Leap Day

If my grandpa were still alive, he'd officially celebrate his 22nd birthday today. He was born on leap day in 1920. I wish I'd been born on leap day.

Showered in Soda

We had a team lunch today at PF Chang's. All eight of us--my boss and everyone who works for her--were actually able to make it. I get quite excited about going out to eat, and because it's usually an hour later than I normally eat lunch, I'm always starving. So I did my regular thing and made reservations and got our orders ready ahead of time. We arrived, sat down, ordered immediately, and enjoyed our food. As we were finishing up, the waiter brought me a refill. As he set it down in front of me, the tray he was holding over my back tipped, and a cola of some type spilled all the way down my back.

I immediately recognized what had happened, but for a few seconds I was frozen.

Then I started laughing as he was apologizing profusely.

Seriously, I couldn't stop laughing. All the while, I was thinking that other people would probably be pretty mad, but it's not like the guy did it on purpose. And what could I do about it now? Nothing. Might as well not make a scene. They brought out some extra napkins so I could try to dry off a little. Then the manager came out. He also apologized and said that they would comp our drinks and appetizers. He offered to dry clean my jacket. He also offered to send one of his employees down the block to Macy's to buy me a new shirt. In between laughs, I declined and let him know that I lived just 2 miles away, so I could just go home, shower, and change.

But wait. I'm really curious about this. Who would he have sent? What would they have asked me before they left? Would I have gotten to request a certain style, color, or fabric? Could I have requested that they get something from The Gap or Banana Republic instead? Hmmm... I wonder if anyone has ever taken them up on an offer like that.

Anyway, he recognized that we were out at a business lunch (so anything free he was going to give us really didn't help me out). When he came back with our bill sans drinks and apps, he also had an envelope for me with free appetizer coupons and gift certificates. Sweet!

Home Show news

My two days at the Home Show were long. I swear, I don't know how people with jobs that require standing all day can do it every day. Today's the last day of the show; locks have been selling, and Marc's making some good contacts which will hopefully pan out with more sales over time. Pretty exciting!

Tonight we're going out to dinner with the guys from BioAxxis. Either Gustav's or Rogue... Mmmmmmm either way.

Not much else going on around here, besides realizing that we have a bunch of busy weekends lined up! Birthday parties seem to be abundant this time of year.

Vacation from work to work somewhere else

I'm taking tomorrow and Thursday off of work to help Marc work the Portland Home and Garden show at the Expo Center. The show actually runs through Sunday, but a couple of guys from one of his suppliers are flying out from New York to help out on the busier days Friday through Sunday. Needless to say, this is not my preferred way to spend vacation from work. Fortunately I get to sleep in until 7:30 tomorrow.

I got an AWESOME gift from Laura today. Stuff On My Cat notecards and envelopes! Sweet!

You can fix anything with duct tape!

Every once in awhile I think of random, bizarre, and/or funny stories from my past. Since I have no better place to share them, you, my fellow readers, are going to get to enjoy them.

I was on Facebook this afternoon and noticed that one of my friends had joined a group called "Duck Tape Users Anonymous" (sic). This reminded me of a fabulous duct tape story.

I was 16 years old and working my first real job--lifeguard at a neighborhood pool. We had four pools--the Big L (7-lane lap pool with an extra jut on one end that made the "L" shape), the diving well (home to 2 low and 1 high board), the baby pool, and the adult pool. The pump room for the Big L was pretty impressive. There was a lot of water in that pool. Anyway, there were tons of pieces of PVC pipe in the pump room routing water to and from the pools. Some were straight; others were linked together at 90 degree angles. One day, one of the angle connector pieces broke, and water started spewing forcefully from the pipe. We shut off the water and headed up to the office manager's office. His name was Donny. He was an idiot.

We explained the situation to Donny and asked for a few bucks so we could run over to Home Depot and buy a new PVC connector piece. Donny was also a cheapskate. He threw us a roll of duct tape and stated, "Just use some of this! You can fix anything with duct tape!" Thinking he was joking, and then quickly realizing he wasn't, we tried to politely argue that duct tape would not hold together two PVC pipes with who knows how much water pressure pumping through them. We continued to balk, and he finally accompanied us to the pump room to demonstrate how well duct tape works.

He wound that roll of duct tape around the two pipes... over and over. We stood back and tried to stifle giggles. Then he told us to flip the switch to turn the water back on. I stepped outside of the pump room. The switch was flipped. The duct tape immediately tore apart as the two pipes burst apart again. Water flooded out of the pipes.

At that point, Donny handed us a $10 bill and told us to hurry back.

Donny is the same man responsible for the serious electric shock I received from the pizza oven while working at the pool's snack bar, but I'll save that story for another day.

Sun!

It's been sunny this weekend, which is a nice change of pace during February in Portland. Nothing too newsworthy has happened since my last post. No news is good news, right? We went out for Rey's 34th birthday on Friday. Yesterday Marc and I rocked 3-hour naps and then went to dinner with Slimey, Chris, and the boys. Afterwards, we went back to their house and Marc and I played Rock Band with the kids. We were the old, uncool people, but it was fun for us. :)

Today we're going over to Steve and Andrea's for a barbecue. I just found out that they now have a trampoline... this could be fun....

In other news

Kristin and I were sitting at our desks in our office about an hour ago when we started to hear sirens. Lots of them. We watched several emergency vehicles go by on 26 and noticed that the traffic had all but come to a halt. After a few more sirens, I pulled up a traffic cam and we could tell there was a massive accident at Bethany. I left at 4:00, but couldn't take my normal route home because of all the traffic abandoning 26 for a detour. I saw a helicopter, which I assumed was a news chopper along the way. Then, as I turned onto the street that parallels 26 (and is pretty much right next to where the accident occurred), I noticed that the helicopter was getting really close to the ground--landing on 26, actually. There were several "spectators" pulled over on the side of the road and kids running around everywhere (this isn't safe--it's a 45 MPH zone). I watched as the helicopter set down, and then I noticed that it was a Life Flight helicopter. Bad news. Now, either the news stations aren't talking about the accident or else we just keep missing it as Marc flips around. Scary stuff, though. Be careful out there, people!

Hickin' it up

Marc's amazed that I haven't blogged about Sunday, so here goes. The monster truck show was pretty amusing. The first highlight of the day was realizing that we had tickets that allowed us to enter on the club level instead of the main level like most of the people there. So we skipped the lines and walked right in. Our seats were good. The trucks were loud. The mullets were not as plentiful as we expected. I think I only saw one on a spectator. Most of the people there were dads with little boys. The guys working the show and the announcer were exactly what we expected. I'm honestly pretty amazed that they're able to get 8 big monster trucks in a relatively small space like the Rose Garden, but it worked. We left after about an hour--the fumes were bothering everyone. When we left our seats and then looked back into the arena, it was quite obvious that the air was gray (and nasty). It was an experience--one that I'm glad was free and one that I won't likely repeat unless we go to one outside. Overall, it was fun.

The Jester

Last night we went to a comedy club in Beaverton called The Jester. It was their 3 month anniversary, so it's pretty new. Kristin had the hook-up and got everyone in for half price, and we had a good-sized group of work and other friends show up. Both comics were funny in very different ways. First was Louie Foxx, whose show was a mixture of comedy and magic. He pulled in participants from the audience to help with his magic tricks. He was good. The headliner was Larry Reeb--Uncle Lar--from Chicago. He was pretty crass, and he had us laughing the entire hour! Even after we left the club and ended up at Oak Hills, we kept referencing bits from his routine. Good times!

Tomorrow something very special is going to happen. It's something I've dreamed about (okay, maybe not dreamed about, but at least really wanted to do) for as long as I can remember. When I lived in Kentucky, we always joked about going to tractor pulls and figure 8 rallies and crap like that. We never actually did it. But there's one thing along those lines that I've had on my life to-do list: Attend a monster truck show. If for no other reason than just to say that I have, I've always wanted to see a monster truck show. For one thing, I think it will be interesting to examine the population demographic at an event like this. I have a feeling it will make the crowd at state fairs seem "normal." Secondly, I really believe that the event itself will be entertaining. A few weeks ago we started seeing the commercials for the monster trucks coming to the Rose Garden. They always show up around Valentine's Day, which I think is humorous. Anyway, I whined to Marc about really wanting to go, and then the lightbulb clicked. We have a friend who works for the Blazers and can often get tickets to other Rose Garden events for free. So we asked, and we received! Sunday Sunday Sunday! Yeah. Tomorrow. 2:00. Me and Marc and Pete and Courtney are going to watch the monster truck show. Awesome! Is it sad that that's the highlight of my weekend?

And though I know Marc is anxiously awaiting what I'm going to say on the political front (as promised in my last post), I still haven't written it. Maybe this weekend I'll sit down and give it some though. Maybe I'll wait until after the monster trucks. That experience might give me some perspective about the state of our country. Haha!

Exhausted

I ended up staying an extra 2 hours at work this afternoon to help take care of some urgent stuff with my boss and a whole bunch of other people. Marc was awesome enough to have dinner ready by the time I finally got home. Love him!

I've been formulating a post in my mind about politics, but I haven't written anything for it yet. Be on the lookout... it could be interesting.

Oh, and JUST as I expected: Since I took the plunge and bought my iPod Touch, they made one with more storage. Figures. That was the reason I wasn't going to buy it--it's smaller than my old old old iPod!!--but I did it anyway. Mere weeks later, they double the size of mine for just $100 more. Oh well.

Two things I like about watching sports

I used to be a hardcore UK basketball fan. It's not so easy to do now that I'm on the West Coast--the games aren't televised too often. Other than that, I've never been huge on watching sports on television, though I don't really mind it either. However, I've always been anti-pro sports.

But I have to admit that watching the Super Bowl today was fun for two reasons:

1. I didn't care about either of the teams, so there was no real stress about the outcome. This made even pro football bearable--and surprisingly fun.

2. I like rooting for the underdog. Although it wouldn't have changed my mood at all if the Patriots had won, it was cool watching the Giants win in the last seconds of the game.

Super Bowl Sunday

Yesterday I finished ripping CDs. Thank goodness for that. Last night we picked up a couple pizzas from Papa Murphy's, hung out with Jess and Craig, and watched Mr. Woodcock. If you live in the PDX area, I'm telling you that you absolutely MUST try the artichoke/chicken/bacon Delite pizza. I don't think it's on their official menu because it's a special promotion or something, but I'll be amazed (and heartbroken) if they don't keep it around forever. It's yummy!

Today we're actually going to a Super Bowl party. I know... weird. A friend of Marc's that he hasn't seen in 15 years or so is in town from SoCal. We're heading up to the 'Couve to catch up with him and watch the game.