You're Doing It Wrong

I can’t remember where I saw this First Annual Keanu Awards — pretty funny. And while I’m talking about awards I’d just like to say that this was just about the least satisfying Oscar Ceremony ever — and it was WAY TOO LONG.

I sold my CRX on Sunday. I wrote up a story about it but somehow it disappeared into the blackblog and I’m not in the mood for resurrecting it at the moment. It found a very good home.

First of all, check out this tug boat getting pulled under a bridge. It’s a little slow loading — but completely worth it.

Yesterday we finally decided to put a second cable box downstairs and AT&T is having a special deal where you can get their super-deluxe-every single channel package at an amazing low price for 6 months and then they brought the second cable box and installed it for free. The AT&T people came over at about 8:20am and at first they didn’t even think they could do it without drilling concrete or something like that but eventually they found a way to do it (it took an hour and 1/2) and the finished scenario involves wires strung all over hellandgone but Bob can watch cable in the basement and that’s all that really matters.

So what’s the first thing we find to watch on the new cable service with everything? A documentary on the Sundance Channel about Linux and open source.

Last night I went to a — I don’t know what you call it — a product demonstration? It was for the release of Flash MX. Just look at these pages, obviously my webpage-making skills are primitive at best and I’d love to learn more about using all the Macromedia stuff but you know, only so much time and energy and I have some other creative things I spend my time on. There was a time when web technology was vaguely in my grasp, but those days are long gone and I spent much of the demo trying very hard to follow the presentation.

During the demo the guy showed all these new features and tools in this latest version and occasionally you’d hear murmurs through the crowd and once people broke into applause.

I told Bob it was like when he took me to a Phish concert. I could tell when something good was happening, but I didn’t really understand what it was.

Back from Vegas yesterday A fun time was had by all. I even came back with a few bucks in my wallet. I think I should get a prize for that. We’re weren’t totally camera crazy this trip but I think I can come up with enough to put up a few pages. Stay tuned.

I’m still tired and not in the mood for work. I want to sit around in front of the TV and drink hot chocolate.

argh. What a week. I’ve been busy at work and completely behind and then my car was blocked in this evening which resulted in a lot of personal drama although the story came out okay. I was able to find the blocked car owner and get the keys and get home only about 45 minutes later than usual. Except I am going to Las Vegas tomorrow and had some stuff to do but ended up deciding to screw it. I’ll get cash on my way to work and buy whatever I need or live without it.

I need to pack and we only have two sizes of bags: tiny and huge. I have opted for huge and will take about 400 outfits and every personal hygiene item known to man. While there, I plan to drink lots of refreshing adult beverages, buy fun stuff on credit and have a fabulous time getting into as much trouble as I can find.

We brought home the new car last night. It’s an ’01 Toyota Camry in a very pretty blue color that I haven’t seen before and I looked at a lot of Camrys. We ended up [long story omitted] going through the Hertz lot at the airport and I can highly recommend this experience.

I’ve been dicking around looking at cars for over a month now [ads, car lots, friends of friends, etc.] and Thursday morning I called Hertz and Diana said she had a bunch of great Camrys so I drove over that minute, saw the blue one and knew that was the one. The trip to the Credit Union to wrap up the loan was much less painful than I expected. I carried that check around in my purse all day — went to the spa, got a facial and massage, went to Trader Joe’s and picked up food and cheap wine. We ate some dinner and then drove over and got the car. I didn’t freak out once.

We have to sell the CRX and I have to admit, I feel bad driving the new car in front of it. I’ve been driving that car since May 90 when it had 7,000 miles on it. (It has 120K now). It’s been very good to me and it seems cruel to park it so that it can see me zoom off in the Camry. (Half of you are groaning right now and half of you know exactly what I’m talking about.) I did a preliminary research project to see what it was worth and was a bit flabbergasted to see people asking $3000 for those cars. Mine is mechanically sound but looks a bit lived in so I wouldn’t dream of asking that much. We need to sit down and figure out how we’re going to handle it. I did give it a bath today and it’s been vacuumed inside and looks pretty spiffy.

Here’s the Wintergrass update. We went to Tacoma on Friday because Bob was all hot on seeing Nickel Creek so it was imperative that we get there by magic hour. I’m not sure exactly how it worked but the Wintergrass organizers had it so you could see Nickel Creek once and then this other band and both bands played two shows and Bob managed to trade around so he could see NC twice. I went to the hotel after NC so I missed out on all this.

But regardless, I did see NC once and loved them. My other favorites from the weekend were the Del McCoury Band who I’ve seen a couple of times but always make me happy. They played on Saturday but the room was completely insane so we ended up going downstairs to the ballroom and caught Bethany Dick who was pretty good and then another band that I loved on first sight Barbed Wire Cutters (see also Korby). We bought their cd and told them to come play in Portland. I went to the hotel early on Saturday too, but keep in mind that I’m not hard core, only normal core.

On Saturday night we went to this fabulous restaurant Over the Moon Cafe. The URL on this site isn’t operational at the moment I am typing this, but I wouldn’t let this discourage you. This is in our top 10 dinners of all time (since we’ve been married).

Sunday we went to the Poodle Dog in Fife. Now, the sign says they’ve served good food since 1933 and all I can think of is that the definition of “good” has changed since then. Or perhaps I can just steer you way from their specialty: Cream Waffle with Fruit. Because it was the worst breakfast I’ve ever had, that I had to pay for. I mean, unless, good food means a soggy waffle with cold fruit.

Following the Poodle Dog debacle we dealt with more bluegrass and this was when I got to see my beloved Del McCoury — I love those guys. And then, starving as I was, we took off for home. We ate at the Olympic Club in Centralia which was fun and then home.

I know, I know, where have I been? I’ve been wanting to write a blog about Wintergrass last weekend and the bands I saw but I need to take some time and find URLS, etc. I also have a few notes about some random things I wanted to tell the world about but I can’t find them.

It’s been a wee bit busy this week and I haven’t exactly been lunging at the computer in the down time. Probably this weekend I’ll get something up.