Mom’s Saturday field trip to the big city!

We had a great time on Saturday – imported the Moms from Evert and had a blast! Visited the Chihuly Gardens and Glass and the Great Wheel – Which Bev DID ride – and I lost a bet! 🙂 Then we had drinks, dinner and gelato. A real nice day.

Here are some fine photos Christopher took:

[nggallery id=24]

A decade of blogging

I’ve been blogging for a decade. 10 years already… huh!

While this is certainly an interesting point in a time line, it’s really only an electronic analogue to a diary. I’m sure many people have been keeping diaries for longer. Nonetheless I’m kinda tickled to meet this milestone. I started “blogging” before “blog” was even a noun or a verb; indeed before it was even a popular catchphrase. Indeed I had my first web page back in 1995 (See my “Deep Archive” link above)

That’s a lot of time and bandwidth (timewidth?) dedicated to my own banter. What have I accomplished in that time?

As it turns out quite a bit. I became a true adult (still out for some debate). I had a successful consulting company (official corporation even!) and then transferred clients/closed it after my clients became successful and got gobbled-up by other, bigger corps in what became the dot com bomb. I moved to California and back. I bought a house. Got cats. Sold a house. Bought a condo. Used five different types of blogging software. Stumbled into a great relationship. And generally observed what made me laugh and ranted upon the stuff that irritated.

As I look back at some of my entries it makes me smile and laugh a lot. Also I cringe a lot…was I THAT shrill, really? Or was I THAT stupid, really? But that’s the deliciousness of time and becoming older — the cumulative benefit of your experiences always makes you wiser and wiser.

So what will the next decade have in store? Who knows….That is what is fun, and worth living!

-Garrett

1998:
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/1998/

1999:
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/1999/2/
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/1999/3/
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/1999/

2000:

http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2000/1/
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2000/2/
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2000/3/

2002
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2003/1/

2003:
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2003/2/

2004:
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2004/1/

2005:
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2005/1/
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2005/2/

2006:
http://www.gmwnet.com/archive/2006/1/

P.S.: I’m going to attempt to add these old entries to my database. So if you subscribe to the RSS feed you may see a slew of new entries. I’ll be careful to set the date in the posts properly, but I’m unsure if they will appear in the RSS feed because they are “new” entries as far as the database is concerned…

Bought a Condo!

So I just bought a condo — Yay for me! The location just couldn’t be beat, the price was right and it had basically everything I was looking for, so viola!

Here is the video tour with bonus shots of my super agent, Dave, and Claire.

Here are a few pics

Now the loan is in final process and awaiting underwriting, but everything else is complete. Hopefully no snags are left.

I’m excited.

Happy New Year — Live!

OK, so since I have a view of the Space Needle I decided to stream it live for the Seattle New Year’s festivities. The thing explodes into fireworks at midnight — it’s pretty cool.

Below is the link — I’ll archive it as well so you can watch it later if you so choose.

Note: There is a delay of about a minute, so don’t use this as your actual keeper of time for the New Year. If you’re a local — watch the TV. I’m just doing this because I’m a big dweeb and wanted to try out some server software. And plus the coolness factor is there, slightly.

Click here to watch New Year’s at the Space Needle!

Requires Windows Media Player – will be on around 10 p.m. PST. I have the camera on fish-eye zoom so that hopefully all the fireworks will be in view. My actual view is much closer — quite nice.

Happy New Year!!!

In case you are confused…

Thanks!! I didn’t know that!

My parents got this little pre-lit Christmas tree for me while I’m in my temporary apartment so that I don’t have to drag out the big tree from storage. It’s a great little thing and is perfect. So I open it up and start to spread-out the branches and I see these big orange tags…

Gotta love simple instructions. I wonder if they really think someone will put a small 4-ft, 2 piece Christmas tree backwards (keeping in mind there is no way to do so — the top only fits into the base).

K.I.S.S. and Happy Holidays!! 🙂 😉

Thunderstorms! Lightening! Oh My!

Thunderstorm in Seattle! Love it!! woo-hoo! Thunder bouncing off the buildings, it’s great! We never get this. Of course, the lucky bastards in the convergence zone are getting it worse, but still — small hail and lightening here.

Listening to live Air Traffic control and airplanes are going all over the place — trying to get around it — they are getting windshear on approach of +-20kts.

Bumbershoot


The heat notwithstanding, I ventured out to the annual Seattle Music festival. To be honest, I was a little dissapointed at the lineup. Or perhaps I’m just getting old. The only selections I desired to see were Blondie and the Steve Miller Band. So on Saturday I walked the 3 blocks from my apartment (nice!) to Seattle Center. I had an hour and a half before Blondie. This event is now is so effed-up that would you believe that I finally got into Memorial Stadium and got to listen to the last 4 songs only!! And the stadium wasn’t even full! What’s up with that?! Could they not open more gates? I arrived in standard time an hour before I wanted to listen — and the stadium wasn’t even full! Very dissapointing. Bad Seattle people, bad.

(I’ve been doing a lot of rants lately, huh?!)

On the flip-side I did meet-up with my friend Lauren and had a hoot of a time watching the Rat City Rollers play in their roller derby tournament. It was oddly fascinating to watch, and fun! And plus the campy factor was high, so of course I was all in!

Click here to watch roller derby chicks battle it out!

Seafair 2006!


Ahhh, Seafair!!

My friend Daniel from the Fly-In invited me to go out on his boat during the annual Seafair extravaganza in Seattle. We had a great time watching the Blue Angels. After the Blues we picked-up Claire and had great fun swimming, went to eat, and then watched the fireworks show that was new this year.

Even better was that I’m so close to the water, I just took a cab to the dock and walked back home (or at least that was the plan…it was so later after we got back that after dropping Claire off in Ballard I got off with her to save the boat a stop — she gave me a ride home. But I could have done it!)

Here is the photo gallery

Vid: Here come the Blues!

Vid: High Delta break

Vid: Last pass –love the boat horns!

Vid: Fireworks, with bonus conversation about matching socks

House sale: Complete; Move: Complete; Grass: really stinky

Well, it’s done. I have officially cleared the house and am in my new digs in Downtown Seattle. If any of you see me, promise to make me never, ever, ever purchase a residence with more than 1000 Sq FT. Even with a completely agressive “downsizing” of all my worldly possesions, damn I got a lot of shit! And that house was a lot of house to clear-and-clean. And during the last run to the dump, with ever thanks to my parents for the help, I acidentally spilled a garbage can full of decomposed grass clippings that has been sitting outside my house for a year. So decomposed it was liquid. I have yet to smell a more foul odor in my life, and it was all over me. Ahhhhh, though, it’s done — still have to unpack some stuff, but that can come at my own pace without any particular deadline. There is something to be said for a small apartment where it takes you 15 minutes to pick-up stuff and the convienience store is 3 minutes away — on foot! 🙂