It’s Official

You can slap the Timbers logo on anything and I will buy it.

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What Comes Out’s A Mystery

Atlanta

I was just thinking that I’m tired of this post-a-day thing but I’ve come this far and I hate quitting so I’ll just keep slogging. Right now it feels like my whole life is a phoned-in slog. Maybe when I’ve finally stopped coughing every 15 seconds (yes, that San Diego souvenir cough refuses to release me from its horky grasp) I’ll have a better attitude.

Meanwhile, I found a URL in my comment spam from this company that I can hire to write my content. What a great idea. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before.

It’s only a penny a word and you can pick the topics. I’m sorta of dying to try it.

I have a piece of paper by my desk to jot my ideas for potential topics. So far I have: pumpkin juggling, me (I’d love to see a 500 article written about me by a stranger getting paid .01 a word), clowns with chainsaws, and how to get trapped in a locker room with a professional soccer team for a weekend.

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Timbers Shrine

Oh, so you thought the endless nattering about the Timbers was over just because soccer season is finished?

Nope. Not yet.

This is the Timbers’ Shrine at the office. Co-worker is my ticket partner and they give season ticket holders a lot of gifts but only one per pair so we keep everything at the office. Remember the story about my axe photo? That’s the poster. I finally got it framed. The signed t-shirt and signed photo co-worker won in auctions.

The mini-soccer ball on the left is something the players throw into the stands before the game starts. I had to elbow a little kid in the head so I could get that, thrown by Darlington Nagbe who won Goal of the Year.

They also give away things at the games. We missed the t-shirts and the plastic replica of the stadium (darn!) But that big thing on the right is a skateboard deck. I was going to take it in and get wheels put on it but I was afraid the urge to then try to ride it would be too great and I’d break my neck and feel like a moron.

I don’t know where we’re going to put the stuff we get next year.

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Time Travel: Seaworld 1972

Dig those ponchos!

Shamu!

So what is that thing? A seal?

Those dressed up characters always used to scare me. There must be some photos in the vault of me standing in the vicinity of Tigger, crying.

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Shopping Cart Filled With Food

Seattle Public Library

The following should not be considered complete and is subject to change without notice:

Favorite foods: wine, soup (almost any kind), perfectly grilled piece of red meat, apple pie, See’s candy, fiber

Hated foods: papaya, Swiss cheese, tuna, tarragon (not a food but a flavor, I still don’t like it) scallops, grape jelly, yellow mustard

Used to hate but now I don’t: maple syrup, bleu cheese

Used to like but now prefer to avoid: coffee, hearty breakfast

Don’t like as much as I used to: bananas

Foods I don’t like for no clear reason: cooked carrots as the main part of a dish.

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Standby

I have an aging list of things I intended to post. Here is an item from the list:

“Clatsop County Dive Team members pulled two persons from the vehicle as bystanders stood nearby. Both were deceased. No identities have been released.”

This was a quote from a newspaper.

I think I was offended by the “as bystanders stood nearby.”

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Special Events

Last night was our annual auction for NAYA. Awesome event as always. The bidding is too rich for us so we buy golden raffle tickets. If you win the raffle you can pick one of the auction items. Bob and I always argue about which prize we’d take. This year I would have wanted the button blanket and paddle or the antique squash blossom necklace. He wanted the trip to Maine.

Luckily, we didn’t win so we didn’t have to duke it out.

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Real People in the Big Trucks

Fall garden and Photographer

I can’t remember how much about then next door neighbor saga I’ve written about here.

The house next door to us turned into a rental maybe ten years ago. I think we’re on our fifth set of renters.

Of the five times, this is now the third time we had a couple of nice people move in, introduce themselves and then the situation changed. Once it was a man and his teenaged son. Once it was a woman and her ill mother and this most recent time it was a newly separated woman and her two small children.

Shortly after we meet the renters there are all sorts of cars all the time. Different people coming and going, moving stuff in and out.

It’s never been a big problem. It’s not like the people are noisy or do the things that terrible neighbors do, but often these extra people aren’t friendly and we live in a neighborhood. You’d like to have an idea who is living in the house next door to you.

It was hard to believe it when it started happening again. And this lastest tenant and her friends have an amazing number of vehicles, many of them huge. I’ve counted at least 5 different sedan type cars that are parked over there regularly. They had an RV for awhile. Then this cargo truck took over the driveway. There’s a regular heavy duty pick-up truck and then just recently another huge utility type truck showed up.

It seemed to be escalating with no end in sight and I was wondering what next. A tour bus? A bulldozer? A jumbo jet? Bob thought we should complain to the rental agent, who is also a neighbor. I thought we should talk to the neighbor but I’m always afraid that’s going to make it worse.

We’ve become acquainted with the neighbor on the other side of the rental house and we’ve commiserated back and forth. She told us she complained and now all the trucks are gone except for pick-up truck. Yay. Hopefully there won’t be some new crazy development.

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Pam Against the Machine, Part 627

I finally found the picture of the cucumber plant. It did nothing all summer and then blew up at the very end when summer was winding down. Still, it didn’t make any cucumbers. Then when summer was finished, it finally made cucumbers. So when I was pulling everything out I found two full grown lemon cucumbers and another half dozen that were like grapes. I picked and ate them all while I was standing there.

There’s this service we subscribe to at work. On our most recent invoice they advised that their billing would be changing and we’d only be getting a simplified paper bill. If we wanted a complete bill we’d have to do it via electronic delivery. I do not have a problem with that. The notice said you could sign up for this billing via a URL or by calling customer service and picking #X on the phone tree.

I went to the URL and could not login. I called the customer service number and pressed X and was told that choice didn’t exist and to please hold for customer service which was a multi-level tree where nothing related to my question.

I finally got a customer service person on the phone who seemed a little taken aback by my question. I had to wait on hold and finally she comes back and says we have to set up an electronic invoicing account and can continue to hold while we do this?

What? NO! Are you kidding me?

“This is stupid,” I told her. “I just want to get a complete bill. Now I have to set up another account? Forget it. I won’t do the electronic delivery.”

She was very nice and assured me she’d pass on my feedback. I’m sure “This is stupid,” is written in on a whiteboard in the lunchroom so that they can get right to work making it less stupid.

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Pumpkin Crop

This is the single Baby Pam pumpkin that I managed to grow this year. It didn’t even get orange until mid-October. Bob brought it in for me over Halloween weekend because he was afraid some kids might smash it.

I’m going to whack it and use it to make the Serious Eats pumpkin pie recipe. Last time I made a Cooks Illustrated recipe and I wrote an angry note in the margin that says, “Takes all day!”

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