country trip. The tag sale went very well, my Mom helped Lisa get it all going and they made a pretty good amount
of money. They sold almost everything that was set out and the few remaining things just went to Goodwill.
Lisa took off for Watertown, NY after her parents arrived Sunday morning and spent half the week there partying with
her friends and family, ask her when she'll be getting drunk again next time you see her, my guess is that the answer
might be a strong "NEVER". I was able to get my WA drivers license and the plate on Monday, the line was short
but it cost just about $500, not exactly what I was expecting. I flew to NJ on Wednesday and my brother took me
to MA on Thursday for the Hooding Ceremony, we stayed in a hotel that night because our house was empty. We had
a great dinner with my parents and Lisa's parents that night and then went to Graduation the next moring. After
the ceremony we drove up to my parents camper in Maine, got a couple of hotel rooms near there and just relaxed for the
weekend. We had a couple drinks, ate lot of food, did some tourist stuff, met up with Gregg, Matthew, Jess and
Garrett at the beach and tried not to think too much about the week we were about to start. Sunday we dropped
Lisa's folks off at the airport and went to the kennel to get Isis, she had been there for over a week. We ran a
few errands and packed up the remaining stuff at the house so we could depart the next morninng as planned.
We got a late start Monday but made it to Western Ohio by early evening. Tuesday we were able to get just past
Minneapolis before we crashed. Wednesday we stopped outside Billings, Montana and Thursday we arrived at our house
in Seattle, WA. Isis was great in the car and we made sandwiches to eat while we were driving so time was saved
there. Over all I think it was a pretty smooth trip, no issues with the vehicles or the trailer so that was
great. Unfortunately we arrived to find our house a complete mess, the old tennants were supposed to be out by
the 3rd and it was our's on the 15th. It was the 23rd and the place was still full of trash, some furniture, a
rusted out car in the driveway and more dirty than a frat house. The place is pretty wrecked but it is only for
a few months, we are going to start looking for a house to buy in the next month and we hope to be out of there by
fall. It could be a great house but needs a ton of work. We have been trying to get it cleaned up and
unpacked, the landlord had someone taking care of it for him and they never mentioned it was so bad, he has been great
about helping us out since he heard what is going on there. We have had to pick up a few things that we parted
with before the move, grill, couch, microwave, things like that. We have to take care of the lawn so we also got
a cheap lawn mower and weed trimmer to try and tame the 4' weeds all over the yard. I will try and post a before
and after picture of the back yard when I tackle it this weekend, should be interesting. Our plan is to actually
relax this weekend, most of the stuff is finished, the garage is a mess but I'm getting to that. The POD is empty
but will be in the driveway, blocking the garage door until Saturday so we really can't do much with the garage until
then. Lisa has been attending training all week and is hoping to start at her store soon, after we get settled
she has to start studying for her boards, that will keep her busy for a few weeks but after that things should go back
near normal, normal being the way they were 3+ years ago before we moved to MA. We might get out and do some
paddling or biking or maybe rollerblading this weekend, it will feel nice to get some exercise no matter what the
form. Both of our email addresses have changed so send a message via the links at the left and we'll respond
from our new accounts. Anyway, thanks for reading and keep watch for more pictures, we'll be going through them
and posting more as time goes on.
June 9, 2006: Well, Lisa's last week at home and my first week at work have come and gone. The POD
was delivered late this afternoon
and everyone arrived in the early evening to help pack it up. Click the picture to see how they get it off the truck
June 6, 2006: Hey again, we're back and things are crazy as ever. Last week was my last week of work at the ISO
so the group took me out for dinner and drinks on Wednesday, that was pretty cool, I had a few too many beers but it was a lot of fun. Friday
was my last day, I handed in my badge and pager and even got out of there early. Lisa got out of her rotation site early too and we got on the
road for NYC pretty early. Traffic was horrible but we got there around 8pm in the pouring rain. We got the chair up to her apartment
and then took the train into the city to walk around a little and get some dinner. Saturday morning we just hung out for a while and Alice
took some pictures of my tattoos, she has to edit some of them but hopefully I'll have a couple to post soon. In the afternoon we went into
the city again and for hot pastrami sandwiches from Katz's Deli and to walk around a bit more.
We even made it out to the Brooklyn Bridge for a walk, we only made it halfway before it started raining, we were too tired to walk the whole way and
back anyway so it worked out fine. We made it back to Alice's place, gathered our stuff, and made it to my brother's place in time to crash for
the night. We had to leave early Sunday morning to make my flight out of Newark. Dave dropped me off and Lisa left a few hours later to
drive back to MA, pick up Isis at the kennel and relax a bit. My flight was a smooth one and it was great to do a direct one instead of flying
all over the country to get there like I did last time. I landed, got my rental car, made it to Kim's apartment, and had the rest of the day
to get settled and relax a bit. Work was great Monday and today too, I have a lot of stuff to learn and already have a handfull of projects
to do, nothing like hitting the ground running. I got a really cool new IBM laptop for work too, one of the ones in that commercial with
Lee Majors where they talk about the bionic finger and make the na na na noise.
It has a finger scanner that you use instead of a password, pretty slick actually and you can even set it to play a sound when you have a good scan.
I don't have to tell you that mine is programmed to play the na na na na na sound, makes me laugh every time. Other than that not much is new,
Lisa is now totally done with school and is working on packing the last bit of stuff and getting ready for the tag sale this weekend and to start
packing the POD when it arrives on Friday morning. Anyway I'm spent, time to crash.
and into the yard. The last update I got from Lisa was that everything wasn't going to
fit and that they were trying to figure it out. If you can't guess I am going mad here thinking about what's going on there!
Tomorrow they are having the tag sale and Sunday Lisa's parents arrive. On my side of the country Kim gets back from London tomorrow
evening so I'll have someone to talk to you when I'm not at work. I'm going to try to go into the city tomorrow and run a couple errands
and probably lay low the rest of the day. I've been working 11 hour days all week and could stand to catch up on some sleep. I got
tickets to Cirque Du Soleil for Sunday so we're going to check it out, I wish Lisa was here to join us but we'll catch the tour next year.
Monday I have to go to the DMV to get my WA license and register the trailer, Element and Ridgeline, hopefully it will be some what painless.
Lisa just called and reported that she thinks everything but the mattress is going to fit. It would suck to have to throw that away because it
really isn't very old. I guess it's easier to leave that instead of leaving a bunch of other stuff that would be harder to replace.
Hopefully they figure something out to make it fit. Oh, Alice got one of the pictures from last weekend edited and up on her site, I nabbed
it and here you go, I think it looks pretty cool. I need to get something to eat before it gets too late. Have a great weekend.