Snow! A few inches of it. Right now, I'm basically trapped in my house My truck has problems dealing with the slippery hills around here.

My family is gone. I've been goofing off.

Monday night I had dinner with C2, Matt and Sandy. Afterwards we watched part of Angles in America. It's good, but it's not the all time great show that it's been hyped as.

Took everyone to the Snoqualmie Falls today. We had a good hike.

For dinner I took everyone to Outback Steakhouse. It's odd bringing my family out to dinner. My parenents rarely go to a restaurant, so any restaurant is a treat. My brother is a long distance truck driver, so he's used to eathing truct stop crap. So, they don't appreciate very nice restaurants. They look at the prices and howl. The Outback Steakhouse was a good comprimise.

My brother, his girlfriend and her daughter have arrived. We just chatted today.

I wanted to bring them to the Snoqualmie falls, but the girlfirend told me that we didn't have to travel. She just wanted to hang with me.

We watched American Beauty. It was kind of odd because during a few of the swearing scenes, the girlfriend and my mother talked about turning the movie off because it was too much.

Christmas went well. In the morning we exchanged gifts. I got a bottle of wine that my parents made from their own grapes, a home made teddy bear and some Christmas ornaments.

Afterwards, my parents and I went up the Space Needle.

In the evening, C2 came over and the four of us had Christmas Dinner together.

My parents like taking it easy. I wanted to go to Mt Rainier today, but my mother said that she didn't need to travel today.

Christmas Eve.

My parents and I took it easy today. It rained a lot so we didn't stay out doors long.

In the evening, my parents, C2 and I went to St Marks for a Christmas Eve service.

Afterwards I dropped my parents off at home Then I went to Matt and Sandy's for Christmas Eve drinks. Mac and John, C2, were there.

We exchanged gifts. C2 gave me a neon sign from Siam's (which is closed for remodeling) Mac and John gave me coffee. Matt and Sandy gave me cookies and a cast iron bear wall hanging.

I gave everyone maple-walnut fudge.

While we were transferring the neon sign from C2s car to my truck, C2 broke one of the tubes. I hope he doesn't feel bad about it. He really went out of his way to get me that sign.

Merry XMas everyone.

Today I took my parents to the Museum of Flight. My father used to make parts for jet planes, so it brought back some memories. The museum has a concord on display.

While we were at the Museum, C2 called me up and offered to call my parents and fake a work emergecy so I could get away for a while. I laughed and thanked him. But, I don't need that. My parents go to bed early since they are 3 time zones jet lagged.

Later on we did some Christmas shopping at Walmart. At Walmart, this really cute guy walked up to me and said "Hey Barry. How are you? Long time no see. How have you been?" We had small talk for a while, but I have no idea who he was. Which sucks, because he was really cute. I played it cool because I was with my parents, but I should have asked for his number.

Afterwards we had dinner and watched TV. Dad is a bit sick so he's sleeping a lot.

My parents are in town. They flew in today. They are here for a week. It's good to see them again. Although, the are uncomfortable around gay people. So, I will have to do a balancing act if/when I want to spend time with my friends.

Fortunatly, they are both 3 hours jet lagged. This means they will probably go to bed at 7pm or 8pm every night.

I played hockey tonight. We won 4-1.

Old friends...

Bruce and C3 are back in town. At least for a while. They are moving out at the end of January. It was odd. I haven't heard from them for months. Then out of the blue, C3 called me up and asked me if I wanted to go snowboarding on Sunday. Of course I said yes.

They've been through a lot. Bruce and C3 are both unemployed. C3 has a gig as crew in a movie, but the movie keeps getting pushed off. Apparently the star (Nick Nolte) is addicted and alcoholic. His irratic behaviour is jepordizing the project.

C3's mother died back in October. Dealing with her estate took a lot out of them.

Bruce now has a place in Hamilton Ontario. He's going though many job interviews. C3 told me to no take it personally that Bruce isn't trying to keep in touch with me. Bruce was fired from the company I work for. After that, he was kicked out of the U.S. because his work visa was only valid for that job. So, I remind him of many bad things.

C2, C3, Bruce and I had dinner at their place on Sunday night. It felt a bit like a funeral. Soon C3 and Bruce will be out of my life.

Matt and I saw The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Mostly it was a good movie. Not a great movie. Just a good movie. It's a very long movie-- 3 hours and 20 minutes. The special effects were very good. But, so much happens that doesn't really matter. They fight a battle. Then they fight another battle. Then they fight some more. It makes the first battle pointless. You forget what it's all about.

The movie takes a long time to end. There is at least 30 minutes of denouement with six false endings. I thought "It's over now. No? Ok, now this is the end. Another scene? Is this the end? It can end now. Not another scene. Now this the end, right? More?" The audience started sighing every time another 'ending' scene started.

Played hockey last night. Bad game. We lost 6-2.

At work we've moved offices. My new office has better cell phone coverage. I'm also closer to my team, which is good because now I can participate in hallway conversations.

I found a large, old electrical capacitor in my back yard, when Harley saw it, he told me to be carefull. Many of the older capacitors contain PCBs

Harley (who works for the power company) sent me this...

I asked around about the capacitor. The consensus is that we dispose of it
secretly. If anyone is notified, it becomes an environmental problem that could
lead to a large investigation with excavation, and nobody wants that. If you
pick it up and store it, I would be willing to pick it up and dispose of it at
the proper facility, no questions asked. It may take me a while to stop by
since I'm back on shift, but we can figure that out later.

That's it for now, let me know what's next...

Saturday night, Steven and I partied late. We stayed at the cuff till about 3am.

Sunday I had a date with Harley. He's a nice guy. But, if things do work with us, it's going to go slow. Very slow. He's not quick to bed someone. Harley is 44 and said he's only had sex with 5 men his whole life.

Sunday evening was the Survivor Final Potluck. The winner was from Ft. Lewis Washington, which is about 30 minutes south of here.

Behr lost his job. His company closed down their Washington operations. I hope things go well for him.

Ok. I heard the story about the porn mag...

A couple of weeks ago, my contractors left a pornographic magazine laying on their table saw. Last night I ran into them at the Cuff and asked them about it. They both laughed and said it was the cabinet makers. When he was making some shelves for my bathroom, he wanted to make sure they were wide enough to hold two magazines. So, he got a magazine out of this truck....

Thursday night was Survivor potluck. John was a bit sick, so Mac and John left early. John has high blood pressure and is on medcation. He switched from brand name to generic. Unfortunatly the generic didn't have the same dose as the brand name, so his blood pressure skyrocketed.

Friday I helped Steven move a patio set from his ex's to one of the Bellevue blonde's. The woman's biological clock ticks very loudly and regularly. She's constantly making "marry me" and "baby" jokes to any man around her. It get's uncomfortable after a while.

Last night I saw The The Last Samurai with the movie bears. It's an ok movie. Unfortunately they tried too hard to give it a sad ending-- it ended up being cheesy.

After the movie I went to the Cuff and talked to the some of the guys on the Quake Rugby team. Tommy, Quake thanks you for buying a t-shirt!

I had dinner with Steven. He and Vic just got back from their Hawaiian cruise. Lucky dogs.

The cruise was mostly good. They went with some of Steven's family. The family drank a lot and was ungrateful. (Steven's father paid their way. )

Aside from the family they had an excellent time.

My bathroom is mostly done. Only the shower glass and the mirrors still need to be put in. It's looks beautiful.

Went down to SF for the weekend. I spent it with Andy. We had fun. I had a whirl wind romance. Easy come. Easy go.

Both Andy and I arrived on Friday evening. We had dinner together and he bitched about his BF. His BF is a recovering drug addict and is very hight maintenance.

After dinner, I went to the Lone Star Saloon and met SFB. He's a really nice guy. We ended up talking and kissing till 3am. We exchanged numbers and agreed to get together again on Sunday.

Saturday, Andy and I toured the Fisherman's Warf. Andy bought some expensive art. A limited edition Dr. Seuss print, and a beautiful painting of the a window with view of a meadow. The window/medow painting had a neat illusion. As you dimmed the lights, it would look 3-D, like the sun setting. The window frame was very dark and in a flat paint. The meadow was very light and in a glossy paint. As you dimmed the lights, the window would stay the same darkness, but the meadow would get darker, creating the illusion that you were looking out a real window.

Saturday night Andy wanted to go to my bars. He's interested in hairless twinks, so leather and bear bars are foreign to him. I brought him to the Lone Star. He was amazed how many fat and ugly guys there were. I had to agree with him. I also brought him to the Power House. That's a better place-- healthy looking clientel.

Sunday, Andy and I shopped a bit. Then we went to the SF Museum of Modern Art. Some good Art. A lot of bad art. The museum continued the museum tradition of talking about their artists without saying anything important.

For example, they had an exhibit of Diane Arbus photos. The chronical of her last year went..
1971...
Took such and such a photo in April.
Applied for a grant.
Took this photo next.
Commited Suicide.

Other than "Commited Suicide" they said nothing of her personal life. That bugs me.

Sunday evening I got back together with SFB. We started having fun. Then we talked about what would happen after I left. He told me he had no interest in having a long distance relationship. So, that ended that.

I went back to the hotel. Had some drinks with Andy and called it a night.

Last night my house had no power. We switched Surivor Potluck to Matt and Sandy's. I ended up spending the night their.

I'm heading down to San Francisco to spend the weekend with Andy. I'm looking forward to it. The weather here is crap.

Dan Savages's is up to it again. He's taken Senator Santorum's last name and is making it a dirty word... Santorum

We're having a big wind storm. Power has been out for many people. Around my house, many large tree branches have fallen down. At work today the wind broke a glass window pane. The wind twisted the tunnel the pane was in.

Played hockey tonight We won 3-0.

My bathroom is being remodeled. The contractors doing the job have set up shop in the carport. Tonight as I was hauling my hockey gear through the carport, I looked on their work bench and saw a porn mag-- Men's XXXtream.

I'm not sure how to approach this. I told Ryan about it. He suggested I buy stickers and cover up the naughty bits. I want to do that just for laughs, but it's too much work.

This raises some uncomfortable questions. I'm not offended by porn, but there is the issue of discretion. Could the neighbors see it? Is this an ongoing or a one time thing. Were they just looking at the magazine or did something else happen?

Do I ignore it? Do I mention it? Should I keep it and let them wonder?

I'll leave it on the bench and make a joke the next time I see them.