HollyKing's Journal

hollyqueen was up for the weekend again. This time we had a list of specific apartments to visit in our search for a new home. However we started out having dinner with jerichobrown and his wife at The People's Pub in Ballard. While walking from the car we happened across kerrizor who was in the area and out with some friends. Dinner was good and I'll have to go back there to try some of the other dishes they offer.

Saturday was a crazy mess of going from apartment complex to apartment complex. At the end of the day we had two strong contenders and in the end the Gates of Redmond won out with their two-floor townhome. Sadly with all the running around, miscommunication and two raging migranes we weren't able to join intrepid_reason and others for dinner and clubbing. I should know not to schedule so much in one day. After a shower to calm down and relax we had a calm dinner with loree and datavore.

Sunday we gave the apartment complex a money order to hold the apartment for us until next Saturday. Then we did a bit of furniture shopping for a new bed. We found a few that we liked but the promise of a headboard with bookcases in a month led us to wait so I'm off to buy a box springs and mattress that I'll use on the floor for a while.

After bed shopping it was time for tourism. So it was back to Ballard to visit the Chittenden Locks which is the first on the list of sites in the Maritime Heritage Network. It seems that you can go through the locks in a kayak and I might have to do that someday.

Contrary to popular belief we actually get quite a bit of sunshine in Portland during the summer. Normally we have nice clear days during the months of July & August. I can usually make plans for outdoor activities without worrying about the weather because I know it's going to be nice. July started that way this year after a few days it switched back to cloudy and rainy weather. WTF? Right now it's 68 degrees Farenheit and overcast. Dammit! Don't the weather gods know that I'm going kayaking in the Willamette river today? My first paddling trip since I've moved to Oregon and it's cloudy in July? The weather report calls for a high 78 and mostly sunny in the evening so I might get lucky, but I trust the weather report about as far as I can see it.

I really like KNRK (94.7 FM) but because of their tower location I was only able to listen when commuting in the car. Earlier this week I tuned in at my desk and now I can listen at work. This makes me very happy, but those damn "Christmas in July" (CiJ) sale commercials are real annoying. This is what is killing broadcast radio. It's not the clone stations where you hear the same songs on a short rotation. It's the bad, annoying and down right insulting commercials they play. On top of that most stations play a 40-90 minute block of music but then they play a 15-30 minute block of commercials. I know that if a commercial starts on the radio I might as well change the station because they'll still be playing commercials when I get to the end of my trip.

Thankfully, KNRK plays a few songs and followed by a few commercials. They're still really bad ones, but is that the fault of the station or the advertiser? I'm going to say the advertiser because I hear the same commercials on other stations. The CiJ ones are really bad, but there's a local bank which has some whining boy asking his girl to make a committment and open a joint checking account together. Gah! One more company that I'll never use because I can't stand their commercials.