I'm in the middle of a hipster Indie film shoot

My regular weekend coffee joint has been interrupted by some sort of indie film shoot. It's unclear whether I'm in any of the shots, but there are lots of dark rimmed glasses, oversized aviator sunglasses, tight jeans, and ironic t-shirts nearby. Rather disturbing, frankly.

The best $400 I wish I didn't not spend

I know there will be little sympathy for me from my readers on the East Coast who deal with heat and humidity, but it's been brutally hot out here the past couple of days. Highs have been in the upper 90s, and while it cools off some at night, with daylight until 9:30 it takes a loooong time for the evening to become comfortable. What makes the heat difficult to deal with is the lack of air conditioning in my apartment, and its apparent imperviousness to evening cooling. Huan and I were playing Wii tennis this evening when I decided to measure the temperature. Given this was with a meat thermometer, so it isn't that precise, but here's what I found:

Inside apartment: 92
Outside apartment: 76
Medium rare beef: 140

So while our apartment wasn't quite "rare", it was a full 16 degrees warmer than the outdoors. Huan jokes that he might sleep on the porch. This is sad, but only because I'm jealous he thought of the idea before me.

Sadder still is that I was at Home Depot last night in anticipation of the heat. I decided that a $60 fan would be sufficient rather than following the lemmings that were buying the portable A/C units for $400 a pop. Clearly, I'm an idiot. If it doesn't cool off tomorrow I'm going to spend whatever it costs to get an air conditioned hotel, and if it doesn't cool off the day after that, I'm going to buy an A/C unit.

Half anniversary

Even if I weren't keeping track of how long I've been in town (5 months 14 days), I can tell that I'm approaching the 6 month anniversary because of all the renewal notices I'm getting from various insurance companies. Kind of strange that they operate on six month cycles while virtually nothing else does... everything is yearly or monthly. Wonder why?

Viva Costco Salsa!

When I arrived in DC last Friday I went to have lunch with some ex-coworkers. Sadly, most of them bailed, so I ended up with a man-date with my friend Steve... he blabbered on about some sort of InterWebs business he is starting. The tension broke when my friend Kathy stopped by the restaurant. She brought a gift.

The only salsa worth stealing.

Sadly, la salsa del dios needs to be refrigerated, so I couldn't take it back home to Seattle. Instead I brought it to the little BBQ I attended on Thursday night on my friend Kate's roofdeck. I wondered whether others would think the salsa worthy of the praise I've given it... so I was pleasantly surprised to find that a group of just 7 people at the entire jar. This isn't one of those tiny Tostitos jars either... it's a pretty big container. Now, since this was a pre-dinner appetizer it's entirely possible that people were just hungry and would have eaten anything. But I like to think that they were appreciating how good the salsa was.

Thanks to Northwest for the 26 day notice

My phone rang this past Thursday... I didn't recognize the 866 number but I answered it. Turns out it was an automated dialer from Northwest airlines letting me know that I should check in with Alaska Air when I fly to Denver. What made this unexpected is that I don't fly to Denver until early August. I usually do request flight information be sent to me via text, but usually they send me something a couple hours before my flight, maybe even two days before. Not 26 days.

My friends' wives like nice cars

I had full access to the Curtis family garage this past week, which meant that on average I drove a car that was 14 years old with 105,000 miles. But one of those cars is obviously much nicer than average:


My dad's 911. Purchased off Ebay. Once a suspected drug transporter (with me and my pops at the wheel). A fantastic drive that took me too and from the beach and too and from my friend Brad's wedding. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't hoping to garnish a little extra attention at the wedding by rolling up in a Porsche, even though I was really sheepish anytime anyone asked me if I was driving a 911.

That said, I have to say I am a little disappointed with what kind of attention I managed to attract. It turns out that some really fantastic and beautiful women noticed my ride. One of them even asked me "Can I have a dance with a guy who drives a Porsche?"

Sadly, the girls who liked my wheels all happened to be the same girls who are married to my best friends. Which is obviously less than ideal.

So the car got me nothing. Maybe I'm more of a pickup truck kind of guy.

Photos from the DC trip

Lots of blogging ahead now that I'm back in Seattle. Since it's going to be 90+ degrees here over the next couple of days I'm sure I'll go find an air conditioned place with WiFi to catch up on posts over the next few evenings.

Meanwhile, here are some pics I took while in DC.