Author Archives: Josh

Leftovers falling from the sky

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My camera roll from the past couple weeks seems to have a bunch of things which I intended to post but never actually did. Photo dump incoming!

First, a few pictures from while I was out on walks back in PDX and the ships were arriving for Fleet Week.

USCGC Terrapin (WPB 87366)
Coast Guard ship Terrapin arrived first, with their red white and blue escort!
USS Pinckney (DDG 91)
USS Pinckney (DDG 91) Arriving under the Steel bridge. Wanted to see it from up top, but they closed the bridge WAY back for security. They got a fireboat escort too, but the picture with the bridge is cooler.
USS Independence (LCS-2) Arriving
USS Independence (LCS-2) arriving with the fireboats spraying red white and blue.
The tugboat was blasting the song “Proud to be an American” over it’s PA as well.
HMCS Edmonton (MM703)
HMCS Edmonton (MM703) arriving under the Steel bridge. The Canadians are much more friendly and let us get up on the bridge to watch them. Also, they waved happily. What a nice bunch.
Fleet Week arrivals complete. Watching Independence (background) pull in was interesting, that sucker is amazingly maneuverable for something that size. The tugboats danced around it trying to look helpful, but it appeared that the ship did most of the work itself.
Beware the patrol boats during Fleet Week! I also saw them intercepting one of the “Brew Barge” foot-pedal powered drinking tour boats, and escorting them past the fleet. Slowly.

And here’s a picture of the last night I took my riverside walk in Portland. I’ll miss those walks. Well, for part of the year anyway.

Portland skyline at night

During all the various driving around we did in the last few weeks I couldn’t help but take some pictures of my favorite mountains.

The view from Tacoma after leaving McMenamins Elks Temple Hotel. This is when I realized I was gonna miss having these beacons on the horizon.
Driving the U-Haul back to Portland from North Bend, saw The Mountain from down Puyallup way.

Next up a series of pictures taken from airplane windows!

Taking off out of Portland, leaving for our new home! Was disappointed that the cloud deck was low and I wouldn’t get a nice view.
Made it through the clouds! Crouching Mountain, Hidden Hood! Mt. Hood with a nice hat on it. T
All three mountains. Hood with it’s cap in the foreground, along with St. Helens and Rainier.
Looking north across Vancouver at the mountains in the background. Taken when flying to Dallas for a week before we actually moved.

And finally, a few random leftovers:

Go to Papa Hayden. Get the Rhubarbella. You won’t regret anything.
Willamette Pacific #2314 (GP39-2) rumbling across the Steel bridge. I always liked seeing our little local railways and their custom liveries.
My wife is a terrible cheater. (She declared “I win!” after drawing her not quite straight line there..) Although, in retrospect, Laurie’s little girl did exactly the same thing to me when we were playing recently… Maybe I just don’t know how to play Tic Tac Toe properly.
Our house is in this picture somewhere… Can you find it?
That’s it, right at the tip of the arrow!

Hope you’ve enjoyed the photos! Bev’s at her first official day at her new job today, and I’m on a mission to get all our utilities hooked up at the house, re-wire some networking cables. I wish we had a chair at the house, it’s hard to sit on the stairs with a laptop comfortably. Stuff arrives…. soon? Who knows.

Fresh confusion.

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My brain really really tried hard to understand how “push button to receive potato” worked, before I realized that no, we have a microwave, not a replicator.

Also, what kind of savage microwaves a potato?

Exploring the Colony on a Zeppelin made of Bread…

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Today was a bit of an exciting adventure. Step 1: Purchase washer/dryer and refrigerator. I was expecting that to be quite the terrible process, but it turned out to be pretty painless. Even my credit card wasn’t complaining as much as expected!

What was not painless was talking Bev out of buying the chaise she wants. AGAIN.

Dramatic Bevin on a Chaise

We finally settled on NOT buying the chaise, but only because of the idea that there might be other, better chaise’ to be found at other locations. So I guess I’m not off the hook that easy. It was commented upon in a texting thread thusly:

It is terrible! Egregiously huge. It is an affront.

It is a BED. Except it is permanently in recline. It’s a broken reclining bed. It is best used as a guest bed for guests you hate.

Matt Proehl

I believe him to be correct, I could not have said it better. And yet I live in fear that some nebulously better chaise awaits, lurking in my future like a jaguar creeping through the jungle canopy at midnight. This new state of fear will take some getting used to.

So, we left Nebraska (the furniture mart, not the state… Although I’m still not certain which is larger.) and I pull up the great gooleator, which presents me with this:

“Explore The Colony”

My brain vaporlocked at “Explore The Colory”. Was I teleported to Mars? Was it April 1st? Is google gaslighting me? I was legitimately confused. For the second time! This happened once before several weeks ago when we were here. Apparently I didn’t learn. Very weird to have an area named “The Colony”, at least according to my brain. Maybe it’s too busy coping with the idea of “chaise” still.

Anyway, once I recovered from that, we managed to locate the location for the lunching: Bread Zeppelin! Which is a salad bar. Because…. well, no idea why, but Bevin loves it.

Yeah, that’s a “salad”. The center is hollowed out and filled with salad anyway.

The “best” part is that they take the soft center they scooped out, and make it into croutons and bread pudding, which they then charge you extra for.

It feels like a protection racket. The bread mafia perhaps? I avoided any mob entanglements by having a simple salad bowl, which was actually quite tasty. Would definitely take another ride on this Zeppelin.

In the afternoon we did a bit more shopping, moved some stuff from the hotel to the house, and took a few more measurements. You know, to figure out where to fit The Chaise.

Deliveries begin arriving Tuesday. We are not long for this hotel it seems. It’s hard to tell if we’re over-excited and can’t process the excitement any longer, or if it hasn’t really sunk in yet.

Aside

I just tried to shoot the paper sleeve off my straw at Bevin and it flopped flaccidly onto the table instead.

She laughed at me.

I am hurt.

I’m Dr. Zoidberg! Homeowner!

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We made it! We’re here! The locks only work with our keys now! Our very own house!

I’m amused that UPS got my package here before I even arrived! So… I have a house, AND 53Lbs of ammo. What more could a person want?

Maybe some furniture I suppose. This floor is great, but there’s enough room in this room that it feels a bit weird to just by lying here.

Whew! It’s done! Sort of. The next adventure is buying a washer/dryer and refrigerator. 4th of July sales here we come! Crowds of people and salespeople trying to make commissions as fast as possible, sounds like my own special hell, I may just lie here.

Also, if the title confused you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ijJVVP-Ycjk

Hobo lunch.

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As homeless Hobos are want to do, we are having chicken and waffles and mac’n’cheese for lunch.

Closing on the house is in 45 minutes, so if all goes well we won’t be homeless anymore in about 3 hours. I’m undecided if I’ll miss the hobo lifestyle or not. It’s a bit hot for riding in a boxcar though, so I guess…

My poor tired brain…

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From across the room these symbols looked like tiny Stormtrooper helmets. (you know, from Star Wars?) My brain spent a full 15 seconds trying to process that.

Clearly I need a nap.

Once more unto the sky dear friends, once more. Boarding group C coming up next!

Hashtag Hobos?

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We are technically homeless. All we own is here:All else is in the clutches of either Alaska airlines, or one of several possible moving companies. A bit of an odd feeling actually. I don’t have keys to any house or apartment, and everything is in these bags. It’s actually sort of liberating in a weird way. Not that I’m not hoping that everything goes smoothly and all our stuff arrives safely. 😂The move yesterday went well.Our moving crew was great, they packed up all our stuff with great care, even though it turned out to be more stuff than they were told to expect, and their company gives them some really shitty equipment to work with. (seriously, I went to safeway and bought packing tape that actually worked.) Real troopers though. We filled a whole truck. Whaaat?Also, the car got picked up Tuesday. Byeeee filbert!So, here we are, 4.5 hours of sleep later, ready to get on our plane.No nap for me though, can’t afford to risk missing this flight. Coffee time! Will report in several time zones from now.

Less annoying than usual.

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Apparently one of their security lines here at the E gates at DFW is still a metal detector. Their x-ray machine is more irritating than usual, so since I wasn’t going to get to have any fun with getting patted down I tried to irritate the lady managing the x-ray line.

She clearly already hated her job, everyone around her, and life in general, so there was really no further work to be done in trying to discourage her from coming to work. Boring.

I always feel pretty good in the airport when I realize how little we’re actually carrying. It feels like a lot when tossing it into the rental car, but when you see how much everyone at the airport has one feels quite tidy by comparison!

4:30 am in the airport rental car garage, with a good stiff breeze blowing, and Bev says “ah, the first hint of chilly all trip”. For reference I thought it was pleasantly warm, edging on warm enough that I wouldn’t want to do too much work outdoors.

It’s gonna be a hot summer down here. But for now, off to Seattle! I’ll miss our little 2019 Jetta rental car.