Sunday, March 29, 2009

A Little History

Michele and I have been together now for 12 years. We met while in Americorps NCCC based out of Denver. She despised me at first, but I'm just so damn sexy, how could she resist? This post isn't really meant to be about Michele and I, more about where we met. I was digging around in our old photo boxes a few days ago looking for a specific picture to put up on Facebook and just started pulling out a bunch of pictures from that time that I really liked. Now I just feel like sharing.

These are not in any particular order.

Feb. 1997 - This was a a Boys and Girls Club overnighter about a month before we actually started dating but you can tell things were clearly set in motion already. I'm pretty sure it's the first picture ever taken of just the two of us.

Oct. 1995 - This was at the LSU geology camp in Colorado Springs, the sleeping arrangements were not all they were cracked up to be but we made the best of it. This lasted for about a week until a foot and a half of snow made it impossible to drive in, requiring us to hike about a mile through the snow to the camp to pack our stuff out.

Summer 1997 - Goddamn my hair looked glorious for a while there. This was during an Denver Urban Gardens/Colorado State University gardening with kids project.

Winter 1995/96 - Progress being made on the Aiken Canon visitor center for the Nature Conservancy. This was my first big project in the corps, for the most part it was a pretty good one.

Spring 1997 - Team photo taken in Lubbock, TX. We were there working for the South Plains Food Bank, mostly on the farm and in community gardens. I loved Lubbock, most people don't, I think it had a lot to do with the rock star treatment we got when we were there. Let's just say there are a lot of slow news days there.

July 1996 - The fourth. Tamara and I posing by a plaque nowhere near where we wanted to be. We spent much of the day looking for the South terminus of the Appalachian Trail, or locked out of our van at the South terminus of the Appalachian Trail. I should mention that we were in Atlanta for three months working in preparation for and during the Olympics. We also worked he Paralymipcs before heading home.

Fall 1996 - One of the few night I got stuck with desk duty. I was not meant to stay up for 24 hours at a time and my partner that night was find her own ways to keep herself entertained.

Summer 1997 - Our last day as corpsmembers. That's Michele, me, Loretta, and Johnny K. "the doctor of love" taken either right before or after our graduation ceremony.

Still in Seattle

There hasn't been much in the way of blogging happening here at TYOTB headquarters. Mostly it was because I was without a computer while in Portland and busy with Michele when at home. Recently it's because our main computer took a dump. The keyboard went to shit and it's since been sent back to Lenovo for warranty repair. Hopefully we'll get it back the first part of this week and all will be right in the world once again. The backup computer(that I'm using currently) as a screen on the fritz. Thanks to Paul I've got a external monitor hooked up and I'm making it happen.

The plan was to head back down to Tim and Lucy's today and tie up loose ends this week. They aren't ready for me yet so I'm now finding myself still in town with a week to kill before school starts. Have I mentioned that I'm going back to school? No? Maybe? North Seattle Community College is only a short walk from the abode and the state's paying my tuition, so what the hell. I'm taking drafting classes and the related coursework for the next five quarters, it'll wrap up just about the time that Michele's done with residency and ready to start pulling down the dollars. Maybe the construction job market will be better then. Maybe it'll be time for me to put some time and energy into a house of my own for a change. Maybe something else so cool that haven't even thought over it yet will happen, hopefully involving hovercrafts.

Anyway, I've got a couple of goals for the week, get books, finish a little furniture repair for Paul and Sean, prepare for garage repair, and ride my bike. I think I might just be able to handle it all.

I've got a couple of pictures to share, nothing special just some pictures I like from my brief hiatus from the blog.



Sunday, March 22, 2009

A Busy Saturday

I got my spot on the Alaskan Way Viaduct walking tour Saturday morning. The last couple of times I tried to get in on the tour I didn't send in my request quickly enough. This time Michele got right on it and got the spot. Of course Michele couldn't go because she was on call in Renton so it was just me.

It wasn't much of a walking tour so much as a presentation about future plans for the 99 through downtown and the waterfront. It was pretty cool to stand there on the bridge deck and really get a good look at it, especially the damage caused by the Nisqually earthquake.

Not long after the tour my mom and grandmother showed up. They drove up from Portland for the day to pay my mom's cousin Cilla a visit. They made it to town a couple of hours before Cilla was available so we killed sometime at the Ivar's bar.

Later, back at the house grandma said she wanted a picture with the Laural collection that Michele and I had put together. It's kind of funny, I get a good number hits here at TYOTB thanks to the Laurel and I can only imagine what a disappointment it is landing here. Anyway, if any of those lovers of mid century modern pottery find this post, look close and you might just notice something you've never seen before. Need a hint? Middle shelf and the one below.

Did you figure it out?

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Trippin'

I'm back from Portland for a little while. Both computers in our house are fucked up right now and a pain in the ss to work with so I'm going to make this short. A made a little move on my way home.



I kind of fucked up in that I was shooting at 10 meg unbeknownst to me and ran out of memory after around 700 shots. I set up the tripod behind the front seats and fired manually with the IR remote every 5-10 seconds. I'm surprised I made it as far as Centralia.

By the end of the day today I should have at least one computer working properly and maybe I'll have more to share but that's it for now.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Unemployment 2009: Day 36

Still unemployed, I had one big false start a couple weeks ago. I interviewed, had the job, and showed up to work on day one only to be turned away because the contractor had to "rethink his position". I found out later from a third party that he was two days away from losing four government bid groups due to delays on the bid group he was currently on. I was pretty pissed off about the whole thing but oh well.

Since then, I went down to Portland to help Tim and Lucy out with some of the details on the new house and getting the old house ready for sale. Nothing terribly exciting just finishing touches, I'll take some interior shots of the new house and post them next time I go down.

Old house.

New house.

On a slightly different note, I've notice on Google Analytics thatthe search "unemployment 2009" is drawing a good number of people to the site. Out of curiosity I Googled it and turns out that I'm the number 12 result. Anyway, I just want to say, if that's how you found yourself here at TYOTB, I'm sorry. However, to the people that found me by searching "michele monroe, hooker, ok", "all funked up mother +blogspot", and "pics. of motorized bicycle trikes / good paint jobs on them", welcome, you've clearly come to the right place.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Dumb Haiku Wednesday

building a railing
to prevent idiots demise
i struck my thumb, ow

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Out of Town

I'm down in Portland right now, without a bike.  That kinda sucks.  I'm down here helping Tim and Lucy with some of the details on the new house, as well as finishing some of the ten year old projects that never got done in preparation for going to market.  So far it's been some pretty easy work, some deck framing, plastic decking, digging holes(I actually can't remember the last time I didn't have someone lower on the pole dig my holes for me), and tomorrow I'm going to get started some sauna benches.  

It's not much, I know but there's really not much out there right now so I'll be taking what I can get.  As things stand right now, if I don't get permanent work by the end of the month I'll be headed to school on the state's dollar.  I'll find out more about that on Friday, in the meantime I'll continue to look...