Feel Free 2 Comment

So, it's been awhile since the old family has left us any messages on the blog... am I that boring? It's nice to know that people are reading this blog... I appreciate your comments during our phone calls. But spare a click or two and tell the world you were here; how's about it, eh?

Well, as previously mentioned, we've been preapproved for our home remodel project. And it's a big project. In order to recieve the funds from the bank, we have to have a complete set of engineered drawings and all our city and county permits. I'm currently working on the engineered drawings. It's a pretty good program that I got to work with and I also bought a reference book to look at floor plans (but the book was VERY limited in details) and found a curb appeal that I like a lot. Lilah likes it to, so that about finalizes the decision, barring an exorbanant expense that would prevent persuing the design.

So, in case you're wondering, yes: this is incredibly intimidating. I keep wondering if we shouldn't just sell and run instead of putting so much money on the line and risking so much. I mean, worse case scenario we'll have a really nice home to live in with a mortgage about twice what we're paying now. So this isn't necessarily feast or famine... but it will be the largest project that I've been the sole management on. So yeah, I fear messing it up. Of course, I think if i were adamantly confident then someone should step in and put me in a padded jacket. There IS a lot to be concerned about. Sub contractors, time lines, city and country restrictions... and I'm not even experienced enough to recognize all the potential road blocks. But I think I understand the thrill and the excitement of launching your own business!

In nowhere near as important news, Comcast Cable won me again. I called up to cancel the cable service cause I was going to go to Dish network who was offering 3 rooms of service with a High Def Digital Video Recorder (HD DVR) and a normal Digital Video Recorder (DVR) for a pretty good introductory offer that went up in price in 6 months but was still less than Comcast was charging me for just the one regular TV connection with no DVR, on top of which we pay about 12 bucks a month for TIVO to get the DVR services. Well, upon calling Comcast they couldn't beat the 3 TV's, but they did offer an HD DVR, a normal Digital Cable box, HBO, and all the channels we currently have for less than they were currently charging me. Throwing in the HBO won't do a whole lot for us because we're not watching TV so much anymore, but there are a couple of series that I do like on HBO... so, what the hey!

I'm thinking tomorrow I'm going to call up JC Penney to see about this outrageous interest rate they're charging me to own their platinum card. It's a good time because it's at a zero balance and I wouldn't be broken hearted if I needed to cancel the card because they won't deal. Well, we'll see. When I called to cancel my Capital One card the other day (paid that one off, too) they offered me 9% interest to keep the card! (that's down from 21% interest) I kinda regret telling them no thank you. I mean, how many 9% cards do you own? Anyway, that's just a reminder to everyone that if you're unhappy with your current deal, it's worth calling the company and horse trading.

Hope to hear from all you guys. Remember, the comments are our friends!

:j

What this picture has to do with this post... I have no idea. But, it's a good picture!

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Here's a picture of my buddy Tristan doing his thing up in Alaska.


Miss you Tristan!

More Pictures

Oh Happy Day!

This just in!

Hi Jason,

The Director of Real Estate has reviewed your application and pre-approved you for an owner-builder loan to remodel your home.

The next step will be to provide complete plans and specs as well as a detailed cost breakdown and description of materials for the improvements you're planning to make.

Sincerely,

Your Banker

I'd tell you more, but I have to run over to the administrative office to put in my work passport (a just-in-case... no particular reason). I'll fill you in more soon!

A Brief History in Kodachrome

These aren't in any particular order and out of context they may not make much sense, but here ya'll go!

Birthday and Christmas Wishlists for Jason

I've been told that I should be posting some of these things... well, here's my Amazon Wish list. I encourage you all to learn to love Amazon as they have a huge selection and they offer free shipping on most things over $25 and they deliver right to the person you want to send it to (namely me!).

My Amazon Wish List is available for viewing by clicking on that link. You don't necessarily have to get these particular books... in fact there's a good number of books on trees that I've seen at Barnes and Noble that I can't find at the moment on Amazon. I'd also like some books on Cabinetry and tiling. Books on Decks. Books on Windows and lighting.

If you don't want to buy books, I can use gift cards for Home Depot or Lowes, or tools (hand tools for wood working or construction tools for remodeling) and clamps... you can never have too many or a wide enough selection of clamps.

But the Amazon wish list is a good place to start. Now if all of you would be so kind as to send me a list of what it is you would like for Christmas and/or Birthdays.

Pictures next post, I promise!

Early is as Early does.

And getting up at 4:30 on a Saturday and a Sunday, just doesn't seem right.

Well, nothing new or exciting to report yet. I'm in early today waiting on the production side of the house to give us a call and tell us that we're cleared to start working. Sure, we might not start working until 8 am, but that's not the point... we were here at 5:45 am, just in case.

At least I have Skippy the iPod. Actually, the iPod has been giving me a head scratcher of a math problem based on it's shuffle mode play. This, come to find out, isn't a "Jason-specific" quandary. I did a Google search on "iPod probability question" and came up with quite the list. None-the-less, the quest is not complete without an answer, so here is the question:

Subject:
Odd's; a.k.a. Probability.

Knowns:
I have (currently) 5,558 songs on my iPod.
I tend to listen to this grand sum of music in Shuffle mode.
Every time I plug in my iPod to the computer, Shuffle mode is reset.
The average number of songs listened to in shuffle mode before reset is: 200 (of 5558).

Assumptions:
Perfect randomization (no need to fret over the actual algorithm, and Apple would--and does--deny any tinkering with the mathematics).
In quantity, I have listened to 200 shuffled songs, i.e. one "shuffle cycle", 15 times.

Solve:
On the 16th shuffle cycle, what is the probability that I will hear a song that I've already heard in a previous shuffle cycle?
What is the probability I'll hear a song a third time I've already heard twice over the past 15 shuffle cycles?
... the probability I'll hear a song the fourth time?

I have not heard a song five times yet. But if you're feeling froggy, you can calculate that out for me, too. Or at least tell me how to set up the problem.

Don't you wish you had such exciting thoughts at the crack of morn'in? Yeah, me too.

Okay, I got the call, I'm off to work!

Why not just build new?

Yeah, and this isn't even 100% finalized yet.

Well, all in all I'm pretty excited about the prospect of getting a major project like this completed. It's kind of been the goal since we first walked into this house 2-1/2 years ago and now it's all up to the banks. Do we have the credit-worthiness? Do we have the dicipline and fortitude to run such a large project in such a short timeframe (9-12 months)? Do we have the technical ability and enough elbow grease to tackle as much of this project as I've planned on us doing? Gaaa! It keeps me from sleeping at night!

But on the other hand, it's very exciting, and in the end will be a great experience. Well, it oculd be a great experience... we'll see!

:j

Peek-a-Blah

No, we ain't dead.

I spent a great weekend sick and yucky. Thursday afternoon I felt it coming on... the exhaustion from switching shifts, the sniffles I'd been fighting, the coughing that was getting worse, the headache that wouldn't go away.

None the less Friday came as a surprise when I didn't wake up until 12:30 in the afternoon. Seriously. It was my first roll over of the day and I'd not even heard the dog, the cats, my wife leaving for work... nothing. Over the next four days me and the bed were good buddies. Yeah, and the couch, too.

So yesterday, Tuesday, I finally got back to work only to find that I had a backlog so big I was ready to call a saw mill. In fact, most this week will be that busy. That time of year I guess.

As for other news, we're in the process of starting our financing portion of the house renovation. This entails a lot more work than I reckoned. The financial history part is a pea-portion of the potluck; in order to get our construction loan we're going to have to hire an architect, a General Contractor, and have all the subs (sub-contractors) submit bids for time and material in order for the bank to give us the loan. If this wasn't good info for me to have I'm not sure that I would follow through with a "Construction loan" and would take the higher interest rate on the Equity line of credit.

Another neat thing coming out of this process is that, at least on paper, we own more than we owe. That's a neat feeling. Of course, it's hypothetical because we'd have to sell our house, cash in our stocks and retirements, pawn our belongings, and hawk our truck to pay off the mortgages, the student loans, our (rapidly diminishing) revolving credit, etc. But at the end of the juggling act, we'd be a couple pennies ahead, and that's all right by me!

Peace out y'all. I promise to get a shopping list of our projects posted soon.

:jnl

Rant

You know, Lilah and I have been looking for an economic hybrid vehicle to replace our truck. We looked at the Ford Hybrid Escape and we like the way it looks, but the price was just more that we felt justified in paying since most of it is going to the dealer in markup. No bargining on the most popular vehicle on the lot...

But I don't fault Ford. If you make a good product and put it in a sexy package, well you should get a good price for it. But what I don't get is The Honda Insight or The Toyota Prius. These are two of the highest mileage vehicles by almost double what anything else is getting. But style? Design? Are they intentionally trying to limit sales? Toyota and Honda both have a very nice lineup of attractive vehicles, but these two particular hybrid powertrains (they are different powerplants and technology) are packaged in what has to be the ugliest looking vehicle since the Pacer X.
Why wouldn't a manufacture try to sell these hybrids to the mainstream market by putting them in a more conventional shell?
Well, Honda and Toyota aren't listening to my little rant, to be sure; but there will be some other dealership that hears my words as we write out a check for their vehicle. And that's just it--how many people are willing to pay more and sacrafice mileage and environmental standards just because these two manufactures have chosen to put great vehicles in butt ugly packages?

If i could stick my tongue out at Toyota and Honda in print i would... maybe: 8^P

:jnl

Top of the world

Some pics from my trip to the Big Island earlier this year. While I was there I went to the top of Mauna Kea. If you look at the photos from the bottom up, I started my day at the ranger station which isn't in the photo, but this is a photo from said location. As you can see, I'm already above the clouds. Turning around from this location you can see the side of the mountain against the incredibly blue sky. In the third picture I'm in sitting in the crater bowl between the "peak" and the observatory. 14,000 feet doesn't sound like a lot, but I started my morning at sea level and with the sudden change in elevation, at this point I have a splitting headache and am pretty short of breath. I spent 5 hours up here tooling around and taking pictures waiting for the sunset and by the end of the day I felt like I'd been in a boxing ring for the same amount of time. The next photo is one of the large telescopes. Here it's closed. There were some people milling about the inside and I think I could have gone inside one, but I didn't jump on the chance and I missed my opportunity. The next photo is three of the large telescopes. If I remember right (and I'm not sure I do) there were either 8 or 9 of these large scopes near the summit. Speaking of summits, the next photo is the geological marker at the peak. The last three photos are self explanatory. Hope everyone is doing well. Stay tuned for an update on the house remodel. We've got our budget outline and will be approaching our lender in the very near future. We'll keep you posted as info becomes available. :jnl

In a League of Their Own...

If you can’t beat ‘em, start a new league!
For those of you not from Seattle, let me fill you in:

The Seahawks have never seen a Super bowl (from the playing field). Ever. Not once. (yet).

The Mariners have never seen the all important World Series.

The Sonics have won the NBA finals… but I was 6 and that was a long time ago.

Now the WNBA’s Seattle Storm have a title, but for some reason Seattle just doesn’t seem as excited about this as you’d expect. Hey, a winning team is a winning team and these ladies are down right awesome. But million dollar contracts?
-- Nope.
Multi-continent mega-conglomerate endorsements?
-- None that lasted.
No, the sad truth is that every woman on the Seattle Storm could be 10 times the player Michael Jordan ever was and still they wouldn’t get the recognition they deserve from the majority of the Seattle Population.

So what do we do? Huge and copious amounts of money could buy any one of Seattle's Professional teams a significant bump in talent, but that doesn’t guarantee a title win (Can Texas say "A Rod"?) in any one of these sports.

What we need is a fresh start. There’s no hockey in Washington, but that’s not a fresh start. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a professional Hockey team here in Seattle, and we’re very close to some good Canadian and Alaskan talent, but there’s also a huge pool of talented teams in an existing league that wouldn’t want to give us their Stanley cup to some Johnny-Come-Lately.

So, what’s left? SOCCER!

Now this is a great idea because there’s no National competition and yet there’s a HUGE world following in the sport. Which team players to recruit is inconsequential since we don’t have any competition to try and beat. What is important is a good acronym for our association--like NFL (National Football League) or MLB (Major League Baseball) or NBA (National Basketball Association) or NHL (National Hockey League).

The League needs something that’s Catchy, and yet something that stands out from the crowd. For instance, you can’t call the league NSL (National Soccer League) because that would sound far to similar to NFL. And you can’t call it the USSL (United States Soccer League) because that would be too familiar to Ye old Communist Russia.

USL (United Soccer League) is good, but it’s vague in it’s origin and, well we’re American and gosh darn it, we’re patriotic! ASL (American Soccer League) is potentially a good choice so long as it dosen’t bring up remembrances of the AFL (American Football League), which for some is still a wince-worthy acronym. And the American Soccer Society is just NOT happening.

I propose we call this league the United Soccer League of America (USLA). Sure the acronym might sound like a Beef inspection agency, or the "American" side of Los Angeles, but both of those things are good wholesome American ideals and that’s fine by me!

So stay tuned; Seattle is about to have a winning team! I encourage each and every one of you to get [buy] your T-shirts (available from me via email for only $35.00!) and ball caps (on sale for $22.00!) now, in preparation of our inaugural title-wining season!

See you there, Seattle!

The importance of Critical Thinking.

The Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DHMO) gives us a very very important warning that affects each and every one of us as individuals and as a society. I encourage each of you to spend as much time as you can reading the research and information that Dr. Tom Way provides us on this enlightening website.

Having read through much of this website, I can tell you as a college graduate with a very sound understanding of Chemistry and Research Practices, that in every single instance Dr. Way reports, his findings about DHMO are absolutely correct.

In addition, working for the Navy, I can verify Dr. Way's claims that we use DHMO in the operation of every single one of our Naval vessels. Every single day, hundreds of thousands of America's Armed forces are ingesting this chemical cocktail.

Here is just a small excerpt from the DHMO website:

Dihydrogen Monoxide Uses
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

as an industrial solvent and coolant.

in nuclear power plants.

in the production of styrofoam.

as a fire retardant.

in many forms of cruel animal research.

in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.

as an additive in certain junk-foods and other food products

Please, click on the link and inform yourself. Inform others. Education is the key!

:jnl

The iPod Generation

I love my new iPod. Lilah got it for me for our anniversary, and I can honestly say that it's changed the way I listen to music. Heck, now that I have an iPod I actually have a chance to listen to music again. It's great! I like to explain it as so: Think of every recipe you've ever seen in a magazine, a cookbook, on the Internet, etc.; they all sound great, but it's a hassle to make them. The iPod is like your personal chef.

So, what with the "season" upon us, it's time to start wondering what we're doing and when, for the holidays. I've been told that Mom Lummus is coming to Washington over the Christmas vacation, but that rumor was from quite a while back. Anyone have a confirmation on this? What about Christmas lists-Does anyone have their Christmas list info yet? For the record, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, is on my wish list.

Calla is being fickle about eating again. Perhaps I could learn a bit from her. The Bowflex home gym is going to be delivered around December. We've, for a couple of years now, been going to the local gym at the Bremerton Shipyard, but this is time consuming to go to and it never is convenient for us to get up and get there. With a home gym, we're hoping to limit how much we're paying out while increasing how much we're able to use the service. If all else fails, it'll make a great coat rack. Anyway, back to Calla. She's been getting a bit of Cottage Cheese and Moist food with her dry food because she is so underweight. At first she would dig right in; now she's back to her old routine of pick and eat. God bless a Terrier.

In other news, we're supposed to be making the trip to the bank this month to look at refinancing our house for the remodeling projects. Hmmm. maybe we'll be visiting others this holiday season! We'd better get our act in gear though, the rates are on the rise.

Anyway, I guess I don't have a whole lot to add to the blog because my day mostly consists of sleep and work. Back shift is always a bit brutal on the body, and quite a bit on the mind as well.

Talk to you all later!

:jnl

Alas Poor Yorick, I Knew Him Well

There was an interesting question posed on Slashdot today about what you would take with you in the event you had to leave your home in a hurry. This being Slashdot, a website dedicated to “News for Nerds”, the question was in the context of items being converted into an electronic format and saved on an USB thumb drive.

Since I’m betting that a good portion of the family who reads this blog doesn’t know what a thumb drive is and certainly doesn’t own one, that particular point is of minor consequence.

But it’s a subject worth a thought, given recent Hurricane disasters in Louisiana and Texas (both relatively close to my families), wildfires in California, Terrorist attacks on the East coast and abroad, Tsunami’s in Asia--which, too, are a very real threat on the West coast--oh and let us not forget that Tornado Alley passes right over both my parents houses. Then there’s the really obscure catastrophic events like the two volcanoes I live within blast radius of (Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier), locust plagues, nuclear or biological attacks, meteors, alien invasion…man you could give yourself ulcers thinking about all the ways you might suddenly get splatted.

How real is this stuff to me? Well, an interesting side note, history’s fastest recorded wind at 318 mph was caused by the May 3rd, 1999 Oklahoma tornado that started just miles from my parents house; in fact they watched the funnel cloud touch down from their side porch (if I’m remembering the story correctly). The city I live in right now was covered in Ash from the 1980 Mt. St. Helens blast. My wife and I were in the 6.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb 28th, 2001, centered just 2 miles from where we were at school; I was stranded on the Island of Oahu during the 2001 Terrorist attacks that grounded all aircraft; I was in San Diego, California during the 2003 wildfires and could see the flames from the hotel where I was staying. Aunt Patti has lived through numerous hurricanes during her Florida days. My old hometown has flooded at least twice that I can remember, and Texas? Texas is prone to hurricanes, tornados, floods, and yes-even earthquakes! You crazy in-laws...

So what do you take with you if you have to run on short notice? Well, reading reports of Louisiana/Mississippi/Texas survivors, backing up family photos is the number one thing that should be on your list. A scanner attachment for your home computer can be purchased for under a hundred dollars at your local office supply store. Scanning photos at the highest resolution setting may be time consuming, but not only is it a great way of backing up all your precious memories, it’s also a way of sharing them with other family members. DVD storage is probably your best medium as of today but CD format will work. While you’re at it, why not scan in your Marriage license, birth certificates, family trees, and anything else you think is worth having after the unthinkable. But remember, they have to be transferred to some sort of storage medium (like a CD or DVD) cause if they’re still in the computer at the bottom of the levee, then you’re never getting them back.

Another thing I noticed, at least at my parents house, is that just about every important phone number they have is posted on the kitchen wall next to the phone… Are you the same? Would you remember the phone numbers to call all your loved ones to tell them you’re okay if that phone number cheat-sheet suddenly disappeared? Here’s a trick that isn’t full proof, but is kinda handy in a lot of non-emergency situations too: just about every internet email service (Yahoo!, gmail, Hotmail, etc.) has a contacts or addresses function; start keeping backups of your correspondence / contacts list on one of these services and then if you’re at work or out of town and you want to get that phone number you can just log on to your email account. And for all of you who were like me and keep everything in your cell phone, let me tell you about the time my lifeline spent 6 hours at the bottom of the Skokomish river. Those things aren’t bullet proof and if I haven’t called you in a while, now you know why!

You know, come to think of it, I started this thought in consideration of mega-catastrophic events, but the same applies to a house fire or even a robbery. Maybe it’s time for me to start making backups of all my important memories!

Just a thought.

:jnl

Happy October!

Well, We have some assorted photos to start off the October Month.
First up is Lilah from Last Christmas wearing her new cap and mittens.
Then there's some of Lilah's co-workers
Next is the dog park where Lilah and I take Calla; this particular day we caught a rainbow between rain storms.
Charles, on our now infamous fishing/hunting trip.
The last pic is of a kayaker who's fishing at lake Sylvia.

So October is here. This is about the time of year that I begin to realize that the end of the year is close at hand. Sure, there's September, but I tend to think of that as the last of summer. Then there's November... but it's already cold and rainy in Washington so I guess October has to be the month. I'm starting backshift tomorrow so I won't be seeing the "days" for a little while, but here in the living room at 2 am it's cool and bordering on cold.

Two am! I haven't seen this time of day on a school night since Senior Design in College. I started the evening with a good pot of coffee and a large pile of laundry... both now done. I think that switching over is the easy part; switching back is always the hardest. Well, not technically correct; the hardest part is not seeing Lilah for as long as this lasts. While I'm down here pitter-pattering around to stay awake, Lilah is upstairs dreaming away. About the time her alarm goes off I'll be ready to go to sleep. Starting tomorrow it's very likely that I won't even see her in passing because she'll be on the ferry to meet up with her study group before I'm relieved from my nights work and I'll be on the way to work about the time she's getting onto the ferry to come home.

Tonight we had a movie date. We haven't done that in a while... well, since Hawaii. Sure, I like to complain about the cost of tickets and the ridiculous mark up on goodies as much as the next person. And I really am very fed up with kickers, talkers, crying kids, snoring elders, etc. in the theater that I don't have to put up with in my living room. But those aren't the reasons that we haven't been out to the movies lately. Just like everyone else, we're pretty fed up with the incredibly poor selection of movies this summer. I mean, we started off pretty strong with some good movies, but the last half of summer has been dismal. However, tonight we went to see Serenity, and what an awesome movie! Sure, it's a si-fi thriller that is heavy on the special effects, but the characters are fully developed and engaging, the plot is compelling and engaging, and the tension is perfect!

So that's the blog for today. Nothing earth shattering or life altering, but what did you expect for 2 am?

:jnl