It's Thanksgiving Day. RO, Matt, D and I have been at the store all day trying to get it ready for tomorrow. I'm not sure we'll make it. There is so much work to do.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I am thankful for my friends and my health.

It's Thanksgiving Day. RO, Matt, D and I have been at the store all day trying to get it ready for tomorrow. I'm not sure we'll make it. There is so much work to do.

MA died.

MA was a local popular bear. Two nights ago he died of a heart attack.

The bear crowd that I know is hitting their mid 40's. Very few of them take their fitness seriously. They are bears and bears are over weight. I don't like thinking about it, but I know we will be hearing of more deaths in the future. It's that time of our life.

I don't like the new look. Out with the new. In with the old.

Today is RO's birthday. Happy Birthday RO. Love ya!

Some bad news. The hot water tank is leaking. It's a slow leak. We spotted it before it did too much damage. It's a bit unsettling. I know that dealing with the the occasional leak is part of the joys of home ownership. That said, it makes condo living more attractive.

The hot tub, which has been off for months, was repaired today. Last summer it started shutting off almost daily, flipping the GFI and setting off safety lights. We drained it and turned it off.

When summer ended we decided it was time to repair the tub. Finding a hot tub repair guy was difficult. The store that I bought the tub from is out of business. It took weeks of googling and calling around to find a repair guy who knew my line.

This guy wasn't great on followup. We first contacted him at the beginning of September. He stopped by once for an estimate and to collect a cheque for needed parts. After that he never returned our calls. RO finally got a hold of him about a week ago. He showed up today.

He said some of tbe safety sensors had started to leak and fail even though the hot tub was fine. This is common for older tubs. He also pointed out that the electrical on the hot tub was not professionally installed and that a lose ground wire was probably causing the hot tub to turn off often.

I didn't tell him that I did the electrical.

He replaced the sensors, cleaned up the electrical, installed a new lid and raised the hot tub six inches so that the lid would close properly.

And now the hot tub is heating up.

My cousin's suicide has caused much family fighting. Her death was strange. She crawled along the support scafolding on the underside of a small bridge. There she tied the rope to a girder, and then sliped a noose, with less then 12 inches of slack, around her neck.

Why kill yourself that way? The bridge is out of the way. There are plenty of trees and poles around that are much easier to get to and every bit as private.

Murder you say. Why kill that way? Make her climb along the scafolding underneath a bridge and hold still while you put a noose around her neck.

My cousins brothers and sisters and fighting with her husband. Each blaming the other.

Nine years old. This blog is now nine years old. A gave the blog a new look as a gift.

It's strange to to skim over nine years of postings. People I thought would be great friends forever have come and gone. People I once had crushes on no longer matter. So much of what I've done is now just a distant memory.

Yesterday a cousin committed suicide. It's a little shock to the family. She hung herself from a bridge not too far from my parents' farm.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. She was always the black sheep. Arguably, her whole family was a little off kilter compaired to the rest of my cousins.

I don't remember much of her. I recall that while we were growing up, we didn't get along. We lost touch by the end of high school.

DR is an 80 year old woman that has been friends with RO for years. She was strong and indepenant. She volunteered for many things; the police, the Seattle Men's Choir, organizing farmers markets. She frequently helped out at our store.

But, in the last six months something has changed. She has problems remembering what she's been doing. She is frequently confused.

She has no children. Her nephew and her brother recently took her out of her apartment and put her in an old age home. She hates it. She's almost completely lost her Independence and has vowed to escape.

I'm don't see how this will end happily.

Mom and I drove along the Green River. This winter, the Green river may flood. The Howard Hanson dam, which controls the Green River water levels, is weak. To prevent the dam from bursting, they are letting out water as fast as they can. If we have too much rain this year (Army Corps of Engineers says a 1 or 4 chance) then the river will over flow its banks. Miles of sand bags are being setup along the river to contain the water.

There are *many* houses along the Green river.

I looked at some of the flood plain maps. For even a small flood, the old store would have been under about a foot of water.

Mom is in town for a week. This time around she get's to see RO and I as we really are. Usually when mom flies to town, we clean up. RO will do a great job decorating her room. This time with are so swamped with work that we washed her sheets and made her bed, but that was about it.

We want to open the new store on November 2.

While there is still much work to be done, the new store is starting to look like a real store. RO is working very hard to put everything together.

Today is the old store's last day. Tomorrow we close our doors to the public, pack things up and move them to the new store. Business has been steady but not overwhelming although we are having a small cocktail party in the evening. I'm sure things will pick up then.

I'm relaxing this weekend. It's the first weekend I've done so in over a month. The extra work time has been affecting my productivity-- even though I went to work last weekend, I spent much time goofing off.

At my day job, we are in the middle of a large re-org. And then the store-- it's in the middle of moving to new location. So much to do. So little time to do it.

I worry about RO. He is working even harder than I am. Every night he comes home exhausted and with a sore back. I try to make sure that he has a good dinner ready and that I rub his back at bed time. He's holding together well considering all the work he's doing.

At the store, I destroyed a china display cabinet. RO was looking help getting the cabinet off the back of the truck. I went ahead and unbuckled the strapping that was holding the cabinet up. It was windy. The cabinet blew over and fell out of the truck. It scratched a car parked next to the truck on the way down.

I feel like crap and RO is angry with me.

RO is back from the Vegas Market. The poor guy is exhausted. I know it may sound funny, but shopping for a store is exhausting.

I'll try and cooking him a nice dinner tonight, and rub his back. I'm sure it will put him right to sleep.

RO is away shopping for the store for a week at the Vegas World Market. I miss him already.

We are moving our store. The "Move Sale" signs went up on Saturday. Of course we got a huge influx of customers. This is good to know. We probably won't have a cash flow problem for the next couple of months.

RO and I took a day trip to Olympia. RO's neice is opening a consignment store down there and RO wanted to take a look.

The space is big and they've done a good job setting it up. RO and his neice had a good chat. RO gave her much good advice about running a store. Retail is a lot of work and RO has much experience in this.

Afterwards we had dinner at an oyster house along the waterfront. The raw oysters were wonderful, but the fish was overcooked.

We headed back home, had a drink and then hit the sack.

Sandy is not handling he and Matt's breakup very well. As Matt moves out, reality is starting to set in. Matt is also heart broken, but he is handling it better. I think moving out has allowed him to move on a bit easier.

RO has been trying to help, but reconciliation attempts haven't panned out.

Every now and then I get a good-byte-email from someone who is leaving to spend more time with the family and isn't sure of their future plans just yet. I've wondered why someone would leave a decent job without a plan.

Yesterday, was the last day for the first guy I ever fired. Well, he turned it around and resigned before the firing came into effect, so technically he quit.

He sent around a good-bye-email saying that we as going to spend more time with his family and the he doesn't have future plans just yet. No I'm wondering about all the other unplanned goodbyes.