Suttons Go To London

Friday, July 4th my flight departs from Phoenix, AZ. Jen has already been over in London for a month or so, but now it is starting to materialize for me. My Visa came on Friday, and now I am spending the weekend deciding what goes, what stays and what gets put in boxes for possible shipping at a future date. It is a moment where I reflect and wonder (albeit prematurely) how long it will be once I leave before I am back. What terms will I be back on, and how, when every little decision we make in life can have such an affect on the outcome, will a decision this large shape the near future? I’m being a little philosophical, but I feel like we have made a decision that both very few people get the opportunity to do so, and even those who could would shy away from. Jen has been extremely brave to venture into a land where she quite literally knows no one, and soon when I am there with her, we will continue to explore all the places we’ve never been. For me all of this has been prequel and back story. Now, as we finish setting the stage, all we can do is wait for the curtain to go up.

A little dinner and dominoes over at Mom and Dad’s tonight. We spent some time together since we won’t be seeing a lot of each other pretty soon. It was nice to just relax and chat and fix the Palm not syncing problem. What are these people going to do when I am gone? Oh, they’ll be just fine.

Dad and I went and saw the Hulk after mom went to bed, and we both agreed, it was better than expected, intense and pretty awesome. At first I felt bad going to see movies without Jen because we tend to like the same stuff, but then I realized that she’s in London partying with a bunch of French girls. Now I don’t feel so bad for going to movies.

The Prius is officially sold. One car down, one to go. I was a little sad to see the Prius go. I’m not a big car guy, but we connected. As you can see by the photo I chose, the rain represents the sadness I feel and the car represents itself.

That’s right, Julie has it down. Sure she seems all innocent and sweet, and being demure may lend itself to that, but nope she takes my money when I’m in need (in video games). You see her and Rowdy and I played some Everquest type multiplayer game last night where you can be warriors, clerics, elves, etc. Julie employed her take the toughest guy available, kick the crap out of everyone, and then grab all the treasure before anyone else strategy. Now I’ve realized that Rowdy and I have the same weakness. First we want to be the fancy classes that fight AND cast spells so Julie is always right in front where the money is. Second, we try to read what we are grabbing before we do so. Too slow! Julie truly plays by the motto, kill em all and let God sort em out; then we’ll sort out all the treasure after that. Secret rooms? What secret rooms?

The Aforementioned Rowdy, Julie and Bandit (Read Bandit’s awesome rescue story!)

Actually, don’t let me mislead anyone, we had a good time and as always, made fun of each others characters and ourselves and stayed up way too late. Rowdy and Julie delivered on the Grimaldi’s pizza– t’was muy bueno.

Okay, it is official. Bachelor life has lost its fun factor.

are the devil’s workshop, and here at the workshop we are serving up homemade chocolate chip cookies. Yes, this is Michael’s post. Yes, I made cookies. Yes, seriously! Fine, here’s proof:

Okay, I have no idea what came over me, but I made cookies. If you read the blog, consider yourself invited over to help me eat them. (They are actually edible.) It was a bit of a challenge since I didn’t quite have the ingredient list skating at full strength, but I don’t think anyone will notice. I do however now have two blisters on the end of my finger that missed and touched the oven rack. Hot bad! No touch! Lesson learned, now seriously, someone come help me eat these cookies.

You knew it was going to be a weird day when Comet limped in to me this morning after she woke up on three legs. Somehow in her night full of stretching groaning and rolling around on her bed, her front paw got hooked in her collar. She hopped over to me and sat down. She knew who to come to.

An hour later, I received instant messages from a very frustrated and cranky sutton named Jennifer. Apparently, her internets were not working and she needed help. As the go to guy for technical issues in my family I can tell you that it is infinitely less complex to troubleshoot a problem when I am either there or can replicate the exact environment. Asking people what they see and telling them where things are from memory can be extremely fruitless and equally frustrating. So you can probably see how this session went for the first hour. Luckily we found a feature on the router that allows a tech to log in and troubleshoot remotely. (Apparently this feeling is not unique to me.) Once I was in, we were able to resolve her issue, and make Jen happy.

By this point in the day I was pretty committed to fixing and solving any issues I could find. I was looking around the house for a good challenge, but then remembered that I had a lunch get together so that my family could meet Jason who will be living in our house while we are in London. We went to California Pizza Kitchen which I had previously sworn off, but relented because we needed “something for everyone!” Either way that went well, but by the time I had returned, I had my latest challenge queued up! Julie’s laptop wouldn’t start. We tried a few quick things on the phone, but I soon realized that this was a process that would be best handled in person. She brought it over and I fixed it with time to spare so I could relax and watch the basketball game. When Rowdy and Julie came by to pick up their fixed laptop, Rowdy said something that made a lot of sense. He was very thankful I had fixed their machine and I said it really isn’t a big deal, but he insisted it was. He told me to think about how grateful I am for having a dad who can help me with home improvements, which is true. I am always in awe of how he knows everything we need to do. So I guess that people see me in that same way, but with technology. It still doesn’t feel as valuable as say, knowing how to remodel a bathroom, or as manly, but I realize that my dad and I do have something in common in how we will attack a problem until it is done and never give up; that is as long as it is in our area of expertise. We both have learned that when you are out of that area, you try until you screw up just enough that you can’t fix it, but someone else can… then call ‘em.

Let me tell you what is fun. Phoenix + Car in sun all day + Driving Home

Today was not easy, and trying to focus on your work is difficult when you know your Sutton is on a completely different continent, where it is 60 and partly sunny. Oh how I envy her for leaving just before the hot weather decided it was here to stay.