Steve is checking himself in for three weeks of treatment. He didn't say exactly what he's been treated for, but he mentioned a bit later that he's been using drugs.

I'm not surprised. Since he returned to Seattle, I've noticed a weird paranoid streak running through him. He's obsessed with the idea that someone has been hacking his phone and computers. Because I'm tech savvy, it was possible that I was the one doing that, so he never trusted me enough to share the details.

A while back RO speculated that Steven's been using meth. He guessed this because Steve has developed a jaw grinding habit that he's only ever seen in other meth users.

I wish him well. It's frustrating to see this. Ten years ago he was a role model for me. He had a strong career, a great partner. He knew how to get a lot out of life, yet still be at the top of his game at work. He still has the energy and is still very bright. He just gone off into the weeds.

Summer vacation is almost over. The guests have left. My parents were hear for a few days last week. G&J and their kids were here this week.
 
The weather was wonderful the whole time.
 
My father helped us fix the riding lawn mower. He found the bearing that seized, replaced it, and showed us how to maintain the others.
 
We got to see the local sights; the local tourist activities that you never do when you live in a place. We toured the local Boeing plant where they build 747's. One of the kids called that the best experience of his life. I think he'll be an engineer. The 747 plant is a site to behold. It's the largest building, by volume, in the world. Tens of thousands of people work there. dozens of jets fit comfortably within it.
 
Of course we also played, went to a water park, hiked to a water falls.
 
And we played bocce ball, on a hilly back yard, in the evening. The hill and the darkness made the game very random. Fun, but random.
 
The last of the guests left this morning. We are cleaning up and readying our selves for work.

Heat wave…

my parents are in town. we are having a wonderful time with them. The weather is very hot though-- with a beautiful clear blue sky. This is as close to perfect weather as it gets.

Layoffs hit work hard. My job wasn't affected (this time) I know many people who were.

Mark wanted to dump a load of beauty bark on top of a garden at the bottom half of our property. Our property is along a hill with no road access to the lower end. Rather than using the wheel barrel to haul down the beauty bark, he decided to drive it down with our small truck.
 
It turns out our hill is mostly sand. It has a thin layer of topsoil to support the grass. Below that it's fine sand. As the truck drove up the hill, the grass gave way. The truck tires dug into the sand. The truck got stuck.
 
We first tried to use the big truck to tow the small truck up. This didn't work. The big truck couldn't maneuver through the trees to a location wide enough that towing was possible.
 
RO called in three tow truck companies. All of them declined to help after seeing the situation. "I think my truck would get stuck." one driver declared.
 
We tried putting rocks and lumber under the tires.  We got into many heated arguments over how to rescue the truck.
 
For two weeks the little truck was stuck in the yard.
 
Then, it occurred to RO that if we had about 200 feet of good wire cable, then that would be enough cable to run from the little truck at the bottom of the hill, to the road on the other side of the hill. Then we could do a long distance tow of the truck.
 
Begrudgingly I went to a hardware store to buy that much cable. I saw that the really strong cable was about a dollar a foot. Sigh. I picked up a whole spool, 250ft, of the cable. Expensive!
 
I brought the spool to the cashier. She scanned the bar code, did a double take, then scanned the bar code again. She turned to me at said "That will be $1.10"   She didn't realize the spool was 250 units, not one.
 
I realized her mistake almost immediately. I forced my face to stay calm. I felt a little guilty. I handed over my $1.10.
 
The little truck was successfully towed up the hill.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Heat wave..

The beach is perfect.

Steven had a BBQ at his place today. The place was full of people I haven't seen in years. MR brought her daughter who is now 9 years old. The last time I saw MR was at her daughters first birthday.

Three of the pocket bears were there. They don't seem to be hanging together any more.

It's too bad. Not that I've kept in touch either.

Today was the first day I fully ran my trail run. Usually I have to walk the steeper hills.

This is a combination of me getting more fit, and me knowing my body better. I now know now hard I can run on a steep hill, and how hard I have to breath to not run out of breath.

I aerated a bottle of wine and poured two glasses from it. RO tasted it and disapproved. He didn't like the aerated wine. He poured himself a glass from the bottle (which was all aerated) and declared it better.

I kept things simple and didn't tell him the truth.

C2 will be in town for a week. Then he's off traveling for a bit. He's keeping in touch with many people. Looking for a boyfriend, and for a job.

He's found a job on Cuba at Guantanimo Bay. Maybe.

C2 is a mixture of salt-of-the-earth and the over refined. The man could live for years in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet his coffee must be just so. He could drive any piece of crap vehicle and not care, yet his clothing is expensive. 

He's very appreciate of the spare bed room.

 

Officer Bob's funeral was today. It was a very good service. The SPD color guard was there. The service was delivered with full police honors.

Bob's partner was well featured in the service. C3 was pleasantly surprised. He thinks that even just 5 years ago the police would not have warmly welcomed the partner of a gay officer.

Hundreds of people were at the service. It was warm. It was heartfelt.

Good bye Bob

Oh yes. c3 is in town. He's lost his job so is traveling a little trying to figure out what to do next.

Steven and RO were also at the service. Both got teary eyed. They both wear there hearts on there sleeves.

Officer Bob died. He's been struggling with cancer for a while. It finally took its toll.

He, his partner and I used to hang out together. Over the years we drifted apart.

His FaceBook page is full of condolences. It looks like his partner, and the Seattle PD will have a memorial service fitting of Officer Bob.

Good bye Bob.

The Melancholy Joy of Pressure Washing.

This year, there are about a dozen boards on the deck that need to be replaced. No big deal really.

What concerns me is that last year only 4 or 5 boards needed to be replaced. One or two the year before that

The deck is aging. The maintenance goes up.

At one point I hated house maintenance. It's not so bad now. Sure, there are days when I'd rather lay out in the sun and sip a  glass of tea. At some I realized that I had some choice in my emotions. I could resent maintenance for the time it took up, or I could choose to relax, dig in and do it. The anxiety of thinking about the job and thinking about what I could be doing instead was far worse than the actual chores. That, and at the end I'd have the satisfaction of a job well done.

Is it really so bad that house maintenance cuts into my precious drinking and tv time? 

I power washed the deck yesterday. It blasted away the pollen and dirt. It also removed some of the paint and washed away bits of rot. So I'm at the point in the house's annual maintenance where thinks look worse than when I started and it will be weeks before I can finish. I can replace the boards shortly, but we can't repaint until the rain stops. In Seattle, that's July or August.

When and how often should one maintain things? How often should you make things ship shape? Deep clean? These are hard questions for me. I'm in the tech industry There is a prevailing attitude that unless something is new, it's on the road to obsolescence. The idea of maintaining something is quaint.

My roommate just left for three months. He works on a fishing ship. For a week before the ship leaves port, he will live and work on the ship. Getting it ship shape, restocking, cleaning, repairing, repainting. When you are on a ship preventative maintenance is important. When you are out on the ocean, then you are out on the ocean. If something goes wrong then you are in trouble. Keeping things in ship shape then, even the cleaning and the painting is a way of saying "Someone was here, Someone looked over the contents of this space. Someone is responsible for this." Mess and dirt are ways of pointing out the neglected nooks and crannies of the ship.

What does it mean then that I have messy and dirty rooms in my house? Of course the consequences of a messy room are far less than that of a messy ship. My house won't sink. But it does mean something. Perhaps that I have more space than I need, or that the way I live is not consistent with the things packed into this house.

It's not a bad thing then, but I should pause to think about it.

We have a Roomba vacuuming robot and a Braava mopping robot. They both do a far better job than you'd think. It's not that the Roomba is a great vacuum. It's that it does a light job every day. Seven light vacumings a week can pic up an impressive amount of dirt. Then there are the secondary effects. We have to keep things off the floor for the Roomba to do it's job. Roomba has trained us to put the dirty laundry in the hamper. In return it will do a little bit of vacuuming.

Of course, what the Roomba can't do is to step back and look at the situation. While the Roomba can bump around vacuuming up bits of dirt, it can't ask should this thing be here? Should it be thrown out? Put away? Should the walls be cleaned too?

Roomba provides the feeling of being clean, without actually being in control. I get to dodge the bigger question of "Is this house properly maintained?"

> Two Room Mates.... should I come up and make it a Third.. naw.. maybe just another trip in the next year

Tommy, would love to host you when you are in the area! We have extra bedrooms.

How long do MRE's last?  Or vinegar?  I found some vinegar that expired in 2012.  I'm cleaning the pantry of course.  I haven't done so in years.  The grime is thick.  And there are many odd ball packages of flavorings, teas, cake mixes, etc.

I just found a third bottle of vinegar.  No expiry date on it.

I also found chocolate! How bad can a two year old bar be? It tasted OK. IF this is my last post, you know what happened.

Some how I managed to get rid of about a third of the stuff in the pantry. Much of that was garbage. I'm also now using the storage jars in the pantry to store things, and not to just sit around and collect dust.

I wonder how long I can keep it this clean? Some busy night I'll forget to put the rice back into it's storage box. That will begin the inevitable cluttering. I'm sure that RO and our two room mates will help.

An artist covered an area of a local park with bio-carbon. It looks much like charcoal. The exhibit is intended to bring attention to the coal mining history of the area and to be a symbolic start to the sequestration of 30 million tons of carbon that were mines from the mountain.

Once a week I've been running a 7.5 mile loop through cougar mountain. Usually I walk up the hills and run down them or on the flat stretches.

This week I logged my fastest time yet. The run actually felt good. Usually I get tired and I have to push my self. This time I did get winded, but I didn't get tired. I also managed to run up the hills longer than usual.

Improving my trip times has a self-reinforcing benefit. Short trip times mean that my runs are less of a commitment, which lets me sneak in a few more runs every now and then.

Sping is in full force.

RO is much better. In fact he's been away for work for a few days and back.

RO has diverticulitis. He's ok, but still has some pain.