Rocking through summer!

Can't believe that August is almost halfway done! And it really has been pleasant in PDX this year, only a couple 90+ days. In fact we haven't used the AC at all the last few days, normally at least have to run it a few hours in the bedroom to cool/dehumidify it but it's been dropping in the 40s at night. This weekend that'll change with some upper 90 weather but we're on the back side of mean heating days. Not mean as in junkyard dog, mean as in average. August 10th is normally the hottest day of the year, topped out mid-70s yesterday. That is one reason I love, love, love living in the Pacific Northwest!

I am still making Robot-A-Day, over two months in to the project and I still have a lot of ideas, just need the time to do some more intricate ones. Even managed to keep doing one a day while I went to Florida to visit my mom although that meant more drawing than building. But the spirit of it was to stay creative however I needed to.

I need to pull out some more linked 'stuff' for here as I find it, just to keep it interesting for my 3 readers.

Lazy blogger is lazy!

Cripes, not only has social media destroyed my old standby Livejournal it's also destroyed my blogging at all.

The rest of my time in DC was great, loved being able to see the museums and crazy protesters as well as catch up with some good friends. In fact it led to a reunion of some of my shipmates from the Coast Guard out here in Oregon after not seeing most of these guys for 15-16 years.

So I am back in Oregon, while it was an interesting experience I did miss not having my partner around even though she did get a weekend to come out and visit me. And the cat disapproved of my absence.

I have a new domain that I need to get set up RustedSkull.com. It will mostly have my art projects on it, may either embed my blog here or from my Livejournal.

Facebook is nearing extinction in my eyes, I know that if I was concerned about 100% privacy I should kill my account. Sad thing is it wasn't like that when I signed up there in 2006, privacy was pretty strong but membership was super low. As time has gone on things continue to be tweaked for the worse.

Maybe I should have titled this 'manic blogger is manic'. I'm all over the map, but that's what a lack of caffeine in my bloodstream does.

Snowmageddon!

Still going strong here, I am now in Washington DC for work, I'll be here until at least April. Benefit of that? Getting to be part of DC's snowiest winter EVAH! I worked 1 day in the last 8, half day last Friday, half day this Friday. In between was over 30" of snow between two storms. Ca-Ray-Zee!
This is in my neighborhood by Capitol Hill after the first storm, it put about 24" of snow. Then that second storm punched in to dump almost a foot more. The two storms were different types of snow - the first was wet and heavy, the second was drier and drifted all over and created true blizzard conditions with 40mph gusts of wind. I was happy that I'm in an apartment and not a hotel during this, I did get a little cabin fever but nothing like if I'd been in a cookie cutter room of a hotel.

The town is digging out now but the piles will be around for weeks unless there is a real warm up. They've run out of places to store the snow so huge piles are building up on corners and in vacant lots. Officially DC has had 60" or so this winter, but that's at National airport where it gets less snow than other areas, so some parts had much more snow. Fortunately no roof collapses in my neighborhood but there are impressive icicles.

So what am I doing out here anyway? It's a temporary detail as a project manager for the headquarters IT support desk, I'm the liaison between the contract support and the regular staff, basically the point of contact for special requests or when something doesn't go right (or does go right, occasionally). It's an interesting break from my regular work and lets me see a bit of the DC life.

I haven't had much time to enjoy DC that much yet though, by the time I get home from work I am pretty wiped and most museums are closed, and the weekends have been busy as well - went to Florida one weekend to visit my mom, out to Delaware with an old friend from the Coast Guard (and got a snow storm then) and then these storms. I will be pushing to go out today and see some sights. Speaking of which, I should finish my coffee and see what I can go do today.

P.S. - The last two episodes of Leverage are airing, the first has already and the second part is on Wednesday. Look for the tall dockworker, that will likely be me in the background!

3 day weekends. I like them very much.

Had two three day weekends in a row. Labor day weekend and this weekend I took Monday off.

I had a lifelong friend in the Portland area for a Habitat for Humanity workshop and she was able to visit with us briefly. She had to fly back on Sunday for an early Monday doctor appointment so the visit was basically Saturday evening and Sunday morning, but it was fun. Her family used to live down the street from us and they moved when I was about 4 but they remained friends ever since. I visited with them this past May when I was in California for a work trip, I hadn't seen them since at least 1992 so it was great then. And great to visit some more this weekend.

She does want to come back up for another visit to see the sights of Portland. We stopped at the International Rose Test Garden on the way to the airport. It is maintained by the City of Portland parks and rec department and is really a neat bunch of gardens. Great views into town as well since it's up in the hills.

Monday was errand day, trading out a borked cable box and selling some books back to Powells books. Then a dentist appointment to finally finish up my never-ending root canal. This last appointment was to fix the hole in my crown so it was short and Novocaine-less.

Root Canal 1, Me 0

Recovering from an infection brought about by a root canal. I have had two done before on upper teeth and never had a problem. Third time's the charm! Lower root canal was cleared out and the endodontist put some stuff in there to kill off the rest of the roots but the roots had other ideas. Two days later my jaw was swollen up and I was in supreme pain land. Went back and had it prodded and drained (immediate relief) and got a scrip for antibiotics and vicodin.

Took about 3 days for it to really start clearing up and after 5 days I was able to eat food that wasn't in liquid or boiled pasta form. Lost 5 pounds during this time but I don't recommend this method for weight loss. One more day of antibiotics and I'm done with that until next month when I have the follow up/finisher appointment, not sure if he'll put me back on antibiotics as a precaution.

The drag with the antibiotics is having to get my butt up at midnight to take a dose, have to do them every 6 hours. So I am looking forward to Thursday night and hopefully a full night of sleep. Which of course means my neighbors will take that as their cue to throw a mega-bass-rave party.

Blog Whore!

So it seems I can't resist another blogging medium. But at least I NEVER had a MySpace, still have a LiveJournal account but they were always cooler than MySpace, less visual diarrhea.

Not sure what I'll fill this up with, but I'm sure it'll be random until I can settle on some sort of theme. Must check for iPhone blogger apps.....