13 Hours of Hot!!

Yesterday morning I filled up my thermos with coffee at approximately 8am, and then forgot to bring it to work with me. Don't worry, I didn't die. I just went and got a coffee next door. Because wherever you work in Seattle there is a coffee shop next door.

But here's the cool part - when I got home, at 9pm, I poured out a little bit of my coffee to see how it fared.... and....... it was still steaming! Amazing!!!!

By the way, people often make fun of me for discovering something cool and getting excited about it way after everyone else did. I guess this is no exception since according to wikipedia the Thermos was invented in 1892.

Ballard and the Seattle Times

Last night, we did a quick drive out to Ballard (a neighborhood in Seattle) to pick up our stranded friend. A wanted man was chased into the compound next to our friend's office, so our friend had to be escorted out of the office by police and they did not allow him to go and get his car out of the parking lot. The Ballard blog captured some of the craziness, as you can see here.

Basically, there was this huge stand-off with police, SWAT teams, tanks, AK-47, etc etc. Seems like kind of a big deal to me. So just now I checked the Seattle Times this morning to see if there was an article about it. I did not see one on the "Local" page.

However, I did see two headlines about men being killed by trees falling on them. At first I thought it was the same story, and it seemed weird to me that the tree story gets two headlines and the AK-47s get zero headlines. However, it was actually two different people and two different trees. This is very sad news, and it just goes to show that statistically speaking, trees are much more dangerous than hostages.

Amateur Animal Control Adventures

Yesterday Sean and I went up to visit his grandpa in Mission, a small town east of Vancouver. We sat down in the living room, and just as we started chatting, we heard a scratching noise coming from downstairs. Sean's grandpa told us that the noise had just started a few hours earlier. He had gone downstairs to investigate, and he couldn't see the animal but he could hear it. So he sprayed some WD40 into the furnace room and he heard a strange hissing/growling noise.

I was scared, of course, but Sean wanted to charge down there and figure out what was going on. He looked around the room, and finally poked at a bag of insulation. He saw a tail! Sean thought it might be a cat, but then we heard the strange, e-wok sounding noise that it makes. It was definitely not a cat.

Despite not knowing what the freaky animal in the bag was (I was thinking it could be a badger) Sean and his grandpa came up with a plan. They found a plastic lid, which they put on top of the bag, and held the lid down while they dragged the bag outside. Yes, a 92 year old man risked his life with the mystery-badger-raccoon-cat-alien-thing while I sat back and took pictures.



I somehow got nominated to go outside and take a video, so we could find out what kind of crazy animal was in that bag. Said video is below. You can skip to the end of the video to find out what the animal was, or you can watch the whole thing and laugh at how scared I was. It's dark in the beginning but gets lighter when the porch light comes on.

Bananas vs Humps

The other day I was telling my friend how I don't like that Gwen Stefani song where she spells "bananas" over and over. And he was like, "yeah that song sucks, just like that My Humps song." But... I like the My Humps!!

I realized that they are both sort of cheesy in a certain way, so now I am trying to figure out a justification for why the bananas song sucks while the humps song doesn't suck. Can anyone back me up on this one?? (If not don't worry, I'm not really expecting a backup here, just hoping!)

Coffee Experiment

I'm not really into cooking (other than mac n cheese of course) but I had a crazy cooking-related idea the other day and this morning I decided to try it out. I bought some cayenne pepper and........ I put it in my coffee!!!

I just put a small sprinkle in the coffee grounds before I brewed the coffee, and it was delicious! It wasn't really hot-hot, but just had a subtle aftertaste of spiciness. I think tomorrow I'll add even more pepper!

If you like coffee, you should really try this and let me know if you like it.

Lending Club Update #10

I am at it again with Lending Club.... if you've been reading my updates, you know that I don't have a large enough income and/or net worth to be allowed to make new loans through Lending Club.

BUT... I can buy other people's used loans, so this is what I am doing! My original portfolio of 41 loans isn't doing so hot (6 defaulted/charged off and 6 more that are over 30 days late) but my new portfolio is much more conservative - check it out, the new portfolio is the one on the bottom.



A's are the highest credit scores, and G's are lowest. All of my previous defaults were C or lower, mostly E-Gs.

So... the holy grail of making 10% returns on my money has beckoned again. We'll see how it goes this time!

Spin Class

Today I went to my second spin class at the gym - yes, I joined a gym. It was such a hard decision for me to spend the money on it, but I was just not working out at all and I had to be realistic and admit that I would not be running outside in Seattle during the winter.

Spin class is indeed fun, as many people have told me, but it's also a tiny bit strange. I have learned a couple interesting things so far:

1. It's kind of like walking in on a Dungeons & Dragons game where you have no idea what's going on. (Disclaimer: I haven't played D&D but I'd assume that it involves lots of strange terminology and pretending.) Last week the guy teaching the class was saying stuff like, "Ok now you're in Eastern Washington, pedaling through the wheat fields..." Really? I didn't know how much imagination is involved in spinning. Today I encountered steep hills, head winds, and passed at least 10 people. Yeah that's right, I passed them! In your FACE imaginary sucky bikers!!

2. People can't sit still on the bikes. I get to class a few minutes early and I have yet to see anyone just sitting calmly on the bike, resting. I want to rest, because I am about to be forced to ride a bike for a straight hour!! But not these people. They must be spinning the wheels at all times while on the bike. So I turn the resistance way down and try to spin the wheels as slow as possible without falling off (JK it's a stationary bike) so that no one notices that I am secretly lazy.

Anyway, despite being sore for most of the week, I am really liking the gym and feeling like I have more energy, so that is awesome!