Weird being back in the hood ! Traffic still sucks in WA state! We went from dodging deer Fri morning to dodging millennium idiots on the freeways!

We took a short 4 day trip to fetch riding lawnmower, wagon, big screen TV and attended a grad party for our neighbors daughter, watched our boys play mens league lacrosse, then raced back to MT on Monday to finish off our volunteer work. Our last day hosting is Thusday.

Yah. Steve, you know I love you, but please stop with taking Jacy out to play in 80+ year old planes. May I suggest mah jongg or Scrabble or...chess? Something nice and quiet and safe. Took me 20-odd years to find a good dentist, and if you up and get him killed I will be less than pleased. That Stratoliner that crashed off of Alki in 2002 springs to mind every time I look at that picture.

In other news, Sam celebrated his 18th birthday yesterday--25 June. He met me at Bellevue City Hall Tuesday morning on my way home from work, we went to the offices of the Police Department, and he applied for his CPL. He'd already gone online to register to vote. Somehow registering to vote online doesn't quite carry the gravitas of registering to vote in person, but whatever, the sense of duty and privilege and responsibility that comes with exercising one's right to vote are all still extant.

After City Hall, he drove with me to Bloodworks Northwest and we gave blood. The boy, who has beautiful huge veins and type O negative blood, has been donating since the day after his 16th birthday (the day after only because his 16th fell on a Sunday) and is closing in on his two gallon pin. In comparison, his mother has sh*tty little "rolling" veins buried under layers of scar tissue from years of donation, meaning that he spent a good half an hour Wednesday morning chilling in the Bloodworks Northwest Bellevue canteen area, drinking soda and eating Doritos (see? he is a real teenager) while technologists fussed with the tubing and needle to eke out a unit of my blood.

On the other hand, I have a 20 gallon pin, so there's that. It's kind of cool, Bloodworks in maybe the past year has started to notify donors of where there blood is used, if it is used as a whole unit (as opposed to being fractionated into packed RBC's, plasma, and platelets). No patient identifying information, just the name of the facility and the date of use. Sam has a little map he made up sometime his junior year, with pins showing where his blood--being O neg, it's almost never fractionated--has been used.

I wasn't able to take him out for a birthday dinner myself--work interfered--so I gave him money to take his gf, who is leaving Saturday bound for Taiwan on her way to Vietnam, out for a proper celebration. She's freaking adorable, maaaaybe 5' and 100 lbs. to his 6'2" and 220 lbs., and she's bloody brilliant. We'll go out again on Friday with his brothers, aunt, uncle, cousins and with M.'s mother and father, and possibly M., if she's not too knackered.

Anyway. It's a thing, to watch your son, your baby, help another woman into his vehicle (the 4Runner) properly--well, maybe not so much, since Sam pretty much scooped her up and lifted her into her seat; she was in heels and having difficulty with the step thingy. Seeing a manifestation of everything you ever taught your son about chivalry and being a good man, all coming into play in one instant.

One down, two more to go. Thank you, WaGunners, for sharing in my joy these past two weeks.

Wow! Wonderful update, glockgirl. I love hearing these fun details! Thanks for sharing.

Applied for his CPL, on his 18th birthday? That doesn’t add up.

Heh heh . . . I couldn't remember what kind of airplane it was, but I kept thinking about that crash before we took our flight.

And I agree about losing a great dentist. The only reason I was willing to risk it is because I was there with him.

You're right, it doesn't. I left out the part about his not being able to obtain one. Came out with a lot of pamphlets. Also a bit upset. I had left him while I attended to business elsewhere in the building. He and I both thought the age was 18. Apologies.

Nailed the interview. Starting work at the local hardware store Monday morning.

Got a great deal on an Ar. Ran into kcoop at sound loan and had a great chat. Super nice guy. Then went to Cabelas and waited an hour for my number to be called at the gun counter.

What made my day is the cabelas guy looked in the computer and saw 2 sku codes for the TC/R22 I was buying. So he went in back and brought out 2 boxes. 1 box only had the rifle. The other box had the rifle, sling, soft case, and a red dot. The package with all the extras was selling for the exact same price as the bare rifle “while supplies last.” Cabelas guy said he was going to set one of the packages aside so he could get one too.

Hell of a deal. Great customer service. Good people. 2 new guns.

Damn right it was a good day!

I remembered reading about this...

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/art ... ter-tcr22/

Hey, everybody walked (paddle, swam) away from that one! The poor plane and the guys that spent the thousands of hours to restore it are the ones my heart went out to. They got it up and going again .

Congrats !

Thank you. Definitely helps that one of my references actually ended up working there, so he could tell the managers about how great I am in person.

Great, now you're gonna get him fired, TOO!!!



Just kidding!

Glad your outta the moving gig....I know that was awhile ago, but everyone gets hurt at some point doing that...

Good luck!

Ironically, I adored moving. Best job I ever had, in fact. But yeah, I`m glad I am no longer contributing money to the sick son of a bitch who owned the place (PM for deets).