We’ve been busy, again, as usual. There was a trip to the Zoo Brew, I have pictures, a trip down to Mom’s place for a birthday lunch/dinner for Kev this last Saturday in honor of the fact that my little brother turns 40 tomorrow… wow, a dinner at PF Changs, lots of weed eating action and spraying here at the house this last Sunday, and a trip over to Cannon Beach and then Cape Lookout State Park, near Tillamook. It’s been an eventful couple of weeks. And again… I have pictures. I will get those posted when I have a bit more time. Right now I’m at home, quickly eating a sandwich and drinking a root beer for lunch, before heading back to the office. I missed my lunch today as I had to work through it. I was driving back through town on my way to the office and thought, hey… I haven’t had lunch, I’m starving. Plus if I actually stopped by the house I’d be able to change out of the court clothes and into more comfy attire. I’m now wearing jeans and sandals and my sandwich and root beer is almost gone…. it’s, sadly, nearly time to head back to the ol’ work site.

So… Stay tuned for a slightly more detailed version of this email, which will include pictures and some descriptions of life as we’ve known it over the last week and a half. Until then….

It’s absolutely beautiful outside. What a lovely day. And right now, to top that off, it’s almost 5:00. Which means that it’s nearly time for me to high tail it outta here…. work that is. I’m excited about going home. I’ve tackled some of the piles on my desk this afternoon in a manner that can only be described as a flurry of action and activity. I feel good about it. Motivation has been hard to come by today, so the action and the getting things done was hard fought and well won.

Tonight I think I’ll enjoy a glass of red, hang with my sweetie and the pup, and let myself relax. After all, tomorrow is Friday… and then… Saturday. Ah……

Greetings, Salutations, and Welcome. Here we are, in the new digs. I managed to move everything over from the other site.

I’m liking the new space, and hope ya’all do as well. It’s been a bit different to operate, but I’m getting the hang of it. One thing I loved about moving into this space was the personalized header. Yes, those are our feet up there, taken at the Grand Canyon last September.

OK, so again… welcome. Look around, see what you can see, and let me know, through comments here on the blog, what you think. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

I’m in the process of deciding if I should move my blog from blogger to wordpress so it might be a bit before this is actually fully up and running. So far, so good. We shall see.

So… I’ve heard from several people now that over the last few days, since Friday actually, they haven’t been able to view my blog using Internet Explorer. I myself have an Apple ibook and have had no problem accessing my blog using Safari (the mac browser) or firefox. I’m trying to work out the IE problem and hopefully all of you who haven’t been able to view will once again be privvy to my posts. Patience.

Whew… it’s Friday. All I have to say is, what a week it’s been. I can’t even say how happy I am to be sitting here, typing away, listening to the quiet of the evening and the sounds of the rain that just started falling.

We’ve had some troubles this week. Nothing interpersonal… we’ve had issues with our well and our septic tank. Both in the same week. And we have company. And Karen was gone during part of the time all this was going on. Bummer.

It actually started the end of last week, when we noticed the toilet running and then the septic tank alarm went off. Karen acted quickly, after checking in the tank access hatch, by turning off the power to the septic pump. She then called our plumber, a great guy we totally love, who came out and basically did a temporary fix on our septic tank (he had to replace a broken hose). Tim said he would come back Wednesday to do the permanent fix on both the septic tank and the toilet. It just so happens that the toilet and the septic were strangely unrelated issues. Who knew. Anyway… we spent a few days jiggling the handle every time we had to use the facilities and wondering if the septic alarm was going to go off again. In the grand scheme of things, no big deal. Then Karen left for Milwaukee on Mother’s Day, also a bummer. Everything went along fine, us jiggling the handle and going about our business until Tuesday evening, when I went to wash my hands and noticed there was only a trickle coming out of the faucet. I thought… hmmmm… that’s not right. So I moseyed over to where the pressure gauge is for our well tank and found that it read a big ol’ 0. Yep, no pressure, meaning… no water. So, I checked around the house… faucets, pipes, outside faucets, and found no drips. Bad sign. I decided at this point to turn the power off to the hot water tank and told the visiting kids to stop all laundry they were doing. We decided that since the plumber was going to show the following day, Wednesday, we would just see what happened with the pressure. I thought it was weird, but then again, we’d gotten the pressure down to 10 in the past by doing laundry, taking a shower, and watering the lawn simultaneously so I felt like maybe it would recover over night.

Alas, it was not meant to be. The next morning I got up expectantly and sauntered in to look at the gauge only to find that no, it was still at 0 and we only had drips coming out of our faucets. I decided it was bigger than the plumber so I called our well guy. He called back almost immediately and I thought… ah… we’re going to get this resolved quickly… and again, I was wrong. He came over, on his way to an emergency some where else, and checked things out. After running a couple of tests he gave me the bad news. Our well pump had gone out and he wasn’t going to be able to get to it until the next day, Thursday. He said to turn off the power to the pump and not to use any water. I did, but was not thrilled with it. When the kids got up I gave them the bad news. No water. The first response is always the same, how do we flush. To which I said… we have the hot tub and it has gallons of water (I’m a bit experienced with what to do when the power goes out to a well as my mom’s place, the place of my youth, has a well and we had many a time after a storm… uh, did I just say many a time? bah ha ha ha! Anyway… as I said, we had many a time when the power went out after a storm and we had to make do.). I found a plastic garbage can and a small ice chest, filled them up with water from the hot tub, found a couple of plastic pitchers and we were in business. It’s a simple matter of pouring water in the bowl after you go. It works, and you’ll find this a useful tip should you ever be in the same boat.

Later that morning the plumber came over to fix the toilet, which kept running, on top of us having to pour water into it. A tricky situation to be sure. He did indeed fix the toilet, having to pour water into the bowl to test his work. It worked. He then went out to do the permanent fix on the septic tank and afterward he went on his way.

Fast foward to Wednesday afternoon… the well guy and his apprentice show up in a big truck with a crane to pull the old well pump and 500 feet of pipe up so it would be all ready for replacement Thursday morning. An hour and a half later the job was done. There laying across two 4×4’s was a lot of pipe, some of it not looking so good, and an old pump. You see, our pump and all that pipe, not to mention the wiring, was all 30 years old. Unheard of, as we were told by our well guy. Usually, he said, they only last, at most 15 years. We got twice the life out of ours. Or at least the last three years of twice the life out of ours. Lucky. I was alone with the dogs, Weston and the vising Wicket, most of the day as the kids, who’d spent a couple of days hanging around the house of the unclean, decided they needed to get out. So, after the well guy’s apprentice left, and I knew the kids weren’t going to be back for a few hours, I took a dip in the hot tub. Man, did that thing come in handy or what? I hadn’t had a shower since Monday morning and by Wednesday evening I was feeling a bit sticky. The dip was just what I needed. The dishes were piling up as well, so after my dip I piled them in the sink, got a waste basket full of water, again from the hot tub, and dumped it on the lot of them. At least they were rinsed.

That night Mary and Martin returned from a nice dinner with a friend and I left them here to watch the pups while I headed to the airport to pick up Karen who’s flight came in at 11:15. It had been a long day, already, but it was so worth it to get her home. I always miss her terribly, but after the events of the previous two days, I really missed her. I needed a big big hug only Karen could give me. She did. And I felt better.

Thursday… the well guy’s apprentice shows up with our new equipment and a couple of hours later he has us up and running. New well pump, a lot of new pipe, and 500 feet of new wire. Not to mention a couple other things necessary for proper well pump operation. Karen called me immediately and we were both thrilled. As were Mary and Martin, who immediately jumped in the shower.

You’d think the story would end here, but sadly, it doesn’t. As Mary and Martin showered, Karen took the pups for a walk out in the yard. She wandered around with them for a bit and then she approached our septic cover… as she got closer she started to smell what can only be described as… well… crap. Or maybe I should say, to be less direct, the strong odor of sewage. She immediatley jumped into action, removing the cover to the septic tank, and found that brown water (I won’t get more descriptive than that) was spraying into the tank from a coupling that was no longer coupled. It had been connected to the new hose installed just the day before by our plumber. It was no longer connected… it was broken, and spraying. Karen again sped into action by rushing into the house and turning off the power to the septic pump. Luckily she caught it early. If she hadn’t I can’t even get into what a load of doo doo we would’ve been in… literally. After shutting off the power she called Tim. He felt terrible and was beside himself. His normal practice would’ve been to test the connection, however since our water was off when he installed it, he wasn’t able to do the test. He told Karen he’d make it out the next day… today.

So… here we are… today. He showed up and made the repairs, plus some. Our well isn’t the only thing that was old around here. Our septic tank is also old. Not 30 years old, as it was the second tank the previous owner put in, but I believe it’s still 15 or so years old. That’s a long time for parts to last. They did, so again I’ll say… lucky. Tim not only replaced the coupling, but most of the other piping and all of the other hoses and fittings. He didn’t want to charge us, but we paid him anyway. He is such a good guy.

And now, here I am, typing away, all things are working, Karen just said dinner was ready (we’re having tacos and some sliced baked potatoes… yum!), the kids are in town having dinner with a friend, and all is quiet. I think we’ll throw in a movie, enjoy our food, and get in some cuddling time. Perhaps I’ll have a glass of water, or have to use the toilet, and as I do I’ll think to myself… ah, it’s been a rough few days, but here I am, able to use all of our facilities. It’s been a pain, but we managed, and really at the same time it’s all been well worth the trouble. I mean, hey, at least we know we’re probably good for 10 to 15 years. There’s comfort in that.

There are a couple new features on the Think Tank…. If you scroll down a bit and look on the right you’ll see a new section called Reels. Basically it’s a feed from youtube.com. I choose the content, which will change every so often. Right now I have videos of three different musical artists cycling through in groups of four (that’s just how it works)…. they are Michael Tolcher, Brett Dennen, and Antigone Rising. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but think that they cycle through either when the page loads each time, or daily. Not sure which…. If you click on one of them it will pop up full size at the top of my blog over the first post and start playing. Most are music videos. It’s kind of a cool feature. Also, in another section I have links to a couple of blog cataloging sites… one is called, funny enough, the Blog Catalog, and the other is called Technorati. If you’re into reading blogs, both of these sites are great places to search and find blogs on pretty much any topic. They are both fun places to look around. It’s amazing how many people are blogging.

Written Tuesday, May 15

Well… I was sitting here trying to think of something witty to write about, but all I can think is how much I’m missing Karen today. She left on Sunday (business trip) for Milwaukee (where the company’s headquarters are) and isn’t coming back until later tomorrow night. I’ve now been without her over 48 hours, and I don’t like it much. I never do. So I guess this is me whining about how much I miss her.

It’s wonderful when a person finds “the one”. We always know when it happens.  And for me it happened four years, one month, and 6 days ago.  And what’s more, it happens over and over again… every time I come home from work to find her there, every time she comes back from a business trip, every time we have to be apart at all and then, finally, get to see each other. I could be around her every day, all day long, and never feel like I needed a break…. it’s just that good.

Here I am, sitting in my office, on this overcast Thursday morning. Out my window I can see a few guys out on the dock fishing, though none have caught a fish as far as I can tell. It’s quiet around here. The forecasters have said we could have weather like yesterday when it hailed and blew and rained like crazy. For a while the parking lot looked as if it snowed, but it didn’t last very long. I had to take the car through the car wash to get all the leaf parts off of it, there were a lot of them. I guess maybe I shouldn’t have gotten it washed yesterday if there’s a possibility it could do the same thing today. Oh well, if it does, I know where the car wash is. I haven’t had too many calls today so far, which is kind of nice. Lately I’ve had a few.

I just got back from lunch. Had a southwestern chicken wrap (which had mango, red pepper, lettuce, chicken, and cream cheese) and an Italian soda (raspberry, no cream, no whipped cream… just give me the raspberry). It was tasty, and now I’m really full and sort of sleepy.

Karen took Weston to her office today. She had to go in for just a little bit so she took him in, inside his little travel backpack, with toys, food, treats, and a water dish in hand. She said he did really well, and loved running all around inside the center. Her staff really loved him, but then again, who wouldn’t, he’s a cutie.

Tonight we’ll probably do our usual thing… have some dinner (some very tasty left over phad thai Karen made last night), watch some tv or a movie, maybe we’ll sit in the hot tub (which Karen just cleaned out), and I’m sure we’ll probably play a lot with the little fella. Our lives seem to be all about him right now. It goes like this… did he eat, did he drink, did he poop, what toy does he have, did he pee, did he play, does he want a treat, what’s he doing, is he nipping, and how’s he doing. And I guess that’s how it should be. He’s just a little guy and he needs our help and our attention. He gets both in spades.It’s 2:43 and it’s hailing outside like crazy. Not quite as wild as it was yesterday, but it’s still pretty dark, pretty white, and very stormy out there.

It’s 4:32 in the afternoon now… it’s taken me all day just to write this. I got a bit busy. I am at work, so I guess that tends to happen… working at work. Another half and hour and I get to go home to my little family. What a great way to end the day.