January 28/29

Ok, so what did we do this weekend.

I made Ed get up in the 18" high attic to string cabling for the media room. The whole claustrophobia thing kept me from trying to crawl thru spaces too tight for a grown adult. We got it done with lots of cooperation and calm heads. Then I connected some of the items, but it's still not running. Maybe I'll do that Sunday.

Ed primered the ceiling in the sunroom. Since the sunroom was added to the front of the house, and half of its ceiling is actually the old redwood eaves of the roof, the redwood leeches thru the primer/paint to make sorta a brownish yuck colored paint. This was Ed's third coat of primer. We'll migrate to the high coverage white next and see what happens there.

The sun came out a bit in the afternoon so I cleared and raked the area inside the curve of the walkway to the front door. Despite the relatively small size of the space, I ended up with about 5 wheelbarrows full of organic matter that I dumped in front of the house by the bus stop. (I'm in the process of turning that area into a flower garden. I just have to build a small perimeter wall around it.)

Afterward, I changed the front entry light from industrial halogen spots to a nice three headed spot.

Then we went to the Asian and Fabulous - Miss Gay API Pageant with our buddy Jay. What a fucking train wreck! Late, Lame, and LOOOOOONG. Hell, even the Dragon Dancers from the local Kung Fu Shaolin group went on FOREVER. Their drummer sounded like he was inspired by the drum solo in Iron Butterfly's Inna Gadda Da Vita. What is it about drag queens that inspires them to drink and get loaded before they perform?

Anyway, we left early and went to the grand opening of Cafe Metropolitain in Cap Hill. It was OK. Decent place to hang with friends.

Sunday was sorta relaxing. We took a walk around our 'hood, then came back and planted herbs in the front entry planter. I also transplanted some bulbs we found growing there.

Then there was lunch at Mr Villas Restaurant. Certainly adequate CalMex food. Pretty damned expensive for lunch.

We cut holes and strung wiring for the recessed lighting until after it got dark. One of the holes ended up in a place that won't work, so we have to patch the ceiling and change locations about 6 inches.

Ahhh, the trials and tribulations of home improvement!

Sunshine!

Ok, so the rain finally stopped. Hell, we didn't even set a record at 28 consecutive days..... We needed 33 and came up 5 short.

The sun was out today with a vengeance. Naturally, I spent the day deep inside a hospital's mammo suite setting up computers in the dark. Reality bites. I should have been out riding scooter. (I came home a bit early so I could spray some miserable plantlife to make it DIE. Spraying the stuff while it rains is useless. It has to sit on the leaves for a while before it works, and the rain sorta prevents that.)

Seattle weather isn't really as depressing as people assume it is. Most of the time, we see the sun part of the day. It seems that the sun is up from sunrise until about 8:30 AM. Then it turns gray and possibly rainy. Does it depress me? Not really. Does it make me enjoy the sun more than usual? Probably. Even Ed was extolling the virtues of sunshine a couple of days ago, and that's unusual for him.

I miss riding my motorcycle. I'm afraid I'll lose my skills... Yeah, like totally. ;-)

Before and after pics

Here are a couple of before and after pics of the front of the house. We'll be doing this kinda thing a lot in this blog.

Life in Seattle

Ok, it's the new year. Well, actually it's January 20th so we're starting off a bit late. Let me get you up to date.

Ed and I moved to Seattle sometime in early November. Ed got a position as a research scientist at the University of Washington and Andre left his old employer for an opportunity with another medical connectivity provider.

We'd been looking at houses for some time over the internet and had been shocked by the prices and the absence of good real estate agents. (We still haven't found a good one, even though ours eventually turned out to be adequate for the task at hand.)

We originally set a price threshold at 350K for a house, but once we arrived, I discovered I didn't want to live in any of the places we'd found. Ed would have moved into any number of them because he demands so little, but I tend to have higher expectations of my domicile.

So we drove around looking at damned expensive places and didn't like any of them. Then Ed stumbled across this house........



We looked at it and thought it was interesting. Certainly we could see the potential in the place (or at least I could). We made an offer, they countered, and we finally came to an agreement.

Roughly 4 times the price of our house in Texas!!

Now, let me say that the two guys who lived in the house before us had been there for 17 years. They were a gay couple involved in what I believe to be a triangular relationship. Cool, whatever floats your boat... but these guys never got the decorator gene. The place was/is hideous.

Green sparkly paint on the common area main wall. Green peas and cream vomit colored exterior. Green steel roof. DARK green plush carpet in the common area (covering the 1958 oak floors). Brown sculptured pile carpet in the bedrooms. Pink flowers on the wallpaper in the kitchen. Burgundy formica in the kitchen contrasts strongly with the off-white floor, off-white cabinets, and green carpet/green walls of the adjoining areas. Yeah, they had burgundy leather furniture in "greenland".