Trying to remember what we did yesterday…everything is so hazy.  I believe that we got up in the morning & went swimming – J & Z in the pool and I went snorkeling a bit in the bay/cove just outside our hotel. Giant sea turtles.  Many.  As in, I could have touched one about as big as myself (but certainly heavier) – but it’s a good thing I didn’t because evidently there is a $25,000 fine just for touching them.  Wow.  Anyway…wow its trippy to be that close to something that large and have it be totally oblivious to you.

Then…uh…after that…I don’t remember.  At some point we stopped by the local Barnes & Noble & Jen grabbed some books.  Then a stop to the local Radio Shack, which had a large van outside with 13 (the driver’s info, not mine!) “drunk” temporary workers (I’m guessing temporary because they had been to Hawaii for work before, and wouldn’t be here permanently this time either) ALL of them (or several at least) waiting for cell phones.  Each phone taking like 10-20 mins to set up.  So…yeah, I gave up eventually and left.  Unfortunately the other worker – a thin fellow with one short arm (possibly missing an elbow and entire joint) with all the nails on it grown out very long wasn’t able to help me either because he was stuck on a phone talking to tech support for someone else’s cell phone.  Yeah…so it’s bullshit that everywhere sells cell phone crap now.  Luckily, I remembered that there was an OfficeMax back by B&N, so we went back and I got what I needed for half the price.

We went swimming at the beach after that, and Z got a little more time in the water than he had the time before.  Then uh…Jen made some Costco meat & potatoes that was very good.

Today…today we relaxed a bit, made some sandwiches and then went to the local aquarium.  They had some neat stuff there – sea turtles (much smaller than the local wild ones) & hammerheads that you could see from up pretty close, among other things.  Then eventually we wound up eating at a 50s themed diner type thing in Lahaina.  It was ok.

And, now, imagery, click for larger versions.:

it's the grapes

Jen & the giant tree

Dad & Z, and hats

One size fits all.

Mother and son at the beach

landings

aquarium, in blue

That all being said, vacationing with a toddler is hard work.  I’m not sure if “vacation” is quite the right word.  I wonder if he’ll remember any of it?  At least we’ve got pictures!

Because, you know it’s a cute little beach town (or it could be…) and we thought it would be fun to cruise around out there.  Oh, and it was sort of sunny and potentially sunny…but that was a big fat FAIL of course.  No sun for you!  Just crappy drizzle.  But we went anyway.

I put some pics up at our flickr site.

There really didn’t seem to be much to the town…I hope there was more around “the corner” (past the bridge onramp), because we still haven’t made it past that corner, and I have a feeling there must be more out there than the we saw.

They did have a pretty good size comic & geek store, which we checked out for kicks.  Not much in the way of back issues for a shop that size though.  They also have a (still functional) JC Penney (see last pics in set)!  Wow, flashback to early 90s please.  OK, I take that back, keep the early 90s as far away from me as you can.  Especially my hair :

Hopefully the other party in this photo doesn’t mind me posting it…it’s the only one I have from that time frame and cutting yourself out of photos is so cliche.  Plus …check out that look on his face.

This photo is the only one of me that almost made it into the jr high yearbook, and was given to me by someone in yearbook who found it in the trash pile or whatnot.

See here for the story.

Wow.  That is horrible.

Weather people be damned!  Today’s forecast was for rain.  Silly weatherpeople, I want your jobs.

So, I said I would post some pictures.  Well, Jen already posted some of them…so uh, here’s a big sign.

It’s uhh…yellow, and it tells you where Tillamook cheese lives.  Right across the street was a really shitty looking seafood restaurant that I suppose I should have photographed as well.

Re: The photo of the church signs in Jen’s blog – that town has 4400 people FYI.  Which I suppose would make for an average congregation size of about 230.   Assuming everyone in town attends.  Anyone know how many tithes you need to keep a church going?

I’m just curious.  Because 19 churches for 4400 people may not actually be that many (deities know there was this one spot in Goleta that had a fuckload of  large churches, I always wondered how they filled them all), but that sign sure makes it look like a lot.

So what else…oh yeah! We bought some jerky from a little shop run out of a little RV & a freight trailer along the side of the road just out of the Tillamook forest (or whatever it’s called).

This is what it looked like, from a distance.

They were selling handy wooden…things too.  We weren’t that hungry though so just stuck with some jerky.

The lady was nice and said they own 20 acres which I guess includes this spot right here – but they live on the other side somewhere.

I will say it would certainly be a nice place to own some property.  I think I could almost deal with an hour commute if I had a river in my backyard.

Note to self: Have more than 9 dollars cash next time we drive out here.  All the good jerky was like $11 a pack.

So, I stop off at Nordstrom to help a user with their computer & copier, and he shows me the $37,000+ chandelier we put into the, shoot, Dolce & Gabana boutique thing over there. My picture is shit, but there you go. It’s 100% hand blown glass from Italy I guess. Fancy shmancy. All the clothes I saw over there (and in the other new uber-haute(?) boutiques) were like, minimum $950, and plenty in the $4000. Who has that kind of money to spend on clothes? And WHY would you anyway, even if you had the money? Hell, you could pay someone to club a seal to death and personally make it into a coat for you for less than that.

So, I spent an hour or two there working on his machine, before heading over to the mall to pickup Hellgate: London, which had just arrived. Oh, factoid first: evidently at Nordstrom, when they page people (over the speakers), they page them with codenames so no one will hear their real name.

So yeah, headed past Pioneer Square, passed the little flower cart (which we’ll return to later) and came across the scene on the left. What’s wrong with this picture? There are multiple answers.

Saw that, snapped that (yay for 2 megapixel Mogul camera!), moved on. Picked up my game, had some lunch at that Paradise sandwich place down in the food court, enjoyed the ground shaking every few seconds from the road work above (I’m guessing, otherwise, no fucking clue).

I then headed back to the office and decided to stop at the aforementioned flowershop and grab something for my wonderful wife, who’s been busting her ass (not literally, that would be awkward) lately adapting to this new-mommy schtick. And doing a stellar job I might add. So, yeah, I stop there and figure I’ll just go with simple, I pick up 3 red roses and am set to go. I should note that I chose this flower place in particular because last time I came by a few weeks ago I noticed that they had a “We take VISA” placard thing out – and I never carry cash, and wasn’t aware of a BofA atm in the area, so I did indeed make a fierce mental note of said flowershop.

OK, so the nice ladygirl is ringing me up – which is a process in itself, because they use this little cellphone-modem thing to authorize the credit cards (normal shops use a landline dialer). And, because cell phones rock (I have a hunch it was on Verizon’s network), it wouldn’t connect. The poor girl was putting it on the hut roof, walking around with it, waving it around, trying whatever she could to get it to connect. I guess this is normal. So, I’m not in a hurry, I’m a patient guy.

So she is ringing me up when this other dude comes up, in kind of a hurry. He’s wearing one of those ubiquitous green Oregon (one of the colleges I think – let’s see..green is Ducks??) sweaters, and not looking particularly professional. He’s also British, most likely. He has a noticeable accent. He tells her that he’s in a hurry and has her start gathering up this little bouquet thing for him, he sees me waiting on the credit card auth thing, notes that that is what I’m waiting on, and continues. He does sort of pressure her into stopping fiddling with the cellphone thing and working on his flowers – which is fine with me because the phonething isn’t working for shit.

So she goes through the whole process and makes him a nice little thing of flowers as seen on the right. Yes that is my desk in the shot, more on that later. Yes that is my thumb, there will be nothing more about that later.

She gets ready to ring him up and he’s like “I’m also using credit card.” Oh, you’re in a hurry, and you’re also using the thing that isn’t working for me, which you SAW not working, and now you’re expecting it to work for you what, because you have a spiffy accent? I think not.. So, of course we’re still waiting on my card to go through when his train pulls up. He’s like “I have to go, I have to be on a conference call and if I don’t leave now I’ll be in the tunnel.” Ok, whatever dude, I love people who conduct business mid commute anyway. They are awesome. Especially in traffic, they are great drivers. It is really annoying to be next to them on the train too so yes, we have agreed that this guy is just generally annoying.

So he takes off. Leaving the poor girl with this quite nice little bouquet thing she put together with grass and branches and everything. It was nice, and I felt bad for her, and I figured it was much more pleasing on the eye than my simple roses, so I figured “Hey, why not.” and told her I’d take that one. Of course we were still waiting on the credit card thing, which was a no-go. But she saw my card was BofA and was like “Oh, hey there’s a BofA ATM right around the corner. Literally. There’s a BofA ATM built into the side of the Starbucks right there. Crazy. Learn something new everyday. So, I go around the corner about 15 steps, wait inline at this bizarrely located ATM (it’s literally RIGHT next to the door to Starbucks, so everyone going in or out almost brushes against you), grab some cash, and pick up the flowers. The girl (who was very nice! Bring her your business if you’re in the area and need flowers!) gave me a little discount for helping her out I guess. It all worked out, and everyone (except for the jerk) came out ok. Bonus!: I was happy to have found that ATM too – we’ve been in that area a few times in need of cash and had to drive all the way over to 5th or 21st or whatever the closest BofA is.

Moral of the story: Don’t be an ass. No, wait, that’s not quite it. Be patient and you will find good things. Yeah, that’s a little better.

It was a long, mostly boring drive, but we saw some interesting things. Like the Cementhenge thing in Washington…or the wierd abandoned giant factory out in TOTAL BFE Eastern Oregon. Near the town of Lime I think. Well, maybe it’s not technically a town. Village maybe? :P. Anyway, I think it was somewhere near there.

Shit! Here it is satellite style: linky.

Both my links were too complicated for blog software to parse. GRrrr.

Go go gadget tinyurl to save the day!