Pete Stuff
Quick Thursday Update
Its been a bit of a crazy week so i’ve been falling behind once again.. but a quick update seems like a good thing…
Home wise its been a little nuts… in the process of dealing with a move, selling a house, and other topsey turvey stuff around that. I really should be more relaxed about all of this because I know at the end of it all things will turn out great however while everything is in process i can’t help but stress out a little.. My little sis reminds me that it runs in the family. Without going into a bunch of details in a public forum we had a deal fall through that flipped me out initially but now i’m thinking it was a great thing from multiple perspectives… Its really funny how your gut instincts prove to be the best….
Other than that we’ve been trying to have a little fun. Last weekend we went to see the new Batman movie which was PHENOMENAL… Disturbing.. But GREAT.. I walked away just feeling giddy and oogey at the same time - how weird is that.. Something about Heath Ledger in Scary Clown Nurse Drag that is just not right.. but DAMN…
Weekend before was the HRC Dinner and Dore Alley Street Fair - both of which were great. The HRC Dinner was a little odd because of the drama around the HRC position on ENDA. It kind of breaks my heart because there isn’t a clear good answer here and I hate seeing people that would normally be on the same side of the issue being divided so badly.. its a shame.. But the dinner was fun and it was great to have my parents join us for it. Dore Alley was the usual stuff… just a lot of tawdry fun which would shock the hell out of most people but is kinda boring to me these days… unfortunately it was also a little cold so we didn’t last very long…
This week we’re having a few house guests to keep us busy. Kevin’s friend Laura that he met in Guatemala got here Monday and left this morning. Then on Saturday night Kevin’s Niece from NC arrives for a week. It will be interesting to see what Kevin plans for her. Last time she was here he took her EVERYWHERE - they did tourist stuff in SF that i’ve never done which is impressive - she was EXHAUSTED by the time she left..
I think thats it at this point - probably more soon but that’ll do for now…
Peace
a note from the frey
Just wanted to post a few quick updates while I drive to work (or, rather, am driven)…. Its been ages since i’ve posted anything here for all the same reasons and a few new ones.. So lets see…. updates…
Guess the biggest news is we just moved… Not far at all from the old place actually but its a bigger place with a yard… Basically brand new construction and very open and sunny. We moved last weekend (and, thus, missed pride completely… sure hope they have it again next year! ;-)) and have spent the last week trying to get the space livable and get the old place ready to sell at the same time… The trick is that we’re staging the old place with all of our good stuff which means we’re kind of camping in the new place - we have a bed, my desk, and all of our stuff - but the nice furniture like the couch and the carpets are all still in the old place…
I’ll post some pictures soon…
Aside from that usual stuff going on here… Lots of work as usual… Trying to keep the puppy out of trouble and happy… not much time for being social… Missing all of my shows that are in hiatus (ugly betty, lost, desperate housewives, battlestar galactica, ….)… you know…
oh… and i’m 38 today.. Kevin had some folks over for cocktails and snacks yesterday… in the new yard… so fun…. 
now off to work… more later!
A week on a boat
I’ve been super busy the last few days / weeks with all sorts of stuff so I haven’t had time to post… But I did want to share some pictures while I have a free second (and just a second)… Kevin and I just got back from spending a week with a whole bunch of friends and family on another one of our live aboard dive boats… We went with my dad, rick, randy, rick’s dad, matt s. matt f. tim c., chris m that I work with, erin, and some other folks r&r know… In case you’re curious all the pictures are posted here… You can also see R&R’s pictures and a video here
more later
A few things for a Monday morning
On my shuttle on the way into work so figured i’d throw a few things out there… All completely unrelated and random - but what the hell! :)… Weekend was good but not many good stories to tell.. Dinner with R&R friday night was great… Chores and work Saturday.. Brunch and the park with Audrey and Brian.. Then walks in the GORGEOUS weather yesterday.. And watched Balls of Fury last night after dinner… Very nice.
Trip back east
Kevin and I spent Saturday morning booking a trip back east to visit family. When we first started looking at this it was stressing me out - not because I didn’t want to see folks but rather just because of all of the variables we had to plan around. We wanted to go to Gettysburg to visit my family, North Carolina to visit Kevin’s family, Washington DC for a set of HRC meetings, and Kevin wanted to stay longer and maybe go to Atlanta. Well we skipped the last part but we managed to find a great set of flights that pulled it all off.. Kevin is going to visit his family on a monday, I’m meeting him there that friday and staying for a few days before we head north to visit my family. after a few days there we’re heading to DC… Now that its all taken care of the trip actually is sounding like a lot of fun to me and i’m really looking forward to it.. I can really use the break.
High Class
We saw the trashiest example of drunken behavior yesterday afternoon… We walked out the front door to go to an early dinner to hear some woman spewing profanities with a slurred voice.. I rolled my eyes and wrote it off to drunks on a sunday coming back from the bar. But when I got a glimpse I saw her unbuttoning her pants and I assumed she was mooning her friends. New but still random drunken-ness so I kept walking. Then I glanced back to see if Kevin was coming only to see that that same girl was doing some strange crab walk with her pants around her ankles - and peeing.. Dear lord… A drunken slutty girl with a foul mouth peeing on the sidewalk about 10 feet from our front stoop - right where our dog craps on a daily basis… NICE…
Hypocrisy
In reading this article on John McCain trying to distance himself from the endorsement of a Texan pastor. Aparently, in addition to this guy being anti-gay, he’s also spoken about catholics conspiring with Nazis against Jews. Because of this American Catholics have been leaning on McCain to renounce this guy… Thats all well and good - but what I found interesting was this quote:
“By publicly addressing this issue, you will reaffirm to the American public and to Catholics that intolerance and bigotry have no place in American presidential campaigns,” Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, wrote McCain in a letter sent Thursday.
Is it just me or is a quote like this kinda funny coming from a representative of a catholic organization - particularly after things like this coming from the head of that church.. I don’t know.. i’m just sayin!
In a continuing effort…
to ping the blog a little more often here is my morning bus-bound-note! :):)
Though actually not a whole lot to report since yesterday… Our friend Ray is in town visiting from Calgary.. Poor guy came from Canada undoubtedly expecting a little California sunshine. Boy was he wrong… weather here this weekend is going to be NASTY.. rainy and cold… ah well - an excuse for me to finally check out the De Young.. :):)
Other than that just the usual. Am trying to plan a trip back east to visit Kevin’s ‘rents and mine before our dive trip to Fiji in may. so current plan is week in march in Gettysburg and Winston-Salem (Pinnacle actually) and then a week on a boat in Fiji. Neither of them can come fast enough for me.
And on a final silly note, I’ve got a new favorite quote and a new favorite site… I stumbled on Wikiquote… I really enjoy different proverbs and how they translate and this site is full of ‘em.. Anyway - found this one and it has seemed kinda fitting lately (and I’m going to plead the fifth when asked why it resonates right now! :):))
Klug zu reden ist doch schwer, klug zu schweigen noch viel mehr
Ok.. thats it for now… more
He Lives
Once again, I fell off the face of the earth for a while.. but back now.. Lots going on and rather than wait till I have time to write about it all i’m just going to post a quick hi and fill in the details as I have time…
But the reader’s digest version is things at home and work have been keeping me VERY busy. I’ve been a little cagey about it since its not entirely my story to tell but the long and short is Kevin found out last june or july that he had Lymphoma. Thats the bad news.. The good news is today is the very last of his radiation treatments and then, knock on wood, its all taken care of… But for the last few months he’s been going through Chemo and Radiation to deal with it and i’ve been trying my best to hold down the fort and help him out… Not going to say no big deal cuz that’d be a lie. Its just one of those things in life that ya just deal with and try not to ask why too many times - cuz there isn’t an answer… But things are going VERY well and we’re doing fine… Kevin has posted some stuff on his blog if you want more dirt! 
As to other things.. Well work is work… I could go into details there but its the usual Apple stuff - can’t talk about details… Suffice it to say the usual challenges continue to make me a little nuts but on a good day are a lot of fun.. The one good thing I can add is that they’ve started a bus system like Google’s to get me to work - so now I have nice buses that pick me up right in my ‘hood and deliver me directly to work.. pretty rockin…
Oh yea - and the puppy… Well she’s just too f-in cute for words… And she’s getting HUGE… Still a puppy though.. Cute as can be but a total handful. Training is going really well though I still don’t know why she does the things she does.. Some times she is PERFECT… sits at the corners on walks… comes when she’s called… sleeps like an angel at our feet while we’re chilling at home.. And then there are other times.. pulling at the leash.. random accidents for no reason we can see… ignoring us when she doesn’t want to obey… Just have to remind ourselves that she’s just a baby.. but we love her to death regardless…
Anyway - bus is half way to work and I have other stuff to do.. so rather than wait a while before posting this again i’m going to post and go… I’ll post more details later…
Friday Stuff
just a few things that made me smile for your friday..
First a silly thing.. Little goofy jingle that made me smile so I had to share.. Click here
Then a wrap up on the democratic presidential forum on Logo last night. I only caught parts of it but its on the tivo so i’m going to check it out this weekend… but Logo has a good wrap up and discussion on the forum here…
Customer Service HELL
So this week has been one of those weeks where any interaction I’ve had with companies providing services has gone wrong…
Lets start with Comcast… Fucking Comcast… I got a shiny new HDTV and a new Gen 3 TiVo about a week and a half ago and to go with it I decided to order Digital Cable (I had DirecTV but they dropped TiVo - but thats a different rant).. Well I scheduled a service apointment for last Saturday from 12-2pm. I’ll skip the gory details but suffice it to say they never showed up after many phone calls and waiting around till 6pm that night for them.
So I reschedule for Wednesday over lunch (another 12-2 apointment). Well this time they show up and install the cable however of course they forgot the CableCards I need for the new TiVo. The service guy points to his invoice to show I didn’t ask for it to which I reply ‘I didn’t write your invoice - all that shows is that the person I set up the apointment with didn’t listen when I said VERY CLEARLY that i needed 2 CableCards’. So he proceeds to promise that his supervisor would come by by 5pm that night to deliver the cards. Well 6pm rolls around and no cards.. So I call to see what gives and they tell me that since its 6:05pm they can’t call the supervisor and I just have to set up another apointment.. (Imagine steam coming out of my ears). So I have to set up an apointment for this saturday cuz I have a JOB and can’t be there thursday or friday…
So today i’m driving to work and thinking ‘can’t I just swing by their office and pick the cards up rather than sitting around all day saturday (2-6pm) wondering if they’ll show or not’… So I call comcast and ask to which the guy says ‘Sure - you can just go by the comcast office in sunnyvale and get them’. Sweet… So much easier and I can use my TiVo tonight. So I show up to pick them up and the poor woman at the counter tells me ‘We don’t have the hardware here - the operators have been told not to send customers here’…
This is when my head spins around and I come completely unglued. I start nearly yelling at her about the cascade of fuckups i’ve been through. I know full well there is nothing she can do but i’m at a loss as to who I can talk to who can actually make sure something happens… So now I just getta sit around saturday afternoon and HOPE that they get it right this time. My bet? either they don’t show up at all, or they show up with 1 card instead of 2..
And then there is the Shower Glass folks for my remodel - I’ll keep this one short.. Short story is its 2 Months late and I still don’t have a shower in my house. They’ve used every excuse from ‘we can’t measure till the tile goes in’ to ‘we don’t schedule appointments until the glass has been deliverred’ to ‘the glass showed up but one piece was cracked’ to ‘we forgot to order the hinges’ to ‘turns out the chanels we cut don’t fit’…. AHHHHHHHH… I don’t care about any of that shit - it all boils down to DO YOUR FUCKING JOB… So now monday is the current date they’re supposed to do the install - but I don’t believe it for a minute…
So thats been my week.. My blood pressure is through the roof and I’m very likely to rip someone’s head off if they look at me funny.. And all because I’m an individual consumer that actually expects that people do their job but one that has no pull to make sure that they actually do.. So I have to sit here and take it while grunting ‘Thank you sir may I have another’..
So right now Comcast and E—- Glass are on my shit list. Can’t wait to see who’s next.
Sorry.. I promise the next post will be friendly… I just had to rant…
I’m back
Just a quick post to say i’m back and i’ll fill ya in later.. But here’s the reader’s digest version: Belize for the holidays - 7 days on a dive boat - Dove the ‘Blue Hole’ - 1 night in Belize City - 2 nights at a super cool spa in the jungle - lots of skeeter bites… Pictures to come! :):)
A few things for a monday morning
Not much to report here… Just getting to work and figured i’d post quickly before I start in on real stuff… Weekend was actually pretty low key which was very nice.. Hung out with Matt and Audrey on friday night - got to read her her bedtime story and then just hung out… My parents came out saturday morning to see the state of the remodel (and gave me t he appropriate ‘WOW’ that I needed after all the pain) and then we went to the Universal Cafe for brunch which was very nice. The rest of the afternoon and evening I spent shopping and doing chores including … wait for it…. LAUNDRY… I know… boaring and lame - right? Well not so much when you haven’t had a washer and dryer in the house for 4 years now… so being able to throw a load in the wash is GREAT… I went a little nuts and ran around the house finding everything I could to wash.. I’m SUCH a dork…
Yesterday was very lazy too - more chores.. cleaning the house.. then went to Drew and Adrian’s for their yearly Yule party which was very fun…
This morning was with my trainer at the gym - OUCH… He’s great but I managed to torque my right arm last week so i’m hurting a little bit.. He’s watching it to make sure I don’t do more damage but, being the good trainer that he is, he’s not letting me just nurse it and not workout… So i’m a little sore this morning again. Suppose thats part of the process!
This week is gonna be a little nuts - I leave to meet kevin friday night for a week (YAY) so I gotta get everything done before I take off… Got shopping to do. Work to do. and packing. and i’m sure more that i’m not remembering…
Anyway - thats bout it… Gotta get back to work.. But while i’m trying to be productive, check this out… Just made me giggle so I had to share!
Some things never change
I just wandered into this post when I was looking at my server logs at what people were searching for. Its a pretty good run down of me and the scary thing is that, even though it is kinda old, nearly everything still applies.. I’m even wearing the same black and white soccer shoes. Maybe I need to mix it up a little and see what things on there I can change.
Begging to feel like a home
Our house is finally starting to resemble a home rather than a construction site. Our contractor spent a fair amount of time friday removing construction shrapnel from the bathroom and putting down fresh protection on the floor so, while there is still a fair amount of work to do, it is actually presentable.. And yesterday he did the same with the kitchen as well as getting nearly everything in working order. So now we have a working washer, dryer, fridge, oven, microwave, dishwasher, and sink… All of the protective paper is off of things and it is actually pretty cool… There is still a ton to do (cooktop isn’t functioning, bar counter is still missing, electricial details, paint, and a bunch of other stuff - but its definitely cool… I even got to cook my own meal at home last night (don’t ask what - the dishes and stuff are still all packed away so it was a microwavable something or another.. but still cool)…
a few more pix are posted… :):)
Heimat
When I was studying German at the Goethe Institut a while back we got into a long discussion of the German word Heimat. If you look it up in a German / English dictionary the definition is Home / Homeland / Country. But the discussion around it was that the meaning was a far less tangible thing that is farily deep seeded and important to Germans. It is a sense of center and a sense of where you come from and where you live. There is a definition on Wikipedia that is interesting but that didn’t even quite cover it. Its a little hard to describe but I think the english word home has some of the same connotations but we tend to discount it much more and overload the term with ‘the place where you sleep at night’. I like Heimat better..
So I’ve been feeling a bit lost lately for a variety of reasons that really aren’t a big deal but as I got to work today that term popped into my head and I started to understand it. There are a lot of things that are rather topsey turvey in my life - for good reasons but still upside down for various reasons. I woke up in a cold empty house with Kevin thousands of miles away. I took a bath in a tub with no shower, leaky fixtures, and construction all around (don’t get me started). I’ve been drinking warm soda and eating in restaurants cuz of the lack of a fridge. November and December always suck at work cuz of performance reviews and deadlines. I’m trying to take care of all my Christmas shopping in time and find gifts for family that are meaningful. Oh.. and all my favorite shows are on their winter break so i’m stuck with re-runs.
All of this kinda makes me understand more clearly what they mean by Heimat and why its so important. Its your center and the keel that keeps your boat upright. Its a sense of whats truely ‘home’ in your life. Where you come from, who you are, and what you hold to be sacred. When those things get jostled its more unsettling and makes it harder to deal with the other things that don’t matter so much.
But this really isn’t a weepy or upset post or anything. All of these things will be fine and I just gotta muscle through them. House will be GREAT - Kevin’s learning good stuff - and Lost and Battlestar Galactica will return! :):). Its just the typical engineer / scientist analyzing touchey feely shit that I usually just ignore. All’s good - just doin a little self discovery!
Anyway - thats a long enough break - got bugs to fix… Hasta pasta!
He made it there
Kevin made it to Guatemala safely and now is dealing with a little bit of culture shock. I’ve been swapping text messages with him yesterday and today (which will no doubt cost us a fortune) and he’s sent a couple of pictures which I’ve posted to my flickr account… I’ll let him describe the details on his blog (yes - he has one. Matt says kevin getting a blog may be a sign of the Apocalypse - we’ll see). But had to share a few pictures.
Now back to writing reviews… more later..
Back to Reality
Uggg… Some times coming back from vacation is particularly harsh… We spent the past week in a super cool condo in Cabo San Lucas Mexico… The timing work and otherwise was REALLY bad but we planned the trip so far in advance that I couldn’t skip out… The week was relaxing and just what I needed to recharge so I could dive into things back here with energy again..
Or so I thought..
Then we came home to our remodel project and I just want to scream.. Or cry… Or something… Everyone I know tells me that these never go the way they’re supposed to and I should just deal. But this is my house and right now it resembles a war zone.
We were supposed to come back today to a house that, while not completed, was at least a place we could live. Well - no such luck. The flooring guy is still trying to finish the floors so the fixtures aren’t back in and I could go on and on from there…
Luckily we have friends that are SO GREAT so we have places to crash (and I’m eternally grateful for that). But thats kinda not the point - being homeless for this long is really getting to me and some times it feels like the people working on the project just don’t get that or don’t care..
Anyway - enough ranting… I’ll post the pix from the trip shortly and we can talk about happier things.. I just had to vent a little… thanks for indulging me!
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