Windy, stormy weekend details

Wow..even though I didnt really go anywhere this weekend, I had an event-filled one nonetheless, as you will read.

It started Friday night, when my wife came home about 6pm and she wanted to go out and grab a pizza, but first wanted to go test drive a few cars. She has a 2002 VW Jetta that she leased, which is due in 4 months or so, so we have been doing research on the Mazda 6, Toyota RAV4, Mazda Tribute, Ford Escape, Toyota Camry..and a few others. The dilemna/mission..to get an SUV or not? And then..with a budget of around $25k..tough to find a decent car that serves all of our purposes.

So back to the story..we went to go test drive the brand new RAV4 (we drove the 2005 one and liked it..but it was a tad pricey for what ya got), as well as a Toyota Highlander and maybe any other used cars that looked intriguing. So we drove a used 2005 Highlander, which was $27k (used with 25k miles)..which we ended up purchasing after 4 hours of paperwork, haggling, etc..for just under 22k. We got out of there at 10:15pm (read: no pizza). So we have a new car..and the wife loves it already, which is great. I had an SUV for over 7 years earlier, but she hadnt really ever driven one.

Saturday, I went to the gym in the morning for my bike class, but the stupid left pedal was broken (it was bent on an angle), so after about 20 minutes, I couldnt handle it anymore because it was destroying my ankle, and I quit. Audra was working from 10-7 and I went to Costoc and picked up some foods for our new outdoor deep freezer thing. I got lots of the French Onion soup, as well as some turkey, salmon, pork, bread, Lean Cuisines..etc.

Then..I worked on our taxes in TurboTax..which to my amazement, somehow, we are getting royally screwed. We bought a house this year and we still somehow magically owe several thousand dollars. Now I am not saying I finished our taxes..but I did add in the mortgage interest and property taxes already. I dont know if our downpayment or closing costs and stuff can be factored in, but I havent figured out where in TurboTax to add it yet. Plus I skipped ahead and it mentioned some crap about looking up some info from my 2004 taxes and owing money there..beats me..I got insanely annoyed and stopped it. I played a video game for a bit. I cleaned up the house. I took a quick walk outside in the drizzling rain, but my ankle was still feeling a bit jacked up from the class. So I grabbed my netflix movie "Grizzly Man" and popped that in. Let me tell you..this was a weird movie. It is about a guy who is the outdoorsy type, lives in the Alaskan wilderness, amongst the grizzly bears and thinks he is their protector, guardian..etc. His footage is incredible of the bears, and he gets close enough to touch them on several occasions, and has great shots of the bears eating, playing, fighting each other..etc. However, he has an extremely effeminate persona, which just comes across as super wacky. Too wacky for me. Well, after 13 years in the wilderness, finally a homophobic bear, eats the poor guy (and his mysterious girlfriend who was with him but we never see, or hear). They dont show the deaths/bodies, but they do interview various people who killed the bear that killed our hero(ines). This movie is 1 hour, 40 minutes long..and it could easily be edited down to an hour. A very bizarre movie. I do not recommend it.

Audra came home and with my folks in town, we picked them up and then all went to dinner at Manzana in Lake Oswego and had a terrific meal. In fact, we all ordered the same exact thing..which was super lame. but it was this pecan crusted salmon with apple-apricot something sauce. And 3 of us had the same alcoholic beverage too..a berry mojito. Took the parents home and then Audra and I went home and eventually went to bed.

Sunday morning, Audra went to work again from 10-7, and I took my parents to Marco's Cafe for breakfast in Multnomah Village. I had an "Amy's Omelette", which is what Audra usually has, and my dad had the "Lindsey's Burrito", which is what I normally eat there. A great place, if you are ever in town..and make sure you get the "Omara's Latte", which is just this incredible latte with a shot of Bailey's in it..they do it perfect. After that, we came back and watched the Australian Open and then my parents had to go to the airport, and so with it storming hard and the wind blowing at incredible speeds, I stayed in and I watched a very slow, boring, but good (oxymoron I know) movie called "The Battle of Algiers" that I had from Netflix. I dont know if I recommend it..but it was interesting...but again, it was very slow. I did some paperwork, watched some of the Lakers game and prepared dinner for when Audra got home; I finally made that pizza we had been craving Friday..andouille sausage, onion, fresh garlic, oregano, basil, red pepper, 2 types of cheese..yum!

We ended up watching this interesting show at 9pm on TLC called "Miami Ink". It is about a tattoo parlor and the 5 guys who run it, as well as the patrons who come in and gets inked. There were some cool tats done, and some interesting stories. We both enjoyed it. After watching "Grey's Anatomy" we went up to bed, talked for a while and went to sleep.

I am going back to LA on Thur through the following Tuesday to see family and friends..so this might be the last entry for a while.

Go Seahawks!