Week 2

After another typical weekend -- Mariners lose, softball team wins -- it's back to work.

This week I've been keeping an eye on our dogs while parts of the remodel are in progress.  I was going to put them in daycare, but they're actually been pretty good about staying out of the way and not barking at the workers or all the noise.  Nailing in a hardwood floor is noisy, but Tommy sleeps right through it.

Monday the hardwood guy got to work installing boards and my painters arrived.  Fortunately the were working around each other.  When we moved in we removed a divider from the bottom of the stairs and patched the walls and ceiling but never painted.  I picked up some paint six months ago to see if I could get a match, but it was never on the top of the to do list.  Sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind but more after staring at the ugliness every day, we just learned to live with it.  But with hardwoods going in, we wanted to paint first rather than risk getting paint on the new wood floors.  In the end, we cut out a chunk of the wall and did a color match.  They were able to feather in the paint to avoid painting the 15" wall above the stairwell and perhaps other walls to match which was a great saving of time and money. Hard to explain really; you have to see it.

Tuesday the hardwood installer got most of the floor done and Wednesday he finished up with the hallway and the edges.  Looks great and it hasn't been sanded or finished yet.

Meanwhile I've been working on planning my trip to Las Vegas and it looks like it's a go.  I'll be there May 24th through June 4th.  Have airfare, hotels, and a rental car booked.  I'm staying off the strip at Alexis Park the first week to keep my costs down.  Even Imperial Palace wants $200 for Saturday over Memorial Day weekend, then moving to IP the second week where I have 4 nights for $85!  My plan is rather than to play poker non-stop to actually have a vacation.  See some shows, walk down the strip, maybe sit by the pool.  Get away from the strip to see some other parts of Vegas.  And really before 11 AM the poker action isn't that good. 

Also working around the house.  It seems the laundry never stops, even for just the two of us. I've been catching up on entering our financial records into MS Money in preparation for doing our taxes.  Yes, I haven't even started taxes yet.  Finished reseeding the back yard.  Dogs and dog "output" do a number on a lawn.  I can't believe how bad it looks just a year after we put down sod.  Seeding is more work than it sounds like.  Had to loosen up the soil in lots of places and work the seed into the dirt.  Otherwise it just washes away.  The lawn eeds a lot of TLC (and a lot of water) this year.  Hope to see some grass and hope in a couple of weeks. 

I installed a keyless entry for the garage.  That was actually a fun project where I felt like I accomplished something rather than started something that will eventually finish.  Our garage is attached to our house but is external so the door is locked and it's a pain to unlock it, every time to go into the garage.  I looked at doing this when we first moved in, but didn't see one that would work.  Maybe it's a new model, but this was pretty easy to install and only took an hour and works great.already.

Also made a trip to the vet.  Hunny Bear and Cocoa are fine -- still needs another round of meds for his yeast infection -- but Tommy has problems with ears and eyes.  And it's almost impossible for us to medicate him.  He sees the dropper bottle coming for his ears or eyes and he runs.  When you catch him he shakes and jerks his head.  Try putting eye drops in while shaking -- impossible. That's my challenge foe the week.

Day 3

Went to Hideaway to play their 10:30 poker tournament. This is the best structured daily tournament in town.  You start with 100BB which gives you some time to play before you're short stacked and generally the field is small so it's not a luck fest until you're at the final table.  One of the guys who seemed to be a regular said they get 40 or 50 people which I found surprising.  They actually had 22 people at the start and just had two tables with two alternates. I lasted about an hour in the tournament.  On the only good hand I had early I managed to steal the blinds.  Lost a bunch of chips where I got unlucky and then bluffed off much of my stack against a guy who couldn't figure out he should fold, or had an amazing read on me.

Had lunch with my friend Meier and talked at length about ideas for an upcoming Vegas trip.  Seems like it actually might not make sense to drive down, even for a long stay.  Then came home to work on the yard.  I fixed the light in the backyard; actually if just fixed itself but I programmed the timer.  Filled in half a dozen holes in backyard and pretty the ground for reseeding.  We love our dogs, but wow do they do a number on the lawn; number 1 that is.

Then to the Mariners game for the second night in a row. Who knew filling dirt would be more fun than the Mariners game.  Wow is it cold for May baseball.  The reported crowd was 17,000 but this is one of the two smallest crowds I've seen. Can't believe it was much more than 10K, if that.

Day 2, Wednesday

As planned much of the day was pre-work on the hardwoods.

To replace the carpets in the living room and dining/piano room with hardwoods (thanks doggies), we need to get all of the furniture out of the way.  For the most part Monica and I could move the items ourselves, but there's the matter of a huge, heavy piano so we hired professionals to store everything in our garage for a month.

Got in a quick workout before the movers were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM.  Unfortunately there was a car fire on the 520 bridge and even more unfortunate they chose to take 520 instead of coming across I-90 which delayed them until 10:45.   Other than that the move went smoothly.  The wood delivery showed up at 11, but they kept out of each other's way though they were using the same space.  Move was done by noon.

My little project for the day was to fix the outdoor light for our backyard. At least I thought it was little -- position ladder, remove bulb, replace bulb.  That didn't help.  The light is on a programmable timer switch and it turns out the batteries in the switch needed to be replaced.  Had to go to Fred Meyer to get tiny watch-like batteries.. and now the switch works but the light doesn't come on.  Working more on this today.  Also picked up a programmable lock for the garage -- the kind where you can punch in a combination instead of using a key.  Our garage is detached so we need to unlock it every time we go in there.  This probably would have happened a year ago if there was room for my car in there.

Went to the Mariners game last night.  Pretty good for 7 innings, but overall yuck.  It's pretty painful to watch Griffey play.  And without Bradley, that offense is terrible.

Off to play poker in the AM.

Day -1: Recovering

Since I'm technically still employed until Monday, this isn't really even day 1 yet.  OK, and I'm a technology geek.

My time off started with a bang.  Last night on my way home my car battery died.  Had to call AAA to get me home.  Looks like I need a new alternator.  Always nice to have big expenses right as you lose your job.  Oh well, maybe it's an excuse to play more poker to earn some extra income.

Today was about recovering from the last couple of weeks.  I haven't been working very hard but work has been emotionally exhausting.  I made a list of projects to work on while it helped me get organized, it also seems a bit overwhelming.  And I decided to use the product I've worked on to see if we can attack these projects in an Agile fashion.  So I organized my work and uploaded all of it into Serena Agile.  In the process I found three really bad bugs.  While finding bugs is normally exciting, it was actually a bit disheartening to see problems in production and to spend my last week working on real problems.  As such, I really haven't been motivated to do much around the house.

So today is about doing dishes, running several loads of laundry, going through the last week of mail (some email too), putting away the stuff I brought home from the office, cleaning out the fridge, and doing some grocery shopping.  But first, I got to sleep in late for the first time in a really long time.  I think I got up about 10:30.

Oh and I made it to gym for the second day in a row.  Good.  And I stepped on a scale for the first time in weeks.  Bad, very bad.  Tomorrow I buy a new scale.

Taking the Summer Off

As many of you who are reading this know, a couple months ago my company decided to close its Bellevue office and laid us all off.  I was part of the transition team that was retained until May 3 to help move our work from Bellevue to Kiev.  While May 3 is technically my last day at Serena, Thursday was my last day in the office and today starts my "summer".

Rather than jump back into another job, I decided to take a break for the summer to work on some projects.  I'm going to try to blog about my day-to-day activities though won't necessarily post daily. One thing I want to do is take an extended trip to Las Vegas though this seems harder and harder to fit in around other plans.

Hunny Bear climbs into bed

For a blog named for Hunny Bear, there's not actually much about Hunny Bear in the blog.

But yesterday Hunny Bear did something we've been trying to get him to do for years.  And we're very proud of him!  A few years ago we got a Tempur-Pedic bed and found that with the thicker mattress and his advanced age, Hunny Bear could no longer jump on the bed to sleep with us.  So we got some pet steps and put them next to the bed. (They don't quite look like the picture but you get the idea.)  He wouldn't go near them.  Emily immediately ran up them.  Every foster dog or dog we've dog sat ran up them into bed.  Hunny Bear wouldn't touch them.  If you put his front paws on the first step, he stepped off. 

We tried off and on to teach him, but finally we put the steps away.  But in the new house we have them out.  For the first time yesterday, Hunny Bear used the steps to walk into bed without any physical assistance.  I patted the bottom step and once he stepped on, I patted the second step, and he stepped up and figured the rest out from there.  And he just repeated the behavior tonight.

I only wonder what took him so long to try it.

House update

We signed paperwork last week. Closing is scheduled for Tuesday. Feels good to be done with the house since the emotional part has long past and it's a business transaction waiting to happen.

Woo hoo, softball

Our softball team finally won a game this weekend to move up to 1-7. Funny thing is unlike all of my brother's teams, this team isn't bad at all. We've played even with the top teams in the league. Seems like our good games are against good teams and our bad games -- missing people or didn't play well -- are against the teams we should beat. Good news is every team makes the playoffs as we'll be ready.

Our house is coming along. We're replacing the carpet downstairs with a tile floor. Should increase cleanliness and reduce allergens. Time to think about painting/staining outside now that it's warm.

New House

I've been telling people that December-March is a big blur. Monica and I made an offer on a house in early December and between negotiating, repairs, packing, unpacking, decorating, etc., time has flown by. I see my blog is neglected as well.

Pretty much everyone has heard about the house by now, so I won't go into details. We moved to be closer in to the city and have less to take care of. We're loving it.