As part of the coming new year, the weblog will be updated more frequently than once a month. Really. As usual, when lots of things are happening there isn’t time for weblog entries; of course, that’s when I really should be recording what’s happening in my life, but it never works out that way.

2010 DEC 17 : FRIDAY
It was the Kai’s last day at school for a while; they are on vacation for the next week. He had a holiday party at school, but I ended up not staying for it as I was distracting the kiddies.
I did manage to finish grouting the the upstairs bathroom. It was kinda an ugly job; in reality we should just replace the tiles completely, but we want to be able to use the shower sooner rather than later, so I patched worst of things. Hopefully nothing will leak.

I retrieved the Kai and then picked up Amanda from work. While discussing what to do about dinner, AC called up and invited us over for pizza, so we had a fun evening with the AC/MC clan.

2010 DEC 18 : SATURDAY
For some reason I can’t remember exactly what happened.
At various points during the day I sanded down the new grout in the bathroom. I also sealed it. Actually, all the fumes and grout particles I inhaled probably account for my lack of memory.

Amanda did some holiday shopping. She also had to round at the hospital as she is on call on the medicine service for a week.
We made chili for dinner.

2010 DEC 19 : SUNDAY
A sunny day. We went over to CG and MR’s place up in Phinney Ridge. I had not seen CG in a long long time; the progeny wrecked havoc with our social lives obviously. Amanda ran into her recently at Harborview and made plans to to meet up for brunch.
Since I had last seen her, she had gotten married, sold her old house, and is now expecting a progeny of her own. Time flies.

Rather than heading out for brunch, we just ate at their place; they made a tasty frittata which we had with fruit and scones and muffins and faux meat products brought by us. It was good to reconnect with CG and meet her spouse whom apparently I met before but did not remember (pre their relationship). Unfortunately, Fritz (their cat) was vaporish, so I did not get to see him.

I dropped Amanda off at Harborview so that she could round and took the Kai back home for his nap. He wanted to hear all about Ate Sutra, so we looked at my old photo albums before the nap.

Amanda took the light rail home. I did a bit of cleaning and random crap.

When she got home, I took off to Macpherson’s and Safeway to get some stuff for dinner. JH and DH were coming over with their doggie.

Amanda made a onion tart, while I made a kale salad and roasted red potatoes. the H’s brought some bread plus dessert. Dinner was tasty and it was great to hang out with the H’s and their doggie. Armando was not happy with the doggies presence, though. While removing him from an altercation one time, he scratched the hell out of one of my hands and arms… even leaving one of his claws in my thumb!!! Only the part that gets shed anyway, but it still looked pretty crazy sticking out of my thumb.

I thought Amanda was going to come down after putting the Kai to bed, but she probably fell asleep. I cleaned up after dinner, did some computer maintenance, and (edit 2012.01.22: rest of post lost in the aether)

It’s been a seriously long time since the last weblog entry. Time flies.

SDK was visiting from Nashville, but she will be leaving today.
It snowed last night. Not all that much, but combined with the wind and cold the roads iced up and obviously cased a big mess.

Amanda had gone down to the aquarium yesterday afternoon with the Kai, and I meant to join them for dinner since Seattle University closed down for the evening, but I bailed before getting to the waterfront and then managed to get stuck going up the hill on Alaska near the library. Traction control on the Prius is problematic sometimes as it cuts power when it senses the wheels slipping which does not let you effectively rock out of some situations. I had to wait a bit since I was surround by cars and I did not wish to hit anything. Eventually things cleared enough that I spun the car around by bouncing backwards off of the curb and reversed directions down the hill. I managed to turn back on Rainier before a big truck that had spun out behind me and was doing 360s down the hill as it careened towards me. A wasted trip since I was on the road for almost two hours.

Sunny now though. I shoveled the back driveway (with the neighbor) and the front stairs and sidewalks. A lot of shoveling. Who would have thought I’d be doing it in the PNW?

I had my first day at school yesterday… the first time I have been in a classroom in a long long time. It was interesting.

I clearly needed a better attitude during my undergradate. Ah, well.

2010 SEP 12 : SUNDAY (continued)
I have been trying to get something working on my computer network and success is eluding me. Arrrgh.

The Kai slept a long time this afternoon, undoubtedly due to illness. I had thought we might be able to visit Amanda during a break in her conference schedule, but he slept through her break.

Later, the Kai and I went off to a hardware and grocery store. Or at least I tried to go to Home Depot in SODO. I was approaching the West Seattle Bridge and thought I could take the exit to 4th Ave, but, not, the exit no longer exists. Oops. I had to go all the way to West Seattle before turning around.

I decided to take 99 north and then back to Home Depot, but there isn’t really an exit until Seneca Street downtown. I wasn’t too alarmed at this development, and one can’t beat the view on the viaduct.

Unfortunately, I had no idea that a football game was going on and traffic in the area flat out sucked. We ended up being trapped in traffic for a long time. I should have just gone to the Home Depot in West Seattle. Fortunately, the Kai was in good spirits.

We ended up going to Lowe’s on my roundabout way home and also stopped at Safeway again.

Our neighbors surprised me in the evening when they came to my door; I was thinking it was some evangelist of some persuasion. They had two kitties and wondered if they were ours, but I thought they might be our other neighbors, since I see them frolicking in their yard, but perhaps they are just strays.

2010 SEP 11 : SATURDAY
AC/MC and progeny came over for bfast and to pick up their car. We had waffles. I managed to fix my original Xbox and we played a little DDR. We hadn’t played DDR in a long long time as it is very loud, but in the new place that does not matter.

Amanda had to go to work in the morning… in this case attend part of a medical conference in town. MC went home with LC for a nap, while AC&CC went to Mt. Baker Park with the Kai and myself. It was their annual “Day in the Park” with music, activities, blow up slides and obstacle cources, etc. It was fun.

In the afternoon, Amanda and I went to our former neighbors MM&BG’s wedding. Although since we still own the old place they actually are still our neighbors. We drop the Kai off at his grandmothers and drove out to Sahalie which is basically at Snoqualmie Pass about 52 miles from Seattle.

M and B had a private ceremony earlier, and we were just there for the reception. Another set of neighbors, GW&KV were also there. It was a good time. The lodge actually sleeps an outrageous number of people (120 according to their website), but we did not want to stay, and left relatively early in the festivities.

2010 SEP 12 : SUNDAY
We picked up Kai and his grandmother in the morning and headed out for bfast at Geraldine’s Counter. The Kai looked to be getting ill, so afterwards we stopped at Safeway to pick up medicinals.

We stopped by the old place and loaded up yet more stuff. Amanda and her mom also packed up the worm bin. Now, only Armando and Amanda’s bicycle remain at the old place.

After unpacking at the new house, Amanda had to go to more conference stuff. I played with the Kai until his nap and then started doing yet more cleaning and organizing and writing this weblog entry.