Raincharm’s Weblog

It has been by all of my measurements a very good day. Family together, good food and lights abound. Some good treats, but really the best part has been hanging out with our kids.

And the lights.

And these don’t include Candy Cane Lane. The traditional lane walk is on Christmas Eve, but it just didn’t happen this year. Instead we went to the Star Wars movie (3-D Imax), a candlelight church service, and to a friend’s house for dinner and conviviality.  And it was raining.
So the walk happened today, between linner and dunch. Or the main meal and whatever comes next.

Our meal included some apple rosettes. I had made these once before. Ashlan did a generally better job of putting them together than I had. Tasty addition to our ham, potatoes, asparagus and rolls. Pie for dessert is awaiting more room at the inn.

And finally, our new display for Carl’s mom’s ornaments. We have so many they would need several trees. So we tried a new technique. I rather like how it turned out.

Close up of a few.

Merry Christmas

Carl often attributes his love of numbers to his mother. She was a math teacher and number tricks were part of her education of the boys.

I am not sure how spatial awareness fits in with strict numbers, but Carl has a knack for space as well. One of the traits he frequently notes about his kids is how well they know the space their body and movements take up with respect to others.

Today is the day our new couch arrives. So we needed to make room. The morning started with a box breakdown exercise in the garage. I may have done more exercise breaking down the box than I have with the recumbent bike that came in the box.

With space in the garage free it was time to move the trundle beds out of their room, to the garage. (Craigslist beckons.) Four trips up and down the driveway – and no rain. Now we have another guest room.

Next up was moving the futon from the living room to the indoor heated guest room/study. The futon has a moving part for changing from couch to bed. And big rounded arms. And it had to negotiate three turns in quick succession. There were several pauses to reconfigure the futon frame, and a brief suggestion to take it apart and rebuild it in the room. That’s when Carl took a moment to size up the situation and found the key position to make it through three doorways at once.

No doors were removed, ceiling fixtures damaged or walls marred. And Rey should have a place to sleep when he arrives.

I am assuming the couch activity will be a piece of cake. Especially since I won’t be doing the lifting.

Next up. Decorating the tree.

These past few days my life has been dominated by work. But I did manage to get one large project on the road, or at least up for sale. See http://www.spwsd.org, at the bottom of the home page. Surplus property.

I have been at work way to late every day. I would not have stayed that late on my own, but my carpooler has been in the mode of trying to get everything done before they leave on vacation. On the positive side, it has been productive time for me, and the properties are out for bid.

As noted in the title, there have been holiday moments here and there.

And we had our holiday lunch at work today. It was catered and the food was good. I found out later that what we ate was not what we ordered. The delivery driver mixed up the orders. I only found out because I have to do a second petty cash check. I am curious to see whether it is discounted.
It is raining to beat the band. Last night I had to scrape my windows after work. Next week is supposed to be colder, with even a chance of snow on Christmas.

I have survived another year at work.
After 28 years that might seem like a forgone conclusion, but the last few years have seen many people changes. I had my annual review yesterday. One of the discussion topics is short term and long term goals. I find I am tending to think in terms of projects rather than broader goals. We are getting a new hydraulic model, and that would be fun and interesting to use. But with less than 10 years on the horizon I am not sure that would be the best use of training dollars.

If you follow national weather you may have noticed the rain has returned to the northwest. I believe we have already surpassed our December quota. All of the water has loosened the ground and made it easier for the wind to take down a tree or two.
Exhibit A

One of three that fell on our brand new decant facility and car wash. Roof damage, lights loosened and a wrinkle in a support beam. There will be a closer look at the important items today.

Nothing hit the office building. But of course we took out 14 trees with signs of disease that weakened their structure.
The result of the arborist report.

The result of a 2014 windstorm.

In reverse order of course.

I would not mind a bit calmer weather this weekend, .kind of like this.

That about sums up the last few days. DARK could work as well.

The type of DARK you notice at 3 pm when it looks like. 8 pm outside.

Weather report just on, “RAIN for the rest of the day, with wind gusts up to 50 mph.” My goal is to stay inside with my nose to the grindstone.

We have literally lightened things up at home by putting up lights. On the tree, a window here and there, and in the kitchen. Stumbling towards Christmas.

Pictures to follow when I get back home.

Speaking of lights, when we departed on an errand on Sunday, the sound of sirens here and there filled the air. We saw at least 5 police cruisers exiting the freeway and infiltrating the neighborhood at freeway speeds.
“Something’s up.”
It turns out this was a multiple car jacking, accident causing, shots fired on the run car chase. It skirted our neighborhood. The Seattle Times posted a compiled dash cam view of the chase. We could tell where they were, including an extended drive the wrong way up Roosevelt. The chase ended with a shoot out, although you can’t really see anything graphic.
 

I don’t think I have ever been to Bailey’s Crossroads.
It is probably not Bailey Park (It’s a Wonderful Life) but maybe.

Wherever – it is in the eastern time zone.

I had a really busy week this week. Starting with the Sunday after Thanksgiving, work has been fairly constant. Two meetings with outside agencies. One had an incredibly positive outcome (but means even more work), and the other had at least a partial negative outcome (which probably means slightly less work). And there was an evening neighborhood (work) meeting with five well-heeled property owners. They put on quite a spread. Of course I could not partake because I was talking the entire time. But they had good questions, and we will find out whether this group will want to go further with our agency. Meetings that can go either way are generally less tense – they are making the decisions, and that is just fine with us. But the meeting meant not getting home until after 10 PM.

And now we have 5 house guests for the weekend. They are all out playing now, hopefully have made it to the Seattle Center. 2 adults (grandparents) and 3 kids – pre-teen to teenager – with all of the energy and emotions associated with those ages. Their primary goal for the weekend was the Dr. Who exhibit at the Experience Music Project (EMP).

And underneath it all I have a cold. Today is the day I would want to curl up on the couch and sleep through some games/movies/whatever is on. So instead we went out to a few local art venues – museum based and local artist based. Probably good to get out for a bit, but our original plan to walk everywhere was shelved by the cold accompanied by a very steady rain. Call me a wimp. I think it will be the better decision in the long run.

Back to the situation that I blame for sinking into the cold. Usually I can power through the cold, but I was having an emotional response to not being able to troubleshoot my phone.  It sapped the extra energy I would usually have in store to stave off illness.

Here is a You tube video – Bailey’s Crossroads or Seattle? so you can see what I was dealing with. And the snip. Look closely. It say’s Bailey’s Crossroads and 9:50 AM. It is really – Seattle and 6:50 AM.

The key is the time zone change. I might not have noticed a wrong location on the west coast. But my alarm went off at 2:45 AM local time, and not at 5:45 local time. Apparently I shut it off earlier, and did not really wake up enough to realize the problem. [Day two I set two alarms, not knowing what would happen.]

If I went to maps it would show my location near something called Lee’s Pike Plaza (it’s in Virginia). After 10-20 seconds the gps would take over, and move into Seattle – and the time would change. And then it would bounce back to Bailey’s Crossroads. When I left the house it would return to Seattle, or Sammamish, or some other appropriate location.

I spent at least 3 hours total with Verizon help folks on the phone (a landline – so I could work on my cell phone).  We tried changing settings, clearing cache, and on and on and on. Finally I had to load everything up to the cloud and completely reset my phone. This included updating all apps, then deleting all apps that had been added – and the apps that had been updated appear to be back to the pre-update form. … My frustration was highest with the fact that nobody seemed to know why. “A software glitch.”

Now – in Verizon’s help folks favor, they did not try to get rid of me, and one called me back on 2 days after the initial conversation, to see how the problem was resolving.

And I have not taken to resetting Carl’s phone. It would also show Bailey’s Crossroads, but the time never changed. And now it is showing Seattle.

I am all about leaving things alone for right now – I just don’t have the energy.

Speaking of energy – Carl has been busy putting up Christmas stuff. I am supposed to be adding lights, etc … we will see whether that actually happens today.

Carl had done some decorating. But I neglected to get a picture. Perhaps for tomorrow.

We are continuing to work our way through leftovers from thanksgiving.

Thank you Mark and Dottie.

Trying to arrange the house for a full house. Unfortunately I had more thoughts than actions last night.

Carl is having some holiday fun at work. He and Sagan drove a train, visited a teddy bear exhibit and other holiday sights. Today they are going ice skating.

This is a few months old. Sagan’s drawing skills are improving by leaps and bounds.

Welcome to December.