Life in Portland Area

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Here is the area to the right of the kitchen where I have my dressers TV, and VCR's, and the my carving display case and grandfather case. Over the years I have fixed the TV and all three VCR's (they are quite old). Most of the carvings were collected when I was travelling overseas. I gave them to my father to add to his terra cotta statuettes. When he died they went back to me along with his Matchbox car collection (on top). I built the grandfather clock from a kit in New York when David was a toddler (he would sit inside the body when the case was resting on its back and I would work on the finish of various parts. Hard to remember he was ever so small as he is now fully grown and working on his own in Albany, NY. The lamp in between was a gift from 'Cousin' Maude in England and is a old railroad lamp (burns candles).
This is the bathroom with the needlepoint which my mom did many years ago and gave to me. Nice. It is nice having stuff which strengthens my feelings of connection to the people around me.... Also you can see the scale I use to weigh myself each morning before I shower. If my weight is at or below 164 pounds, I get to eat whatever I want that day (I can binge to my heart's content). However, if my weight is above 164, then I am on my strictly limited diet. I used to go on six month binges and diets (gaining and losing six pounds), but this is more fun as the diets only last a few days and the binges come more often. Of course my binges tend to be less extreme as I know that if I overdo too much then it will just be longer before I get to binge again.
To the right of the bathroom is the closet and entrance to my apartment. Over the electrical box is a beach painting that my mom had painted and then added a collage of pictures from our family vacation with her, Mike (my brother), Suzanne (his girlfriend), David, Scott (David's friend), and Jay in Cape Cod. It was a very nice vacation. My computer and desk are just to the right in this picture.
Here is my desk and computers. I got the desk at City Liquidators as three separate pieces, two desk bases and a table top. All for $30 which was a very good price. I am happy that I was able to fix my large monitor (20"). The alignment of the red gun was way off (an eight of an inch in the upper and lower corners, none in the center). I was about to take it to the dumpster (as no one fixes monitors around here now), but for a lark I opened it up. There were some alignment pots (potentiometers to be more precise) on top of the focus coils so I thought I would give them a whirl (couldn't hurt anything). I noticed that the alignment would correct and go out if I just touched the pots. Strange. On closer inspection there was a section where two wires in the focus coils had rubbed and the varnish was marred. I moved the wires apart and it was fixed. Alright!... Well, that concludes the tour of my apartment, so let's visit the rest of the complex.
I am really enjoying living in the Autumn Chase community. Here is the center. My apartment is just behind the pool which is behing this building. Sometimes kids (I assume) put detergent into the fountain so that on some mornings I have come out to see a mountain of suds/foam that is about 15 feet across and eight feet high (completely covering the fountain). They also have several nice facilities here.
On Saturday mornings they have a little brunch there. This is the view as you enter the main doors and proceed pass the couple of offices and then look off to the left into a large meeting area. Notice the nice fire place. Behind it there a big projection TV (with VCR and DVD player) in that alcove. Here you can see the folding table they have put out with some of the goodies.
As you proceed down into the large meeting area, off to the left there is a nice kitchen area (shown here with still more goodies). This morning they were having a complimentary class as they sometimes do. With such a nice community area, I am happy enough to not have my own area to have friends over as I can just take them over to the community area.
At the back end of the Community Center there is an exercise room with a card lock system at the back entrance so that residents can gain entrance most any time. To the left of the back entrance is the aerobic equipment area. It is not really as large as it might look as there are mirrors on each of the end walls. Humm, who is that suspicious looking character in the red jacket taking pictures?! Oh, that must be me taking pictures of myself in the mirror. Go figure! Most days I use one of the aerobic machines for a 4 to 5 minutes.
On the other side of the room there is weight lifting equipment. Most every day I use that machine to practice chin/pull ups. I started at 150 pounds, so moving left me in pretty good strength (I want to get up to 170 as I weight 164 and generally have not ever been able to do any chin or pull ups). Every morning the first thing I do when I get up is sit ups and push ups. I started this over two years ago with only 12 push ups, 24 sit ups and then another 12 push ups. Each month I add one to each (two to the situps). In November of 2004 I am up to 38 pushups and 76 situps. I wonder how long I will be able to keep this up? If you noticed there is a divider between the two section of the room. Actually, it is a stairway down to the basement where they have two racket ball courts, a sauna, and a tanning bed.
This is the tanning bed. Most every day I try to head over and spend a few mintues in the tanning bed as well. When it is on, all those flourescent lights are bright purple (lots of UV or black light). There is a fan mounted on the wall to the right edge of this picture (not visible, it is beyond the trash can). It blows air through the bed when the top is down and the lights are one (keeping you from getting too hot). With that fan and the fans to cool the bulbs and equipment, it can be an awesome place to meditate. Fortunately there is a timer allowing only a few minutes as I tend to space out pretty much as soon as the lights go on.