Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Okay, so it has been awhile, but I have been busy and out of town. We went to Reno last Wednesday for a locksmithing convention and classes. Ethan took classes on building/fire codes and lockpicking/lock impressioning. Those were on Thursday and Friday, so we had a ton of time to ourselves to do with as we pleased.
Wednesday night, we went to a show called Smokey Joe's Cafe, which was a musical production featuring songs from the 50's. Very cool. We had a great time there. After the show, we went to the Brews Brothers microbrewery, located in the El Dorado hotel and casino. Very good! Cheap, good food, their own microbrews, which I actually drank a full 15 oz beer of (my first beer since, I don't know--years ago). Ethan had BBQ baby back ribs and chicken, and I had a great chicken with cranberry sauce sandwich ***good for me***. This brewery sponsored the festival we went to Saturday. Back in our room, we discovered a show on USA called The 4400, which has us fascinated, so we must now watch it. It turns out that this Saturday, there will be a marathon showing all of the shows starting with their very first one, so we need to remember to record them. Or, Ethan needs to remember, since I am working 7-7.

Thursday, Ethan had his class from 0800 to 1600, and we met for lunch, then had the rest of the evening to ourselves. We watched the NBA finals game 7, which ended up sucking, and then we headed over to a restaurant in the hotel called Lindy's, where I had a delicious steak. I don't like steak all the time, just once in awhile, and this one was really good.

Friday was Ethan's second and last day of classes. We met for lunch and went to the buffet, which was great. Tons of different foods to choose from. AND I abstained from eating junk and desserts and crap. Go me! Friday night, we went to a comedy show at the Hilton. It was pretty funny, very good except for the fact that there were over 2k high school volleyball players in town for the biggest volleyball tournament in the US. And they all scream and giggle. A few of them would NOT shut up and kept interrupting, but the comics handled them well.

Saturday, we headed downtown on the Reno public buses (much cheaper than the horrible taxi ride we took Wednesday, and they ran every 20 minutes or so), for the BBQ, Brews and Blues festival sponsored by the El Dorado hotel and casino. They had a deal where you buy a plastic mug and a bunch of tokens and try out the 42 different beers there from all the different microbreweries that came. They closed off a bunch of streets and had vendors and tons of good things. Now, the beer mugs had a line clearly marking off 4oz, which is what 1 token bought you. 2 tokens bought you a full 10 oz beer. Well, lets just say that EVERYONE overpoured. It didn't help that all the brewery people were partaking of the brews as well, but our total of 22 tokens went a lot further than they were intended. And, I don't drink beer. I don't like it. All the carbonation and the taste in general--just not me. But......it was vacation, and it was a good time so I did it anyway.
We started out at the Alaskan Brewery, which stood out like Mecca for Ethan and I. A familiar logo, and a step up from the corona which he had been drinking. So we got our beers there, had tons of discussion with the brewers, based on Ethan's Sonics shirt he was wearing (actually, we got a total of 5 tokens from people who talked to Ethan about Seattle and/or the Sonics. This on top of the 22 we actually purchased). So, we tried out a wide variety of beers. Note of caution--the Hoppsmasters beer is TERRIBLE. Remember the bitter beer face commercials? That was me, much of the day, but mostly with this one. I remember also trying Moose Drool beer, beers from Germany and Denmark, Mirror Pond beer, and tons of other ones. I managed to stay pretty sober. I didn't feel intoxicated at all, despite drinking quantities of actual beer, which I have never done. What I didn't feel was the massive sunburn I got on my neck. I bought sunscreen on the way to the festival, and got my face and even the tops of my ears, but my hair was up and I never even thougth about my neck/shoulders, so now I have a terrible open sunburn with blisters, and shirts are painful.

But, we finished up there, ate at the Brews Brothers restaurant again, and headed back to our hotel, where Ethan took a long nap and I watched You've Got Mail, with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. She is so cute!

Sunday, we got up and checked out at 11am then gave our luggage to the Bell Desk and headed back downtown. While waiting for the bus, we thought we felt an earthquake, which was later confirmed to be a 4.8 magnitude. Downtown, we wandered around, had a few strawberry margaritas, and headed over to a theater where we watched and thoroughly enjoyed Batman Begins. After that, we went BACK to the Brews Brothers and had some drinks and nachos, then headed back to the hotel to go to the airport and get home. We got home around midnight, and were greeted appropriately by the kitties, who, it turns out, had plenty of food left and did not forget where the litterbox was. Go kitties!

So there. Worked 12 hours yesterday, but Ethan stayed over to work through the night, and I am expecting him home in an hour or so very tired, so I rented some movies for a quiet night in. And that is what we have been up to.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Another wonderful person dealing with cancer's blog. This man works for the bbc in England, and writes a weekly diary, starting with his diagnosis in 2002. Definitely a tear jerker.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2253201.stm

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Today is my second wedding anniversary. In some ways it seems like it has been longer, and in others it seems like we have only been married a few short months. We are going to the Meltin Pot for dinner tonight. I like the fondue stuff. Spendy, but such a good meal and a nice evening. Next year, we are hoping to be out of town on our anniversary. Our goal was to go on vacation each year over our anniversary, to make it special, but this year Ethan doesn't have any vacation, since he needs to be a permanent employee for 6 months before he can use his accrued time.

This year (next week), we are going to Reno for 5 days on the State's dime (mostly). There is a locksmith convention there, so they are paying for Ethan's hotel and airfare, along with a food stipend. I am paying for my airfare and food, and we are set. Should be a semi-decent trip, and almost free. Only a week after our anniversary, and good for some relaxation.

Next year, we are thinking of going to Hawaii. Actually, a co-worker of Ethan's went on a relocation cruise this year, which is a cruise where a cruise ship that normally goes around somewhere (like Hawaii) cruises over to somewhere else for the season (in this case, over to Los Angeles). We are thinking of going to Hawaii, spending 3-4 days there, then getting on the cruise, which is a regular Hawaii cruise of 7 nights or so, then heads out in the open ocean and ends up in LA. It would be about 2 weeks in total, and an awesome time. The cruise is DEEPLY discounted, we would actually pay less for the 11 nights on this cruise than we did for our 7 night alaskan cruise. A lot less, like $200-300 less. We know that we will eventually have kids, and these sort of trips will not be as easy/possible to do, so we want to do them now, or else face not doing them ever.

I had a nightmare last night that I was pregnant. How happy I was when I woke up and I was just dreaming. While I do definitely want kids, I most definitely do not want them NOW. I have no idea where I would put a baby in this condo, and the financial strain would keep us here for a lot longer than we want to be.

We have decided to re-evaluate our situation here in January, and decide if we want to start looking for a house then or wait until this place is completely paid off. We have some concerns about the fact that housing here is jumping up in price so much that the equity we build up in this condo over 2006 would not be enough to justify waiting an extra year to start looking (we figure this place will sell for $145-155k, but the average house price in Seattle jumped up $30k over the past year, and prices aren't slowing down, or expected to slow down in the near future), so if we wait too long, the housing prices may get away from us. Ethan figures he would be willing to pay $75k more to live in Seattle, as opposed to Burien, which is the suburb just south of the city. You can get so much more if you just leave the city limits, but we would really like to stay in here. There are concerns about schools, because we don't want our kids in the Seattle public school system, but we can figure that out when the time comes. I know the Shoreline school system has some good alternative schools, but I don't want to live north of Seattle. We shall see.

Anyway.........

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Everyone should read this story. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry, and it is not even all written yet...


http://www.sfgate.com/alicia/

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Tonight at long last, I get to work on the quilt again. I worked friday, sunday, monday and today, and Ethan was home Saturday with me, so I couldn't work on it any of those days. I have 8 squares across done, and my original plan was to go 10 weeks across and 11 down. I think I am going to look at it when it is 9 squares across and see just how wide that is, because I was thinking of putting a 3 inch or so border around the outside, and maybe 9 squares across is enough.....the squares will be about 94.5 inches across, so that would be 100 inches. Wait a second, that sounds huge. I am only 69 inches tall. There is no way the blanket is supposed to be gynormous like that. Maybe I need to investigate further....

work, work, work. I have this massively head injured kid that I have had for the past 3 days, and we really have things worked out. His mom is nuts, but he is all confused from a big whack to the head. I have him calm, cooperative and not trying to walk on his terribly broken leg. He broke both arms, his hip and shattered his face and leg. His leg will need to be amputated if he walks on it again before it heals, so we are doing everything to keep him off it. We put a mattress on the floor, since he kept climbing out of bed before. That seems to work well. He has been doing so good, it is nice to see SOME progress being made. He will never be his old self again, but just being functional is a step up. Anyway............

Friday, June 03, 2005

Jumping on my Soapbox

Okay, here I go. Forgive me if I am irritated. I am in a terrible mood this morning, for no reason that I can think of. And now my patient gave me another reason to get all irritated.

So. Smoking is an addiction. I understand this. It is tough to beat. I have every respect for people who are able to quit, but no respect for those who choose to smoke. I don't want to hear any of that'it's my body' crap. You are polluting the environment, you smell bad, you make ME cough, your car/house values are dropping, and you are generally contributing to the levels of allergies and illnesses in the general public. Wear a bubble if you want to smoke, because really, that is the only good solution.
Pregnant women have small babies, and say 'it is MY body', or 'if there is a problem with my baby, I will deal with it, it is not your issue'. Wrong. If there is a problem with your baby, it should be taken away, just like crack babies are taken away from their addicted mothers. Tobacco-born babies are more likely (much more likely) to develop asthma throughout their lifetimes, allergies to tons of things, have problems with dyslexia, etc. Tons of things. No one has the right to do that to their kids. Period.
Now, I know that as a non smoker who has never smoked I do not fully understand the power of a smoking addiction, but, to be hones, I DON'T CARE!! It is STUPID. SMOKING IS STUPID. It is KNOWN by EVERYONE that smoking throughout your lifetime WILL kill you. Maybe now, maybe later, maybe you will get hit by a truck instead and be spared a life of emphysema or COPD or some terrible cancer, but SMOKING WILL kill you eventually. This is a known fact. Not a guess, not an opinion, but fact. Smoking is bad for you. People say oh, but you drink, and that is bad for you so you are a hypocrite, but----Shut up!! Alcohol is actually GOOD for you in moderation. Small amounts have a BENEFIT for the body. Small amounts of nicotine are NOT good for you. No amount of nicotine is good for you. PERIOD. In this day and age, in this country, there is not a soul over the age of 5 who does not know/has not heard a million times that smoking is bad for you and will kill and/or incapacitate you.
Smokers struggle to quit. I know this. I have seen this. It can take 8 or more tries to get it done. Ethan's old boss smoked heavily, but found out he has serious heart problems, and guess what--he QUIT! I know Sabrina smoked and tried to quit several times, before finding out she was pregnant. And guess what--she QUIT! You have to be able to find something in your life to quit for. If your health and your life are not enough to do it, do it for your baby or your spouse or SOMETHING!
So, my original ranting started, as I said, because of my patient. I helped him up to the bathroom with a wheelchair, got him settled on the toilet, then came back 10 minutes later when he pulled the nurse light signalling that he was done. And the room is rolling in smoke. The guy flat out denied that he had been smoking. He said he threw a pack of cigarettes in the garbage, and maybe that is what I am smelling. Do I really look that stupid?? I smelled SMOKE SMOKED cigarettes. Not an unused pack of cigarettes. It has been explained to this particular person that we have OXYGEN running through the walls here for our patients to be hooked up to. Did you know that oxygen is FLAMMABLE?!!? It is. So he risked blowing up his roommate to have a cigarette. So stupid. Just irritates me. Quit, already! I have seen people lose LIMBS, as in CUT IT OFF because they wouldn't stop smoking, and that delays bone healing, so they end up with an unsalvageable foot. So stupid, so preventable.
Okay, off the soapbox for now. Just don't ever make the mistake of offering me a cigarette...............