It's Halloween.

Kids go trick or treating in our office. The halls are fully of candy bowls.. I just heard one complain "My bag is too heavy."

This morning M's mother left for home. She was here for three weeks. I enjoyed her visit, she's a very nice and helpful woman. But, you know the saying "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."

Back in June, RO and I started to sleep outside. The fresh air, the dark and the sunrise help RO with his insomnia.

Well, it's November and we are still sleeping outside. I'm surprised. Yes it's getting colder, but the bed stays nice and warm. Maybe there is a chill for a few minutes after I crawl under the covers. After that it's OK. I'm sure I'm acclimatizing to it as well.

Oh yeah. This blog is now 14 years old. At the beginning of every month I read over the posts from the same month in prior years. Since it's November, I read over the posts from November 2013, November 2012 and so on all the way back to 2000. It's starting to take a long time to do all this reading.


 

The house is very full right now.

Aside from Boon, we have a new roommate-- M. M and his mother are staying for a while. His mother lives in in a far off country. She visits her children in the U.S. a few times a year.

She is a very pleasant woman. She always wants to be helpful. English isn't her first language, so sometimes we struggle to communicate.

RO's nephew is also staying with us for a week. He's a very quiet guy who is struggling to rebuild his life. He was arrested for drug use in another state. He wants to move back to Washington, but first needs a job her to do so.

Fortunately there are five bed room in the house, so we all of our own space. We are going through laundry like crazy though. Everyone makes sure that I have access to my shower when I need it in the morning. That just happened. I didn't ask for it. I like that.

Marlene died. Her memorial was today. It's was beautiful and touching. Her biker friends, and her antiquer friends were all there. She always had very diverse acquaintances.

Good, Good Enough, and My Over Refined Pallet

Two Vines wine. It's about $6.00 a bottle and I enjoy it very much. Yes, sometimes I like a good $30.00 bottle of wine. But you know, for me, a $30.00 bottle of wine isn't $24.00 better than Two Vines. I'd rather have five bottles of Two Vines. When it comes to wine I'm very careful to rein in my pallet. I like being able to enjoy a $6.00 bottle of wine.

 

Dicks Hamburgers and Red Robin. Red Robin makes a good burger. No doubt about it. Dicks makes small, inexpensive sliders. They are not gourmet by any standard. But, if you are out late drinking with friends, then nothing is better than pulling up to a Dicks Drive In and ordering a meal—a Deluxe burger, fries and a vanilla shake. If I remember, I'll splurge and spend an extra 10 cents on ketchup.  The whole thing costs less than $8.00.  It's all lower quality than Red Robin, but it's right for that moment.

 

These are situations where absolute standards and relative standards live in stark contrast to each other. Is my life worse off because I settled for a Dicks Deluxe instead of a Red Robin Whiskey River burger? Or because I settled for $6.00 of Two Vines instead of $30.00 for Five Star? No, of course not.

 

Of course this view creates a problem. How do I tell what good quality is if external factors, the place the time, my feelings, turn something that's cheap into something that's wonderful. I think Persig dealt with this "Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance" when he asked "What is quality?" and went off into the weeds trying to answer that question rather than accepting that we can't easily define quality.

 

If I can't define quality, then how do I hold high standards? Perhaps the answer is that I have to hold myself to high standards, but accept that the world around me is going to be filled with experiences of various levels of quality.

 

I've spent the past few days working near Christiansburg VA. It's a very nice place. Very pastoral. One thing that frustrates me is how difficult it is to find a nice restaurant. BBQ and Greasy hole-in-the-wall's are all that's around. BBQ is good for one day but then…

 

Is this a regional cuisine that I don't have an appreciation for, or does this region just accept bad cooking? Could I develop my pallet to appreciate the finer points of places that consistently over boil there vegetables and serve iceberg lettuce with some brown bits still attached? By all accounts the people of Christiansburg are very happy with their city. If I were to tell them that I wanted to spend lots of money on well roasted vegetables drizzled with the right amount of a tasty sauce, a prime cut of rare steak and a nice glass of wine, they would look at me a little puzzled and point out that I could have five chicken friends steaks with all you can eat vegetables for the price of one of my meals. That the chicken fried steak isn't that bad, especially when it has good gravy on it. In short, they would point out I had overly refined tastes that weren't doing me a lot of good.

 

Where is the balance in all of this? When are tastes over refined? When are they too low? This all can't be a regional popularity contest, can it? Perhaps this is why Persig went mad when he thought about the nature of quality.

 

 

 

Steve heard back from his boss. He got a bad review, but still has his job.

I hope Steven learns from the experience.

I am working in Christiansburg, VA few a few days. It's a very pleasant little town.

One thing that's kind of weird is that there are no expensive restaurants here. I have a $75.00 a day budget for food and I can't spend it all. If I have a few drinks at night, then my daily bill will be $30.00

Steve is back from treatment. He has a very positive attitude.

He may loose his job though. His manager has been documenting progress and scheduling pointed status meetings. He and I both recognize this is part of the standard dance big companies go through before they lay someone off.

C2 is in town. He has a job now. He'll be a manager on the new job. He doesn't want to be a manager. He'd rather be the peon. Less responsibility. I think the experience will be good for him.

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?"