Hallo! What a busy and beautiful June it's been...let's see what all the haps is! Here's a proper picture of a freshly-birthday'ed Liz (yours truly) reveling in balloons and bouquets (and check out that belly, what what!)...
The evening after my birthday, I was part of the CHIFOO program, one-third of a panel devoted to the topic of “Professional Participation”. My involvement in the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) has led me to be quite active in the Portland CHI group, where I’m also a Member-at-Large/IxDA Liaison. A couple weeks after this, I organized another IxDA Face-to-Face (F2F) meeting, which has become a recurring monthly event. A group of folks met at Ringler’s pub and between bites of delicious tator tots dipped in ranch dressing, we shared lots of nifty ideas about how to make others do our Interaction Design bidding…because after all, we’re out to change the world.
I made my monthly commute to Los Angeles for my job in the second week of June, adding an extra Sunday night to the trip due to what turned out to be crossed wires for an HR training session. Not a huge deal, although three nights away from home is 50% more than two! I greatly enjoyed meeting up with my friends Ann & Samira – Vixen Racing autocross buddies – for dinner at the Farmer’s Market. Mmm, that fresh strawberry and glorious-canned Nutella crepe was dee-lightful!
We were just treated to a lovely visit from my brother Charles and his girlfriend Michele. We had a great time, wandering around Powell’s Books, playing a poker tournament along with our friend Anah (I won!), riding the MAX down to the Saturday market, getting them addicted to Magic the Gathering, and otherwise chilling out over books and good food. It was cool to learn that Michele is an ENTJ (I'm an INTJ) while we speculate Charles might be an INTP (just like Mike). Here’s a lovely picture of the happy couple on our back deck:
Some other random stuff this month included getting rear-ended by a teenage driver on Burnside Rd as I stopped to let a pedestrian cross the road. That'll teach me to be polite! The damage to the car was isolated to the bumper, but I did sustain whiplash and suffer some headaches. A local chiropractor specializing in kinesthesiology has made a world of difference, but what a trial! I'm especially torqued about the whole affair since I went to pick up my car from the body shop today, and the shifter decided that it wasn't going to behave. I'll be anxious to find out what the deal is, and especially ensure that my car is drivable for July 4th's autocross event...and the Packwood National Tour isn't so far off, either! I'm co-chairing this Saturday's Novice School event, and that has entailed a fair bit of dealing as well.
We spent pretty much all the weekends in June except this last one working in the garden and on the bathrooms in various capacities. The weeds have largely succumbed to our efforts – though maybe it’s just the large ones that have succumbed – but either way we feel good about the state of the yard. This is especially so after we got quotes from gardeners in the $2-3,000 ballpark for a one-time cleanup! We also ended up “saving” a few hundred dollars on professional carpentry in our efforts to replace the broken pocket door leading to the master bathroom. Although we had purchased a swinging door which matched our other new doors to replace the pocket door, the carpenter we’d previously hired flaked on us multiple times, and then so did another carpenter we tried to hire for the work. After a nice Saturday brunch with our friends Anne & Scott, we took a deep breath, dismantled the broken door parts (jambs, casing, etc.) and assessed the situation. It turned out that the new swinging door was too tall for the opening without some additional reframing. Because removing a pocket door track and reframing a doorway are two very tough projects, we went to Lowe’s and bought a replacement door slab & pocket door hardware for $25. We ended up sanding down the old jamb parts, staining and varnishing the new door & old jamb parts, attaching pocket door hardware to the slab & cutting a notch for the “handle”, hanging & plumbing the door, reattaching all the jamb parts, and finally restoring the casing last night around 10 pm.
All this effort was completed just-in-time for professional installation of new flooring in both bathrooms today. Hurrah - one major work effort completed!! Pictures forthcoming when we have everything fully ship-shape. Tonight, all I had the energy to do was take a long soak in the tub, admiring the handsome black laminate through the steam of the bath.
-- Liz
