Last Halloween I observed the little kids trying find the doorbell, I thought I would put in something that would stand out a little better.  The new doorbell has a button that lights up.

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• I still haven’t packed, and I still have laundry in the washer
• I feel like I’m getting a sore throat, and I’m really worried about traveling when I’m sick
• Trying to figure out how Sandy and I can buy presents for each other without it showing up on any of the bank statements (cash?)
• I think I want to watch the latest Doctor Who special on the airplane
• While I’m thinking of it… I must return the DVDs of Pushing Daisies back to the library before leaving.
• I’m creating a document of things I need to pack or do before leaving, and I really feel like I’m missing something because the list seems too short.  Although I usually end up packing too much, so maybe this is a good thing.
• I can’t believe I’m flying on one of the busiest flying days of the year.
• TripIt rocks.
• Disney promotes pirates with their Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but yet they don’t like it when people pirate their movies?  (Random thought, I know)
• I really hope that the traffic to the airport will be ok.  Also, that the parking, check-in lines, and security lines will not be a hassle.  I just checked and they are already into “overflow” parking in the economy lots.  This should be interesting.

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5 Days Left

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Gold at the end of the rainbow

Following a previous post where I tell the story of how I started dating Sandy, I thought I would continue and talk about how I proposed.

Last February, I was visiting my parents in Oregon with Sandy, and I knew the time was right to propose. Mostly I knew because I had been planning it for a while and I finally acquired the ring which I was going to give her. We were in Oregon for Presidents Day weekend, which included Valentines day. I didn’t want to propose on Friday the 13th (maybe a little superstitious) and Sandy said it would be too cheesy to propose on Valentines day (so instead we visited the Tillamook cheese factory).

I needed to “ask her father’s permission” before proposing, but I had a hard time getting a hold of him on Sunday. When I finally did begin speaking with him on the phone, I told him that I was Jacob Brunson and he asked, “Do I know you?” to which I responded, “I hope so, I’ve been dating your daughter.”

Sandy knew all of this was going on, and she really wanted me to propose, even it if was just casual like in my parents living room. I wanted it to be a little more special, so I thought and thought about one last activity in Oregon on Monday, February 16. Going to bed Sunday night, all I knew is that I wanted it to be a little scenic.

The first thought in my mind waking up Monday morning was that I should propose on a bridge. I got on the Internet, and started researching the most romantic bridges in Portland. I found one in Portland’s Japanese Gardens, and I thought it would be the perfect place. The Japanese are right next to the Rose Garden park, so I told Sandy that I thought we should go up to see the rose gardens, which overlook downtown Portland, and have a great view.

I proposed on the other side of the bridge, right behind where Sandy is standing

As we are driving past the Oregon Zoo to the Rose Gardens, Sandy sees the sign for the Japanese gardens and asks if we can go there. I responded that I thought it was a great idea, but didn’t lead on that it was my plan all along. When we get to the entrance of the gardens I found out that they normally open at noon on Mondays, except that they had a free admission day for President’s Day and that it was going to open in twenty minutes. With the ring burning a hole in my pocket, I was thinking, “Sweet, I don’t have to spend $20 in admissions!”

The whole way home, Sandy couldn't stop looking at the ring.

We enter the garden and wander around for a little bit, as we near the bridge, I realize that there were so many people taking advantage of the free-admission holiday that it wasn’t really the private setting I had hoped for. But I found a little secluded spot with a view of the bridge, and there gave Sandy a letter which I wrote her earlier that morning. The letter had pictures of us during our time in Oregon. After she was finished with reading the letter, I knelt down on one knee and pulled out the ring. She grabbed the ring faster than I could put it on her finger, and I’m like, “So you answer is yes?”

We bought some egg rolls from Costco on the way home to share with my family to celebrate.

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On the front porch swing

Over the summer of 2008, I established quite a friendship with Sandy, and I realized that I enjoyed her company more and more.

Near the end of July, we were both at a party, and I really was interested in her.  We decided to hang out on the swinging bench on the front porch.  I put my arm around the back side of the swing, just a little too shy to put it around Sandy.

My parents came to visit me in August, I knew that I wanted to be more than just friends with Sandy.  At Church, Sandy befriended my mom, and I felt that I was given a green flag.

After my parents left, Sandy was visiting me in my apartment watching the olympics, and turns out that we started holding hands.  About a week later after a stroll through a park we kissed.  That night, Sandy was so happy that she couldn’t help but to call and tell me how happy she was.  It was then that I asked her if she would be my girlfiend, making it official instead of assumed.

Sandy and her gingerbread house

I think things started becoming more serious during December.  Sandy and I had lots of fun Christmas activities, including making cinnamon ornaments and real gingerbread houses.

When I visited her and her family during Christmas, I began realizing more clearly just how much I love her.  Ideas about marriage were forming in my head, and I wanted her to visit Oregon before proposing, so I made arrangments for us to fly to Oregon for a three day weekend in the middle of Feburary.

And that is how the story begins.

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Last Friday I was driving to work…. I was about a minute away from my home, stopped at a stop sign in the neighborhood, and when I started to accelerate again, my car stalled, and wouldn’t start again.  When I tried to start the car, it would just turn over and over but without starting.

At first I thought that I might be out of gas, since I knew that I was low and while the gas gauge hadn’t quite hit the E, I thought it was the easiest thing to try.  So I got a gas can and put an extra couple of gallons of gas in the tank, and it still didn’t work.

After a little research, I figured out that it had to be that either the fuel or a spark wasn’t making it to the engine.  I thought it might be the gas pump, but after talking to my friend Steve, he suggested that it was less likely to be the fuel pump and more likely to be the ignition coil.  I read a bunch of other storeis on the Internet about similar problems with Honda Civics, and I decided that I would replace the coil and see what happened.

On my 1994 Honda Civic, the coil is located inside the distributor.  Three screws attach the distributor cap which were removed.  Then I was confused because the rotor part of the distributor wouldn’t move at all, and I knew it had to come off so a cover part could come off so I could get at the coil.  After more Internet searching, I found that there was a screw holding the rotor on, and that it was only accessible when the screw was at the 10 to 11 o’clock position.  After a couple of tries of cranking the engine a bit, I found the screw, removed the rotor and the cover to the coil.

The biggest problem with removing the cold coil were the wires that were screwed into the coil.  The screws weren’t moving, and I broke one of the wires.  I eventually had to put a new spade lug back on the wires and get new screws (that had to be just about exactly the same size, and metric) but by that time, the wires were maybe a little too short.  But after tugging and pulling on the wires, I was able to connect them to the new coil. 

I screwed everything back together, said a little prayer, and my car started right back up.  

Before this, the most I had ever done to my car was re-install the radio and change the battery.  Certainly taking apart stuff under the hood was beyond prior experience, so I was quite happy when it actually worked. 

All in all, it took about 4 hours of getting my hands dirty (an expert with all the tools could have done in maybe an hour) a couple of hours for buying parts and tools, a few hours of Internet research, and about $90 for the new coil.   If I had to tow it to a mechanic, I would have expected that it would have cost me 3 or 4 times as much, and still had a lot of the hassle. 

Special props out to Sandy, my amazing girlfriend.  She helped drive me around to stores, took me to work for a couple of days, and helped me with my Internet research.

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Look at all these lights

I was walking through Lowe’s tonight with Sandy, and we saw that all their remaining Christmas items were on sale for 50 cents per item.  We found some lights that normally sell for about 7 bucks each, and bought a few of them.  Well, maybe more than a few.  Perhaps, we bought a dozen and a half boxes of lights.  It brought much Christmas delight to my soul.

I have the lights, now I just need the house.

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• I was surprised to wake up and see snow.  I need to pay more attention to the forecast because I didn’t see it coming.
• I wore my scarf to work, and I liked it.
• I got a sample box of MultiGrain Cheerios with my newspaper yesterday.  I think I’m going to eat them for breakfast, but since I’m already at work, I’m going to have to eat them dry.
• I got to work an hour early today so that I could turn in a report early before anyone finds that it is missing.
• Saturday night I only got 4 hours of sleep, and then didn’t get any nap on Sunday.
• Last night I got 7 hours of sleep (12am to 7am) and I probably won’t get a nap today.  Tonight I must get a full 8 hours.
• Why is it that weekends are more exhausting even though they are suppose to be relaxing? It reminds me of the hurry up and relax mentality.
• I finished watching the first season of 24 last night.  The last few episodes of the season were about to expire from Hulu, so I thought I would hurry up and watch them.   I’ve seen all the other seasons, but I had never completed seeing the first season, so it was great to get caught up.
• But there wasn’t ever a moment of being caught up with watching 24, because even as I was watching the old episodes, new episodes were being aired on TV.
• I wasn’t thrilled with the ending of the first season, because it seemed that they intentionally mislead viewers throughout the whole season.  I’m okay with shows that throw twists into the plot, but not when they purposely try hard to get the viewers to believe one thing only to have the opposite be true.  This was the case with Nina Meyers being a mole in CTU.  Of course, I knew she was because I saw all the later episodes, but I didn’t like how hard they worked all season long to make it look like she wasn’t.  As a curious person, I like to be given little clues so I can try to figure it out myself, but instead the producers gave little clues that she was a dedicated agent, and then surprise she isn’t.  I think it would have been more interesting if I were to watch the season, having pre-knowledge that she was a bad agent, to see little indications of it that you wouldn’t pick up on without the pre-knowledge.  Ok, enough of that soap box.
• Happy Birthday Lori, if you read this.
• I was suppose to bring the last of my homemade pizza into work to eat for lunch, but I forgot.
• I’ve been trying to get Boxee working on one of my computers, but every time I launch it, it seems unbearably slow (and the graphics seemed pretty messed up).  I think that maybe if I get the 3d proprietary graphics drivers working, then maybe it will work better as well.

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I really like playing games.  I’m almost always up for learning or playing a new game, with perhaps the exception of Axis and Allies, which I understand to be a very long and complicated game.

I also go the chance to play many games over Christmas with Sandy and her family, as well as with my own family.  The one game that I wanted to play but didn’t was Blokus, which I hope that I’ll be able to play before not too long.

Since I was so happy with all of my games which I’ve collected, I’ve created a list for your viewing pleasure.

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