August 29, 2008:  Hey again everyone, hope you all had a great week.  The weather here has been pretty lousy for August but I've still been trying to ride the Vespa to work every day.  To drive the truck I basically need to put a $10 bill on the dash for every trip to work and back, for the scooter it's a little less than $2 so that's a lot of motivation to ride, even if it's cold or a little wet.  Lisa has to work the entire weekend, including the holiday so that stinks but Stella and I will get by.  Not much else is new really, not much to talk about.  Our friend Chris's father had some complications after surgery about a month ago and has been very sick every since.  He will require a long recovery to get back to where he was before and to help him and his family out they put together a website to help the rest of his family and friends track his recovery.  You can find it at Help John Heal if you care to keep up with his story, I'm sure they will appreciate watching the hit counter increase, knowing that he might be in the thoughts of people that haven't even met him.  You can also find a link under 'Friends' at the right.  I also just got some pictures of the few small changes I made to the fountain area including modifying the water storage chamber for easier access.  As always they are available under 'Projects' to the left.  Have a happy and safe holiday weekend. 

August 25, 2008:  Just a quick one to show that we're still alive.  Work has been crazy and the weather is starting to change so we've been trying to enjoy the last few weeks before the summer turns into fall.  Stella is doing well, she made it to level 3 in her obedience class this weekend, she was very excited and so are we.  Next week we get to move on from stand, walk, watch and climb to who knows what exciting commands, wooo hooo!  We finally went kayaking on Lake Union yesterday and we did it total Seattle style, that's right, it was already raining BEFORE we left and it rained the entire time we were out.  The Vespa has been rocking and the Ridgeline has been sitting quietly in the driveway.  So far I've got almost 300 miles on it and I'm getting between 60 and 70 mpg.  As the engine breaks in that should get a little better but I'm also not all that easy on the throttle so maybe it won't get much better.  Either way I'll be riding it as much as the weather allows.  I ordered a little bling for it that should arrive this week and hopefully I'll be picking up a proper riding jacket and gloves next week.  I'll probably get a few pictures of it and post them over the weekend, before and after the bling that is.  Lisa is working the entire long weekend so I'll probably do some mountain biking with Stella and maybe go for a scooter ride.  I also want to make a couple changes to the fountain to make it easier to drain the water and check out the pump.  I'll post new pictures if I get to it.  Anyway, time to crash, have a good week!