What's Happening....

So, how are things going, now that we're a week into 2011...?

So far, so good, I suppose. Jenny got a couple extra hours added to her schedule, bringing her almost up to full time, and she's been selling a few more of her crocheting projects to her co-workers. She's also been trying to work a little more on her novel, when she has the time.

I've got a few art projects on my plate - some new and some way overdue that I'm concentrating on playing catch-up with first. Also, the first Comicsmiths' Guild anthology comic is printed and should be on it's way here. We'll have those available soon-ish, both on-line and at local shops & events.

We've got all the Christmas decorations down and out to the garage, and are in the beginning stages of completely re-arranging the apartment. So of course, at the moment it's a complete disaster. But when we're done, the plan is to have a real living room and dining room again, with the studio space moved to the smaller bedroom.

We're figuring this will also encourage us to do some much-needed un-cluttering, and get rid of some extra stuff we've been hanging on to for way too long. Or it may just end up in the garage. Guess we'll see....

A Winter Wonderland

Well, obviously the Pacific Northwest won't be left out of the current "snow-pocalypse" that's been hitting the eastern states. Spokane is currently under a "winter storm warning" with high winds and 7-12 inches expected to fall today. Below is an example of what it looks like outside our windows and the snow's still steadily coming down.




Our Christmas was more wet than white, but still fun, though I came down with a monster of a head cold late last week which I'm only now shaking off. I was down & out and pretty miserable for the past few days, with the whole sneezing/coughing/aching thing. But last night I actually got a decent night's sleep without NyQuil, so I think I'm mostly over it.

Regardless, with the weather the way it is, I'm planning on staying inside and warm unless I absolutely have to, until I'm 100%. Hence me taking these pictures from inside the apartment...

It's Still Snowing...

...and it's just getting kind of rediculous now.

It's been going non-stop for at least 36 hours - we've got about a foot or more accumulation, and it's a mess pretty much everywhere. We ventured out last night to pick up some much needed groceries, and while we didn't see any accidents, there were plenty of vehicles stuck along the way.

Jenny was just out walking around and even saw a semi truck get stuck trying to get around the nearby traffic pretzel.

She was supposed to work at the library today, but they closed them all. Her boss called her this morning and told her to stay home. :)

So, here's a look at what our apartment's like right now:

Photo Finish

Well, it's been a year, but I finally got the rest of the photos from our wedding scanned and uploaded to our Flickr account. I put them all in a "New Wedding Pictures" set, so they'd be easy to find, and they're here: New Wedding Pictures

These are the pictures taken by Tigger, Shane and Rita, and Jenny's parents. I know there's some more pictures out there that other people took, but that's what we've got so far. I'm in the planning stages of going through and scanning all of our photos (so they'll be archived in case of a fire or whatever) and putting a lot of them online. Besides just our normal pictures of people and things around town, Jenny has a whole bunch of cool photos from her trip to Spain and pics from our trip through Canada (lots of blurry animals).

I figure that with unlimited space available on Flickr, I might as well make the most of it. So, keep an eye out for more photos in the near future. I'd also like to start putting up pictures of our art (drawings and painting) as well as getting some good photos of the jewelry and lapidary work Jenny's been doing with her dad.

Jenny's sick right now, and has missed the last couple of days of work from it. Apparently it's a nasty sinus infection, and I'm afraid I might be getting whatever it is as well (big surprise). Fun. She seems to be getting better, so hopefully she'll be up and around soon.

Otherwise: still jobhunting; still really hot.

Wedding Pictures

So, I've been planning to go through all of the wedding pictures we have, picking out the best, editing and cleaning them up, and then putting together a collection to give people who might be interested. However, the whole process was rather... daunting (more like overwhelming).

Sooo.... instead, I decided to separate out the pics somewhat and then throw all of them up online, where anyone who wants to see them can, and they can pick the ones (if any) that they want to keep. They're all up on our new Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foglesong/ The wedding collection is also reachable by clicking the picture of us over there in the sidebar to the right of this entry.

We still need to do a bunch of editing, sorting, tagging and describing to these pictures, but it's a start. And since we've got the space, we'll probably be uploading a bunch of other pictures as well (such as our vacation and other trips, that sort of thing). :)

Day Three In Fairbanks

On Sunday we went to Alaska Land to see if anything was different, and to go into the Air Museum there, which niether of us had been in in many, many years. It was cool. Lots of neat planes and helicopters, pieces of wrecks, and old clothes and other articles. Yes, I was allowed to sit in that helicopter, and put that helmet on. :) It was the only thing there that was touchable. In the Native Village, the gift shop that no one had ever really liked has been turned into a little museum. Also, the path into the "village" has been moved so that you have to go through the museum to get to the path, instead of walking by the antler sculpture. Almost all of the buildings have been taken down for some reason, and the "path" sort of petered out to nothing instead of leading near the back exit, which no longer exists. So, that was disapointing. I got the impression that the plays that occasionaly were held there no longer are. On the other hand, the old "train station" has been shut down and a nice new one has been built next to it. I think it might have had a gift shop or a itty bitty museum, but I didn't go over there. We looked through another museum, this one in the "town" area, while it rained cats and dogs outside. We bypassed most of the shops, but stopped in one and I ended up buying a pretty green amber ring. They had regular yellow amber, green, and a dark red amber too. I had had no idea that amber came in different colors. Apparently the dark red is the rarest. But I liked the green the best. And the rings were very reasonably priced. While I had been in the helicopter, Alex had called and asked if we'd go to see the Simpson's Movie with him and Ellie.

After we left Alaska Land, we went to the Fair. It looked about the same as it usually does. We dropped by a booth that's run by a friend of Peter's, but she was off having lunch, so we went to look at the Forestry booth and go to the art and photography building near it. There wasn't anyone I knew at the Forestry booth, but the booth itself was still in good condition. I sort of helped build it, and my sister and I would sometimes go to the fair with Dad when it was his turn to man the booth, so it holds good memories for me. At the art exhibit, there were some really great pieces. A little girl had entered several paintings and drawings, Happy Dong, I swear that's her name, and she was very talented. Then we went back to Peter's friend, Ellen's booth and found her there. They talked for quite a while and I looked at the artistic stationary and other cool things that she was selling, and joined in the conversation a little too. Somewhere in there we ate some fair food, and it was delicious.

Then, we headed to the movies. Well, we might have stopped back by Josh's place to rest or something, but I don't remember. We got to the theater before Alex and Ellie, and briefly saw Rob again as he was leaving. I think he saw Harry Potter, but I could be completley wrong. The Simpsons Movie was awesome! It was so funny, I couldn't even believe it. At one point, one guy threw binoculars at the dome over the town in frustration and they unexpectedly bounced back and hit him in the head. I actually shrieked out loud in laughter, which embarassed me a little, but it didn't stop me from continuing to enjoy the movie. After the movie, we talked outside for a while, Alex had just quit his job that weekend and the story was very funny. We didn't end up going to Denny's though, so maybe Ellie had to work the next morning or something. Then back to Josh's to sleep. It was really hot in Josh's condo, and the fan was barely helping, but it wasn't too bad while it was raining outside. Once it started getting warmer out though, it was a sauna!

Day Two In Fairbanks

In the morning, we used our new Tracfone to call just about everyone to let them know we were in town and that we had a week to see them. Chris and Sabrina invited us to lunch and Peter and I suggested Food Factory. We had missed it so much! Alex called us to also ask us to go to lunch with him and Ellie, but we had to put it off for another day as we had just made plans. Peter and I ordered our favorite food, but were having so much fun talking and catching up, we forgot to order the brocolli chedder poppers. :( Mmmm, poppers. Chris, Peter and I really wanted to see Bourne Ultimatum, so we decided to go that evening, and that Chris would get Darrin to join us. Then Peter and I drove over to Fishtopia to see Rob. Peter knows Rob from when they were in the same dorm together at UAF. And I know Rob from fencing class, he was one of the TAs. We talked for several hours about his business, about people we all know, and other stuff. Then after he closed shop for the night, we followed him to his new beautiful house and got the tour. His house is made from thick concrete, and we made lots of jokes about how defensible it would be from a zombie invasion. Then we headed back into town to get to the movies. Sabrina didn't want to see the Bourne movie, so she didn't go, but I thought it was very good. A little too much "action camera" even when they were just standing and talking. Afterwards, Peter and I were hungry, so we drove over to Dennys for a bite. While we were waiting for our food, I overheard our waiter tell someone at a different table that his biological mother was married to James Brown. He said something after that that I didn't hear, so I have no idea if he meant the singer or not, but I thought it was interesting. Then, after food, it was back to Josh's place to sleep.

Day One In Fairbanks

Here we are at the family BBQ at Chris and Sarah's house. We ate some good food, then attempted to watch West Side Story, but after watching a little of it, it was voted down and we watched Cry Baby instead, which was very silly. Then we headed back to the bachelor pad. Peter and I drove around for a while in Sue's car, which she so nicely let us borrow while we were there. We stopped by Good Karma, but they were already closed, and we drove by where Revolution had been. It was empty again, but the little strip mall it was in was otherwise filled up. The bright colored slat wall that Peter and Chris had put up was still there, which I thought was funny. We drove down the Johansen and saw all the new stuff that's sprung up there. Would've been nice if all those stores had been there when I grew up on that side of town, but whatever. ;) Then we dropped by West Freddies but surprisingly didn't see anyone we know. Then back to the bachelor pad to sleep.

Peter & Jenny Foglesong And Proud Parents

July 15, 2007

Foglesong + Johnson

Recovering

We've been back from our mini-vacation for a few days now, and we're still just now getting back on our feet. Between Jenny being sick, then me being sick, then going away for 4 days and then her being sick again, we've just been kinda wiped out for the past few weeks. The house is in shambles (atleast in my opinion - in reality it still looks pretty nice), since I haven't had the time and/or energy to clean and we've been too tired or busy to do much other than just go to work and watch TV. That should be changing soon, though, as Jenny finally got fed up with Michaels and put in her 2 week notice today. She's through putting up with horrible schedules, incompetent supervisors and a revolving door of coworkers. She's planning on getting a new job, but she's going to enjoy her respite as well. The funny thing is that when she took this job, it was originally supposed to be the "little part time job on the side" that she took to bring in a little extra money while we got back on our feet after moving. She always had planned on quitting as soon as something better came along, but nothing ever did...

I would still like a better/different job, but I'm learning to live with this, atleast for the moment. Brian is going to be leaving soon (end of June), so while I won't be getting any sort of promotion, I am going to finally be learning some new things so I can take over some of his extra tasks when he's gone. Atleast it's something to do instead of answering the phones.

So, our "vacation" was amazingly fun - we got to see our friends Shane and Rita (who we really appreciate letting us stay at their apartment) as well as my brother Dave (who took us out to dinner at the Pyramid Alehouse); we spent both days at the Emerald City Comic Con, where we got to see a bunch of our favorite artists and writers, bought some cool stuff and generally had a whole lot of geeky fun; and we even got to go to the zoo! Shane and Rita's apartment was just a couple of blocks from the Woodland Park Zoo, so we spent the day on Monday walking around there until closing time. This pushed back when we eventually started the drive back, but it was totally worth it. Here's a group picture of the happily family (Shane, Rita and Roscoe):

I'd hazard to say that our overall Con experience this year was much better than last year, although we didn't do much more in the way of planning and we got there late in the afternoon both days.... I'm thinking that we'll attempt to hit the show early in the morning atleast the first day next year, mainly so we can get at the top of artists' sketch lists before they fill up (as they inevitably do). As it is, I ended up only getting one sketch this year, but it was from the one person I wanted to meet more than any other: David Mack! He produces the most beautiful painted and multimedia work for his books; you can see some examples of his art on his website: Davidmack.net. I do have to say that he is perhaps the absolute nicest professional I've ever seen. He's smiling all the time, wants to talk to everyone there, and goes out of his way to make sure everyone who comes by his table walks away with a good experience. I've also seen this sentiment shared by other folks on-line, so it can't just be my blind fan-boy view of things. Here's a pic Jenny took of myself and the good Mr. Mack:

It's definately not one of the biggest Cons, but it's a decent size show. It's also mostly still just about comics, as opposed to the big Cons in L.A. or New York which are more multimedia spectacles now. Spokane is even trying to get a convention started here now. It's not going to be much this year, but I'm planning on going to support them, and I figure it'll be a good place to meet other artists and fans from the area. Here's their MySpace page for more info: 1st Annual Spokane Comic Convention. And here's a shot of a portion of the Seattle show floor, for some perspective on the size:


In other trip news, while we were originally thinking of heading back to Alaska in June to see peoples and go to Jenny's 10 year reunion, she's since decided that she really doesn't care that much about the reunion, and we'd both rather go back to visit later (say, August), which we may still do. Especially if we'll be living on one income for a little bit while Jenny is jobless, we'll definately want to save our money where we can.

Halloween Picture

Here's my "costume" from Halloween. Lots of makeup, my wig and horns. I should have used the same blue around my eyes that I put on my lips, but oh, well. This was better then my other idea of gelling my hair up into a mohawk. Besides, I don't have a hairdryer, so the mohawk would have been difficult to keep upright. And my head would have been cold. And I probably would have scared Jenni's kids. That might have been funny though. ;) I like this picture.

Jenny Stuff

Sorry the last picture with the keys is out of focus, I had the camera set on landscapes not close ups, and after I switched it, I didn't want to get the camera or my keys that close to the spider again. :) It's a big thing huh? It's actually a little bigger then the white one I saw in the bedroom some months ago that freaked me out. But not bigger by much. This one is longer, and the white one was much fatter.

Yesterday my Dad turned 56, but I had to close at work, so we're going over to Cda to eat Mexican food at my family's favorite restuarant tonight, then back to their home to eat cake.

Last Thursday was my friend Jenni's birthday, she's now 27 and complaining that she's getting old. Although I think that might have had to do with her kids. ;} I had to close that day too, so we spent the day together on Friday. We had a good time, and so did her son, but her daughter was a little punk as usual. But she's only 3, what can you do? Jenni and I did almost manage to break Jenni's hand, but it was only bruised, thank goodness. I can only say that I DID tell her to close the van's back door before we open the garage door, and she thought it would fit. Well it didn't, and she got her hand stuck when she tried to close the van door WHILE the garage door was trying to go up. But she's fine. I swear. Although Eric probably thinks I'm the devil. Something always seems to happen when she and I are together (not always bad mind you). No matter that I've known her for 21 years... :) Anyway, we had cake before that, while the kids were taking a nap. It was fat free angel food cake, with fat free and probably sugar free chocolate pudding with some sort of candy mixed in. It looked like a soggy mess, but it tasted good. Mmmm.

Peter had to record Heroes for me last night, and I watched it earlier today. Soooo awesome. Really, if you haven't seen it yet, go watch the episodes you've missed on-line at www.nbc.com. GO NOW!

Pictures Of Leavenworth

Here are some of the pictures of Leavenworth. It is such a cute place. One of my co-workers said that we should go in the winter. It snows quite a bit up there, and it only enhances the beauty. We saw a postcard of it during winter, and it did look very pretty. The last picture here is of a restaurant named Gustav's. I highly recomend eating there if you go to Leavenworth. 5 of the other pictures are of the shops and hotels in the Bavarian village. And the other is pointing North, looking at the begining of the Cascades coming from the East. That's the direction we went to go up to Heather Creek, which is just under (South) of Lake Wenatchee. I think.

Criminals are a Cowardly and Superstitious Lot....

We were awoken last night around 3am by one of our neighbors pounding on our door and ringing the doorbell and shouting about someone smashing up our car. We staggered outside to find that someone had just smashed out most of the windows of the truck!

Several of our neighbors had heard some guys talking/shouting outside, but didn't look out to see what was going on. But then, after the sounds of glass breaking and cars revving and tearing away, a few of them went out to see what was happening. Amazingly, we didn't really hear any of it - we'd both taken NyQuil and were zonked out, and I'm a really sound sleeper anyway.

When our neighbor first woke us up, she was shouting something about a "blue Honda Civic", and we first thought she meant that was the car that had got hit, and Jenny was trying to tell her that "no, I've got a Toyota pickup". But what she meant was that a few of the neighbors had seen two cars taking off after the attack, and one of them was a blue Honda Civic. Unfortunately, no one actually saw the person or persons who did the smashing.

While we don't know for sure who did this, we have a theory: back in April, our nextdoor neighbor's car got stolen right out of it's parking space out front, and Jenny witnessed them doing it. She went with the neighbor and his roommate to help identify the thieves, and even spoke to a reporter on TV for a few seconds about the event.

She wrote about these happenings at the time of their occurence:
Eye Witness To Crime
More Eye Witness

We have no enemies that we know of (we barely know anyone here in Spokane as it is), so our theory is that this is a retaliation against Jenny helping this guy get arrested (not that he really need any...). We spoke to our neighbor (the one who's car was stolen) about it, and it turns out the guy only spent about a month in jail for his efforts, plus we're sure he's got other buddies who might have perpetrated this as well. We just don't know....

Two police officers came last night after we called 911 and took pictures of the scene and took statements from everyone, but there really wasn't much they could do. Since no one saw the person/people who did the smashing, and no one got a license number of the cars, they don't have anyone to look for. We explained the whole car theft/retaliation idea, but they seemed convinced that this was a "random act of violence" and that there was no connection between the two incidents.

So now we're trying to figure out what we want to do next. We don't want to have to move, but there's nothing stopping someone from coming back and doing this again, after we've replaced all the windows or got a new vehicle. The apartment complex has garages that we can theoretically rent for $40 a month, but the office doesn't know which garage belongs to which tenants. So, until they take a census of the whole complex, they can't rent out any more garages. Although one of the neighbors we talked to today said her car's windows were smashed out a while back, and it was inside her garage....

For now, we've got to first replace the windshield, and then eventually the side windows (when it gets a little colder), so we've got to come up with the money for that. In addition, I'm in the process of trying to pay off the remaining money that Chris and I owe to the IRS for the business, which is going to cost me about $2800 that I don't have. I've got $1400 set aside at the moment, to put a dent in the total, but will have to pay the rest of it in installments over the next couple of years. I would have paid this amount already, but we're waiting for Jenny's bank to send her new check card, so that she can access her money again (so we can buy little things like food and gas). Her old card expired at the end of last month, but they didn't mail out the new one until the first of this month. Really smart. Nr.

If you'd like to learn more about the car theft incident, you can read the police report online here:

Stolen Vehicle Incident Ends in Arrest

This report includes such fun facts as the names of the two principle people responsible, and their home address. How I love the Internet and the power of Google!

And now, marvel at the carnage: