Going To A Town

A New Place to Live

As pointed out by a friend, I have been remiss in my bloging duties.

A lot has happened over the past couple of months. The biggest is that I have changed residences.

Two months ago, the managers of my old place informed me that my new lease would include a 20% rent increase! Twenty percent! That translated into an additional US$145 a month. Now I do not mind (and even expect) rent increases every year, but 20% is excessive.

In 2005, the place was sold to new investors. True to form (and the American Way), money trumps people. Starting last year, the new ownership proceeded to raise everyone’s rent in an effort to get it up to what they deemed to be market rate.

This year, the raises were even more dramatic. I was one of the lucky ones; some had their rents raised over US$245 per month. Needless to say, there is a mass exodus from my old apartment complex. The sad thing is; no one will be missed because the rental market in Seattle is so hot right now. Managers can pretty much charge what they want and gouge the consumer.

Fast forward to last week. I finally found a new place to move to. It’s a bit smaller than my old but still includes a balcony so I can keep my outdoor plants. In addition, there is an in-unit washer/dryer so that is a plus. My rent at the new place is pretty much what I was paying at the old (before the 20% increase)

Unfortunately, the new place is literally 60 feet from the freeway. To throw salt in that wound, the freeway is elevated at that point so every truck that rumbles by is amplified by the space underneath the bridge. I hope I’ll get used to it.

I started moving stuff over on the 16th and did the big furniture move with a U-Haul on Saturday the 19th. I had the help of two friends who made it go quickly. The first friend volunteered to come up from Portland, Oregon to help with the move. Yup, he is definitely crazy but I love him anyway! *evil grin* For the second friend, all I had to do was to promise that he’d get a great workout from moving all the heavy stuff and he was there (oh, and the promise of food and beer at one of his favorite pubs didn’t hurt either).

Now, with the move finished, I started the task of unpacking. That quickly came to a screeching halt when I discovered that the supposedly clean kitchen was actually pretty filthy. Great, I got to clean not only my old place, but my new place as well. I don’t mind cleaning up my own filth, but when it comes to cleaning up a total stranger’s filth, that is where I have major problems. Yuck!

I’ve finally got the new place cleaned and have gotten half way through the unpacking process. Smooth sailing after that right? Not so fast! Did I mention that I have one more friend? His name is Murphy... as in Murphy’s Law!

Monday I had taken the day off from work so I could go clean the old place and paint over the accent wall I had done when I moved there. I stopped at Starbucks for coffee before heading up to the apartment. I go to pick the cup of coffee up from the cup holder in my car and the lid pops off spilling coffee all over my car. Most of it was contained in the cup holder though. Unfortunately, the garage door opener to the new place was in the cup holder (there are two) as well.

I didn’t think much of it until I got back to the new place and discovered that the opener did not work anymore. Argh! Another two days of trying to get a new opener and I finally got one. But, that one did not work either. After another day of trying to get a hold of the managers, I finally was able to determine that the opener code was reversed. It now works.

Sometimes, you just have to stand back and laugh your ass off. I’ll have to wait until after I finish unpacking.

The Pacific Northwest According to Jeff Foxworthy

This is currently making the rounds at my office so I thought I'd add it here. It looks to be at lease a year old but still relevant; a little too true I think.


The Pacific Northwest According to Jeff Foxworthy

1. You know the state flower (Mildew)

2. You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.

3. Use the statement "sun break" and know what it means.

4. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.

5 You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.

6. You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant.

7. You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the "Walk" Signal.

8. You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain.

9. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle's Best, and Veneto's.

10. You know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon.

11. You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, Oregon, Yakima, and Willamette.

12. You consider swimming an indoor sport.

13. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Thai food.

14. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark - while only working eight-hour days.

15. You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.

16. You are not fazed by "Today's forecast: showers followed by rain," and "Tomorrow's forecast: rain followed by showers."

17. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.

18. You know that Boring is a town in Oregon and not just a state of mind.

19. You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover.

20. You notice, "The mountain is out" when it is a pretty day and you can actually see it.

21. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wear your hiking boots and parka.

22. You switch to your sandals when it gets about 60, but keep the socks on.

23. You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.

24. You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.

25. You buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old ones after such a long time.

26. You measure distance in hours.

27. You often switch from "heat" to "a/c" in the same day.

28. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit under a raincoat.

29. You know all the important seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Raining (Spring), Road Construction (Summer), Deer &Elk season (Fall).

30. You actually understood these jokes and will probably forward them!

Reggie: Pet Food Recall

Well, it looks like Reggie is a victim of the tainted pet food. He was on Prescription Diet™ m/d™ Feline dry food.

I have contacted Hills in an attempt to get my vet bills reimbursed. They took my information but I have not heard back from them yet. I really can’t put a price on the “pain and suffering” that I went through during the first part of this year but I can put a price on what the Vets charged me; I even have receipts proving it.

Anyway, it really sucks that he had to die prematurely. But this information takes away much of the self doubt that I had.

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

John McCain Supports Gay Marriage

Oh, you gotta love this one. Apparently, Mr. McCain cannot afford real web masters. As a result, his MySpace site broke the most basic of all internet laws; do not link directly to images hosted on a site not your own. He paid the price; though, of all possible punishments, this one actually could give him votes (just not from the far right).

This from MSNBC,

The site was hacked over a breach of netiquette by McCain's web people, who were using a free page template without giving credit (that's almost stealing!), and "hotlinking" images from the designer's site, using his bandwidth (that sorta is stealing!).

Obviously, I am storing the above image under my Blogger account.

Here's Looking At You.

Ever get that feeling you are being watched? This is actually a storm at Saturn's south pole.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

A 5,000-mile-wide hurricane-like storm swirls at Saturn's south pole. Note the well defined eye.

Chicken Police?

How funnny is this? Found it on YouTube.

"...in the eye of the beholder" - Update

As you might have noticed, the “...in the eye of the beholder” blog was not updated for January (obviously, if my fitness suffered because of the pet ordeal, it’d follow that my blog would suffer even more since it’s a relatively low priority in my life).

Anyway, I think I might try a different format for the “beholder” blog. Instead of putting up four selections every month, I thought I might try putting something up when I see it. This way I’m not stuck with rushing to update it by the first of every month (amazing how fast the month would fly by).

Also, instead of sticking to photo “albums” of the subject, I will also branch out into single and groups of shots that might not be the same person or thing.

Health & Fitness: The Road to 40 (Week 18)

Week: 18
Workouts this week: 2
Workouts/Total days: 56/125

Well, a tiny bit of improvement from last week. My tendency to sleep late has definitely reasserted itself from all those late morning risings of early January. I find that my energy is still not up to par so it’s a bit of a climb out of this sedentary hole.

This week, I was able to go Tuesday and Friday. Tuesday, my legs saw a decent workout and proceeded to scream for the next two days (wimps!). Today I gave the old shoulders and back a little run for their money.

On to week 19; may 5 days be in my future soon!