Hither and Yon

December 13, 2021December 13, 2021 ~ Jeff Andersen ~ Leave a comment

Seems like every week these days I’m in a new place.

Kirkland
San Jose
Davis
Kirkland
Newport Coast
Alpine
Sunnyvale
Kirkland

Skydiving, Stargazing, and Pretzels

For the first time since injuring my knee, I went out skydiving. Took some friends along and had a grand old time (they did tandem while I did a “recurrence jump” with an instructor, since it had been so long.) There were high winds and I didn’t manage to complete my landing turn, so I came down crosswind, moving across the ground at a good clip; but my vertical speed was great, so I just skidded into the landing.

We’d heard there was gonna be a meteor shower, so headed way out of town away from the light pollution and chilled in a truck bed till like 3am. Didn’t see anything, but good times were had.

A friend has pretty loaded parents so when their folks were out of town we went to their house to make pretzels and play VR.

The Bicycle Capital of America

Davis sure does live up to its name. One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing just how much of Davis we could get to on two wheels. The main theme of the trip though was the dang good food. Hayden has a knack for sniffing out lovely places to eat.

While we were in San Jose we caught a hockey game. It came down to the wire and the local team lost in a shootout, boohoo.

Those crêpes tho…

Friendsgiving

Popped back to Kirkland long enough to have some long-time friends over for Friendsgiving. Had a bit of a scare getting meat for the thing since I put it off till the day of and Whole Foods was dealing with the labor shortage by shutting down their meat deli. But I discovered that Costco of all places has great meat selections, so everything worked out great.

Off to the Beach

Thanksgiving in California was a total hoot. Highlights for me were shuffleboard, the mall, beaches, Disneyland (!!), and Thanksgiving-dinner-that-wasn’t-on-Thanksgiving.

Back at the Ranch

Originally I was going to spend the entire winter in Utah, but then the Seattle ward turned out to be really fun, and I also got to expense a trip back by taking a detour through Sunnyvale for a couple of back-to-back work summits. Also got to go see a performance of Messiah in Salt Lake, and binge-watch Arcane on Netflix with Mattie.

Also got to go on a really fun date to the Springville Art Museum. That building is awesome.

When I was in Provo, my roommates had this game they were working on which was like a super-charged amalgamation of Werewolf, Mafia, and Bang. It was just a prototype, and I got a version of it to play in Seattle. Well this year they finally knuckled down and finished it. I met up with them and introduced them to some old Seattle friends, where we played a round or three. Good times.

Home stretch

Having two back-to-back summits in one week was kinda fun, felt like a real vacation from all my usual meetings. On the way back from there to Kirkland, a homeless man made some people in SeaTac nervous, so they locked down baggage claim and directed everyone to wait outside, in the balmy Seattle winter air. They eventually cleared other areas of the airport so they could let us in while we waited for the dogs to sniff all the baggage claim carousels.

For the last several months I have had four sound bars in my place.

The Vizio sound bar that I’d picked up when I first moved here five-ish years ago. It had been expressing some mild glitches, turning off at random times. Also it had always struggled with dialogue sounding muffled.
The updated version of that soundbar. Figured that in the intervening time, the engineers would have fixed the dialogue issues. No such luck, just as muffled.
The slightly-more-expensive Samsung bar, which also has dialogue issues, and on top of that, doesn’t support AUX input.
The slightly-more-expensive-than-that JBL bar, which seems to do the trick. However, if the input signal ever gets really quiet, when it picks up again there’s a half-second delay before sound actually starts coming out of the unit, which is really annoying. You just can’t win.

The two new-but-discarded soundbars have been sitting on my guest bed for a while just waiting for me to pack them back up. Took the time to do that on Saturday, being very careful to put everything back in its various sleeves. I was out of packing tape so I picked some up on the way to Costco so I could tape it all closed. Got to the counter and the lady working the desk immediately proceeded to undo all my hard work to make sure I wasn’t scamming them. Can’t blame them I suppose.

That evening I went on a date to a string quartet that performed a bunch of Disney songs, and had a blast. Darted from the end of that date to the tail end of a friend’s Ugly Christmas Sweater party, donning the sweater I had secreted in my trunk before heading out for the date.

On Sunday I decided to grill some Costco ribeye. Did a bang-up job. Then drove to a Seattle stake musical production where a couple friends were performing, and darted from there to mid-way through a Harry Potter movie night (Half Blood Prince). The dialogue in that movie was top notch, don’t think I’ve ever re-watched it.

A week left here and then it’s back to Utah for Christmas! Woohoo!

(First 14 seconds relevant)

Bye, bye lil’ Moroni

October 29, 2021October 30, 2021 ~ Jeff Andersen ~ Leave a comment

Miss you like sad maaaacoroni. It’s hard to rhyme sensibly with Moroni.

I’ve cat-sat before, for longer. Maybe it’s cause Cleo and Tessa had each other to hang out with, maybe it’s because I wasn’t working from home back then, but I grew much more attached to Moroni than I thought I would. At first he was noisy and confusing – simultaneously meowing like crazy, purring, and not letting me come close. But now he’s my bro. So today was a bittersweet kind of day. I made sure to do a couple hours of work in a recliner so he could chill on my lap. Then I had to pack everything up and deceitfully call him over for scritches so I could put him in his crate for transport. The moment I sat down in front of it he knew what was coming and tried as hard as he could to escape my grip.

On the road, I knew I wasn’t taking him to quite as nice a place as he’d been enjoying for the last month. And yeah, his new living quarters are, in their entirety, smaller than my master bedroom. I hope his owner sets up a nice perch for him so he can watch out the window.

*sniff*

Thanks to some lovely weather in Oregon I now know what Anakin was on about when he said he doesn’t like sand because it’s coarse, irritating, and gets everywhere. Last week I got back from a really fun trip to go hang with Mattie for a weekend. There happened to be a major weather system making landfall all along the coast from Oregon to Washington while I was there. Up here in Seattle it caused various power outages, but down in Oregon it was just hecka windy. Like, it felt like we were walking around on Arrakis (erryone go see Dune it’s awesome).

Mattie left me to my own devices my first night so I went to a jazz club.

The pics don’t do the wind justice. Here’s a few videos that really highlight how crazy it was. And here’s the rest of the album.

Other highlights included seeing Dune, street tacos, visiting the curio shop, almost getting hit by a train (not really though, see album videos), and chillaxing in Mattie’s apartment listening to some French artist on a record player.

Moroni had a quirk where if he was happy he’d start kneading his paws. That in and of itself isn’t weird for a cat, but he’d do it even if he was lying sideways, just kneading the air. I’d had a neighbor feeding Moroni twice a day while I was gone. The night I got back, Moroni was antsy and making a noise I hadn’t heard before. I finally got him in my lap and he cuddled right up, smiling, purring, and kneading the air for like five solid minutes. D’aw.

The next day I and 16 others went out to see Dune in IMAX. I didn’t let on to anyone that I’d already seen it with Mattie – both plans kind of developed at the same time. I feel bad though. I ended up sitting in the middle of the row, left for some reason, came back, and someone else had accidentally taken my seat. I didn’t mind in the least and sat over towards the edge. Yesterday I heard that she still felt really bad about it, so I messaged her to reassure her that the movie was just fine by me.

Except for this one thing, where I ended up sitting next to a friend who I thought was cool but turns out he’s one of the noisiest moviegoers I’ve ever heard. Like the audio will go eerily quiet and the mood is immense, and then you have this guy fishing through crinkly wrapping for a gummy worm or slurping down a drink or munching on popcorn or giving commentary. I figure he’s gotta run out of food eventually, and he does, and then he goes out for more. Dude, open the friggin’ candy outside and put it in a cup. One of the biggest reasons you’re here in IMAX in the first place is for the sound, pay some respect gorammit.

Anyways, aside from that it was major fun.

For my birthday I hung out with a few friends at their place for a chill game night. They made me an awesome cake.

The next day I went on a date to a Kraken hockey game. The date was fun, the stadium was very impressive, and we did win the game.

I’ll leave you with my favorite trailer of the week.

New Roomie

October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 ~ Jeff Andersen ~ 1 Comment

Lots to catch up on!

Went on a hike with an old friend and some new ones, randomly ran into someone who used to attend Mom and Dad’s Provo ward. She has very fond memories of both of them, and Mom’s bread 🙂

A couple days later I had a big group over to watch About Time. I had to do some work beforehand to cleanse my place of a fruit fly infestation. Steve I related quite a bit to your tale. For my part, I can heartily endorse the cathartic release that comes from wielding an electric fly zapper racket. Nothing quite like eyeballing a meandering fruit fly, predicting its next moves, then swooping in for the kill. That combined with apple cider vinegar in a container covered in saran wrap with holes poked in it proved pretty effective.

Managed to get 98% of them gone by the time movie night rolled around. Everyone had a great time. Afterwards I realized though that over my career as a video cleaner-upper I evidently started out quite conservative. About Time might need a refresh, some stuff was edited out that was just silly. I think I was mirroring the sentiments of whoever made the original edited DVD. Stuff like, Uncle Desmond saying “Oh hand me the little ~~bugger~~, let’s see if he bounces!”

Made good progress on that evil puzzle afterwards.

My back deck got all finished up. I’m relieved that the color works out, as now that it’s a composite decking it’s much more expensive to change…

Spotted some lovely cirrus clouds.

I was due to receive Dad for a weekend stay, but got pulled away to a state fair. Dad made his way to my place via public transit while I lollygagged around the fairgrounds.

First time ever riding one of these catapult things, great fun.

The weekend with dad was awesome. We finished the evil puzzle, watched the premier episode of Foundation, as well as the edited version of The Patriot. Dad enjoyed a Sunday drive in Shadowfax, we had good steak at home and brisket at a neighbor’s house, and Dad helped me replace not one but two of my smaller toilets, as well as a broken doorbell.

My trash barrel is comically small, so I can fit roughly 2/3rds of a toilet at a time. Thus over the last three weeks I’ve been siphoning off parts of the old toilets (ok “toilet” is a weird word to be typing a bunch, just gonna say) until last week the two bowls made their way off.

While Dad was here the landscaper began work on the side yard. It’s been a mud pit ten months out of the year ever since I moved in. I unfortunately don’t have a before pic, but I’m very happy with the result.

I find myself walking back there even when going through the garage would be fastest, just to enjoy the ability to pass through without getting a speck of mud on my shoes.

Also, I found myself missing seeing my landscaper every day. He’s a cool dude. He did agree to come by quarterly to do some maintenance back there, so that’s nice.

The Friday after Dad left, I brought my projector to the Seattle church building to stream the BYU-USU football game. And of course the best play of the game happened while I was in the bathroom. Ah well, we still won, good times were had.

I was chilling in my car in the parking lot after the game, getting ready to drive home, when I got a phone call from a friend in the Seattle ward.

“Hi! What’s up?”

“So, I heard you like cats. I’m in a living situation right now where the landlord doesn’t allow pets. Would you be able to cat sit for a bit while I figure something out?”

“Absolutely! When should we meet up?”

“Well as soon as possible, maybe tomorrow? I’d ask for tonight but I know that’s a long way for you to drive…”

“Heh, well guess what, I’m parked at the Institute building, text me your address and I’ll be right over.”

“You’re a lifesaver.”

So that’s how I got my new roommate, Moroni. He spent the first week and a half quite skittish. Still has is bouts of “Thou shalt not touch the royal person”, but he’s gotten pretty chill, and regularly makes himself known to my coworkers when he strolls across my desk in front of my laptop.

I have to say goodbye to him this Friday, when his owner comes and picks him up after her move.

Unfortunately I learned too late that he’s a scratcher, and he did a number on my ottoman. I’ll see if I can paper over the damage, but in the meantime I got him a couple of scratch toys that he quite enjoys.

For Conference weekend I decided to try grilling a roast, and it turned out fantastic. Had some friends over to enjoy it too.

Not the best angle, it’s not quite clear that this is over two pounds of goodness.

Got invited over to a neighbor’s place for Canadian Thanksgiving. Volunteered to make dessert, and tried my hand at spicy raisin bars. Mom assured me that it would be hard to mess up, but I gave it the old college try when I added a tablespoon of baking soda rather than a teaspoon. Luckily I didn’t have to throw out too much, just the flour and salt.

End result: tasty

Afterwards we played a couple rounds of Rummikub, where I acquitted myself well. I also learned about glider planes; one of the hosts made a hobby of it a ways back. I might have to pick up that hobby myself.