What else have I been doing...

Friday I had dinner with Matt, Sandy and C2 at Siam's. We had coffee afterwards, hung out on the Starbuks patio and watched the strange homeless people walk buy.

Saturday, I had lunch with C2 and we watched "Scouting for All" a documentaty being shown as part of the Gay Pride festivities this weekend.

Sunday afternoon C2 and watched part of the Gay Pride parade. We ran into Behr and Officer Bob. As usually the parade was long and boring.

Later in the afternoon, I went TV shopping with Sandy and then had dinner with Sandy and Matt. Matt has injured his foot, so he's sitting around and resting most of the time.

Sunday evening I played hockey. We won 3-0!

Today at work, we are having a shipping party (We've finished and shipped the latest product I've been working on. They've given us this week off of work. Nice.

To end the latest episode of the Harry/Barry story...

Harry and I were supposed to get together on Saturday night. Saturday afternoon hj called and said he couldn't make it. Family birthday he forgot about. Today I got this email...

Hey Barry!

What did you end up doing the rest of the weekend?

yesterday I worked all day on the house. I rebuilt the porch, over in the corner where it was rotten.

I feel bad because I want to get the out side of the house done, and I want the free time to be able to do fun things as well. I wish there was more fricken time in the day and I did not have to go to bed so early for work.. It is really hard when you get off later and we meet up at 7. It only give a couple hours, before it is time for bed for me anyway.

Ya know I guess maybe I am not ready for a relationship , till after the summer when the house is painted. I am kinda on the gun, because of the weather around here. I still want to go out for dinner with you on occasion, but I am stressed out trying to juggle time right now.. Do ya know what I mean...

Anyway.. Enough of that.. Did you go to pride yesterday? Brent and Sean could not believe that I did not want to go to pride.. I am just not into watching all of the queens dance around. And the cuff is way to crouded and I am not paying $10 to get into the place..

Well my lunch is over.. I will call you later on..
Take care Hope you are having a good day.. Harry

So Harry came over last night. Dinner and a movie. He slept over. No sex again.

I'm trying to relax and enjoy it. Every day I expect him to stop calling me and pull another one of his vanishing acts. Although, he didn't call me today.

We agreed to sleep apart tonight. I know I need it. I'm not used to sleeping with someone. I haven't slept with anoyone since... since....? Since c2 had his emergecy last February and that doesn't really count since we weren't dating.

I think Harry and I have started dating.

Last night Behr and I went to Trax in Kent for Taco Tuesday (50 cent tacos, dollar beer pounders) Harry was there. We were friendly and kind of flirty with each other, but not overly so.

At about 10pm I left, by myself. I didn't drive more than 30 seconds when Harry called me. We chatted. He told me that every time he saw me, and he wanted to be with me. Blah blah blah. Mush stuff.

I drove over to Harry's and spent the night. (No sex, just cudling and talking!)

Today he called me back. Tonight he's coming over to my place.

Too much information.

I've got a boil on my ass. At first I thought it was syphilis, so I paniced and ran to the doctor. He pointed out that it was something much more benign, put me on an antibiotic and told me if it doesn't heal in a couple of weeks, I should see him again. He would clean it out. Bleah.

Sunday evening I played hockey. Tied 1-1. I had a good game. My skills are improving. I've gone from being an average middle of the road player, to someone who has a few great plays a game.

When I got home, a deer was walking along my house! I tied to take a few pictures, but it was too dark and the deer wouldn't let me get close enough for the flash to be useful.

Friday night I had dinner with C2, Mac, John and the Tease. Behr couldn't make it-- he had to sleep so he could go and party.

Behr has become a bar fly and player. He goes out drinking most nights and brings men home very often. It's too bad. I'd ask him out if he led a more settled life. We get along well.

C2 brought up his friend-testing questions "Would you take a bullet for me?" "Would you give me a kidney if I needed one?" John said he would take a bullet for anyone, but would only give C2 a third of a kidney.

When C2 asked me if I'd give him a kidney, I hesitated. Everyone interperted that as "No." even when I eventually answered "Yes."

Saturday I mowed the lawn, and organized the house some more. In the evening I had dinner with Mat and Sandy. Sandy has started, uh, consuming Eclipse cigarettes. Eclipse are smokless cigarettes, so if you say he's smoking, he corrects you. Mat doesn't realy like that Sandy has started "smoking" again, but on the flip side, he said that Sandy now sleeps better and is less stressed.

So the new place has been, uh, christened. An old fuck buddy called me up and came over.

Bruce is in town for the weekend. C3 called at about 9:30 and invited me over for an emergecy suprize party. Bruce has a job in Vancouver now-- at an antique shop. Apparently it's a very expensive antique shop. They have silver bread baskets that go for $1600 bucks.

I told Bruce to call C2, that he'd appreciate it. We'll see if he does. Bruce is still off in Bruce land-- he likes being around his friends, but his friends are only those around him. Out of sight out of mind.

Bruce and C3 were planning their wedding. Bruce wants to get married in Kenora Ontario for no better reason than it's close-- if you drive east though Canada, it's the first town you drive through that accepts gay marriages. BC Won't issue marriage licesnes to gay's and lesbians till 2004. Close is a relative term. It will be a two day drive from Vancouver.

Last night I had dinner with Steven. Afterwards we went back to his place and watched "24" Steven has the DVDs of the 1st season.

I've been unpacking. Steven came over last night and helped for a while.

Yesterday the government of Canada said that they would allow same sex marriages. On a related note, I heard from C3. Bruce is living in Vancouver and he's proposed to C3. No word yet on the ceremony or anything like that.

Today I had lunch with Steven. After lunch, we walked into the men's room to pee. Steven in a jokey Mickey Mouse voice said "I'll show your mine if...." At that point there was a noise from the toilet next to us-- someone was in the stall! Steven turned beat red and we both started silently laughing. We finished off quickly and left before the third guy could see who we were.

Played hockey last night. We won 4-0.

Earlier on, I was over at Mat and Steve's for a BBQ. Heard more gossip about Harry and the crack story. Apparently his roommate and his best friends both say that Harry brought a guy home who got him to do some crack. He wigged out and that off his depressive episode.

Oddly enough I just got this from Harry...

So how is the new house.. I almost gave you a call last night. I just needed to get away from my place for a bit... I worked on it all weekend, Scraping,Sanding and Caulking, and Priming.

Anyway I hope all is going well.. Would you be up for dinner sometime soon.. Let me know Take care

I'm out of the townhouse. Redmond is no longer my home. It's taken much longer to move than I planned. That was a lot more garbage than I thought.

The singing lady has walked by the new place a few more times. I mentioned it to the old owner. He laughed and said she lived two houses down and wasn't all there.

I'm almost finished moving. Last night Steven helped me move some sofa's and an entertainment center. Thanks Steven!

I still have much unpackig to do. Bleah.

Last night for the first time, I slept at the cabin. Sometime in the middle of the night someone started singing. As I wolk up I breifly thought that the cabin had a ghost. After a few moments I realized what was going on, so I rolled over and fell asleep again.

Ryan, Jen and I watched the Stanley Cup finals-- New Jersey against Anaheim. It was a bad game. Both teams played equally well, but the Anaheim goalie was off. So, New Jersey won 3-0.

Afterwards I dropped off a load of stuff at the cabin. When I got back to the townhouse I stuffed five big garbage bags full of crud. Then I drove around till I found a dumpster and left the crud behind.

Sunday morning I moved two loads of stuff to the cabin. It's amazing the amount of crap I'm throwing out-- a humidifer I haven't used since I moved to Seattle, spices and kitchen tools I haven't used in years, old paper work, five boxes of baking powder.

In the afternoon I watched Mac play softball. He won both of his games. Behr, the Tease and John also watched the game.

Later on the Tease and I had dinner with Steven. Steven brought a friend of his over. I think Steven was trying to set me up with the friend. I'm not sure how that went. He's a nice guy, but he spent most of his time talking to the Tease. Not a lot of eye contact with me.

After dinner I played hockey. We won 5-1. This season is going well.

On Saturday Sandy got Passes to Wild waves. So C2, Matt, Sandy and I headed down there and had fun.

Late in the afternoon, we left for Matt's parents-- they live about 3 miles from Wild Waves on Lake Geneva. We took a little raft out to the middle of the lake, drank, chatted and sat in the sun.

Weird gossip.

Last week Harry told me he was diagnosed with depression and that he spent two days in a row crying.

The word on the street-- Sean told Behr that Harry did crack and wigged out.

Now, Sean can be mean, but I've never known him to lie. On the flip side, I've never know Harry to do drugs, but he does have a dark side. I'm not sure who is telling the truth. I'll give Harry the benefit of the doubt.

The weather in Seattle has been beautiful-- Sunny, 80's. We haven't had weather like this in years.

Last night I had dinner with C2, G, the Texas Rose, Hellraiser and his boyfriend. We ate on Siam's patio. Usualy Siam's never has tables outside becuase the weather is rarely this good.

Dinner was good. It ended a bit oddly. Usually after dinner, we go and have coffee and chat some more. But, the Texas Rose and Hell Raiser, blutly said no to coffee (they don't like coffee) and said they had to get back to the Cuff. G, C2 and I all thought that was weird.

I was going to finish moving today, but Sandy and C2 worked on me and conviced me to go to Wild Waves with them. Twist my rubber arm

Every day I've been moving a load of stuff from the townhouse to the cabin. Yesterday I reached a cusp. All that's left in the townhouse are the essentials and things too big for me to move by myself. I'll see if I can finished it off this weekend.

After work, C2, Steven and I had dinner at the Elyisian. It was Steven's first time at the Elysian. The Elysian is next to the Cuff, and brews it's own beer-- beer that has one metals from competion around the world. Yet, for some reason very few people know about it or go there.

On the downside, C2's and Steven's meals wern't that good. Mine was fine.


After that, C2 and I met up with Sandy and Mat. We saw Finding Nemo with the movie bears. I liked it C2 hated it. I think he just hates Ellen Degeneres.

Last night Steven and I went shopping. I bought a washer, dryer, lawn mower and weed whacker. Steven did the negotiations for the washer and dryer. He's very good at that.

My weed whacker was 'free'. The clerk scanned it at the checkout but it didn't show up on the bill. Steven and I didn't say a thing when we noticed the error. I guess that's not really ethical. I feel a little bit guilty about it, but not $50.00 guilty.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention this...

When I was removing the old garbage disposer, everytime drain gunk got on my hands, I'd compulsivly rince them. A very bad idea when the sink's drain is disconnected.

It's starting to hit me how much work this move and the house will be. For the past five years I've lived in a townhouse-- care and maintenance free. At the cabin there is a lawn to mow, flower beds to fill, hedges to trim, things to repair and equipment to buy. This made me flash back to my childhood-- getting angry at my parents for forcing me to mow the lawn or weed the garden. I called them up and told them. We had a good laugh.

I'm ready for it. I'll just have to be more disciplined about my time.

Barry vs. the Garbage Disposer

As part of selling the townhouse, I have to replace the in-sink garbage disposer. I thought it would be easy but have never mucked with plumbing before.

As bad luck would have it, the drain for new garbage disposer is one inch higher than the old disposer-- and thus started a two day project, including 3 trips to Home Depot, to match the drain pipe of the disposer to the lower T joint on the main drain.

1st Trip. There is no adapter that lowers a pipe by just one inch. Four or or more inches is fine, but they don't make bending joints small enough to only lower a pipe by one inche. "No problem," the Home Depot main said. "Just raise the T joint on the existing drain." When I returned home there was a problem. The existing T joint was as high up as it could go.

2nd Trip. I bought a variety of adapters and angles to build a slope the would lowever the drain pipe by one inche. This almost worked. Except that to hook everything up, I had to twist the garbage disposer such that the dishwasher drain (Which connects to the disposer) wasn't long enough to join to the disposer. Also, the drain assembly leaked.

3rd trip. I bought longer hose for the dishwasher drain. I ended up buying hose that was 1/8th of an inch too narrow. I cursed a lot and then strectched the hose diameter with neadle nose pliers. This gave me enough wiggle room to re-attached the dishwasher. To seal the drain joints, I lined them bead of plumbers putty.

Water has been running through the disposer for the past 15 minutes. No leaks. I'll do a load of dishes and then pronounce this project complete.

I just read the fine print on the plumbers putty. It says "DO NOT USE ON PLASTIC" Fuck it.

Lesson learned. When you buy a house, don't put a dozen little conditions in the contract. You really won't know if the seller did a good job until it's too late.