Inspired by the one-eyed Dread Pirate Vane, otherwise known as my blushing bride, I have taken the Pirate Name Quiz. I am quite pleased with the results:

We have a large 2-car garage that has been filled to the brim with all kinds of crap almost from the moment we moved in here about 8 years ago. None of our vehicles have ever been in that structure, only the piles and piles of crap we threw in there and forgot about. Instead, they’ve all been parked out front and exposed to the elements.

From the front, our house looks like hillbillies live here: 2 cars, a truck, and three motorcycles are scattered about the driveway and parking area. Well-off hillbillies, perhaps, considering that the cars are Volvo and Lexus and the truck is a Land Cruiser, but it’s still very hillbilly-ish. And when I decide to break out the tools and work on any of them, well then it really is hillbilly time no matter what the socioeconomic strata: picture a fat bald guy in camoflage cargo shorts with serious plumber’s crack working on a bike or a car in the driveway and hollering “shit!” and “fuck!” and “goddammit!” at random intervals. The only real difference then between me and Jethro in Kentucky is that I still have all my teeth.

Well, all that is changing as of today. Today, Beth and I finished cleaning out the garage and now there are three motorcycles lovingly parked in there where they can’t be rained on or spattered by the lawn sprinklers anymore. We moved all the crap out of the garage and swept out all the leaves and dirt and crap that had accumulated over the years, and then we moved back in only what we wanted to keep. The rest of it — an old entertainment center, a water-damaged dining room table and chairs, Zoe’s old bed — all went out on the curb with a “Free To A Good Home” sign rather than saving it to clutter up the place until we finally organized the garage sale we’ve been talking for years about holding but probably never will.

And the trash fairies showed up with their pickups and hatchback cars and made it all disappear by nightfall. I love the trash fairies.

Greetings from what’s shaping up to be my Colorado home-away-from-home: Room 204 of the Longmont, CO Hampton Inn. This is my third time here, and my second time in this room. I was here in November and then again in February, and it was snowy and cold both those times. This time it’s 95 outside and more like L.A. than Colorado. I think I prefer the cold. Maybe next time…

Here’s the non-snow room:

And here’s the non-snow view:

And now… I’m off to share a “It’s a small world” moment with my dad. He lives in the southern part of Colorado near Durango — about 5 hours from here — and he’s been in the hospital down there recovering from pneumonia. He called me out of the blue last night to let me know that he’s been released to a convalescent home and to let me know that he’s not down there anymore; he’s moved up to Fort Collins to be near his daughters/my half sisters. And Fort Collins is about 30 miles away from Longmont! Small world. So I’m off to visit him and the girls tonight.

Beth and I are celebrating today what I’m calling our Spinal Tap anniversary: Eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don’t know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

Happy Anniversary, honey.

Beth and I are celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary next Sunday. 11 years. Damn, that’s a long time. As Beth observed over Father’s Day dinner tonight, that’s longer than anyone’s been married in both our families — parents included.

I couldn’t wait to give Beth her gift, so I gave it to her today. The traditional gift for the 11th is steel. The modern gift is fashion jewelry. I combined the two: I gave her a motorcycle. Here’s my blushing bride taking her new scoot for a spin around the block.

She wears it well, huh? There’s nothing hotter than a chick on a bike…

Happy Anniversary, honey!

Curaçao, Day Three. So far, it’s all about the snorkeling. Zoe and I snorkeled all day yesterday, had dinner, then went back out for more night snorkeling with my underwater flashlights. Lather, rinse, repeat today. Beth has soaking up the sun and reading her book, but swears she’ll hit the water soon.

Zoe is becoming quite the little snorkel-hound. She has a sharp eye, too — she’s pointed out an octopus, a flounder, a cowfish (I think), and a moray eel that she tried to show me but was gone by the time I got there. She and Beth are going to do a “Discover Scuba” dive with the folks at The Dive Bus while I do a 2-tank shore dive. I’ll join them on my 2nd dive so we can dive together. It’ll be Beth’s intro to scuba and I’m not sure if I want her to like it or not — on the one hand it’d be great if she were as into it as I am so we could do it together, but on the other hand she’d expect me to carry all her and Zoe’s gear.

We’re renting a car Wednesday-Saturday so we can explore the island at our leisure and also to be able to get to Sunset Divers at the west end whenever we want — I’m probably going to do some boat dives with them, and we all want to snorkel their house reef. We’re having fun snorkeling here at the Hilton, but there’s really not all that much to see here. There, it’s supposed to be great.

Anyway, enough about what we’re doing/planning. It’s time for the View From Here. Here’s a very special View From Here, panorama-syle, from the balcony of Room 519 of the Hilton Curaçao:

And here’s the room:

And now… I’m off: Curaçao is calling…

So, yeah, Curaçao. Looking out the window, it looks a lot like Coral Gables, FL. Exactly like Coral Gables, in fact. Because we’re in Coral Gables, not Curaçao. At the Coral Gables Holiday Inn, in fact, and we’re here because we missed our connecting flight to Curaçao in Miami.

I could have booked us on a 6:30 a.m. flight with a 2.5 hour connection window, but no, I thought the 9:00 flight with the 45 minute window would work better because we wouldn’t have to get up so early. So we slept a little bit later this morning and then when we got to the airport we waited 2 hours for our flight to take off because something broke and they had to fly the part in from Las Vegas. The 6:30 flight would have gotten us to Curaçao right on time and I’d be writing this entry from there, and all the 9:00 flight got us was an extra hour or two of sleep and a comped room at a run-down Florida Holiday Inn.

Take my word for it: there’s no comparison.

But let’s continue my “view from here” tradition anyway, shall we? Here’s the view:

And here’s the room.

And because this is a family vacation, here’s Beth and Zoe living the life in Coral Gables:

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Longmont, Colorado. Ha.

I was in Longmont, CO in November, and here I am back in Longmont, CO again today. Same hotel, even. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Well, the view changed, at least. You can follow the link above for the view last time, and here’s the view this time around. First, my room, right next to the elevator because they cleverly ignored my routine request for a room away from the elevator:

And the view, this time looking off to the east:

The last time I was out here I got to have dinner with my half-sister, who lives in the next town over. I don’t have time to do that again this trip, but I’ll make time for a quick bite at the finest restaurant in all the land: Waffle House. Yes, Longmont has a Waffle House: Unit 1072. Can you believe Beth won’t consider moving here?

I encountered poutine for the first time when I was up in Canadia last week. Want to hear about it? Check out my/our podcast: No Soap Radio. We’re up to episode #27, so if you’re not listening yet you’re missing out. Come on over and listen to me describe how poutine’s cheese curds should “squeak between your teeth.” Brrr….

We’re getting the new year off to a roaring start here at Chez Atkins: we both got new cars!

Here’s Beth with her brand-spanking-new 2006 Lexus IS 250:

And my new car… Well, my new car isn’t really new — it’s Beth’s old Volvo S70. It’s a hand-me-down, but it’s new to me! And it runs! Reliably, even!

That’s something I can’t say about the Land Cruiser anymore. (You can see it there, peeking in from the side of Beth’s picture, sniffing her New Car Smell.) It’s gotten to the point with the Cruiser that anytime I go anywhere that involves a “long” drive — the 40 miles down to San Pedro to board the boat to go scuba diving, for example — in the back of my mind there’s always the worry that “Gee, I hope I make it.” I won’t have that worry in the Volvo. I won’t look as cool in it as I do in the Cruiser but I’m not all that cool anyway, so it’s kind of a wash. So, sadly, I’ll be retiring the Cruisier, selling it off in the next couple of weeks.

I’ll miss it. But I won’t miss failing the friggin’ smog test every year when I try to register it.