Heh, traffic's bad enough, just add some snow and BLAMMO! An arduous commute!!

WHEW!
Most of the time, my commute is pretty mundane--I sit in traffic for a while, I move some, I get on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and I get home in about 30 minutes. No big deal.

Tonight it snowed. In anticipation of this, I took the bus. That same commute took 2+ hours, and that was using a combination of the bus and my hiking-boot-clad feet. Here's a couple of pics of our back deck.

This second pic was taken using the night setting on the new camera--I have GOT to find that tripod I have around here...

The funniest part is that this is more snow than we had in the downtown core, where the traffic was hellacious. And in case anyone is asking, I may be working from home Tuesday morning.

Hey hey hey Let's go to Victoria, on Princess Marguerite!!!

Now, if anyone else remembers where the title of today's entry comes from, I won't feel so dated. :)

We went to Victoria for my birthday....some of the pics I got, taken with my spiffy new camera....

What trip would be complete without high tea at the Empress? This was Daniel's first time sitting at high tea at this venerable institution, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself. BTW, the carrot ginger sandwiches are to die for, drool....

More dinking around with the new camera--this is the self-portrait feature. Daniel was taking a nap on our ferry ride, and I just couldn't resist getting a picture with him in his barely awakened state.

We went on a city tour, courtesy of Gray Line. Again, I'm dorking around with some of the settings. That's the inner harbour in the far view, and Daniel goofing around in the near view.

Our ride up on the ferry--it was a pretty smooth ride from Twassen to Nanaimo, thankfully. According to the ticket taker, we picked a good day to take the ferry. The previous day all sailings had been cancelled.

Daniel makes a fine tripod--I always like getting a shot of the government buildings lit up at night. This is my favorite, mainly because the street light to the right of the building looks like a lit torch.

Oh yea, I got a new camera for my birthday

For my 40th birthday (which is the 15th for anyone who's counting :), I got myself a camera, woot!

Daniel taking a painting break...

A self portrait.

As Daniel can attest, I've done A LOT of waffling on different models. Well, leave it to Costco to help me make up my mind. :) I found an Olympus SP-350 for 100 bux off the list price. It's a pretty sweet camera--the 8 MegaPixels alone is pretty doggone cool, not to mention the gazillion options for picture taking I now have. The latest paint job pics were taken with it as well.

Happy Birthday to me!! :)

Finished--about damned time too :)

At LAST! Our little project is done, and well in time for turkey day.

We tried rag rolling on the walls--so we got a darker shade of yellow, and a roller that looks like it's been wrapped with an old t-shirt. We then mixed the paint with some glaze, and away Daniel went.

Here's a nice little closeup of the wall, post-ragrolled.

Daniel and his work.

And here's Daniel covering the trim, so it doesn't get a texturing treatment as well.

All in all, this was a fun project, and it turned out nicely too.

phase two...the base coat....

More adventures in home improvement....the previous post showed the primer. Note to self: use a mask when dealing with oil-based primer, and open all the windows and run the ceiling fan. That stuff is POTENT!

So the base coat is called Cornmeal--and this is what two coats of it look like. Please note, these pictures were taken after I was done painting, which was at 11pm. This will look lots nicer in daylight.

The goal here is to get this done in time for turkey day. Will we make it? Let's hope so....

Next coat....rag-rolled on....stay tuned.....

Yes, the kittens do sleep from time to time...

With all the crazy pictures I post of the kittens running about and causing trouble, the question is, do these little furballs of terror ever sleep? Well, here's your evidence that they do from time to time...

Peter is enjoying a rare peaceful moment without Roscoe jumping on him and chewing his back feet. Any wrasslin' I manage to catch in pixel form is, in many cases, started by her.

Now this one is surprising....Roscoe zonked out next to Mr. Brownsuit, aka the old man. Just after the shutter snapped for this one, she put her paws on Mr. Brownsuit. He totally doesn't care, I think he's just happy to have some peace and quiet.

Home Improvement Madness

I'm sure many of you have heard me describe our BEYOOO-tiful wood paneling in the living and dining room. Well, the time has come to make it go away.

The before picture-primer pictures, with spackle:

This one is a bit blurry, but the basic idea here is that we now have a nice base coat for the next phase, which is actual color:

We went to Rodda Paint, which is a pretty good store. They're very helpful, and not too badly priced either. We expect to have this little project done by the time turkey day comes around.

Next projects: more walls, then a new floor