workadian rhythms

There is a certain rhythm to a work week and a job in general. I don't want to say you get used to it, but you adjust to it just the same. The way you roll in in the morning. The general pattern of sitting down coffee cups and booting up computers. For me, the way I set up the clinic for the day and prepare myself for whats to come.

The past 2 weeks, my schedule has been arrhythmic. I have spent more of the past 10 days at the Park than at my own clinic. I have little idea of where things are or where they go, how things are set up or broken down, and even how and when to schedule patients. It is like staying with friends or relatives. They have different kinds of peanut butter and cereal, you can't figure out where they keep the extra toilet paper and, while you are welcome, you know you really shouldn't be digging through the medicine cabinet even if you are just trying to find the Q-tips. In the end, while it is nice visiting and all, you kind of miss your bed, your cereal, and knowing exactly where the toiletries are located. With that said, it is still really nice to finally have actual conversations about work issues, bounce ideas off of one another, and generally share some actual camaraderie. I won't miss the commute though. God I hate the commute. And then our clinic out in Gresham will go live. Best not to think of that at the moment.

Speaking of work, today was a hooky day! There is something grand about not being at work when you are supposed to be at work. To be fair, I had only 1 patient scheduled in the clinic (and that was not a time intensive one). Mostly, I was just wrung out though. So, Tia (likewise wrung out and playing hooky) and I spent the day at the spa getting massages and drinking tea and then headed over to 23rd for Happy Hour at the venerable Besaw's (who evidently hold the very first liquor license in the state of Oregon back in 1916), where we ate our fill of pretty damn good food, 2 adult beverages apiece, and dessert for under $35. Highly recommended.

Allergy shots part deux have begun with no ill effects other than a generally mild flare up of my allergies in the evening (which could be attributed to pretty much anything). But no anaphylaxis or large red bumps the size of citrus fruit on my arms.

Some random things:

- Wickles Pickles are truly amazing. Spicy hot, sharply vinegary and sweet all at once. Crazy addictive. And no HFCS or other odd ingredients to boot. Plus, you can get em at Safeway.

- Lana Del Ray and her song Video Games (diet mtn do is also good). Kind of going through a more mellow phase with music and her stuff does remind me a lot of Cat Power. Also digging the Bohemian strangeness of Lykke Li which reminds me in some ways of Mazzy Star (though the latter is far more ethereal).

- Reading a fascinating, if a little overly detailed, history of Scientology called Inside Scientology. Whatever you think of the 'religion', it is an intriguing account of it's creator along with the rather strange and illegal tactics they used to suppress negative press over the years. Yikes.

Til next time.

er, trying to think of something

I REALLY want to post more often, but I also don't want to post just because I haven't in some time. But, nothing extraordinary has happened that comes to mind.

We did try an interesting new restaurant called Cruzroom, which has the oddest/yummiest fusion tacos I have yet had. A typical example:
Mac Taco ~$3.25: Fried pickles, slice of applewood bacon, special sauce slaw, cheddar cheese, and onions all served on a corn tortilla.
Certainly not something you would find at Taco Bell. Overall, it was quite good with some bigger hits than others. As other people have written, the service is spotty and pretty slow. On the upshot, we ended up with some free sides because they just kept dropping things off at our table.

Continuing with the food adventure for the evening (Tia, Jen, and myself) we headed to the new and already jumping ice cream spot called Salt and Straw, which lives up to the Portland code of serving local and natural ingredients. Much like the Cruzroom, this is not your typical fare however. With flavors like pear and blue cheese, brown ale and candied bacon, and three berry bbq, there isn't a straight up vanilla to be found. However, most flavors were quite good, though a few we sampled I found rather unpleasant (the aforementioned strawberry BBQ). Still nothing topped the thai spiced ice cream I had at Cool Moon.

Accompanied Tia to the chiropractor the other day (partly because we have only the one car and I had to go to the Park to help out and partly because I was interested). I am not sure what I think of the whole thing after being in there. Is it legitimate or not? I guess we will find out soon enough, as Tia is supposed to be going in weekly for the next month with a promise of 'a 50% improvement' in her back pain. I am skeptical, but I hope it works.

Work is the same as always. There was a recent opportunity posted that looked appealing (3-12s working the floor at the Park), but more experienced candidates are already clamoring for it. I would very much like to drop my hours down (or at least move to 4-10s) to get some breathing room away from work, but it looks like it isn't in the cards at the moment.

Looks like we are going to break 90 for the first time this summer. Seems like a good time for a nap. Yay for central AC!

5K

The couch to 5K is complete. We actually didn't make it through the entire program as yet (we needed another 4 weeks or so), but we did both finish a 5K and that was the original goal. It bested, but a good bit, the longest I had ever pushed my crappy lungs to do. Our shared 'goal' was to finish it in under 40 minutes, a goal we both achieved. I had hoped to make it in under 35 if possible, and I managed to do that as well, finishing in 32m 37s, which surprisingly works out to a 5.7 mph pace. I definitely pushed it much harder than the normal 5mph pace we set on our jogs. The most difficult portion really was the inclines, of which we don't have many around our house. I am not going to exaggerate and call them 'hills' per se, but they definitely presented a new challenge. I am proud of us both for finishing and hopefully that will be a good start to keeping in better exercise routines..........at least until the winter hits and we hibernate again.

One of the many things I find peculiar about Portland is that it seems to be run by people with a certain disdain for cars. I guess that keeps Portland weird and prevents it from becoming to much like Seattle, which isn't a bad thing. On the other hand, it is a bit perplexing at times. A few weekends ago, they closed one of the bridges going downtown to roll out fake sod on it and have a picnic (I am not making this up) and this weekend they will be closing almost all of them on Sunday so people can ride their bikes on them. Evidently, the fact that people might need to get downtown to, you know, spend money and stimulate the depressed economy takes a back seat to the idea of pretending we live in some weird post-oil future where bikes are the only mode of transport.

Work continues its weird cycles. I find myself most recently torn between being the 'go to' guy and being the department bitch. It is a tough line to walk. On one hand, I am accruing responsibilities that make me more indispensable. On the other hand, I don't want it to seem like anything that can be given to me, I will gladly do. Most recently I have been tasked with going down to the Park to 'help them' as they are 'sinking' with the new EPIC conversion. I am not stating it is easy or without frustration, I know I dealt with a LOT of it. However, I also had no one to turn to in the department in general or my clinic specifically. So, I was forced to learn it on my own. They have all had the same training, and have all spent an entire day up at the clinic with me and NEVER work in the MP clinic with less than 3 total staff. So, ostensibly they could ask one another, the Epic staff that flit about the hospital, or call me. However, that is evidently not workable, so I am to go down there on Monday to help out. And then the following M, T, Th. and then, perhaps, the following Monday after that.

On one hand, I guess I should feel good being the person best equipped to teach them. On the other hand, their solution to me going down there to help is to just 'close' my clinic for those days, which makes me upset because it seems that we are doing damage to my job to preserve the MP clinic. Bah!

Got allergy re-tested this past Monday which wasn't exactly illuminating (I am allergic to stuff, and lots of it!), but will hopefully be a step in correcting or at least mitigating my hyper-histamine response to everything. Shots start in 10 days, and then go on for 3-5 years. Initially 1 to 2 shots a week and then spaced out as far as every 3 to 4 weeks or so. Not bad........I hope anyway. The response rate is about 75%. Lets hope I fall within it.

Time to get back to the never ending list of house stuff. More blogging when I can next hit the pause button.

grin and bear it

Sometimes in life you go through phases of 'grin and bear it'. I am kind of rolling through one of those now. Not that things are particularly bad because they certainly aren't, but with the perpetual unpacking, assembling, painting, and cleaning at the new house along with the training for the 5K and biking to work along with a relatively busy time in the clinic with the usual absentee level of assistance, I am just dragging. My body aches in general with my hamstrings taking the worst of the abuse and some days are certainly worse than others. I have been having a lot of headaches as well, probably related to the overwhelming amount of stuff swirling about.

All I can think of, and might need to soon pursue, is taking a LONG weekend. I am technically going to have one this weekend, but I am discounting it because: 1. I will not be allowed any antihistamines after Friday AM...............which is a sure recipe for a horrible weekend most of the time (fingers crossed it is a 'mild' one and I don't spend the weekend surrounded by an ever increasing mound of tissues and various sprays and drops) and 2. Monday, my extra 'day off' will involve 2 hours of allergy testing likely followed by a large dose of Benadryl (and then likely followed by an extended blackout-like nap). On the plus side, this will hopefully be the start of shots that will make at least a minor dent in my symptoms.........although they historically have not. Either way, it is worth a second shot with a new doctor and new set of ideas on treatment. Plus, this time we are taking other steps like having no carpeted surfaces upstairs, no pets in the bedroom, air purifiers, and a large plastic hamster bubble that I roll around in (and heck, its just plain fun for the whole family!). We shall see, and I shall post on it.

As for the house, it is starting to more or less resemble a place someone might live and less like a place that you might see on an episode of Hoarders. Gone are most of the boxes, totes, and assorted trash that we will start piecemealing into our weekly trash pick up like the main character from Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, taking pieces of his prison wall out to the yard in the rolled up bottoms of his jeans. Or just break down and pay the extra fees for the extra bags of trash. Tough call really. Thank god for garages!

Speaking of garages, getting power to ours will evidently not be as easy, nor as cheap, as we had hoped. So, it will also not be happening nearly as quickly. Maybe by the fall. Maybe. Shocking mostly because the garage is less than 2 yards from the house. But, as we found out when they came to hook up our DSL internet and found ZERO phone lines in the house with which to do so, its the little things that stymie. Of course, the phone situation was an easy fix, for $99 that is.

Not much other news to tell of other than we are (the royal 'we' as it is mostly Tia) now fostering a momma cat and her six 4-week old kittens. They are truly as adorable as they are smelly. People always ask 'how can you give them back?' The answer is generally pretty easily. Kittens are cute, but they aren't formed personalities..........so you kind of get what you get so to speak when they grow up. In between, you get a whole lot of torn up furniture, curtains, and the like. So, yes they are adorable, but no it isn't hard to hand em all back over and start with a new group.

moving on............and on.................and on

There are few life events more stressful than moving that don't involve some kind of physical or emotional trauma (and I could reasonably argue that moving encompasses minor degrees of both). Even after the process of transporting one's worldly possessions from one locale to another, there is the much longer/inherently slower process of unbundling that which was so carefully at first and haphazardly towards the end, packed. Every new nook and cranny requires consideration because, as it becomes baldly apparent later, where you put things initially is largely where they permanently reside. Arbitrarily, it seems not to matter if you are moving from small to big or big to small, there seems to always be something that used to fit somewhere that no longer does. Our new place has a small kitchen (a bachelor kitchen perhaps), without a lot of room for things like a wok, let alone a blender, crock pot, or any other of the wide varietal of kitchen accoutrements. Conversely we moved from 1.5 bedrooms to 4, so we have a few rooms with quite literally nothing in them. It is truly a puzzle............and I am not very good at puzzles.

But, by far the most stressful part of unpacking is the near constant sense of what I refer to as 'possession displacement disorder' or more commonly the 'where the (expletive) are/is my (object)?' This occurs with alarming frequency and seems to take a long time to improve overmuch. Generally the lost object is most easily located under the largest pile and the rapidity of its location is inverse to its immediate need. Some kind of lesser Newtonian Law I imagine. Or perhaps Murphy's.

The other part of moving that I am increasingly starting to loathe is the building of new furniture. Tia and I are fairly capable people and yet it is astounding how frequently we manage to put something together backwards. Well, I would say it was astounding except the directly are generally quite vague about the specific details of assembly with often little similarity between the twee 2 dimensional sketches of what you are building and the decidedly different looking actual pieces. And some things, our roving bookshelf for instance, really test both patience and imagination. It is why, in my far off dreams, I truly consider having 'made it' financially is having furniture delivered already put together. I guess it wouldn't be largely composed of particle board and about 20% of the cost though. Suffice to say, I am not quite there yet.

But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Things are gradually finding their way to their new homes and the pieces are finally starting to resemble the whole. Then we can start of the yard.

On Biking:

I really thought I was getting in better shape. We have been jogging for more than a month now and are starting to make some not inconsiderable gains. I have even lost a few pounds along the way. But, clearly, biking and jogging use very distinct muscles. As we are now about 2.5 miles away from work, walking is no longer viable.........but biking most certainly is. However, my body begs to differ. There is a hill (mountain?) about half way to work (and half way to home) that, though clearly gradual, seems inexplicably difficult to crest. However, once over it, the rest of the ride is quite a breeze. I know it will just take time and it truly does feel good to exercise in that way in the morning.........but getting passed by people in flip-flops who are clearly in poor physical shape is a touch embarrassing.

I had thought I might write more.............but more boxes and totes remain. More to come as always.

Jesus loves chickens

It ain't easy being Jesus. Mostly because the beard and wig are itchy. I am sure there were other difficulties than that for the actual JC (the whole persecution and nailing to the cross come immediately to mind), but in my Jesus costume it was mostly the itchy thing. Well that and it is hard to drink a beer with a faux beard.

Why did I dress up as Jesus you might wonder (and if you don't wonder, I am left to because that certainly falls out of the bounds of a normal weekend...........that or I just seem like the type who would dress up as a deity for giggles)? For a good friend's party with a theme of gods and monsters. It was really a lot of fun. Tia god her inner goddess on with her Athena themed attire and there were many Pans, a smattering of roman/Greek gods, a wolfman, Buddha, Vishnu, and a variety of others. That and lots of good drinks and food. Really fun.

We also spent our time last weekend wandering around looking at chicken coops on the annual 'Tour de Coop' on the East side. The East side is a many varied thing here in Portland. Full of a huge variety of eccentricities, neighborhood alcoves, and great local eateries that butt up against perpetually 'up and coming' neighborhoods, a surprisingly high recent spate of gang slayings, and general downtroddeness. The suburbs it aint. But, neither is it truly 'urban' in any real sense of the word. It is a place where some people have the most fascinating obsession with chickens though.........while just down the street they build brand spanking new apartments for recovering junkies. Ah Portland..........never shall ye be fully gentrified.

But, back to chickens and how I found myself actually considering the notion of becoming a somewhat urban farmer. We happened upon it when one of Tia's mentees and my coworker both mentioned that they had their own chickens and coops. We even got to sample some of the fresh eggs, which with no exaggeration I can say are very different from even the most organic, cage-free, hormone free eggs you can buy at the store. These things were about half yolk, and as brightly yellow as Kraft macaroni and choose powder. They were also delicious. So, with no real knowledge of chickens, we got ourselves a guide and saw some chickens (the best coop we saw is pictured above). There were 20+ coops on the tour, and we only managed to find our way to about 5 of them, but it was quite eye-opening. Some of the cages were reclamation projects fashioned from bits and parts and another was designed and built by an architect. Most housed a few chickens, but one woman had 23 of them (you are permitted to have 3 without getting a city permit evidently). The more fascinating part were how informed the owners were. I had no idea there were so many sizes and types of chickens............nor that the phrase 'pecking order' was based on the actual behaviors of chickens. It was illuminating and really weirdly interesting. On the other hand, it is a pretty big thing to undertake, and at a fairly steep cost, for some eggs. Delicious as those eggs might be.

The move continues to lurch forward in fits and stops as most packing and moving does. Tonight will be the final push. The time where you stop actually packing and just start throwing random things into boxes without any semblance of theme just to get them into something for the movers to take over. Of course, all of this is happening on the back side of work days, while trying to get things organized in our new house (getting in new flooring, cleaning, painting, etc). Thankfully Tia continues to be a dynamo and Diane continues her unblemished record of being a champion mover and all-purpose house setter upper. So, with fingers crossed, hopefully Saturday evening will find us unpacking all those carefully packed and haphazardly thrown together boxes and embarking on our 9th residence together since 2007. And, with luck, it might even have power, water, cable, and all the other things we have set up......or at least tried to. Maybe we should pray about it..................hmmm, time to put the beard and wig back on I think.

things

Work

I have never really taken a lot of pride in my work. I think I work well with others, I actively try not to stir up trouble or engage in much slagging of co-workers or organizational structures, and do what I am supposed to do without the need of constant supervision. In most ways I am a pretty good employee. But, mostly I just see work as a means to an end. I work so I can afford to live and, hopefully, do some fun stuff along the way. If this job proves tolerable and pays reasonably well, all the better.

So, it is with some degree of reservation that I must admit that I am getting rather, well, good at what I do. I might even be taking a measure of pride in it. I am not sure what to think about that though. Is it a sign of a latent 'grown-up phase' or of a mental imbalance? All that is certain is that generally around this point I start scrambling for a way out.

Instead, I am trying to start to take ownership of my job. With that comes a litany of holy-crapitude like taking on additional responsibilities, coming in early certain days to make sure I, and the clinic, are ready for a 9 am patient, and worrying about things if I am out for a day. It is kind of freaking me out honestly. Maybe it is a mental imbalance after all. More to come as events warrant as always on that front.

Running

Who would have thought that I would actually enjoy running? Well, enjoy might be an overstatement. I enjoy eating fried things, taking long weekend naps, and reading.........running is definitely a level below, but I still like it. It feels like, well like accomplishing something. I might even feel 'good' afterwards and feel less than that on days we don't run. I think the mental imbalance argument is picking up steam.

Home Ownership

Whoa! Today it is finally 'official' with all the 'I's dotted and 'T's finally crossed. True, it won't be for another week and some odd days before we actually move in...........but it will happen at this point. I am both incredibly excited to have a place to spread out, personalize, and relax in/work on and incredibly freaked out by the idea of mortgage payments, taxes, and upkeep repairs. It truly feels unreal at this point considering how long ago it was that we had our inspection and made all the original agreements. Even seeing it a few days ago with our Realtor was bizarrely like seeing it for the first time............as we had either not noticed or forgotten so many of its details. Now we just have to hope all the loose ends come together for moving in........oh yeah, and pack. We need to do that too.

So, in summary, I am starting to feel some actual pride in my work, I am enjoying running outside, and am excited to take on a 30 year mortgage (at least for the time being). Yup, time for intense therapy. No question about it.

God I hate moving

For someone as apt to move as do pretty much anything, I really truly hate it. I guess in my dream moving world, whatever didn't fit in a car would just stay where it was and I would re-buy the stuff wherever I ended up. Of course, even with the rather modest amount of stuff that Tia and I tote around with us, it doesn't make sense. Especially when you factor in our average move time at about 6 months (with our record being just a hair under a year.....a record I hope we eclipse with this move).

There just always seems to be something. Wilsonville was too far from everything when I was no longer going to work in Salem. Our apartment off Capital was nice on the surface, and trash just beneath it (aided by the fact that the owner paid bills late and services were perpetually in limbo). Our King City house was too large and, again, too far from where we really wanted to be. Our new downtown pad was overly expensive, overly crowded, and in the end overly mold ridden. Our Fargo triplex has walls that are akin to Japanese paper doors and block no sound at all and though we fit in it, we only do so like someone slightly overweight trying to fit into their high school prom dress.........it just aint pretty.

Suffice to say it was with no little hope that we went to visit our soon to be new abode today after hearing the former tenant left it some time ago and were crestfallen to see how the back yard has fallen into jungle-like conditions since we last saw it some 6 weeks ago. We are now planning an interior walk through tomorrow hoping the inside looks significantly better. After signing dozens upon dozens of papers and forking over a, for us anyway, considerable sum of money, we just expected it to look like, well, like when we last saw it. Here is hoping tomorrow is much much better than the first time we walked into our current place. Otherwise, we better start formulating plan B............and with haste since we are 3 weeks from no place at all.

13,000 feet and falling fast

Yep, that picture is Tia and I (Tia with the pink parachute and me with the green). For her 30th birthday, we skydived (skydove?). Hopefully something we will both remember for a long time.

When you tell people you are going to be jumping from an airplane, it usually elicits one of two distinct responses "Why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" or "What are you nuts?" Both are valid points. For the former, I have no answer. To the latter, I say 'very likely.'

The process of getting to the point where you are on the precipice of falling 2.5 miles with a man attached to your back (and a parachute attached to his) is less rigorous than one would assume. You would think it would take some level of skill to skydive..........and it probably does for the person whom you are attached. However, as the attachee, you need know little more than how to fall evidently.

When we arrived, we were handed a packet of 2-sided papers, about a dozen or so sheets long that we were required to sign. They said, in effect, that leaving a plane 13000 ft from the ground is actually quite dangerous (go figure) and, should anything go wrong be it the fault of the pilot, plane, instructor, equipment, bad luck, serendipity or will of the gods you, nor anyone you have ever known or been even loosely affiliated with, will sue. Needless to say, confidence inspiring this was not. I began to fixate on the old Road Runner cartoons where Wile E. Coyote would invariably put his misplaced trust into the hands of the Acme company and, while falling from a cliff would pull his parachute strings only to have a kitchen's worth of cookery come flying out. I very carefully examined anything for signs of Acme's presence and was at least reassured to find none.

After filling out our packets, we were called into the 'instruction room'. The instructor sat up at the front and the dozen or so would be jumpers were perched around the edges of the room. The instruction, and I mean that word in the loosest possible sense, concluded in less than 5 minutes (likely less than 3). In essence, crouch down and fall out of the plane door (and don't hit your head on it) hands crossed over your chest. Your tandem will 'tap you' at which point you go into an arched position. Finally, when you lad, put your legs straight out and curl toes in. We then signed saying we understood and filed out. In my head, I thought, well surely we are going to practice this some in the next room with our gear on right? Wrong.

The next step entailed us getting into our gear and meeting our tandem. This was done quickly and we were out the door in a field near the landing strip. There were some faux plane doors that I thought we would practice in. But, within a few short minutes, a plane pulled up and we began to board. At this point I realized that the training was complete.

We boarded a small prop plan and sat astride two benches that led out to the door. Our tandem person behind us and the tandem person of the next person in front of us. Tia was set to jump next to last........and me last. I was a bit worried about this, thinking that it would be tough watching everyone else leave the plane and still have the resolve to do so myself. What I learned when we got to that point is that the process of leaving the plane, from first to last, was well under a minute.

Each of the professionals had on an altimeter with large dials and digital readouts. When we passed the cloud line, my tandem (Mike) told me that was the height at which we would pull the chute. I was surprised because I had thought we were nearing the actual jump height. We were not even half way there.

When we arrived at about 2 miles up, Mike began tightening various lines and connections. At 11,000 he asked if I was ready (if you say 'no', you head back down with the plane.......and if not my pride, my wallet would certainly have dissuaded me from following that path........not wanting to pay over $175 to fly for 30 minutes in a prop plane) and I responded in the affirmative, though I truthfully had no concept what would ever make one ready for such an absurd thing. But, I was ready enough to get that far, why not go the rest of the way. At 13,000 feet, the door was opened and the first jumper, her tandem, and a camera man edged to the door. In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, they were no longer at the door. In rapid fashion, at a rate of one every 5-7 seconds, the plane quickly emptied. Tia edged to the deck and was gone. It was now my turn.

In truth, you have little time to consider the notion of being perched on the open doorway of the plane. Only in retrospect can you appreciate it. You have no concept at all of how high you really are. In fact, until we stood on the ground after our jump and watched as the next group dropped from the sky from an airplane that, from the ground, was so far up as to be barely discernable.........a veritable dot in the sky, did we truly comprehend what we had done. But, perched on the doorway for what could not be more than 2 seconds, it is all a scramble. The next instant you are falling at 120mph towards the earth with the wind seemingly rushing up at you. In the space of a 45 seconds, you fall the equivalent of 8000 feet. Then, the parachute opens and you go from facing the earth to an almost upright sitting position. The wind stops and the rushing sound of it quiets and you, for the first time, can really see around you. Within the next 5 minutes or so, you are on the ground.......touching down as gently as if someone sat you down slowly from a high chair.

I am not going to say it was a brave act or a stupid one, but it is a memory that I hope Tia and I will take with us for a long time. I am sure I won't soon forget it.

http://www.skydiveoregon.com/tandem-freefall.php

Sitting on my hands

Tom Petty said it best, "the waiting is the hardest part." I agree of late, though I know it is financially prudent to wait things out. I am of course referring to our soon to be new home. We close in the middle of July, but the ink has long dried on all the documents. We could, based on everyone involved telling us/encouraging us, close earlier. However, every day earlier we move in is another day we pay rent/mortgage to two places. So, every day is about $50 (possibly more if you include all the accoutrements of modern living like water, sewer, garbage, internet, cable and the like. Still, I can't help but think about it. Every time I hear my neighbor bounding up and down the stairs in the entirely graceless way he does (coming down in echoing thuds like someone twice his size), I think about it. Every time I hear his fiancé' through the wall yelling something to him downstairs, I think about it. Every time I look at the crumbling tile around the bathtub, the wood rotting away on the deck, or start to feel a wee bit claustrophobic because our place is so small that leaving something like the vacuum cleaner out in the living room causes it to feel overwhelmingly 'cluttered', I think about it.

But, I try to remember that patience is a virtue...........one I am trying hard to attain (except while driving as that is an entirely lost cause). But still, I can't help but think about the laundry list of things we have or want to do with the house, the spaces we will have to fill, and the people we need to contact to get things done and feel, just a little bit, excited. That is until the reality of ownership comes crashing down upon us. Until then though, the warm glow remains.

Other than the above, we are fully into week 1 of couch to 5K training. It is going pretty well so far and I hope it continues the same. It is easy, but not too and the recovery times are adequate. In many ways, unlike the P90x, it feels doable. It isn't trying to command all your time and energy, just some of it (it is nearly impossible to commit to 90 minutes a day, after work, of high intensity exercise, 6 times a week. I have a hard time committing to a movie that long on a work day honestly). It doesn't begin in the middle and stay there. It doesn't assume you are coming from a high level of fitness to start with (and even if you were, it really is for people who measure fitness in single digit body fat numbers and wear sleeveless shirts to the mall). But, for people like me who needs a rolling start to undertake a fitness regimen, it is ideal and allows for further expansion like a 10k (which is about as far as I really care to take any running regimen). Now if I can just more consistently regulate a diet that vacillates from green salad, fruit, and lean proteins at lunch to "hey that pub menu looks tasty" for dinner I would be doing pretty well. Maybe I will work on that next. That is unless I see a nice pub on the way home.

on the current state of work

I have refrained from posting much about work lately. Largely because it has become rather less than noteworthy. I still have no additional help. I still defer patients to other clinics because of it. The floor staff is still too short of full staff to help much at all. However, it is getting a bit worse now, or will soon.

The realignment that happened in January left quite a few people unhappy because they didn't get positions they wanted and those who did aren't necessarily happy with their selections either. So, there have been a lot of changes. A lot of people moving out and on to other positions in the department as they open and to other positions period often enough. What this has meant is perpetual under-staffing on the floor of EM. This has been burdensome, but manageable. Or was.

We had 3 charge nurses. One full time, and two others that alternated the off days of the full time charge. One of the part time people left a month ago. Now, the full time person is leaving (this Friday is his last day). That leaves just one part time charge RN. Not good. Additionally, two other full time nurses just put in their notices as well. We were down 2 others due to personal leave and another that was open and yet to be filled. We are entering a period of extreme under-staffing.

Largely, what happens on the floor does not affect me any more than my clinic load affected the floor. I didn't get help before, and I most certainly won't now. What it does though is make the goal of expanding services that much more remote. However, it does give me carte blanche to continue to dictate scheduling without regard to anything but my own limitations, because the cavalry aren't coming. So, I will need to just plan to be going it alone for the foreseeable future. Not a fate worse than death or anything, but disappointing as I had so many grander hopes for the clinic and myself. Grander than biding my time and eking through the days and trying to fly under the radar. Oh well. Better than triaging for damn sure!

So, I return to work tomorrow (after a long sick 4 day weekend.............god I hate being sick. Is there any way to feel less fulfilled with a day away from work than to spend it half asleep and half wishing you were?) kind of, if not really sad, downhearted. It seems like my department will never 'get there'...........and even though we were never all that close, it is a bummer to slide back down to being so far away from having full staff.

On the Prius

After spending a week in a Prius, I can say that I do get their appeal. Though they are bland to look at, not terribly fun to drive, and looking out the rear window requires as much guesstimation as anything else with its small bisected rear glass, it does sip gas. On our 900 miles of driving over significant elevation changes, we averaged over 49mpg. Impressive even over flat earth. So, there is that. If you value that above all else, I don't think much compares. Still, it would take a lot to get me to ever consider buying one.

I am not in love with my current car, the Mazda 3. I like it fine, but it is a bit less engaging driving than I had hoped. After driving my Rabbit, which was small, fun, and very peppy, the Mazda seemed overlarge and somewhat sluggish considering its Zoom, Zoom moniker. However, after spending a week in a Prius, the Mazda feels like trying to tame a jet engine. I get it now. It is all in the comparison. I am of average height, but put me next to an NFL lineman and I will look incredibly wee. Put me in a room full of midgets and I will appear towering. The Mazda feels like a true, unadulterated sports car now that I have spent a week in a Prius. Of course, it does get about exactly half the gas mileage.

But, beyond the fuel conservation, there is little to like in the Prius. It isn't attractive and it isn't remotely 'fun' to drive. The braking is mushy and the acceleration is below average. What was, I think, most surprising, was the interior. I knew there would be tradeoffs for good gas mileage, but I didn't think those tradeoffs would be seats with no lumbar support and the lack of features like automatic headlights (they might not come on a Yaris, but even a base level Prius is going to cost you in the low/mid 20s). It has a fun electronic dash with different levels of display, but aside from that, meh. Give me a TDI any day.

On how I ended up listening to a sale's pitch for timeshares (and how the concept still mystifies me)

Vegas is its own animal. I know people say that NYC never sleeps, and maybe they are right, but I didn't find it nearly as pulsing with energy at any point as Vegas seems to be all the time. There is a certain manic energy there that runs through it like too much adrenaline. Everything is loud, ostentatious, flashing, and throbbing with syncopated beats. Its probably why I can only take so much of it. The only silence is sleep and that only comes with the fevered dreams of the chimes of slot machines awash in free watered down booze and the lingering ash tray stench of a thousand bathings in second hand smoke. Even the parking lots blare music and the elevators are constantly entreating you to spend more money in all manner of ways. It is not a place for introspection.

Vegas consistently impresses me in the manner in which they separate us from our money as well. Beyond the well calculated sounds of the slot machines and the psychology of gambling as a whole, they have found myriad ways to strip you of your spending money. Want to go to the pool? free. Would you like to sit in a chair while out there? That'll be $10. Want to lie down in the sun, you'll need the $20 chair. For a cabana, upwards of $100. All the while they come around selling drinks. Oh yeah, and you can gamble out there too. Now many of the resorts are charging a 'resort fee' of $20/day as well. Much like how in Orlando they charge you to park your car on their lot. Of course, as has always weirdly been the case, the more you pay, the less you get. The nicer the hotel, the less chance they will throw in internet, premium movie channels, or even a continental breakfast. Nope, instead internet will run you $15/day, a movie about the same, and breakfast will be provided at startling figures.

As for our actual experience, I would rate it as just okay. Highlights for me were the food at Hash House a Go Go (staggering huge, fun, and delicious food), finding my favorite fishing game slot machine and winning $80 on it, free donut day at Dunkin Donuts, the amazingly nice room at the Golden Nugget for under $70/night, and wandering around the Fremont Experience. Lowlights are the ever present cigarette stench, the people trying to hand you call girl cards all up and down the strip, and the belligerent 'old enough to drink but not old enough to have a lick of sense in their head' drunks at all hours of the day or night. Oh yeah, and the whole time share thing.

So, at our hotel there were a group of suit clad individuals offering up an array of rewards for your time from free shows (or reduced price if you wanted to see something pricey like Cirque) to vouchers for your hotel. Having had precious little luck gambling and deciding it was a good way to get $125 (per couple) to spend how we wished, we opted to give it a shot after being promised on numerous occasions that it would 'be 2-3 hours tops'. After agreeing to do this we gave them $40 (which was 'refunded' after the event) and boarded a bus to the time share. We were then greeted by our salesperson (guide?) who took us to a room with about 20 other couples and their salespeople watched a slick presentation that included donuts, Hershey kisses, and a weird 'Alcoholics Anonymous' piece that had us going around the room introducing ourselves and then clapping for everyone. After an hour of this, we thought we would see the actual units we would be ostensibly buying a portion of..........but not yet. First they bring us upstairs and feed us sandwiches and then go through the carefully orchestrated motions of trying to sell you on it without ever divulging prices. Then they took us on a tour that briefly included the actual place but mostly focused on the casino next door (which had the nearest restaurants and the like). Then, finally, we went back up to the large room (with what had to be about 80 or so couples/families each with their own salesperson around small 4 person tables) where the numbers started to come out.

You would think I would have a pretty thorough understanding of the whole time share thing after that, but I don't. As near as I can tell, you give them anywhere from $9990 to $41990 (financed without credit checks at an astronomical 17.9%) along with varying fees for maintenance and to belong to an international exchange of sorts and then you get 80,000 points which you can exchange for things like 2 weeks in Vegas or 8 weeks in Mongolia or 8 hours in Paris or something plus a fee for that as well and, of course, based on availability. But, for reasons unclear and I have to believe untrue, this place in Vegas was worth more points all year round than, say, Sydney Australia was at any point in time, or Madrid, or just about wherever. The whole thing also included vague discounts that applied to anyone in just about any industry and some weird promise that you get to pass this down to your kids. Only, they never were willing to let us see a contract.

At the end, we were shuffled down to a smaller room where we met with someone who asked us a few rather vague questions about our time there. Then off to another room where we met with a women who cheerlessly gave us our vouchers and were swiftly out the door to wait in a bus for 15 more minutes (if you purchased anything they sent you back in a private limo) until it filled with the other souls who resisted the endless sales pitch. We finally stumbled back into the hotel 5 hours from the time we departed. On the plus side, we turned the vouchers into a fancy dinner and made an additional $30 gambling.

My advice, just skip the whole thing and head to hash house a go go. Way better way to spend your time.

On how I found myself awakening at 3:30 in the AM

Tia brought up a good point about vacations, essentially that it is unfortunate when you get back from some of them and friends and co-workers ask how it was and you have little to say besides 'Well, it was better than being at work.' Our cruise to Mexico was like that. Better than work, but otherwise nondescript. Sedona was a different animal altogether.

Our vacation was broken into 2 parts, so the blog will follow suit. Sedona is/was beautiful. Every picture online of the scenic hikes and gorgeous desert landscape pale in comparison to seeing it in person. We stayed in an inexpensive hotel called the Views Inn which, like every place in Sedona, boasted incredible views. We were less than a mile from Bell Rock (see above) and could see it from the front window in our hotel. The weather could not have been more cooperative as well, staying in the lower end of the 80s (though dipping into the 40s at night). With the exception of a freak wind storm on Sunday (40mph gusts), it was perfect.

For as beautiful and scenic as the hikes were, downtown Sedona was a bit of a letdown. While not horrible, it certainly was chock full of touristy nonsense. Even that, however, doesn't fully explain it. While there were a lot of desert landscapes, dream catchers, and Kokopeli likenesses about, there were also incongruities. For one, they definitely boast an inordinate number of galleries with some pretty high cost items. Though incredibly intricate and fascinating to look at, even the wind catchers could cost upwards of $7K. Also, there were a few curiosity shops at the end of the strip of stores that boasted, and I am not making this up, an immense variety of animal pelts and tales, animal skulls of all kinds, animal toes of all kinds (most real, though some imitation..........which begs a lot of questions both about why anyone would need either, but also confuses me as to the need to have fakes. Is the demand THAT high for badger toes?), feathers and various glass encased insects and reptiles. In a word, effing creepy. Although, if you are ever looking for authentic porcupine quills, I can point you in the right direction.

We also took the opportunity to go hot air ballooning while in Sedona. I was shocked at how smooth the whole thing was and how fine a control the pilot had. We went up as high as 3000 feet and low enough to scrape the tops of the trees and see mule deer and jack rabbits scurry through the scrub brush. It was really amazing. The only downside was they picked us up at 4AM, meaning we were up at 3:30. We spent an hour in the hour and had a champagne breakfast to follow and were the last people dropped off and it was still just shy of 8:30 in the morning. Truly worth it, but there are precious few things I could say that about at that time in the AM.

We also wandered to the Grand Canyon and it was every bit as impressive as I could have imagined. It was so large that it was impossible to gauge it, but it looked as unreal and as perfect as a Hollywood backdrop. We hiked down one of the trails (1.5 miles with a 1000 foot elevation drop..........more impressive than you imagine until you are climbing back up it!) and took copious pictures. One day I will make it back there and hike to the bottom and back up............right after I get in much better shape that is.

Finally, on our way out of Arizona to Vegas, we drove along a piece of true Americana, Route 66. Unfortunately, aside from the Road Kill Cafe we dined in, there was not much to it. Whatever quirk there was had long since evaporated. The 75 miles or so we traveled along it, there were nothing but blink-and-you-miss-em towns and some humorous rhymes provided by Burma Shave. I was really hoping to see the world's largest ball of twine or something.

Next up a complete 180 from peace, tranquility, and natural wonders...........Vegas!

inspections and radon and stolen glasses oh my!

Some days are better than others..........some however are just generally crappy. This morning Tia came in shortly after leaving for work to tell me that someone broke into our car. It isn't clear if it was just unlocked, or if it was if that was a benefit since it meant no broken windows. Bizarrely, they managed to not see my Kindle under the car seat (which I accidentally left in the car), but did steal about $2 worth of change, the car manual (?), and my prescription sunglasses and glasses (??). My only guess is that there is a hefty retail market in second hand store brand glasses or tweakers are dumb.

Shifting topics, we had our house inspection last week. It went spectacularly well. All the work that was done in 2007 and since was evidently done very well. The only thing that came up was a broken light in the basement, the a/c and furnace need servicing, and the outlet on the back of the house doesn't work. However, Tia also insisted upon a Radon test (which is a good thing, but something that I just never really considers). The EPA states that, ideally, you would want your radon levels to be below 2 pCi/l. Most indoor spaces are about 1.3 pCi/l. The level that starts to be problematic is 4pCi/l where the EPA states you should 'fix it'. The results we got today were 4.1. So, we are asking for that and the other problems be fixed. The other fixes are likely less than $400. The Radon however, is closer to $1800. So the game of home buying continues, seeing how much we can get before we get push back from the seller and so we don't have any further outlay of cash. I guess we'll know by Friday. Hopefully before.

4 more days til vacation. I actually have a second person at work this week to boot. It almost like a vacation in itself! More to come as events warrant.

poor people love botulism

Tia and I volunteered at the food bank today sorting out cans of food for the less fortunate. Only, we actually worked helping to sort out pet food, baby food, and what they called pig food. Which, after minimal investigations turns out to be exactly what you think................food that is fed to actual pigs. Now, what may qualify something for pig food you might wonder. It was surprising, well some of it was anyway.

Some things became pig food because they were recently expired, which could be a possible oversight or a genuine (and generally correct) assumption that it is still okay to eat. However, a majority of it fell somewhere between a feeling that, no matter what it was, poor people would rather have it than nothing or a chance to expunge some things from the pantry that, for reasons unknown, they kept around for many years following their expiration, through significant dents and nicks, through water damage that caused rusting, and possibly bulging to twice its original size due to botulism. Amongst them were half eaten boxes of pasta, partially filled bags of flour, a half box of Splenda packets, and a jar of unopened mayonnaise that expired a FULL DECADE ago. Hope it doesn't kill any pigs.

Also, we decided to buy the house. We looked at a few more today and it solidified how nice the one we offered on. Now is when the plug gets pulled and all the money starts to run out. House inspections, earnest money, and all the associated fees that come with loans. But, hopefully it all ends well. More to come as always...........unless I eat some of the donated mayo.

Wishy Washy

What to do what to do? Hem and haw perhaps.

We got our counter offer yesterday. Took our offer and tacked on 5K and called it a good compromise. Only, sometime that same evening our feet started to chill. Then downright freeze they were so cold. What if its a bad deal? What if the price is too dear? Colder and colder our feet grew. By the time the sun peaked out over the horizon we had all but moved on.

But then, after we contacted our agent who played the telephone game by contacting their agent who contacted the seller and informed them of us moving on from the deal, they countered again. This time acquiescing to our initial offer entirely. hmmmm.

So now we feel a bit mixed up. On one hand, the house is 'complete' in ways no other we have seen is (at least in anywhere near what counts as our price range). On the other hand, the location is one thing you can never change. But the location isn't bad per se, just not exactly where we want to be. It is not a bullseye, but it is at least on the board. What thing trumps the other?

I think I need to see it again. And hem and haw in the meantime.

the science of buying things

Today at some point in the AM, offer #2 goes out. This place is further outside of our original 'boundary' of sorts. The dream was to (is to?) find something that allows us both to get to work without driving, or at least not HAVING to do so. The reality is that those houses fall into two distinct categories: too expensive or excessively shitty. The latter varies between slight disrepair and decrepit/abandoned with a lingering smell best described as 'did someone die in here?' The former are often in Irvington or Sabin and would limit us to a diet of ramen and cat food and burning our neighbors recycling for heat. So, we expanded our search.

As Portland is a land of neighborhoods, we are now looking in places like Piedmont. Saying you live in Portland without at least stating your quadrant or, more preferably your neighborhood, is such a vague generality it would be like saying 'meet me in Powell's by the books' without even hinting at genre. Regardless, I am still pretty shocked at the prices, but they are at least in the realm of possibility. It is interesting because even if those neighborhoods, you generally are looking at lackluster schools, the occasional derelict home (it is just a rarer phenomenon, not an absent one), and middling crime rates.

I can only compare this to Florida where the houses around an area pretty much dictate the quality of the school and neighborhood associations dictate that you will keep your house up. The 'neighborhoods' there are usually just tracks of homes with names that often call up memories of what was there before the homes went in like 'Cypress Manor' or 'River of Grass' or what have you. All homes are of a similar age, general size, and general price. It was not common to buy a million dollar home next to a $200K one. Here, it isn't common either, but it is a distinct possibility. Also, that million dollar home could be just a few blocks off a busy intersection or a downright dangerous neighborhood. Its just hard to assimilate here vs. there for me sometimes.

I would write more, but work beckons. Hopefully today I dont have to spend 5 minutes wiping blood off my shoe with clorhexadine like yesterday. Sometimes my job is just like that though (and all the stranger for it).

house no

A full 3 days after our offer (and 2 days after our request/demand of a response for said offer by the next evening around 8ish) we finally heard back from the sellers. Well, the potential sellers I guess would be more accurate, as they won't be selling anything to us. They essentially countered with 'did you see the price we listed it for, that's what we want and intend to get' and 'oh by the way, if you are good with that, we would also like to close early and rent the place back from you at our arbitrarily agreed upon daily rate until such time as we find something to buy ourselves.' To me, they are overplaying their hand. However, I understand that 'charm' has a certain price in this town and they are firmly of the belief that the price they have settled on is it. Not for us however. Will be interesting to see how they fare.

So, the search starts again. We looked at another home just this evening. The pictures were promising, but the reality of it didn't deliver. This was a newer very old house (1906 vs. 1889) that looked like they tried to keep some of the period pieces intact. But, the overall impression was of half done projects abandoned long before completion. I worry when things like a full complement of screws to hold in the front door handle are overlooked. It makes me wonder how much else, less visible, was as well.

We looked for about a year before our last purchase, though we hope it will be less than that this time. More and more crop up every week and we are bound to find one that we love along the way. More posts as events warrant.

house maybe

We have looked at a lot of houses over the past 3 weeks or so. A few really nice ones, but mostly a bunch of misses. Even the nice ones have Achilles Heels like higher than normal taxes or smaller than normal bedrooms. The only one we loved so far had the high taxes and multiple offers. Suffice to say, we moved on.

Today while out on a walk to look at a rather run down place nearby (our hope to find a diamond in the rough that is fixable) we ran into a couple looking at the same who happened to also be selling their home (see picture above). We arranged, thanks to our ever flexible agent Joleen, to see it that day. It misses some targets, no garage and only one bath, but hits most of them, most prominently low taxes, good interior space, the necessary updates (like electrical) and a manageable yard. So, we put in an offer.

The offering game is always an interesting one. Did they tag it with a higher price than they hoped to actually get? If so, how much higher? Are they in a hurry to sell, or will they wait it out a bit? If they counter, what number are we okay with? Much like a game of cards, you have to know when you are in too deep and fold. The biggest problem is the emotional one, and all the time and energy spent looking. Plus, even when you come to an agreement, you always have to wonder if you got a good deal or a bad one. Is there another house just about to come on the market that would be a better fit?

Harder still is trying to find a point of comparison in this area. In King City, there were a lot of similarly aged homes of close enough dimensions to gauge what seemed like a fair number. Here, it is seemingly impossible. First off, because EVERYONE lists basements as square footage, finished or not. Secondly, because block by block you have huge variances in the quality of the neighborhood. Thirdly, because the houses are such disparate ages. How does one compare a house built in 1889 with one built in 1979 or in 2010? Are granite counters and SS appliances and large abundant rooms a good trade off for a neighborhood that is still in the infancy of getting better? And what of the neighbor's house with the derelict car parts strewn about the yard and house paint flaking like so much dandruff? There are no apples to apples here.

Ultimately, we will find out tomorrow late whether they counter, accept, or outright reject our offer. My gut says they don't accept it, but probably don't reject it outright either. We shall see and, of course, I shall post as events warrant. For now, I am tired of signing my name to documents and tired in general as well.