Raincharm’s Weblog

Saturday Nights Alright!

We have a pretty light social calendar right now.
But we did manage to be double scheduled tonight.

So we split up to our respective shows.

Carl took in the Sounders game.
He walked to the match, stood for the match, and then walked back to the Seattle Center.
The Sounders lost 0-1 to San Jose on a questionable penalty kick (the guy tripped himself over the Sounder).

I got to go to the Seattle Men’s Chorus show all about the Beatles.
It was great. Really. They had a handful of dancers that really added to the songs. Free Love style dancing. When they were singing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds the dancers were slowly gyrating, and the entire men’s chorus was swaying as well. Not normal back and forth swaying, but as a whole looking like an anemone in a tide pool.

And dinner (great lamb burger). And the view from Kerry Park, in the sun after a rainy day.

Kerry Park in a Sun Break

I am watching it hail.
Small hail, but coming down hard. With a vengeance almost.

It almost feels cleansing.
I have had some hard thoughts running through my brain the last 24 hours.
The type of thoughts that you don’t want to think, but you have to.
Because you know stuff you don’t want to know.
But you do.
And it is hard to get them out of your brain.

Watching the hard rain, it seemed that maybe that could wash, or rather, beat, the thoughts away.

And we are here at Safeco field with several other fans. Currently in the 10th inning, tied 1-1.

Got up at 2 AM for the 3 AM first pitch.

A few offerings from this AM.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Mariners opened this opportunity for Season Ticket Holders, and let the first 170 that responded in. I think most of the major TV stations had people there. Channel 13 caught Carl on the way out. (That’s Channel 22-2 for us still on the rabbit ears.)

 Time for work. We’ll see what 3 PM feels like.

I went to work as normal, but flexed some of my extra time to take care of personal phone calls today. I actually let the receptionist know, so it ended up being a fairly relaxed day. The time spent on the phone today was actually pretty intense, but since I was initiating the calls, it was not that stressful. Except sort of.

Not making much sense today, so perhaps it was good that I didn’t try to give them a full 8 hours. And I did get to check a few things off of the work list. Good day all in all.

Time for bed. Hope to sleep soon.

OK – this was Sunday, apparently I forgot to push the “Publish” button.

To many it would be a wasted day.
I worked. A full day. At home. And it was not raining.

But this will undoubtedly help me sometime in the next week.
Maybe even tomorrow evening when I expect to be delivering project information to about 100 people. Including how much it is going to cost them. Hopefully they will not get out of hand.

During a portion of the day the NCAA Basketball tournament was going on.
I Kentucky managed to knock Ashlan out of the tournament, and I have a chance at the Final 2.

Carl still has Kansas, and is happy because his Grandfather played for Kansas, back in the day. He also played baseball, and we attribute his genes for Carl’s propensity for chasing small round objects here and there.

Marvin Harms, played guard for Fog Allen

Tall and skinny, just like his son, and his great-grandson.

And now it is Today (Monday)

After working the weekend, essentially, I worked a 13 hour day.
Of course, the last part was pretty much why I worked the weekend.

The public meeting went pretty well. Even got a polite round of applause after speaking for over an hour. This was an INFORMATION meeting, in which I try to impart 24 years of information to folks that are going to have to turn over some of their hard earned cash to us. They were not all happy, mind you, but only one of them sort of called me a name. Something about talking out of both sides of our mouths. But then a neighboring person actually said they disagreed.

Not bad. And tomorrow it will be back at it again.
Good Night.

Here is our family bracket – as it currently stands.

Family Bracket

Ashlan is the only one without a team in the Final Four.
Rey has Louisville.
Jay has Oh How I Hate Ohio State.
Carl has … Well, we don’t know who Carl has, but he has two teams playing tomorrow against each other.
And Ashlan has to pin her hopes on the Yellow Bellied Baylors, against Jay’s Kentucky.

Spent a good part of today working, but included a lunch with Carl.
And now, I get to spend more time with him. (Yeah – that is a good thing)

For a report on yesterday’s activities – work for both, and then the Sounders game.
Sounders beat the Houston Dynamo 2-0. It was a fun game, and it did not rain.

The daffodils are starting to show their colors, just a hint.

And Again: In which I finished task 2 (yeah for refunds), and it was sunny so we headed out for a spot of exercise.
Carl, bless his heart, is trying to get my heart pumping again on a regular basis.
Not being on a soccer team means I don’t have the potential embarassment of not being able to run a bit to keep me on the straight and narrow.
And there are way too many distractions to say I am always idle.

So we took the soccer ball and headed up to Roosevelt.
It was nice enough, and there were a few others at the field.
We had our space and were running around, chasing the round ball.

And then it started to snow. Well, hail really. With some rain.
But we stuck it out long enough for that to come to its conclusion, and I could clean off my glasses and see again.

I also realized how out of shape I am, and solemnly pledge to work harder at the working out thing. And we did turn on the Endomondo App, to measure the walk. I forgot to turn it off when we reached the field, so it tracked my movements on the field as well.

 Move to the open space!=================================================

Update: In which I continue to be distracted as I move towards completing task 2.
(Found the 2011 and 2010 taxes)
As I was going through the file with most of the historic tax files, I found a file with clippings and information from a 1992 Dinosaur trip, and a 1993 Amtrak trip. Including the following 1993 photos. [And in the 1992 trip file I found my notes on how to find fossilized snails near Rock Springs, WY. This was the one piece that I saved from that file.]

 ——————————————–

I had a short list of things to get done yesterday.

I think I accomplished one, but I can’t remember what it was. (Oh yes – e-mail house stuff to contractor and architect. And add all financial knowledge onto a spreadsheet, so it is not lost.)

The other two got sideswiped by a distraction.

I need to finish our taxes, and that (for me) required looking at 2010 taxes to see what forms we had included to back up the 529 program withdrawal (school expenses). In addition, I am in the midst of cleaning out files (and the entire house), and organizing past tax returns fits into that category. I had retrieved all of the tax forms I could find in our file cabinets and brought them downstairs. I was checking the file drawer next to the computer for any stragglers (likely more recent), and noted the pile of receipts in the drawer.

This devolved into searching the internet for suggested retention schedule for personal records. (For receipts this is one year, except hang onto those for big ticket purchases with warranties.) So I took the 2009 receipts and went through them. Three piles; Discard, shred (credit card) and keep. The 2010 and 2011 piles are neatly stacked, waiting for me to figure where they should go for now, and the 2012 pile is growing. (Yeah – that is two years, but I am paring down.)

This effort took up a bit of time, and the number 2 task (taxes) never got further. In fact, I am hoping the 2011 tax file will appear as I go through my stack, because it was not where I expected it to be (in the file drawer). That is next on my docket.

The 3rd item was/is a work product that really needs to move along.

The distraction was only part of the time suck yesterday.
You see, it started as a rainy/snowy day, but then turned into a cold sunshine.
So we took a walk. About 6-1/4 miles, that ended at CenturyLink Field for the Sounder’s opening game of the MLS season. Sounder’s won 3-1, beating Toronto. One of the young players, David Estrada, scored all 3 goals.That means a free haircut somewhere, and I may just use the ticket.

The homeward bound trip was made by bus, along with a good number of other souls that thought the bus was a good idea. I would like to think that we are all trying to save the planet, but I’ll bet a few were trying to save themselves from St. Patrick’s day revelers that chose to drive.

Enough! Time for taxes.

Throughout the week we managed to get up at the proper time, despite the time change.
Then last night arrived.

FRIDAY! TGIF! time to go out and party. Or at least relax.
Except Carl went to bed about 7:15, exhausted. I would have followed fairly closely, but one of his friends wanted to drop something off, at 10 PM. So I stayed up.
I would like to say I used the time productively, but I was also a bit exhausted mentally, and just could not pull it together. I did not even blog.

I did watch some basketball, and then Grimm. [Grimm is a TV show based in Portland, OR where some of the characters have fairytale alter-egos. Werewolves, vampires, … Grimm is a police detective, and his lineage has taken on dealing with the evil alter-egos through time. The evil alter-egos, of course, fear Grimms and will harm them if given a chance. He has a friend who is a vegetarian Werewolf, who was brought up to know the stories, creatures, etc. It is entertaining. And one of my co-workers is a sometime stunt-man who does a share of the fight scenes that occur in makeup.]

And then I fell asleep on the couch. A time-honored family tradition. Carl eventually reappeared and woke me up so I could go to bed. He noted how tired I must have been because I still had my shoes on.

My yesterday was very different. I started normally, at work, for a meeting – and some work. Then I started talking to bankers (or credit unioners) about loans. And there was a very good meeting with the contractor and architect to further hone the scope of the project. And then, another banker, and then a phone chat with a “loan officer.” About then Carl showed up, and I babbled at him for about 30 minutes. And then I was done for the evening for all intents and purposes.

Today I must all of the information from yesterday organized, and sent out to those that need it.

And the Sounders Season opens tonight. (Of course it is supposed to be in the 30’s with rain, maybe snow, and a smattering of drunk drivers for St. Patrick’s day.) (So we are busing.)

And, the family NCAA Basketball Statistics after Round 2 (although I think it was really Round 1)

Ashlan: 6-10
Rey: 8-8
Carl: 8-8
Jay: 10-6

It would appear that I have the advantage, but that is only in numbers. Everybody still has their number 1 seed, and Carl lost 2 number 2 seeds.

March Madness.
I could be talking weather – we have rain, hail, thunder, snow and precious little sun, and all of my relatives (well a good number of them) are having warmth and sun. Of course there was at least one tornado warning thrown in for good measure.

But I am talking basketball.
The Family Statistics after the first full day.

Ashlan 3-3
Rey 4-4
Carl 4-4
Jay 5-5

So there is no clear front-runner at this point. Ashlan almost lost her #1 seed, but held on in the end.

And I am taking off 1/2 day tomorrow.
To meet with the contractor, and some bankers.
The goal – to move this remodeling project along to the next stage.

Today was spent in the meeting that Saturday and a bit of Sunday was spent getting ready for.
The PowerPoint went off without a hitch.
Well – there was the one project that had a date of 2011 on one slide, 2012 on another slide, and should have been 2013 everywhere. As things go, fairly minor.

The animations (my part of the whole shebang) were well received.
And we will use the main one for a staff meeting too, so it is more than a one-time show.

Started putting dollar amounts into the Excel Amortization template.
How handy is that.
I am a bit calmer about the prospect of getting a new loan now.
Now I need to see what the banks will offer.

And – get back with the contractor to show him what I think we can go for, so they can move forward. Right now it looks like we will either be starting early summer, or late fall.
It is dependent on another project the contractor is bidding on.

Either way will probably be OK for us, as long as I can get a loan while interest rates are low!

The project is currently – major kitchen (wall changes included), major basement (waterproofing, earthquake retrofitting, new furnace), major upstairs insulation, and maybe a bit of work around the upstairs bathroom.

That is my plan for now – we will see what changes over the next few weeks.