Today Benjamin and I slept in late (again) and then ran basement-related errands. Now the project is to get Benjamin moved into the new downstairs office. One of the random things I bought when we were at Fred Meyer was copper strip tape to keep away the snails. I put it down around my dahlias. It's weird stuff and I don't know if it's going to stay what with the adhesive+concrete combo.

Friday we bought the carpet remnant we had selected from Great Floors (aka Carpet Exchange). We were going to have them install it but they started adding extra fees and selling us the "good padding" so it was really adding up. So I looked in my saved emails and found the recommendation for a carpet installer (Tyson Scott). He charged the same minimum price but with no extra fees and he was willing to throw in a medium-good pad for free. And he agreed to come Saturday morning and install the carpet. He did just that and now the carpet is installed and looks great.

Saturday evening Benjamin and I went to my friend Leanne's wedding. My mom & Rich were there, too. It was a very nice wedding with touching toasts, delicious food, and a beautiful bride. More photos.

Nora from Port Angeles sent me photos of her pugs (the parents). More photos.

It turns out that one of the tuners in our new living room Tivo is dead. I called DirecTV and they sent a new one. Some idiot delivery man left it right at the top of the stairs like an advertisement - "Tivo DVR here, free for the taking!" Especially nice when three feet to the left there's a large expanse of porch that's not visible to passersby.

Last Sunday Howard Dean was on Meet the Press. As always, he was very good. It made me wish he'd been our candidate, or better yet the President. You can watch the video or read the transcript.

It's sheet time. It's record-breaking hot here in Seattle. Last night we sleep under just a top sheet. Then this morning I put a bed sheet up over the sliding glass doors to keep out the heat during the day. It's my highly sophisticated system.

Check out those sharps! This is a pug puppy at a breeder's house in Port Angeles. I am considering these puppies as well as the ones in Idaho.

Laura Bush roasts George W.

I just finally watched this video of Laura Bush roasting her husband, the Bushes, and others in the administration. She also refers to herself as a 'desperate housewife'. The clip is about 12 minutes long and it is well worth the time. I gasped and laughed out loud repeatedly. You can also read the transcript or watch The Daily Show's commentary on Laura's speech (a few minutes into this cip).

Tee hee he.

On a more positive note the new glass shower door is in and looks very nice.

Todd put in the pedestal sink today and it isn't centered with the lights and medicine cabinet. Todd called to tell me about it and I said we'd look when we get home (though there's no easy fix). Once Benjamin saw it he was livid. He was pissed off all evening. Lucky for Todd he's out of town all weekend so Benjamin will have time to cool off before confronting him about it.

The bathroom fixtures are in and the water is running! I even tested the toilet. ;)

Wednesday morning I went to my last regularly scheduled osteopath appointment (I can still go back as needed). Dr. Lindsay recommended I try feldenkrais - a gentle movement awareness therapy.

Friday afternoon after I got home from the morale event and checked mail and whatnot, I went for a walk to the library and I went fence and garden shopping in the neighborhood. :-)

Tuesday we had a User Experience (UX) team morale event - we did a cooking class at Kaspar's Restaurant on lower Queen Anne. It was fun and the multi-course meal was delicious.

Grouty grouty!

The dahlias I planted are coming up! Now I just have to convince the snails that dahlias are not yummy. I don't want to kill them and I don't want to use chemicals that animals might ingest (the dahlias are next to the sidewalk). But I heard about strips of copper you can use that the snails don't like because snail slime + copper = snail zap!

We're trying to pick out carpet. This is the remnant that Benjamin and I could both agree on (we didn't like any of the stock standards). Once I got the sample home I had second thoughts - I'm afraid it looks too casual and it makes the basement seem cheaper and more like a "rompus room" than the current, fairly sophisticated, style of the finishings. However, after a few days it grew on me again and I don't think I'm going to find anything much better that is also practical in terms of not showing dirt and taking wear well.

The bath surround starts to look really good.

I'm watching a television show that's so wholesome I mistook a JIF peanut butter commercial for the show when fast-forwarding through the commercials. :-

Senate Confirmed Priscilla Owen

Today the Senate approved the controversial nomination of Priscilla Owen after a filibuster was ended — the result of a "compromise" by 14 senators Monday night. Democrats filibustered Owen's nomination twice in the past four years, and it is worth noting that they again garnered more than the 41 votes needed to maintain a filibuster, had that option not been removed by the compromise. Read complete NOW press release.

Mom and Rich rented their little house today to a nice couple with a dog and a cat. I think they move in on June 1st. :-)

Erik just sent me the link to a sweet little Flash piece with photos of little Amelia. He also gave me a link to the pictures that Cory took the day that he and I hung out with Claire, Erik & Amelia. I have yet to post my photos from that date...

I went for a walk after I got home and Benjamin and I looked over the basement. While on my walk I took pictures of flowers, fencing, railing, and kitties. I also listened to my book on CD (currently Emma's Secret). More photos.

Saturday I went to my mom's house and spent the night. We hung out and ate and whatnot. I went with them to their old house while they showed the house to potential renters. While I did all this Benjamin spent Saturday night at his friend Jon's house and their friend Aaron was visiting from Longview. Then this afternoon Benjamin went to see the latest Star Wars movie with his parents. Given that I skipped a paid opportunity to see the movie Friday, I still opted out of seeing it and stayed at my mom's house until evening. More photos.

I cleaned the kitchen from 2-3 AM Saturday morning before going to bed.

I was taking pictures of the remodel this evening and I ended up with this picture that I like.

Shhh....

My entire division, along with thousands of others around the country, are currently watching the new Star Wars movie. I decided to stay and work instead and then go home early. That's my "morale event". ;-) It is so quiet here that it's almost like working on a weekend.

The floor in the entryway, laundry closet and bathroom are all tiled and now they're working on the bathtub surround. Progress is slower than planned, though. There's no way they'll be done tomorrow; they probably won't even get to grouting until Monday. :(

Tuesday after finishing the electrical work and handywork tasks Mike organized things in the crawlspace for us. Then early Wednesday morning Benjamin drove him to the train and he returned to Longview. One more phase finished.

It rained really hard on and off all day today. I took this video outside work today.

Tell Congress to Keep Partisan Pressure off PBS

Did you hear about PBS forcing Bill Moyers to retire because he's too liberal? Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and a close friend of Bush right hand man Karl Rove, has told CPB and PBS officials that "they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate." Take action now.

Resurgent bigotry troubling, dangerous

A local rabbi wrote a recent opinion piece in response to HB 1515's failure to pass. Here's an excerpt from the article: The bill did not seek state support for gay marriage. It simply added "sexual orientation" to the list of groups worthy of legal protections from discrimination. It addressed a fundamental issue of human rights, and through their resistance to even a modicum of civil protection, opponents revealed their contempt for the basic humanity of gays and lesbians. They no longer merely hate the "sin" but have embraced a dehumanization of the "sinner" as a rallying cry and unifying theme... Bigotry and hatred, like dignity and decency, knows no boundary of color, creed, or sexual orientation. Fundamentalism is an equal opportunity poison.

Mobile blogging

That last very in-depth post was sent from my cell phone. Now I can post to my blog using my cell (including pictures, which I hope works this time). You can too - learn more at go.blogger.com.

Hi.

I let the mail pile up and then finally went through the stack Monday night.

Chyler Leigh is hot. She's guest starring on an old episode of 7th Heaven that I'm, embarrasingly, watching. I'm not sure why she's so familiar to me since I've haven't seen much, if anything, that she's been in. I think maybe she reminds me of (also hot) Eliza Dushku. What can I say, we American girls get envy and desire all tangled up in our minds.

Last night Benjamin and I had dinner with Miller and Nathan. Miller leaves for Cairo in a week. She'll be gone for a year this time, though she'll be back for a month in August. She's working toward a PhD at the UW (in comparative religion, I believe) and will be studying Arabic in the prestigious CASA program at The American University in Cairo.

Alan sent me this photo from Ben H's Going Away dinner. It prompted me to post my photos from Ben's going away dinner, too.

WAYNE LYNCH & AUBREY LANG It's possible the missing puppy was taken by an owl. :-\

My mom posted more photos from the Pug Gala.

Legislation to keep student names & phone numbers out of the military's hands

In the No Child Left Behind act there was a provision compelling schools to turn over the names and phone numbers of all students unless the student's family had specifically requested them not to. This is the opposite of the previous rule. There's a congressman proposing legislation to reverse this change in rules. There are also instructions for how to opt your child out. Go to LeaveMyChildAlone.org.

The Remodeling Guys worked Monday through Thursday this week but the carpenter wasn't working on Friday so they didn't come Friday. Today they worked more than 12 hours, planning to finish everything up today. They didn't quite finish everything, but things are coming along and looking great. Mike also worked more than 12 hours today and got all the lighting and some of the electrical outlets done. We're almost there!

Today I went to the Seattle Pug Gala at Magnuson Park with my Mom, Rich & Carol. Natalie and her girlfriend Monica met us there, too. It was really strange to see so many pugs at once. It wigged me out that they were all so much the same; like it undermined their specialness and uniqueness. But as the afternoon wore on I kind of got used to it and regained my ability to see their differences. More photos.

Uncle Mike arrived Thursday night to do the final electrical work in the basement plus a few other odds and ends. He's installing the electrical outlets and lighting fixtures.

Friday afternoon Emilio & I left work early. When I got home I embarked on 4+ hours of errands, playing catchup on household chores. I went to the library to return some books and look at quilt books. We need to select a quilt pattern for our wedding quilt from Davonna. It also turned out that a hold was in for me, a book called Happy Dog. Then I took our clothes to Hogan's for wash & fold service since our washer & dryer are still out of commission what with the basement remodel. Next I took our towels and bath mat to Brice & Emilio's house since they said I could use their washer and dryer while they're out of town (thank you!). Next came Trader Joe's where I bought Mochi and flatbread crackers. On to Petco for crickets since the toads desperately need to be fed. Then I headed to the U Village and went to Bartell's for a prescription and sundries. I bought a copy of The Other End of the Leash, supposedly the book on dog behavior, at Barnes & Noble. Finally I went to QFC where I bought 5 bags of groceries to replace the ruined food from the fridge incident and restock after an extended hiatus from grocery shopping. I swung by Brice & Emilio's to switch the towels to the dryer and then went home to unpack my goods. By then I was too tired to cook any of the food I bought.

I haven't mentioned a recent problem we had with our contractor. I don't blame the general contractor, but I do think his guys were in the wrong. The Saturday I went to Claire's house the guys were working all day and into the evening. I got home late that night and, for once, didn't snack before bed. The next day I had one snack from the fridge. The sour cream wasn't its freshest, but I didn't think anything of it since I frequently leave it out of the fridge a little longer than I should. Sunday night I had a hankering for a popsicle and opened up the freezer. Melted popsicles poured out of the freezer, down the fridge door, and onto the kitchen floor. After a few moments of shock I realized the refrigerator wasn't humming. It wasn't as cold as it should've been. My loud swearing attracted Benjamin's attention so he went downstairs to check the electrical breaker. It was turned off. On Saturday I had asked Marcos to tell his workers not to turn off any breakers without warning us first. Previously they'd turned off breakers on multiple occasions without warning and on at least one occasion didn't turn it back on. Since most of the breakers aren't labeled, and the workers don't speak English, I was concerned that they might turn off a circuit with a computer on it. The fact that this fridge incident happened immediately after this was extra frustrating. Needless to say, I was pissed. I began pulling ruined food out of the freezer and fridge and throwing it in the trash and down the garbage disposal. I made a list of all the ruined food and figured it was about $50 worth of stuff. Monday morning I called Marcos, the contractor, to tell him about the incident. I thought that they guys had turned it off during their work and forgotten to turn it back on. But Marcos said it must have been an accident caused by their tools tripping the breaker. I hadn't considered this so I backed off my original intention of making Marcos pay for the food. When I talked to Benjamin a bit later he pointed out that the guys would've known if they blew a circuit since their tool would've quit working immediately. He also said he has seen them manually turn off the breakers while they were working on multiple occasions. Hrmph. I never called back or pushed the issue in person. I don't like that type of confrontation and I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with Marcos unless it's important. I want our basement to be finished well and I want the website project for Marcos to go smoothly. Some people may be surprised by this shyness and reticence for confrontation since I am frequently very opinionated, forthright, and persistent.

Pugnapped!

So, it turns out that there were two girls in the litter of puppies. One was already gone and the other was spoken for but not paid for. There was a window of opportunity to pony up money and sneak to the front of the line. I tried. But then...the pug was stolen out of the breeder's yard!!! What kind of person steals a puppy for God's sake? I know they're worth a chunk of money but it just feels so wrong. Much worse than stealing an inanimate object. The breeder had given her address to the man that wanted the girl puppy. I get the sense that the breeder thinks he is the one who took her. It is awfully coincidental that it was that specific pug that was stolen and that the breeder can no longer get ahold of the man. I hope the police catch him and charge him with theft and some sort of animal kidnapping or something. Yea, that probably doesn't exist, but I still wish it.

The painting is 99% done and our sweet new flooring is in! I just posted a bunch of pictures from the last 3 weeks of progress in the basement remodel gallery.

Wednesday night I had dinner out with my co-workers to say goodbye to Mike, who is going to another team, and to congratulate Bill on 10 years at the company. We ate at the Ipanema Brazilian Grill, which is a total meat-o-rama. There are guys with huge cuts of meat running around the restaurant trying to foist various meats onto you at all times. You have a little card on the table that is green on one side and red on the other. Green=bring me meat. It's wild. Benjamin and I once went to a place like that in Aruba but I didn't know there was one in Seattle. Fascinating.

These are current puppies from the breeder where my mom got Carol. I'm not sure yet whether they're from the same mom and dad. Unfortunately they're all boys and I was hoping for a girl. Not sure how long it would be until the next litter... I emailed to ask.

Next to Maggie the hellerworker's porch this rose was blooming boldly and covered with delicate raindrops.

I got my second patent award today. I have a couple more possible patents brewing, too. Go me.

I am so tired of eating lunch at the cafeteria. I have been eating there way too much lately since I haven't been cooking (no leftovers), I don't drive everyday (no way off campus) and I'm too busy to get away for a long lunch.

Sunday evening I took the bus home from Tacoma and Benjamin picked me up in downtown Seattle. It's a suprisingly fast trip. Afterward we went to dinner at Six Arms on Capitol Hill with Alan.

Saturday afternoon Benjamin and I drove to Tacoma for Rich's 60th birthday party. It was a big bash and we had a nice time. I stayed overnight along with my brother and we hung out and had breakfast with our mom today for Mother's Day. I actually stayed until almost 6pm. I snuggled the pug and got mom set up posting photos on my website. More photos.

FDA set to ban gay men as sperm donors

I hate our government. It is infested with bigots who think nothing of making sweeping generalizations that affect the rights and positive perception of all members in a given group. Hate them! Hate them! What country do we live in again? Read the MSNBC article FDA set to ban gay men as sperm donors.

Prominent Gay Microsoft Employee Quits

Microsoft's decision to stop supporting HB1515 is really blowing up. Read the latest Stranger article on the saga - The Lying Game, Prominent Gay Microsoft Employee Quits, as More Evidence Emerges That Microsoft Caved to Anti-Gay Minister.

Yesterday Benjamin and I carpooled in to work and back. Benjamin left his keys in my car. I put them in my bag because I didn't want a key to my car to be left inside the car. We went about our days. This morning I carpooled to work with Brice & Emilio as usual. Around 8:30 Benjamin called and pointed out that I had his keys. He has no spare key or alarm remote. I had to go get him. I borrowed Brice & Emilio's car and headed back toward Seattle. On the freeway I had a realization: my car is at home; Benjamin should just drive my car. So I called and told him where my spare key and alarm remote are and then he drove my car to work. Crisis averted. So how come I still feel intensely cranky?

This evening I got out the Romaine lettuce Claire gave me on Saturday to make a salad. I When I pulled the lettuce out of the fridge and out of the bag I found a lady bug inside. It was all balled up and not moving but I took it out onto the porch and after a few moments in the sun the lady bug awoke and started crawling around. Lady bugs are such cheerful bugs.

In the evening Sunday Benjamin and I went to dinner at Daniel's Broiler on the south shore of Lake Union. Then we walked along the docks before heading home to watch a movie on the couch.

Sunday was Benjamin and my one year wedding anniversary. I slept in obscenely late while my sweet husband went out and bought me beautiful flowers and breakfast.

Saturday, once the workers were well underway, I went to Claire & Erik's house. Their friend Cory was in town visiting, too. The four of us spent the day hanging out, playing with Amelia, walking at Lincoln Park, and eating. Cory and I kept Claire and Erik up way too late for new moms & dads. I have lots more photos and Cory took a bunch with his D20 (drool!) so I will post those later when I have more than two seconds.

Marcos and his guys came again Saturday and kicked butt. They fixed the exterior door (it swelled in the heat). They cut the concrete for the crawl space door. They hung the two regular doors and put in the kits for the bi-fold and bypass doors. They built access panel doors for the networking closet and hot water heater access. They put up all the trim. And they primed everything.

It hasn't been all warm days and sunshine...

Friday night Benjamin and I went to dinner with a whole bunch of people at Ho Ho Seafood in the International District to say "Bon Voyage!" to Ben H. Ben H. is going to work on a fishing boat until November.

There was a delay in the construction because the final coat of mud on the sheetrock took several days to dry since the basement is cold. On Wednesday/Thursday the sheetrocking was finally complete.

Wednesday, after my car was broken into for the second time in two weeks, I made these flyers. Wednesday evening I put the flyers on the cars on my street from the intersection south of us to the intersection north of us and a little bit around the corner. 100 cars.

The weather has been nice most of the time lately - warm and sunny. Our wisteria is blooming wildly. The entire back yard smells of spring.

Microsoft demos Auxiliary Display

One of the features of Longhorn that I've been working on for many months was demoed at the WinHec Conference here in Seattle last week. Read more and see a couple of photos in this Engadget article.