Thursday, December 30, 2010

Nerds!

I think my mom is trying to get my kid beat up....


Speaking of nerds, this is what Michele got me for Christmas, minus the 10' screen, the steering wheel plus pedals, the kitchen rack, and the bucket seat out of a '90 911 Targa. Clearly she doesn't want me leaving the house, ever.

Fucking Holidays

No, I don't have a problem with Christmas itself, not like the family Thanksgivings of my childhood. It's just that my diet went to shit over the last week or so.


That's not the kind of progress that I was wanting. That's all behind me now and I'm all business, no fucking joke. I've been invited to join Ballard's Biggest Loser(I know, we don't even live in Ballard), organized by Rob, fancy uber scale by Paul. Fifty dollar buy in and winner takes all, three months time and loss gauged by percentage. Of course, that means I'm likely to be the one needing to lose the most. On the plus side, I've got a strong feeling that I'm the only one really committed so I guess I can go ahead and start spending that money now, right?

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Privacy


So, over the years that I've had this blog going(and the other blog) I've been reasonably careful to protect my identity.  Last names, addresses, places of employment, and the like all carefully left out.  Not that I'm really concerned and I assume that by now most everyone that reads this blog knows exactly who I am in real life and none of the above is much of a secret anyway.  I've should also say that I self censor a fair amount(I know that's hard to believe) to avoid upsetting the delicate sensibilities of my family, friends, or work related connections.  With all that in mind, I fucked up.  One little slip on the other blog(since fixed) led a potential employer of my wife right there.  About once a month I take a glace at the Google Analytics data produced by the two sites just out of curiosity and I noticed hits at the other blog from one of the places Michele had recently contacted about a job.  I checked search criteria and sure enough, her full name coupled with her professional title entered into a specific search engine(there's people out there not using Google?) takes you right to the other blog.

At any rate, I'm not really concerned about it.  I find everything Michele has written there to be quite lovely, and since they didn't follow any linking to this site, they don't yet know about the more embarrassing part of the little life we've got carved out.  Me.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Charts!

I love charts, all things nerdy really.  My diet seems to be holding, longer than any past diet at this point, and I credit that to technology, nerdlynes, and charts.

This is the trajectory my weight has taken over the last month, actual weight removed to save myself the embarrassment, but I expect that someday early next year Wii Sean will be able to drop "morbidly" from his subscript.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

The Picture May Be Blurry...

...but the message is clear.  Don't roll the stops in front of the cops.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving! Again!

A s a kid, Thanksgiving for me used to mean bad food, a whole lot of extended family, and sleeping in the storage cellar at a borrowed beach house. Seriously.

We used to gather at my grandparents house on the Oregon coast, all 20 or 30 of us(I honestly don't really know the count and can't be troubled for it right now). My grandmother would throw together the WORST Thanksgiving dinner know to man, think 20 lb turkey in the microwave for 2 hours and vegetables that aren't done unless they're gray. Not nearly enough room in the house for everyone and definitely not enough service, nuked turkey doesn't eat well on it's own, try getting into it with a plastic knife. Also, you're surrounded by a whole bunch of family that you love dearly individually but together it's one big ass clusterfuck. At the end of it all you still don't know what of the five borrowed beach houses you're stuck in and what cousin or sibling you've got to share a twin bed with. What it all boils down to is that Thanksgiving during my childhood sucked. It was never my favorite holiday, and one I never looked forward to.

As I recall, we almost didn't go to Thanksgiving with Paul and Sean two years ago, Michele's not big on new people and I almost got sucked into a family event(again, we love them, but not on Thanksgiving). Holy hell am I glad we went. Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday since. Amazing, knock you on your ass food, good drinks, and great people. It's the highlight of my gastronomical year, and this year was no different.

Chipotle meatballs, of course.

It's amazing the amount of prep that goes into getting the boy to the party and ensuring that he doesn't get drunk while Michele does. We were successful at that by the way.

The boy was the source of much amusement and surprisingly well behaved all evening.

Here's to next year!

*I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we've had a few pretty damn good Thanksgivings along the way but none quite compare to the last three, which is the whole point.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Housekeeping

I just found out the RSS feed for The Misadventures of S & M hasn't been working for the last two(!) years. It is now fixed and that's where Michele and I have been posting boy related things. If you're not interested in the boy, well, I'm not even going to tell you what you can do if you're not interested in the boy, it's a little blue, even for me. Seriously though, if you've been reading through a feed reader, it should be fixed now.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Snow Day!

Seattle got it's first snow today(actually, some fell yesterday but it didn't stick at the house so it doesn't count). Also, Michele starts back to work today, but not until this afternoon, so I got a quick ride in while I could. I just started out from the house and headed to Lower Woodland, just like I did when the El M decided to go tits up. TBFKaU held together just fine but was just as brutal to ride as I expected in to be. Sadly, I must admit that I am currently not a singlespeeder, but it's something for me to work towards and I hope to get there soon.

Bike Ninja!

Same spot, different ride.

Some days it's good to be unemployed, some days it's downright awesome. Still miles from downtown and no signs of movement. That's a tough beat for sure.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

The Devil Came to Town...

...and fucked up my diet. First, Michele insisted on Salumi on Thursday, then Pat shows up yesterday and wasn't leaving town until we made a visit to Lunchbox Lab.

Today it was Paseo. If I continue to further fuck up my diet by going to Baguette Box tomorrow I'll have completed the Seattle lunchtime superfecta.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Fuck.

Tried to get out for a ride today, just a little one from the house. Got as far as the skate park before things started to go south. First, I whip out the camera to take a couple shots of the empty park and find the screen is completely shattered. The camera still takes pics but there's no way of knowing what the settings are or previewing the shot. I guess nearly four years is a pretty good run for a small camera anymore, but it's still disappointing. At least it gives me an opportunity to learn from past mistakes, the next camera will not use proprietary cables or memory cards, that shit just sucks.

The second shitty thing, just as I was leaving the skatepark and heading up into lower Woodland I heard a big pang and felt my chain jump hard. Upon initial inspection I thought I just didn't have my skewer tight because the wheel had jumped from the dropouts. After popping the wheel back on it was instantly obvious that more was wrong. The wheel was pushed up hard against the drive side chainstay and refused to turn. I walked back to the skatepark to start checking for broken spokes when lo and behold, I found a broken rim. The thing is a good 3/4" out of true and now I'm pissed. A great way for El M and I to celebrate our three year anniversary. So, now I'm in the market for a new rim...

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Monday, November 15, 2010

Begging Forgiveness

Once I had Michele and Porter past breakfast I loaded up El M and headed south to South SeaTac for my first ride in a long time. I felt bad for the bike, having neglected it for so long. I've got no excuses, lucky for me the bike was good to me has no hard feelings. It wasn't a long ride by any means, only about 45 minutes or so on the trail but it was really good to get my legs moving. Even though it was a little tough in places where it shouldn't have been and my legs hurt after ten minutes I was surprised by how much it stays with me. I was railing slippery corners at a pretty high rate of speed and clearing obstacles like I never stopped riding. Of course, this is SST we're talking about here and there's not much in the way of difficult terrain, but still, I felt good.

I'm going to attempt to get out a minimum of a couple times a week through the winter, even if that means that I'm occasionally riding (GASP) pavement now and again. Seems like a bit of a feat considering that Michele goes back to work on Monday but I think I can do it. As a matter of fact I think I have to do it. I came home from my ride feeling better than I have since before Porter was born. Like I have a new sense of myself. Reading that last bit back to myself, it sounds really corny and not very "Sean like", I'm not erasing it though. It feels true.
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Saturday, November 13, 2010

New Leaf

Holy fuck, I'm a father!

On to the next thing. So for the last couple months, when I'm not sleep deprived and delirious, I've been thinking a lot about how I've gotten fat(ter) and slow(er) over the last year and a half or so. It's time to get serious. I'm a week on the diet and it's going well. I expect to hold steady until Thanksgiving(nothing would stop me from throwing away a diet for Thanksgiving dinner, I've been waiting all year after all) and pick up where I left off the next day. I also need to start getting out on the bike more, and not just the Tank. El M and TBFKaU haven't left the basement since we moved except for John and Eithne to borrow. Also, I should get back to blogging a little more, the slow death of TYOTB is unacceptable and I refuse to let it happen.

Okay. Diet, bikes, blog more, I can do this. Really...

Monday, October 25, 2010

SSCXWC

The Single Speed Cyclocross World Championship took place yesterday here in the Puget Sound. Somehow I found the time to get away from Michele and the baby for a few hours to get to the venue.

Oh, sexy beer bikes. How I love you all.

Awesome mass start.

Lots of costumes mid pack.

Requisite beer station after the barriers.

And of course, this guy.

Unfortunately due to a late race start I wasn't able to stay for the finish but needless to say I did enjoy my time amongst the bikes.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Porter!


Nearly 2 weeks late but Porter finally showed up last night at 10:59. He weighed in at 7 lbs 12 oz and measured 19 inches. I've taken on a lot of projects in my life and there's not one I value more than this. Welcome to the world little one.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Graduation Day! (Again!)

Today Michele graduates from residency. Free food, open bar, what's not to love? She still has to work for the rest of the month and moves right into fellowship on the 1st of July, so not much really changes in our lives except that Michele's license costs exponentially more. Huzzah!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Good for a Laugh



Saw this on a Raleigh XXIX park outside if Snoose Junction today. Made me laugh out loud.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Last Call



Michele's finishing up her final call at UWMC this morning. I'm just waiting to take her home. Look at all those stolen scubs she's finally returning!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Recap

Damn I've been busy lately. For some crazy reason I thought it'd be a good idea to take 23 credits this quarter and unlike past quarters I've actually got some challenging classes. Seems like I'm spending all of my time stressing out about a paper and avoiding the actual work for a week and then busting my ass at the last minute. So far I'm pretty confident that my GPA has been holding but I've still got four weeks left for some epic fucking up.

On the baby front there's nothing new. Michele's 24 weeks along, he's still a he, and still named Porter. Had a visit with Group Health Midwifery today, I just sit there quietly and take it all in since I'm the big dummy in the room. A lot of the doc talk goes right past me but I try to follow along as best I can.

So really the big news of the day is that Michele and I are moving. My cousin Kate and her husband Jeff bought a new house right around the corner from their old one and Jeff proposed that Michele and I move in and fix it up in exchange for rent. As a general rule working with family is a bad thing but I think I've got a pretty good track record and I've got a pretty good feel for what needs to be done and how long it'll take. The whole endeavor will save Michele and I about $15000 in the coming year and that's cool by me. I started work today and we plan to be all moved in by no later than the 15th of July. The best part? It's really close to some good bars, grocery shopping by bike, Molly Moon's, and Greenlake. I'm pretty excited about the whole thing.

Just a cool bike shot I took for my photography class.

My latest(and probably best) skateboard, delivered last Sunday.

I'll try to keep this thing updated more often, especially with what's going on in the house, I've got some grand(small scale grand) plans.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

It's Alive!

I'm reviving The Misadventures of S & M for baby related news and events. I figure Michele's not using it much these days, but she might once the baby's here. We'll see, but in the meantime I'm going to be putting it to work.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Spring Break!

Okay, Spring break has been over for a week now and I'm already buried in a load of homework for what looks like it's going to be my most challenging quarter to date, but whatever.

Anyway, Spring break was planned to be a short little vacation to Portland and Ashland with my parents coinciding with my grandfather's 90th birthday party. The party was Saturday night, right at the start of vacation, so once Michele was rested up from her Friday night call shift we packed up the car and headed South. The party was the usual family craziness, much of that coming from my grandfather, who has grown more conservative by the day since my grandmother passed, don't get me started on the "North American Union" plan to join the U.S w/ Canada and Mexico and Obama's links to terrorism, but I digress.

Grandpa attempting some sort of joke here that bombed miserably, I don't remember what joke specifically, but they all bombed so it doesn't matter.

My sister and The Kid even made the trip all the way from the heartland.

I think this is the first time all the cousins(except Chris, of course) have been in the same place at once since Grandma's funeral, maybe we all made it for Lizzy's wedding though, I'm really not sure.

We made a visit to Grandma's house to get the obligatory four generations shot, then it was on to Ashland. My parents go to Ashland twice every year to take in plays at the annual Shakespeare festival. For years my mom's been bugging Michele and I to come along, insisting that we really love plays(we're really not play people) and all we need to do is attend one and we'd be hooked. Mom's big plan was to get us to go to one really great play and then we would, of our own volition, start coming to plays with them on a regular basis. So my mom looked at the calalog of plays that would be playing when we were there, read up on them all, and of the 5 or 6 options, she chose the one about rape in the Congo. Thing is, it turned out to be about RAPE IN THE CONGO. My favorite. Way to go mom.

There were some redeeming things about the trip, dad and I got in an awesome ride in the snow in the hills behind town.

It wasn't all in the snow of course.

We also ate a fucking outstanding meal at New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro, expensive but well worth it.

Back in Portland we spent a couple days hanging out with Tim and Lucy before heading back to Seattle. It was a good time all around(except for the play). Oh, and Michele's pregnant...

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Craigslist Deal of the Week

I picked up this nearly unused Yakima HoldUp off of Craigslist earlier today. I found the ad totally by chance(Yakima was misspelled) and emailed the guy about the price. I got him down $30 from his asking price to well below half of retail and was pleasantly surprised to find that rack in such great shape. I almost felt bad for him that I paid so little(so to speak). Now if I can track down that 2" Prius hitch before we leave town on Saturday. The price is right but it's an elusive little bastard and harder to find locally than I expected.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Mobile Chowdown III

Seattle vs. Portland!

The third installment of Mobile Chowdown took place today here in Seattle. All(some) of the gourmet roach coaches in town get together in one place and every hipster in town shows up looking for bacon. No bacon, sorry hipsters.

This time around some of the Portland vendors made the trip up, including Burgerville USA for some reason. Now I'm a native son of Stumptown and truly love Burgerville but seriously, what the fuck? Anyway Michele and each had something from Marination Mobile, Koi Fusion, and Annita's. Koi Fusion was by far the best I've had yet at this event(we've been to all three). It's a Korean/Mexican place out of Portland and was awesome.

I took a couple of pictures to show what the lines were like, this was only 11:00 or so before things really got rolling too. Definitely a good time for any self respecting foodie and I highly recommend it.


Oh yeah, and in other news, I got rid of Michele's tC yesterday and traded it in on a 2010 Prius. That'll teach Michele to drag me all the way down to Olympia for the day and give me nothing with which to occupy my time.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Seabrook

Those that know me well know that I rarely drink to excess. Rarely. Two beers, done. Glass and a half of good wine, done. That's not really the way things went down at Seabrook, and it all started with this:

An award winning, Washington made vodka. And that's all the time I'm going to spend writing about alcohol and it's effects.

About Seabrook, it's a planned beach community on the Washington coast meant to emulate what you'd find in the Northeast. Overly cutesy beach cottages all lined up, each with it's own pair of Firmstrong(WTF?) beach cruiser bikes. Rents are cheap but real estate ain't, doesn't matter anyway since the trip was a treat from Paul and Sean celebrating Paul quitting his job.

We walked to the beach and taunted a tsunami, played games, ate cracktastic food, did some hot tubbing, drank a little, and that's all I claim to remember.

On the way home, Michele and I convinced Paul and Sean to come with us up to the Quinault Lodge for lunch, where I managed to get a picture of Sean, which isn't easy.

Just a totem rain gauge.

On the way out from the lodge we saw these otters at play. I wonder if Paul and Sean saw them...