Thanksgiving

While I should have been in Sac with the wife's fam, I got to spend my Thanksgiving alone and work Thursday and Friday. We had a machine that was out of balance, so my Holiday was spent at Intel with a cranky ass partner balancing it.
I had planned to clean today so the house would be in order when the wife gets home, but I think I caught a cold. I started feeling it while walking the dog this morning. I came home and had some cold thanksgiving pizza for breakfast and plopped down on the couch for a Chi-town Saturday morning tradition, Soul Train. The wife won't let me watch it when she's in town so I have to indulge myself when she's not around.
I've decided Music123 or those bastards at fedex need the beats. I ordered a drum throne, bass pedal, sticks, key and drum heads about 2 weeks ago. One of my drum heads is on back order, But the fedex tracker says the rest has been delivered, even though the only thing that has shown up is the bass drum pedal. I would hate to have to firebomb some m*therf#ckers over a lousy $120 worth of shit.

A bit of the old In-N-Out, In-N-Out

The only reason CA exists is to provide me Double-Doubles, animal style, with fries and a shake. If it weren't for that I would never come here.
I spent the last week in Davis changing some bearings at a casino. It took a couple days longer than I thought it would, but it's done now. I spent an hour at the tables after we finished today. I was down $140, but got it all back and decided it was time to leave the table even. The real winners are the dealers, who got $25 in tip over the course of the hour. The real treat was the roadside honey I picked up on the way back to the hotel.
We decided to leave for home in the morning to avoid snow in the pass on I-5, which we would have hit around midnight, so I look forward to being home around dinner tomorrow.

Christmas Elfs

CK's name day comes early this year. I scored her a drumset off the eBay, Roland TD 8 module with:
-8 inch dual trigger Roland V drum snare
-8 inch single trigger Roland tom
-8 inch single trigger Roland bass drum
-two 10 inch Pintech single trigger toms
-two 14 in dual trigger Pintech cymbals
The hi-hat is just a regular 7 inch roland rubber pad type, not a spiffy model that mounts on a regular hi-hat stand. I'll see how it works out, but with the cash I didn't spend buying a new Hart set I can upgrade if she wants. I'll look into compatability, but I think I can change all the heads to Hart Magnum double layer mesh heads so that all the toms and snare feel the same, and as close to acoustic as possible. It came down to spending about half as much on this set as a new one, so the cheap skate in me went the used route.
I mean those cheap ass north pole elves went the used route. Damn Elves.

St. Johns

Looks like the wifey has decided on a house. It's a nice two story in St Johns, at the far north end of the PDX. This neighborhood reminds me of south boston, philly, or what liverpool must be like. This part of the city houses working class stiffs. I went into a bar that was everything one might hope for in a dive, cigarette vending machines, lotto, and $1.75 pints of PBR($1.25 during happy hour). I got a pint of Pabst and a root beer for the wifey, and had to ask the waitress twice when she said the total was $3.50. I've never had a round that cheap. From the upstairs window you can see the top of the St Johns bridge and the west hills. I will need to plant some fruit trees in the back yard to block the view of an apartment complex, but that's about the only work that needs to be done. I'm excited to be closer to moving out of the shit-ass apartment complex. I can't wait to get back to home brewing, get my amps out of storage and get a garden planted in the spring.