EE Weekend

So we had our engaged encounter this last weekend, Nov 5 - 7. I would have to say that it had it's moments of brilliance, humor, intimacy & respect. I mean who doesn't like hearing about old people making love and the twinkle in their eye after? ...... I do have to admit though, that it was a very, very good weekend. While PB and I have no problems with communication there was some very good tips, some great conversation, a lot of laughter and a weekend filled with just US time. We both turned off our phones, had no Internet access and just enjoyed the weekend like we were camping or away from society.

We will keep our workbooks & notebooks, it will be a nice reminder of the weekend and all we shared. I'm sure over the course of our lifetime we'll go through them and remember back to the fun of the weekend. I even kept the fun question I got to read out loud in front of 73 other people and then answer. I would give a summary of the weekend and things of that nature, but really, I'm going to pass on putting it here. This is all the summary it's going to be, as it doesn't need to be advertised here.

Let's just say that I'm glad to have gone through the weekend and feel much better after going through it. An experience I gladly will pass on to friends thinking of going through similar as I think everyone should do that kind of retreat before marriage.

The fun of people..

I see a reoccurring theme in the days that I seem to be more irritated than normal.... stupid people.

It's almost like they go out of their way to make sure it just completely f*s your day up. If I need something by noon, there are always stupid people that make sure to tell you "Hopefully we'll have it by 11:45".... really?! You knew for 3 days I needed it by noon and you're giving me 15 minutes?

Same thing goes for stupid rules... Who gets paid to come up with this kind of shit? I understand that there is a need for order. Like you don't need people showing up in board shorts and flip flops. But what's wrong with normal jeans? Is there some secret piece in jeans that somehow makes you not able to do your job?

Sadly I know why most of these rules come to be.. The same stupid people that piss me off. You give them an inch in personal choice, they take a foot and completely screw over the rest of us with their "I'm entitled" attitude.

Those are the worst people too.. "I'm entitled..." You're not entitled to shit. Work harder and do some good and then you can be rewarded with things, yes, but you're not entitled to it. You're entitled to breathe, sure, but piss the wrong person off and even that could be a reward and something taken away. I don't know how it started, but hopefully soon, this severe character flaw will go away.

Apparently today is rant Monday..

Free beer!

All things considered, yesterday was an amazing success. Work sucked in terms of the fact I had to work late to get a demo system up and running before this morning. But it was after work that made the day an overall plus.

We'll start with Mad Pizza... The Starfire complex has a pizza joint that sells great beer and is open (or supposed to be open) until 10 PM on Fridays. The last few Fridays they have been closed before 9, frustrating our team as we always go up and get pitchers and chit chat, as that's our one night together as friends.. Drinking and unwinding is what we do.

So checking on league info I saw a link to the company website. Looking there, they put up a "Fill out our survey and let your thoughts known!" type link, so I figured, why the hell not! After airing out frustrations felt by many on our team, I let it go..... until I got a call from the manager thanking me for my comments. Apparently they didn't know the weekend manager was closing early until I made it known. They now have a new manager for nights (whoops, guess there if you don't do your job you get fired...) and we get a pitcher for free.....

Fast forward a few minutes after that call, I'm about to start my truck, and I watch a teen girl pull up near me and get out looking guilty that she's not supposed to be there. So naturally, I watch to see why, not sure if she was in trouble, or what.. She goes to her trunk, grabs something, then nervously goes to the bushes nearby, bends down, puts something there, then runs back to her car and leaves quickly. The way it went down was very shady and the way she looked you'd have thought she just buried a body there. She couldn't have been older than 17, so I figured it was drugs.

So naturally I had to go look.. I can't just sit there and go home, wondering what it was she was hiding.. What is it that I find? Two big bottles of Corona beer! And we all know what's worse than stealing and that's drunk teenagers, so naturally I took both bottles, put them in my truck and then headed home. Given the look of this girl and the way she was acting, I could tell this was not a normal activity, so not only did I ruin their buzz, I'm sure they're still feeling guilty and nervous that they're about to get caught at any minute, as obviously someone had to have watched her put the beer there because there was no way anyone would just stumble upon them.

Those two events definitely made it a great drive home after such a looooong day. While I'm not a huge fan of Corona, it always tastes better when it's free!

Time...

.. for a little change.. So I'm going to be tweaking with the colors and layout for a while.

So I left off...

.. where we were going on our extended road trip.. So I can recap that for fun times and then move forward to as far as I can remember lately.. haha

We left Seattle heading to Vegas on a Friday night. We took I-90, down to I-82, then took that to Idaho, where we cut south around Post Falls. After driving all night, we swapped so Erin could drive right at the border of Idaho & Nevada. The little town of Jackpot, Nevada. It seemed like a cute town, out in the middle of no where. I slept for about an hour then enjoyed the ride as a passenger as we went through northern Nevada.

We got to Vegas in the afternoon, where we went and checked into our hotel off the strip, South Point. It wasn't horrible by any stretch, but it wasn't amazing either. We then went into the strip to check things out, get some food, play some poker and enjoy Vegas. Played in a poker tournament at Harrah's that night, took9th. Not bad for one hr of sleep in over 36hrs. The World Series of Poker was over doing circuit events at Caesar's Palace. It was cool to see though I definitely wish I would have played in one...

Sunday we were going to go to Phoenix after playing some poker, so we jumped into an early tournament at Treasure Island where I made the final table again and took... 5th I think? I can't remember, it was all a blur. Mix in the tournament finish and some chatting and that got us a strip view room up high in TI for a cheaper rate than our previous night in South Point. We took Sunday night to go visit the new City Center, had some amazing food, including our $4 shrimp! haha. We also played some Blackjack Switch, which PB definitely did better than I..

We got up Monday morning and took off for Phoenix, since Monday night was the graduation the trip was originally planned for. The drive between LV & Phoenix? Boring as hell! The only cool thing to see was going over the Hoover Dam. Everything else was rocks, yellow dried plants, and a cactus here and there. However, as we were driving, PB threw "The Hangover" up on her laptop so we could watch it on the drive, somewhat fitting as we just left Vegas. (Though we remembered our trip..haha)

It was quite warm in PHX. When we got there we made lunch for everyone, went to the store down the street for some items and then went to the graduation waaay on the other side of town. The graduation was cool too. It did take about 2 hours though, a lot of singing & such. Once that was done, there was a little reception in the back of the church where I got to sit and chat with a future nephew on his plans for the future, as he's an IT major. It was a great conversation and fun to hear someone young interested in the things you can do in technology. Though I do have mixed emotions about being old enough now to be a mentor in someone's future. I know I have 12+ years doing this, but still..... Crazy.

We stayed Monday night, packed up Tuesday morning and headed west! We decided to visit an old friend of PB's in California on the way through. The drive there was pretty cool. Up through some windy roads we stopped off at a viewpoint and got some great pics from an overlook, saw a rattle snake and had some fun with the Hemi through the curves.. We got to their house around 6ish, had steak, a lot of chatting, and laughing, then left for Washington around 11pm.

As we left their house we realized we were only about an hour north of San Diego. So close.. The drive up I-5 was fairly uneventful, though we did stop and eat at a small little place called Burger Barn in Northern California, then stopped off in Weed, California. Had to pick up some memorabilia for such a great town. OH and we also stopped at the Liquor Expo, picking up almost $200 in alcohol, which was 3 half gallons and 6-7 fifths of booze. We got home around 10:30-11p on Wednesday, just in time to get back to work on Thursday morning.

Despite all that time on the road, together, we had a great trip. There was no fighting or complaining, we just enjoyed it for what it was. A lot of time together, talking about life, the future and the fun that we were having.

Given the length of this post, I'll go ahead and end it here. I need to update everything else going on, so more to come! Maybe even this week!! haha

Holy Crap!!

It's been since DECEMBER?! WTF. Man, I fail. So how do I give the Cliff Notes version of 4 moths worth of crazy events.. hmmm let me see if I can break it down the best way I know how....

• December: The rest of December was great. Spent our year anniversary up in Leavenworth at a lodge that was far enough up in the mountains they required you to take a snow cat up to it. We met some really awesome people, had some amazing food. If any of my faithful ever want to see what's up there, feel free to check out their site. They are awesome hosts! Mountain Home Lodge .. OH and we did get engaged while up there. ;) December 19th was the date on that. With December 20th being our one year anniversary. I got Erin Sounder's season tickets for Christmas which she loved and I got a paintball gun which was awesome..
  
• January: Low key New Year's party, instead choosing to go snowboarding to Steven's after instead. It was a great time up in the mountain. January kind of flew by as we decided it was time to move to save some money. We loved that house in Des Moines, but realized it was sucking the $$ right out and we weren't even buying it. After talking to the landlady we determined that it was time to move. Turns out she'd broken up with her GF and wouldn't be renewing our lease at the end of the term anyway! So we would be able to get out of the lease penalty free. So the apartment/house/condo/townhouse search started.... and ended in:
• February: We found our apartment up in Issaquah. It is a beautiful 2 bed 2 bath with attached garage. We spent our Valentine's day painting some walls to make it feel like home. We also then moved, the weekend after. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend, it was a 60 degree weekend, sun and bright. Packing, moving, cleaning and things took up the entire month for the most part. Which lead to me getting sick near the end of the month. To the point where I actually visited the Dr. Got some meds and finally started feeling better in early:
  
• March: It was a boring March. Kinda. We got situated and delivered the couch we had in the house to my mom in Yakima on her 50th birthday. We bought a sectional couch for the apartment which rocks. The couch is so comfy it's a nice change. Overall though it was a very quiet month, all things considered. We did get our Sounder's tickets! The first game was awesome to go to. It's definitely something we look forward to. My sister came and stayed a night with us, that was a fun time.
  
• April: So far, mid month, we've gone snowboarding, played soccer and just enjoyed life. Did Easter, met with the priest who got us in touch with a Deacon for the annulment process & to find out more with baptism. So far it's been a painless experience, other than a ton of paperwork I have to chase down and fill out. Life is good thus far. We're leaving next week for Vegas & Phoenix, so that should be a great time. OH and we both seem to be hitting the poker jackpot. Though PB is definitely hitting it bigger online than I am. So I'm proud of her for that.

So that's life in a nutshell. I'll need to come back and go off on thoughts as time goes on. But so far, that's a good recap. Maybe I'll set a calendar appointment to remind myself to update this thing. Couldn't hurt!