The Wind in My Hair...

Ed and I went for our first motorcycle ride of the season last night. We both hauled ass home so we could get in at least an hour ride.

We didn't go far; just up over the Ridge, on to I-90 to North Bend, to 2o2 and stopped at the Snoqualmie Brewery for a sandwich and beer.

It feels like forever since we've been on the bikes... I hope that it stays nice so that we can continue our nightly rides.

Biting the Bullet

So I joined Weight Watchers tonight. I guess I've finally resigned myself to the fact that no, this fat is not coming off of my body by osmosis.

I've always been of the school of thought that you should be able to do this by yourself with determination and an iron will. But apparently this is not the case. If you really think about it should an alcoholic try to quit drinking on their own? Or, should a smoker try to quit smoking on their own? And if they did, would it stick for any amount of time?

I need the support and accountability. I need the skills. (Guys like girls with skills.... bow fighting skills, nunchuk skills, computer hacking skills...) So, I'm biting the bullet and dragging this fat ass out of bed at 8:00 Saturday morning in order to attend my first meeting.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Beers and Boards 2008

Click on the link to see a great slide show of our Beers and Boards 2008 trip.
http://s275.photobucket.com/albums/jj319/2stout4me/?action=view&current=0fb2c7d8.pbw

Home Sweet Home

Holy Cow! I can't believe that we are actually home from our nine freakin' day trip! That is way too long to be living out of a suitcase. If I never see another restaurant again it will be too soon. I never thought that I would get so much pleasure from actually eating a sandwich from bread. Out of my refrigerator. Without mayo. And tomatoes. And onion.

I was, however, smart enough to put fresh sheets on our bed before we left so we were able to come home to new sheets. There is nothing I love more than new sheets on a bed. And puppy breath. And newly cut grass.

We spent the last days of our trip in Sandpoint, Idaho with Kim and Paul Van Atta. They flew to Spokane, rented a car and drove to Sandpoint to meet us. They skied with Ed on Friday and Saturday and I think that they had as good of time as Ed did. He was so excited that he actually had someone that he knew to ski with. He told me that Paul and Kim were great skiers and that they were fairly evenly matched.

We also spent a great deal of time drinking in microbreweries in Sandpoint. (I know, duh... that's why we call it Beers and Boards.) Friday night we ate at Mick Duffs http://www.mickduffs.com/ . Amazing beer and great food. Saturday night we went to the Laughing Dog Brewery http://www.laughingdogbrewing.com/ and actually closed down the joint. Our new friend Bruce stayed open one and one half hours after their closing time for us. Such a nice guy and really great beer. I think that our favorite was their CSB or better known as Crotch Sniffing Bastard. Great ESB. We asked Bruce where we should go and eat dinner and he sent us to a sports bar called Slates. Again, we shut the place down. I ended up being the D.D. so it was great fun watching the other three get squinty eyes and really loud. Zev (our GPS) took us back to the hotel where we shut it down for the night.

Apparently Paul had had a little too much fun because the next morning at breakfast he told us that he woke up at 3 AM with vomit coming out of his nose. Good times! I nearly choked on my raisin bran I was laughing so hard.

We hit two more breweries on our way home, the Cour de Lane (I know that I didn't spell that correctly) brewery and the Northern Lights in Spokane. The first wasn't open, and the second wasn't much to write home about.

We got home and had to do a hot lap for Ed to get him ready to leave for Wenatchee on Monday. For three days!

Nanny, nanny boo boo! He gets to sleep in a hotel and eat in a restaurant for 3 more days! (Laughs with the Dr. Evil Laugh) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9RxU_5_c8M

Bummer for him!

Beers and Boards 2008

We are on day 6 of our trip... I can't believe that we have been gone that long. It seems like we've only been gone a few days.

Our trip started by visiting two fun breweries in the tri-cities area. The first was Whistran in Prosser. If you are a Jack Black fan, you should visit this brewery. Brian, one of the brewers, looked just like Jack Black (have you seen the scene in High Fidelity where he dances?). He gave us a tour and sent us on to Ice Harbor Brewery in Richland. (http://www.iceharbor.com/). Great food and awesome beer. Everyone was so nice and Ed did get to tour that one as well.

We hauled ass to Kuna, looking forward to some entertainment (ie: bikini barrel racing) but found out that the cover was $15 per person. Apparently there isn't $15 of entertainment to see at the bikini barrel races so we decided to see the booming metropolis of Kuna and hung out in a local establishment called the Red Eye. We even got to hear some of the locals singing karoke. Scott and Amy (oh hell no. Not me!) from our group also sang and I must say that they were the best in the bar. We tried to get Mark to sing, we even put $72 on the table and he still wouldn't do it. We spent Sunday watching the Daytona 500 and eating some of Brad's dutch oven cooked prime rib. Yum-yum.

Monday Ed and I went up to Bogus Basin mountain and he skied. I sat in the lodge and graded all of the papers in my school bag. We met Suzy and Brad at the Table Rock Brewery for dinner before heading up to McCall. It was awesome seeing Brad and Suzy. I miss her daily.

Tuesday was spent skiing at Brundage mountain. I sat in the lodge and read a book. The weather was beautiful and Ed said that it was the best skiing he's ever had at Brundage. We had to be off the mountain by 3:00 because Ed had to make a business call and there was no cell service on the mountain. We spent Tuesday night at the Lewiston Super 8.

Unfortunately there was no Ranger voice to wake me up Wednesday morning. Ed also had to make another work call, which we did from Orofino. (I love to say the name of that town!) We drove over Lolo Pass into Missoula, Monatana. When we were almost to the top of the pass, we saw this small red truck in front of us slide on the ice and slam into the snow that the snow plow had plowed to the right of the road. The damn truck almost tipped over on it's driver's side! Scared the living crap out of us! We stopped to make sure that the occupants were fine, which they were, and offered our help, which wasn't needed. We stopped at the top of the pass, took the obligatory picture and went pee.

When we finally arrived in Missoula, we were able to visit the Kettlehouse Brewery http://www.kettlehouse.com/, and the Bayern Brewery http://www.bayernbrewing.com/ . Both have really great beer. We'd visited the Kettlehouse last year on our way through but hadn't been to the Bayern. They brew the traditional German brew style, so lagers only. Their best beer was their Dopplebock but they also had a dark Hefeweizen that was amazing.

After visitng those two breweries, we headed north towards Whitefish. On the way, we stopped in Poulson at Glacier Brewing Company, http://www.glacierbrewing.com/. We hadn't stopped last year so we were really surprised to see that they had built a really great tasting room. We got to talking to one of the owners and he told us of a new brewery in Lakeside called Tamarack Brewing Company, http://www.tamarackbrewing.com/. He said that they had really great food so of course , we had to stop. As we were sitting there having dinner, we kept seeing the patrons leaving the brewery and going outside. I said to Ed, "What's the matter with these people? They keep leaving. They are weird." Come to find out, there was a lunar eclipse, which I new, but, was spacing off. When we left and saw the eclipse, we laughed because I'd been making fun of everyone leaving the restaurant to go and look at it. Duh.

We spent this morning with Ed on a business call then hightailed it up to Big Mountain. Ed skied for an hour, came in for another business call then spent the afternoon skiing the backside of the mountain. I continued to read my book.

We drove to Marion, MT to visit the Lang Creek Brewery (http://www.langcreekbrewery.com/) but they were closed at 5. Bummer.

We are now sitting in the Super 8 in Sandpoint, (and no Tina, we aren't putting our heads on the pillows or touching the floor with our feet) waiting for Paul and Kim Van Atta to meet us to ski with Ed tomorrow.

I'm tired of eating out and I've probably gained 110 pounds. I can't wait to get back home so I can go to the gym!

Wonder Twin Powers... ACTIVATE!

Today I assisted my friend's daughter, Binta, in trying to locate a lost Webkin. Webkins have become very popular with the elementary school crowd and many kids are bringing them to school in their backpacks. Binta, however, had sadly misplaced hers. We looked high and low. We even went back to her classroom to see if maybe her teacher was still there so she could search her cubby once more. Alas, Ms. Mosti wasn't there.

Binta really had a sad face going then. She explained to me that she REALLY needed her Webkin and didn't want to wait until tomorrow when Ms. Mosti would be there because she really needed the webkin NOW.

I, of course, did the sad adult face and agreed that it was a bummer that the Webkin was missing and told her that I was sure that she was sad.

We got back to Tiffany's room to explain to her where we'd been and where we'd looked, but, still, no Webkin. Binta continued to talk more about the missing Webkin and Tiffany and I were both suitably sad with her, Tiffany mentioning that SHE was sad because the Webkin cost $14.00.

All of a sudden, Binta exclaims, "Good idea Binta!"

As she walked over to the table that held her backpack, she proceeded to tell us the plan that she had just hatched. She was going to go through her backpack ONE MORE time just to make sure that it wasn't in there. She began by pulling out her enormous lunch box and the coat that was underneath it.

Binta: OK guys, are you ready?

Tiffany and I said that we were and that we were going to double cross our fingers for her. Which we did, holding our crossed fingers in front of our eyes, while squeezing them shut.

Taking a huge breath and blowing it out (for dramatic effect, of course), Binta shoved her hand into the deepest recesses of her backpack. The look and exclamation of PURE JOY that came from Binta was priceless!

Binta: WOW! It was in here!

Tiffany and I both exclaimed our pleasure at her finding the lost Webkin, so happy that she had really had it all along.

Binta: Thank you Mom! I didn't know that you guys had the powers to do that! YOU did that!

Big hugs for both of us.

Binta: This is a dream come true!

Butt Crack Capitol of the World

We have a local bar in Snoqualmie called Smokey Joe's. This fine establishment has been around since my parents were in high school. My dad frequented this place when he was younger and full of piss and vinegar (and not at all deaf or tired) and still will once in awhile. We got my mom to go in there once during Snoqualmie Days about 12 years ago. I have to say that that was the first time I'd seen my mom in a bar. I also have to say that it was the last...

Smokey Joe's is not the most beautiful bar... It's really not even very clean. There's a stuffed and dusty coyote on the ceiling in there and lots of various old time logging tools hanging all over the place. Last night, we saw that the ceiling had been adorned with the most gigantic bra I have ever seen. (A beatutiful addition that hadn't been there the night before.) There is even a rumor that a rat fell out of the ceiling and into the fryer back in the "kitchen". (I think that it's not even a rumor because there is now a piece of corrugated tin in the ceiling over where the fryer used to be... )

But the thing that I believe Smokey Joe's is now famous for is butt crack. Now, this butt crack is not the plumber kind. That's "working class" butt crack and you always have to expect some crack when you have a guy under your sink trying to fix something that you've "f-ed" up or crawling around under your house trying to find the gas line. Those guys tend to be rather rotund and they have to buy pants that fit up over their bellies. The consequence of buying pants this big is that they then bag out over their non-existant butts. Thus, we have the working class butt crack.

No, my friends, this butt crack phenomenon is becoming more and more common among the 20-something crowd. I think that it's become a badge of honor with this crowd to see how much crack they can show with out actually being naked.

We usually see the not so elusive butt crack on girls who have the desire to wear pants or skirts so low or short that they might as well be wearing just a belt instead of the skirt or pair of pants they actually have on. The boys can also have this butt crack syndrome, however, their butt crack show is much more subtle. The boys tend to wear their pants belted around the middle of their asses so that their boxer shorts are hanging out of the top. It's a fashion statement! But, then they sit, and inevitably the pants drag the boxers down and then you get to see the long expanse of butt crack and usually hairy butt.

At Smokey Joe's they have a row of bar stools along the bar and a row of booths on the opposite wall. It's always more comfortable to sit in the booths even though they slant toward the wall and if you are wearing anything slippery, you find yourself crammed against the wall like a carnival ride from the people sitting on the outside sliding into you. I've decided that sitting at the bar is much more palatable if you are not at all interested in seeing the butt crack of your neighbors and friends. However, if you are anything like me, and are drawn to the butt crack animal, you have contests to see how many butt cracks are in attendance at any one time. In the last two nights (yes, I've been at Smokey Joe's the last two nights), I've seen the butt cracks of 7 individuals all of whom were under the age of 25. And once, last November, I thought that I was going to see the butt crack of what I thought was a pretty cute boy. He sat down at the bar and I got the surprise of my life. No, there was not a butt crack to be seen anywhere on this boy. I got to see the almost extinct "man thong" hanging out of the back of his pants. I actually was a camera sniper and took a picture of this phenomenon.

I had to have proof, right? I mean, who would have believed me?

Princess What?!?!?

The Princess Bride has to be one of my favorite movies along with The Wizard Of Oz. I wish they would have sent this version to the theaters...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyA9sPJIFhA

I know, I know... Totally juvenile humor... Who said I was anything else?