Raincharm’s Weblog

So today is the trip up to pick up the girl.
The post title refers to the fact that Vancouver always seems to get just a bit more than Seattle.
This refers to rain, snow, people in general, people at UBC (compare to UW), highly rated amateur athletic events (Olympics), and Hockey (Canucks vs Thunderbirds).

Now Seattle does have them beat in other athletic categories – like Baseball, Football, Basketball and Soccer (well they do have a MSL team starting up next year).

Yesterday we finished most of the shopping necessary and most of the mailing necessary. I spoke to Pooh and saw a post by Jane – and they both had miraculous post office experiences for the weekend before Christmas. Good parking – in limited situations, and very few folks to mingle with in line. We had reasonable experiences. Parked in the second lot and waited for about 20 folks to move along. Not too bad, and since we went together we had a chance to chat.

The tree is in its stand. Today it will be decorated (I hope). Pictures later if we succeed.

I hope you are all having a good time ramping up for the holidays.

I know I am.
This weekend I am not going to work!
And I get to go pick up my darling daughter.
What more could I ask for?

I know – weather that is clear enough to make you want to be outdoors.
It does not have to be warm, just not pouring.
And that may happen. We will have to see.

In other news – wait, there is no other news.
No wait, I am sure there is, I just can’t think of it right now.

Happy weekend.

It is December, but we decided to pretend it was a reasonable fall day, and headed off on foot to the ballpark.

Our destination was Safeco Field, roughly 6-1/2 miles.
It was dry when we started, and raining when we reached the stadium.
Of course, that could happen any day or any month of the year in Seattle.

We got in line with several others.
The occasion was Dave Niehaus’ memorial service.
The outside temperature was probably in the 40’s.
The roof was closed so it was dry, but there was not a dry eye during parts of the event.
Professional speakers were stopped by their emotions.
But there were many funny stories as well, and in the end we were glad we attended.

But after being outside since leaving the house at 9:30 and the end of the service around 2:30, we were – chilled …… to the bone. We went out for a hot bite to eat, and to toss around some of our own memories.

Once home, I realized that my body is still cold. In fact, Carl was still cold – which just about never happens. He has his jacket and hat on, an hour after getting home.

In other baseball news I stumbled upon the Tennessee Smokies website. They have some videos to help their fans through the winter. I was checking them out – and low and behold – a Rey sighting.

We love sighting Rey, and when we can’t have him in person, it is good to catch sight of him in any way we can.

No words of wisdom.
That’s because I have been trying to help usher the financial chapter to the Water Comprehensive Plan into an updated version.
For me it has been like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard for 3 straight days.

Now if all of the financial heads had a vision and agreed on what was to be shown I could bear this because there was a conclusion in sight.
However, we have new eyes on a process not fully understood and a number cruncher writer that has done this many times, and a number cruncher who has questions, requests, but at the end of the day really seems to grasp the bigger picture.

And I am trying to ask them to give each other the words to bring this to a conclusion.
By noon today.

Needless to say, it has been difficult to get just about anything else done.
And what is worse, I have been driving these others hard to get it done – and I feel badly that I can’t step in and just pick up more of the number work.

Now, we did get out to see a school performance on Wednesday night.
And tonight we have tickets to see Cris Williamson (and the Seattle Women’s Chorus) perform.

And most of this has been in the pouring rain (just to make the driving and communte times better).

On a more positive note – this is a picture of survival.

Wind Storm Aftermath

Donating to One Sight

 One of the kids Carl used to take care of asked people to do something for somebody else, and then provided a bunch of ideas. It made me think of all of the old glasses lying around that do not help me see any more. So off to the mall and the Sunglasses Hut. 4 Pairs donated. No pain, and somebody’s gain.

So I am at work.
“Nothing new,” you say.
Correct, but today I am not just staying late to catch up.

Although I do have some new requests, so if I do them now then I will not have to catch up later.

But, still. It is a recess during a Board meeting, so kind of a dinner break.

And I have a dinner of sorts because my husband, a Wonderful Man, packed me an extra-large “lunch” today. So I have grapes and almonds and a little dessert. (And a piece of pizza that the Engineering Department bequeathed me from their lunch.)

Even better than extra food today, my Wonderful Man scraped off my windshield this morning. I am truly appreciative. Little things that make your day flow better.

Just thought I would broadcast a little atta-boy out to the world.
And now I must try to think of some little things I can do for somebody else to help their day move along easily.

But I remember when a certain cousin was given a gift of a cat at her wedding.
At least they tried.

This memory was sparked by this.
The cat is similar looking, but not so much in temperment.

In other news, I ventured out into shopping land today.
It was actually pleasant.
Not too crowded, and I knew what I was getting – so I did not spend a lot of time wandering around.

And since it was a sunny (not warm) day, we took a walk to do a little more shopping. Certainly more walking than shopping, but a bit of dough was dropped.

And UW beat WSU in the Apple Cup cross-state rivalry.
We have a few ardent Huskies (UW) at work. One of them was treated to this scene on Friday morning. He will be able to continue to laugh about this since the Huskies won, and will be eligible for their first bowl game in several years.

Harwell, Niehaus and Santo.

Baseball lost three major announcers in the past year.
Detroit, Seattle and now Chicago, all have connections for our family.
Santo actually was from Seattle, albeight long before we were here.

The latest was Ron Santo. He was a CUB’s announcer. He was a CUB player. He was the CUB.
 As an announcer he added something different than the other two noted in this post. One commenter noted that he was the CUB’s biggest fan, and it showed in his broadcasts.

Santo - Cub 3rd Baseman

We have spent our share of time driving back and forth across the states.
At night, as we drove, we could pick up radio broadcasts from all over.
The Cubs’ broadcasts were a fairly frequent choice.

The first time I was introduced to Santos as a broadcaster, I thought he was drunk. The Cubs had probably lost or were losing, and he was all over the place. It was hilarious.

In more recent years we have caught him on the road. But we also have a little thing called XM radio, which allows us to hear broadcasts from all over the county. And Santo is amoung those that we have listened to, along with Pat Hughes – the straight man play-by-play announcer. You can get the details from Hughes, but you can get the real story by listening for the background broadcast. When there was a bad play you would hear, “Oh noooooo, Arghhhhh.” Often the words would come long after the feeling for the play let you know whether it was good or bad.

I hear my fair share of games. Some of them I even listen to.
I will miss looking forward to Santo’s reactions.

I am getting ready to go home.
Blogging now will be one less thing to do when my mind goes completely numb.

I was well on my way to going numb as I tried, and somewhat succeeded in understanding some accounting mumbo-jumbo that is part of my big report. I was just going to sit down and put my newfound knowledge into words to share with the people who need to use it, and fellow worker walks in to my office.

It is closing time – that is why this employee had been leaving, and decided to stop into the loo before getting into traffic. (I often do this myself.) However, instead of the normal bathroom ambience, she found a sauna. That’s right, 94 degrees in the stall. So what to do? Ask Jay, she’ll take care of it.

Of course, the mechanically adept folks had all left at 4:00.
I gamely got onto our HVAC program, which informed me of the temperature, and that the heater was off. Well – I could tell that was an untruth. From my sleuthing I determined the temperature had started climbing about 11 AM. It reached the 90’s around 1 PM and stayed there. Apparently somebody else had noticed, but the mechanically adept person she approached was busy at that moment, and so it was not addressed.

45 minutes later, having basically accomplished nothing more than verifying electronically what I already knew to be true, I decided to bag trying to figure out how to tell the computer to shut off the heater – which it already thought was off. (It did note that the temperature was way out of range – ALARM – ALARM) I called our electrician, and he suggested I open the door and share the warmth with the lobby. I had already taken this step and reduced the temperature to 85 degrees. Mind is warm, but still a bit numb.

So, about an hour after I was planning to start writing about money and budgets and capital versus operating costs, I decided to wait until the morning. That will be the true test of whether I really learned any financial stuff today.

Traffic – well let’s just say that BLACK is not my favorite color to see on the highway maps.

While we were gone to the cold, snowy (NOT) midwest, Seattle had the SnOMG storm. (according to the newspaper reports).

And it is predicted to be a La-Nina year with higher than average snow, and colder than average temperatures.

So we thought it wise to check our chains for usability.
One of our cars is new – with different tire sizes than before, and the other car has new tires.
So we sat out in the driveway and attempted to put the chains on. No snow, no rain.

We were unsuccessful on the first car. We knew the tire size was not exactly what the chains called for, but thought we would try.

The second (older – but with new tires) car worked with existing chains – even though the tire size was not specifically listed (no P).

So off to the car store for new chains. It is one of those things I buy and then try not to use. But in Seattle chains can be a lifesaver. We do not have 4-wheel or all-wheel drive, just front wheel. My plan for a bigger event is to telecommute. But you never know when you will be away when the snow falls. And yes, I never used chains when I lived in Michigan, or in Colorado. But it is different here – warmer and icier and especially hillier.

I am glad we missed this latest storm. It sounded miserable. Up to 7 hour commutes to get home. If they get that long I will opt to stay at work. We do have cots.