SwimFinsSF

Weekend update

This has been one of those really odd weekend for a number of reasons. The first of which is I’m sitting here in a hotel room in my own city. I’ve never done that before. R&R have been gracious enough to let us stay with them while our place is getting remodeled (I can’t thank them enough and will always feel horribly guilty for the imposition) but part of the deal is we promised to be like church mice and vanish if they have other friends that are in town. Last night was one of those nights I’m probably going to get smacked by a number of people when they read this saying ‘you KNOW you can always stay with us’ – and by my mother who would have wanted us to visit Granite Bay for the weekend. But we decided we kinda wanted to escape and order room service and watch TV. Kevin was also feelin under the weather so I had to attend to him a little bit.

Yesterday was also a day of running around and errands too which was a little crazy. We had to get the B&B ready for a guest (ya know – vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, dishes… wee haa). Also had to do mundane things like getting the laundry done, get a hair cut, that kind of thing.

Also had to go by the house and meet the contractor to go over where things are at. They put up the sheet rock last week and put down the flooring. We also got all of the fixtures for the bathroom in.. So its all starting to come together now and look like a real place. The current plan is to be back in the house at the end of the month and be finished in time for turkey day… I’m not sure if it’ll actually happen but we’re leaning on them pretty hard to make it happen..

Hows that for a rambling entry? Sorry bout that but after reading a bunch of blogs I felt like I needed to post something myself…

More later..

New Art

The remodel isn’t even done but we’ve got new artwork to put in the new place. Some time ago Kevin got in touch with Casey O’Connell who was an artist whose work was showing at Chow on church street. Her work is really cool in an edgy innocent sort of way.

Kevin originally was scouting for artists to show at the art shows at Gensler but after talking about it we decided it would be cool to get one of her pieces for home. We met with her over dinner at Chow and absolutely loved her. She’s REALLY sweet and we had the best dinner where she spent a lot of time getting to know us and we got the scoop on who she was and her story.. After we left we decided that it would be cool to have more than one and as it happened she got some of her other work back and let us come pick out one while she was finishing ours…

So now we’re the proud owner of two of the coolest paintings. The first one is a very personal one of hers about her sister (there is a HUGE story behind it and i’m not even going to try to tell it) and the second is the one we got this weekend that she painted for us.

I think the best part was when I was talking to my carpool partner about it. I described that we were having this done and that we were picking it up tonight – to which he asked ‘Well what if you don’t like it’… It honestly never occurred to me that I wouldn’t like it…. And I wasn’t wrong – I think its really damn cool! 🙂

If you wanna check out her stuff you can see it on her web site or at a show at Gensler in January

OK.. this is cool

I’m sitting on an f-ing Airplane and can get to the internet… Lufthansa has wireless networking on its flights (at least on the 747 I’m sitting on)… Man I love the Germans! ;)..

Oh yea… I’m on a plane on my way to Germany… I have to be in Amsterdam next Thursday for work and then off to London as well for meetings.. So Kevin and I decided to tack on a week at the beginning and go to Berlin. And, conveniently enough, it happens to be the weekend for Folsom Europe.. How convenient… ;).. So i’m gonna be in Berlin till next tuesday with Kevin at which point he has to head back to the states.. I’m gonna go to either Cologne or Hamburg for two nights before heading on to Amsterdam… I’ll be in Amsterdam for IBC for a few days before going on to London…

Convenient timing too since the house is a hell hole.. but I won’t go into that right now – it’ll stress me out! :(:(

More stories from the air soon.. they’re serving dinner! 🙂

Quck Pete Update

California Sunset

Originally uploaded by SwimFinsSF.

Sitting here in Jumpin Java on my work at home day (which is rough when the house is torn up) and decided to take a 10 minute break from work to post a quick update.. (And a pretty picture) ;)..

Lets see.. Whats going on here?

House: its still a mess – and we’re learning a lot. Most importantly we’re learning how best to communicate with each other, the contractor, and the architects about cost and work scope.. It’ll all work out but its stressful..

Work: Well – you know I can’t talk much abou that.. Suffice it to say things are VERY busy right now for a bunch of different reasons. Its all good but man its bad when you wake up in the morning and realize you’ve been having dreams about project meetings and engineering schedules.. thats just not right..

Other: Well – going to europe here shortly which should be fun.. Most of it is for work but I did manage to convince Kevin to come over with me for a few extra days which aren’t work to see Berlin in the summer time.. I’m really excited…

Toys: I got this really cool Garmin Nuvi 360 (I blame Matta and Brian and Randy). The box is about the size of a pack of cards and is a GPS navigation system with a ton of other bells and whistles such as MP3 player, travel guides, traffic tracking, and other stuff.. Its REALLY cool.. I’ll post more bout it later..

Hmm.. Other than that? well not much really… just super busy..

More later

And it begins

OK.. I”m EXHAUSTED.. Today the demolition for our kitchen and bathroom remodel begins and we spent the whole weekend preparing for it… Packing the Kitchen, Living Room, and Bathroom and then cramming it all into the bedroom and office.. It was AMAZING how much CRAP we had crammed into every nook and cranney of that house and how much had to be moved.. INSANE… Had to get things out of the living room so it didn’t get covered in schmutz… But its all done now (the moving that is). Now we get to watch it all happen and, with any luck, in a few months our house will be STUNNING…

And on top of all that we both had to work this weekend… So i’m dying on my feet today… I need to collapse but can’t really do it at home at this point… Maybe use the couch in my office this afternoon…

uggg! 🙂

Where I’ve been

While munching on my sandwich over lunch I stumbled on this site that’ll map where you’ve been in the world. So here it is:

Where I’ve been in the US:

And here is where I’ve been in the world:

So it looks like i’ve got a whole LOT of world traveling to do… Better get to it