G'day new house numbers

Headed to Australia in a few hours. I can't recall the last time I was this excited to go on a business trip. I wonder what I'll see/do/buy. Who-hoo! Adventure is out there.

We put new house numbers on the house and they look smashing, if I do say so myself.

Nifty, eh?

Sometimes procrastination does bite

Crap. I waited until yesterday to buy a couple of gifts, including one for Greg and two that I need for a gift exchange in Ohio the week after xmas. Threadless.com suggested that if I order by the 19th (that's yesterday, right?), that UPS Ground would get me my goodies by xmas eve. So I did that. I figured even if I missed Saturday, Monday would still work (Greg's gift would be late but the Ohio gifts would be in hand before I depart first thing Tuesday). Easy peasy.

Well, now USP is telling me estimated delivery Tuesday afternoon. Argh. That's not good.

Attempt #1 to solve problem -- try to contact Threadless to change the order address. But there's not phone number listed. ARGH. Really? You can't even give me a phone number? I just ordered product from you and it's hung up in a transit limbo. I want to call you. Giant sigh.

Attempt #2 to solve problem -- pay $40 to UPS for their premium account status so that I can change the address mid-stream and have it delivered to my sister's address in Ohio. Expensive...but perfect! Except that the UPS site a) won't confirm that I've got the premium service, and b) it can't connect my tracked package (clearly visible on the site) with my account even though the addresses are EXACTLY THE SAME. I cannot underestimate how annoying this is.

So I called UPS. Three times. The first time, I was told I needed to wait 90 minutes for premium to kick in. So I waited and nothing happened. The next call, I was told that it was a technical support issue and was promptly connected to technical support, which was closed for the evening. (When is tech support closed earlier than the other phone support areas?!) So I waited some more, and still nothing happened. I called back and now the entire phone support system is shut down until morning (even though the first gal happily told me I could call back "anytime"). Is 10:20 p.m. Pacific not a part of anytime?

Holy cow, I am mad. And without my presents. This sucks. I suppose I should have bought locally crafted goodies with birds on them.

Zoo bus to hell

I chaperoned a Kindergarten field trip on Thursday with 36 kids, 2 teachers and 7 or so other parents. It was a well-intentioned affair, but it went south in a major way on the transportation front. Here are the impossible-to-dream-up events:

• Hired tour bus #1 makes it 25 miles out of town and promptly breaks down. We must pull over at a rest stop to assess the situation. Adults have to entertain kids for about 2 hours while we await the new bus. We trot the kids off into the woods surrounding the rest stop for some "learning."
• We get on bus #2, which is festooned with xmas lights and is blasting out Barry Manilow tunes. One kid locks himself in the lav for a short while, but we jimmy the door and free him. We make it safely to the Newport Aquarium (3 hrs. from PDX), where we now have a grand total of 1.5 hours to explore before we must return.
• Bus #2 takes off but we are assured that another bus will pick us up. That bus shows up an hour late. And is mysteriously similar to Bus #1.
• We ride Bus #1/Bus #3 for about 25 miles out of town, where it promptly breaks down. Again. Seriously? Adults have to entertain kids for about 1.75 hours while we await the new bus. We now have no power and no real food or water, but we do have a country store. We hang out with country store dude and his dogs, eating slim jims and peanut butter sandwiches. We have to buy flashlights as it's dark and we have no power on Bus #1/Bus #3.
• Bus #4 shows up; a school bus this time as opposed to a tour bus. Also, a state trooper shows up with a flood light to help escort the 36 little kids across the highway to the school bus. Yay for "Spike," the new bus driver and the unnamed state trooper!
• Spike gets us far up the road toward Portland. With about 25 miles to go, the emergency exit alarm starts going off incessantly. The emergency exit door is malfunctioning. We must pull over at a rest stop to assess the situation. The rest stop at which we pull over is THE SAME REST STOP we were at 10 hours ago during breakdown #1. We're now living in some kind of dark cosmic downward spiral from which we might never escape.
• Spike decides we'll just have to carry on with the malfunction, so we drive the final 25 miles with an alarm screeching.
• We finally make it to the school 3 hours later than expected. Teachers, parents and kids burst into applause (and for a few, into tears, to be sure).

Notes to self:

• Celia's teacher is pretty darn cool. And cool tempered. She saved the day from certain doom.
• Chaperoning a field trip comes with risks.
• Due to the aforementioned risks, think twice before volunteering again.

teh awesome

Rich made me something so cool that it's beyond words. He had a book printed of my entire house blog. Seriously. It's in my top 5 greatest gifts EVER.

Here's the front cover.

And the back.

I have no words worthy of this gift. Thank you, thank you friend.

Now...does this count as being published? ;-)

Ropin' the Wind

Good ol' Rich has come up with the perfect close-but-not-at-all-right nickname for our neighborhood Garthwick. From now on, we'll lovingly refer to it as GarthBrooks. 'Cause I've got friends in loooow places, where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases the blues away. It'll be OK." (Needless to say, this is totally NOT the right vibe for Garthwick, but whatevs.)

We were pleased to show Rich and Leland around the house on Saturday. Leland is contemplating a similar project to ours (to which my brain simultaneously says "yay!" and "the horror, the horror!"). I believe Leland is the only person we've ever had over that recognized all of our seemingly random folk art. He must be one of us. Long lost peeps!

Thanksgiving dinner at Chez Leedy this Thursday—the first of what's sure to be many parties here, intimate and gigantic. Yee-haw!

Sloppy

I have been reading some old posts again—both from this blog and my other occasionally-used tech blog—and have noticed a bunch of typos, misspellings and assorted sloppy things.

In my mind, I am a model of tidiness, but in reality I am lazy and sloppy. Good Lord, that is depressing. I wonder what other delusions I'm living under...

I am now vowing to do a better job at using spell check as well as at using actual m-dashes as opposed to two hyphens. I will try to do right by you, my loyal readers. Don't be alarmed...my overuse of ellipses and superlatives will continue. Ellipses are the best punctuation marks EVER!

Oh, also, I'll try to find something to blog about.

Feeling autumnal

Autumn has arrived in Garthwick. The leaves are taking over (and I mean that in a good way). So many deciduous trees—it boggles the mind. We're enjoying our new Linden thanks to Friend of Trees, and looking forward to seeing it grow.

Greg's friend Ian Mastenbrook was in the neighborhood a few weeks back and took some nice shots of the foliage. Check 'em out:

And now we need to find our rake. ;-)