squeakyjackie

Thank you to all who have served and/or continue to serve in the armed forces around the world.

Here's some interesting tidbits about famous people who have served in the U.S. military forces.  Some you may be surprised to see listed:

http://www.military.com/veterans-day/these-guys-served.html

http://www.military.com/veterans-day/famous-veterans.htm

Semper Fi!

Ok, I haven't posted here in like forever.  Loooong story.  Since my last post, somewhere in the middle of June, I've spent almost 2 full months away from home (accumulated), and just returned to Seattle from a cross country drive from NJ to Washington state with my sister.  3200 miles total, including detours, adventures, and true road miles.

I will post the story and associated pictures in the next week or so, after I've had time to reacclimatize to being home for good now.  :)

After five long years, Mark and I will finally be able to go to Pennsic again!  We're going this year, and we'll be staying with Duchess Marieke and her folk in Freehold. 

Who else is gonna be there?  Gotta catch up with everyone.  :)

Did my time on the exercise bike this morning, in front of the television of course.  Weather is crappy outside, otherwise i'd be out on the trails on my big girl bike. 

When I bike, or exercise in general, I sweat.  I mean, really- I'm soaked by the end of the ride.  So, I'm on the bike, pedalling my little heart out, and the small towel around my neck starts to slip and fall off.  I turn my head to catch it with my mouth (don't ask me why i didn't grab it with my hands- it's not like I was in danger of falling if I wasn't holding on or anything), and in doing so, I managed to get a taste of the sweat on my shoulder.  A big mouthful.  Can I just say-  I taste good.  ;)

I now return you to your normal, and more useful than this, programming. 

Off to a late start this morning, mainly due to bedcuddling with Mark was so darned comfy this morning, and neither of us wanted to get out of bed yet.  Thankfuly, he didn't have anything pressing at work until a conference call at 2pm, so he could come in a bit later than normal.

Met up with Sharron (my former manager from the place that shut down, and now a close friend of mine) for lunch at a local Irish pub. It's soo nice out today, that we had our lunch at a table out on the patio in front of the pub.  Shared a lovely visit, along with dessert and many laughs, and then she was off to do some kid wrangling (3 daughters, 3 different schools).

I went on another bike ride today.  Since I did a fairly intense ride yesterday (compared to how i've been riding lately), I didn't want to go crazy today.  Put some nice cruising music in the Ipod, like Bob Marley and Billy Joel, mixed in with some Bon Jovi and AC/DC for a couple of energy spurts, and I did 11 miles in 1 hour (yesterday I did 15 miles in the same timeframe).  Riding on a populated trail really is an exercise in people watching.  I think my favourite person I came across today was a gentleman riding a street bike, in full riding gear, with only one arm.  The empty sleeve was neatly tucked up and stuffed in the sleeve opening at the shoulder, and if you didn't look closely, you would never had known.  Had very nice form, and didn't look unbalanced in any way.

Mark is expecting to be working a bit late today, so I might go get some more yard work done in the back yard.  Just another excuse to be outside and enjoy this weather while we still have it.  Reports are that the weather is supposed to cool down as the week progresses, and rain is supposed to come back.  blach.

Haven't posted updates on what we've been up to out here in a while, so here's one now...

Friday is our usual "Sacred Date Night".  This past friday, we decided to stay home and have some quiet us time.  Some home-made dinner, a drink or two, and cuddled up on the couch together watching some tube.  Quite a lovely evening.

Saturday was a decent day, and we turned it into our house cleaning day.  Ran some errands, did many housechores along with some that have been on the back burner for a while.  Pasta & homemade sauce for dinner, paired with some time on the couch cuddled up watching the first Harry Potter movie.

Sunday was a lovely day.  Thankfully the weather all weekend was favourable for outdoor activities.  We drove into downtown Seattle (15-20 minutes in good traffic conditions) and went to the Seattle Center, where the Cherry Blossom & Japanese heritage festival was happening this weekend.  We made it out of the house by noon and got down to the center and found parking pretty easily.  We arrived at one part of the center where some of the festival activities was happening, and it turned out to be the section we could have the most fun with.  There was an outside stage set up, where different demonstrations were happening, one after the other.  Most of what was being demonstrated was different styles of martial arts.  We got to see local schools doing demos of: kendo, iado (the art of the sword), judo, aikido, a couple different styles of karate (the last one being shito-ryu, which is the style I got my black belt in).  Other than going inside the building in between demos to look at other stuff (japanese calligraphy, origami, sword polishing, flower arranging, etc...) and finding some nice food- beef bowls and some mochi for dessert, we spent most of our time outside watching the demos.  The very last demonstration that was on the schedule, and we saw most of before we had to go get the car (our time card was almost expired in the parking lot we left the car in), was taiko drumming.  have I mentioned I absolutely LOVE taiko drums? It was an 8 person troupe (3 men, 5 women), and thankfully we found seats close to the front so we could get the full experience.  Taiko drumming isn't just about the drums and the music their making- it's a visual performance as well.  See, you just can't pick up the drumming sticks and bang on that large drum and not get dragged into the energy, just as you can't just sit in a chair, stoic and unexpressive, listening to the taiko either.  The performers were jumping and shaking around with the music, and I probably looked like a mexican jumping bean after 3 cans of Red Bull, while I was using Mark's leg as my own drum.  He was thoroughly amused.

We got home from the festival, and Mark had some work to finish up before Monday, so he headed into the other room and I went over to our friend Tristan's for sausage rolls and social time with her and a couple other friends.  A couple of sausage rolls, some good ginger beer and homemade tira misu on Tristan's porch, followed by looking at interesting and silly videos on youtube for a bit, and then off to home I went, listening to some taiko music I put in the cd player in the car earlier.  Cuddled up with sweety when I got home and called it a night.

Today continued to be a gorgeous day, so there was not much time spent inside.  Mark was off to work, and I puttered about for a little bit.  Got some more house chores done, dropped some stuff off to Mark that he had forgotten at home, then after lunch I was out the door and gone!  There is a really nice park in town, a couple miles away.  It is a hub for a lot of nice trails, so I put Mark's new bike on the back of the car (my bike currently has a flat and I wanted to try out his new ride anyways), and off to Marymoor Park I went.  Weather was nice, I was motivated, so I did a 15 mile round trip ride.  Took me a little over an hour start to finish, which was really good time I think.  The trail I usually do is paved and typically has a lot of people riding on it (did I mention we live in the biking capital of the northwest?), so I found a guy ahead of me who was doing a decent pace, and drafted off him for a little while.  I've done this before, either to give myself a rest and a slower pace for a bit, or to challenge myself to keep up with someone else's pace.  The guy figured out what I was doing, and even slowed down to wait for me when I lagged behind a bit on a hill (I had geared down to conserve energy on the hill, and he hadn't).  Did a warm down afterwards at the velodrome they have in the park.  After picking up Mark and heading home, we did a bit of much needed yard work while dinner was cooking.  Got the back yard mowed after getting the sticks and pine cones off the ground (much work).  Dinner consisted of a tri-tip beef roast with baked potatoes, cooked on the smoker for an hour, along with a salad.  And sweety just brought out some french vanilla ice cream for dessert.

All in all, a very pleasant weekend.  Tomorrow is supposed to be another lovely day, so I'll be out on the bike again tomorrow.  Might get a bit more house chores done, and probably fix the flat on my bike, so we can go riding together this week. :)
 

 

Friday found me and Mark heading out on our usual "Sacred friday night date nights", not sure what we were going to do, but something.  After a pleasant trip to Lowes to get some stuff to help further organize the garage, I received a text message from my manager, Sharron.  We joined her and some of her friends and associates at Palmers, a pub a couple blocks from work.  It was a pleasant evening, meeting like minded people, having some decent pub grub, and enjoying everyone's company, until karaoke started.  Then it was time to leave.  Very nice night.

Saturday we headed out to Steven's Pass to do a bit of snow-splatting.  Mark has been skiing before, and I've never been on the slopes in my life, so we had a nice compromise in learning how to snowboard together.  Signed up for the 2-hour group lesson, which was a total hoot.  Our instructor was very helpful and a lot of fun.  Of course I got the nickname "Jackie Brown" due to the frequent mispronounciation of my last name.  It was all good, even after I reminded him that I was not a tall, busty, black woman, expect when I play one on tv.  Ironically, we just turned the tv on this morning and guess what movie was showing on TNT-  Jackie Brown!  Anyways, 2 hours of boarding lessons, and I was doing pretty good on the little hill that we were practicing on.  I was able to get off the snow and onto my feet, do both heel side and toe side, side slips, stop, transition, and glide. Chris, our instructor, was very happy with my progress.  Mark was coming along also, albeit with more butt-splat time than me.  At the end of the training lesson, we went over to the "Daisy lift" to take us up the hill to try a real slope.  Chris felt we were all ready to brave a bit more incline & distance, though 3 people in our group (we started with 8) opted out of the lift and wanted to stay over on the little training hill. 

Learned how to get on the lift without injury or incident (it can be tricky with a snowboard strapped to 1 foot) and off we were to the the top of Easy Street slope.  It was a lot longer than it looked like at the bottom, but Chris had faith that we could make it to the bottom without serious injury.  Oh, did I mention that we saw 3 ambulances coming away from the slopes on our way up to the slopes?  So, top of the hill, strap the other foot onto the board, a few last minute reminders and positive reinforcement from Chris, and off we went down the slope.  I managed to keep my feet under me for a good while, making very small adjustments in body weight from one foot to the other, as needed, to keep myself from flying off the side of the hill, or into other people, and things were going good.  Only fell a couple of times, and I was quickly back on my board and on down the hill again.  I had gotten a pretty good speed going, was feeling good, getting comfortable, then- SPLAT!  A spectacular wipe out!  My hat went in one direction, goggles in another, i'm surprised my sunglass clips stayed on my glasses, my body went in 17 different directions it felt like.  I was laughing at how ridiculous it must have looked, then felt a slight pain in my right thumb.  I never knew until that moment that it was possible to bend back almost the entire fingernail from *inside* a glove.  Ok, stick thumb straight down into the snow to ease the pain momentarily, bend back nail into place (didn't break or crack, just bent in one piece), put glove back on, and continue down the hill.  Made it down the rest of the way with little incident and decided to take a break.  Man that ride down the hill hurt- butt was bruised, hips were very sore, busted up thumb that was now throbbing, i have this lovely purple spot next to my tailbone now, and i think i bruised my cheek (on my face) from the big wipe out.  But it was one hell of a ride!!  :)

At the end of the day, we had a lovely ride home, reminiscing about the different splats we experienced and how much fun it was.  Next time we go, I'm gonna try ski's on  my feet.  Mark says there's less of a chance of that kind of spectacular splatting on 2 sticks instead of 1 board.  :)

When we moved here to the Seattle area, we were told that they don't really get any snow.  A light dusting a couple of times during the winter perhaps, but mainly they see rain because of the geographic location.

Right...

We got slammed the other day with more than 6 inches of snow on the ground, covering a layer of ice from the rain that fell earlier in the night before it got cold enough for snow to happen.  This caused many a car to find themselves off the road, into other cars, facing the wrong way, etc.  Some roads looked like scenes out of a movie, with me having to drive through an automotive obstacle course because 20 cars and 3 big rigs and a metro bus couldn't make it up a small hill.  Me, driving our Subaru Outback AWD with 17 inch tires, along with 2 SUVs in front of me, maneouvered through the pile of cars and managed to get through ok.  That was thursday morning, around 6:30am.  Once I got home, I didn't leave the house till friday evening when I needed to stop by the grocery store.  If you're interested, go to www.king5.com and check out the story about the 2 buses that collided coming down a hill and were hanging over the interstate in downtown Seattle. Crazy...

Fast forward to saturday afternoon...  Now, this area which doesn't get snow but has 6 inches on the ground, is bracing for another snow storm tonite.  We have been told by the news people that the storm the other day was a "dress rehearsal" for what is about to come tonite.  We are expecting 5-8 inches, followed by freezing rain, all of which is paired with dangerous winds that can cause tree limbs to come down, along with power outtages. 

I am prepared.  I have been searching for a week for rock salt or ice melt, all of which has been sold out for a long time.  I picked up two 60 pound bags of sand today from Home Depot (i win!).  I am fully stocked with water, bottled drinks, and non-perishable foodstuffs.  I have flashlights, lanterns, candles, and glow sticks on standby on my dining room table, along wtih matches, lighter and extra batteries.  I have a full propane tank on the barbeque outside, as well as a full spare tank.  I have the Coleman stove and the camp grill staged in the garage, along with the propane tree & necessary hoses and attachments.   First aid kit is stocked, gas tank in car is full (did it earlier this week before everyone started freaking out).  I  have cash on hand in case power goes out and money machines are down for a few days.  Extra blankets, wool socks, and sweaters are on standby.

 I am ready- Bring it on!!  :)

I am home alone because Mark is back in St. John's visiting his family for holidays (too expensive for both of us to go). My sister is supposed to be flying in tomorrow night, but that doesn't look promising, due to her having to fly from Newark through Chicago, who are both getting hit with winter weather as well, before she even gets here.  We'll see how things go.  I do have a couple of people I know out here in case things really go to crap, as well as being able to head into work for refuge if needed.  Will keep people posted when there are things to post.

Where ever you are, and whatever you're doing- stay safe and stay warm.  Make sure you're prepared for whatever weather is visiting your area, and have a plan.  Gee, I'm starting to sound like Freya... :)

I snagged this from Aureliana's LJ, and decided to find out what creature of the night I am.  Vicious lover & vicious figher?  Eyup.  Dat's me.  :)

Which creature of the night are you? Your Result: Werewolf   You are a vicious fighter and a vicious lover, absolutely dedicated to your pack. You are pushed to anger by disloyalty and injustice and have a tendency toward sudden, periodic bursts of wild behavior.
Cthulu Spawn
Demon
Vampire
Sorceror
Incubus/Succubus
Ghost

I'm not usually one who is very big on holidays, due to some pretty horrible experiences during the holiday season.  Every year it's always been, who's family member is hosting dinner, juggling between making stops to different peoples houses, eating way too much food, and so on...

With us new to the area out here in Seattle, and never having "done" the holiday thing ourselves, we've decided to start our own tradition out here (notes taken from a few beloved friend's books).  We're hosting Thanksgiving Orphans Dinner tonite at our house.  We are new here, and don't have family or a close social circle to spend it with, and we know people in the same situation.  One couple who is coming is expereincing the same exact thing we are- he recently moved to the area for work (with Honeywell) and his lady arrived up here within days of when I arrived.  The men have similar interests (both are engineers and love to cook), and us ladies get along famously, usually mocking our men.  Another couple in attendance will be one of Mark's coworkers and his lady wife.  They are from India and I'm not sure if they've ever experienced a thanksgiving dinner.  Others were invited, but have declined for various reasons.  Still, I think this will be a most pleasant and interesting evening.  I will post after-action details probably tomorrow.

I have a couple of clients who wanted to come in  tomorrow, so I will be in the shop training for a few hours friday late morning and early afternoon.  After that, Mark and I are running away from home for the weekend.  We went north to Friday Harbor 2 weeks ago to see The Battlefield Band, so this weekend the plan is to go south.  We do not have a destination, just a direction.  As long as we have gas in the tank, tunes in the machine, our trusty GPS (who's called "Gippus"), and each other, the destination does not matter.

I am thankful for all of you I call my friends, and consider my family.  Each one of you have helped shape who and what I am today, either through words or action.  I am grateful for you all, though I may not see or speak with you often.  I am also thankful to have the ability and opportunities in life to do good for people, not just myself.  I have a sweety who is my best friend and confidante, and nothing can compare to that.  I am a very lucky person in this life.  :)

Enjoy your dinners tonite, whatever they look or taste like.  Enjoy those who break bread with you, and remember those who are not at your table anymore.

Happy Thanksgiving

Must put myself on the exercise bike before I lose motivation.  Need to work off the energy from the day (I have a bit of grr built up), and stay on top of my cardio goal for the week/month.  Mark is in the other room working on the last chapter of his book (due by end of the night), so I have no distractions keeping me from my "work".

Off to sweat-ville I go.  Be back in a while...

...got my 30 minutes in on the bike, while watching NCIS- endorphin high and badass federales make me happy.  Is all good... :)

Ok, I've seen this on a number of friends lj's, so I am curious enough to find out what you guys think of me in this regard:

If you saw me in the back of a police car, what would you think I was arrested for?