We stayed at the WAC, which was really nice, in downtown Seattle, which had Wifi in the room, so I was just about in heaven hanging out at the hotel. We even ended up getting hour long massages and using their workout rooms, which was a great thing, and I'm sure they'll show up on an expense report.
I couldn't pass up the chance to meet Kevin (VS Underlord) at Bay Valve on Friday, well after I figured out how to get out of downtown Seattle, finally. He showed me around his new shop. It’s pretty incredible to see the work they do there, esp with my experience in the oil industry, so that I got to see some of the working bits of the stuff that goes into it all, and the sheer scale of the parts they work on. I need a media blaster like they've got. I met Jake, a really great guy, Kevin’s dad, Steve (he really does remind me of Paul Sr. from American Chopper!) and went to lunch with Kevin and rode in his V70, which is a very nice ride I must say, although Kevin's too modest to say how nice it really is. I have manual-tranny envy now!!! I had a great time, and a special thanks Kevin for hanging with me, man! Sorry that I didn't have time to meet up w/anyone else while I was down there, though. I really am going to have to get a T5M now.
Later I went to Anthony’s Pier 66, talked to Carson on the phone (the wife says I should've invited you for dinner, sorry man!), for a great dinner w/the bride watching the sunset over the Sound while dining on salmon and halibut, and drank too much Alaskan Amber, almost. After that, we went and saw Flight Plan at some theatre about 2block from the hotel. The movie was okay, but a bit of a disappointment, and I predicted the villain from the first few minutes of the show, but it was good to see Jodie Foster get her jerk kicked a bit.
If you're reading this blog... this is the point when Scott quit having much fun. If you read further, it's a bit of a bitch-fest, so you've been warned...
On Saturday, we drove down to Portland to visit with the wife’s brother. Up front, the redeeming factor of this trip to Portland was that I rented a Volvo S80, and that I got a ton of clothes shopping done. The car was very comfortable, if not extremely soft-sprung by my tastes, and felt like it wandered down the road. It did cruise very well at 85mph, and it got 30mph (29.6 really) over the entire trip. It really ate up the freeway miles, and I’m glad I sprung for the extra cash over some nasty domestic, which would have left me tired after 3hrs of driving. The rental car, I have to say, was the highlight of the trip to, in and from Portland…
I have to say that my brother-in-law is an exercise in irony and contradiction. In this, he is probably the biggest asshole that I have ever met, and I woe the fact that I have to even be related to him. It took all of my self-control not to just tell him to monkey off about 10 times in two days. I only told him to monkey off five times, that I recall. He’s some small-time banker who lives with his ‘partner’ (if you know what I mean), and he’s the type of person, that if your opinion isn’t his opinion, then you’re just stupid. For instance, they have this Nissan Murano, in some crazy orange color, with a crazy orange interior. Since they have a CVT in the car, of course this is the only kind of transmission that is even worth having, now that he has it in his car, and everyone should follow suit. He wanted to take me shopping for one, sure that I’d just have to buy one, until I told him that I didn’t want to own a Nissan, esp an SUV… at which point I was of course stupid, and he said as much in, “well that’s just stupid. Who wouldn’t want to own this car, and own some Volvo instead?” I used one of my ‘monkey offs’ at this point.
It drives me crazy that for someone who lives an ‘alternative lifestyle’ that he can be so closed-minded or be so judgmental of others. For instance, he’s very down on straight men, always has been, but latches on to any reason to bash them. So, for me being the only straight guy in his house, I was the brunt of any joke he needed to make. The wife at one point got after me b/c she thought that I was being fake-nice to our hosts, which I was, b/c I really wasn’t having a great time with the selfish, judgmental bastards. I took a long walk at one point, before I just exploded. He'd also never check to see what his guests wanted, but you just have to deal with whatever he wants to do. After we went shopping all day on Sunday (10-8), we ended up at some outlet mall about 10mins from his house, shopped out, feet aching and exhausted. He decides that it'll be fun to go the 'long way home' with out even asking anyone in the car, so we spend an hour going through these po-dunk towns around Portland, not becuse it's scenic, b/c it's dark out, and I'm watching the nav-map and there's nothing anywhere on the map except for these country roads, and a few cows. I was pissed, but too tired to use another 'monkey off' with him. Luckily, we left early on Monday morning to drive back to Seattle.
Geez, the things you do for family sometimes.
At least I had a great time meeting Kevin and Jake, and got some great shopping done, and didn’t commit murder.
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