I’m Free!

Today I paid off the last bit of my student loan. With one $1200 stroke I finished it off. It’s something I’ve been working on all year. I had been paying off $500 a month, but when I got my promotion and raise, I took the extra money I was earning and bumped it up to $1000 a month. Now I’m completely debt free, and 2 months earlier than I had set as a goal. I hate having debt, and it was worth it to me to attack it aggressively.

woohooooo!!!!

Building Badger Mountain

Yesterday I volunteered to help build a trail up Badger Mountain. I have a hard time calling it a mountain without a little sarcasm, considering my Montana roots, but when you’re building a trail up it, somehow it seems like scaling Everest.

I had volunteered last year to build the trail on the other side of the mountain and carried buckets of gravel for a whole day. Yesterday we were digging out the trail itself so that gravel could be placed on it. This trail is for bikers and hikers and even horses.

There were flags placed every 15 feet or so. We would take a section and clear the vegetation away and flatten out the trail, then move up the line to the front of the pack and take the next section. For the first couple hours we worked fast. We took a break and went up higher for another hour. Somehow I managed to break a shovel. I sliced it clean in two. Very odd. Then we stopped for lunch. By this time my ankles were killing me. I had just bought new boots, and they were breaking me in. Fortunately, somebody had tape.

After lunch it got harder. We were running out of energy, and the ground was getting steeper. I managed to snap another shovel, leading me to believe maybe I was using it wrong or trying too hard. Or maybe the clumps of vegetation are just too much for shovel handles? Either way, I decided to switch to a different tool and ended up with a grub hoe (like a really heavy hoe, or an axe with the blade rotated 90 degrees). This one I didn’t manage to break.

We made it to the ridge and started on the other side, but immediately noticed a difference in the mountain. Whereas before we were digging in dirt and hitting an occasional rock, here we were fighting through rock held together with the occasional grain of dirt. Progress slowed to a trickle, and it was compounded by our exhaustion.

Finally, they called quitting time and I struggled down the hill, into my car, and home. After getting most of the dirt off in the shower, I switched to a relaxing bath for half an hour, then watched a couple movies before crashing. It’s morning now, and I’m sore all over.

Carrot Cake

350* until toothpick is clean, about 40 minutes

  • Main cake:
    • 3 cups grated carrots (about 6)
    • 2 cups all-purpose flour
    • 2 cups white sugar
    • 2 teaspoons baking soda
    • 1 teaspoon baking powder
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 4 eggs
    • 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
    • 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice
    • 3/4 cup chopped pecans
  • Frosting
    • 3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
    • 1 (8 ounce) package Neufchatel cheese
    • 1/2 cup butter, softened
    • 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 1 cup chopped pecans

The vegetable oil may seem like a lot, but don’t worry about it.

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan.
  2. In a large bowl, combine grated carrots, flour, white sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in eggs, oil, 1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, pineapple and 3/4 cup chopped pecans. Spoon batter into prepared pan.
  3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.
  4. To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, Neufchatel cheese, 1/2 cup butter or margarine and 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla. Beat until smooth. Spread on cooled cake. Then sprinkle 1 cup chopped pecans on top.

 

Wearing a helmet

This evening I was about to do my laundry, but I noticed I was short on quarters. I hopped on my bike and headed over to the local Safeway, literally a 2 minute bike ride. Since it’s such a short ride, on the sidewalk most of the way, and I had gel in my hair, I decided not to wear a helmet. On the way, though, I came across a scene that involved a man lying prostrate on the street, a bicycle nearby, a car stopped in the middle of the road with no drivers inside, and another car stopped across the street with no drivers. The people were huddled around what I presume was the bicyclist, and I had arrived at the scene early enough to have beaten the EMTs. I didn’t see any blood, and I didn’t see any damage, but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot of both. Since there were already people there, and nobody was making an attempt to get my attention, I figured my presence would hurt more than any help I could offer, so I continued on. Shortly after, the paramedics drove by. I got my quarters and returned. By then the man had a neck brace on and was being transferred to a stretcher.

I know most car accidents happen within 2 miles of one’s home, and I know that bicycling is pretty dangerous with all kinds of big cars and inattentive drivers, and I’m usually pretty good about wearing a helmet, but I think I’ll be more disciplined now.

Update on patents

I just realized that I haven’t entered in my blog the third patent application this year. I signed the application a few months ago, and forgot about it, really. But I’m working on my contribution report for the year, and noticed it and thought I’d mention that I’m up to 3 now.

A while ago I submitted another invention report and after talking to the legal people they were interested, but when doing a patent search, we found a single line in a single patent that’s close, but seems more like an afterthought in their patent. Unfortunately, that was enough for our legal people to decide not to pursue anything, so I’m stuck at 3 for a while. Still, I’ll keep it up. I should pick a number and set that as a goal, but the hard part is picking the number. Do I set a low goal like 5, or go for the gusto and set a long-term goal of 25?

I think for now I’ll just do what I’m doing and let the patent applications happen when they do.

Jump 5

Yesterday I did my fifth jump. This time I did a practice rip cord pull. This means that my chute is still being deployed as soon as I jump, but now I’m reaching for where the rip cord is supposed to be and pulling out a wadded up rag as practice. A couple more times and I’ll be pulling the real thing.

I also had less help from the guy on the radio below. I basically guided myself down the whole way. I landed on the field, which is good, but I wasn’t happy with how I guided myself. I was way too high when I was getting ready to land, so I tried to bleed off altitude, but I was too low to do it properly, so I made a bit of a mess of things. It’ll take me a bit of practice to get it right, but I’m definitely making progress towards being able to jump on my own.

I’m not sure what I’ll do after I get to that point, though. I really like jumping, but it’s extremely expensive. When I think about how many hundreds of dollars I’ve already spent on this, it not only boggles the mind, but it also makes me feel guilty. There are so many better things I could be spending money on. I could be donating it to charity, I could be saving more towards retirement or a home, I could be investing in the market more. I could even be spending it on a vacation or cruise. On the plus side, it’s not like I’m addicted to crack or hookers. And I’ve got stories that I’ll remember, too. We’ll see what happens.

Another Painful Cooking Experience

Today’s lesson is about cankersores. These are stress-induced sores on the inside of the mouth that are very painful. They are not bacterial or viral. After a few days, they will go away on their own. Since I have been under a lot of stress lately with the end of the fiscal year approaching at work and many pools of money rapidly drying up, these cankersores are no surprise.

Another important thing to note is that one should not compose a meal using highly acidic tomatoes when there are sores inside the mouth. ouch.

Crazy Weekend

This was quite the weekend. I’m really not sure I could have packed any more into it. I had a lot of fun, though, so I’m a happy boy.

It all started after work on Friday afternoon. I signed my time card and left, hurrying home for a quick bite. I had fairly old leftovers for lunch, and they hadn’t taken to microwaving very well, so I was starving. After I ate, I went to a club called “The Jungle,” though it might be called “Club Paradise” now. It’s changed management a few times, and it’s hard to say what exactly this establishment is named. Anyway, the point of my going there was to do some ballroom dancing. From 6-9 pm the floor was given up to the ballroom folk. I had been dancing at another bar in the Tri-Cities with a different group of people, but they were all older, and I wasn’t learning any new dances from them or meeting any people anywhere near my age, so I was trying something new that night. It turned out that the crowd was hardly different, though it was different people. They were all older than me, but they were a lot friendlier, and I ended up learning some new moves. I think I may continue to go occasionally on friday nights, but the chances of meeting someone my age are really slim, and the chances of learning new moves are fairly low, so it’d really just be to practice my dancing and maybe improvise some new moves. I really need to be in a bigger city to enjoy dancing more.

As the dance was rounding up, I got a call from Josh, who invited me to his apartment to chill before the next engagement for the evening. Around 10, we met up with a slew of friends at the bowling alley for some cosmic bowling. I had a hard time throwing consistently and was slightly frustrated that perhaps I had used up all my grace at the dance. Nonetheless, I had fun with everyone and eventually got home a little after 1am.

The next morning I was up by 8. I had a quick breakfast and shower, then drove over to the Richland Airport. Nick was already there wrapping up his lessons. This was his first skydiving, so he had to have a few hours of training before jumping, but I just had to show up. A few of our friends showed up later and brought a wide variety of expensive cameras to document the occassion. The training class had 6 people, and the plane takes 3 at a time, so I would have been on the 3rd load. Nick had a good first jump. He enjoyed it, which is the important part, so I convinced him to come up with me for his second jump and my fourth. Apparently he had an interesting landing and came uncomfortably close to my car, but I haven’t seen the pictures yet, so I’m not yet uncomfortable. I made my jump, and it was great. I had a nice stable exit and arch, and my chute deployed just fine. I had my first line twists, but it was no trouble to kick out of them just like on a swing. I mostly guided myself down to the ground, checking the altimeter frequently and making turns a split second before the guy on the radio told me to make them. I landed in the pea gravel in the center of the field, and on my feet, flaring at just the right time. The only downside was that after I landed my chute collapsed on top of the jumpmaster that had reached the ground before me, but it was hardly a problem and was actually a little funny.

A successful jump under my belt, I went home with the intent to work and instead took an extended nap and watched my latest from Netflix. Then I was off to a party at Josh’s house. He’s moving to Seattle in a couple weeks, and this was a sort of going-away party. We had drinks and barbecue, and we played games and talked and generally had a really good time. It was convenient that he lives in the same apartment complex, so I had no problem getting home late.

A short sleep later, I was up and getting ready for white water rafting on Sunday. At 10:15 Nick and Carolyn picked me up in Nick’s mom’s minivan. We picked up some other people and the six of us headed first to Yakima for lunch at Miner’s (huge hamburgers), and then to the Tieton river near White Pass and Naches. We met the rafting people up there, got in our gear, and headed onto the water. In September they release a lot of water from a resevoir to irrigate the Yakima valley, and the creek that is the Tieton mutates into a swift beast. It only took us 2 hours to go 15 miles and descend over 600 feet. The water was constant rapids, and we were soaked. It was a lot of fun. I really like sitting in the front of the boat. Afterwards, they served us a barbecue, and we drove home in tired silence, arriving at my place at about 7.

Once home, I grabbed a package of fig newtons and went in to work. I worked on a white paper for one project and a paper for another project until midnight. Tomorrow I have a few meetings, a presentation, disc golf, and a barbecue of sorts at a friend’s house.

I really should get some more sleep.

Rafting the White Salmon

Yesterday I went white water rafting on the White Salmon river. I’d already done it the year before, but it’s a fun trip, and I was with a lot of friends, so it was a guaranteed good time. We got up early and met nearby at 6 in the morning. Then we began the drive. I was in the front of the caravan of two cars. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive there, and we covered the ground pretty quickly.

We watched some Futurama episodes in the car, which was fun. I have a PDA that I often bring with me onto which I put different episodes of shows. I can plug the headphone jack from the PDA into my car and listen to the episode using my car stereo. I also have some velcro on my dash so that I can put the PDA up over the gas guage. I have seen all of the episodes so many times that I don’t need to watch the video to know what’s going on, so I look at it about as often as I check the spedometer.

Anyway, we arrived at Wet Planet, the company that was guiding the raft trip. We put on our suntan lotion and wetsuits and headed up in a bus to the put in. There was very little that was spectacular about the trip. It was pretty, and I was frequently drenched (a consequence of sitting in the front) with very cold water. We got to a point where we had to stop and walk around a rapid. The water narrows significantly and goes through a small area that we can’t go over. Just after it goes over the falls, though, the water gets really deep, and the rock walls along the side are pretty high, so it’s perfect for cliff jumping. It’s only about a 20 foot jump, but it’s still intimidating. Nonetheless, I jumped and landed safely in the water and came up and was pulled aboard the raft with no problems.

At the end of the trip, there is a huge fall. We had to prepare for it a couple times before we got there, but once we went over it, we had no problem. Right after the fall is another small set of rapids. Our guide told us that frequently people celebrate just after the fall and then flip over the second set. We knew that and it didn’t trip us up. The second group after us, though, had a bit of a problem, and their boat flipped over. We managed to pick up a couple people and everyone was ok, but it was funny to watch them do exactly what our guide said could happen. The group after them also had some problems and a couple people fell out and only one made it back in. We grabbed the other one.

During the whole thing, a film crew for a German television station was with us. They had their fancy expensive cameras in clear dry-bags and they were filming us and themselves going down the river. So some time in October in Germany there will be footage of me and my friends rafting on the White Salmon. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the footage from them, and they were in a hurry to get out of there and didn’t want to talk to me, so I might never see the film they got.

After the rafting, we had a barbecue and ate hamburgers and chips. Then we headed out. We stopped by Stonehenge, which is a World War 1 memorial in Maryhill, which is an astronomically accurate concrete structure, then finished off the trip back home. On the way back, my odometer rolled over from 99999 to 100000. It’s a 2000 Neon, and I got it used with 18,900 miles on it, so they aren’t all mine, but I’ve certainly put a lot of mile on that car. It’s treated me well.

After we arrived at home, I had a quick nap and then went to a birthday party at a coworker’s condo. It was a great day.

Back in the Game

Today I played my new best game of disc golf. On the front 9 I had +1, and on the back 9 I had +2, giving me a total of 3 over par. My goal for the end of the summer is to hit par for the course. I had a lot of opportunities for birdies that I botched, so I think it’s definitely possible for me to do it. I was still fantastically happy with my score today.

Right after the game, I went to Ultimate Frisbee practice. There was a tournament this weekend, so most of the normal crew wasn’t there. There were only 9 of us, so we set up a court for a different kind of game that is essentially the frisbee equivalent of half-court basketball. There is a square about 10 feet wide inside a square that is inside a bigger square that’s about 75 feet wide. The goal is to get the disc to your teammate in the center square. If there is a turnover, you have to take the disc outside the outer square before you can bring it back in. Of course, there is no travelling; you must only throw the disc, and you can’t stand in the inner square for more than 3 seconds. Today was really windy, so it made the game particularly challenging, but it was fun.