CK with the Haul

 

Blueberries

CK woke me from my Saturday morning snooze fest to put me to work. We drove down south to pick blueberries and came back with quite the haul. 16 pounds of berries, 6 pints of which I turned into jam with my new pressure cooker. The tomatoes out back are begining to make fruit, which I'll turn into marinara when the time comes. The neighbors across the street have blackberries coming in, so I'll collect those for jam as well. I love canning, harvest time makes me all giddy.

The Mighty Pressure Cooker

Bling! 

What A Day

The wife beat me well today. This morning she dragged me into Washington to jam with her band, then Flint called. Turns out he was in town, so CK made me drive her to the coast (Tillamook) and climb 2.5 miles straight down the cliffs to the beach. This, of course, wasn't difficult; however the 2.5 miles back to the car were quite invigorating.
By this time we were running short on time to make the Unseen show at the Hawthorne, so I opened up the throttle and we made it back for an evening of hardcore street punk. This douche was pushing kids smaller than him down in the pit, but after he got handled it was all good. Now I'm going to collapse into a sweaty heap, with only another record hot day to look forward to tomorrow. I'll wake CK up extra early to clean and we'll sit around sweating to death all afternoon.

Self Portrait With Wife

St. John's Bridge Lines

This is my entry into DPChallenge 'Lines 2' Competition.

...Does It?

Today was my last day as a full time employee for the company. I got home around 1pm after finishing up some paperwork and dropping off the van. I found a door hanger on my porch, which I usually toss right away. Luckily my partner noticed it was from the city, so I took a look only to find out they had been by to turn off my water for lack of payment. As you can imagine I went to check the faucet, to find out they weren't kidding.
This sent me straight through the roof. CK has always been in charge of bill payment, since I am gone all the time. This is not the first utility they have shut off on me. I seem to recall having no gas to heat my home in Chesapeake due to the same problem. I drove downtown to pay The Man so I could continue washing and showering like a first world citizen. When I got there this dude was making the biggest scene ever in the lobby of the city building. He was screaming at the top of his lungs about how city workers had degraded him and treated him without the respect due a raving lunatic. This went on for a good ten minutes, scaring women and children, until the po-po showed up to cart him away. Quite frankly I was suprised the authorities took so long. Chicago's finest would've had him off to his own personal beating in much less time.
CK's sentence is only mitigated due to Portland's worker TEDs being Johnny on the spot with their wrenches and restoring my water prior to my arrival back home. Still in all I imagine that, although she doesn't know it yet, there will be one sore butt on my wife tonight.

It Never Ends

I got another backlog delivery of mail. Looks Like the IRS wants to charge me 2 grand for a 2004 snafu. This was the year I let H&R Block do my taxes at the wifeys behest. I don't know who to beat first.
I'm thinking of doing the front yard in roses. I think they'll rock the house, but I have some researching to do on growing enough stock to plant. If it turns out the way I see it in my head I'll have the most awesome house on the block. Take that Joneses.

5 Years of Wifey Goodness

Today I put in my 2 weeks at my job. I'm looking forward to going to school in the fall, and have alot to accomplish between now and then. Like finding a new job.
I know Whit and Sean were sorely disappointed in their return to school after the service. I am looking for something that I think school can provide, the certificate to enter a new career path. My criteria for this new job was stablity and decent pay. To start I am going to pursue a 2 year degree in order to become a medical radiographer. I know this doesn't sound like a glamourous or exciting career path, but International Man of Mystery wasn't really open to me. This career change will require further schooling in order to move beyond x-ray tech, but the stability of the work schedule doesn't preclude this.
Today is the Five Years of Wifey Celebration! As a hopeless romantic I've splurged on flowers and a new teapot. Woohoo! That's some anniversary haul! I'm going to cook chicken skewers and rice with broccoli for dinner. Maybe next year she'll be married to someone who pampers her, but until then she'll get the beats and like 'em.

Wear Your Glasses Nermil

If there is one thing that was emphasized about dangerous work in my household growing up, it was the importance of eye protection. We had a machine tool in the garage, a World War II era aircraft parts manufacturing tool that had made parts to bomb Krauts. So there would be 6th grade Natey in the garage machining parts for this or that. Hundreds of hours on the machine tool and nothing ever went dangerously wrong. All those years of my old man espousing the benefits of lexan eyewear finally showed some dividends this week.
I had flown down to Sacramento and then driven to San Jose on Wednesday to do some battery work Thursday. Towards the end of the day I wanted to change out one of the interconnecting cables due to some bad copper corrosion where the chrome coating had worn off. I disconnected one end of the cable, and before I could get it insulated it slipped and shorted across ten 12V industrial sealed lead acid cells. With a giant bang and flash, slag went everywhere and the cables of two adjoining cells welded themselves to their posts. Luckily I was wearing my personal protective equipment, which I credit with saving my eyes.
I had to get all the destroyed batteries and cables removed from the system in order to restore the unit to service. This took several hours, which made a time crunch getting back to the airport to fly home. I made it to the airport in time to check my bags, but it turns out Southwest airlines had overbooked the flight by at least 10 tickets. So I hang around the terminal, only to be left behind by my flight. So I wound up renting a car and driving up Friday since every flight on every airline from the Bay Area to Portland was sold out until Sunday.
Good news is I get to fly to Spokane on the 4th of July to do more battery work! Yea!