With the weather forecast to be decent today, I met up with a couple of friends from the CMA and went out for my last "Steeple Chase" of the season.  We went from our normal meeting place (in Tacoma) to Granite Falls, Wa - about 100 miles south of the Canadian border.

The ride was great - the weather was clear when we left but clouded over as we got north of Seattle.  No rain (Thank you Jesus!) and the temp was in the 40s.

I had the privilege of riding with Ed Work(ing)man, Steve Wilkins (Wilki) and Tim (Softtail Tim) whose last name I don't remember! :-(

We had a fantastic ride up the highway (stayed off the secondaries due to the threat of ice), stopped in Marysville for brunch (we ate at 12:30 but all had breakfast!) and then went to the steeple (only about 15 miles from the restaurant).  The trip back was good, but traffic had started the thicken up.  Oh well - beats a commute!

We stopped at Hinshaw's on the way back (via 18 to 167) so I could pick up a new set of brake pads for the Suzuki.  I need to change oil in the Jeep, the Bike and do the front brakes tomorrow.  Daisy also needs "Purtied up"... She's getting a bit - uh - ripe? from going out into the rain several times a day...

Well - this was my one "fun day" for the vacation.  Tomorrow is all the mechanic / dog / house stuff.  We're having an "open house" for the folks on my prayer team on New Years eve (more for that at a later date...).

Oh - and my Comcast connection is still hideous... They can't seem to get it together (or fixed)...

Stay tuned - more to come...

Well, it was great while it lasted, but the saga of the intermittent Internet connection continues.  It seems that all was well until I went to bed last night.  About 1:00 AM, the service looks to have started dropping again.

It doesn't seem to be as frequent as it was - I can only prove two outages in five hours - but it is still dropping.  I'll wait to see what comes of the follow-up call I was supposed to have from Comcast.  I don't know if the ticket is still open or if it is showing resolved...

As I said - it appeared to have been fixed.  Appearances can sometimes be deceiving...

Stay tuned - more to come...

Well, Comcast called and said that there was no reason to come to my house.  They finally (Saturday) realized that there was an issue with more than my line.  Apparently there is noise on a fiber feed that comes into my neighborhood.

Since a single fiber feed will provide connectivity to a large number of houses, I'm surprised that I'm the only one that has been complaining...either that or I'm the only one that complained LOUD enough.

Well, that be it as it may, it appears...and I stress the word appears to have been fixed.  It looks like the Internet has not gone down since early this morning.  I'll keep monitoring it and see how it goes for the next day or so.

So far, no one at Comcast has been able to indicate that they may be adding the "emergency number fail-over".  This would allow my phone calls to be routed to my cell in the case of a line outage.  This is one of my favorite features in Vonage - and the feature that will likely cause me to switch back...

Stay tuned - more to come...

Well, if you've tried to call my house phone and gotten a "Can not be completed as dialed" message, it is likely due to the fact that Comcast STILL has not found the cause of the "excessive noise" that is dropping my connection intermittently.  I realize that intermittent issues are tough to fix, and that they have been strapped for resources due to the recent storm so I'm trying to give them some slack.

The biggest issue here is the total unreliability of my local phone system.  When the Internet drops, so does my current call as well as my ability to use the phone at all.  Incoming calls are not routed to a secondary device (Vonage offers this as a free service) and the call gets a recording that says it could not be completed or "has been disconnected"...  I wonder how many people think I've stopped paying my phone bill?

Anyway - a technician is due at the house today between 12 and 4.  We'll see what he has to say...

Stay tuned - more to come...

Well, believe it or not, Jenny turned 16 today.  I was a bit depressed because the birthday party was absolutely nothing.  Her a friend (one) came over and is spending the night, but aside from a very nice cake the Rebecca made at work, and three of us (Rebecca actually fell asleep a little after 7:00 PM) singing, you couldn't even tell it was her birthday...

She seemed to have a good day though, all things considered.  Here are a couple of pics...

Only a few more days until Christmas...

Stay tuned - more to come... 

What a weather year this is turning out to be.  Just when things seem to settle down a bit, they flair up even worse.

First we had the rains...

Then the floods...

Then the snow and ice...

Now - the rains are back, and they brought their good friend, the wind!  We've had some pretty good gusts around here, but nothing seriously major at the house here.  Some areas have been hit pretty hard (they closed some of the ocean front parks for a while today) but we've been fine.

I'll be watching the weather closely in the morning to make sure it is safe on the bike.  Otherwise, I'm stuck in the Jeep...

Stay tuned - more to come...

Well, here it is the 9th of December already, and Jenny's birthday and Christmas are right around the corner.  One more week and I get to bring Rebecca back home!!  We're all looking forward to her being here for more than what feels like a long weekend.

She was here for Thanksgiving, but he week she spent here went by WAY too fast.  This time she gets about three weeks - which should feel like more of a break to her and to us.  She is wanting to work (Oh no - more free ice cream!  Just when I started watching what I was eating!) and volunteer at the veterinarian hospital up the road.

Even with all of that, I'm hopeful she'll be able to get a lot of rest and have an enjoyable break.  I have to work some of the time she is home, and I want to take her in with me for one of the days...

I'll be off from work for the week between Christmas and New Years - but back to work on the third.  I'm still not sure what day she need to be back in Pullman, but we'll worry about that a bit later.

Much happening - a longer post is due.  Hopefully later this weekend or early next week...

Stay tuned - more to come...

Rebecca attended WASU's "Snow Ball" on Saturday.  I've asked Rebecca for something to say about the dance...but since I don't have many details, so I'll share the pictures instead. 

Obviously enjoying the "Snow" at the Ball! 

Even as a college student, she's still silly! :-)

Stay tuned - more to come...

One of my favorite events of the year is the Olympia Toy Run.  This run gathers toys for the Salvation Army to hand out to kids who otherwise might not get any presents for Christmas.  The Olympia toy run is that largest toy run in the state.

Every year the Destiny Riders support this run, and this year was no exception.  We had quite a few riders that met early - at Krispy Kremes in Tacoma - to ride to Macys in Tacoma Mall.  Macys graciously donated 176 teddy bears for the ride!  Thanks, Macys!

We gathered the bears and headed out to the typical McDonalds for staging then rode from there to Olympia where we met up with the rest of the bikers.  It felt like every biker in a 200 mile radius was there!  All tolled, the "official" count was at 7,200 bikes!  That's going to make for a lot of very happy kids this year!

After the ride, we all split up a bit and myself and two of my pals from the Destiny Riders went to Dirty Dave's pizza shop.  Excellent pizza and great fellowship.

I still don't have a digital camera (trying to remedy that now) but I've snagged some of the pictures from Jake - our chapter Vice President.  These shots are of the sea of bikes while we were staging at the mall in Olympia! You can find all of his pictures here: http://A1Lawn.smugmug.com/gallery/2198554/1/114361225

Stay tuned - more to come...