New Links

I just added a bunch of my favorite links to my side bar. Check them out many are craft links and awesome for this time of year. Which the cold weather I know that I've been feeling especially crafty!

New-ish shirt designs!

I finally put out a couple more shirt designs. I have two more I'm almost finished with and should be posting soon. Other than that I've been crafting a bit but mostly for Christmas so nothing I can post yet. The dogs are good, Jamie's good, the weather sucks. We've switched the name of our screen printing business to Ink Brigade. Check out our site at www.inkbrigade.com. All of our shirts are now bwing printed with waterbased ink or discharge. The water based ink is environmentally safer to work with and the prints come out extra soft.

Melissa Ethridge may not be paying her taxes...

and I can't say I blame her. Here are some of her thoughts on the hate-filled proposition 8 that just passed in California. Honestly how can this kind of discrimination be legal?

"Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay!

Oh and too bad California, I know you were looking forward to the revenue from all of those extra marriages. I guess you will have to find some other way to get out of the budget trouble you are in.

When did it become okay to legislate morality? I try to envision someone reading that legislation "eliminates the right" and then clicking yes. What goes through their mind? Was it the frightening commercial where the little girl comes home and says, "Hi mom, we learned about gays in class today" and then the mother gets that awful worried look and the scary music plays? Do they not know anyone who is gay? If they do, can they look them in the face and say "I believe you do not deserve the same rights as me"? Do they think that their children will never encounter a gay person? Do they think they will never have to explain the 20% of us who are gay and living and working side by side with all the citizens of California?

I got news for them, someday your child is going to come home and ask you what a gay person is. Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away."

Read more

This Guy... sheez

McCain Mockingly Suggests That Concerns For A Mother's Health Are Extreme

I'm sorry, but shouldn't it be up to the doctor and the woman in question to decide what is best for a woman's health not you Mr. McCain



Funny but true

Vertigo

I'm home...have been for a week now. I went to the doctor last thursday to see what the heck was going on with me since I still had vertigo or whatever it is. I was told to lay on my back for a week. A WHOLE WEEK! So, I can't say that I've been doing the best job at staying in bed, but I think I've been doing pretty darn good! I've decided I'll spend most of today and most of tomorrow in bed and I think that's about as much as I can stomach. I've been passing the time by watching Coupling on my Netflix Roku and reading cooking blogs mostly the Post Punk Kitchen which is doing nothing except making me angry that I can't be out of bed long enough to make cupcakes.

If my vertigo lasts much longer Jamie may need to learn how to bake... cupcakes to be exact.

Last Day

Sunday

Our last day here and Carrie is super sick and I am just plan exhausted and still feel like I'm off balance all the time.  it's mid afternoon here and we're back at Carrie's flat to rest.  I think we're just plain done with the trip.  It was fun but for me at least it's time to come home.  Carrie leaves tomorrow too although I think she's like to stay here if she could but I know the craziness of my visit has made her tired too. 

 I miss my boys and can't wait to sleep in my own bed.  

We had plans to go to Cambridge today but decided to stay in town.  We got a bit of packing done and headed out to Spitalfields Market which was great.  I found one last thing for myself and had lots of fun looking.

After a lovely lunch of Tapas we decided to get some rest and possibly stay in the rest of the day, but we'll see what happens.

Winding down

Saturday

We hoped  on the tube and headed back to Convent Gardens to pick up the last few gifts for people back home and a cup of coffee to get us going.  We then Hoped back on the tube to go see Westminster Abbey.... 

Westminster was really cool and different then I remembered it being.  This time it seemed larger and more impressive.  Seeing the coronation chair was really cool along with the tombs of some of the most notorious royals.  

We then decided to walk to St. Pauls Cathedral.  This turned out to be a bit more of a walk than we anticipated, but a good way to see the city since we're leaving soon.  The mosaics inside of this church are incredible!  Carrie walked up to the top of the dome.  I decided it wasn't a good idea since my equilibrium is still really off to the point that I constantly feel like I'm sitting in a row boat.  

We then hoped on a  double deck bus and tried our damnedest to find Abbey Rd so I could write Jamie's name on the wall, but alas no luck. We headed back to the house to get ready for our big night out that was ultimately never to be.  Poor Carrie who started getting sick a few days ago (even though she wouldn't admit it) came to the realization that you may have the cutest dress in the world on, but when your nose looks like Rudolph's and leaks like a faucet it's just not that hot.  So, after months of wanting to go out to one specific club here she gave up the dream and we headed to bed early.  

I drank Bath water

So, first off I must apologize... I had every intention of doing daily posts that were full of detail and description to convey the feeling of the city and the traveler in it (myself) but alas the city has taken it's toll on me and by the end of the day it's all I can do to get ready for bed, let alone try and remember all the things I did that day or God forbid the day before.

Anyway, that said, now I'm going to reach back three days into the past and bring you up to the present.

Wednesday:

We had big plans this day but unfortunately got a late start due to a couple errands. Anyway we made it to Tower of London and were given a great tour by one of the resident Beefeaters. We also got to check out the crown jewels twice in fact. That night we went to this awesome play in Covant Garden called "The Women in Black" it was a ghost story and was actually scarier than I thought it would be. We both had a lot of fun!

Thursday:
This was the day we leave for Bath, so got up, made it to the train on time, and low and behold someone else killed themselves again today (see Windsor post) on the tracks so again we were delayed. This is 2 times in a row that we were on the train and this happened. So far we've been pretty lucky with the tube not having this issue although I hear it's pretty common on there too. It's pretty sad and must happen pretty often or else Carrie and I just manage to hit two bad days I'm assuming it's the 1st reason since it doesn't even seem big enough of a deal for their media to report on.

Anyway a couple hours after expected we made it to Bath. This town is beautiful, super easy to walk and has a good amount of stuff to do. I also have to say it's a nice break from riding the tube 4 times a day in the city.

I should also mention 2 days before this I started noticing that my depth perception is totally off and that I started feeling like I was constantly on moving ground even when I was completely still. By this day it got really bad and hampered some plans, but we still made the most of it. We tool a city walking tour, checked out the Roman Baths, drank our complementary glass of the Bath spring water (10,000 year old rain water) tastes about as good as you would imagine anything 10,000 years old to taste. We also checked out the Abbey built in the 1700's (?). The night was capped off by having food and a couple pints of cider. I would like to say we slept peacefully that night but we stayed in what had to be the loudest hotel in the city. There was literally a crowd of drunk people outside our window yelling all night.

Friday:

We had a full day to spend in Bath and not a ton of stuff left to do so we got started around 11 and headed to the fashion museum housing clothes from as far back as the 1600's. After we spent the rest of the day shopping wandering through their amazing parks and neighborhoods, and what good trip would be complete without eating... a lot. So now I'm back in London getting ready for our last couple days of which we will try and pack another weeks worth of plans into. Wish us luck!

The White Tower (Tower of London)

Houses built in the 1500's where the Beefeaters live (Tower of London) Lady Jane Gray was kept in one of these before her execution.

The Roman Baths in Bath

The Abbey at Bath

View of Bath from one of the parks.

"This is a Piccadilly line to Cockfosters"...

... That's the main subway line that we use and I hear that phrase at every stop when we're on the Piccadilly line out to Carrie's flat. I'm pretty sure this will be stuck in my head by the time I leave here.

I've been having a great time, so great in fact that I haven't been posting and now will try and play catch-up. Sunday we started out our week of ultra tourism by walking, and walking and walking. That's not totally true, we had to hop the tube first to get to our walking place. We walked all along the south bank, over Westminster Bridge up to Covington Gardens, then to Piccadilly. On our way back we stopped for tea and dessert. All and all a great day and a ton of exercise. I'm getting used to riding the tube even though this day was incredibly busy.

The view from The South bank of the Parliament building and Big Ben

Monday
We decided to get a ton of stuff done today, it may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind we're not staying in close-in London and none of the places we go are in walking distance of each other. Although we do walk a lot anyway:

First stop, Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guards. Next we went to the British Museum, which I would highly recommend. I personally loved the Egyptian section.

Then High Tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. We got the full 9 yards, champagne and everything!

Here is the "sunken garden" at Kensington
Monday night we went to this great bar so Carrie could get some mead. There we met up with another American Intern Rachel and had a lot of fun and made some weekend plans to drive to Cambridge on Sunday. Should be fun, but I'm a bit nervous about the car ride.

Tuesday
We took the tube to Waterloo station and got train tickets for Windsor. Long story short some guy killed himself by jumping in front of a train and killing himself so, getting to Windsor (or anywhere for that matter) was a fiasco. After we made it we barely had enough time to do the tour but still enjoyed it.

It's been fun here so far, but hard to cram everything in. I think we're going to end up having to make a few hard decisions and prioritize things we want to see.

London stuff

I made it to London safe and sound and am staying with my friend Carrie in her flat. We're in an area of London called Wood Green. From what some of her local friends told me it's not very nice, but I haven't seen anything scary yet and I think the houses are super cute. Last night we went out to a bar/club called Digress for Carrie's going away party that her co-workers arranged for her. It was fun, although the cocktails here are WEAK. We didn't stay out too late as I was exhausted from my journey and we still had a good tube ride home for the night. We also found out that we aren't going to be able to make it to Paris due to a fire in the channel tunnel. This is a huge BUMMER! We're trying to figure out other travel plans.
Today we took a boat to Greenwich which was really cool. The captain narrated the tour for us telling us about different buildings and making stupid jokes. The weather was beautiful and a good time was had.

Me and my tourist photo in front of tower bridge.

Once in Greenwich I stood on the Prime Meridian up at the top of this hill where the Royal Observatory is. This park was the backyard of a home of one of the previous queens. We also checked out the local markets and ate at a pub that's been around since the 1830s where Dickens used to hang out.

This one is self explanatory.

We're engaged!

Yep, we did it. Jamie asked me to marry him on 8-8-08 which was not part of the plan but an added bonus since I'm horrible with dates and this ones hard to forget. We're thinking about getting married in a hot air balloon next spring. Should be fun!

I found the perfect engagement ring and wedding band at an antique jeweler here in Portland. I think it's neat that my rings have history, one is almost 100 years old. I'd like to think there is some desperately romantic story behind them, but alas, I'll never know. Guess it's up to me to create my own romance.

I am just full of updates today!

In more trip related news Jamie and I are headed to Minneapolis next week to visit his family. This is my second time going and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone again. We get to stay with his sister, brother-in-law and their 2.5 boys (she has one on the way). Her kids are so cute and we had lots of fun with them at the water park last year. So now I need to use my deal finding abilities (check last post) to find us a rental car so we can make sure we get to see everyone.

I think we're going to spend a little of our time seeing if some of the shops in the city are interested in carrying my shirts. I haven't put any time into pounding the pavement here in Portland since I need to sit down and come up with some more shirts or even have tome to turn my ideas into fruition so this will be a good test run.

Need to beat the heat?

I stumbled across this list of frozen summer drink recipes and thought I'd share it. There are a ton of smoothies on here which are my favorite when it's too hot out to cook and I want a snack. Also drinks with Alcohol for your summer get-togethers. Enjoy!

House update

The house is almost done being painted so I thought I'd post a new pic. The windows are going to be replaced in a couple weeks, so the red of the windows will be gone. Also the shutters will be back up and probably a red color, or the lighter trim color.

It's been a ton of work, but I'm very happy with the results so far.

My poor house

So we've been working on the house getting ready to paint the exterior for about a week and a half. We finally started with paint yesterday. I wish I had some I'll have to look around in my photo albums to see if I have some good before pics but here's what's going on now. So, we had to strip the paint off on one of the sides of the house. If that doesn't sound like a big job to you, well, your wrong! :) We started with a paint scrapper and got nowhere. Then went to a heat gun and got nowhere. Then bought paint stripper and were in crazy respirators and chemical resistant gloves in 90 degree weather. Oh and be "we" I mean me and my poor mother. Then we realized that the paint wasn't coming off enough so Jamie rented a pressure washer and got more off. Then we sanded everything. Then I had to fill in gouges in the wood with wood filler and re-caulk everything. Next came priming and finally we started to paint yesterday. To top it off it's been HOT here so ice-cream breaks to Baskin-Robins have been a blessing. It's so nice to see the color going on though, I love it!

The right side of the pic is what it looks like once it's stripped and sanded. The black spots are a spray paint I used to cover rusty nails so the rust wont come through.

We started putting on primer

This is the front after we took of the shutters and sanded a few spots.

Grandma Ghost Ridin' the whip

This is really funny if you've ever watched any of those stupid videos of kids "ghost riding." The best part for me is the lady has a similar accent to my Grandmother.

So impressive!

So we just got one of these handy dandy little devices and it's awesome!!! Any movie that Netflix has available to view instantly you can use this to download the movie onto (takes less than a minute) and watch it on your TV. The interface for this is really similar to TIVO which makes it super easy to use. You set up your "watch instantly" Netflix queue and all of the movies in your queue show up on your tv, allowing you to scroll through and watch when you want. It's like having a huge movie collection without taking up the space or costing you the money. All you need is a netflix membership valued at $8.99 or more a month, and the Roku box for $99.

LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT, don't buy if you are addicted to TV though, this will make it worse

BAD STUFF

hey ya'll (ya'll being the 2 or 3 of you who read my blog) it's been awhile. I thought I'd post this list of things not to buy since they're bad for you or then environment. Stay tuned for something very cool to buy...

How to turn an $1800 stimulus check into $1980

Click here to find out some ways to make the most of your stimulus check

We're back!

We made it back home last night from our trip to California. We had ton's of fun! Jamie who is deathly afraid of rides rode every ride at Disneyland and turned in to a five year old in front of my eyes, full of excitement and wonder. It's hilarious to see how awesome Disneyland can be even to a group of adults.

Now that I'm back it's time for me to buckle down and get back to work. I'm going to try and add a few different types of items to add to my Etsy site like aprons and baby blankets, so those should be up soon. On the Real Estate front I don't have much going on at the moment. A few things on the horizon but nothing immediate. I guess that's good as it gives us more time to work on getting our custom order screen printing shop up and running. It's called Blood and Ink Printing. We have a few clients we are working with and have already done some work for. So if you know of anyone needing shirts printed we have all of our price lists ready to go.

San Francisco

Jamie and I are in San Francisco for a couple days on the way down to visit my sister in Azusa,CA. Last time I was here it totally sucked, the people were rude, the weather terrible and all sorts of things that go wrong on a trip, did... This time it's been great so far! Weather is great, people friendly and we've met up with one of Jamie's old friends and his girlfriend which was loads of fun. We wandered through China town, a nice mix of touristy and gritty. Poor Jamie wasn't pleased with the smells coming out of some of the shops not catering towards tourists, but oh well. We've both found a lot to appreciate in this city, from the Black Flag loving Tranny at the lunch cafe we went ate at to the awesome Royal Tennenbaums style hotel we are staying at called the Pickwick.

Bottom line San Francisco is a great place for a quick stop through if you are a city lover. Great architecture, diverse dinning experiences, upscale and seedy, liberal yet corporate, fun walks, good mass transit, bike culture, you name it.

If you're a Portlander on your way to LA or So CAL don't miss the bigger version of your town!

Really disturbing- boycott the olympics

I'm not a cat lover by any stretch of the imagination. I am now and have always been a dog person through and through. However I think all creatures should be treated with kindness and respect which is why when I read about the Chinese rounding up cats and sending them to death camps so the streets will appear cleaner for the upcoming Olympics I found it very disturbing.

I don't like reading about this stuff or seeing it, but I think it's important to know what's going on.

Check out the article here

cool composter

So, I've been checking out compost bins for awhile and all of the ones that I like seem like too much money. So I looked into making one and then realized that I wasn't fooling anyone including myself in thinking that I would ever get around to it.

After scouring craigslist and everywhere else trying to find something nice yet affordable I came across something great. Metro (the lovely people that handle our recycling and dumps) will provide you with a Earth Machine composter at half the retail price.

Yay, compost for everyone!!!

Check out a link with more info here

Interesting video about US/ Iran relations

I love me some Jon Stewart

Redbird clothing

Our shirts are now available for sale on Etsy.com
Click here to link to our online etsy shop!
Or, there is a link and some or our shirts posted on the side of this blog.

A Sad State of Affairs

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

great root veggie dish

I saw someone make this on the show Victory Garden and tried it last night and was very pleased with the results. You can really use any variety of root veggies for this and it would taste awesome. The name of it "Root Vegetable Casserole" is a little deceiving as it comes out more like a soup. Also as you will see the recipe calls for kale. I used collard greens instead and it was great.

Click here for the recipe

Exciting News!

Jamie and I are starting a small t-shirt company called Redbird. It's all DIY (in our basement) and we're having a lot of fun getting all of the groundwork set to start up printing. Right now we are working on some designs, and we just bought our domain name Redbirdclothing.com which means I will also be working on a website. I think we're going to start out selling them on Etsy.com

More info to come soon...

Man this blog keeps getting more random by the day

It seems like in the last year or so I haven't been acquainting myself with new music. I have my old favorites that I love so much I don't feel the need to add more...but, I stumbled across Coconut Records the music of Jason Schwartzman and loved it. Here is the video to one of the songs called "West Coast." I guess the footage wasn't intended for the video but it fits pretty well besides the fact it's just awesome footage anyway.

New study says 151,000 Iraqi dead

One of the biggest surveys so far of Iraqis who have died violently since the US-led invasion of 2003 has put the figure at about 151,000.

This is about a quarter of the figure given in a disputed Lancet article, but nearly three times higher than that of the Iraq Body Count campaigning group.

The result is based on interviews with over 9,000 families across Iraq carried out by the health ministry for the WHO.

The survey says more than half of all violent deaths were in Baghdad.

The World Health Organization study looks only at the period from March 2003 until June 2006.

Researchers interviewed households right across Iraq, in towns and the countryside, and asked the head of each one for details of all deaths in the group.

They say violence became a leading cause of death of Iraqi adults; among men between 15 and 59 it was the main cause of death.

Click here to read more...

I'm insured!!!

Yea!  This is a very exciting day for me after about 6 years of living without it I finally have health insurance!  This has been a huge weight on my shoulders for years.  Every time I'd ride a bike or go in the ocean or have a car pull out in front of me I'd think about what would happen if I got hurt and how would I pay for it.  

Like most uninsured people I was just never able to afford it before.  I've worked the whole time I've been uninsured and I wouldn't call myself poor, but I'm nowhere close to being well-off either.  I'm just an average person to whom insurance was a luxury I couldn't afford.   Honestly I'm still not really able to afford it as I am self employed.  Luckily my lovely boyfriend had a great plan through his union that covers me.  

While I am very happy today knowing that I am covered by a good plan I'm also really mad that I like so many millions of others was put in such a bad spot for so long.  When is our government going to catch up with the other industrialized  countries and realize how valuable it's citizens are?

YUM!

I made Quinoa Vegetable Paella tonight off of the "Fat Free Vegan Kitchen" website and I'm very impressed!  It's super hearty and just what I needed to warm me up (I think I'm coming down with a cold)

Anyway if you want some yummy healthy food give it a shot!

How Caucuses work

Ever wondered how caucuses work?  Since the Iowa caucus is upon us I did a little research on how they work.  Since we have a primary here in Oregon I never really bothered to learn about it.  If you're interested you can check out the info here.

Crazy

... but I didn't even fulfill last years resolutions

Another year officially down the drain, and time to screw another one up!  We started it off with a bang at Carrie's house.  This year the party got a bit too crazy for us old folks and we headed home pretty early.  As you can see it was standing room only.  Kudos to Carrie for throwing a great party. 

P.S.  Carrie, fix your dang mask.