June started with a major home improvement project and ended with a wedding. Along the way, several smaller improvement projects were accomplished. I also bought a few more toys this month.
June 1
Tom & Lanna went to a wedding reception and asked me and Susan to baby-sit the kids. We quickly accepted the offer because it is rare for us to go to G-rated movies with kids in tow. Besides, that's what aunts and uncles are for.
The movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was playing at the local cinema and everyone was excited to see it. We arrived at the mall early so we could take care of the necessities -- bathroom stop and plenty of snacks. Once inside, the kids ran straight to the front of the theater. We decided that a compromise was necessary. I sat in the fourth row with Kerissa and Susan sat in the third row with Kendra. The movie eventually started and all was well. Popcorn and soda was passed back and forth among us. About ¾ of the way into the picture, Kerissa began to get fidgety. She'd stand up, then sit down, then stand up and turn around, point at something, mumble something indiscernible, then sit down again. Then she'd do it again, but point at something else. I was in over my head, so I tapped on Susan's shoulder and asked for reinforcement. Susan put Kerissa on her lap and before long, Kerissa was calm and relaxed; magic.
After the movie, we drove to Borsch Park. The park is a favorite destination for the kids. The first stop was the lake. We collected our day-old bread and went searching for ducks and geese. The birds weren't interested in our free lunch, so we gave up and headed for the playground. We played on the jungle gym, then the monkey bars, then over to the swings, and round and round we went. This went on for about an hour until we all decided it was time to eat.
For dinner, we drove to the local Shari's restaurant. I went to the bathroom to clean up and when I returned I found Kendra sipping on a root beer float -- at 7:00 pm! I looked at Susan with shock and dismay and wondered how in the world we would remove all that sugar from her system by bedtime. Susan realized her mistake, but it was too late. We'd have to figure it out along the way.
After dinner we drove back to Tom & Lanna's house and immediately began the wind down process. We started by playing the classic board game Sorry. This went well for Kendra, but Kerissa just didn't get it. We gave her the Jenga blocks and that kept her entertained for a few minutes. At 9:00 we started the bedtime preparations. The kids were fitted with pajamas while I pumped up the air mattress. When I returned we pulled out the Disney storybook and read several condensed classics before finally calling it a day.
June 2
After being covered for over a year, we pulled the weed stopper off our planting beds. We decided that this year would be different; this year the sun would shine and our garden would grow. I pulled "The Claw" from the shed and went to work loosening the soil. The Claw works wonders on soft soil -- just like the ad on TV.
Once the soil was prepared the planting proceeded. Last year we received several packages of plants from somewhere. One of the packages contained dwarf sunflowers that only grow to 24 inches. We planted four rows of sunflower seeds in one garden bed. In the other bed we planted four Lobelia plants that were given to Susan by our new neighbors, the Days. Let's see if they will grow!
In other backyard project news, I dug up the dirt in front of my shed and planted grass.
June 3
When we moved into our house in 1999, we knew that we would need to paint it soon. Three summers came and went, yet fresh paint continued to avoid touching our house. This year we called two contractors and asked for estimates. The estimates came and we chose to meet the contractor with the lower bid. We called Dan and arranged a meeting. He stopped by and we grilled him thoroughly -- we asked when he could start and we liked his answer. We gave him a check and he said he'd start the following morning!
June 4
The weather was cloudy and raining, but that didn't stop Dan. He arrived as promised and pressure washed our house. Since he had the equipment at our house, Dan suggested that he go ahead and do our back porch and driveway at the same time, for a small additional fee. Both the porch and the driveway were in need of a good washing. We agreed to let him do the porch, but we didn't agree to the driveway because we thought he was asking too much. See June 9 for the driveway story.
When we returned home from work, we were so impressed by the cleanliness of our house that we thought about canceling the painting contract! Not really, but we were amazed at the difference a little pressurized elbow grease made.
June 5
In July 1996, Susan decided to stop eating meat. For six long years, I watched Susan question her waiters for details of the ingredients in all their menu items. Tonight, Susan & I went out to eat at Gordon Biersch with John Cook. During dinner, Susan surprised me by eating one shrimp. The age of vegetarianism has come to an end!
June 6
Continuing his work, Dan stopped by with his son and caulked all the seems and nail heads on our house. In other news, the neighbor's fence was completed today.
June 8
Jethro Tull concert at Benaroya Hall.
June 9
With the house and back porch sparkling clean, we decided to pressure wash our driveway. Todd said he had an old pressure washer sitting in storage and he'd let us borrow it. I picked it up at work and brought it home. Susan & I started working on the driveway, one grid at a time.
The first grid cleaned up quite nicely. After a short break, we started working on the second grid. Again, this grid cleaned up quite nicely. After another short break, we started the third grid. I thought I noticed something odd, but I couldn't pinpoint it. Then the smell of burning plastic reached my nostrils and the sound of the pump screeching to a halt reached my ears. Uh-oh. I unplugged the pressure washer and let it cool off for a half hour before giving it another try. Unfortunately, the cool off period didn't prove beneficial. The damage was already done.
June 11
After a year of paying way too much for Internet service, I decided to find a cheaper solution. I talked to Todd about DirecTV and he told me that it was much better than cable. I looked at the price of DirecTV versus cable and it was almost identical. I came to the conclusion that installing a DirecWay dish with support for Internet and DirecTV was the way to go.
I took the day off from work and waited for the installer to arrive. It just happened to work out that Dan was also stopping by to paint the house. This was a wonderful coincidence because I wanted to be around when the house was painted.
Dan arrived first, but soon realized that the paint was not the proper consistency. He told me that he needed to go back to the paint store to get more paint. While he was gone, his son started masking the windows, doors, and gutters.
Soon afterwards, the dish installer arrived. I showed him where I wanted the cables to come through the wall and where I wanted the dish installed. He pulled his ladder off his van and started installing the dish.
Dan returned with new paint and started preparing it with his mixer/sprayer. Dan started painting at the southeast corner and worked his way clockwise around the house. The installer finished with the dish installation as Dan worked his way around the back of the house. The installer moved inside and drilled holes in my computer room and living room walls. I pointed him to the crawl space entrance and he soon vanished below my house.
Dan continued painting and the installer struggled with the cables in my crawlspace. While he shoved the cables from below, I poked around in the wall with a special grabber tool to catch the cables. After a considerable amount of time, I was finally able to catch the cables and the installer was able to leave the crawl space.
The installer continued his work in my living room and computer room. He was about to hook up the default tuner, but then he told me about the upgrade option that included support for Dolby Digital surround sound with optical audio connections. That was a no-brainer upgrade option for me, considering my recent audio upgrades. With the tuner installed and working, he moved into the computer room and started tuning the equipment. It didn't work, so he called headquarters and got the issues resolved and the Internet began pouring into my computer at 400 kbps or greater. This was definitely a worthwhile upgrade.
Meanwhile, Dan continued working his way around the house until eventually he came full circle. His son kept himself busy by removing the masking from the areas that were already dry. Dan called it a day and told me he'd be back to do the trim on Thursday.
June 12
One of the nice features of DirecTV is the ability to order pay-per-view (PPV) movies. The way I understood it, all PPV movies were broadcast in widescreen format with Dolby Digital surround sound. I ordered my first PPV movie, Behind Enemy Lines, from the DirecTV website with great anticipation. The movie started, but the Dolby Digital indicator on my receiver did not light. I played with the surround sound options, but the light would not come on. I called DirecTV and explained the situation to the operator. He asked a bunch of questions about my hardware and I told him that I had everything I needed. He thought about what might be wrong while I continued pressing buttons and changing settings. He eventually gave up and offered me a month of ShowTime as consolation. I accepted his offer. In the mean time, I tuned another channel showing the same movie and was pleased to see my Dolby Digital light turn on. By this time the movie was half over, but the PPV purchase lasts all day, so I was able to watch the movie again from start to finish. It was worth the effort. The sounds of the battles and explosions were amazing when coming at you from all sides. I then realized that very few movies are broadcast in Dolby Digital. The program guide on the web site distinguishes those by placing "LBX" beside the title.
June 13
Dan returned to finish the trim work and paint the front door today. The initial paint made a huge improvement to the look of our house, but the trim made a much larger improvement. The lines of the house became extremely clean and distinct. All traces of the fuzzy over-sprayed edges disappeared and the job looked complete.
June 15
Susan & I went to see the Gathering of Warbirds in Olympia, Washington. This is an annual event sponsored by the museum at the airport. This year, the turnout and quality exceeded my expectations.
We arrived a little late, but after the first military fly-by went over my head, my excitement level began to return. We hurried to the entrance, paid our donation, and went through the gate. We entered a hangar and moved through to the static exhibits. The exhibits ranged in period from WWI through WWII.
One of the main attention-getters was the P-51 Mustang. Not only was it a beautiful aircraft, but it was being used to give rides. The rides were pretty expensive (I think it was several hundred dollars for 15 minutes), but there was still a long line of people waiting for a turn. Although I desperately wanted to go for a ride, I resisted the urge and enjoyed watching others receive the thrill of a lifetime.
The rides began with the starting of the huge 12-cylinder Merlin engine. The sound is raw, explosive, and perhaps intimidating. You can tell by the sound alone that this plane was designed for performance. The pilot then taxied to the runway and started rolling. Soon after liftoff, he retracted the gear and performed an accelerating, climbing turn back towards the show. This was followed by several low, high speed passes. Eventually, the pilot returned and the process repeated.
June 16
Having a paved driveway is nice, but it is not maintenance-free. One of the tasks I've overlooked since buying the house was edging the it. Due to my lack of maintenance, the grass and clover tended to grow onto the concrete. To solve this problem, some of my neighbors let landscapers take care of their lawns. Others have power edgers. I settled for a simple edging device; I hardly felt the need for a motorized device to trim 40 feet of driveway. Now, my driveway has a clean, sharp edge.
June 17
For my work on the New York City Mayor's Cisco Unity installation, I was selected for CAP award for my Failover improvements. This was a financial award that was given to me by my peers for work beyond what is considered part of the normal job.
June 19
With the fresh paint on the house, the old address numbers started to show their age. Like most modern sub-divisions, all the houses had the same style of numbers. Rather than polish the corrosion from the old, boring numbers, we decided to get new numbers. We went to the local Lowes store and found big bold gold numbers that met our fancy. The new numbers can easily be read from the end of the driveway. Besides that, our house is now ever so slightly more unique in the neighborhood.
June 23
Every so often I feel the need to upgrade my computer. This time I desired a super-fast graphics card to drive Microsoft Fight Simulator 2002 as smoothly as possible. After doing some research, I decided to go with a card powered by the GeForce 4 graphics accelerator. I drove to the local CompUSA store and found what I was looking for. While I was there, I unintentionally walked down the monitor row. There I saw a gorgeous flat screen monitor made by Samsung. The price was high, but with the recent CAP award money in the bank, I was compelled to buy it, too.
June 28
Thursday we flew from Seattle to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to attend Gina & Ed's wedding. We spent the night in a hotel and made plans for Friday. Since the wedding rehearsal was scheduled for early evening, we had some time to tour around, so we decided to go to Hershey's Chocolate World.
In fifth grade, I went on a school trip to Gettysburg and Hershey, Pennsylvania. Two of the highlights were Hershey's Chocolate World and Hershey Park. I thought it would be fun to revisit the Chocolate World twenty-four years later to see what changed.
The first challenge was finding the place. We found Hershey, but we had difficulty finding the Chocolate World. We found a place to park near the amusement park and started walking. We walked down the main street of town, but found no sign of the Chocolate World. Eventually, Susan asked someone and we discovered that we weren't even close. We walked back to the car and drove about a mile to the entrance.
Once inside, we bought tickets to take the tour. My memories of the tour included riding in a cocoa bean car from the plantation, through the ovens, and then past a conveyor belt covered with candy bars. When we walked through the gate, our first site was a painting of cocoa being loaded on a large ship; exactly like I remembered. Around the corner we boarded the cocoa bean car and the tour continued, pretty much as I recalled. One difference to note was the candy bars were now Hershey Kisses instead of Hershey bars.
After the tour, we visited the gift shop. My memories of the gift shop included a room with large plants and humongous, foot-long, five pound Hershey bars. I was disappointed to find that the largest Hershey bars for sale now are only seven ounces. I'm not sure if the bars shrank or if my memories from childhood are larger than life. It's probably a little bit of both.
With gifts for the kids in hand, we headed for the wedding rehearsal in North Umberland, Pennsylvania. The rehearsal was in a well groomed, small park along the Susquehanna River. As a bridesmaid, Susan was busy learning her parts while I walked around and took pictures.
Once the rehearsal was complete, we drove a few miles to Ed's parent's home and ate dinner. Ed showed us around the back, including the barn with all the animals. As the sun descended behind the hills, Ed's uncle disappeared for a few minutes. When he returned, we all walked to the front of the house and discovered the reason for his brief departure. On the small pond at the bottom of the hill floated a large wooden heart shaped raft with candles lining the edges.
June 29
Gina & Ed's wedding was held in a park in North Umberland, Pennsylvania. Susan was a bridesmaid and I was an invited guest with a camera. The temperature was on the rise and I was in no hurry to change from my shorts into my wedding attire. As the time drew nearer, the wedding party arrived and pictures were taken by the professional photographer. At this time, I changed into my nice clothes and joined the friends and family that had gathered outside the gazebo.
The wedding procession began, led by the parents and followed by the wedding party, and finally the bride. The wedding proceeded as I moved about to A) find good camera angles and B) seek shelter from the sun. After the mandatory "I do's" and "You may kiss the bride", Gina & Ed were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Ed Hoffman.
The wedding party formed a greeting line and the guests streamed by, hugging and congratulating the couple. After all had passed, Gina & Ed returned to the gazebo to perform another ceremony; the releasing of two white doves.
The doves came from Ed's parent's house. Ed's parents have a mini farm with lots of animals, including goats, chickens, rabbits, and doves.
After their release, the doves circled the gazebo once, then flew off to the east. According to Ed, the doves always return home after being released.
The guests soon started to depart for the reception at Watson's Inn in Sunbury, Pennsylvania. As part of the wedding party, we stayed behind and waited for Gina & Ed to get ready. Meanwhile, their white limousine arrived and all of us still waiting oohed and awed over it. The kids all climbed into the cavernous back seat and Gina & Ed joined them. The parade of cars then traveled the short distance to the reception, honking and waving to everyone we passed along the way.
At the reception, Gina asked if I could take lots of pictures, since the professional was only hired to shoot the wedding. I gladly accepted, knowing I would take lots of pictures anyway. We ate dinner, then the couple cut the cake and the party began. After a couple drinks, even I was out on the dance floor, having a great time, boogying to all the wedding classics.
June 30
It is now time to return home. We drove back to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, returned our rental car, and flew back to Seattle. Along the way, I saw several areas of smoke rising from the ground. Unfortunately, I do not know where the forest fires were because airlines still do not provide position information to the passengers.
Thanks to some favorable winds, we arrived in Washington earlier than expected. The captain put the plane into a holding pattern near Mt. Rainier. As I looked out the window, I saw Mt. Rainier pass by twice, then we were cleared to continue our approach to Sea-Tac airport.
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