Went down to Eatonville on Saturday for a cider press at our neighbor’s uncle’s house. It was a great event with close to a hundred friends and family members all pressing apples and cooking and eating and talking. I had a chance to look at his WWII-era Stearman biplane, which is apparently what my grandfather must have trained military pilots on. Ate so much amazing food it was like and early thanksgiving. And I now have five gallons of fresh-pressed cider.
I’d like to have a huge family like that someday. It does make me a little sad that I probably won’t, given how late I’m starting…
Craig criticized my use of the word “funemployment” today. He says “funployment” is really the correct term – “funployment” like “employment”.
I think they’re two different things. I’m definitely funemployed now, but with time, hopefully I will graduate to funployment.
Also, Seattle is beautiful. Even in the rain. This afternoon’s view from my living room:
My friend David Lott introduced me to the idea of “funemployment”. It captures my life pretty well right about now.
A couple days ago a friend of Craig’s came into town for an art show. He’s a successful real estate investor from Louisville. We had a great time showing him around, going to Muhammad Yunus’s (2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner) talk at Microsoft, lunch at Wild Ginger (incredibly delicious!), and a great afternoon jamming together at the Experience Music Project. The evening before, I had no idea I was going to do any of this. Funemployment is great.
On Thursday, I had to drop a laptop off at an repair depot in Bellevue, so I swung by a Bellevue Toastmaster’s meeting. It was fun – I did an improv speech which was voted best of the day and got an invitation to speak to another group.
Thursday evening was spent fulfilling various social obligations – goodbye parties and potluck reciprocation dinners and such. Mmm… Good day!
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed playing an instrument this much. I just feel so happy when I hear a steel drum. I want to hear someone play a funeral dirge on the steel drums. I bet you’d still want to dance to it.
Anyway, I’m sold. I’ve already found a private instructor and if I can find a drum for under $500 (not an easy task) I’m buying it.
Jiffy Lube cut my brakes. Well, maybe they didn’t cut them, but all I know is that my brakes worked when I arrived at Jiffy Lube, but when I tried to leave the brake pedal sunk all the way to the floor and my brake warning light on the dashboard (didn’t even know that existed!) was on.
When I brought this to the attention of the Jiffy Lube employees, they said, “Yeah, see, we noted here that your brake fluid was low. You should probably have that filled up.” My brake fluid wasn’t just low, it was practically empty.
The funny part is that Jiffy Lube doesn’t refill brake fluid. So they didn’t drain my brake fluid to try to make money; someone was just incompetent.
Today I drove my car to the mechanic. The brakes were so bad that I couldn’t even stop on my hill so Craig drove in front of me to keep me from rolling into traffic if my parking brake also failed.
The one good thing is that I happened to have a full diagnostic done on my car about three days ago, in which the shop owner himself did the inspection and noted that the fluid level was ok and there were no leaks in the brake line. So as soon as they figure out what Jiffy Lube did to my brakes I should be able to take the evidence and file a complaint.
Maybe I’ll even get another totaled car out of this, who knows?
