Now that we're all caught up...

I just want to remind everyone that I fucking hate people.
People are the worst.

They'll cut you off, steal your parking space, waste your time, get in your way, and bore the hell out of you and never lose a minute's sleep over it.
It's all about me me me.
Everyone is fucking special.




I'm fucking special.

CSI season premier

Sucked ASS! (high pitch sing song)

Sara lives. So what. She is still leaving after 5 episodes. Bitch.

Here's a guarantee:

15 years from now, Jorja Fox will be on "Where are they now?" talking about how stupid she was for leaving a top rated show over a contract dispute so she could pursue.... NOTHING!

Those who forget the past.....

But besides that it was just terrible. I've never seen a worse episode.

Was that a shark?

Super Secret Meeting with the Commish

Also so referred to Happy Hour.
At the golf coarse in Tukwila, no less.
And it was packed! Who are all these idiots hanging out at the golf coarse?!...in Tukwila!?
Whatever.

We had mini pulled pork sandwiches, potato skins, and garlic hot wings.
We didn't learn a damn thing from poor Mr. Bossett (dead guy at Eastlake Grill.)

Only because the Commish's b-day is nigh, Steve manned up and had two shots of Tequilla with us.

All three of us have issues with our FF Running Back situation. I have three very startable backs. Steve and Bruce do not.
I would laugh it up except my Wide Recievers are a bunch of cans. I've got Terrell, Lameass #1, and Lameass #2. I am so going down this week.

Off to Suburban Starbucks. Lot's of cops there. Good thing we hadn't been drinking.
I know it's just Starbucks, but they have a pumpkin muffin to die for. Seriously. I left after a few hours to let the boys catch up on obscure music trivia and politics.

FF Week 3 Wrap-up

TPE is the only undefeated team in LOIN.
This situation won't last long (interleague play starts now) but I will always have that to hold over everyone's head. That's really all that's important.

Smith- Day 2

8 a.m. start.
More fake coffee, instant oatmeal, and PB&J.

I led Bunny Face for the 4th time. I did it mostly w/o whining. This is a big deal for me.

Josh put up a nice 5.9 corner with a crazy traverse and a downclimb that Steve had to clean. Lot's of whining ensued.

Steve put up Helium Woman and Captain Zenelith. More whimpering. I actually covered my eyes for a moment. He powered through.

Shelly did not let him rest on his laurels, though, and psychobabbled him into leading Moonshine Dihedral. The best climb ever! Pure stemming for almost 100 feet.
Nice! Climbing season is officially salvaged.

Had to leave early cos Shelly was in the unusual position of having to go to work on Monday. Her and Josh packed up and took off. Steve and I bought matching pants (we are so into matching these days) at the Boulder Comp festival and headed to Bend to watch some football. Saw the Seahawks pull out a nail biter and tried to calculate our FF scores.

Steve had had the foresight to find a rec center with a pool in Bend since we got shut out in Squamish last weekend. We drove around frantically to locate it and got there just in time to get a swim in. With the exception of the Monkey Bars, Bend has an even nice set up than Squamish. A heated pool outside. We got some laps in and some hot tub time. Then found another bar and watched the late game. Terrell did not let me down. After much hemming and hawing, Steve and I halved a steak. Steak is good. Garlic steak is better.

Long drive home.

Smith- Day 1

It's been an unusually rainy summer in Seattle and the few nice stretches have been precisely timed not to coincide with many climbing trips.
This has not affected me personally at all. But Steve and Josh have been feeling persecuted.
This trip to Smith was turning into the Holy Grail. A last ditch effort to save their season. Men are so cute with their goals and whatnot.
I was excited about camping and Shelly was excited about beer.
Everyone got what they wanted on Saturday.

Josh got an 11b he's been looking at for a year now.

Whartley's Revenge. A very burley dihedral. I made Steve lead a 5.6 flake so I could get up on top to take some pics. I got a few and then my camera went dead. Way to plan ahead, Dumbass.

Steve put up a heinous 10a/b face problem, which I hated.... but it was impressive.

Shelly and I cheered. Partly cos we were proud of the guys and partly cos that meant it was time to go to Deschutes.

A brief "I forgot my ID in the tent" scare ensued. We made work around plans. False alarm. Everyone got their beer, burgers, and ribs. Had some Thai hot wings that were unbelievable. Not quite nuclear but Sue would've had to keep her distance.

Too tired for Patron shots. Big day!

Smith- The Drive Down

So by now, my PBF and I are old hands at long trips together.
No surprise that the 6+ hour drive to Terrabone went smoothly. I met Steve at his house after we both got our exercise in. I stopped on the way and purchase some adult diapers so I wouldn't have to violate the one-stop rule.
We made good time and rolled in and set up camp by 9.
Even peppy enough to run into Redmond and get some drinks and nachos at Mazatlan.
It may be a chain but they ain't scaird to put some cheese on their nachos.
Good thing we went to the trouble of going to the gym. Always just breaking even....

So Steve is basically indebted to me for the rest of his life....

And here's why.



I snagged this off ebay for $260! including shipping.
It was a 'buy it now' situation and for some reason I had left my wallet in my truck so I had to sprint down and back up 9 flights of stairs with Chuck and Gina (and anyone in my path) wondering what the fuck just happened.
But I got it and the guy lived in Issaquah and brought it to me. Sweet! Brand new, tags and warranty card still attached.

Btw... does this board look slightly familiar? It should. It fucking looks almost exactly like mine! Now we just need two long sleeve fleece shirts that say "I'm with Stupid."

FF Week 2 Wrap-up

TPE vs Corn Cob Justice

The Explosions won the only way they know how... low rent style. Posting a winning score lower than that of all three losers in other games, it was enough to get by the Justice who took a big risk on Chris Brown and paid for it. The Romo/Owens combo outscored the Manning/Harrison duo with a slightly better matchup. The San Diego D looks to have better days ahead while Reggie Brown looks for a fucking job.

Little Eskimos vs Extreme Fumbleitis

The Eskimos can afford to wait for Reggie Bush to show up while Randy Moss, Roy Williams and Rudi take up the slack. Fumbleitis got a balanced offensive team effort but fell just short with no help from the D. What the hell happened to Philly!?

Uncle Rico vs The Magpies

No one felt the pain from the Cleveland-Cinncinati shootout more than the Magpies. Strong performances by Brady, Gore, Andre, and the Viking D weren't enough to recover from the onslaught of Carson/Johnson bombs. Who needs Stephen Jackson, anyway?!

Giant Man Eating Squirrels vs Goin' Deep

The Squirrels will hopefully refrain from throwing themselves off a tall building for one more week while LaDainian finally gets a better matchup. Steve Smith was the lone bright spot in a field of mediocrity. RBBC or not, Marion Barber III is a stud and he ain't scaird to go across the goal line while Willie Paker gets the tough yards for the Deep up in Pitt.

Come on Reggie!

I'm holding a 23 point lead over Corn Cob Justice right now and I need Reggie Brown to show me why I drafted him and catch some fucking balls or Brian Westbrook to have an average night.
This could be my last win. I consistently score lower than anyone and the only reason I'm beating up on Bruce is he took a chance on Chris Brown against Indy.
Sucka!
Of course, I wouldn't be sweating this at all if I had known Braylon Edwards and Cleveland were gonna go off against Cincinnati!

This is Al and Ginger.

Al is a crazy mutherfucker we met at Smoke Bluffs.
He was free soloing (as in, no rope!) with a cigarette.
Ginger was tracking his progress.
He finally came down, smoked some more, drank a few beers, and then started up again.
We couldn't watch.
Left before something bad happened and we had to help.
He survived, though.
He was back the next day.... thankfully, with a rope.

Where is that lime?

Still reeling from the disappointing pool closure and the ensuing drowning of sorrows at Pepe & Gringo's, we managed to soldier on the next day... some of us more chipper than others.

Managed to get some good climbs in. Josh put up a short but thin thin thin 11a corner I had been dreaming since I first saw it a year and a half ago. It was sweet! Pinky locks and palming! If only it went on longer. It's called Corner of Death.

Steve put up Quarry Man again and started trying to pre-bail on leading Penny Lane. A climb he's been talking about for months and practicing fingerlocks for. Josh would have none of it and dragged him to it by the ear at the end of the day.

I have to admit, it's a little airy.
But he did it and let out a yelp that could be heard around the bluffs. As a result, some guy in Murrin fell off a 100 foot cliff and probably won't make it but at least I don't have to hear about Penny Lane anymore.

Time to celebrate.

Went to the Shady Tree and everyone got silly and stuffed.

Stole some plastic sauce cups and headed back to the campground for Patron shots!
Where is that fucking lime?! I know I brought it! (Actually, I left it in my truck.)
Not one Kellum in the group but we did ok for civilians.
Then I beat Steve at leg wrestling even though you can clearly see he's cheating by holding down my arm.

How long does it take to clean a fucking pool!?!

Seriously.

There's lots of cool things about Squamish.
1-Bizillions of nice climbing lines on granite within a five minute walk from the parking lot which is a 2 minute drive from Starbucks which is next to the good grocery store which is a five minute drive from an awesome campground. You can easily top rope or lead friction, corners, long cracks ... whatthefuckever.
2-The people in Squamish are cool.
3-The restaurants are good.
4-But the best thing ever is the rec center with a big pool and a nice hot tub that looks out onto the mountains and a diving board and a swing rope and monkey bars!
So when you're done climbing you can go there and get a shower and hot tub and take over the kids area and make a fool of yourself all before you go out to dinner and get drunk. It's really the best part of the whole day!

However. Inexplicably, this fucking pool is closed the entire fucking month of September... for cleaning.

Sigh.

Well. At least we got some good climbing in. That's what we drove up here for after all. Right?

Josh housecleaning a new heinous 11 near The Zip.



Big Brother is always watching. Sue having fun on The Flying Circus.

The Burden of Efficiency

Steve has been trying to drag a group to Squamish (his happy place) practically every weekend since late July. Weather has not cooperated. It's always beautiful during the week and rainy on the weekend. Time was running out.

The forecast for this past weekend was great until Wednesday. Then the rain was predicted to come in Sunday. Red Alert. We have to leave Thursday.... by 5:30!

Eeek! That's my long day! I don't usually get out of work until 6 or 7!
Enter Gina, Chuck, and Aida to save the day. A little luck and a lot of help from those guys and I made a hasty exit at exactly 4:35. Home by 4:50. Stuff in truck 4:55. Wendy's at 5:05 and in front of Josh and Shelly's at 5:15 on the nose! Phew. (Noone does efficiency like Cell Processing. Holla.)

Anyway. Josh, Steve, Sue, and I stuff our stuff in the new Subaru. Those things hold alot of shit! We have to be at the campground by 10:00. The efficiency must continue. But we do get a surprise stop at DQ. Cookie dough blizzard made with chocolate ice cream....mmmm!
Make it through the crossing. But we each have to tell the agent what we do for a living. WTF.

At the campground at 10:05. Nice.

FF Week 1 Wrap-up

Trailer Park Explosions vs. Giant Man Eating Squirrels

Underachievers on both sides made this a toss up early. Squirrels jumped out to a decent lead after a mortal, yet still impressive outing by LT. Things changed quickly in the second half of a the late game with a personal best performance by Romo and the usual eye-popping catches by T.O. The Explsions held the lead through Monday despite a terrible outing by Larry Fitzgerald and a good effort by McGahee.

Extreme Fumbleitis vs. Magpies

Magpies shot out to a huge lead early Sunday and never relinquished due to strong outing by Brady, Reggie Wayne, and Andre Johnson. Fumbleitis put up big numbers of its own behind a great team effort. If Brees and Maroney rebound, his next opponent will be in trouble.


Uncle Rico vs. Little Eskimos

These two teams' benches put up numbers other teams would dream of. But each had to sweat it out with the starters. Pitt's Big D had Rico worried early but couldn't overcome poor running back play when Rico's offense in the form of #85, Carson and The Edge showed up Monday.

Goin' Deep vs. Corn Cob Justice

The Deep got some Justice early and often. Peyton and Harrison set the tone Thursday and Westbrook and Javon Walker kept it coming. The Deep will have to be patient until LJ comes back to form and recievers in general pull their heads out of their collective asses!

"It's lost that parking lot feel..."

Olga- "What's wrong with people?!"
Chuck- "Where do you want me to start?"
Lori- "WHY ARE YOU KEEPING TRACK?!"
Gina- "How does this work?"
Unknown- "I'm a firefighter."
Deb- "You just sprayed that on my glasses."

Let the handwringing begin....

Sunday. Instead of hanging with the beautiful people in Napa valley, I head to the football kickoff party at Maggie and Jeff's place.
Team owners only. League of Intrigue (LOIN) and I-5 Fantasy Football League (IFFL.)

I was all proud of myself for getting up early after a night of drinking and heading to the gym. I had a great six mile run.
Picked up some chips and salad and sugar-free Mike's Hard Lemonade and head to Magnolia.
Feeling good about myself... right up until I opened one of those god awful lemonades, sat down on the deck and POP!
A fucking support beam broke right under my ass!
Everyone has to evacuate the deck. Maggie and Jeff assure me it's not my fault...probably. My cursed life continues.

The veterans of LOIN and IFFL relax and enjoy themselves sitting in the sun, periodically checking on the games and giving each other shit.
The newbies (Steve, Shelly, and I) alternate playing cool in front of our opponents and dashing to the laptops to check our scores, always lamenting our under performers.
"STOP WHINING" is the consensus amongst the vets.
Each of us have what we believe are legitimate concerns.
Two of Shelly's receivers have laid goose eggs.
Steve's bench is out performing his actives by a factor of 2.
And I have the only Chicago running back in history who can seem to get down the fucking field!

Nevermind the Seahawks crush the Bucs! (Thank God, Shaun gets that TD!)
Nevermind all the fish kabobs and pasta salad!
We're frantically doing mental arithmetic every play.
Sad.
Beyond sad, really.
Who's idea was this FF stuff, anyway?

Mercifully, T.O. and Romo rescue me from a 40 point deficit. It's now Shelly's turn to sweat.

Maggie and Jeff finally get rid of us after the late game. Still whining, btw.

That's what I'm fucking talking about!

Five serious people = one empty bottle of Patron = no pussing out!

What more is there to say?

War Nick!

Hypothetically

Shelly, Olga, Marianne, and I decided to go Huckleberry picking again on Saturday.
Sadly, Josh had already planned house projects that included Shelly.
Shelly was greatly disappointed and told me that if we went anyway, not to tell her.

So, of course, we didn't.

If we would have went, however, it would have been good.
Theoretically, Olga and I would have had to rouse Marianne from her kitten covered pillow earlier than usual.
It may have taken a few minutes of desperate searching and a near miss rollover dodging a rogue pickup but we would have gotten there unharmed and harvested about a gallon each before we pooped out and headed back.
We would have made big plans for our respective hauls and parted ways.

But none of that happened thanks to Josh!

Not Easily Deterred

Ok, this is the last time I'm going to mention the dead guy.

Massive heart attacks in our rearview, Steve, Bruce, and I keep the Friday happy hour streak alive. We do, however, revert to the safe haven of Alki. Some asshats were taking up the deck at the Boo so we settled for Coyotes.
No one died (close call between and pedestrian and a convertible) even though Steve once again refused a shot and ordered the beer. He never got it (I think this saved the pedestrian) which also saved us some dough we would have otherwise tipped our waitress. She was cute and clueless.

Fun was had by all, as usual. Not quite cocktails at Cortez in SF (which is what I had my sights on) but it'll do.

Are you ready for some football!?

Thursday night was (for those of you under a rock) the first game of the NFL season.
Indy vs. New Orleans.
Peyton hardly broke a sweat and embarrassed the Saints.
Keep your heads up boys. No shame in getting your ass handed to you by the Colts. It's happened to everybody the last few years.

Chuck and I skipped out at 4 and headed downtown to The Taproom downtown.
They have 160 beers on tap. Oh joy. For those of you who don't know, I fucking hate beer! But they also have lots and lots of flatscreens which I do like. Chuck babysat me until Steve and Bruce showed up and then he bailed to watch the slaughter on his very own Hi-Def flatscreen. Bastard.

Steve was pleased that Reggie Bush tanked (Randall has him. This turned out to be pivotal.) I was not (have him in another fantasy league.)

The Taproom gets a C.
Bad service.
So bad that they had to get us free stuff (between the shoddy service and a dead guy, we've saved at least $50 in one week!)

You Keep Dreaming

Update:

Optimism unfounded.
Chick from Pathology told Olga who told me that the guy at Eastlake Grill did, in fact, die.

Keep eating those veggies!

No News is Good News

The "King County Deaths" section of the Seattle-PI was updated today and no mention of our Eastlake Grill Medic Response Guy.
Like Steve says, I'm sure he's recovering in the hospital thanking his lucky stars and vowing to change to a healthier lifestyle! We'll be reading about him finishing a marathon next year.

You'd think witnessing a near death experience would give me a change in perspective for at least a week. Not so. I've been bitching all day and for good reason. Deb is in LION training all month and now I'm having to work! Like... all day! And someone else gave their notice yesterday so the last two weeks of September are gonna be even funner.
That's bullshit.
"Well, surely, management is on top of the staffing situation", you say.
"That shit ain't even funny", I say.

"You guys work it out amongst yourselves" - Supervisor
"Can I get your salary for making all your fucking decisions?" - Me

I'm gonna take the whole fucking month of October off. Fuck 'em.

Plus my truck sprung a leak in the power steering. That ain't good. Getting the oil changed costs $500. This is gonna be pricey.
I guess I could sell my computer to pay for it.
Actually, I'd rather hit the corners on Aurora.
Or sell plasma.

Bitch bitch bitch.

Huckleberries and a New Car

Gracie (Josh and Shelly's Subaru Legacy) decided to strand them once again Saturday evening. She's been having some intermittent technical difficulties starting lately.
Josh eventually got her started with much tinkering and seriously greasy mug, but prudence dictated we not risk a planned trip to the North Cascades to procure huckleberries. Shelly said they would explore their options and update me on Sunday.

Shelly is not one to let the grass grow underfoot, but damn, they went and bought a Subaru Outback that day! It's sweet! 2001 and looks great. So today, she and I rode up to Snoqualmie Pass to forage. A quick stop at the ranger station and we were on a mission. Found gazillions of huge huckleberries right beside the road near Windy Pass.
Picked from 9:30 to 3 and both got a couple of gallons.

Olga is busy making jam from my share and Shelly's berries will make an appearance in a pie come Thanksgiving.

SWEET!

Deal -o-Rama!

Sue and I decided to go to Ski Bonkers on Saturday. Neither of us needed a damn thing but it's a sale goddamnit! So we went and struck out. Big surprise.

Driving away, Sue suggests we just pop into the Southcenter REI. I'm not too enthused but WTF. I'll be damned if they aren't having a garage sale! Shoes 75% off and everything else 50% off. Sue must have some kind of sixth sale sense!

I got some replacement lenses for my glasses..$2!
Brand new Shimano cycling shoes...$10!
Good condition keen water shoes...$10!
A nice TNF shirt and Pirhana shirt... $6!

SCORE!

Seize the Day!

You never know when you'll be at happy hour chatting with friends and watching the Huskies pummel the Syracuse Orange (not the Orangemen, as Steve pointed out, they are now the Mighty Orange) and the next thing you know you'll be flat on your back getting CPR in front of God and everybody. You're beer belly and hairy chest out there for everyone to see. People cheering on some kid named Rankin and taking shots of Patron and guzzling IPA's while SFD Medics try to keep you from "crossing the bar."

This guy was two tables away (less than 6 feet) and we were so engrossed by our detailed discussion over who we would start and why in our FF league next week that we didn't notice he was in distress until a bunch of EMT's came in and laid him out. Befuddled as to what to do at first, Steve, Bruce, and I finally decided to change locations when they broke out the paddles. We wanted to just leave Eastlake Grill but they had already poured our next round and we didn't want to be difficult.

"You had to order a beer!" This from the Commish to Steve (PUSS!) after Bruce and I had swiftly finished our shots. Bruce felt this comment certainly cemented his special place in hell and I tend to agree. Steve did a good chug job and we peeled out of there and sought refuge at Vivace, each of us vowing to recommit ourselves to lifelong fitness. Seize the day!