Spider Issues

Door Knocking Person:  Hi there – we’re going around the neighborhood helping people out with pest issues.  You look like you have some Spider issues – we can clean those up for you.

Somewhat addled father of 3:  You mean the webs and the spider sitting there in my porch.

Door knocking person:  Yeah – we can survey the home and clean those up for you.

Slightly more irritated father of 3 petulant offspring simultaneously looking for water, cookies and a Nintendo DS charger:  Now is not a good time, and I think we are ok with webs.

Door knocking person:  Ok  – well have a nice day and here’s my card.

Somewhat worried looking 6 year old:  What’s a spider issue?

Vexed, slightly overweight but still roguishly presentable under 40 year old:  Good bloody question son.

Senior civil servants to face sanction for not managing

This is the kind of thing that makes me laugh and cry at the same time.  65% of Irish civil servants are ‘outstanding’ or ‘exceeding expectations’.  Just 1% were assessed as ‘needs improvement’ or ‘unacceptable’.  The managers are going to face sanctions for…..not managing.  Struth.

Senior civil servants to face sanction for not managing.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings…

Some of my favorite clips…

Gonads of pewter. Try and watch this one without your chin pointing up towards the ceiling every 15 seconds.

Jeb Corliss – lunatic.  Currently recovering from multiple bone breakages following an accident while proximity flying.  Music should also get a mention as a current favorite – Sail by AWOLNATION.

And for something a little different to above…a really great TED talk by Shawn Achor on reversing the happiness equation.  All presentations should be like this, short, informative, compelling.  All the funny is a bonus.

2011 – one picture per month!

January – apparently we didn’t do anything in January because I can’t find any photographic evidence

February – Jackie went to Ireland with Ryan.  Kids and I visited the Olympic Peninsula for the first time.  Here they are on Dungeness Spit.

March – drawing a blank here…the Paddy’s Day pictures in the pissing rain are too tragic.

April – Weekend trip to San Juan Island

May – Jackie and the kids went to a Ceili/Hoedown

June – Road-trip already extensively covers so here’s Marc and Steve having some boating fun on Lake Washington.

July – Myself, Dave, Aiden and Oisin completed the Seattle to Portland bike ride.

August – Football season started again so we went to Seahawks Training Camp.

September – Deserves a few extra pics ‘coz we did loads of stuff.

Great Labor Day trip to Sun Lakes

Ma & Da in the Crabpot

Cabo for our 10th Anniversary

Harry started school!

Ronan in town for a gig

October – Halloween fun

November – Quick trip to Leavenworth…Sabrina was the photog on this one.

December – Finally settled into our new home.

Another year of great change, great adventure and great fun.

Happy 2012…and now for some Kerrygold ads.

I love the copyranter blog and some butter related posts reminded me of…

“You could put a bit of butter on the spuds Andre…”.  Gerrup!

Roadtrip Day 6-11, San Francisco, Sonoma, Oregon Coast, Seabrook, Home

Finally getting back to rounding off the roadtrip diary…

Day 6 – Sonoma

Took the kids out to Sonoma.  Beautiful place, beautiful weather.  Kids loved Traintown and Daddy loved the half-case of wine he managed to buy at the one winery we got to.  Met up with Steve and Marc back at Pier 39.  Harry then got a close up look as his favorite thing in San Fran – Coit Tower.  We also took a spin down zig-zagging Lombard Street.

Day 7 – Redwoods / Eureka

Pleasant drive through the Redwoods and occasionally literally through a Redwood.  My mother always told me if I had nothing good to say about someone/thing/where then don’t say anything…so I’m not saying anything about Eureka, our last over-nighter in California.

Day 8 – Florence, OR

Lots of great vistas driving 101 up the OR coast.  Scenery changes pretty dramatically once you leave CA.  Florence was a huge improvement over Eureka.  We did the dunes in Honeyman State Park and had a nice bit of diner grub at the Hot Rod Grill.

Day 9  – Florence > Seabrook, WA

Made it to our final stop on day 9.  Lunched in Tilamook on the way.  Lots of cheese and ice-cream.  Rented a nice pad in Seabrook and enjoyed the beach, bbq and smores vibe for a couple of days before heading for home.  After almost 4 years here this was our first major roadtrip. The kids traveled well, all but one of the overnighters hit the spot, we did it on a pretty tight budget and we saw lots of very cool stuff.  Great family experience.  Next time we plan to either head north through BC, heading for Alaska or East to Montana and then down to Yellowstone.  More on that…later.

We’ve gone a bit native…

Hope to give everyone back home a buzz over the Crimbo.  We had lots of fun decorating the house this weekend.  Ryan does not know what’s going on but he is extremely excited regardless.  Harry is struggling with naughty and nice.  Lauren is adamant that Santa doesn’t care how much things cost in the toy store.  Happy Holidays!

McHugh’s Law of Miscellaneous Items in a domestic setting when co-habiting with women and children

When clearing out any domestic receptacle capable of holding the flotsam and jetsam of life you will always find items in the following categories:

• 1.  Coins
• 2.  Sundry nails, nuts, bolts
• 3.  Lego
• 4.  Bloody hair accessories…everywhere I look there are hair clips, hair ties, hair claws (and I had to look up what they were called)

You’re welcome!

Sammamish Blotter Update

I kid you not…

Aggressive Zumba

A Sammamish resident called police Aug. 13 to report that his neighbor had been repeatedly dancing provocatively in front of his children. The resident called to report the neighbor’s noisy music. When police arrived the resident explained that he and his wife had had repeated disputes with the neighbor over her loud music and strange behavior.

According to the police report, the resident reported that the neighbor, a woman in her 40s, often worked out outside. Whenever the man or his children were outside, the woman would “skulk” along the property line wearing skimpy clothing and provocatively “bump and grind” in the direction of the family. The man said the woman had never exposed herself and that he did not want police to contact the woman because he was afraid that that would escalate the situation. The man reported that the woman’s home is for sale and that he was hopeful that she would soon be moving away.

As the officer was taking the report he noted that the woman was wearing pink bikini bottoms and a black sports bra doing lunges and stair steps up and down her front porch steps. Police documented the incident but have no immediate plans to confront the woman about her exercise routine.

Roadtrip Day 3-5 Ashland, OR, San Francisco, CA etc. etc.

Well I guess it’s a good sign that I didn’t end up posting daily during the roadtrip.  I didn’t have time and/or I was too knackered – both good reasons.  So here’s the abbreviated catch-up to assist future memoirists.

Day 3 – Ashland to San Francisco

Beautiful drive from Ashland down through Northern California, specifically Mount Shasta looming in our view for a lengthy portion of the early driving.  Long drive that day but we just kept going with a very brief pit(piss)-stop in Red Bluff.  Finally made it to the hotel, which would be home for the next 4 days in the early evening. Unloaded and back in the car (not too popular a choice for a certain <2 year old) to get our bearings, check out the city and do our first drive across the Golden Gate Bridge.  We were ultimately pretty pleased with the hotel choice.  It was decent for the budget and driving across the GG every day (despite the $6 toll) was a great way to get in and out of the city.

Day 4 – San Francisco

Took it very easy on day 4.  Needed to get the car out of our systems for the day. Spent the day in the pool and changed rooms to top floor to avoid some noise bother (nothing dicey – just structural) we had on Day 3.  Jackie headed down to SFO later that evening to pick-up Marc and Steven.

 

Day 5 – Alcatraz

Early dip in the pool followed by a jaunt to San Fran to head over to Alcatraz.  Sometimes these touristic icons can disappoint but Alcatraz exceeded my expectations.  The whole thing is really well done.  The audio tour did a fantastic job of taking you through and nailed it in terms of giving you a sense of the place and its purpose, somber and thoroughly entertaining at the same time.  The museum dudes were offering Lauren and Harry head-sets for the tour and I said no thinking they wouldn’t understand, would be bored, would drop them into the bay etc.  They ignored me and gave them one each anyway.  I was kind of knocked on my ass when the 2 of them proceeded to become absolutely engrossed in the whole thing and did the tour end to end – telling us where we were supposed to be going, asking loads of questions.  I was so glad those guys gave them the headsets.  I seriously underestimate the kids sometimes.  Lots of learning that day and not just about escapology.

Did Rainforest Café for food….perfect for the kids but a bit pricey (to be expected though for Fisherman’s wharf).  After grub we took the Powell-Mason cable car up and back.

Awesome day.