Bill Gates' house lies on the east shore of Lake Washington in the town of Medina.  The house was designed by James Cutler and covers approximately 66,000 square feet.
http://www.seattle.gov/html/visitor/gateshouse.htm

Wish I could say I was still a talented beer drinker.
Seattle is 180 degrees away from Louisville.
In  Louisville, I could walk to Fourth Street Live in 5 minutes, and try a different beer every night. 
Any place we go in Seattle is going to take over 20 minutes to get too by bus, and thats a real buzz kill.
I can't seem to find any good beers in Seattle.
A good mead, cider beer, or any kind of fruity beer is hard to find. Bud and coors are practically flowing in the streets downtown, but I can't find any really good stuff anywhere.
About wine - on last week's black ice day, I walked to Lyons.
Thats our local convenience store (which is smaller than our apartment). There, I bought a small bottle of Cabernet sauvignon. It was rather nasty, but I drank it anyway. The really interesting thing about this wine was, the smell lingered on my breath for two days! I'm just glad it didn't turn my hair flourescent orange. So much for wine tasting.
Great coffee is everywhere in Seattle.
Even Wells Fargo has an coffee station. I'm surprised we don't have an expresso knob built into on our kitchen faucet.

I haven't found a way to add an "Edit With" or "Print With" option to the right-click menu in explorer.
What I'm reading so far is, you can't do that.
The "Open with" has moved from Folder Options to:
Control Panel | Programs | Make a file type open with a specific program.
I've been messing with around in RegEdit with no luck so far.

I always liked taking a Slob Day
Slob Days are when I don't feel like getting up. I don't take a shower. I just lay back and watch tube.
I think its actually good not to shower a couple of times a month.
I think I heard somewhere that it lets your skin and hair replenish its oils.
Oxycodone makes me feel tired and irritable.
The dentist gave me some for an abscessed tooth a while back. My tooth still hurt, but I felt too dopey to care.

Got up, showered, rode the bus to work. Worked. Rode the bus back home.
And here I am, 13 hours after I got up, glancing at Seattle's view, and watching an old Mash episode.
I really liked the theme of Mash
Every episode of Mash is about another day that was somehow extraordinary. If only every day of living was like that for all of us. Maybe your day and mine was extraordinary and we just didn't notice. hmmm.
To SAE: Glad your operation turned out okay.
Hopefully, tommorrow will be just another average ordinary day for you too!

We've been ghost hunting...and found nothing.
We spent a lot of time going to haunted places. 
But I wouldn't be afraid of a ghost if I saw one.
If one killed me, then I'd be a ghost, and then I could kick his butt right back.
So why would one kill me?
Anyway, I heard there was a haunted lighthouse around here.
I heard it was a sure thing.
Once I get a location, I'm going! YEA!!!

I got through the portal, and there was AIR. It was great ! I didn't expect I'd have air, however, every breath I took of it was refreshing. I could feel its energy pulse through my entire body, but it was disturbing. What would happen if there wasn't any?
I became aware of these beautiful visions.
They were all blurry at first, but after a while, they seemed to crystallize into shapes of form and depth. I was beginning to see Heaven
The sounds were incredible.
I first heard music, at least I thought it was music. I could sense the vastness of Heaven in my mind.
I could sense that others were helping me.
I didn't understand anything and I welcomed their help. It seemed clear to me that these helpers were angels.
Everything was warm.
The energy of it all...I was in love with this place. I didn't know why I was here, or how any of this happened, but I liked it.
And finally, after a few moments of struggling, and with the help of the angels,
I finally got up on all 4s.
My instincts told me where and how to find milk, and I walked over to get myself a suckle. The instincts with the songs and the visions that guided me through the portal, had left once I was born. I'll hear them again some day, but for now, I'm in for a ride of a life time.
If I ever do this again, I'm going to be like those things standing on two legs.
They act like they know everything.

I can't even spell it.
It looks like Becky will have company during the day...and that's GREAT!!!
And I'll get to teach it new tricks, like untying shoes...bwahahaha....

Channel 13 News was at my bus stop this morning. They didn't interview me  :^( .  Our bus was shut down. There was black ice everywhere. A bus driver going the other way yelled out "Go to the stop on Lakehurst (about a mile away). Well, I, being in great health, a leader and all, took a deep breath, got in front of the crowd and went straight home. I was out there for over an hour.

1 tsp - Liption Instant Tea
3 tsp - Sugar
4 ozs - Hot Tap Water - Stir
2 ozs - Milk
Top with lots of Whipped Cream, and stir in slightly.
Dust the top lightly with a pinch of tea for decoration. 
Looks best in a fancy tall glass. Add vodka to it only if your are nuts.

A European fellow asked me what's that funny odor.
I said, I think its maple syrup.
He said, what is it, like a medicine or an herb.
I said, no, its maple tree sap.
I suppose they could have made rubber or turpentine out of it,
but in this case, they added sugar to it, and WE EAT IT ON PANCAKES!!!
He said, you mean it could have been a tire, or fuel, but instead you eat it !
AYup, that we do. That we do.
We were rolling on the floor laughing.
btw- they don't add sugar too Maple
Its already sweet.

I'm now posting my pictures (both thumnails and full image) in the Ads sections. Like most of those pictures, you can click them and see the full size picture, and you can right click the picture to set it as a background.

We're making the best of things.
Ya know, I believe everything happens for a reason. If it doesn't make sense now, it might 100 years from now. Since wealth, fame and fortune won't be my treasure here, maybe the people I meet and the knowledge I gain will be. So now, for me, work is the best thing about Seattle. What I learn here should go far.
All past issues seem to have died away.
If anything, at least people know my name. I'm still fearful of writing freely in this log.
I'm afraid of saying something like "someone looks beautiful today", which could be taken as "they looked ugly yesterday"
My laptop fried last night.
I lost a lot of pictures from December.
So, I went out to get a new laptop at Frys Electronics (they have great sales on Friday), and ended up getting a Tablet PC. We couldn't afford it really, it cost $500 more than what I wanted to spend, but I need to keep up on technology.
I love it, and it makes up for the buses!
It has a touch screen (which I can't wait to write some programs for), 250gig hd, 3gig mem, AMD Turion dual processor, card readers, dvd+-, webcam,bluetooth,Wireless-G, 3xusb 2.0s, and weighs about a  pound. The only thing I don't like about it is the glare off of its screen. Maybe I can look really cool and wear Polaroids when using it!
Becky, Peter and I are searching for some kind of opportunity.
I still think the mobile notary worked out well, and the Segway dealership opportunity still intrigues me.
Time will tell!

Discovery Park
Discovery Park has a light house.
It also is home to townsend chipmonks, a large variety of birds, and seals love the beach!
The Mongolia bluffs overlook the Puget Sound.
It surrounds the Fort Lawton military base.
Chittenden Locks
Chittenden locks is a link between the fresh waters of the lakes and the salt waters of Puget Sound.
Barges, pleasure craft, an all kinds of boats come through these locks.
There is also a fish ladder there that allows salmon to cross between the waters.
And hey, Canada is just 90 minutes up the road. I can't wait to see if the changes between the US and Canada are as great as the ones between the US and Mexico.
We'll be headed to an Indian Reservation in Puyallup, Wa.
Hopefully we'll squeeze in a trip to Everette.

There's not much that can compare to the excitement of wiping the fog off your bus window to see that you've missed your stop. I had to walk about a mile in the rain. On the plus side, it was downhill !
Buses are fine, but they automate another porton of your life.
For me, they take away control. I'm getting rustier as I get older, and walking in the rain hurts.
This event shouldn't have happened.
This is one of those times in life where I can honestly say if I had it to do over again, I'd do it differently.
I planned the trip and the stay in Seattle so very, very badly.
We might have lived further away from Seattle, and paid for parking in town.
I might have researched it, and found out that corp-to-corp wasn't a good option.
My credit card info wouldn't have been hijacked. I would have used an inactive credit card for the trip.
Bad planning is the reason for: the rushing to get here, rushing around to find an apartment, being without cash, and living out of my budget. My budget's blown, I'm tired, and free time has gotten scarce as a result.
I didn't allow enough time to plan. I let myself be rushed into a major decision and I'm paying for it.
It will take time to undo the damage.
But time has a way of creating good out of bad.
I'll learn a good computer system. I'll be more careful in the future. I won't repeat these mistakes again.
Hopefully, I'll learn from these mistakes and become a better person.
* Making a few mistakes is normal. Making many mistakes is stupid.
Writing down my mistakes will help me consider them in future decisions.

Longest word typed with the left hand: stewardesses 
Longest word typed with the right hand: lollipop
Words with no rhymes: month, orange, silver, purple
The only word that ends in the letters "mt": Dreamt
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
Palindromes are words like: racecar, kayak, level
The only four words that end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, hazardous
The only two words that have all five vowels in order: abstemious, facetious
The longest word on one row of the keyboard: typewriter
The left hand does 56% of the typing.
Our eyes do not grow after birth
Our nose and ears never stop growing. 
Babies are born without kneecaps.
Women blink almost twice as much as men.
No new animals have been domesticated in 4,000 years
Goldfish have a memory span of three seconds.
Sharks are the only fish that can blink with both eyes. 
Snails can sleep for three years
The Ostrich eyeball is bigger than its brain.
Cats have 32 muscles in each ear. 
There are more chickens in the world than people.
Almonds are a member of the peach family. 
A Jiffy is 1/100th of a second
The only month in history with no full moon: February, 1865
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
If everyone in China walked past you in 8 lines, it would never end because of their rate of reproduction.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors
Peanuts are an ingredient of dynamite!
Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
The Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise liner gets six inches per gallon
A vehicle with 10 miles per gallon gets 8 inches per drop.

Something happened in the late 70s and butter clams in Washington become fatally toxic. It has to do with what has been coined, "The Red Tide", which is caused by large numbers of microscopic organisms. Small razor clams don't retain the fatally Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP) contained in these Red Tides (which aren't really red, BTW).
PSP is created by A.catenella and is a potent nerve toxin.
A.cantenella is a plankton like animal/plant that can produce its own food and it can swim. When they're dormant, they fall as cyst onto the ocean floor, where shellfish, like clams and oysters (which can filter 8 gallons of water an hour) can scarf them up. See: http://www.tpchd.org/files/library/3f99dac18661fbba.pdf
The clams are here, they're just off limits.
I'm actually happy now, that its not a result of pollution, or over-harvesting.
But I do miss butter clams!

Decades ago, every bar in Vegas wouldn't be a REAL bar, unless they sold either hot wings or steamers.
I'd visited Tacoma and Seattle a couple of times in the 80's, and eaten some wonderful clams, oysters, and gooeyduks.
Since the 90's, I've ordered steamers in every city I've been in.
It seems that the clams have shrunk.
What happened? They've changed from this to this:
In my quest for the perfect steamers,
I'm just going to have to get a license, shovel, bucket and go clamming for myself. However, if I could somehow use clarified butter and lemon as bait instead, that would be much better.
But with me clamming, and with me being me,
I'd see the little critters in my bucket, think their cute for some stupid reason, and decide to set them free on some better part of the beach. I do that because I haven't seen any critters that I didn't think weren't cute anywhere (nice sentence, huh?).
Plus, I was raised to believe it was wrong to kill anything. Its okay to have someone else do it, though.
So, maybe I can get Becky to go clamming for me. I'll drive. lol.
BTW - This was intended to be a humorous story (you will chuckle...har har).
Gosh, what time is it?

Then we watched the Transformers.
I wish my truck could drive to the store, turn into a robot, and buy milk and eggs for me.
I can't even let go of the steering wheel without it shooting off into the desert.
Good Eats. Great Food. Good People!
Later, everyone went to the Ross Clothing store. 
I'm not sure what kind of clothes, shoes, and miscellanious items Ross sells. It looked like some of their shoes were prescuffed. But me, I could care less if my jeans are used (its not like buying a toothbrush). If the jeans look good, they're in my basket. Who knows, maybe B Pitt previously owned them. I doubt if he was ever size XXXXL though from eating too many tacos though.
I'm still pen shy about writing my notes in here.
You never know when someone is going to take your pen and stab you in the eyeball with it (sick humour, I know). That hasn't happened much, if at all, since I started this site years ago. However, sometimes the things I write in here find their way to the New York Times headlines, which is bizarre.
I'm about as original as bottled water.
Even my dreams are copied and pasted.
When I published LVDude and googled it, I got 'did you mean love dud?'
That clued me in that I wasn't going to be a MySpace.com. I still get nothing when I google the entries in here.
So, how do hackers and evil bots find this site? hmmm.
I wonder how long it takes to ping 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255

Sorry bout that. I can't believe I pay them all of that money for these websites...har har.
http://www.1and1.com is an excellent web hosting site. They're cheap, and they're up 98% of the time.
If you want 99.9% of the time, buy a Tandem!

 

You can't get out of it. I like that expression. It applies to Seattle.
I think what makes a place act like a whirlwind
are all of its obstacles and pressures. Here, 11 hours are absorbed in preparation, work, and commutes. It takes me 10 minutes just to get to a bus. Most of the day is gone. If I have to get milk, another 2 hours is absorbed. Free time and sleep become a luxury that necessity erodes. I'm not complaining. This is just an observation.
I missed opportunities to call my friends.
Time was stretched thin. I didn't mean anything by that. Everything happened so quickly.
Friends are your gift in life.
New Years Eve is when you should remember them.
On the other hand, no one called me.
So I guess all is good. Happy New Years!!!
toot toot

Love you too buddy. I miss you guys. I still have the fall colors of that area ingrained in my mind.
My IPhone said it was 16 degrees in Louisville today, and it'll be back in the 60's by Friday.
It looks like we'll be wrapping up here in about 7 months.
That's unsure right now, but I can't wait to get back. I'll miss Seattle, but I won't miss the over crowded busses.
Maybe next time in Louisville
I'll sell Coney Hotdogs down by the river and Becky can be my lovely assistant! lol.
We've got lots of time to dream and plan, and that's a good thing! HNY!

And learning more about Homer and Plato, I get the impression we are all living in someone elses dream. Our values aren't really ours. They are projections from someone else, who long ago had the power to influence generations to come. Those values include possessions, love, sex, and death. Why I'm saying this is, your dreams can out live you, and other people can live in them.

I don't know if we'll be able to see all of Washington in the next 8 months, but we're going to give it our best shot.
The streets are tough in Seattle
I drove through a 6 way stop last night, and a one-way street magically turned into a two-way street when we were in the left hand lane. We had to dodge an oncoming car! Its a good thing that most people only drive 20mph here. The few accidents we've seen here look terrible, but you can tell they were head on collisions at a low rate of speed.
I tried to hop in the jacussi at 6am
They had it locked up =^(  awe. I had to take a shower instead, lol.
We toured Pike's Market today.
Its a big flea market by the Puget Sound, and it cost $16 to park there. Most of the restaurants were no larger than our kitchen. I'm beginning to realize the once fist-sized clams they sold everywhere in the 80's are now the size of a quarter. I have to wonder what is happening to our oceans?
Later, we went to the Northgate Mall.
I need to get a warm jacket.
I'm as blue as a Smurf when I get on the bus
We didn't get a jacket, BUT we bought a really cool blanket.
I can wear it on the bus. I think I'd fit in.
Renee~n~m all are going to stay over on New Years Eve
We bought the fixings for a really nice beef roast, YUM!

Ahhh, the bennies of owning a truck! I hauled a couple of end tables for Victoria.
We hung out with Jonathan, Renee, McKenzee, Victoria and Charles.
Renee gave us a rocking chair, so I'm all set for old age!