More random thoughts on moving...

We have scheduled the movers, Mayflower will be arriving at our place in Bothell on June 25th and delivering to Pullman on June 26th. Now there is a finish line in sight, which makes all that has to happen betwixt now and then all that much more REAL.

We will be having a shindig (aka party, gathering, mob action, etc.) to celebrate this move, it is tentatively scheduled for the afternoon/evening on June 16th so please make a note of it. We will be sending out an Evite one of these days, hopefully this weekend, but I just wanted to put the word out early. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and just having a good time.

I'd be lying if I said this was easy...

Yeah, we've hit the wall with this commuting back and forth thing. I cannot wait until the end of June, when Amy and the kids will join me here in Pullman. Last weekend was rough, we had so much to do around the house and so many things to do with the family, that it just felt like a whirlwind of activity happening around us. Thanks to help of Mike C, Kirk and Mackensie, and Dave and Owen, we were able to get a s***load of stuff done around the house on Saturday. Thanks a lot, y'all were a HUGE help and we greatly appreciate your efforts.

One thing that we got to do, that was not moving related, was to go to Stacey and Craig's wedding. I will say this, Scotsmen really know how to do formal wear. A well put together Scot, with the waistcoat, kilt, socks (with knife), and shoes makes an American in a tux look like a dolt.

See!

What a week...

Hi there...Sorry that I have been remiss in updating the Phlog for the last week or so...I have been in Seattle taking a class on the wonders of Windows Vista and all that that implies...I am now back in Pullman and ready to get back to work...For all the hue and cry about Vista, I think it's going to be a fine process to upgrade...The users will just have to understand that they will HAVE to upgrade hardware in order to make the upgrade go as smoothly as possible...And I say this after upgrading our systems at home and suffering some fairly sizable obstacles...Enough about that...

The house is now on the market, see our ads...in the Seattle Times/PI, Craig's List, and on the Clark Jennings website...Clark Jenninngs is the real estate company that Amy's dad works for and he is handling the sale for us...We and the house are as ready as ever to move this deal along, as I rolled into Pullman tonight, it really felt like home...That was such a great feeling...We are moving into a really nice rental home at the end of June, so let's hope the house has sold by then...God, I will miss that yard so much!..The kids and I had so much fun this weekend running around in the yard and playing pumpkin bomb...I'll explain the nuances of that game in a later post, just think CalvinBall with slightly more structure...

My work space...

Here it is in all it's glory...The bench in the foreground is, just that, a bench where we work on the systems...My desk is in the background...The picture on top is the view just outside the office...It's a cool building, if not a little confusing and hard to find your way around in at times...I tried to go to the Coug baseball game tonight, but they put it on a lightning hold in the fifth...And rather than getting soaked in the impending rain storm I headed for home...Tomorrow is my first all staff meeting and there is a rumor, taken with the requisite grain of salt, that all new hires have to sing the fight song...I don't know the words and I can't sing...I hope it's just a rumor...

The drive gets shorter and shorter...

Familiarity makes the boredom pass faster?!? Today's drive seemed a whole lot shorter than the previous Sunday drives that I have undertaken from Bothell to Pullman. On Friday I did the drive in non-stop fashion and it took me just under five hours. Today I did the drive with many stops (Nintendo, Indian John Hill, Vantage, Othello) and it only took me about five and a half hours. The day seemed to fly by, it was nice.

We got a lot done in the yard this weekend, thanks to cousin Tim and friend Mike. We replaced all the landscaping timbers in the backyard, well not all of them but most of them, and then we got the garage looking (somewhat) acceptable.

This is the week that I am going to try to start working out again. I doubt I'll make tomorrow morning, but I will walk/run on the track after work...I promise.

I'll also be looking at rental houses this week, I would like to be able to put that to bed as soon as I can so that we can get on with finalizing getting the house up for sale. I also need to find some moving companies to get quotes from, if you have any ideas, PLEASE let me know.

Sitting in Mickey D's

Hey! They have a free hot spot and they are less that a mile from where I am living...So there!

Well, we are creeping ever closer to putting the house on the market and completing the move to Pullman. I mean, it's not gonna happen tomorrow by any stretch of the imagination, but it is getting closer. I brought another big load of stuff over on Sunday, and I'll bring more over this weekend. We have WAAAYY too much stuff. But I already knew that and I haven't really made an effort to edit all that stuff. It's too hard to do under the pressure of moving, yes yes I know that this is the best time to do it, I just can't bear to toss some of this stuff right now. Wow, am I that much of a pack rat?!? I just had this vision of being buried under piles of toys and random crap that I couldn't bear to toss...Yikes.

In the true spirit of being a kid, Annika decided to share a rather nasty cold with the family over the weekend. Nothing like the sharing of kids germs, or a friend calls them, Little Plague Vectors. Which is really funny when you consider that this friend recently had a kid of their own and now gets to deal with the interesting things they bring home, both visible and invisible.

This is a pretty funny little piece on the Beautiful Game...courtesy of SoccerTimes.

Rebuilding Day - April 28th

Last weekend was Rebuilding Day for Rebuilding Together Eastside, where they descended on 11 homes from Bothell to Kent and made sure the home owners were warm, safe, and dry.

The kids and I went to the house in our neighborhood that they were working on and it was amazing to watch. There were between 30-40 people there doing everything; painting the interior, building a deck, building a fence, replacing most of the kitchen, and all the flooring. These were all volunteers, who came out to Bothell on a beautiful Saturday to help a family that really needed it.

I spoke to the home owner for a bit and she kept saying that she was waiting to wake up and for the dream to end. It was such a great thing to witness, I am really proud of Amy and all the hard work she has put into this organization.

I hate it when that happens...

So I had this great post written...It was awesome...It would have made you weep with tears of joy...It would have made you laugh until you passed...It was the best piece of writing ever to be committed to the ether of the phlogosphere...Except for the fact that I didn't save it and then the browser crashed and I lost everything...I hate it when that happens...