There's a moose in the parking lot!

View from the hotel parking lot

 

I took a pre-trip to Anchorage Wednesday and Thursday last week.  I needed to meet with the Anchorage Festival follow-up team in anticipation of the June 7 & 8 event.  Sandi assigned me one task: find a moose.

I mentioned my mission to the staff and they were more than happy to help out.  My colleague, Stephanie, and her husband Andy and I went out to down town Anchorage after work Wednesday evening to see the snow sculpture garden and grab some dinner.  The snow sculptures went from the divine to profane as you can see below:

After the sculpture garden we headed to a brewery for fish and chips.  The brewery overlooked the Cook Bay and it reminded me of restaurants overlooking the Puget Sound.

Still no moose.

My friends dropped me off at my hotel and drove off.  As I headed to my room, I got a text from my friends saying 'There is a moose in the parking lot.'  I quickly grabbed my phone and my camera and went to investigate.

Sure enough, there was a large cow munching on branches in the parking lot.  (My apologies for the low-quality photography: it was a little dark.)

 

Mission accomplished!

 

I had another day of meetings on Thursday but before I left I was able to see a little more of Anchorage.

Anchorage from a park near the airport

the dark spots are floating ice chunks

 

Anchorage is a beautiful city.  I reminded me of Bellingham because of the size, the bay and mountains across the bay.  The harbor reminded me of Seattle, so in a strange way, it was all very familiar to me.  I look forward to returning in June.

 

 



 

 

 

Winter Storm 2014

Oregon finally had a winter storm.  It began Thursday mid-morning and shut down schools (and work) by 1:00 pm.  It took me almost 2 hours to get home.

Coincidently, Thursday was also the day we had our new heat pump installed.  That required them taking out the old furnace

Boo!  Hiss!

Yeah!!!

Friday brought more snow and work was canceled.  Sandi and I had to run a few errands and fortunately, the roads were passable. 

By Friday afternoon, the roads were getting worse and more snow was falling.  Though Sandi had Friday off, the storm was bad enough that we were both concerned about Sandi's ability to get to work on Saturday evening.  So Sandi packed enough food and clothes for 3 days of work and we trekked out to catch the MAX at Beaverton Transit Center. 

The train leaving for East Portland left at 5:00 and Sandi headed to a nursing friend's house near the hospital.  I walked home to a quite house and more falling snow. [Update: I just talked to Sandi before her shift on Saturday night and she said that the MAX is severely delayed tonight; it is doubtful she would have made it to work from Beaverton today.]

This morning there was a nice reprieve from the wind and snow. I took a walk and enjoyed the quiet from a snowed-in city.



a little creek



the local toboggan run

The house is quiet and warm thanks to the new heat pump (big industrial looking thing on the right side of the house).

 

ice-cycle at the front door

 

quite streets

 

blanket of snow

Sunday will be another quiet day.  All the churches are closed.  The only thing I will have to do is walk to the local Red Box and return the DVD I rented.  If there is anything left on the shelves of Safeway, I might getting something for dinner (all the dairy was gone and chips & snacks isle was decimated).  Other than that, I'll stay on the couch with a good book.



Closet Remodel (or the Kruger Reclamation Act of 2014)

Sandi brought with her into our marriage a love for all things 'Elfa.'  Elfa is a closet organizing system sold through the Container Store.  Every January, they have a 30%-off sale.  For us the timing was perfect.  We had someone stay with us for a couple weeks in December and we were surprised how displaced our belongings were as we made room for her in our guest room.  Certainly, there has got to be a better way to store our stuff.

 

 

Notice on the right the 'linen closet' is used to store Sandi's clothes (not that I ever used the linen closet as a linen closet as a bachelor).

 

It took us a few hours to rip everything out.  We decided to permanently remove the doors to give better access.  That included the trim.  (As an aside, someday I would love to either replace or paint over the dark-stained trim in the house.  It's dated.) 

Here is Sandi painting over 35+ years of patching

Now comes the fun part: installing the shelves

We did it!

 

We almost emptied one guest room closet and part of an other into our updated closet.

(For the record, I still get my 1/3 of the space.)  We reclaimed the linen closet and were able to convert the guestroom dresser back to it's intended purpose.

We finished this in one day.  Phase II was a little more time-consuming.  We wanted to visually blend the closet into the rest of the room.

 I still have left-over drywall from when I finished the garage.

 

 

 

I used an entire bucket of mud to patch the drywall and blend it to the existing wall.  I'm sure a professional would have used 1/2 that amount.

Texturing drywall is an art and a skill.  I'm getting better at it with each project but it still is a nerve-racking experience.  Painting the textured wall went pretty quickly.  And now, for the trim:

 

 

To be dramatic, here is the before and after:

 

 

 

Go Seahawks or Broncos!

At the time of this writing, I only know that the Broncos are ahead of the Patriots 10-0.  Based on the few minutes I saw, the Broncos are the better team.  May the better team win.

Before the football season began I told Sandi I was turning my football allegiance to the Denver Broncos.  This means very little because if I could monetize my football allegiance, or allegiance to any sports team, it would amount to only $0.0001.  But still it was big news that I even chose a team to root for. 

My reason for choosing the Broncos had nothing to do with their athletic prowess or clever marketing schemes.  I've only spent time in Denver once for a few days.  Ever since I came to Portland and traveled with the festival team, I've always wanted a festival in Denver.  The Broncos play in Denver, I want a festival in Denver: Go Broncos!

Throughout the season I would occasionally glance at the scores and notice that 'my boys' are doing well.  Wait, what's this?  The Seahawks are doing well too?  I can spend my allegiance in two places.  After all, they are the Seattle Seahawks.  Go Broncos and Go Seahawks!

This afternoon as I watch the Seattle vs SF game, I hope 'my boys' win.  I hope 'my boys' won against the Patriots earlier.  That way, come Super Bowl, 'my boys' will win, which ever one that happens to be.

Winter planting

Friends of ours thinned out their landscaping and had a bunch of plant cuttings with nothing to do and nowhere to go.  They thought of us and offered to give us the cuttings.  With nothing to loose and much to gain, we took them and planted them in the front yard.  Come spring, our yard might be transformed.

new grassy plant in front of the small guest room

new grassy plant in front of the large guest room

daisy along side of the fence

 

very tired plant defending the open space between us and our neighbors

grassy plant at the corner

grassy plant at the corner

grassy plant at the corner

 

I had to displace a dozen tulips that we planted last month.  Hopefully they won't mind too much.  Their new home is in front of the maple tree.

 

Finally finished!

Sometime in late 2012, I installed a new glass sliding door.  It turned out very well, but I didn't have the tools to finished the bull-nose trim.  I even purchased and stained the trim in anticipation of someday finishing it.

For Christmas/birthday, Mom and Dad gave me an air compressor with a little trim nail gun.  In an effort to check off one more item on my 2013 to-do list, I worked on it last night.

Before: it doesn't look too bad without trim

After: but it does look better with trim.

Mom's Table

This fall, Mom asked me to build her a oak little phone table.  She gave me the dimensions and described a table with a drawer and bottom shelf.  Beyond that, I was able to design it. As we talked, my mind's eye came up with table closely resembling the this.

I was a little intimidated by the drawer, but after taking pencil to paper I talked myself down.

Here is how it turned out: