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.

The cabin is mine. The old owner is out, I have the keys and can start moving in. This is cool. Maybe I'll sleep there tonight. I have till the 16th to finish moving and be out of the townhouse.

Harry wrote me. He's been diagnosed with depression. He said he's been blubbering for 2 days now and is going to see a councler. He also wrote. "I think Life has just gotten the best of me.. And I can't handle it any anymore.."

I called him up and we talked a while. I told him he should spend more time with his friends.

He emailed me after we called...
"Thank you Barry... And you are right. I need to spend more time with Quality friends like yourself.. Take care and keep in touch.. Harry"

It's a bit odd. There is nothing I can do buy say "Things will be all right" and keep my distance.

Steven, C2 and I went with the Movie Bears to see . Bruce Almighty It's an ok movie; funny at first but becomes too sweet and sappy at the end.

Afterwards we had drinks at CC's. The usual crew was there.

The married guy I saw last week was back in town. We had dinner, drinks and I spent the night. He told me I needed a boyfriend. This is great. Even my fuck buddies tell me I need a boyfriend.

On Saturday I went camping. We (C2, Mac, John, Mat, Sandy and C2's room mate) went to Lake Chelan. Saturday was beautiful, sunny and warm. Saturday evening a loud gang moved next door. They had motorcycles, quads and played loud music. So Sunday afternoon, rather than spending another night, we left for home.

We stopped at Leavenworth. It was John's first time there.

Sunday evening I went to the Cuff and ran into Behr and the Tease. Behr has become a bit of a player. He sleeps around very often and is proud of it. For a while I thought he was on the rebound. But, it's been a year now and he still enjoys the company of strangers. Oh well.

A few days back I gave a co-worker, who lives near me, open access to my wireless internet connection. Last night I was taking a run past his place. He shouted "Hello". I looked back and he had a tin can antenna in his hand!

I walked over to see what he was doing-- pointing the antenna at the different buildings and finding which ones had wireless networks. I had a good laugh at that so I decided to help. I got a tripod from my place. We mounted the tin can antenna on the tripod and continued searching the neighborhood.

I'm surprized how well the antenna works. We picked up half a dozen networks that you couldn't see with the regular antenna. Two of the networks were wide open.

Sigh. The Brunching Shuttlecocks are dead. At it's peak, Brunching was a daily comedy sight that with a lot of good, different humor. The Ratings. Good or Bad. Lore

In the past year the entries have dropped off, from daily, to weekly, to sporadically. Today the site announced it's death.

Oh well. Guess I'll have to find some other way to entertain myself. At least the archives are still online.

Too much information...

Last night at my birthday party, Sandy and Mat gave me a dildo. I've seen dildo's given as birthday gifts before-- as gag gifts. Usually the gift dildo is a huge monstrosity that could never fit up the rectum of anyone sane or well balanced.

Not this one. One time, months ago, I told Sandy that I didn't own a dildo. So Sandy decided to fill in that void. He said he spent hours looking for my perfect dildo, one that I would enjoy for years. Not too big. Not too small. Something that would make me happy.

This is weird. I rarely have anal sex and I've never felt the urge to plug myself while JOing. I'm not sure what to do with the dildo. I hope Sandy won't be disappointed if I don't use it.

Played hockey last night. We won 2-0. The game was at 10:45 at night and were 4 people short, so I was worried that we would get our asses kicked. But, it worked out. The other team was green and couldn't form a breakout.

Steven just told me this over the phone. You could hear the stress in his voice. Steve was in Canada to drop Vic off for the ferry home when his tire blew out. But, the car didn't have a jack. Now in Canada, Monday was a holiday (Victoria Day), so he ended up waiting 5 hours for a tow truck! When the truck arrived, the guy put the jack under the wrong part of Steven's car and bent that corner all to shit.

Eventually Steve got the spare on. Since he was in Canada and 3 hours away from Seattle, he spent the night at a hotel and bought a new tire this morning.

Oh yeah. Today is my birthday. I'm 33.

Things are changing fast. Steven's house has sold (The final paper work hasn't been signed, so that could change) It looks like Steven will be moving out of his house before June 6th. That means he'll be moving into my new house, maybe even before I move in. After we got back from Vegas, Steven, Vic and I drove over to the log cabin-- my new house, so Vic could look at it. There should be plent of space for Steven's and my stuff.

Steven also has a new job. It's similar to his old job, but for a different company.

I'm back.

Vegas was a mediocre vacation. I got a 24 hour flu on Saturday. C2 got big blisters on his feet and had pain walking. Andy was still recovering from the shingles and slept most of the time. So, we were big party poopers.

Sunday night we saw Mystere a great show/circus act.

Vic and Steven had a lot of fun. They saw Ciline Dion on Saturday night and really loved the performance.

We (me and some people I work with) saw The Matrix Reloaded today. It's a good movie. The special effects are perfect. In a way, that takes away from the movie. When you expect anything to happen, you can't be suprized.

C2 just got this from Bruce...

>Hey C2
>I'll be leaving Seattle on Friday for good. Eventually, you can try to reach
>me in Vancouver. I don't think I'll be reachable at the start. Don't bother
>calling me at my US phone numbers or coming by my ex-residence.
>
>As for all of my possessions down here, I am basically moving some clothes
>and a few books. Everything else I will be carting to Goodwill or some other
>NPO for a tax receipt. It's just easy this way. No hassle with Canadian
>taxation doing an itemized list, etc.
>
>Take care of yourself.
>Bruce

I wonder if we'll ever hear from Bruce again.

Steven, Vic, C2, Andy and I are heading down to Las Vegas for the weekend. So, next post will be Monday.