What a beautiful Day!

We awoke this morning to sunshine and blue skies. The unit we are renting is a block way from the beach, so after breakfast, we walked down to the beach. It was an incredibly nice morning for February.

We then went into town, and hit the shops. There is my favorite shop, Dragonfire,, which specializes in glasswork The picture is of our latest acquisition, a glass sphere about 3" in diameter. Because of the way it is made, the top half is clear and the bottom half opaque. Because of the way the color elements are twirled it looks like it goes on forever. This is the third piece we have purchased by the same artist. Double click on the picture, and you get a pretty good idea what it looks like, but you really can't get the full impression.

We went to a late lunch ad The Driftwood Inn. They have the best clam chowder ever. I grew up on clam chowder, come from the land of Ivar. All the way from Latteland I was thinking about the clam chowder, So of course I started out with the chowder, and it was incredible. I also had the crab sandwich, which is Dungenesse Crab on an English Muffin covered with melted cheddar cheese. Those of you not from around here have no idea what I'm talking about here. Dungenesse Blue Tip is the best crab in the world, and anyone who thinks different can meet me in the street at high noon for a Crab-out. Soft shells? HAH! King? Bring it on, bigger is not better! Hokkaido? Been there, done that. Snow crab? You can't snow me!

Later this afternoon, I wandered down the street to the Glass studio and spent about an hour talking with the owner. Learned a bunch. Kinda inspires me to follow up with the glass blowing classes when I get back. Glass is such an incredible medium, and I saw so much incredible stuff today.

Mini-vacation

I am typing this sitting on the couch at Van Buren Lighthouse Inn at Cannon Beach, Oregon. It is a very nice unit, more of a condo than a hotel room. One bedroom with a very comfortable queen size bed, kitchenette. Sleeper sofa dining table, gas fireplace, high def TV with VCR/DVD player. Since it is the off season, it is $125.00 a night. Two blocks off of the beach in the middle of Cannon Beach. We'll have to do a little more figuring out exactly where everything is tomorrow. The four hour drive left me without a whole lot of ambition.
As always, we stopped in Raymond, WA for lunch. Mrs A is thoroughly convinced the DQ in Raymond has the best Fish n' Chips anywhere. I had an oysterburger. There are probably people out there who will cringe at the sound of oysterburger, but I like them,
We decided to just relax this evening. The weather is supposed to pretty nice tomorrow, so we will have a full day.
Maybe tomorrow I will take a couple of pictures of the unit and upload them.

Babysitting

Here I am being tortured by "i". It is a real pleasure to have a child in the house for a while. Seeing him gaze up at me with his big grin so full of love and trust and innocence makes life worthwhile.

As much as I love having him around, two days is the limit.

By the time two days are over, I am happy to also see him go back home. There is a reason children are given to the young. We mature folk just don't have the energy to keep up with little ones for any great length of time. We were worn out by the time "i" left.

He is 20 Months old, and already potty trained. The only time he had an "accident" was when he was asleep. It makes taking care of him a lot more pleasant, but just as time consuming, since you have to make sure you remind him, and take him in and help him and wash his hands after and everything.

Taxes

We went in to H & R Block yesterday and did our annual Income Tax work. I wanted to get it done ASAP because I am getting a wad back this year.
We have agreed that we want to use the money to buy a used Volkswagen Westfalia camper van. We had an Airstream 19 foot motor home. It had it's good points, but I hated the way it lumbered down the road and the fact that it got about 6 miles to the gallon. A guy came by last spring with a wad of cash and I sold it and used the money to put in a new heat pump.
We love to go camping, but I wanted something a little more practical. A Westfalia will be just right for the two of us. Complete with stove, refrigerator, sink, and heat. But still getting around 20 MPG and usable for everyday chores.
Used ones in good condition run from five to eight thousand. I have been watching the adds on Craigslist, and there are some good bargains. I should be able to buy one and have a few bucks left over to work on it. Now I just have to wait for my return to come in.
We are having a family reunion of sorts in Sandpoint, Idaho in August, and I want to have it in good shape by then. It would be nice to take it out for an inauguration trip before then.
Then probably later, a trip to Utah to see the kids down there.

Still Here

I know I haven't written diddly SH*% lately. Truth is, I have been totally lazy.This happens to me this time every year.
I just had a very nice weekend, sorta. It didn't start out so great. I missed work on Friday, because I was up all night with stomach problems. I never got sick, but I think I would have been better off if I had stuck a finger down my throat and got it over with.
My body does not like one of my diabetes medications, Metformin. I have heard from other diabetics that it is not unusual for people to have a bad reaction to it. I get a stomach ache and heartburn that is really, really bad. Bad enough that sleep is impossible. No amount of pink stuff or pepcid or alka anything else will stop it. You just have to hang on and ride it out. It usually lasts about eight to ten hours. Usually I can figure out what I ate (or drank) that caused it, but Thursday night I didn't do anything real bad. Sure, I had a small batch of chips and dip, and I had a couple of beers, but normally this would not have effected me.
So I got up and called in to work and crashed on the couch. When I got up I was still disoriented.
My cousin, K who lives in Texas was up visiting. His primary reason was to visit his sister, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. The cancer has metastasized into her bones, and is inoperable. With treatment she has maybe four to five years. Bummer.
He wanted to spend some time here, and wanted to go see our aunt and uncle on Vashon.
It started out as just him and I going over, but ended up as six people and a minor family reunion. Everyone had a great time, even though we were watching the Datona 500 and had to stay longer than we intended to catch the end of the race.
He came back here and spent the night, and I took him to the airport around noon. It was sure good to see him. He gave us a little fiddle concert this morning before I ran out to Sea-Tac.
He left me with a 16 gig flash drive with about 80 CDs on it. I spent the day downloading and sampling music. He is and Old-timey fiddle player, so a lot of it is old time fiddle, bluegrass, Irish, and folk. Not my usual stuff.
The one that I had to immediately transfer over to itunes so I can load it on to my ipod was a best of cd from Edith Piaf. Love it. Wish I understood a little French.

The Death of Blogging

I think Blogging is dying.
A lot of the people I used to share with have slowly dropped out.
Fewer people, fewer new blog entries, less general traffic.
Sure there are a few of us diehards out here slogging and flogging and blogging. But it just seems to me it has become less relevant.
It requires spelling skills, and more attention span than a gnat, unlike twitter.
And then I heard the stroke of doom. The Catholic Church is encouraging priests to take up blogging. If The Church encourages it, that means it has gone so main stream that no self respecting churmudgeon could continue. After all, sharing space with the worlds largest organized group of pedophiles just isn't cool.
Maybe they will just keep to themselves......
Oh well, I guess I'll stick around for a while.

Pilgrimage

The boy is off on his annual pilgrimage to Stanford this weekend. Argumentative teenagers from all over the country converge there for a grand Debate tournament. He brought home a trophy last year.
Not only willV be there, but my neohew from Minnesota will be there also. What are the odds of having two members of the same family at the event?
Let's hope Stanford is up to the experience.
This also means that Mrs A and I will have the weekend to ourselves. Believe me, we are looking forward to having the house to ourselves. I just may disable the phones.
I hope I get the time to get out and get Frankenhealey runninig. My cousin K is coming in from Texas next week and it would be cool to at least start it up and take him around the block. If we go any farther, it will be in the Z.
We will be going over to Vashon Island to visit our Aunt and Uncle. He hasn't seen them in about ten years. I haven't been there in four or five.

Do I know how to have fun, or what?

I think Homeland Security must have decided I was smuggling aliens around in my ass or something.
My health care provider sent me off the the gastroenterologist.
They made me drink a gallon of gawdawful swampwater, so I spent the evening pooing my brains out. For those who have accused me of having sh** for brains, I can assure you that it is no longer true. Anything below my hair and above my knees that even remotely resembled poo was forcibly ejected out
If that wasn't enough they inflated my intestines with compressed air and shoved a camera up my ass. Fortunately during the exam they filled me full of drugs so I didn't care. "Hey, more air over here. I think I can play the Star Spangled Banner on the Butt Trumpet!"
This is the only medical procedure I have undergone where I was actively encouraged to fart.
At any rate, they found no aliens. One small polyp that they removed. A small patch of diverticulitis but nothing major.
Two days without a decent meal. The first thing I did afterwards was head for Denny's and a decent breakfast. Unfortunately they didn't have any.
I think I will decline to do it again.