The Bethling

Beth at George Washington University

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:28:42 -0700

Yes...they have a bronze hippo there.

Beth after being proposed to.

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:28:26 -0700

Stolen Car

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:46:26 -0700

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. As I mentioned briefly before, Amber's car was stolen a couple of weeks ago. And yes, it was a Honda. I knew that they were stolen quite often... just not that often. :-/ When we picked up the rental car we learned that 5 others had picked up rentals to replace their stolen Hondas over the past couple of days.

I was really kind of worried about how the process would go. I've never enjoyed dealing with insurance companies, but it seemed to go as smoothly as we could hope. The payout that we were given was more than we expected, and would easily cover the down payment for a new car after paying off the existing loan.

So on sunday we set off to try and find a new car for Amber. Good used cars are more expensive up here than they were in Florida. So it became clear that to get a car that we wanted, it probably was going to take a bigger loan than we wanted. With gas being so expensive it didn't make sense to try and save some money by getting a car that just burned a lot of gas.

We decided that either we'd like to stick with either a Honda or get another Toyota. We've had really good luck maintenance wise with both of them, and although we were a little skittish after learning how easy the Honda's are to steal, we also knew we could upgrade it later.

So after looking at cars for Amber for a while, we came across a used Prius. I've wanted one for a while, but they've always been out of my price range. Things are just a little too tight to deal with two higher-sized car loans. But still Amber gets me to test drive it. And I really like it.

Just a couple nights ago Amber and I had a talk over how I have no problem with us spending money on stuff for her, but I can't justify spending even a little for me when I feel like things are tight. This leads to me doing things like hurting my shoulder because I didn't feel right spending $20 to replace something that would help keep me stabilized on the ice.

Amber thinks that I maybe the best thing would be for me to get the Prius, and she could take my Corolla. We take a look at how much the loan would be for me to get, and it works out to be about $80 more than we were paying for Amber's old Honda. Not really that much worse. Somehow I let Amber talk me into getting the car that, deep down, I really wanted.... Something that the salesman couldn't do :-P

I'm still kind of stressed over it, but I really do like it. So after three years of looking at hybrids with envy, I finally have one. Amber's right, it really does fit my personality. It's hard not be be fascinated by the feedback that the computer gives you :-P

Hopefully the fear and stress of having spent more than I really wanted to for a car will wear off soon :)

Curling ickyness

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 05:40:33 -0800

Ick. Went 0-3 at the spiel this weekend. I had one bad game, really good game, and one mediocre one. None of the games were really close (though our first one had a close score, but the game itself was really never that close). The two not so great games were against a team that I really wanted to play well against. Oh well. Can't play well every time I guess.

Going to sub in on Sunday, then back to the regular league play. Kind of wishing I signed up for a third league. It's pretty good to get some of the frustrations I've had recently. Nothing major, (knock on wood), but lots of little things going on that erk me.

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:08:25 -0700

*Sigh*

I think I may have just given the worst phone interview of my life. It's been so long, :-/ Amber overheard it, and said I was fine, but wow.... Did I ramble. There was no feedback as I was talking... just *click click click*. I don't know how well I do when there's no conversation and I'm not giving a presentation.

I just hope I didn't mess up my chances at a face-to-face interview.

First real skip attempt.

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 03:11:36 -0700

Today I played skip for the first time. I got my butt handed to me 14-4 (though, had it really counted, it would have been 12-2). Missed two big final shots against 5 opponent stones. Honestly, though,I had fun. The other skip was one of the competative junior skips. The fact that I won the first end legitamatly, makes me feel good, as does my one steal. If I had just been a couple inches over the game would have been a lot closer I think :) (Well, it would have been hard for it not to be a lot closer :-P)

I do have to make sure that I don't beat myself up over it though. We all missed shots, and that's what made those final shots so dangerous :-P Still.... eventually I'll get the curling thing down a little better. On a plus note I think my yelling was better than last week!

Will be 2 weeks till my next attempt at skipping. Hopefully it will go better :-P

Ahh... joys of stress

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 04:32:07 -0700

Well, job search hasn't really gone particularly well so far. Not quite completely discouraged, but I'm getting there. The stress level is getting close to an all time high. It's really frustrating right now. I know it'll probably get better, but it's hard to look up when you're really down.

On a rare good note, the curling season started today. At the very least it's going to be something to keep me grounded during the bumpy phase. Had a four end game today, and we managed to win 3-2. Curled reasonably well for my first game of the year. Missed the broom quite a bit, but felt really good overall.

And well... the job search begins in seriousness

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:40:50 -0700

Well, it's time to move on from TSP. Been a good run, and may still see some weekend work, but it's really at a close. Very frustrating and sad to invest so much of your life into a project and then.. fail like that :-/

Both Amber and I are no longer employed, which makes things really scary for the time being. She's got a lead on a possibility, I'm just starting the sending of resumes. The uncertainty is really terrifying. I feel so unqualified for so much now. I don't even really know what I want to do. I haven't done code-writing on a regular basis in several years, and I'm really not sure I want to go back to that. It's kind of hard to take what I've been doing for the last 3+ years and find a tech job that coinsides with it.

Hopefully something will come about, though that doesn't make the anxiety any easier.

On a happy note, I've managed to get out on the ice a few times already, and seem to be curling at least at the level I was at the end of last year. Ankle is mostly there, balance still could use some improvement, but it's pretty good. Don't really have draw weight down, but it's getting better. Apparently I'm going to skip every other week this year in one of my leagues. Should be interesting given my lack of strategy expertise. Got 3+ weeks to brush up on it though :)

Curling!

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:41:12 -0700

Curled for the first time on Monday. Ankle held up pretty well, I was able to throw weight a little bit better than last year. I need some more practice, but it was a good first outing.

Going to start off with two leagues, and if that goes well, maybe add a third in January. Going to try more time as a vice/skip this year in one of them. We'll have to see how that works out. :) Could be fun, could be weird - don't really have that much experience with game planning. But we'll see :)

Still got three more weeks of softball. Will try and enjoy those without getting more hurt :) Cut over my noise still hasn't healed from the last game :-/

Oh... and I'm sick :-/ Not fun at all.

Fall Ball starts

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 04:52:18 -0700

Well today was the first day of Fall Ball, and it went pretty well, got hammered in the first game, and squeeked out the second. Didn't hit so well (2-6 I think, with one walk),but had a pretty good game in the field. Turned 5 double plays, 4 of them with Amber :) Not a bad game. Only one was a catch/double off but that was probably my favorite. Hit up the middle that gets over Amber's head. Runner (the coach for the team [Saints for those who know Seattle softball ]) on second sees it get past Amber and takes off. It's was blooped enough that I was able to get to it and barely get it. Lobbed it back to Amber for the double play, and the runner didn't really know what was going on until after she rounded third to see our team jogging off the field :) The other fun one was managing to turn one to end the game with bases loaded and the winning run at the plate.

For some reason this was more fun the usual. Not sure. Maybe it was the relaxed atmosphere that (almost) everyone seemed to have. But it was really a lot of fun.

Just a good day, and with the exception of banging my bloody knee, no injuries :)

Wine and Birthdays

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 02:36:16 -0700

Yesterday Fidelitas had a tasting event in Seattle, so Amber and I went as sort of a birthday event for me (wasn't my birthday yet...but who cares). Fidelitas, right now, seems to be my favorite Washington winery. Of the 10 or 12 wines of theirs I've tried there's only one that I didn't really like. Heck, even Amber likes their reds, and that's saying a lot.

Got to try some of their higher end wines, and loved them :) They had catered appetizers which were outstanding as well. Every so often I wonder if I did the right thing joining this wine club or that one. I've got no question right now that this was a good one :-D One of my favorites is coming in the Septemer shipment. Probably going to let it sit for 6-9 months before opening it up with something nice.

Working on making a brown rice salad for a little pot luck thing tomrrow. Haven't actually tried this recipe myself, but it looked really really good on the food network :-D

Hopefully I won't mess it up too much :-)

And that might be a career

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:08:01 -0700

On Sunday morning I took a ground ball to the forehead. It's by far the scariest thing that's happened to me in a long long time. That game is now essentially one big blank. And the seriousness of it didn't sink in until much later. That's now three major sports related injuries in the last five months and a bunch of re-aggravations of the ankle. I kind of wonder if I should bother it any more. I don't know if I can put myself in front of a ground ball again. I don't know if I'm going to wince at every ball coming at me in the outfield. I'm sick of the pain, and I'm sick of being seen as the girl who gets hurt.

The tournament was fun up until that point, and now I'm scared. The trip home saw a long talk with Amber about whether to bother any more. She wants me to, but I'm not sure. Somewhere just south of the US/Canada border I made the decision to give up at least softball. She got me to reconsider and give things another try, but part of me is really doubtful. I'd signed up for fall league and now I don't know if I should bother. I'll find some way to have fun with Amber, but I'm really not sure if playing really will be any more.

Kind of sick of almost everything right now. Work suck, Sports suck, and life outside of Amber suck. Thank God she's still in my life.

*sigh*

On to the great white north!

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:38:24 -0700

Well, not so white :) Going to be traveling to Vancouver for a softball tournament tomorrow. Really looking forward to it for some reason. Been a while since I've been to Canada, and this'll be a new city for me to explore. Also gives me a chance to get to see the city before the craziness of the Olympics really hits :)

This is also going to be the first time that Amber's leaving the US, and she's excited about it :) Had to get a copy of her marriage certificate sent priority mail, since it hit us that the name on her Birth Certificate and driver's license don't match. Didn't have a chance to get her a passport....though now we have all the documentation that we need to apply for one once we get back.

All bouncy about softball for some reason :) Have no idea why. Been working a lot recently to try and improve phyiscally. Have quite a bit more endurance than I did last tourney. Hopefully it'll show.

I honestly don't know how much playing time we're going to get. But hopefully we can make a good impression! :)

Well maybe no fun for Beth...

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:51:58 -0700

Had a major stress out thing going on yesterday which kind of sucked, plus a whole lot of work. Didn't make it in to Seattle. Was going to go with Amber today and hang out there together, but that's fallen through. Don't really see much of a point to take the time/money to go into Seattle right now. Not really much appeals to me for tomorrow. *sigh* Anyone need/want an unused 3 day pass for the Penny Arcade expo :-P Well hopefully next weekend will work out better. With the way things seem to be going, the softball tourney will probably be rained out.

Fun and Fit

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:19:32 -0700

30 pounds... wow. Managed to put on about 30 pounds over the past 3 or so years. Saw a picture from one of our first dates, and it's pretty noticeable. So I've started working on taking it off. At least a good chunk of it. Started running again, I'm back up to about 2 miles a day, not a great amount, but I can already feel a little bit of the stamina coming back. Watching what I eat, all that good stuff. Originally the goal was for Amber and I to play softball this fall and see how we improve during the season, but with no fall ball it's not quite as fun. Hopefully It'll help a bit with curling :) Life has been a little stressful recently. Still trying to get my business partner to see eye-to-eye about a few things. Hopefully that'll get sorted out. Going to have some fun this weekend with the Penny Arcade Expo. I'm enough of a gamer to enjoy it, but I really do like all the game development panels. Not that I'd want to work in that area so much any more, just it's kind of fun to learn about the process. One of these days I'll play with XNA a little bit and finally write my curling game :)

A much needed vacation for sanity.

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:37:18 -0700

Amber decided to take a week off to make a final decision about office depot. She's decided to stay on through then end of back to school. This was for a couple reasons - most wine places don't seem to be willing to give her a chance to even interview. They see no wine experience and assume she doesn't really know much. So we've decided to get her to take (and pass :) the first level exam given by the Court of Master Sommeliers. It's not what she really wants long term, but it would be much harder to dismiss her off the bat. Hopefully it would give her at least an interview or two :)

With the uncertainty of my future I've felt like I've been on the verge of a breakdown for the last 2+ weeks. With both of us needing time away from stress we made a last-minute decision to take a trip together.

So this week we went back to Eastern Washington to do some more wine tasting. We did it in a more more relaxed manner this time around. Took our time, and really had a great time. I honestly haven't had a vacation that worked that well to relax me completely since 1999.

Went back to two from last time.

Desert Wind and Kestrel (both in Prosser). Desert wind has some really nice and affordable wines. We both like their naked Chardonnay ($15, B+/A-) and I liked their Barbera quite a bit ($20, B/B+).

For Kestrel we made sure to return to because the two of us absolutely loved their 2005 Viogner. We made sure to go back because the wine maker completely changed styles for the 2006 (100% stainless steel, and we wanted a few bottles while they lasted. Good news (for us at least), is that the 2007 is going to go back to neutal oak :) We picked up 3 bottles of the '05 ($20, A-), and tasted the '06 just to make sure ($20, B) that we really did like the older wine that much better.

Biggest finds:

Alexandra Nicole winery in Prosser - basically next door to Kestrel. It clearly tries to give a higher-end feel to the winery, and the wines do match. They had two whites that we tried.

2006 "Shepards Mark" Rhone style white (Roussanne/Viognier/Marsanne) with really good tropical fruit and floral notes matched with a really good backbone from barrel fermentation. I think this might be my choice for best white of the trip ($20, A-).
2006 Viognier This one was all stainless steel, and lacked the backbone that I want in Viognier. Worked better than the 06 Kestrel though. ($18,B+)

I really did like almost all the Reds. The best two:
2004 Block 17 Estate Syrah . Best Syrah on the trip. Possibly the best one I've had from Washington State. From a Rhone lover, that's saying a lot. Lots of Chocolaty/Spicy/Dark Fruity goodness. Pity that it's essentially sold out. Hopefully the 05 (when the release it) will be close to this one. ($35,A-).

2004 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Another rich deep wine. Yummy with lots and lots of complexity. Typically I'm not a huge fan to Cabs that lack some Merlot to soften them, this one was different though. ($30, A-) The tannins in this wine were really pretty dense, and probably needs 24-30 months to soften up before really hitting it's stride.

The best find though:

Russell Creek Winery in Walla Walla. Located near the airport, it's a small building. Not much to the tasting room, or their labels but the wine was outstanding. I tasted 7 wines. 5 I'd rate A- or higher, and the other two were in the B+/A- border range. I liked this winery so much I joined their wine club. I've only done that to one other Eastern Washington winery (Fidelitas).

Best wines:
2005 Tributary Red. A Cab/Merlot Blend (80/20). This wine really does typify the best of both grapes. Currents, berries, a hint of spice and chocolate. And this wine was just bottled 2 months ago. So even with the muting that bottle shock gives, it was still outstanding. It's going to be even better 2-3-4 years from now. ($20,A-).

2003 Winemaker's Select Merlot. I've found very few Merlots in Washington that I've really liked. They all have this undertaste of cloves and cedar (or something similar) that just distracts me from the rest of the wine. This is one of the rare Merlots where that becomes a wonderful element of the complexity. There was just so much going on in this wine that if I wasn't on such a limited budget I would have bought it. This might be the best red of the trip - ($50,A)

We also toured Col Solare which was really fun. It's one of my favorite wineries, and although the tasting was expensive ($25), it was worth it. It was a personal tour (Just Amber and Me) through the winery. Learned about the vineyard layout, architecture, the roll that the winemaker and the Antinoris have in the wine.

Then today it was the last game of softball. *sigh* I really was starting to have a lot of fun, ankle is mostly healed and isn't holding me back anymore. Things finally started clicking a month ago (Hit around .610 over the last month :) , and really wanted some more time to make up for the really slow start I had. Oh well. I guess there's always next year. I'm finally making sold contact most of the time. Just need to add a little more loft to get it a little deeper and over the outfielder's heads occasionally.
'

Couple of days off

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:36:14 -0700

Well softball was rained out this weekend. Probably better that way :) My knees are still healing up and still hurt a little bit. Hopefully they'll be back to 100% for the make up games :)

So, in order to try and relax a little bit, Amber and I are going back to eastern Washington to visit wineries. Do more tasting figure out where I want grapes from in the future. Will try and not spend as much money this time :) But research is important :)

Food Yumminess

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:55:57 -0700

Took at trip to Pike's Place yesterday after Amber got done with work. Both kind of needed a destressing trip :) Weren't really planning on getting anything, just wanted to look - especially at the fruit. Never know when I'm going to get the urge to do the fruit wine thing again :)

Passed some of the most amazing looking scallops I've ever seen. Expensive, but had to get a few. Brought them home, grilled them with a little olive oil, lemon, salt and white pepper.

Wow. These were the best quality scallops I'd ever had - even better than the ones that I had at Nobu in New York back in 2000(?). Those were prepared better than mine (I'm just not as good as Iron Chef Morimoto *sigh* :-P), but wow....

Honestly, that's the first seafood that I've had in the Northwest that made me think that. (Though if I liked salmon more, that probably would have done it too.... I've gone from not liking it to enjoying it occasionally :)

Back to life

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:25:13 -0700

Seems like most of my days have been going like this for a bit. Work at trying to figure out where this stupid bug is, fail, then stress over the failure all night so that I don't sleep. Stress over this aspect of work, or that aspect of it. Worry about the big discussion with Ed about what do to now. Hoping that he'll serve as a reference when I need it :-/ Uncertainty and me have never sit very well. And that's pretty much all that surrounds me now. I can tell it's wearing on Amber too. Which is never a good sign :( Though her powerful pink pants did help cheer me up yesterday at softball. That's the best thing about stuff like softball. I can lose myself in them, and through effort not feel like a total failure :) Just wished I could have had an extra day or two before reality kind of crashed on back in.

Big Ball Bowling

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 23:44:45 -0700

So I did Big Ball Bowling today for (maybe) the fifth time in my life. Okay... most of the country just calls it "Bowling" or "Ten Pin Bowling." But those of us who grew up in Eastern Mass were introduced to bowling as Candlepins. A really different game. I even had to ask someone which fingers go into the holes. :) I did well though. Did really well my first game, and then got worse each game after that. The format that we played for the tournament (for those of us newbies :), was knocking down 8 pins was a strike. So my 196, as impressive as it sounds...wasn't that impressive :-D The third game, although my lowest scoring, was really probably my best. I bowled a 148 without the help of any 8 or 9 pin strikes -- all 4 of them were real "all 10 pins down on one ball" ones. It was fun. Didn't do as bad as I thought I would (only 3 gutter balls :). Might have to try it again at some point in the not so distant future.