Life In a Fishbowl.

Bday!

2010-05-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hey Uncle Russ, Happy Birthday!

We made you cupcakes! Come get'em!

What a year.

2010-05-18T23:52:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking that it had probably been about a year since I posted on my blog and...I was right!

I guess I've been able to get away with it by just doing little facebook updates but I missed the ability to post a story, something bigger then 140 characters and to the world verses the walled off garden that is facebook (maybe not much anymore but I digress).

Lots have happened this year, the good the bad, the indifferent.

Rachel and I have been homeowners for a little over a year now! That's pretty cool. Being a homeowner has been an experience, not to mention all the renovations. All I can say is that having friends and family around with know how and the willingness to help, has been awesome. I'll post some pictures of all the work that's been done later. Also now with a little more knowledge of what kind of fruit trees are on our property and how to take better care of them I see a lot more yummy goodness in our future. We even finally have neighbors that moved in next door just a month or so ago.

With my Uncle passing away back in September and my Grandpa this past March, two gigantic holes were left in our family. It's weird learning how to live without them, they both played such a huge role in my life. They were both men that I admired and would seek out for advice (they were also fun to just hang out with!).

It's funny how little things will come out of no where and remind me of one of them. Whether that be a drum beat, uncoiled hose, smell of cut grass and gasoline or simply Haven of Rest that I pass by everyday on my way home from work.

They are terribly missed and I long for new memories with them but keep reminding myself to just hold on to the ones I have and seek out ones I forgot.

Overall I would say that it's been a good year. Hard but good. Our family has been through a lot but by the grace of God I'd say we've grown towards each other, not away. That and my 3 nephews and nieces provide plenty of distractions from the things that we adults think are important.

I've missed posting here. For some reason I feel more freed up to write here then on social networks. Maybe because I don't feel like bothering all my friends and family with my geeky tech stuff and by posting here I don't feel like I'm forcing anyone to read about it. Also I like the ability to write a decent sized post sometimes and it doesn't seemed like facebook was built for that, but only short silly things.

Anyhoo to anyone out there with nothing better to do, I think I'm ready to come back and post more often than...well, not.

Goodnight.

Hello!

2009-05-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

WOW. Where did the month go?!

This month has been crazy. So my last post was about Rachel and I moving into our new house out in Purdy. So we've been going crazy trying to fix things up while we have the energy!

The house is sitting on nearly an acre with a gigantic front yard full of fruit trees (and a lawn that will require us to buy a riding lawn mower!). It's 1730 sq. feet with a 480 sq foot shop (or "Man Cave"). It has three bedrooms, 1.75 baths and a deep 1 car garage. It also has a cool covered patio out back which will be handy if the sun ever comes back...

We started by painting the master bedroom, office and entry/hallway. The house also had those old dark brown doors and molding so we replaced the doors with white 6 panel ones and are painting the molding white. While we were at it we also replaced all the door hardware with brushed nickel ones. We're also replacing all the old outlets from beige to white ones as we go.

The big project was a few weeks ago when we had some friends over to tear down the wood paneling in our living room. We ended up mudding and texturing the whole thing because the glue from the paneling did so much damage to the wall. Now with a fresh coat of paint, it looks huge! We still need to replace the molding in that room but that did a whole bunch towards bringing the house into this decade!

We also replaced the thermostat with a more modern programable one and replaced the old doorbell as well. The other day I even put up our new mailbox with our name on it! We've also have done a bunch of work on the outside with all the plants and I cut down 5 stray fir and holly trees that were crowding our fruit trees and rhodi's.

We have some pictures of when we first moved in and we will be taking a few more of all the work that has been done to it. When we do, I'll let you all know of course.

The next giant project is that we ordered a new kitchen last week! The cabinets should be delivered in about three weeks and later this summer we will be tearing out the old one and replacing it. That is going to be a huge job so if anyone wants to lend a hand for an afternoon, just let us know!

Anyhoo, that's been the big thing on my plate this last month. Stuff at work is also shifting around a little as well as some family stuff.

Hopfully I can start updating this more regularly, we've just been waiting for our internet guy to finally hook us up! It's been close to a month now and we're hoping to have internet by this next week. Pretty please Comcast?

Thank You!

2009-04-11T00:47:00.000-07:00

There are few things more humbling then asking for help and having friends and family drop what they're doing to lend a hand...backs and trucks!

I so appreciate everyone that came out today to help us move. I felt very blessed and it made the day fly by to be around you all.

I also can't believe how much was moved! Only a few truckloads remain and then all we'll have left is the unpacking, sorting and throwing outing! And I know that Iven probably doesn't want this info out there but he is a packing guru!

We'll be trying to finish moving the last of our stuff today and hopefully be installing some new interior doors to brighten the hallway and bring the place one step closer to the present.

It's looking like Saturday, April 18th is shaping up to be a workday if you still want to help out! Either finishing getting our rooms feng shui'd, trimming some overgrown plants, painting or tearing down some wood paneling! Or just come over for some tea and check out our new digs (that's right, we won't put you to work just for stopping by - so don't be scared)!

Alright I'm exhausted! Night all!

We have a house!..kind of...

2009-04-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

Just 76 signatures and initials later, we are just one step away from owning a house! Our papers should be headed to escrow tonight and we should close and have the house keys by Friday! And the crazy part was that we are just a week shy of one year of looking. Has it really been that long? Rachel started blogging about it here.

All those signatures reminded me of a sermon that our new Pastor, Michael White, preached last month on being truthful and having our yes mean yes and our no mean no. He talked about all those papers he had to sign to buy their house up here and how much our society is based on us not telling the truth. It makes even more sense to me now! I linked to it above and they have tons of sermons online if you wanted to check them out on the churches website.

We'll be moving our stuff over and doing some painting Friday and Saturday if anyone is able to help or lend a vehicle, just let us know!

Ninja Parade!

2009-04-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Happy April 1st!

Week in Review

2009-03-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

So my buddy Dave and I donated blood this afternoon. We've been donating together since Dave dragged me there back in High School. After that first time donating I realized how ridiculous it was for me to say that I didn't donate because I was scared of needles. That and a half hour prevented me from saving a few lives? Seemed a little silly.

Did you know that 37% of the United States can donate but only 5% do? That's crazy!

So what's your excuse?

How about this, the next time I can donate is on May 29th and my birthday is that week! If anyone wants to give me an awesome present, you can come with! And then maybe we can all go get some food afterwards or something. I'm not asking you to donate every 2 months (though that would be sweet!) just this once. And if you find that it's not for you, that's alright because you already saved a few lives. Just a thought.

Speaking of birthdays...My sister Maya has one tomorrow! So give her a call or drop her an electronic note to tell her how awesome she is. And did I mention that my niece Lily was baptised last week? We don't have those photos up on our picture site just yet so you'll just have to settle with these pictures of Lily and Spencer in the park with the Blaisdell's bunny, Cadbury.

Anyhoo, not much has changed on the soon-to-be-home front. We are still in the midst of buying a house in Purdy off of Danforth. If all goes well, we should be closing within 2 weeks!

We'll be sure to let everyone know when we have a firm move in date.

And finally, the cool news I mentioned earlier was that my buddy Matt Cox let me know that he just got engaged to his girlfriend Whitney! And he's letting me be the best man! Pretty sweet.

Long Time, No Type!

2009-03-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Whew!

A lot going on lately, sorry to leave all you wonderful people who take an interest in my life, hanging.

One, It was Zakeyo's 10th Bday today! Rachel and I sponsor a child from Zambia. Actually he's from the same town that has one of Brian's wells (which is another story in itself). If you've been considering making a huge difference in someone's life...what are you waiting for?! There's a link to World Vision down on the right hand side of this blog, just click away and I promise you won't regret it.

Two, it's looking good with Rachel and I buying a house! If you haven't heard about it yet it's because we've been burnt so many times (This is our 8th home offer?) that I expected something to go horribly wrong so I didn't want to tell everyone until we got over most of the hurdles. But today we got over one of the last ones! After the inspection on Thursday we found a few things we wanted the owner to fix and today he agreed! The house is off of Danforth just a few minutes past the Purdy Bridge. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath sitting on almost an acre. Now if our finances goes smoothly, we should be in by the end of the month.

Three, Rachel and I spent last weekend at our Middle School Winter Retreat. It was a lot of fun and for those of you wondering why we can call a March retreat "Winter" just remember that we came home to SNOW in Gig Harbor...That's just wrong...

Four, I've been hanging out at my buddy Blake's flyfishing shop in downtown Gig Harbor a lot this week. I'm still fairly new to the whole flyfishing thing but it's still a lot of fun just milling about down there. So you should come by and check it out! They are currently open from 3-6pm Sundays-Fridays and all day on Saturdays.

Five, Rachel and I are headed to a Remodeling Expo in Tacoma tomorrow (it's like they knew!) so if you have nothing to do and want to hang out with us, come on down!

Six, less then an hour ago I got some exciting news from one of my buddies. I'll tell you what later but wanted to give him a few hours head start telling people.

I think I got most of the major things...Anyhoo, I'm tired so I'm going to bed - I got work in the morning!

cakewrecks

2009-03-02T14:32:00.000-08:00

Man...I've been pretty lazy about updating this! Sorry all...

Rachel and I have been putting offers on houses left and right and I'm getting tired of being rejected...getting better at bouncing back though.

Anyhoo, since it's my sister's bday tomorrow (Amy's) I thought I'd share with you all a hilarious website I came across a few weeks ago called Cakewrecks.

Enjoy.

Fly Shop!

2009-02-15T00:11:00.001-08:00

So my buddy Blake has just officially announced on his blog that they will be opening a Fly Fishing Store in downtown Gig Harbor! It's slated to open in another month or so and they will be changing their business name from www.wildernessangler.com to www.gigharborflyshop.com.

In the mean time you can check out their store (Uncle Russ, they even ship internationally) at www.wildernessangler.com and read up on any new news on their blog at www.wildernessangler.blogspot.com.

I can't wait! What a big step for them, pretty exciting.

So congrats Blake and Alison!

25 random things.

2009-02-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

So there's this thing going around facebook that has people writing 25 random things about themselves. Last night I finally posted mine and thought that I might as well share it with you all as well. Some of it might not make a lot of sense but that's okay, and some of it should probably come with more explaination...but that's okay too.

1. I enjoy stealing high fives. I've been doing it for years and now have it down to a fine art.

2. Since graduating High School my buddy Dave and I have donated over 3 gallons of blood. (And we always like to find new people that would like to save lives too!)

3. I've been to 14 Major League Baseball stadiums and want to see the rest of them.

4. I like fixing up computers, they're like a big jigsaw puzzle for me.

5. The longest I've gone without sleeping was 50 hours. I then promptly slept for 30 straight hours to recover.

6. I don't want to be older then 25.

7. I own 11 paintball guns.

8. When I was in Middle School, I hit my principle with a cup of yogurt during a massive food fight.

9. I've had to have a cast on my ear before.

10. I don't like odd numbers unless they're divisible by 5. For that reason it bugs me if I notice the volume is on 17.

11. Mark, Matt and Sam got me to finally try out Guitar Hero last year and now I own Rockband and love it.

12. I'm going to steal this from Dave's, "I've played frisbee golf in several states, and am proud of that fact" because it's so true and we did it together.

13. I use a money clip because if I have bills in my wallet they need to be facing the same direction, without folds and creases, and in denominational order of least to greatest. But in the money clip I don't seem to really care.

14. My wife is the most interesting person I have ever met. We've been dating for over 7 years and I still find her fascinating.

15. I once did a 360 through an intersection in a Porsche...on accident.

16. Being an Uncle is awesome. I can't wait for those rugrats to start running around!

17. I love finding another Technophile to geek out with. Know anyone that can keep up with me on the latest stuff?

18. The worst papercut I ever got was on my eye.

19. I've been attending Harbor Covenant Church for almost 20 years.

20. I once subscribed to ESPN and Sports Illustrated magazine over the phone in my sleep.

21. Sometimes I wonder if the reason why I enjoy hanging out with middle schoolers is tied to my maturity level.

22. My perfect vacation is basking on a beach. Man I want to go back to Hawaii...

23. I hesitated to post this after reading this article but number 15 cracked me up and I decided to anyway.

24. One of the nicest gifts I ever received was a Mirinda Orange Soda.

25. I'm contemplating starting a side business to compete with Geek Squad using Blake's name suggestion of "Nerd Herd." Okay, maybe that's only half true.

16 ways to save money

2009-02-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

Ever visited to blog, www.dumblittleman.com? Well you should! Pretty fun site, they have lots of articles with various tips ranging on a variety of topics. I subscribed to them via my Google Reader.

Anyway, one of their recent articles was on 16 simple ways that we can be saving money everyday. I should be doing numbers 1 and 6 and I bet Blake would second number 2 (did that make any sense?).

How about you?

A snapshot of our economy

2009-01-30T01:13:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted about a new website called www.mint.com. I'm still enjoying the site a bunch and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking to organize their finances.

Well I just came across another site talking about them here. Basically Mint has put together some charts of their 900,000 users (I being one of them) to give us a look at how about 1% of our nation are using their money. As the post mentions, we keep hearing about how bad it is but to actually see some real numbers is very interesting.

If you have a minute, I'd recommend checking out the link.

And if you're considering checking out Mint.com, what are you waiting for? Rachel and I have been using it for nearly a year now and it has been nothing but helpful.

do you like nerdy surprises?

2009-01-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

if so,

1. In Windows XP, go to Start, then select Run.
2. Type in or copy and paste "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes.
3. Sit back and watch one of the funniest easter eggs out there.

(Note this did not work with Vista.)

Oh and you may want to grab some popcorn before you hit enter, there's no pause button...

Packwood '09!

2009-01-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

Busy busy!

I finally got my butt in gear and uploaded photos from our trip up to Packwood.

For the last two years we've headed down there for my buddy Matt's bday. Always relaxing and plenty fun!

For those interested, here's the link to the rest of them. (Just a bunch of pictures of use playing in the snow and playing some board and videogames.)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

Wow. They seem to go by faster don't they?

Anyhoo, you know what that means...New Year Resolutions.

Yep. Bettering ourselves.

I know, I know. You might be sick of people talking about them but I like the idea of picking something in your life that you'd like to do more/less of and working on it. Since I never seem to remember past resolutions, maybe I should pick improving my memory...

Or simply organizing myself. Not everything, that I think would be too big a task. But there are definite areas that I need to be more efficient in.So how about you?

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T09:46:00.001-08:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Hey all! Rachel and I pray you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Sledding Fools

2008-12-21T15:04:00.000-08:00

So Rachel talked me into a sled ride and I wondered what our faces would look like. Yep, kinda what I thought. If you're sick of the snow like me try sledding out, it'll take your mind off of it for a bit!

Engrishfunny.com = ror

2008-12-16T07:18:00.000-08:00

So I stumbled onto this site last week and it cracked me up. It's called www.engrishfunny.com and it's exactly what you think it is. Yep, a site dedicated to all those "asian and/or pacific islander"-to-english translations that people come across like this one:Oh man...Good stuff...Sniff...

Go ahead, check the site out - it's a hoot!

(And you don't have to feel bad "raughing" because your asian friend told you to!)

I broke my Jawbone...

2008-12-12T20:53:00.000-08:00

So I lost my bluetooth headset (called a Jawbone) the other day. I retraced my steps and found it outside my storage unit that I was at the night before, looking like this. Yep, $80 down the drain. The sad part is that this was my second one! I lost my first one months after getting it (still waiting for it to turn up).

Anyway to Aliph's (the company that makes the Jawbone) credit, it still synched with my phone after spending the night getting rained on and being run over by a truck!

My lovely wife has granted me permission to buy a new one (The Jawbone 2) and I am so happy. The reason being that it seriously is the best bluetooth headset I've come across.

This noise cancelling headset was originally developed for the military to be able to eliminate ambient noise in battlefields like helicopters! It's able to do this because there's a little "nub" that touches your jawbone which feels the vibrations when you talk and then eliminates all other sound. It works great and since I started using it I stopped hearing people ask if I'm on a bluetooth (except for when they hear me fumbling for it in my pocket!). Anyway, I've tried the cheapo ones out there and they drive me crazy. What's the point when I have to roll up my window, turn down my music and ask people to talk quieter in my car just to answer my phone? And I'd still need to press it to my ear to hear them!

If you're frustrated with your bluetooth headset like I was, this thing's wonderful. It is awesome at eliminating outside noise and will adjust your volume automatically if it finds you in a noisier place. Of course you have to be as frustrated as me to be willing to spend as much as a phone, but whatever...

Happy Turkey Day Friends!

2008-11-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

Still one of my favorite Thanksgiving comics...

I did it!

2008-11-25T23:54:00.000-08:00

So I read a blog post this last week where a guy had emptied out his email inbox. At the time I thought it was weird to be so excited about such a thing, but then over the last few days I noticed how disorganized my inbox was. It was so bad that I was not responding to people because their messages were getting buried and lost!

Frustrated, I decided to do two things today:

Create a "To Do" folder (or label if you use gmail like me) for all messages that need a response. And they won't leave that folder until the task is done.
Clean out my inbox. As you can see from my previous post, I had 87 unopened messages in my inbox (various reasons why, some where calendar alerts, or an email from somebody I already talked to, or I could read the response in the subject line, or from a website I had signed up for, etc.). Not only that, but what you didn't see was that I had over 500 messages in my inbox!

It took a few hours of labeling, but I managed to cut them down to just a handful which I moved into the "To Do" folder.

So it might seem silly but I feel much better now, like a giant burden is off my shoulders! Maybe I'll go clean my office now!...Or maybe I'll do that after the holidays...Meh, it was good while it lasted...

Ninja-mail!

2008-11-20T00:05:00.000-08:00

So Gmail has added a themes tab to their settings page. I of course had to choose the "Ninja" one. Kind of funny because no one else really sees your email inbox, but freshens it up a bit so I'm not complaining. I'll wait until the 'New Theme' smell wears off and then I'll probably pick a more soothing one.

If you don't have a gmail account yet, I don't know what you're waiting for because it's worth the hassle! Since my friend Jess gave me my account over 4 years ago, I've been able to switch almost all my immediate friends and family over to gmail and haven't received any complaints yet. It's quick and easy to use, comes with a ton of other Google programs (docs, photo, calendar, reader, etc), not to mention the best spam filter I've come across. (And no, they don't pay me to say that...yet.)

Try it out!

Bike Hero?

2008-11-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

Saw this video today. I don't get how but it was cool anyway. It's probably viral advertising by Activision, but even so it was still interesting and well done.