth of sunlight -- granted not very much in Northern England on the last day in December.

Tomorrow we leave for the U.K.

Yesterday we were part of a far-flung Christmas treasure hunt... Actually, it was more of a wild goose chase.

WE were a clue in this treasure hunt, but after performing our cluely duties we tagged along to help solve the mysteries associated with several more clues.

I am not yet at present free to divulge more information on this case, but when I get the nod to do so, I shall...

Suffice it to say that we comprised four stealthy agents (my wife and I and two brothers), and that we delivered a clue, and that we ranged far and wide all over Marin and San Francisco counties seeking the treasure.

And another point:

Streets are NOT a real thing.

Street intersections are not "places." They are impediments to the places actually being there. Streets are a "killing zone," a bland, lifeless arena for bland, lifeless people to drive their bland, lifeless cars around.

Life is the real thing. Life and food and sex and sweat and breath and dreams and love.

Ok, now I'm seriously grouchy/grinchy.

All I tried to do was drive home...

...and then I thought I'd pick up my contacts from Costco.

WAY BIG MISTAKE.

As soon as I pulled off the freeway, I was sitting in a parking lot. Simply getting back on the freeway and resuming my journey home took 45 minutes.

I hate our society and I hate Christmas(time).

Will you people all just GO HOME please?

Wow. Blog activity around here is at an all-time low.

The Wife and I have been working like mad to ensure that our impending European Relocation succeeds.

Hence not even a drop of energy has been able to be spared, even for blogging.

However, now, there is brief respite.

The office today was working a half-day, which leaves me (strangely unencumbered by normal working times or routines) the last lonely member of an elite force, sitting here, lonesomely, in my computer fortress...

But seriously, I have another 50+ hour week to work in the next five or six days, and then I will be recounting my adventures from strange and foreign lands, ... except that a lot of them will be working remotely, as I normally do.

I'll tell you all about it someday. Just hang in there!

Um. Oh my goodness. Uh...

No, seriously, I'm still working (at work).

I owe, I owe so off to work I go!

But seriously, I haven't found time to blog this week amongst all the activities of driving to work, working, driving home from work, doing spots of work on the car so that all that driving is possible, occasional open sessions of Irish music, and seeing buddies off to the U.K....

We wanted to volunteer at Sisters of the Road while we were in Portland, maybe next time.

I think we may just donate a bit here, in other peoples' names, instead of buying them Christmas presents.

They are an incredibly worthwhile organization.

What I like the best is that you can buy coupons for meals at their restaurant, and then you can hand those out instead of cash to people who approach you on the street.

One of my co-workers was nearly killed in a car accident yesterday. He's alive, but lucky to be so. Prayers for a full recovery and no complications from head trauma, please...

Last night (about 3am) in Yolo County we drove by several sheriffs who were trying to herd a bunch of cows off the road...

A few miles later there was another sheriff setting up flares next to a jack-knifed semi that was blocking both lanes of Northbound I5.

Aye... We're in California.

Last night our bedtime was 5am, the previous night it was 4am...

The world is kind of a blur, spinning around us...

We stopped last night in Ashland and saw some old friends and made some new friends...

I'm kinda wondering if someone slipped me some speed yesterday.

I just never got tired.

It's 6:02 am and I'm still up. I guess I'll try again to sleep, but I have done some really cool -- if I do say so myself -- programming this past night.

Goodnight.

I don't think that people should MAKE new cars.

We already have enough cars to last us thousands of years.

Several generations (of cars) ago, we had several vehicles like the Geo Metro that got over fifty miles per gallon, so we don't even need the new, expensive hybrids.

We need to change peoples' thoughts and ideas about vehicles and travel.

If everyone drove smaller cars, driving would be safer for everyone.

Um, HE-LLO?

If you want Islam (which means SUBMISSION) to be known as a peaceful, happy, world religion, then PEOPLE WHO ACT IRRATIONALLY, VIOLENTLY, AND EVILLY IN THE NAME OF ISLAM (and thus define, by action, that religion) must be stopped and their actions condemned by the rest of the Muslim community.

Otherwise, those labels will continue to be the truth about Islam.

The Oregon Library System is awesome. I just voted that every property owner in Multnomah county should pay a few hundred dollars a year to keep it going, but it lets me do things like have free online access to the huge ProQuest database... So things like WSJ and basically everything is in there, and fully searchable. Wow.

I've been working weeks that average 50 hours...

...but some of that has been 12 or 14 hour days, and much of it has been work performed at odd times, like the middle of the night.

But soon, we return to California, where the formality of an office awaits my working hours...

My Wife was heading off to work, so we walked down the three blocks (or more, probably) to where we parked the car to escape the evil street cleaners last night.

The mole-eyed Portlanders squinted at the sun.

The Ol' Silver Bullet started (pretty much) right up, so my theory about the distributor is probably right. I should buy a new cap for it.

Then, as we whisked around the block to drop me off back at the apartment and to pick up her portfolio, a flock of pigeons came around the corner, and we took out a couple of them with our CB antenna, feathers everywhere.

I'd never seen that before, and, apparently, neither had the lady in the car behind us, who looked like she was going to go into hysterics because she was laughing so hard.

And then a blonde in a white Jetta who was talking on a cell phone ran over a curb and almost took out a pedestrian.

So it was street-cleaning Friday here on Everett. Our plan was to wake up, brew coffee, and sit outside in lawn chairs at 7:30 am to watch the fun. Of course, we didn't quite get up early enough to do that, but judging from the number of cars left on the street when we moved ours down three blocks last night at 10:30 pm, they probably did have a tow-fest this morning. Now we're tempted to call the tow company and see how many they got.

The Wife made me a saucepan full of soup and went off on various errands: delivering photos from one of her last shoots, picking up more film and other photo supplies, and getting her hair cut.

So I made a French press full of coffee and delved into some really deep and complex programming projects.

Then it snowed outside. Yes, it snowed in Portland.

Soon we will head over here, to stock up on used and second-hand hiking equipment. We're looking for a few (good) used ice axes.

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving out with some friends near Yankton. TSG made a couple of pies just in time for the feast, and we brought a nice bottle of wine.

There was a little multi-generational crowd over: our friends and their kids, who are our age, and some of their friends, also our age...

The Ol' Silver Bullet has had some real rough starting days this past week, and finally today she didn't want to start at all. I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned out the distributor -- there was some moisture under the cap and the contacts were a little oxidized and messy. I also tensioned the belts -- I didn't realize how loose they were, and they had been squealing since I had them done months ago. So then she started right up... But I still think I need to slap some new plugs and wires in there.

Well there's a lot going on in this wide world of ours...

Spies...

Debates about death...


http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1121/p09s01-coop.html



http://thereligionofpeace.com/



http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+deaths+in+iraq&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Hmm...

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

One of these things is not like the other...

The fruit flies and I have been battling again. I'm afraid that I might have had an elite strain of fruit flies breeding here -- the ones that have eluded my grasp so far. I need a few good spiders...

Now it's war. I'm going to hunt them down to the last wing.

Do I look like a friggin' cash machine? It seems like EVERYBODY asks ME for cash on the street...

Friday the same guy asked me TWICE for a bus pass...

So anyways, we went in to Burgerville for dinner yesterday after watching one of my first cousins dance in a Feis, an Irish dancing competition.

Some guy on the street outside asked me for some change, so I went in and bought a $5 gift card, but when I came out, he was gone.

Later on, after we got off the MAX on 9th street, another homeless person asked me for change, so I gave him the card. I'm hoping that he is with it enough to take the free MAX across the river to Northeast and get fed, instead of just throwing the card away.

I wrote this on Saturday...

Professional politicians?

When did THAT start?

Okay, so we're down farm-sitting again, though this time one of the owners is here, too, but working during the day. So we had a great time last night, eating dinner -- excellent King Salmon & viognier, acorn squash -- chatting till all hours, but this morning the shit really hit the fan.

We woke up to another sick ewe, -- this one has a prolapsed uterus -- and the old dog had gone off like a poop grenade.

Luckily the old dog was contained on several doggie rugs in the second bathroom, so I pulled those outside and hosed them all, all before breakfast.

Just after noon the owners of the farm showed up and we went to work on the vaginal and rectal prolapses... and got that all back inside and squared away with a harness to hold it there... Exciting times, let me tell you...

I think I may have already posted this here, but it bears repeating.

We walked down to Powell's today, each bearing a box of books.

We sold about half them for over $70, half store credit, half cash. Then we bought a few Lonely Planet seconds, and trekked the mile+ back with only one of boxes still full of books -- the ones that they wouldn't buy (for one reason or another).

We went to a party last night...

We hopped on the max at PG&E Park and rode it out to Hillsboro.

First we stopped at Wired and got coffees from the Wired Guy, who was there chatting with a bass player named Zombie.

We arrived at the party, after walking six blocks from the max station in the rain... As soon as we got inside the warm house, my glasses completely fogged over. The hallway was crowded with shoes and jackets and knick-knacks, and I was holding the banjo case in one hand and the guitar case in the other, and in the process of shaking off my shoes I banged one of the cases against the wall and knocked off this concrete-colored crucifix.

Then we proceeded inside to eat quiche and play our instruments with our pals.

We were in the St. Helens post office a few days ago and saw a feller there plunk two bricks down on the counter.

One was going to White House and one was going to the Governer's office.

The feller said that he had heard the idear on the radio, but that the announcer was talking about mailing "virtual bricks" but that he decided to make his statement with real ones.

I'm not sure if it actually counts as political action, but ...

This is what our window box looked like, back before we abandoned it and went to California for three+ weeks leaving it high and dry and cold.

I roundly recall THIS as the best study group EVER, during my entire six years of college.

(Well, except for that one where TSG and I got in that eraser fight, and that other one where TSG was there, and then there was...)

Well, The Wife made a stellar Thai-spiced carrot-peanut soup, and now she's working on wedding thank-you's while I'm frantically programming, not just the everlasting database app, but also a few overdue websites.

The general rule is this: don't propose, advocate, or clamor for a change unless you can propose an alternative.

Here's some things that you may or may not know (logical exhaustion) about My wife and I.

My Wife and I:
- share a dresser for pretty much all our clothes
- sleep in a twin bed
- had our first kiss at our wedding

We're out in St. Helens with the bipolar weather: raining like hell one moment, and then sunny the next.

I'm down at the bookstore coffee shop working, The Wife's out running errands.

Question/Rant:

Why do people always insist on carrying their babies around in plastic containers?

We just finished reading a book about the Mother-Baby connection (also the Father-Baby connection) and it really emphasized the importance of maternal (and paternal) physical contact with the baby... For its emotional and psychological development needs...

People should be actually carrying their offspring.

Last night we went to mass at the Cathedral with the zen priest.

He looks a bit like Ghandi... Or maybe more like Thomas Merton. He is soft-spoken... Holy... Not concerned about pretenses, opinions...

During his homily, which seemed to flow casually from his Eastern spirituality he laughed out loud -- honestly, simply.

I think he's a holy man. A modern-day, Catholic hermit. Living in the world, but not of the world.

We've got a lot of stories from our farmsitting weekend down in Beavercreek...

Mostly about tromping through Alpaca merde in the rain and playing my new banjo and have the hide-a-bed try to hide while we were sleeping and the needy dog, Sean, and the wood stoves and radiant-heat floors, and the car not starting on Sunday morning and then finally starting and then driving past eight churches before finding the right one...

And I left my wireless router at the house, so now they have wireless internet...

We invited the pastor of our quant village chapel over for lunch...

... and then we headed out to the farm...

...stopping on the way at this fine establishment to swap my old banjo and 12-string for A NEW BANJO!!!

It's only a small step up, really, but it's got a wood resonator. I'm looking forward to plunking out some tunes during this on-the-farm weekend.

I just voted in Oregon for the first time. Politics are SUCH a heated issue...

My inclination is to vote NO! on many of the Propositions, Measures, and what-have-you's just in an effort to reduce the size of the government and the legislation corpus.

And so many touch-and-go issues and craftily-worded measures!

Basically I think with the local, green, farmer voice...

- Healthcare is (a) ridiculous, (b) NOT A BUSINESS (c) not even a WORD

- The school systems are a lost cause (except perhaps in Ashland, Oregon). Close them down and start small, local, village schools.

Local government should be primary... Taxes should be on BAD things, NOT property... Pretty much ALL the measures seeking money proposed property tax INCREASES...

Why not fund the wilderness-restoral of places that were damaged by poorly designed and managed hydroelectric power with a tax on all NON-RENEWABLE enery?

The library tax is also on property, but I voted FOR it. It works out to be several hundred dollars a year for an average household (but it is a renewal, not a new tax) and libraries probably should exist...

This country was based on a MORAL, EDUCATED majority, not on just ANY majority.

The Wife's off to work at a childrens' school for the day... Her job is to oversee luncheon and breakfast and supervise the various meals... She's replacing a lady who has strep, so hopefully she doesn't pickup a variety of diseases and ailments from the little wonders...

I've got some web work in the wings, and plenty more programming to do.

We're forcefully changing our hours and wakeup times from noon to six am, beginning today. Yech.

And now for some forward-minded thinking from The Wife's insurance policy documentation:

So The Wife headed off to work on the farm this afternoon...

I donned my cap and jacket and strolled over to GoodWill and dropped of two bags of stuff... We're paring down...

Then I picked up the dry-cleaning -- my suit pants that somehow ended up in a ball on the floor after my grandfather's funeral -- and my beloved bride's black dress...

Next stop was Zupan's, where I purchased a gallon of cream-top, 1%.

Across Burnside and around the corner, a few minutes later I was at the Postal Annex, dropping a package in the mail and picking up Canada stamps.

Now, if you've been keeping track, at this point I am carrying the now-clean dry-cleaning, the milk, and the stamps, and I have just gotten rid of the package...

It was a carefully planned executed plot, my friends...

Now The Wife's having dinner with some lady friends, and I'm at home cranking out code...

It took us a LONG TIME to part this morning -- I think we have separation anxiety.

Last week and then again today we received Pomegranates in our Organics Box.

Luckily, we found this helpful guide.

A Chinese food place near us has a sign out front that says:

EAT NOW, HAVE FUN LATER

I kid you not.

It has become a running joke here in our household...

Ok, here's my theory.

Words should be used to express ideas... Trains of thought of higher significance, higher than, say, animals generally express. Themes of beauty, wonderment -- all the richness of the specifically human world. For, after all, we humans have a language like no other found in this world.

Hence, it is an abuse of this language to degrade it below human things... Or rather, intelligence and beauty... Not as in subject matter or as in what the words are about, but rather the manner of expression, or the goal, the reason for expression.

Thus, we get to advertisements. In the fifties, when adverts were still new, they were innocent, fun, happy. But now, advertising has become a sick and subtle art.

Ads, specifically written ones (billboards, box covers), and brand names are abuses of language. They are an insult to anyone who has ever sung, read poetry, spoken in the language of love, or prayed.

Words should not catch you unawares. Words should always be meaningful (and there is a theological reason for this too). Words should not jump out, catch your eye, and then try to sell you a product.

When you enter the washroom in order to brush your teeth (a meditative time) you should not spend your mental energy staring at the product names on the sides of the toothpaste tube or box... There should be no meaningless words to invade your spiritual state...

Advertisements are evil!

Today we went to Todai for lunch, because they give you a free meal for your birthday (as long as you bring along one person who pays for your meal).

Then we went to the Portland library, because they give you free library cards on your birthday. We checked a book out called "Living in Hungary." We also read up on African, Celtic, Scottish, and Polish forenames.

While we were people-watching (there's a window looking into a vast, pink room, that we couldn't figure out how to get into) we discovered many things that WE never would have thought of to do in the library like:

1) Eating Chinese Food
2) Doing the mending, replete with twenty kinds of thread and a sewing machine
3) Talking on a cell phone in the reference section

After that we went to the coffee shop and read up on Hungary and the various foibles of President Bush (there was a comedic book on the coffee table).

Now, back at the apartment, I'm starting my work day, again. I spent an hour on the phone this morning, and I should have used Gizmo, but I accidentally used my cell phone instead.

We made some jasmine tea, and put it in a thermos. We equipped ourselves with a guitar and a banjo, and woolen sweaters. We headed to the park and ate roast beef sandwiches with colby/jack cheese and apple slices. For dessert, we sipped our jasmine tea and ate pears. Then we sang "Git along home, Cindy, Cindy."

I've declared that it is officially "wintumn" here. It's not quite Winter, but it's far too cold for Autumn.

Now we're bundled up inside our cozy house, burning incense and candles, I'm building furniture, and The Wife is reading and writing. Soft guitar music plays in the background. We're sipping raspberry wine and nibbling on chocolate.

The neighbor is screaming about something. We think it might be party poker, but The Wife just requested that we either move into the country or out of the country.

We're thinking Budapest, for a few months, and then hiking the PCT this spring.

I think that when we buy things, we should leave the packaging at the store, so the store and then the manufacturer gets the idea:

JUST SAY NO TO PLASTIC.

Well, The Wife went over to the social security office today to start the ball roll in terms of legally taking my last name... It all went smoothly.

Then it was nap time (and still is right now, for some people)...

Last night we had some carpentry excitement in our very-much-in-the-city apartment, Gene Logsdon would have been proud.

I carefully took apart an ancient and antique wooden packing case that someone had forsaken on our apartment building's "up for grabs" table in the laundry room.

I installed the top of this particular case as a shelf in one of the cases we already had in the kitchen... Reusing the ancient and rusty nails... Soon we will have another bit of construction excitement, when we build our kitchen cart...

...pre-grave Wisdom...

We posted some wedding pictures on our uber secret wedding website.

The energy we use in our home now comes from 100% renewable sources.

So in between The Wife's reading from her diary about her father whorfing while on all fours in the dining room...

...and my simultaneous attempts to procure some sustenance from the extremely-oil-separated Adam's peanut butter-that-looks-like-mucus...

...I've managed to get a few (hundred) lines of code written on my main work project, and we've added five books to the sell-for-money stack.

So there's a -- more than you asked for -- picture of our evening.

Hey, it's 1:30 pm and I haven't had any calls from *upset* computer clients yet today!

And we came home to a notice that said our car insurance expired that night at midnight. But we call this morning and we have car insurance again! I was liking the idea of being unable to drive...

Alack. Our window herb garden has suffered in the extreme, during our nearly-three-week leave of absence.

Only the Basil has survived, because it road-tripped with us. California has been good to it.

"Oh, honey... Remember the hummus?"

We just got home to Portland.

I found this in my folder on the home computer. Its my dad's "bio" that he wrote for a class reunion that they had in 2001.

We are still at the folks' house, and my wife has ruthlessly, mercilessly been making me go through my last closet/room of belongings. The recycle bags are bulging, and I'm sure they'll have to send TWO garbage trucks to our block next week. But seriously, we're making headway.

We only supposed to have ONE carload of stuff each, that was the agreement.

Additional furniture is kind of a grey area, because we have been acquiring it...

Well, we braved the IKEA experience today, and wound up the proud owners of a new kitchen cart (some assembly required). I couldn't find the actual cart that we purchased online, so no link. You guys will just have to use your imagination.

I think we should abolish the IKEAs of the world and return to local, small-town artisans.

Whew. Well, the bluegrass festival is over, and it's another work week in paradise.

We're stilling chilling at my folks, enjoying some warm California weather...

The horde of college people started its journey back down to SoCal, so things are more or less quiet here.

At some point we'll head back to our little apartment in Portland...

Last night we met up with The Random Englishman for a wonderful FTB (French Toast Breakfast) and then later at the bluegrass festival. When Emmy Lou Harris had finished played, we headed out to Japantown and got food at that little restaurant that is built above the road in an overpass. After that, we walked a ways down the road and had fantastic gelato.