What do gun shows, starting a nonprofit, suprapattellar bursitis, grad school and a Japanese Maple have in common?

ME!!!!!!!

I haven't written in a while so I figure let's get caught up on my life for the two people that regularly read this not so well updated blog (Emily and maybe Eric since he's probably the only person that's commented more than once).

Starting with gun shows....No not the kind that shoot bullets, those I'm not a fan of in any form! Lately Emily has an obsession with gun jokes (you know the guns in your arms) so she's been going around collecting them from anybody who has one to share. Oddly enough a lot of people know different ones, kind of like the aristocrats joke. Here are some good ones she got out of people:

Emily: Do you have tickets yet?
Confused unsuspecting person: Huh? What?
Emily (flexing her muscles): TO THE GUN SHOW!

Greg (my bandmate's hubby and master griller): Do you know of a good vet?
Emily (giggling): No
Greg (flexing his muscles): BECAUSE THESE PYTHONS ARE SICK!

April (soccer pal and soon to be lesbian ska bandmate): Do you have a needle and thread?
Karen (confused): I dunno, I think Emily has that with her craft crap?
April (flexing her muscles): BECAUSE I'M RIPPED!

Ave (soccer pal and crazy good potter): Have you heard the weather forecast?
Karen (putting her hand out to gauge the weather): eh?
Ave (flexing one bicep, then the other): IT'S GONNA BE THUNDER AND LIGHTENING

Starting a nonprofit... After starting to make a little money in the women's jazz band (http://www.myspace.com/moodswings2) I helped found a couple years ago we figure we better get our finances in order and start a business or nonprofit to protect ourselves from lawsuits, tax stuff, etc. Starting a nonprofit is a TON of paperwork and involves a lot of collaboration with a band that's gotten to be almost 20 people large with a ton of occasional subs. But we're thriving and playing around town quite a bit this summer and that's super fun.

Suprapattellar bursitis...I'm so so careful now when playing soccer, but the other weekend when a dude twice my size came in from the side of me (after me taking control of the ball) and knocked my planted leg (from the inside no less) almost all the way around, it took me out of playing for a couple weeks. Luckily it's nothing too serious, but it makes you wonder if people really are "playing for fun."

Grad School! In the middle of starting a nonprofit, playing in bands, soccer, and my full time job I start grad school at the University of Washington in the fall. I'm super exciting because the program (masters of public administration) lets you choose a focus (policy evaluation is mine) and take classes in other departments as well as their public affairs department. So I can take really nerdy quantitative classes in the econ or math department if I want!



Last but not least in the latest happenings is that my brother and mom came for a visit a couple weekends ago and decided to rip out our tiny garden. Which was a good thing because the tiny plants the builder put in were totally random and ugly.








It's kind of a weird angle, but this is what our tiny yard looks like from our balcony, we need to get some more color but after 9 hedges, a japanese maple, hydrangea, and transplanting our tiny Rhody we were tired. When I say we, I mean my brother because my scrawny arms only dug 3 of the 12 holes...

Knitting can be fun...

Shocking I know, but I may have crossed over to the dark side...After a few years of Emily telling me how fun knitting is and I should try it, I finally picked back up the scarf I started for my mom over two years ago. You wouldn't think knitting is very hard, but man I was so pissed every row I knit had a different number of stitches that I pulled out most of what I had done and left it in the back of Emily's oversized knitting cabinet. Some of the girls on my soccer team wanted to start a knitting group so I volunteered our house for the inaugoural meeting. I thought why not, Emily comes to my soccer games and knits so I should bring my soccer team here and maybe we'd knit while she juggles a soccer ball....Well we couldn't convince her to do that, but it was still fun anyway.


In other exciting news, we got some crazy snow at our house. Sadly, it melted before I had a chance for snowangels. Our poor plants look so sad in the snow.

My big fat gay wedding!

I had to take back my last blog entry title because clearly our wedding was one of the best days of my life! Suffice to say, it far outweighed my excitement at finding cinamon granola bars in their own package.

We haven't gotten our photographer's pictures back yet, but we did have a couple friends take some photos if you want a peek.

http://www.flickr.com/gp/59583776@N00/6cmD02
http://jbarker.net/Gallery/v/Events/Karen_Emily_Wedding/
http://www.tangiblize.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=4208

After careful planning and execution of our best day ever, Emily and I came up with a little advise for those of your out there planning our own gay wedding. As you may notice, a lot of this may apply to straight weddings too...

How to make a gay wedding:

Wedding day preparation advice:
1) Feed your peeps (or "bridal party" in traditional terms) before they help decorate. This will increase their physical strength as well as mental acuity for tasks such as hanging paper lanterns on 10-12 foot high cross beams.

2) If you get your hair done, make sure you do it in the morning and not right before the wedding. You don't want to borrow your soon to be father-in-law's car (because yours has two large kegs to get to the reception site during your scheduled hair appointment) and then park it in front of a fire hydrant because there is nowhere else to park and you're already 15 minutes late to your appointment. Sorry I'm late...do you mind if we sit in the chair that faces that fire hydrant out front while you do my hair? Oh yea and my hair is crazy thick and I only have 30 minutes for you to make me pretty.

3) Do not attempt to completely wash a new dress for your sister less than 2 hours before the wedding in case it won't dry on time. If you must wash the dress, spot clean any mud that may have occurred due to transport issues from the car to the house.

4) If you are the officiant and you haven't changed into your suit, make sure it stays with you until transport to the site.

5) There is a reason for rehearsal dinners besides the food, but if you don't have one the time right before the wedding starts will work too.

6) Make sure you have a friend good with hair and make-up help you get ready.

7) Taking pictures in the sand looks super cool, but = sand in your shoes so you might want to take those off...

Advice for the cocktail hour

1) Having a cocktail hour before the wedding ceremony = awesome squared!

2) Drinking wine before the ceremony helps with the nerves

3) Drinking wine before the ceremony may cause inadvertent admissions of tipsiness to co-workers, supervisors, and/or new in laws that aren't accustom to drinking with you and your friends

The ceremony

1) Practice vows the night before to avoid crying or laughing during your partner's turn. It seriously works; that and after I told Emily my vows rhymed she needed to approve them first. I don't know why, I always write things in good taste.

2) Think long and hard about the promises you make in your vows because you'll have to live by them the REST of your LIFE. I really wrestled with the promises of shoes and expensive yarn in my vows, but I figure we're pretty even because she promised not call me Kare-bear in front of my athlete friends. And in my opinion, one "Kare-bear" in front of my friends = 1 less pair of shoes or yarn.

Reception
1) Stop talking and eat

2) Practice dancing in your new shoes before buying them. This may be a bit embarrassing and you might get weird stares as your partner quickly hides behind a rack of gray warm wool sweaters. If you can't dance in 6 inch heels, don't buy them no matter how sexy they look.









3) Use forks for the traditional "first bite" of cake (or cupcake in our case). Your partner can't safely jam a fork with cake up your nose so they won't try it. No matter how sweet and innocent your new bride may look, they still might have the thirst for a cake smashing (even after being advised by her father against it). You wouldn't believe how bad snickerdoodle frosting tastes up your nose...










4) When a large number of your prankster friends all disappear at the same time, be suspicious they are up to no good with your car.

2nd best day of my frickin' life

Sometimes good things happen to good people after all!The background
I guess I'll have to fill you in on a little background to start with. You know those nature valley granola bars you always see at the store? You can usually buy them in a pack of plain or variety and occasionally peanut butter. Recently they've come out with some new flavors and variations on their original like maple and brown sugar. Well anyway, I've always been in love with with cinnamon kind so for the past few years I'll buy the variety pack that has cinnamon, peanut butter and oats 'N honey. I gobble up the ever so tasty cinnamon and leave the others for Emily, which I might add doesn't work so well. She sometimes eats the peanut butter ones, but she's just not a huge fan. For maybe 5 years now I have searched in vain at every grocery story store (and targets I might add) to find a box of only cinnamon ones. Poor Emily is a little bored with my whining when I find only peanut butter and oats N' honey with their own boxes. What I want to know is who is their statistician that decided people prefer peanut butter over cinnamon, it's just ludicrous! I'll run a focus group, survey, whatever they need to show them the error of their granola bar ways for Free.

Maple and Brown Sugar Pushes out Cinnamon
Over the last couple of years there's this new flavor on the block, maple brown sugar, and they've been substituting it for the cinnamon in the variety packs, much to my chagrin. To add insult to injury they even started selling this new kind in its own box. Outrageous right?! Just think how upsetting this is after years of having to buy stupid peanut butter and oats N' honey to get to my cinnamon.

A Breakthrough
On Monday, labor day, Emily and I stop at a grocery store, one of theses indy stores, not a Safeway or Whole Foods, after some marathon outlet clothes shopping trip (another story in and of itself). So I'm hungry, tired, and delusional from the screaming of children and trying to help Emily pick out grown up clothes for her new practicum at the hospital. The first day she violated every dress code with long hair, dangly earrings, open toed shoes and who knows what else. I guess they don't want you wearing things people can grab? But I digress, so in this very random store I notice a sale on the Nature Valley variety pack (2 for 5 dollars), so I happily pick it up only to notice that once again maple brown sugar has squeezed out cinnamon. As usual I start to complain to Emily about the unfairness of my cinnamon granola bar free life. As I'm going into my usual tirade, with other shoppers looking on, Emily shuts me up by pointing at the box of cinnamon only granola bars sitting right next to the variety pack. I took every pack left they had (only 4, damn it). Best day of my frickin' life!

Moodswingin'

The all women's jazz band (The Moodswings) I helped to start after moving to Seattle has been getting pretty busy this summer even if a bunch of our outside gigs have dumped rain on us. This pic pretty much says it all; it's gray, rainy and our most dedicated fan is a little boy in a rain slicker with his balloon. Not only that but iit looks like a frown on his face, but I'm sure he's enjoying himself. I mean he's got a cool balloon at least...You can see the saxes in the background a bit getting drenched.


We recorded a demo CD a while ago and I finally got it up on our myspace page so y'all should check it out:
myspace.com/moodswings2

Boeing's Dreamliner

My sister works on the new Boeing 787 and had an extra ticket to their big roll out event so I got to see the new plane. I have to admit, it seems pretty fancy with it's bigger windows and humidity controled cabin tempurature. I think they even have some fancy lighting stuff and some kind of stableizer thing so no more pesky turbulence (come on, who doesn't love a little turbulence). We braved waiting in a huge line for buses to take us to the hanger. Definately longer than a Disneyland line, but at least no screaming kids or people in stuffed animal suits were there. Wouldn't that have been funny... a big stuffed plane walking up to people, ha ha. Serioulsy though here's a pic of the line:

The line was worth it though because you never get to take cameras inside (even on family day) and I got a couple good shots of the new plane:

Perhaps You Forgot!

That's the title of the letter I recieved from the Advocate. They've been trying for some time now to get me to renew my subscription. I think my subscription was up over a half year ago and they still send me the magazines along with these fun little letters. I think May was actually the first month they stopped sending me the magazine and since, I have missed these little letters. Here's the last one I recieved...

Dear Karen,
This morning I was handed a short list of subscribers who failed to send in their renewal instructions. These are readers to whom we must, regrettably, stop sending the magazine.

Your name was on the list.

My first reaction was that this must be some sort of oversight, that our previous reminders somehow did not reach you.

If, however, you've decided now to renew - or if you are still weighing the decision - I urge you to consider the following:

In today's changing world, your "need to know" has never
been greater. And the capacity of The Advocate to help
you meet that need is unequalled.

I would hate to leave even one subscriber behind without making this one extra effort.

For your convenience, I have provided a specially marked renewal form and a postage paid reply envelope with this letter. Please fill it out and send it in today.

Sincerly,
Joe Landry
Publisher

My favorite line is:
"My first reaction was that this must be some sort of oversight, that our previous reminders somehow did not reach you." I love how it's so personal like "gasp, I can't believe that you wouldn't renew, there MUST be some mistake!"

Fortune Cookie

Tonight's fortune cookie: "A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck."

My band finally recorded our first demo! Check it out on our myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/moodswings2

Frickin' Awesome!

Sweet! A trombone buddy of mine sent this to me.



For another fun one check out trombone fun with Mario Bros:

So we bought a house...

So Emily and I have been looking for a little over a month to buy a house and finally by some miracle our fourth offer was accepted. All over the news, the housing market is dropping, all except the crazy pacific NW which has gone way high. And why not, rain, clouds and crappy weather is so great! We lost three houses before this one; the second house we actually bid over, but not enough because someone bid $40K over! This house, the address was listed incorrectly and the measly four pictures on the web was of the unit next door (and they weren't great pictures). So we're grateful the realtor wasn't a good marketer. Anyway we're super excited to actually have our own place where we don't have to hear our neighbors or have a landlord. I mean, don't get me wrong we love the place we're renting, but it's the little things. Like the guy that lives in our basement is in his fourties and has lived there for 10 years. He's got joint custody of a screaming toddler and an on again off again girlfriend who regularly has the consumption (or some sort of hacking cough). Plus the incessant mix of shot em' up video games along with Aladdin "you've got a friend" music. I can't complain too much, we've occasionally done some clog dancing, etc. but ah well. Our own place is exciting!
Here's a link to more random pics.
It's a townhouse close to our school and work bus lines. It has a tiny yard which is good and bad since the upside is no gardening and the downside is no yard (I guess could you could say that about a house too though), but it's clean and new and we won't have to do any work except by curtains.

Home buying, wedding planning, and more exciting bus stories

I know I haven't written for over a month, but I do have an excuse.... Emily and I decided that this would be the perfect time to start house hunting. I mean it's not like we're busy or anything right? Emily's trying to do her 2nd year project at school and just started taking on her second client while. I'm taking a class as well as working full time and playing in two bands and a soccer team. My class is located in the University Hospital since it's taught by an Epidemiologist in the Health Services department (survey research methods), so it took a little time getting used to going to a hospital for class. I keep looking for the cast of Grey's Anatomy in the hallways, but alas they aren't there. At least the bathrooms are nicer in the hospital and there's elevators to get to class. I guess there are some advantages to having class in the hospital.

Oh yea and we're supposed to be planning a wedding (I wish the damn thing would plan itself). Oct. 20th seems so far away so we'll have plenty of time... By the way, if anyone has any fun pictures of Emily and I for our wedding slide show send them our way.

Ok here's the fun bus story for the month. Unfortunately, I'm not able to take credit for this bus story as I'm merely parroting what Emily has relayed to me.

So these two dudes (probably in their late 20s) in house painter clothes are standing in the middle of the bus because it's crowded and they can't sit down. They start having a conversation and the tall one says out of the blue
"you know, I don't really like shampoo"
and the short dude says
"yea, I don't really wash my hair all the time"
and the tall dude says
"yea"
and the short dude says
"you know what you can do though? You can take some lotion, whatever you use is leftover and put some in your hair. It helps keep it flatter."
and the tall dude says
"yea, not so fluffy"

Appartley tall dude didn't head short dude's advice though because Emily saw him later in the week with still puffy hair. This was pretty funny to Emily since she'd had this same conversation in 7th grade with Tiffany.

More Bus Adventures and Cat Girl #2

I haven't written about my bus adventures as of late, but recently I've been seeing cat girl #2 on my bus. Since I started taking class and riding the bus in the middle of the day, I get a different crowd than your usual work commuter. Cat girl #2 is frequently is also goth looking and a teenager. This one looks a bit meaner and has a "too cool" (although you're not for christ sake, you have cat ears and you take the bus in the middle of the day, shouldn't you be in school?). Anyway, I don't know what the deal is with this cat style...

The bus drivers are a bit different too. There's Antonio Banderas who has this low sexy spanish voice when announcing stops. Seriously, the man can say Wallingford so sexy that the passengers are stunned into silence. Then there's Ali G who makes a rap about every stop announcement. I would think he's super clever except for the fact that he does the same raps every day so that get's a little old (but still funny). Emily who is his biggest fan loves to repeat his lines: "49 will treat you fine to broadway" "superstar express action is ON THE MOVE" "ice cold 16 on the sweetheart 26" Yea fool!

Wanna see some funny Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974? These are hella funny! True life (remember when people used to say that), people actually ate these things. Speaking of old skool stuff, it made Emily a little sad that her future children would never first hand experience hammer pants and what a damn shame that is.

Green my Apple

Here's a clever little campaign Greenpeace has launched against Apple...
http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/

I spent my little Christmas break much like a teenager, sleeping in until noon, eating candy and cookies, and playing my new video game. Then towards the end of the week a friend came up from Eugene to visit. What do you ask do we do in the gray Seattle weather? We drive out of it to the mountians where it's still gray, but with snow and wilderness n' stuff. Now it's back to good old stats class and work, oh yea and wedding planning (which consists of beer, food, people; shouldn't be hard right?)......

Merry Christmas

I recently got a bunch of old pictures of the family from my Mom so I could scan them into my computer. I started scanning a couple of them today while waiting for family to arrive for dinner. I'm glad that I got the pictures before my sibblings since there is some good blackmail in the stack of pictures (and I intend to use wisely)...

I found this one particularly appropriate (1989)....

Happy holidays all :)

Guide to Proposing to a Chick...if you are one

Step 1: Listen carefully to your girlfriend
If your girlfriend starts pointing out sizeable rocks everytime you pass a jewelry store in the mall that means she probably wants you to buy her one. If you and your girlfriend are helping out a buddy pick out a ring for his/her gal and she starts telling you exactly the size, cut, stone, and metal then she probably wants you to buy her a specific ring. If you suggest all the rings look similar no matter the size and metal and she gives you that look, you should probably write down exactly what she wants because even though you can't see the difference she will...

Step 2: Covertly start shopping for the ring
It's always good to take friends and family for second opinions, even if the sales people think your brother is your fiancee and you are picking out your own ring. This can be a touch embarrassing, but just remind the sales person that although this may be legal down South I happen to be purchasing the ring for a very special girl. Next you watch the look of confusion cross their face and then the giddy realization that if one woman equals one expensive diamond ring that two women equal two expensive diamond rings (all the better for their commission).

Step 3: Cut the crap and find that special sparkle
When talking with jewelers about different rings, they will launch into all of this confusing jargon about facets, clarity, cut, angles, light refraction, and on and on until you're back in vector calculus calculating the gradiant or some crap like that. But honestly, who cares! Just find the one that sparkles the most. You girlfriend is not going to ask "wait a minute honey, how many facets does this really have?" or "is this very very slightly included or very very very slightly included." The best you had hope for is "ohhh sparkly!"

Step 4: Don't leave shopping remnents around
Don't leave ring flyers or ads laying around in say your car or on your desk. If you happen to do something idiotic like this, no problem we can fix that. The next day flip the page to some diamond earrings or necklace and circle it. She think oh yay, I'm getting a necklace. If you're feeling really bold circle the ugliest ring you can find and that when you see her gasp of abhorrence say "yea, can you believe that Chris wants to get Sam that ring? Chris just wouldn't listen when I said it was a bad idea." Problem solved. Also, remember to close Internet browsers after browsing online.

Step 5: Getting a ring sized
Steal a ring that fits your gal perfectly on her ring finger. No it can't be her right hand, if she's right handed that finger will always be a little bigger. Don't steal her favorite special ring her mother bought her that she wears everyday. She will notice it's gone and then be upset and make you help her look for it everywhere. Bad idea. Try to take a second or third string ring that she won't notice is gone.

Step 6: The proposal
Pick a special place that has a special meaning to her or both of you. The humble bagel where you used to have morning dates or the dorm room of your first kiss or the path by your old house you used to hold hands on. Or maybe on the first big trip oversees you take together...

So pretty much the short version of the story, I asked on the first leg of our trip in Paris, she said yes and now Emily and I are happily engaged.






P.S. More trip photos coming soon....

Hello from Florence

I just wanted to do a quick post, since I have not updated my blog in a long time and I just recieved a special request :)

Emily and I are right now in Florence, Italy after arriving in Paris on the 6th of September. After about a week in Paris, we successfully made our way to Rome. We stayed in a particularly interesting B&B there (I will talk more about it later) and we are now in our second day of Florence. Ok, I am off to find Emily so we can grab breakfast.

Ciao

Ack Robots

Check out Rong Cheng! A little creepy...but kinda cool.

Fun With US Airways

So a couple of weeks ago, I flew to DC for a work retreat (or rather Baltimore). Here's my complaint to US Airways customer service people after I missed my connection in NC by5 hours. I wonder how they'll respond...

June 26, 2006

Customer Relations

US Airways

4000 E. Sky Harbor Blvd

Phoenix, AZ 85034

I’m writing to voice my complaint with your service on US Airways flight 148 departing from Seattle going to Charlotte (NC) July 15, 2006. Not only did we leave an hour late, but we made TWO Emergency landings that could have been easily avoided. About an hour and a half into the flight we had to make an emergency landing into the Denver airport because the restrooms were not properly emptied in Seattle. Before take off from Seattle, a woman in my row tried to use one of the restrooms and reported to a US Airways attendant on the plane that it wasn’t properly flushing. The attendant said it was probably because the restrooms were being emptied, but no the woman in my row was correct; there was a problem with the restrooms.

Next after landing in Denver, our plane was evidently too large and heavy for the runway and we were forced to dump fuel, making it necessary to stop again in St. Louis to re-fuel and go onto our original destination of Charlotte. Upon our landing in St. Louis, everybody on the plane could hear the pilots clapping and cheering. This does not instill confidence in the passengers! Eventually, we made it into Charlotte at about 2:30am over 5 hours after our scheduled arrival time of 8:30pm. Every single person including myself missed our connection on the plane missed their connecting flight. To make matters worse, there were only three US airways attendants at the gate to assist with re-routing the passengers, one of which looked to be brand new so one attendant spent all her time fixing his mistakes or answering his questions. As the seventh or eighth person in a line of about 40-50 people, I had to wait a little over half an hour. Thank goodness I was in the front of the line.

The compensation we received for all of this hassle was food coupons that added up to $20, a hotel voucher for the Ramada Inn and two cab vouchers. Since I had to catch an early morning flight to Baltimore the next morning for work really the only option I had was to stay in the airport. I had to cancel my reservation at a cushy Marriott (at the cost of $159 for the night for less than 24 hours notice) and sit in an airport. Additionally, I was originally supposed to fly into DC the night before and carpool in the morning with my co-workers to Baltimore for the all day retreat. Instead of a nice dinner and sleep at the Marriott before my all day retreat, I was stuck in the airport up all night (or morning) with a Starbucks dinner (that was the only thing open at the hour) with no shower or sleep before a full day intensive retreat with my company offices from around the US.

As you can see, I am extremely upset with US Airways and cannot believe the unacceptable service myself and the other passengers received. If you want to keep my business I hope that you will compensate me for my time and money lost due to US Airway mistakes. Additionally, my company, family, and friends will hear what happened and how it was resolved. I have flown with you before without a problem so I’m completely in shock at how something like this could occur.

Sincerely,

Karen Matheson

Italy Wins in a Shootout

Hmmm... that title sounds kind of violent eh? Guess that makes sense after the France headbutt. I'm still disappointed that Portugal didn't win the World Cup, I was really pulling for my people in this one. I'm ok with Italy winning over France though.

This has nothing to do with soccer, but I thought it was kind of cool, check out this transformer video.
http://www.blackfilm.com/20060512/features/transformertest_video.shtml