It's a tangent in a tangent in a tangent

Denver in Monsoon Season

2011-07-15T12:25:00.003-04:00

You may be thinking but Denver does not have a monsoon season, it never really rains there, you're funny.. Unfortunately I'm not kidding, this week has been nothing but massive thunder storms, the kind that light up the sky so bright you would swear it was noon not midnight! Here is the weather recap: Monday - sunny and warm till 3pm, then rain, rain and a shit ton of rain till about 1am. Tuesday - same. Wednesday - same. Thursday - sunny and warm till about 3pm, then massive rain till about 6, then clear and warm till about 11pm before more rain.. It's certainly frustrating when you're teaching and looking out the windows at sunny clear skies and right before you get out of work the skies open up. Everyone tells me that this *never* happens in Denver and that they apparently broke the July rain record in three days (Mon-Wed).

I will not let the rain damper my week, well at least not totally anyway..

Really I guess for me the rain started on Sunday night, I was in Minnesota and they were trying to hurry people on the plane so we could try to take off before rains came, that almost worked.. We got out on the runway and were 7th in line to take off, then 6th, then 5th and then RAIN!! We got to sit on the runway for a long time with the plane getting rocked back and forth before finally taking off, the only good thing about it was I was in first class for that flight so I got all the free drinks I wanted while we got pounded by rain. Got into the hotel WAY to late and had a hard time sleeping because I napped on the plane.

Monday was recovery night, I ended up going to a mall that is near the hotel. It's an old indoor mall that has been added to outside, so there is a outdoor Irvine Spectrum type mall with a normal indoor mall in the middle. It was a pretty neat juxtaposition, they had lots of really good food places and I ended up picking the Fish City Grill where I had blackened catfish and crab bisque. The bisque was amazing and the fish was very well cooked and spiced, the veggies were pretty bland and not really cooked enough. New Belgium Brewery (the guys who do Fat Tire) have a bunch of different beers down here, they are made about 90 mins from Denver. I had their Belgium Dark Ale (don't remember the name) at Fish City and was nicely surprised at how good it was.

Tuesday.. Well, I decided to skip past Denver and drive an hour west to Boulder, why you ask, what's in Boulder?

No, not Pabst, but the feeling was there.. Avery Brewery is in Boulder and was certainly calling my name. I was thinking even if the food sucks at least the beer will be awesome. Imagine my surprise when the food was actually REALLY good, I had a chicken bacon wrap which comes with avocado, greens, tomato and a pesto mayo. They offer tasting size glasses of beer which are $1 for most and $4 for some of the special beers. I got a flight of Dry-Hopped IPA, Eighteen Anniversary and the Reverend. For dessert I had a tasting of the Eremita which is a sour (think the Beast) that is aged in wine casks. I picked up a few shirts and was talking to the manager about getting beer shipped, while talking to the manager he asked which beers I've had and when I was poo-pooing the idea of Joe's Premium American Pilsner as just another pilsner he poured me a free taste and I have to say it was actually good, might be one of the first pilsners I've enjoyed, it had a nice hop finish. Avery cannot ship beer across state lines to a resident, but as expected I was making friends while at the bar and found a girl interested in a micro brew swap, I am going to see about mailing her beer and she will do the same. Gotta check CT/MA/RI beer shipping laws. On the way back the roads were VERY flooded and I ended up getting detoured off 25 onto a side street which was then closed about a block later, had to sit in the car for a while waiting for the rain to slow down and the water level to drop. I have a Kia Soul and the water was about half way up the door, it was window high on some of the other cars sitting on the street with me waiting.

Wednesday I decided to hit the 16th Street Mall in Denver which is a big walking street between Union Station and Broadway (about 15 blocks). I parked on 15th and then the rain hit as I was getting onto 16th. I ran into Rock Bottom and had a beer while I waited for the rain to at least slow down. Once the rain slowed a bit I ventured out and walked up and down the street, it's a nice walking street with lots of restaurants. For dinner I ended up at the Yard House because they had Avery on tap and their mac n cheese2 is amazing (had it before).

Last night I went to the Rockies game, they played the Brewers who apparently were still on the all star break. The Rockies gave them a sound beating 12-3 getting 20 hits in the game. I like to see offense in games but after a while it just gets old, especially if you don't really care about the teams and just want to see good baseball. The Brew Crew certainly did not play good baseball. The stadium however is as nice as everyone says, it's beautiful and the view as the sunsets is breath taking. I got out of work and the sun was shining, got on the train (the wrong way) and then switched trains at the next stop to the correct way, by the time I passed my original stop the sky opened up and before we got two more stops I could see rte 25 completely flooded again and the side streets were rivers. I'm so glad I decided on the train instead of driving. Got to the city and walked around the outside of the ballpark, no rain is going to stop my ritual of walking around the outside of a new ballpark! It maybe should have, I was so wet I could have pissed myself and nobody would have been able to tell. I did not partake in that however as my underwear were probably the only dry thing I had on. Before the gates opened I went to the bar across the street and had New Belgium Brewery's summer ale, it was ok. Gates opened and I headed in. Got a Rockies Dog which is a hot dog with bacon crumbles, blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing! It was so good. Other food highlights (did not eat), a salad place where you start with a base salad and pay per ingredient you put in, a gluten free booth that had brownies as well as gluten free rolls, a gilato place and a rib joint.

Today, I'm going back to Avery for the brewery tour and to try their Double Dry Hopped Maharaja which is a special keg they are tapping today at 5pm.

- Diversion of the Day

pushups - take 2

2011-06-29T23:10:00.003-04:00

I forgot to mention the main reason I was writing a blog tonight. I decided to jump back into the hundred pushup challenge, I know you're thinking "but you did that already and completed it" and you are right but I feel I am getting out of shape and want to do it again. This time I'm also doing the 200 situp challenge and the 200 squat challenge. Did the initial tests for pushups and situps on Monday night and did my first official night of them today. Due to my initial test I am starting the pushups on Day 1 of Week 3 at the highest rank which means I had to do 80 pushups today. Due to my unimpressive situp test I am starting in week 1 day 1 at the lowest level so I ended up doing 2o situps today. When I was done I didn't feel done so I jumped into the squats test, last time I did squats I couldn't do more than 5 and even those were tough, tonight I did 31 squats which puts me in the top tier of day 1 / week 1. I will start the first official day of those on Friday when I do my 2nd day of situps and pushups.

In Pittsburgh

2011-06-29T22:35:00.003-04:00

Has it really been almost a month since I've posted a blog?! I guess so.. Anyway.. Last week I was in Santa Clara CA, I woke up to my alarm and literally seconds after it went off a co-worker called me to tell me he was also in Santa Clara. I very rarely see him since his main office is in Irvine CA so it was nice that he was in town too, we hung out 3 of the 4 nights I was there. I was feeling crappy and wanted to eat somewhat healthy, first night I had a shrimp, veggie brown rice bowl at the Yard House which was very tasty and mostly healthy. I don't remember what we ate the 2nd night honestly, but it was not very healthy. The third night I told him to meet me after dinner and I went to Good Karma Cafe which is a vegan restaurant in San Jose, after dinner we bar hopped along a street that was closed to traffic, they were showing Princess Bride on a screen setup in the street so they had closed the street to cars. I would say that was the best night I spent in Santa Clara/San Jose but I don't know if I can really say that.. The last day I got out of class early and headed west to the ocean, I drove up and down the mountains through the red woods with the windows down and no cell phone service. I got to Santa Cruz and sat on the beach for about 2 hours before heading to the airport, I felt so much better getting on the flight because of the nature hike. The mountains and red woods of California are NOT to be missed, if you have the means I recommend getting out there to see them. There is nothing like driving up a winding mountain road having to make 180 degree turns around a tree in the road, and when I say tree in the road I don't mean a laying down one but a standing tall enormous tree!

While I was out in CA I got a call from my boss that they needed an emergency change of instructors for this week, end result is I'm here in Pittsburgh this week. Pittsburgh is a very pretty city (nature wise) with lots of hills and forest (not CA redwoods forest, more east coast "normal" forest), it's so cool to see the buildings sticking out among the trees and the roads (even new ones) that wind in and around the hills and trees. The hotel I'm staying at is on Neville Island which is a little strip of land in the middle of the river, the island is pretty lame as it's mostly old industrial buildings but it's nice to be surrounded by water. The view out of my window is of a very "old style" bridge spanning the river, what's better is the hotel has a sitting area along the river with a hammock and fire pit. I went out there last night to sit by fire and look over river and my relaxing experience was ruined by a drunk old guy, he was talking to me and it was clear he was WAY drunk, he apparently bought a case of Bud Light and was trying to finish it off in one sitting.. /sigh

The first night here I went to Primanti Bros, which is a world famous sandwich shop, and got a steak and cheese which came with french fries on the sandwich as well as coleslaw and tomato, it was very good but left me feeling rather fat.. Last night I went to the Double Wide Grill which is an old gas station turned sports bar/restaurant, they have lots of vegan options as well as 65 beers on tap! I had the Meatless Stroganoff which used mushrooms as its "meat" and was OMG tasty! Tonight I went to Hofbrauhaus which is clearly a German restaurant, I had a roasted pork tenderloin in a wine and bacon sauce with bacon strips and a potato dumpling, may not be healthy but MAN was it good!

Work unblocked Hulu and Dailyshow so I've been catching up on TV, I watched the whole season of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution over the last two days which may sound like a lot but it was only 6 episodes. I really think everyone MUST see this, he does an amazing job and it's very eye opening to see how people fight the concept of eating (and serving) good food. If you haven't seen it check it out on Hulu.

Last thing I will mention before turning this blog in is.. Apparently it's not so hard to score 15 runs in a game when you play American League style ball, for all those who say the American League is better just remember that the DH is the reason why you see inflated stats all across the league..

Patience

2011-06-02T13:01:00.003-04:00

Patience is a virtue right? I certainly learned a lesson in patience this week. Lynz posted a link on facebook saying that Verizon was going to start sending the new Android OS to the phones starting on Friday the 27th. Friday came and my phone didn't upgrade, come to find out they were only pushing it to a select number of phones as a "soak test", feeling left out and impatient I found the leaked OS on a website and loaded it to my phone.. Yay to the internet? I thought so..

Anyway, they officially released the new OS and it turns out it was a newer version than the one I had.. I had 588 and they released 596.. D'oh.. No problem right, just do a quick upgrade, or not.. Because I was not on the soak list my phone wouldn't upgrade via the Verizon phone upgrade. In the meantime I decided I wanted my phone to get emails from work, I put in a request to get Active Sync turned on and on Tuesday set up my phone to receive work emails, in doing so I inadvertently locked my phone via corporate settings. Corporate settings = no pattern lock, must use pin lock of 5+ characters, can't browse certain websites and worst of all, can't get gmail?! Can't get gmail on my google phone, wtf!! Removed work email account but could not get the remote administrator and corporate policy off my phone. To the internets..

Only way to remove corporate policy is to wipe my phone?! Had to revert phone back to factory settings and re-install all my applications. After doing all this I found out the next day that I couldn't upgrade my phone because of the pre-release OS.. Back to the internets.. so frustrating, spent most of last night researching before finally finding a download of 596.. Bitch was I couldn't install it unless I was back at Froyo or rooted.

For all of those who are afraid of rooting the phones, it's super easy.. You download an application called GingerRoot and run it, GingerRoot is a one click rooting tool. Click, reboot, done. Now had a to grab another application to do boot strap recovery and loaded 596. Rebooted, unrooted and back to normal. Should have just waited the extra 2-3 days.. Oh well, lesson learned.

In terms of corporate email, I got a tool called Touchdown. It sections off a portion of the phone to be a "corporate run" area, it takes the corporate policy and applies it to email only.

Gathering?

2011-05-25T13:08:00.004-04:00

I didn't end up going to see Book of Mormon, they were sold out and I didn't get there early enough to get in the stand by list. It's probably better anyway because I was really tired and ended up taking a nap before dinner. I ate at a place across the street from the hotel and got some very tasty scallops. It ended up being a pretty laid back night, after dinner I went back to the room and watched Glee and putzed around the hotel for a bit before heading to bed.. I know, very unlike me to not go wander.

Spent Thurs and Friday getting ready for FI because I always tend to wait till the last minute when doing that stuff, I will be making a concerted effort to change that. In that realm I am planning on working on my armor on Monday, I want to fix the straps (they broke during game and had to be quickly patched with thread and duct tape) and add back holsters for shot guns. My new additions to it look really cool, go check flickr for some pics I took while at FI.

Left for DC right after game on Sunday and it took me forever to get here, got stuck in Manhattan due to construction and didn't get to hotel till almost 4am. Monday and Tuesday have been low key, get out of class, nap, eat, sleep.. Monday night I tried to get new shoes at REI but they were out of my size and ended up eating a shrimp and crab dish at a placed called Coastal Flats near REI. The guy at REI called the store in Conshohocken PA and they have one in stock and on hold for me. I am going to go there on the way to Laire on Friday. Last night I had a hankering for some red meat so I called around to find grass fed steaks, I found one place that is mostly grass fed (Capital Grill) and another that has 100% grass fed burgers (Clyde's). I opted for the burger which I think was a good choice, I got a tuna/salmon tartar appetizer and a bacon/pepper jack burger. After dinner I watched the season finale of Glee, it was ok but they spent too much time on the "oh look we're in NYC" and not enough time on the competition.

I am finally not feeling super tired although I can't say I slept well last night, I'm not loving my Sheraton experiment and may be going back to Marriott soon. The beds are not as comfortable and the bath tubs seem to be very small, at first I thought it was just the NYC one that had a small bath tub, but this one does too. Plus it smells like a cheap whore in the hotel lobby, elevator and hallways. At first I thought I must have been walking behind some girl who was over perfumed but I can't imagine every time I walk around I'm following the same person. The hotel must just use it as an air freshener.. I'm certainly wishing I was at the Courtyard or Residence Inn which are both a block away.

Don't know what I'm doing tonight, but there is a place in DC running a double feature of Nausicca and Spirited Away, they serve food and have happy hour prices on drinks. I will see what time I get out of here if it's worth going into the city.

I was trying to decide on my Thurs night / Friday plans. I ended up deciding to check out of hotel tomorrow morning and then drive to Philly after class. This is a benefit in many ways, one - and most importantly - I won't have to deal with DC traffic on Friday morning of Memorial Day Weekend and, two - it will put me closer to REI and eventually Laire, three - there is a Celtic Music Faire in Philly tomorrow and The Gathering is playing a 10pm show at a college, if I can get out of here early enough I can drive up to Philly, hit REI and go to faire/concert.

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In other news - Fuck you Fred Wilpon! As the owner of a team you have the final say on the decisions your team makes, don't act like the Mets are a punishment that has been tossed upon you and don't sit in an interview talking about how one of the best players to ever wear your team's uniform is a bum. Up until yesterday I was on his side in the Madoff scandal, but not anymore. Don't get me wrong, Wilpon cares about baseball, but his alliance is clearly towards the Brooklyn Dodgers. Maybe the new owners will remove all the Dodgers shit from our stadium and replace it with Mets stuff. Earlier in the year Bud Selig had MLB seize control of the Dodgers who were having problems paying their payroll, they are not nearly as in debt as the Mets who have taken out millions of dollars worth of loans from MLB and still can't pay payroll. ESPN had a great article on this today and went on to say how the only reason Wilpon has not been removed by MLB was because he is friends with Bud Selig.. I say they both need to be out of baseball.

PMGA

2011-05-17T14:48:00.003-04:00

Did you know there was a Professional Mini Golf Association? I did.. Years ago when I was in Irvine looking for good mini golf I was led to this group, it lists all the professional grade mini golf courses across the US. Anyway, I had some time to kill on Friday before my flight and it was amazingly nice out so I decided on some mini golf, after doing a quick search on the google I found a bunch of local ones. To narrow down the field I checked out the PMGA website, I found one in the Cleveland area which happened to be right near the airport.. Memphis Mini Golf is it's name in case you're every in Cleveland and have a hankering to play some mini golf. I got there and was slightly amazed at the shabby appearance but shouldered on.. It's a Memphis Kiddie Park which has little rides for kids and even a little roller coaster, tucked into the back (have to walk through lots of lame kiddie areas) is the mini golf section. I'm glad I shouldered on because it was a lot of fun! I would say the course was moderate difficulty with a few easy holes and few pretty hard ones. I ended up shooting 2 over par..

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Flight back was pretty quick, I got a call while I was in Cleveland airport telling me my connecting flight (Cin to Hartford) was delayed but when I landed in Cin I found out it was back on schedule.

Got up too early on Saturday and went to the Robin Hood Springtime Festival, the story shows were very good but the overall faire experience was dampened by the cold, damp weather. I was supposed to go back on Sunday but the weather was even worse so I opted to just hang out at home. It's a shame really because I would have loved to spend more time there and see a few of the shows I missed out on but the thought of another day in cold rain was not appealing to me.

Speaking of cold and rain, I went to the Mets game last night. The game was supposed to start at 7:10 but the game had a 90 minute rain delay to start, the annoying thing about that is it was not even really raining. There was a light drizzle and the weather man called for big rain which never came. I'm very happy with my new seats since they are undercover and have a wall behind them which kills most of the wind, I'm not so happy with the guy who sits next to us. He is one of those guys who has no care about others around him, he splayed out with his professional size score book and was constantly tossing his peanut shells on whoever sat next to him. Unfortunately he also has the Sunday plan so I guess we will be dealing with him for the remainder of the season.

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I'm teaching in NYC this week and am debating trying to get tickets to see Book of Mormon tonight, they have a lottery to get cheap seats, you need to get your name in 2 hours before the show so hopefully I can get out of work early enough. If I can't I am not going to pay full price because it's an expensive show to go see alone.

This week I was supposed to be home teaching online but got called last minute to be here in NYC, next week I'm supposed to be off platform but just got a call and am needed in either DC or Dallas next week. I chose DC because I can at least drive there Sunday night as opposed to getting a flight.

PNC

2011-05-12T14:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went into Pittsburgh to see a Pirates game at PNC Park, class got out early so I was able to get into town around 4:30. Pittsburgh is a very pretty city, and Hoyle told me I must go up the Duquesne Incline which is a trolley car that runs up the side of a big mountain. I parked at the stadium and walked over the rivers to the incline. The ride up was very fast considering the amount of distance it covers and the age of the trolley. At the top I walked around, grabbed a beer at a tavern and took some great pictures using the Droid X Panarama Assist feature (go over to flickr and check them out). After some time up there I can back and headed over to the stadium. The stadium like the rest of the city is very pretty with lots of sort of meandering paths, the concession stands a bit hidden kinda like stadiums of yesteryear. One thing I really loved about the stadium is that when you walk in they give you a program which includes a map of the stadium with a list of ALL food items and at which gate you can find them, even knowing the section sometimes you had to look around or even ask the locals where the booth was. Also included in the program were the starting lineups and a scorecard!

I ended up getting a gyro for dinner which was great followed by some perogies which were certainly not great.. Whoever heard of steaming perogies? They were a big pile of glop and not at all enjoyable. Grabbed a PNC Dark and headed up to the seat. This was the first stadium in a long time where I got the feeling of awe when walking out to seats, the view of the stadium with the city in the background and the bridges was just an amazing site. If you ever get out to PNC sit in the upper deck, you get a much better view of the city, bridges, river, etc from there. The game was good, 0-0 till late and a final of 2-0 in favor of Dodgers. Met some really awesome people at the game, one older gentleman who was retired after working for the NYC transit authority and a younger couple who had moved from NY a few years ago.

I'm not sure what I'm doing tonight, certainly going to do something outside, it's so warm and sunny out..

Symon Says..

2011-05-11T09:08:00.005-04:00

Last night I went downtown Cleveland to Lola's Bistro which is Michael Symon's restaurant. I've been there in the past before he was an Iron Chef but I figured I'd go back on the company dollar.. :)

The Indians were home last night so traffic was a lot worse and there were people in the city! Lola's is about 2 blocks from the stadium so parking was non-existent, luckily Lola's has valet parking so after driving around for a few minutes I gave in and let them valet the car. I went in and asked for a table, I was told the wait was at least 90 minutes but I could get the full menu at the bar. The bar didn't have an empty seat so I went back to the podium to put my name in. As I was at the podium a group of 3 came in for a kitchen view table, the kitchen view area is a bar facing the kitchen that has 8 seats, with this group there would have been one open seat so the manager said I could sit there if the group of 3 was ok with that. The group of 3 were 2 ladies and an older guy there on business. We chatted for a min and they said sure.. :-)

I sat down and started looking at menu and there was no drinks which I thought was odd. I already had my dinner choice narrowed down to two choices, which was the "Wild Salmon with chicken confit, red wine mustard sauce, hash brown salad" and the "Scallops with sweet pea tart, lemon, pancetta, carrot" so there was little to look at on the menu. The waitress came over with a iPad which had their drink menu, it was very cool to browse the drink menu on that. I watched the guys cook for a while before deciding on the Salmon. The Salmon was perfectly cooked but the hash brown salad was the high point of the dish. For dessert I had a Passion Fruit Parfait with caramelized white chocolate, passion fruit granita, micro basil. All in all the meal was a mere $80 with one glass of wine, valet and tip.

After dinner I wandered around since the city now had some form of population, apparently the game was rain delayed so a bunch of people who had not gone into the stadium yet were hanging out at the bars. Btw - it was NOT raining so I don't know why it was in a rain delay. I hung out for a bit before heading back to the hotel. On the ride back it rained a little.

The title of this blog is in reference to a shirt they were selling at Lola's, on the front it says Symon Says, on the back it says "Live to Cook".

Cleveland Rocks?

2011-05-10T14:08:00.002-04:00

I am teaching this week in Cleveland, I went out last night to downtown to grab food. Happy Cow led me to a vegan restaurant called the Flaming Ice Cube but the address in Happy Cow was slightly off. I got into downtown and when the GPS said I was there I was in nowhere land. I plugged the restaurant name into my GPS and found it two blocks over. I was in Cleveland in the past and was amazed at how much of a ghost town it is, I found the same thing to be true last night. There was nobody walking around and no cars driving either, aren't there supposed to be people who live in the cities of America?

Anyway, went to the restaurant and had a delightful mock buffalo chicken sammich with some corn and red bean salsa. After dinner I figured I'd walk around a bit and try to find civilization, I found a two block area of population signaled by a one legged man playing a saxophone. When you're in a city and already feeling like the last survivor of the Apocalypse the last thing you need is the distant sound of a saxophone. Life is nothing but an adventure so I of course headed towards the sound, when I got closer I saw the above mentioned one legged man standing on a street corner belting out his tunes. The corner he was standing on was the beginning of civilization and that lasted exactly two blocks. Lola (Michael Symon's Restaurant) is in that area so I will probably be going back tonight. I went into a local bar and hung out with a beer before heading back to hotel. I had Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy which is a lemon aid / heffe mix, it was surprisingly good but very tart.

I can't possibly talk about Cleveland without talking about my flight here.. I flew from Hartford to Hate-Lanta, when I landed in Atlanta I found my flight to Cleveland was cancelled and they were proposing putting me on a flight in the morning which would have made me more than late for class. I went to the ticket counter and they told me they couldn't help me because they didn't know how to use the ticketing computer (yes, I'm smeggin' serious) and told me to call Delta's ticket number. I called and them and we found a flight that was leaving in about 10 mins to Cincinnati, at least it's closer than Atlanta, they put me on the flight and I returned to the same plane I just got off. I got off the plane and didn't even wait for the luggage to be unloaded, instead I went right to the computer kiosk and scanned my luggage tag, result - "go to agent". I go up to the lady and explained the situation and she calmly (and very slowly) looked up my bag tag and said my bag was in Atlanta and scheduled to fly to Cleveland in the morning (which I had told her already), then she, looking confused, said in a questioning voice "but you flew into Cincinnati?".. "Yes I did, I am going to rent a car and drive to Cleveland".. "That's a long ride".. Really do you think so! "Yeah, I know, can I just give you the address of my hotel in Cleveland to send the bag to ?".. "Hold on a sec, it looks here like I can put you up in a hotel and fly you out tomorrow on the 9am flight".. "no thanks, I just want to get on the road".. "ok, so you want me to mail the bag to the 20 Wicker St address?".. This went on for about 15 mins before I was on my way to the car rental place.. All in all it took over 90 minutes from the time I was off the plane to the time I was in my rental car, FAR to long in my opinion. I got a Hyundai Genesis which is a really nice quiet ride, the seats are very comfortable, the stereo has good sound and the car handles very well. You know what's open at ass o'clock in the middle of Ohio? Me neither honestly. I only stopped once and that was early on to get food, I tried to get coffee but those places were closed, instead I ended up with White Castle. Speaking of, they have a new Bacon Cheddar burger which was very good and my body didn't reject it as much as I had expected. Anyway, hours and hours later I made it to the hotel to take a nap before class. My bags did show up yesterday and were waiting for me when I got back to the hotel.

Did you know that Pittsburgh is only about 2 hours from Cleveland? I didn't.. Why does that matter? Because I'm going to see a Pirates game tomorrow.. I have heard PNC Park is beautiful, I will let you know.

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Other things...

I got the new Queen remastered CDs the other week, they are totally worth it. Each album comes with a second CD of extra stuff, those are take it or leave it, but the main albums sound so much better than they ever did before. They are much crisper and they really feel modern again. I can't wait for the next five to come out in June.

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I started a D&D campaign the other week, I had Becca take notes during the session so I can type up a recap / story. I am planning on posting that here and also in the Facebook group for the game. We are using 4th Edition and I have to say the game system is pretty nice now that they re-did a bunch of rules and added lots of races, classes, skills and feats. The only thing that I'm still unsure about is the ritual section, we shall see how that plays out in the next few sessions. When we decided on 4th edition I borrowed my friend Grim's books, after reading them I was stunned at how crappy the system was. I was complaining to Hoyle and he showed me his books which were totally different from Grim's first printing of 4th edition. In general I'm not a big fan of looking at books online (I know, how un-technical of me) but Wizards has a compendium which is actually pretty easy to use so I don't mind looking at that online. I guess the big difference is it's not a scanned in version of a book, it's a web interface into the rules.

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Sorry for the long blog, but this is what happens when I don't blog for a while.. :P

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The other day (like my specific time lines here) I was driving down to NY with Jessie. On the way down I was thinking about going to Dragon's Laire (gaming store in NY) to see what, if anything, they had for Heroscape and I started to think about certain people's obsession with board games..

When I was younger we had a bunch of video game machines (NES, 2600, Coleco, Intelevision, Master System, Vetrex) not to mention computer games but we were never overloaded with games. Maybe it's because games didn't come out as fast, maybe it was because there was not the internet where you can get instant access to stuff.. Either way, we would get a few games here and a few there but we never got a glut of stuff all at once. This gave us time to play, learn and enjoy each game before moving onto the next one. Around the time of the Genesis & SNES this started to change, more games came out each month and they were easier to get (didn't hurt that we had a hacker system set up and modded our Genesis and SNES to play pirated games as well as Japanese ones). The sheer amount of games made it almost overwhelming, like you felt bad for playing one game for a few weeks because there was always other games that you wanted to play and always new ones coming out. I think this is what led to things like cheat codes because if you wanted to see the end of a game but didn't have the time to dedicate you would just throw a cheat code in and you were invincible, this way you could polish that game off in a few hours and move to the next one. Now, I'm not saying choice is bad, but as a kid you just "gotta have 'em all" as they say, gotta have 'em and gotta play 'em all, gotta have 'em and gotta play 'em all at once, gotta have 'em and gotta play 'em all at once and gotta do it all today.. And why are kids suddenly being diagnosed with ADHD at alarming rates? Because there is too much to do and not enough time to do it. Enjoy that one game, let it enfold you, learn it's insides and outs and take the time to really master it. I'm not saying you can't play many different games but don't feel the need to play 'em all, there are so many wonderful things out there and of course we get the urge to want to see & do it all but just stop and really enjoy the moment, be it a game, meal, song, whatever. If you don't get my rant about games think about music, remember back when you only had a few albums, remember how well you knew those albums, now think about how that's changed over the years. Now you can plug an iPod in and transfer someone's entire music library, yes you now have a ton of great new music but will you ever really know those songs? There is something to be said for a little at a time..

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Phew, that was long winded... ;)

This weekend coming up is my birthday weekend. I will be at the CT Ren Faire Saturday (my birthday) and Sunday, hope to see you there..

Anime Boston 2011 - Setup

2011-04-21T18:33:00.002-04:00

I am sitting in the dealer room at Anime Boston handing out badges, showing vendors to their spots and dealing with general vendor issues.

The logo this year is "Turn is up to '11", I wonder how many young kids will not even get that reference..

Anyway, if you're coming by make sure to check in with the dealer's room and see me..

Sports Bar - Fail

2011-04-13T16:34:00.005-04:00

I'm out in Irvine this week, I come out here a lot and usually I do the same things while here. This time I decided I would do different things because a. why not and b. im tired and want to me more low key.

So.. Monday I went to Starbucks in the morning and found that the wine bar next door closed and is now a sports bar. One thing I used to really like doing out here was going to the Fox Sports Club and watching East Coast Baseball games during happy hour. So, I figured I'd go to the sports bar Monday night and watch the Mets. I decided to walk there since it's only a few blocks from hotel, when I got there I found out they don't have the baseball package.. How do you call yourself a sports bar and not pay for the MLB Extra Innings package? On top of that how can you call yourself a sports bar and put a baseball on your logo without the MLB Extra Innings package? When I went in there were a few businessmen hanging at the bar with a very pretty bartender. I was upset about no game but figured I would at least get a drink and some food since I was there, got a Old World Heffe which was good. While I was eating some young guys came in and kicked on the juke box, to say it was loud would be an understatement. Finished my food and left, walked over to the river and walked for a long time before going back to the hotel.

Tuesday I decide to try again with a different bar.. This time I did research online and found a cool looking bar called Players over in Laguna, I've never been in Laguna so I figured I'd go to the bar, watch some of the Mets game and then wander around Laguna. On the way to the bar I turned on the pre-game show to find out the game had been rained out! Fail take two... The food was good and the bar was quiet, watched a few innings of the Cubs game and then wandered around. The area was not very exciting but I will certainly be back to the bar another time.

Tonight I'm going to my friend Frank's house for dinner.

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In other news, it's been a while since I blogged. I sent back my ticket from Sturbridge asking for a trial, no date yet. I apparently skipped my entire trip to Seattle, meant to write a blog but work has been real stupid with blocking websites lately. They finally unblocked this one today, hence why I'm here.. :)

Anyway, Seattle. I went to Seattle to teach at Microsoft, the facility is very nice but the cafeteria only takes cash!? No biggie since they have an ATM in the cafeteria, but.. The ATM decided to take money out of my account without actually giving me any money.. /sigh.. Had to have Putnam Bank fight with them to get my money back, very happy with the speed in which Put Bank did that too. Not much else exciting happened in Seattle..

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Back home.. I did end up getting an apartment and just recently moved some stuff over there from Putnam. The apartment is small but nice, I met a few of the neighbors now and they seem nice too which is good. It's very quiet, walking distance to a few good restaurants and easy to get to work from. It's annoying realizing all the stuff that I need for the apartment like pots, pans, plates, etc.. Wondering what to get me for my birthday? I recommend BBB gift certificates.. I suppose I have lots more to say on the apartment topic but I'm not going to at this time, maybe soon..

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I'm on vacation next week, Tuesday I'm going to my first Mets game of the year and Thurs-Sunday is Anime Boston. Should be a fun week.

Sturbridge

2011-03-17T14:07:00.005-04:00

I went to my friend's house in Sturbridge last night and on the way home got pulled over at a stop light for doing 60 in a 30!? The night was very foggy and visibility was down to feet at best, while I was driving I was playing with lights to see what would give me the best visibility, while I was at the red light I was playing with them again. While I was playing with the lights a car came up behind me, when the light turned green I started to pull out and before I was across the intersection the lights came on. I figured maybe I had a light out or something, she said she caught me speeding, my first reaction was something like 'where, at the red light?'. Seriously pissed me off. I freely admit I do indeed speed, but unless she saw me in another dimension I was not speeding.. So, I guess I will have to deal with that in court..

In other news.. I think I'm going to start up a D&D campaign, thinking one Wednesday night a month. I have not seen 4th addition D&D so if you have and have opinions on it send me an email, I am interested in seeing what people think. I can either do that or an older addition since I have books from when I used to play 3rd.

Too Old To..

2011-03-11T18:00:00.003-05:00

Rock and Roll? Nope, just too old to think people should be able to drink when they're 18 in bars.

I went into London today and walked around from 4 till 8, got off Underground at Green Park and walked all over the theater district, soho and the river areas. When I'm in a city I love to do the "what's that cool looking thing over there" style of wandering around, at one point I was in a five way intersection and decided left looked cool, after about 15 minutes of "this way looks cool" turning I ended up back in the same intersection, that's when I decided I was done in the theater district and wandered over to the river. On the way over I went into a comic book store to get some Red Dwarf merch but I didn't really like what they had in stock. The Thames is very pretty at night with Big Ben, the London Eye and the London Aquarium. Took some cool pics, uploading to Flickr while I type this. After wandering around the river I decided to head back to Bracknell, on the way to the train I stopped off in a game store and was very impressed with their selection, just not their prices..

Went back to Bracknell for food because I felt cheap and figured since all beef here is organic and grass fed I would eat some more burger, not to mention the Old Manor has their Burger and a Beer special for 6 GBP. While I was in the bar (about an hour) I saw 4 "kids" get thrown out because of drunken disorderly conduct.

Apparently because of the mad cow scare British beef is now all organic and grass fed, so I guess some good came of the mad cow scare - too bad America didn't follow suit.

Block Crazy

2011-03-11T05:32:00.004-05:00

EMC sent out an email this morning saying that they were having issues with the internet blocking mechanism and they apologize for any inconvenience. They are blocking my eRoom which is where I get courseware and updates, they are blocking powerlink (which is their customer portal website), they are blocking Meebo (my IM site), they are blocking MLB, ESPN, CNN, ADP, Facebook, & Bella's and those are just the ones I tried. They are not however blocking Blogspot? OK.. So today's blog is brought to you by luck I suppose.

Last night I went out for the curry club and the Old Manor with a co-worker. For 6 GBP I got a very good Chicken Tikki Masala and Vegetarian Samosas, it came with 2 pieces of nan and some yellow rice. It also came with a free beer! I got the English Bitter again. I was so tired last night after staying up late every night that I ended up crashing in bed around 10. I woke up around 2:30 and had problems falling back asleep so I watched a documentary on TV about British Yogurt sales and how the packaging and marketing evolved over the last 40 years. It was the best thing on.. I didn't watch it all, I watched from the 1960's till the 1990's before I got tired enough to shut it back off and get back to sleep.

I am done with lecture and now waiting for my students to do labs, it's a bit frustrating because they have not even started them, instead they went for a "quick" break before labs about 25 mins ago. I plan to go to London today once they are done and would really like to be sooner rather than later.

Ghost town

2011-03-10T08:57:00.003-05:00

Last nigh I decided to just hang out around Bracknell, London is an hour train ride and I feel that if I get out after 6 it's not worth riding all the way into the city just to eat and come back. I went to Reading the other night so I didn't want to do that again. I searched online and found a bunch of music venues in Bracknell, all in an area called "the Ring", so I figured I would walk around and see what I stumbled into.

What I stumbled into were tumble weeds, not literally but figuratively. This town is dead at night, from my hotel I walk past a college and a pub called "The Manor House" to get into the center of town so you figure in a college town there would be a night life. Plus with all the music venues you would assume that too. However, the night life, music venues and night clubs are only open on Friday and Saturday nights. During the week you get a nice quiet walk past lots of closed shops and buildings. I was so stunned when I saw Burger King closed at 8pm that I had to start taking pictures of the empty wasteland that is Bracknell at night.

Speaking of pictures, I uploaded a bunch of pictures from January, February and March onto my Flickr.

Walked through the dead zone and came out near the train station, the only thing open there is "the goose" which is a pub with less than fantastic looking food. I decided after walking around for a while to go back to the manor house. They had a sign up saying favorite beer spot of 2010 so I figured I'd give it a shot. I went in and they had maybe 20 different beers on draft and their menu looked pretty impressive. I ended up getting a mozzarella fishcake as a starter and a bacon cheddar burger as my main. One thing I love about being here is the sustainability of the food, all meat is grass fed as I said before and most places sell line caught sustainable fish. The nicer part is that the menus will clearly say that, for example the fishcakes were called "line caught haddock cake with italian aged mozzarella cheese". When I ordered the burger the bar keep tells me I get a free drink with that, I'm thinking soda, turns out it's beer! I had a Lomond Gold Ale which is an Organic English Bitter, I know beer advocate only gives it a C+ but I thought it was good, maybe the people on beer advocate don't like that type of ale? After that beer I had a Ruby Red Hot Chili IPA which is by the same company "Traditional Scottish Ales", I can't seem to find that one on Beer Advocate. Hoyle, if you're reading this, don't get that beer in hopes of being up to your standard of IPA. It is a very good beer, probably better than the Lomond Gold but I would not call it an IPA. It's got a very smooth flavor and a very smooth finish, there is a hoppy flavor but certainly not when used to the Bastards.

Tonight they are having the Manor House is having their Curry Club which is 6 GBP for curries and a beer, I know it's not as cool as wandering around London but I might just go there tonight depending on what time I get out of class. I'll keep you posted.

Roundabout

2011-03-08T18:39:00.002-05:00

I drove to Reading tonight after work to go to the Oracle Center which is a big shopping plaza / mall on the river. I went there because today was the LUSH release of Dirty and I wanted to check it out. Work was a little lame today as I fought with the printer in my classroom for almost 20 minutes this morning before giving up and having the receptionist print out the materials. The classes in the UK start at 10am on the first day so we got a late start then had lunch at 12 which was brought in (chicken cordon blue, which was very tasty). We didn't get to labs till about 3 and the last two students were still there when I kicked them out at 7.

Reading is about 12 miles away and I counted 11 roundabouts on the way, that seems like a lot until you factor in the fact that this morning on the way to work I counted 6 in 2 miles! This smeggin' place really needs to just put in some smeggin' traffic lights and save on the road foot print that a roundabout takes up. Anyway, not to get off subject.. So, the Oracle..

I got there and started wandering looking for LUSH and on the way found an H&M music/dvd store so I stopped in. I ended up picking up the entire series of Extras with Ricky Gervais, it includes both seasons and the made for TV special movie for 20 GBP. As I was leaving H&M I noticed the mall was closing so I ran to LUSH to find them still open, they had the door half closed but there was a ton of people inside, today was the launch party for Dirty so they were open late. I got to wash with the new shower bar and got to try the mouth wash / toothpaste. It is VERY odd to use a scented toothpaste, what is odder is that the toothpaste is a chew able tablet you chew on and let coat your mouth before brushing. I took a sample to try tomorrow morning (or maybe tonight before bed) so I will let you know how it really works, trying it in the store I just chewed on it and rinsed which was very odd. The shaving lotion and hair treatment smelled "eh" but the shampoo gel and spray scent both smelled amazing so I got one of each to try / share. I ended up talking to a guy who works there and was telling him how disappointed I was that they didn't carry The Smell of Weather Turning in the store, he said he thought he had one in the back from a sample pack but when he came back he said he couldn't find it. Oh well.. In the midst of us talking I mentioned that my girlfriend works at LUSH in the US and he actually ended up giving me the employee discount because we were talking and what I know nobody who didn't work at LUSH would know.. Thanks sweetie, you talking about trial baskets and parties saved me some money tonight.. :)

After LUSH I decided it was time to eat so I went to Yo Sushi which is one of those places that has a bunch of sushi on a conveyor belt and you pick what you want as it goes by. The sushi was very good but the star of the meal was the Miso Soup which was out of this world good! All in all I ended up getting 6 dishes (2 rolls, 2 hand rolls, 1 nigri and the Miso soup) for just under 20 GBP.

Got back to the hotel and went to the local pub for a UK Guinness, I really have to say if you ever get to the UK make sure to try the Guinness because it's certainly a treat.

Stormtroopers in Stilettos

2011-03-08T12:43:00.003-05:00

I have no idea where that name came from, but it's the name of the Queen 40th Anniversary Celebration in London. This is taking place in the flat Freddie used to rent while he was in arts school.

I got into London and was exhausted, tried to get a coffee but they wouldn't take my Amex or Euros! I get not taking the Amex, but this IS Europe and they should be taking Euros! Last time I was here the Euro was a valid currency, but not anymore apparently. I might change those over to GBP put right now I'm feeling pretty uppity about it. I found a Starbucks which took my Amex so coffee procured it was time to venture over to Stormtroopers in Stilettos. Btw, my overground round trip ticket and an all day/all zone Underground ticket was only 18 GBP which is very cheap considering it's all zones.

Anyway.. Got to SiS around 1pm and left there around 5pm, so yeah, it was worth it! As stated above it was in a flat Freddie used to rent while he was in arts school studying to be a clothes designer. They had an entire room dedicated to each year from 1971 - 1978 and then a wall with snipits from 1979 - 2011. The exhibit was done by fans using old footage and old interviews, they even had Freddie's old bed and lots of costumes that the band wore through the years. I learned lots of new stuff about Queen and their history. For example the band went though lots of bass players in the beginning, one guy only lasted two gigs and Freddie got rid of him because he was too much of a show man and he felt there was not enough room in Queen for another show man. It really shed a lot of light on just how much of a Diva Freddie really was, his being a Diva saved the band a few times from ruin and being taken advantage of by the record companies.

After SiS I wandered around London looking for a LUSH before finally giving in and texting Becca to find me one online. I had a rather large "son-of-a-bitch" moment when she told me there was one in Liverpool's Underground Station since that's the area I started my search, checked around that station and then went over to Tottenham Court and Piccadilly before finally asking for her assistance. While I was searching I found a cheap price theater ticket place and got a seat in row N for Love Never Dies (the Phantom of the Opera sequel) and decided it was time to finally eat something. Great thing about Europe, all cows are grass fed! I guess that's what happens when the government does not subsidize corn. Got a really nice, but expensive, steak with a merlot. I went in an ordered just the steak and they were all like "you don't want any sides with that", "nope (just the big hunk of meat for me thanks)" *note the () was not said, just thought.. The steak was 12oz of amazingly melt in your mouth goodness!

After dinner I had about an hour before the show started so I ran to Liverpool and hit LUSH, they really don't sell anything different in the store. All the UK exclusive stuff is online only. Poo, what a waste of time running back there. I did find out that they are releasing a new fragrance today called Dirty and plan to go to a LUSH near Bracknell tonight to check it out. There is one in Reading which is not a long car ride from here.

Got back to the theater district just in time to grab a coffee and get in line for the show. The main track "Love Never Dies" which Christine sings was one of the best songs in the show, the other being the one the Phantom and Christine's son sing "The Beauty Underneath".

Lyrics below..

Here is "Love Never Dies":

Here is "the Beauty Underneath":

- Love Never Dies Lyrics:
Who knows where love begins
Who knows what makes it start
One day it's simply there
Alive inside your heart

It slips into your thoughts
It infiltrates your soul
It takes you by surprise
Then seizes full control

Try to deny it
And try to protest
But love won't let you go
Once you've been possessed

Love never dies
Love never falters
Once it has spoken
Love is yours

Love never fades
Love never alters
Hearts may get broken
Love endures
Hearts my get broken
Love endures

And soon as you submit
Surrender flesh and bone
That love takes on a life
Much bigger than your own

It uses you at whim
And drives you to despair
And forces you to feel
More joy than you can bear

Love gives you pleasure
And love brings you pain
And yet with both are gone
Love will remain

Once it is spoken
Love is yours
Love never dies
Love never alters

Hearts may get broken
Love endures
Hearts may get broken

Love never dies
Love will continue
Love keeps on beating
When you're gone

Love never dies
Once it is in you
Love may be fleeting
Love lives on
Love may be fleeting
Love lives on
---

-The Beauty Underneath Lyrics:
have you ever yearned to go
past the world you think you know?
been enthralled to the call
of the beauty underneath?

have you let it draw you in
past the place where dreams begin?
felt the full breathless pull
of the beauty underneath?

when the dark unfolds its wings
do you sense the strangest things?
things no one would ever guess
things mere words cannot express?

yes

do you find yourself beguiled
by the dangerous and wild?
do you feed on the need
for the beauty underneath?

have you felt your senses served
and surrendered to the urge?
have been hooked as you looked at the
at the beauty underneath?

when you stare behind the night
can you glimpse the primal night?
might you hunger to possess
hunger that you can't repress?

yes
it seems so beautiful
so strange yet beautiful
everything's just as you say

and he's so beautiful
perhaps too beautiful
what i suspect cannot be
and yet somehow, we both see
the very same way

it's the music in your head
have you followed where it led
and been graced with a taste
of the beauty underneath?

does it fill your every sense
is it terribly intense?
tell me you need it too
need the beauty underneath

when it lifts is voice and sings
don't you feel amazing things?
things you know you can't confess
things you thirst for nonetheless

it's all so beautiful
can it be?
almost too beautiful
do you see what I see?

to him it's beautiful
my world is beautiful
how can this be what it seems?
all of my secret dreams
somehow set free

you can feel the lift
yes
come closer
yes
you've no fear of the beauty underneath

you can face it
yes
you can take it
yes
you see through to the beauty underneath

to the splendor
splendor
and the glory
glory
to the truth of the beauty underneath
the beauty underneath

you'll accept it
yes
you'll embrace it
yes
let me show you the beauty underneath

to the splendor
splendor
and the glory
and the glory
to the truth of the beauty underneath
the beauty underneath

you'll accept it
yes
you'll embrace it
yes
let me show you the beauty underneath

Arrived in London

2011-03-07T06:52:00.002-05:00

Flight started well, we backed away from the gate and were powering up the engines when they found that one of them was not working.. Had to power down and wait to be towed to a repair gate were we sat for 2 hours waiting for them to fix the engine. They turned on the entertainment system while we waited but my seat (and the empty one next to me) had broken entertainment systems. No problem they said, they will reboot them once we have restored full power and it should work. I could look at the list of movies/tv shows but I couldn't watch any. There were probably 10 of the 50 movies that I really wanted to see so I was hopeful it would work after they fixed everything. Finally got engine fixed and ready to take off.. Entertainment system still broken, oh well, I wanted to sleep anyway.

Landed in London with no further issues. Got my car which is an Audi A6, super nice ride with GPS in dash and climate control. Drive to hotel was no issue, took a little getting used to again being on the "right" side of the road but after a minute I was fine with that. If anyone wants to know how it's like to drive in London, drive in New Jersey. It's the only other place with this many "jug-handles" or as they call them here "roundabouts".

Just checked in at hotel. TripIt failed me for the first time, they had my hotel details but no address so I had to boot laptop in airport and pay for internet to find out address. D'Oh... Anyway, the rooms in this place are SMALL, there is barely enough room for the bed and the bathroom only has a shower! So much for all the LUSH goodies I brought with me to take baths.

I am about to head into London for the day, figure I'll go see the Queen thing today and maybe wander to the theater district to see what's playing and what I can get cheap tickets to.

Because of high price cell phone calls I will make sure to update this blog regularly while I'm here.

"Keep keep it together"

2011-03-06T17:56:00.003-05:00

Sorry I've been absent for such a long time, the problem with a public life blog is that when things get tough it's hard to put it all out there.. Well, I've been putting it all out there for a while but never anything bad, now that things are in general chaos I don't feel like blogging the everyday activities because it would involve talking about stuff I would rather not..

What's been going on? Well, if you talked to me recently you know that me and Jessie are not doing good. I'm still not really ready to talk about the specifics of that in a blog, but the bottom line is that I'm looking for (and almost have) an apartment with the theory that if we are not living under the same roof maybe we can get along better and at least salvage some part of our relationship/friendship.

In the last few months I've been travelling a lot which is good and bad, been to Dallas, Chicago, San Antonio, and Austin. This week I'm heading to London and then I come home for a week before going to Seattle. Me and Lynz broke up a while back and me and Jessie are (as stated above) on the outs and trying real hard to just be friendly with each other. Hopefully once I am under my own roof it will give us time to hang out in a friendly way.

I've never lived on my own and this is a great big scary adventure but I think it will be good in the long run. I am not looking on moving far, the apartment I want is in Danielson CT which is only about 15 mins from Putnam.

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Been getting into HeroScape big time, it's an expensive hobby and I'm trying real hard not to get sucked into it. It's a fun game, you build your army out of hundreds of possibly characters (have to buy each one you want) and then it's a turn based strategic battle game sort of like the Shining Force series on the Sega Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast. If you play HeroScape and want to play some time let me know.

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My car has been through hell lately, it has already needed more work than my 2001 probably ever did but it's finally running well. Well, except for the stupid brake light that keeps coming on and off. Last month I went to the Fetish Flea Fashion show and after wards was backing out of the parking space and hit the stupid pole denting the drivers side front by the wheel, I was so pissed at myself I punched the steering wheel and broke the horn.. Which made me more pissed at myself, I have not gotten that fixed because it's going to cost lots to fix the horn which involves replacing the whole wheel including air bag.. /sigh

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Last week I was in Austin TX and was very impressed with that city, a block all around the river and lake was the "hidden" part of Austin which was full of new age places, micro brews and vegetarian / vegan restaurants. Part of me is tempted to move there, I would have a job in a heart beat with RackSpace which is a great company. I've taught there twice (once in San Antonio and once in Austin) and they really impressed me as a great place to work. If you have money for random stocks I would buy some of their stock.

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This week, as I said, I'm heading to London.. Well not technically London, I'm going to Bracknell which is close to London via train and underground. I'm looking forward to it because there is a Queen exhibit this week at a bar in London. I think I'm going to go there tomorrow after I land. I figure going into London on a day I don't have class is a good idea because I can see how long it will really be on train, etc. According to the web it's less than an hour from Bracknell to the Waterloo Underground station.

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I guess that's all I have time for, the flight will be boarding in a little bit.. I'll try not to be a stranger.. Sorry for all those who use this as their main way of keeping up with me..

I am --> Brewniversity Pledge

2010-12-16T13:58:00.003-05:00

Last night I officially became a Pledge in Taco Mac's Brewniversity! In order to become a Pledge (and get a shirt) you have to buy 13 different beers. I went to The Fred last night and was planning on just having one beer there and then heading over to the Taco Mac in Duluth so I would be closer to the hotel for the end of the night. Well, that plan failed.. I went in and met some awesome people and decided to stay. I ordered a Avery Hog Heaven to start along with a five cheese crab dip. The Hog Heaven is a Barelywine which has a very IPA flavor and feel. While I was drinking that Sean ordered a Corsendonk Christmas and Natasha (the bartender) asked if he wanted the tap or the bottle so he ordered both to do a taste test. Sean let me and Jeff have some as well so we could all make partake in the test, all three agreed it was better in the draft. My second beer of the night was a Rodenback Grand Cru which is a sour red ale, the first sip sorta punches you in the face but after that it's amazing! A little bit later Jeff ordered a La Rulles Tripel and let us all have some.. Was still hungry after the dip so I got their spicy fried shrimp which was so hot my mouth was on fire, need more beer to wash it down with so I got my own Corsendonk Christmas to finish off the night. While I was eating my shrimp Sean and Jeff both left and when they were leaving we did the whole "nice to meet you" and another of the regulars who towards the other end of the bar said "what?! you guys just met tonight!?" lol! Finished off the night chatting with a guy named Tony who had just come in and was a big foodie so we were swapping exotic food stories.. All in all, it was a great night. Now I did not officially hit my 13 purchased beers but since I don't live in the area Natasha counted the ones I shared and gave me the shirt! :D

It was so icy last night, I don't think Georgia even has rock salt or sand for the roads and sidewalks. I almost fell on my ass like 3 times going into The Fred.. Today has been a "take the good, take the bad" day so far, woke up to find my water in the room undrinkable again so I didn't shower or brush teeth. I had extra water at the room the first night I knew the water was undrinkable but then it was fine so I didn't get any last night, turns out they had another pipe issue last night.. Apparently Duluth is not meant for prolonged cold. The good, got my seat upgraded to first class!

Currently sitting on the plane and using the free WiFi, Delta is offering free WiFi during the holidays.. :)

Busted Pipes and Power Outage

2010-12-15T11:05:00.005-05:00

The problem with living in an area that is generally warm is that the buildings are not built for cold.. The Courtyard is no exception to this rule, they had a few pipes freeze and burst.. I got back to the hotel after work and went to the hot tub to raise my temperature because I just can't seem to get warm this week. Then some nice relaxing time and finally a shower before heading out, turned on the shower and was shocked by the brown water and the loud noise coming from pipes! I let it run for a second and it didn't change, tried the sink and the same thing.. Went to the lobby and the lady told me they had "a few pipes" freeze and burst, how many is a few? Apparently a few was enough to close the first floor on half the hotel, they had 6 inches of water in some rooms! Well, no rinsing off chlorine for me.. Off to Taco Mac and the speak easy!

Not tonight!! I drove to the Taco Mac and asked the guy at the regular place if they served food downstairs, his answer was only finger foods so I decided to eat at the regular Taco Mac to eat. Had a Portabella Mushroom Wrap and a Tommyknocker Hop Strike before heading downstairs. I went to "The Fred" and after ringing buzzer a few times went upstairs to ask why they were not answering door, found out they are closed on Monday and Tuesday! Wish the website would have said that! Went back to the closer Taco Mac and had a few more drinks with the guys from class. Ommegang Adoration and Terrapin Hopsecutioner to finish the night before heading back to hotel. Water issue was not cleared up so I messed around online a bit and then headed to bed, as I was getting ready for bed the hotel lost power! Ok, end of that night, it's bed time... Just as I was falling asleep the power came back on and so did my lights which woke me up..

The water issue was resolved this morning so I was finally able to take a shower..

More updates since last blogs..

My car is fixed.. Guy from Virginia paid for the damage his plywood did and the lady's insurance company paid for the damage to my bumper/fog light area.

Jessie's elbow is healed, it actually healed really quick.

Taco Mac

2010-12-14T12:36:00.004-05:00

I know I have not blogged in a long time and I'm not going to do the recap thing because it would just be too darn long..

The problem with blogging your life is when it gets too complicated to sit down and write about it.. That and I guess some stuff does not need to be in a public forum, at least not while it's happening..

Anyway, I'm down in Duluth GA this week teaching and it's smeggin' cold! When I found I had a class in Duluth in December I figured it would at least give me a break from the cold, boy was I wrong! It was 20 with a wind chill of -5 when I landed (those numbers are Fahrenheit unfortunately.. Last night it fell to 10 with wind chill of -11!

My students told me about this placed called Taco Mac which is a 99 type restaurant with 100+ beers on tap and 200+ beers in bottle! They have a frequent drinker program called Taco Mac Brewniversity, you get credits for each different beer you drink and when you get a certain number of credits you get benefits like 13 gives you a shirt, 125 gives you a 20oz for the price of a 16oz and so on.. The food was good, I had buffalo chicken tacos and the beer was awesome! Beers had last night: Unibroue La Terrible, Left Hand Nitro Sawtooth, Red Brick Laughing Skull and Warsteiner Dunkel. They have a bunch of locations, was talking to a random guy at the bar and he was telling me one of them is designed like an old speak easy, apparently you have to knock on the door and show your Brewniversity card to get in.. Going to that one tonight.. Not that it should surprise anyone but within five minutes of being there I had made a new friend who lives in the area now but is from NY and a Mets fan! I am meeting him tonight at the speak easy...

Laire was good this weekend, I played "Brother Hawk" because Daimone is still a Drowned One and finally started to learn Warlock skills. Still no word on my Druid quest but at least I have one master class started. I left Saturday night so I could be home for Sunday since I had to get laundry done and what not to get my flight on Sunday.

Speaking of my flight on Sunday. I got to the airport and found my flight was delayed from 6:07 till 7:00 then 7:30 then cancelled! I was in a bit of a panic and found out that AETravel's website does NOT work on the Droid OS! I had Becca log in and start looking for alternate flights but luckily it was not needed since the 3:30 flight was getting ready to leave and they had extra seats which they put all Elite status people from the 6:07 flight in. Even my luggage made it on the flight which shocked me because they told me it probably wouldn't till the morning..

Other news since last blog..

I got my renewal notice for the Mets season tickets and I mailed it back asking to move to section 424 again. In past years I have heard back in late January if not early February and was shocked when they called me a few days after I mailed the letter in to move me. They could not get me 3 seats in 424 but they did move me to section 426 which is a significant move from last year. That and the price went down about $40 per seat so it's all good all around... :)

Jessie's mom is having financial problems, no surprise here, so we are trying to sell her stuff out of the Kingston house and will eventually be trying to sell the house as well. The sale is this weekend so most of our free time has been spent driving back and forth and trying to get things ready to be sold. Thanks to Shane for helping us out during the week when we couldn't be there. If you want to come shopping come on down, she has a lot of good stuff and we are selling it all pretty cheap.

Celebrating 15 Years of Delicious Discoveries

2010-10-17T21:41:00.004-04:00

We spent two days in Disney World before heading home..

Day 1 - Breakfast at Fort Wilderness and then head over to Epcot. Jessie used her 2005 pass and had an issue at the gate because the ticket was too old to be read in the new scanners so we had to wait while they gave her a replacement ticket. Hit Soarin' which had a 70 minute wait (no fast passes left for day) and then Captain EO which is the Michael Jackson movie they had back in the 80s, they brought it back this year in honor of Michael Jackson's death. I admit it's a bit cheesy but I love it, I want his outfit for a new FI character! Afterwards we went into the World Showcase and spent too much money on food and drink. This year happens to be the 15th anniversary of the Food and Wine Festival which was super cool since it was also our 15th anniversary! Their tag line is "celebrating 15 years of delicious discoveries" which pretty much sums up our marriage too! Anyway, we hung around the World Showcase till Illuminations (did a few Kim Possible Missions) and then headed out. Checking my Disney World app for the Droid we found that the Magic Kingdom was open till midnight so we headed over there. If you can only ride one ride in the Magic Kingdom which do you ride? Apparently the Country Bear Jamboree! Don't judge us... :P

Day 2 - Breakfast (I mean lunch) at Fort Wilderness and then over to Downtown Disney to shop... After wasting time in the stores (nothing worth getting) we headed over to Epcot for more delicious discoveries.. :) This time we went to Innoventions and Spaceship Earth before heading into the World Showcase. What did we eat... Here is a full list of what I ate, keep in mind I didn't eat *all* of each of these, Jessie split most of them with me:

Chile - Shrimp Ceviche
Desserts and Champagne - Dark Chocolate Sensation
Argentina - Grilled Beef Skewer & Roasted Corn and Cheese Empanada
Poland - Kielbasa and Pierogie
South Korea - Lettuce Wrap with Pork and Kimchi Slaw & Black Raspberry Rice Wine
South Africa - Pinotage
Brewer's Collection - Hovels (many)
Germany - Spaetzle Gratin with Ham and Cheese & Sausage in Pretzel Roll
Hops and Barley - Pican Bread Pudding
United States - Bison Chili
Japan - Tuna Sensation
Australia - Grilled Lamb Chop
Morocco - Kefta Pocket
Belgium - Steamed Mussels & Waffles with Berry Compote
Spain - Seared Albacore & Red Wine
France - Escargots & Chocolate Creme Brulee & Pomegranate Wine
Ireland - Lobster and Scallop Fishermans Pie
Canada - Cheddar Cheese Soup & Maple-Glazed Salmon & Riesling & Moosehead Beer & Icewine
New Zealand - Scallops & Lamb Slider & Pinot Noir & Cabernet Sauvignon
15 Beers for 15 Years - Fischer Amber & Abita Amber & Viru Pilsner

Great food, and lots of it... I have to say, if you were a vegetarian there is not much you can eat, if you're a vegan? You can drink! Almost all of the vegetarian courses had cheese in them.

Watched Illuminations again and then headed back to the cabin. Left early in the morning on Monday and drove to Harry's house in North Carolina. Ate dinner and went to bed.. Next day drove to Norwalk and dropped Jessie off before I continued on to Becca's house for a bit and then finally home.

When we drove up we took the "round about way" so we didn't have to go through DC, Baltimore or NYC. It was 50 miles and many fewer hours! I recommend that for anyone driving down.

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Since I've been back.. Wednesday night was our actual dating anniversary and we went to Pioneer brewery in Sturbridge and then to 420 steakhouse in Sturbridge. Both places were great and I recommend them both.. Thursday we watched a bunch of TV and Thursday night Becca came over for a nice night in. Friday me and Jessie hung out and went to see RED in Lisbon. RED is the new Bruce Willis, John Malcovich movie and it was AWESOME! Can't wait for a sequel! Saturday night I went over to Becca's house and had another nice night.. Sunday I went to Lynz's house for brunch and lots of cleaning..

We are almost caught up on Glee, two more episodes to be current.. Want to get those both in this week so I will be current when RHPS episode airs next week.

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Tomorrow is back to work for me... Jessie however is off till Thursday because the doctor told her not to go in.. She will be going to the doctor again on Tuesday to do more x-rays and see how things are healing. It looks like she won't need surgery after all! :D

Disney World or Bust!

2010-10-10T11:34:00.000-04:00

So, when last we left our vactioneers they were safely at the Salvatore’s house after having endured a cold and rainy chowderfest and some lovely home made fish and chips… After a rousing game of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders the journey south began anew.. Next stop – Uncle Larry’s house..

The journey was slowed by rain and some bad traffic around Baltimore but in the end we got there just as dinner was being served. Pasta with chicken meatballs and home made sauce, garlic bread and a very tasty salad. After dinner there was a lot of playing with phones. Uncle Larry has an iPhone and of course me and Jessie with our Droid Xs had to show off and compare. One of the funniest things of the night had to be Jessie and Uncle Larry trying to exchange phone numbers via Bump. They probably could have written their information on a piece of paper, hid it somewhere in the house and played hide and seek and it would have been quicker and easier. Although honestly not as funny! I did get an awesome app and I recommend anyone who wants to be “in the loop” with my travels should get.. It’s called TripIt. Whoever is travelling emails the confirmation emails to their system and it keeps track of flights, hotels, car rentals, etc. The really awesome thing is that it will even tell you what gate your flight is at once they assign one and if there are any delays they show up real time. If you download TripIt you can add me as a contact and you will be able to see my trips. Add me using my gmail account. In the morning we had poached eggs and hung out for a bit before heading on the next leg of our journey.. This time to Harry’s house in North Carolina..

We were driving along, singing a song and enjoying the day.. Took the long and winding road over to the Blue Ridge Parkway and took that for most of the trip south. Stopped a few times to take pictures and generally enjoy the ride, it was still cloudy but at least it was not raining anymore.. Got off the Parkway and got back onto normal roads.. A little while later we got stuck behind a truck carrying an open trailer on a one lane road (one land in either direction). Now I know you’re thinking ‘man that must have sucked with him going all slow and stuff’ but honestly he was not going that slow which in the end caused the problem when his straps snapped and the plywood he was carrying decided it wanted to fly at us. Three pieces of flying plywood is not an easy thing to dodge! I did however prevent any of them from coming through the windshield, I swerved and one of them hit the driver’s side view mirror cracking that, scraping the paint above the door down to the frame and denting the roof right by the roof rack! Got the guys information and the number of a witness as well so hopefully there will be no issue getting everything paid for.. My poor car, it’s been through a lot these last few weeks..

Anyway, the trip was rather uneventful after that and we got to Harry’s house around dinner time. Went to a English Pub / Sports bar with Harry, Nicole, Rich, AJ and Rich’s daughter for dinner. Jessie got sorta waylaid into talking to Rich’s daughter for most of the night but a good time was certainly had by all. I had a sammich called a “Black Forest” which was turkey and bacon on a pretzel roll, so good.. After dinner we went back to Harry’s and watched the first two Family Guy episodes of the season. The Clue episode was amazing but the Rush Limbaugh episode was lame. Next day (Wednesday) we went over to Beckie’s house and had lunch with Beckie, Keith, Rich and AJ at a Greek place near their apartment and work. Went back to Beckie’s and watched two great movies.. Finding Neverland was amazingly done, the cinematography was so well done, they really brought the fantasy to life! Plus it “mostly” follows the true story behind the creation of the play Peter Pan. As with many of my double features (Equus / Lord of the Rings the Musical || Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart / Woman in White) I apparently like to do one big budget extravaganza and one super low budget minimalistic show. Today’s second movie was The Gamers: Dorkness Rising! It was on Beckie’s Netflix Instant watch so we figured what the heck, if it sucks we can always shut it off. Honestly about 10 mins I was ready to shut it down but maybe 15 mins in I was hooked! The dialogue was great and it was one of those movies that just effortlessly told its point and hit all the jokes spot on while still keeping a serious plot line. It did a great job of showing the different style of gamers and if you game at all (or know someone who does) I recommend watching it.. btw – I mean game in the terms of D&D and/or LARP.. That night we went to a tepanyaki place for dinner, the chef was very good, he toned down the “show” but the cooking was very well done. He did do a smiley face with the rice with lemons as eyes and the standard onion volcano. I had the snapper and it was cooked perfectly, I also had a sushi roll which was spicy salmon tempura’ed with caviar on top! So good.. Went to a local bar after dinner, AJ knows the owners and he is usually able to name the nightly special if he calls ahead of time so we had $2 Fat Tires! The short jokes were in full force with Keith kneeling on the floor as a “bench” for me to stand on so I could reach the top of the pool table in the bar.. The night ended with me and Nicole playing pool at the house before bed.

We woke up a bit too early (8am) and left for Disney World, GPS estimated our arrival at 6pm so we figured we would be there for a late dinner. First stop, Starbucks to get some quick breakfast and coffee.. Right next to Starbucks there was a “steak and lube” place, that’s right everyone it’s finally that all in one car service steak place.. I know you’ve always thought man, this Jiffy Lube takes too long, it would be so much better if I had a steak while I waited.. Well, if that’s you then you’re prayers are answered! Ok, so… like I said, first stop Starbucks.. Second stop, the urgent care across the street! Jessie stepped off the curb weird and turned her ankle, she stopped her fall with her arm and broke a bone in her elbow! A few hours and some xrays later Jessie left the urgent care in a splint and we were told we needed to see an orthopedic doctor to confirm the break and get more details about what to do. We could have hung out in North Carolina till 5pm when we could go see the orthopedic doctor but we decided to keep on fucking that chicken so off to South Carolina and then Georgia before stopping in Savannah for the Orthopedic Urgent Care. Results? Bone is compressed and broken, probably need surgery, should probably cut vacation short.. /sigh – or as the new internet trend likes to say FML..

So, we arrived at Fort Wilderness at ass-o-clock at night (I want to say 2am) and hit the bed.. Since we were under the impression that we might have to leave as soon as Saturday we decided to make sure the first place we went was Universal Islands of Adventure so we could see the Harry Potter area. As it turns out Universal is doing their Halloween Scream Nights so we got a ticket to that as well. For the Halloween Night we got the “express” pass which gives you fast passes once for every ride and attraction! If we didn’t do that there is no way we would have gotten through everything in the one night. But let me back up a bit… Ran into Islands of Adventure with the concept of eating in Hogsmeade but the line at the Three Broomsticks was OMG out of control! Speaking of lines, there were lines to get into the gift shops! And not just little ones, they actually had queue areas so people could line up to get in to the gift shops! I sorta feel like that’s worth saying a third time.. Lines to get in gift shops! Anyway, we ate at the empty Jurassic Park area and came back. The Hipogriff ride was pretty lame, but the main Hogwarts ride was awesome and even if that was the only thing there I would say it was worth the trip. We had some butter beer which is not alcoholic. It’s like cream soda with a butterscotch twist, and whatever they put in causes a head that just keeps growing and foaming! It was very tasty but I could really only drink like 1/3 of one, Jessie drank most of it. They also had a microbrew that was made specifically for the Harry Potter area, it was a Scottish red and was very tasty. After we drank we wandered around the shops (yes, waited in the lines) and I was very impressed at how they did the shops and even had things like the expendable ears in Zonkos. Oleanders had a series of wands based on birthdays. My wand was “eh”, I took a picture and will post it to Flickr.

After we finished up the HP area we went back to the car so Jessie could call insurance company and figure out a plan for back home doctoring. The plan is to go home early (probably leave here Monday morning) and hopefully get her in to a doctor later in the week. I rested in the car for a bit while she made calls and then we headed back in for dinner at a Latino place on CityWalk. I had a snapper with chorizo and rice which was very good. Got into the Halloween night a few minutes after the opened and was immediately impressed when he walked through the first “scare zone” which was a Mexican Day of the Dead theme. They have six “scare zones” which are just parts of streets dedicated to different themes (Day of the Dead, Witch Trials, Cyberpunk, Zombified Mardi Gras, Fear Revealed [which was a empty trail with pumpkins and fog] and the main Halloween one). They also had random guys walking around with chain saws who would try to sneak up on you and turn their chainsaws on right next to you! I have to admit I jumped a bunch of times while walking down the streets. My favorite area was either the Cyberpunk (awesome costumes) or the Witch Trials (super hot witches)! Aside from the scare zones they had eight actually horror houses, some were amazing and some were just pretty lame. Not going to go into each one (this blog would be even longer than it already is) but the basic concept was you go through a maze like building and people would jump out at you to try and scare you. Except in the best one, they had an Insane Asylum one and the people were not hiding and trying to jump at you, in that one they were just hanging out and talking to you and then would jump at you. They did an amazing job of creating “crazy people”! The other favorite was called Havoc which was cyberpunk-ish, basically it was like being on a mod at Future Imperfect! The Zombie one could have been cool, but it fell short. The worst one was probably the Orphanage which had burned down. The worst thing in the park? Bill and Ted’s Halloween Adventure! It was just smeggin’ bad, so bad I don’t even want to write about it..

I’m going to end this blog here. The next day starts our time in the actual Disney parks so I will save that for another blog..

I have to say it.. Goodnight my lovelies
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Here is something you may find cool. So, the hotel charges $9.95 a day for internet which is lame’o. So, I typed this blog on the laptop in Word, transferred to my phone which opened the document, copied the text to a clipboard and pasted it into my blog site! How’s that for super rad! That’s right, I just said rad.. Deal with it..

Close the door!!

2010-10-04T12:38:00.004-04:00

I'm on vacation and on the way to Disney.. We are taking the slow route to Florida.. We left Saturday and got all the way to Brooklyn! Left car at my friend Michelle's house and went into Manhattan for a pre-NY Anime Fest show. My friend's old dance troop was preforming so we went over to check it out. They are a super cute trio who dance to J-Pop and Anime songs.. After them a guy came up and sung a few songs, he was good too so it was a fun time. While we were at the show Jessie's friend Charles showed up and the 4 of us hung out for a while, we went over to the Mets Clubhouse shop because it was close by but didn't buy anything. After that Jessie wondered off with Charles and Me and Michelle went to Perfect Pint in NYC for dinner. I had The Perfect Cheese Steak which is "ny strip steak, applewood bacon guinness barbecued onions with irish cheddar and porter cheese", it was so good but oh so not healthy.. After dinner we went back to Michelle's house and played Mario Party with her room mates.

Went to bed far too late and woke up too early.. Long drive again... This time to NJ.. I know, we are getting real far in our journey towards Florida... Stopped at Matt's house and went over to a Chowderfest. Chowderfest is outdoors, sounds good right? Smeggin' weather didn't want to cooperate, it was cold and windy and if that was not enough it started to rain as soon as we bought our tickets. Was standing in line doubting the intelligence of going but oh well... It actually ended up being a really good time. They have two tents setup, one for "white chowder" and one for "red chowder", because of the rain everyone was staying under the tents and you really had to push your way to the front to get to the chowders. First place we went was a red chowder and it tasted like tomato soup. Left the red tent and me and Jessie waded into the white tent while Matt, Daniel and Sile went to get other food.. Once we got our system of pushing down we actually made it through the tent pretty quickly, most of them were good but the best was Panzone's Pizzza & Pasta which took 3rd place in the White category. This place Stefano's ended up winning both the red and the white but they were both crappy.. They must pay people off because they apparently win almost every year. Honestly I didn't have many of the reds but the one I liked the best won 2nd place in Reds.

After the fest we came back to Matt's house, Sile made home made Fish and Chips for dinner! So good... I took pics of the making process and the end process but my Droid cable is in the car so I won't be uploading any pics today.. Well, at least not yet... Went to bed super early (9:30) and slept for about 12 hours! My body really was in need of that after coming back from CA..

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Speaking of coming back from California.. Wednesday night I went to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the DBacks. I was going to take the train but ended up missing it, I was standing in line to buy my train ticket when the train left... Oh well, at least I didn't buy the ticket yet. Driving to AT&T Park shouldn't be too bad anyway, it's about 40 miles from Santa Clara and it was before rush hour so no problem.. /sigh... It took me almost 2 hours to get there and I got to park in the main A lot for $30!! What a bargain.. The stadium is in a beautiful area, it's right up against the SF Bay, the right field wall is right up against the water. I got in about 15 mins before the game and walked around the stadium, by the time I got to my seat the first batter had already hit a home run and the DBacks were up 1-0. The view from the seats were awesome and the people next to me were really cool. The guy right next to me was a season plan holder and he originally lived in NY and was a fan of the Giants before they moved to CA so we talked a lot about Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds and even Shea when it first opened. In the 4th inning I decided to go eat, the food on the upper level was not very exciting but the food on the field level was.. I got a crab sammich which was on butter toasted bread and served with cheese, it was very tasty! Unfortunately for me, while I was in line for food the Giants rallied and scored 3 runs to take a 3-1 lead. That was the final score which means all the runs were scored while I was not at seat.

Thursday was flight back day, but the flight was not till 10:45pm so I went up to Muir Woods after class and before my flight. The Muir Woods are right above SF and very beautiful! I posted pics on Flickr, go check them out. I don't think pictures can truly capture the amazing awe inspiring brilliance but they are still nice.. I felt very recharged from wondering the woods.. In the back of the parking lot they have a "first amendment area", it was a taped off area of the parking lot with sign saying this area was set aside for freedom of speech...

The flight from SF to Detroit was quick and I slept for most of it. The flight from Detroit to Boston was really annoying... We got on the plane in time for an "on-time departure" but the luggage people took way too long to load the plane to we ended up leaving about 20 mins late. Now the fun starts! Started to rise (got to about 10,000 feet) and they realized the door was not closed correctly. Had to turn around and land back in Detroit to reclose the door! Landed, opened door, closed door, refueled the plane and were ready to go again... Unfortunately now it was an "in-air incident" which means lots of paperwork... Left about 3 hours later than we were supposed to... Once in the air I slept again for a bit of the flight and then watched some Glee.

Ran home, showered and went to meet Becca for lunch.. I didn't even unload the car first because of all the delays in Detroit.. After she went to work I came home and started laundry and the process of getting ready for vacation.. Lynz came over for dinner and finished helping me pack..

And now the story wraps back around... About to leave NJ and head to my Uncle's house in West Virginia..

--Diversion of the Day

Tattoo Time?

2010-09-28T12:54:00.005-04:00

I want to get my second tattoo at some point during the winter which means I need some help with my design. I have a vision but don't have the art capabilities to make it happen.. My vision.. A circle of spirit animals on my left arm from shoulder to just above elbow. I want it to be in the same celtic and tribal mix as my other tattoo. If you have any artistic eye and would like to help me design my new tattoo please read on and send me some drawings.. :)

Dragon on the top, clockwise of him would be a polar bear, clockwise from him a dolphin, clockwise of him an owl. In the center would be a pixie/fairy. I was thinking of having each animal in a minimalistic line art style sort of like the elements on my the other tattoo. In terms of the actual circle, it could be that the animals intertwine with each other or there could be a faint celtic knot ring like on my other tattoo. The pixie could again be intertwined with each other animal or could stand on her own or could have a faint celtic cross behind her and touching the circle. All of the animals are male except the pixie.

Email me your designs or post them as comments here..

Here are some examples of artwork I found on the web for tribal animals.

Really like these:

http://www.ideatattoo.com/media/catalog/product/cache/3/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/t/a/tattoo_professionist_animal_3.jpg

http://th04.deviantart.com/fs12/300W/i/2006/317/8/6/tribal_eagle_by_xx_trigrhappy_xx.png

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:dU_4DOjR-gqemM:

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:QXhkIZ0Ig2I6MM:http://i392.photobucket.com/albums/pp9/newtattoodesigns/Animals%20Tattoo%20Designs/Bear/bear.gif&t=1

http://www.tribaltattoopictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/tribal_dragon_tattoo.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DMsvL7sD9Pw/SN_wCM-C-cI/AAAAAAAABB4/ueAP2RqOEUs/s400/tribal-lion-tattoo-designs_03.jpg

Here are some others:

http://www.tattoos.org/galleries/Tribal_Tattoos/5-animals-tribal-design.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_K1WSFfbvH_4/Sa2O313jUiI/AAAAAAAAAIM/ObZ675JTL0s/s400/tribal_predator_tattoo_design_TATRPR05.jpg

http://www.towertattoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/tribal-tattoo-2.jpg

http://images.elfwood.com/art/a/d/adelewaldrom/tribal_dragon.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ePLK5oZqMN8/STVDLqdoAMI/AAAAAAAAAEk/omYmVw7Xe-8/s400/apawae.blogspot.com.Dragon_tattoo_by_Tatsu87.jpg

http://www.cooltribaltattoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/blck-tribal-scorpion-tattoo.jpg

http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/UNC/UNC275/animal-bird-tribal_~u12797048.jpg

A Series of Uppers?

2010-09-28T11:29:00.005-04:00

What does Randal know anyway, life is *not* a series of downers, what a depressing thought... I for one can say for sure that life is a series of uppers... Lets take the last week..

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were all great days/nights, each one very different, and each one with a different beautiful lady. :D

Thursday night I went over Becca's house.. Got the tour of her house, met her mom and went to dinner at a local pizza place. I always like my pizza plain (especially when trying a new place for the first time because that's the true test of the pizza), but most people find that to be "not enough" so it was great to find out that she also likes plain pizza.. Not to say I don't like pizza with crazy toppings either but sometimes you just want cheese and sauce, maybe it's because I grew up with plain NY pizza? We also had a spinach croissant like appetizer, it was too much food, lately I've found I'm back to eating smaller portions which is a good thing.. After dinner we mostly watched Shock Treatment (god that movie is bad) and listened to lots of good music while chatting about the life the universe and everything.

Friday night I went over Lynz' house, on the way there I was thinking about how we had not had a true night out in a long time and how we have this great comedy club (Funnybone) close by and never go.. So, after looking up the comedian for the night we decided he was funny enough based on his online clips and went.. Being the smart people we are we knew that getting food in Man-town would be a long and drawn out process so we grabbed some wonderful sushi at the Asian Bistro by her house before going to the club. The headliner was Matt Braunger, I had never heard of him but as I said, his online clips were pretty funny. I'm glad to say he was funnier in person than he was on his clips too! The first two guys (don't remember their names) were also really funny, the MC was a guy with a mustache and he did this whole bit about how having a mustache makes him a "wild card", you never know, he's either the best cop in the world, or he's on to catch a predator. He's either a porn star or a gay porn star, you can never tell.. The second guy was also really funny, he did this whole bit about being metrosexual which was really funny, I had not heard that term really used since Queer Eye and it was cool to see it brought back.. Finally was Matt, he did a whole thing about people throwing up and it was so funny even Lynz was laughing at it. Go check out his site and his bits, I want to get his MP3 CD he was that funny. His taco bell bit and his Easter bit were also top notch.. I left the show and my stomach muscles hurt because I was laughing so hard! Funny Bones has a deal where if you buy a shirt you can get in for free on Thursday nights as long as you wear the shirt. Got a shirt, who wants to go on Thursdays? During the drive there and back we played "new" music for each other, I put new in quotes because it was not really new, just new to each other. How is it that I have dated someone for that long and they never really heard ManOwaR?

Saturday I went to the CT Ren Faire with Jessie. I was walking in and got grabbed by my friend who was in the receiving line so me and Jessie ended up standing in the receiving line with her. It was a little odd to be in the receiving line but also pretty cool too, heck it's not like we aren't dressed well enough and it's not like we don't go there enough.. This years show is an all musical cast show which was awesome, I filmed all the cast shows on my Droid so if you're interested I can show them to you but I will not post them online because you should go see it live. If you can't I will show them and I may post them on youtube after the faire closes for the year. Everytime I started to wander and look at shops I was getting waylaid by friends working different booths, not that I'm complaining because they are people I don't see often and I did eventually look at all the booths I wanted. I just felt bad because I kept getting pulled away from Jessie, mom and Joe. This years faire is also a "choose your own ending" where the faire goers vote on the ending, of course good won. I'm going to go back on Oct 23rd and hopefully I will see evil win. After the faire closed we ended up spending lots of time chatting with a friend of mine and we finally left around 7. We got invited to the after hours party but I had to catch a flight at 5am out of Boston so I needed to get a nap in at least.

One other thing I just wanted to add, Jessie and my mom each bought a dress at Aetas Designs. Great deals and great materials and workmanship. Jessie's dress was off the rack but needs some alterations, total price $65.. My mom is having a dress made from scratch and the price? $115!! For a hand made dress!? Check them out, you won't be disappointed..

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Got up at crazy o'clock and drove to Boston. Wanted to be there for 3:30 because that's 90ish minutes before my flight. Funny thing is that the stupid airport does not actually open till 4 so I spent some time staring at empty booths. Checked in and was the first person through security. Watched a few episodes of Glee while waiting in airports and being on flights. I slept the entire first leg of the flight and most of the second and we landed in SF 40 minutes early! I'm glad we landed early because it was close timing to get into Oakland. The SF airport is actually south of SF, when I got in the car it said it was in the 80s, I drove north through SF and while doing so the temp dropped to the low 60s just to have it rise back up to the 90s by the time I got to the stadium in Oakland. I don't know if I could live in area with this kind of crazy temperature zones. I have to remember to bring a long shirt at least when I go to the Giants game on Wednesday.

Anyway, I got to the Coliseum and found out that parking was cash only so I had to turn around and go find an ATM. Got cash and drove back, while waiting in line to pay a guy came up and handed me a free parking pass! Guess the benefit of going to the last home game of the season is everyone is looking to dump their free parking passes. The outside of the stadium is very run down and the area around the stadium looks like a demilitarized zone. I was expecting the stadium to be a dump so I was not surprised by the area. I am glad to say however that the inside of the stadium is very nice indeed. The seat I had was amazing, right behind home plate and very close to the field. The food was top notch, I'd actually put the food in the top 10 for stadium food. The upper deck had nothing but generic stadium food but the lower level had an irish pub, cheese steaks, a farmers market, etc.. The beer was vast as well, they had booths for Fat Tire, ShockTop, Pyramid, and others. The only place they had American Piss beers was at the generic stadium food booths. I had a cheese steak, fries and a fat tire. I guess it says a lot about the fans and the area that all the booths had glass walls between the customers and workers. The only bad thing about the stadium is it's a 100% non-smoking stadium which means the bathrooms become smoke houses. The first season at Citi-Field the Mets tried to make the stadium 100% non-smoking and they quickly realized that by doing so you create bathroom smoke houses so now they allow smoking on the forever ramp. The game itself was pretty lame, the Rangers crushed the A's and I lost interested in the game itself pretty quick so I wandered the stadium for a while and ended up leaving after the 6th inning.

Yesterday I had a date with a girl I met on OKCupid, we went to a brew house called Fault Line and then hung out at the hotel and hot tub. She is very cool and we are planing to go out again tonight.. :)

I sort of want to go to the Winchester Mystery House, maybe I can convince her to go there tonight. It's about 8 miles from my hotel..

Stadium List

2010-09-28T11:25:00.000-04:00

I've been to a lot of baseball stadiums over the globe now.. Here is a list of the stadiums I've been to:

MLB
Current National League Parks

AT&T Park - San Fransisco Giants

Citi-Field - New York Mets
Busch Stadium - St. Louis Cardinals
Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia Phillies
Dodger Stadium aka Chavez Ravine - Los Angeles Dodgers
Miller Park - Milwaukee Brewers
Minute Maid Park - Houston Astros
Nationals Park - Washington Nationals
Petco Park - San Diego Padres

Sun Life Stadium - Florida Marlins
Wrigley Field - Chicago Cubs
Closed National League Parks
Shea Stadium - New York Mets
Stade de Olympique - Montreal Expos
Current American League Parks
Angel Stadium aka Edison International Park - Anaheim Angels

Ballpark at Arlington - Texas Rangers
Comerica Park - Detroit Tigers
Fenway Park - Boston Red Sox

Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum - Oakland A's

Oriole Park at Camden Yards - Baltimore Orioles
Progressive Field aka Jacobs Field - Cleveland Indians

SafeCo Field - Seattle Mariners
US Cellular Field aka New Comiskey Park - Chicago White Sox
Closed American League Parks
Yankee Stadium - New York Yankees

Minor Leagues
AAA Parks
McCoy Stadium - Pawtucket Red Sox
AA Parks
Dodd Stadium - Norwich Navigators & CT Defenders
A Parks
Keyspan Park - Brooklyn Cyclones

Japanese League Parks
Seibu Dome aka Goodwill Dome - Seibu Lions
Tokyo Dome - Yomiuri Giants

All in all I've been to 28 ballparks around the world.

I will update this blog (and change the post date) as I have more to report.

I may also update this to add in brief reviews.. Notice that word "may".. Depends on how bored I get.. :D

---Updated 9-28-2010

A series of downers?

2010-09-22T17:44:00.003-04:00

George Lucas has nothing on Terry Brooks when it comes to ending a book/movie on a series of downers... I just finished reading Bearers of the Black Staff which is book 1 in the Legends of Shannara series and I have to stay a bit stunned on the way it ended. In the last hour of so of the book half of the main "good guys" get killed!? I'm not saying he leaves them in cliff hangers or anything, he just outright kills them.. I'm obviously not going to say who lives or dies but holy jeez.. What a serious series of downers.. And Randal thought Empire Strikes Back ended on a series of downers, at least in that movie none of the main characters got killed...

The really shitty thing is that the next book does not come out till next year, when will I learn not to read a part of a series as soon as it comes out.. Wait, I did learn that but apparently I must have forgotten... On a side note, I still have not read the latest Wheel of Time or the third Eragon book so as I said, but..

Anyway, if you have not read the new Terry Brooks book yet don't.. I'm NOT saying don't read it ever, I'd just wait till next year and read both of them together..

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As you may or not know Luna loves peeing on my bed, she did so the other night and I ended up trying to sleep on the normal (select comfort) bed. I was in bed for about 10 mins before I started getting real itchy so we decided to take it apart and really clean it the next day. When we did so we found mold growing, yum... Anyway, called Select Comfort and they mailed us an entire new bed, now the question is do we put it together or do we sell it? Ever since we got that bed Jessie has been unhappy with it so we are thinking of selling the *new* bed on eBay and buying something else. I am probably going to list it tonight but if anyone who is reading this is interested ($1200?) let me know and I will end the eBay auction.

This last weekend I went to Brad's house for his AnimeFest, I really think each year it becomes less of an appropriate name. The entire time I was there I don't think there was actually any Anime on, people were watching movies but not Anime.. I for one played Heroscape, which is basically a board game version of Shining Force, Castle Ravenloft which sucked and Empire Builder which is always one of my favorites. I really want to get Heroscape but I have to admit the size of the board makes storing it rather daunting, I actually got up and walked away from Castle Ravenloft it was so bad.. What can I say about Empire Builder? We realized that Empire Builder is to thank for all of our Board Game hobbies, back when I was working at Saturday Matinee my friend Joe introduced me to that game and I in turn pulled Brad and Christian away from console gaming long enough to fall in love with it.. I wonder how many other people owe their board game addiction to Empire Builder? After all these years and many, many board games later it's still one of my all-time favorites!

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I'm about to start some crazy long time away from home, I guess I can't complain too bad because two weeks of that time is vacation but.. At least it's not as bad as it would have been, I swapped one week of travel with another instructor. Next week I'm in Santa Clara CA, I will be going to an Oakland A's game on Sunday and a San Fran Giants game on Wednesday so it will be a fun trip.. I get home Friday morning and we will probably leave for Disney World Friday night or maybe Saturday morning. I was supposed to go to Dallas as soon as I got back but that's the week I swapped out so I will be teaching in Franklin instead, then the next week I go to Mclean VA.. So I will be home one of the next five weeks... Will have to make sure the time I am home is as full as possible..

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Speaking of as full as possible.. Saturday I'm going to the CT Ren Faire with Jessie, my mom and Joe.. If anyone is interested in joining us let me know... This year they are doing an all musical show..

Accident free since 1995?!

2010-09-13T19:03:00.003-04:00

Not anymore!! I was driving home tonight from Milford and a lady ran through a stop sign and slammed into the front passenger side of my car! I saw her coming and tried to brake, but I had a choice between crossing into on coming traffic and hitting someone there or letting her hit me! I've always been one to say that accidents are avoidable, but this one was not.. I pulled over and walked back, while I was walking back she backed up from to make it look like she was well in front of the stop line. I just figured she was backing up to get out the way. I told her I would move the car and call the cops, she asked that I wait to call them.. No such luck lady, I care too much about my car to not report it. I went back into my car and traffic stopped for me to pull a u turn in the street and pull down the side street she was coming out of. While I was moving my car I called 911 and told the cops what happened and where we were.

I get out of the car and she puts me on the phone with her sister who tells me that if I don't call the cops she will come down with $4000. Umm, no thanks... Cop shows up and this lady forgets how to speak English and puts her sister on the phone who promptly tells him that it was my fault, that I was turning into the road and hit her. Unfortunately for her there were pieces of her car in the road I was driving down (rte 16) and even some pieces in the on coming traffic lane of that road. The cop looked at my car and could tell from the damage the angle of impact. He took my insurance, reg and license. The lady has (I know this will shock you) no license and no insurance! She had a little girl with her and didn't know her (the girl) birthday even though it was "her daughter".

I felt bad for her till she tried to tell the cop it was my fault! Seriously!?! I suddenly didn't feel too bad that her car was totaled and that she was facing a minimum fee of $500 and a maximum punishment of jail time. When I say her car was totaled I mean it, the entire front end was smashed in. Damage to my car you ask? If I didn't care so much about my car it might not even be worth fixing, the fog light is sorta out of whack and the bumper is cracked. Gotta love Subaru tanks!! I posted a picture of the damage to Flickr if you want to see it, actually with the new settings on this blog it's probably in the left hand column.

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On a happier note.. FI was amazing as usual. Friday night was brutal with the bugs attacking, within the first 10-15 minutes of game I was killed, quick deathed and drained a vitality! Happy to say the rest of the weekend went MUCH better! I went on a mission Saturday night in which we had to break into a section of Aleph Complex and we did such a great job the NPCs who were in the building didn't know who had come in.. The only thing they heard was the computer announcing the microwave barrier and been dropped and then a few minutes later that it was back up. Thanks to my keen eyesight we avoided all the traps and the computer hacker who was with us did such a good job she didn't trigger any of the computer traps which would have released a horde of NPCs on us.. Go team sneaky!

a Wedding and a possible Funeral

2010-09-10T10:19:00.007-04:00

I hate playing catch up but I apparently suck at this blogging thing lately. I would really like to get back into my daily blog mode but alas it keeps not happening.. It's not even like I don't have anything to say I just can't seem to find the time to say it. When it gets a few weeks out then it feels like I either need to write a smeggin' novel or not blog at all.

As you know (if you read the last blog) I had recently gotten my Droid X. After having it for over a month now I have to say I still love it. I do however wish the stupid 2.2 upgrade would be pushed to it already. I "check for updates" on the phone every day and still nothing.. The version of Android OS I have is buggy and it's annoying when little things hang or when you can't access all your contacts. The biggest bug I've had is the Social Networking app which does not work with any contact that is linked with a phone book contact.. This problem only happens if you try to hide anyone from the app so it's not a big deal, but still slightly annoying.

Oh, and speaking of issues with my phone... My stupid SD card died!? I lost all my pictures from the day I went to see Adams Family and the Mets game with my dad which included maybe the best picture I've had of him in a long time. I also lost all the pics and videos of my mom's "4th of july" bbq. Lesson here - copy pictures to your PC on a regular basis.

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Speaking of my mom's 4th of july bbq.. Because of everyone's crazy weekend schedules my mom moved her 4th bbq to Aug 21st, that's kind of like the 4th of july right? It was fun but it was also sad that Jessie and Lenny were missing. Lenny was out in Chicago and Jessie was taking care of Hoyle who had just had hernia surgery. Did have a blast hanging out with the kids and shooting off fireworks! And as always the food was very good as was the company.. :)

The week before the bbq I was in NYC again for work. I drove down on Sunday and went to the 8pm Mets game, after the game I went back to the hotel to find out they don't have a bar right now (construction) so I went to a local bar down on the corner. They had Abita on tap and the bartender was very cool, I ended up hanging out there till they closed.. I don't really remember what I did what day anymore but I ended up hanging out with Michelle and Jim one night, we met at a vegan place and then brought food back to his apartment. We just hung out on his balcony for a lots of hours chatting, listening to music and playing with phones.

While in NYC I went to see Expendables with a bunch of guys from Laire. It was very good, lots of unnecessary action and lots of good one liners. As Schwarzenegger was walking away in a huff Bruno asks Stallone what's wrong with that guy to which he responds oh, him, he just wants to be president! The bad guy telling a female captive that he does not believe in hitting women but that guy over there (Jesse Ventura) has no problems with it! Gotta love big stars making fun of each other on film.

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The day after my mom's bbq me and Jessie went to the beer and chili festival at Mohegan Sun. The stand out chili for me was Willi Brew Pub's chili, I had never had it because I am not one to normally get chili in a restaurant but I will make sure I get there more often. The best thing at the chili/beer fest was probably the ice cream! A company in Old Lyme called ironically enough Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe makes ice cream with beer, they had a few flavors to try and I was very impressed. Perhaps someone who lives or works near there should pick some up one day when they are in the area.. (hint hint)

Lush stopped making Tramp again!? When we first found Lush in Montreal I fell in love with Vagabond/Tramp, this is now the second time it's been discontinued.. Hopefully it won't be for very long this time. Speaking of Lush... I have been interested in a girl who works there for a while now and I finally got up enough nerve to ask her out.. :) She is a very cool girl with amazing tattoos. I feel sorta silly writing about her since I don't know how she would feel about being in my blog but I guess I'll find out.. We have hung out twice so far (yeah, I know, I need to blog more often) and I suppose I would say I'm a bit smitten..

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My dad had gotten tickets for us to sit in the Delta Club for a Mets game on the 28th. We decided to make a long day of it and got tickets to see Adams Family: The Musical on the same day.. The musical was good, the casting was great (except Pugsley), the story was all original and very well thought out and written, the dialog was classic Adams Family and they did a few awesome in-jokes throughout for the loyal Adams Family fans. The only thing that fell a bit flat was the music unfortunately. Some of the songs were very good but overall they were just eh. I think it would be more successful as a play and not as a musical. I do however recommend seeing it if you are an Adams Family fan. It is crazy expensive so maybe wait till it does a touring cast. It was very cool sitting in those seats for the Mets game, we had waiter service so you never had to leave the seat! Just wave your arm and a guy would come and take your order..

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This last weekend was a mix of great and REAL bad! Started out great, went to Laire on Friday and was pleasantly surprised at how painless check in was this weekend. We had a bunch of pre-regs so I thought it was going to be a painful night but in the end it was not bad. Went to bed after my work assignment because my back was killing me and I was tired. Played all day / night on Saturday and lots of fun playing Daimone. I have been playing Brother Hawk more lately so it was a nice change of pace, plus Rich, Harry, Bryan and Corina all showed up so we had almost the entire Order for the first time in a very long time. Sunday I played during the morning and then left to go to Vin's wedding. Vin's wedding was very fun, I had a blast dancing (thanks Dianne for pulling me up to Come on Eileen) and catching up with Mike, Steve, Vin, Randy and Matt.

After the wedding was the problem... I went back to Laire and was not in fighting form on Sunday night, very tired from the dancing.. But, after fighting for a while I got back into form and was fine by the end of the night. Monday the town got over run, I was in good form but we were getting pressed hard! The mages got so low on power that I was told there was not enough power to give out spell defenses, I should have taken this as a sign to stop fighting so hard. But, one of the Order was down and dying and after arguing and trying to convince the other Order members to assist me in saving him I did the only thing I could do. I grabbed too little support and ran out after him. A second or two into the rescue attempt my support had fled and I was forced to run back towards the line, on the way I got hit by a dark paladin's lucky shot and fell. Was brought back to lay next to my dying brethren and was turned into a Drowned One (think zombie but more powerful). Spent the rest of the event as Daimone the Drowned One attacking the town! I have a 1 in 20 chance of coming back.. If that fails it will be a sad sad end to an epic character. At least I died trying to save my men..

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This weekend is Future Imperfect, hopefully it will go better than Laire did last weekend.

Staycation 8/6 - current

2010-08-13T15:56:00.003-04:00

Staycation, all I ever wanted...

After a long night / morning of flying I went home, did laundry, packed and left for Laire... Friday night I did my logistics shift and went to bed! I got woken up in the middle of the night with someone trying to kill me in my sleep, no... Not in game, sorry... The rest of Laire was good but too quick.. I tweaked Chatima so he would be more assertive and had a very fun time playing him.

I left early so I could spend some time with Jessie but that was thwarted by important phone calls... Monday was craft day, me and Kevin got a lot done and Hoyle came over a bit latter and we ended up watching TV till too late.. Tuesday was dinner and it was nice to be able to veg out there.. Janine came over on Wednesday and we watched Wicked, I have not seen it in a while and it reminded me how much I like it.. Wednesday night me and Jessie caught up on Next Food Network Star and Daily Show. Thursday I basically hung out all day and worked on my medical pack for FI, I would probably have finished it but someone took the glue with them when they left on Monday night so I spent a lot of time on Wednesday and Thursday morning getting glue.. Thursday night me and Jessie finally had some time to ourselves without any distractions.. :)

We went to Turtles Taco Shop which is right down the street from us, I've eaten there before and I know they say they are SoCal influenced but now that I've recently been to Wahoo's Fish Taco I certainly agree.. The same fresh and vibrant flavors are here in little Putnam.. I will probably be bringing all my dates there... At least for a little while.. Speaking of bringing my dates around Putnam, Bella's Bistro finally has gluten free pasta and pizza dough.

This week has been full of downloading great little apps for my Droid X. Such a great phone by the way, only touch screen I've actually liked.. It's so responsive... Anyway, because I like to share, I got:

Games: Phit Droid 3, Phit Reload, a Scavenger Hunt game, Andoku Sudoku, GODroid, Dominion Card Shuffler

Utilities: Adobe Acrobat, a Bar Code Scanner, Ebay, a Shared Shopping Cart, Unit Converter, Flickr Droid

Travel: Fandango, Airline Checker, Yelp, HappyCow, NYC Subway maps, DC Subway maps, I downloaded the Chicago subway/bus map but it sucked.

Toys: Shazam (figures out what music is playing), Google Goggles (not very successful app thats supposed to determine what things are by taking their pictures, MotoTorch LED, SportsTap

If you have any other suggestions let me know.. Always looking for good apps.

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Tonight Lynz is coming over, it will be nice to spend some time with just the two of us.. Tomorrow me and Jessie are going to our friends Sarah and Mark's house for dinner and then depending on how late that goes to Rob's party. Sunday I drive to NYC for the 8pm Mets game and to teach next week.

Smegging caught up batman!

I'll try to make this a more regular thing again so you are not bombarded with this stream of blogs.

Oh, and I also updated Flickr and Youtube if you have not already seen..

Irvine Week 8/1 - 8/5

2010-08-13T13:28:00.002-04:00

Are you tired of reading blogs today? I am breaking them up to make the download quicker, you may have reached the end of a part but not the end of the complete blog, please check your library for the next part of this blog... :) If you get that semi-quote you get points..

...

Anyway, so now to Irvine... I think I hate the time difference between home and CA.. It's nice going but it sucks coming back.. But more on that later..

I got to Irvine Sunday night I honestly don't remember what I did after arriving.. Did I eat anything that night, other than on planes or in airports? Hmm... My flight was almost bumped, I got to the airport and of course they were overbooked so they offered to fly me to LAX instead of Santa Ana but in first class. I agreed but they ended up not needing me so I went off on my normal schedule to Atlanta and then to Santa Ana. I know I ate in Atlanta but I'm not sure if I ate in Irvine.. I'm going to say no, I think I got in pretty late so I just hung out in the hotel once I checked in.

Monday I ended up chatting with a girl on OKCupid during the day and made plans to hang out on Tuesday. I decided to go up to Downtown Disney after work and watch some of the Mets game at the ESPN Zone during happy hour and then hit Brennans for dinner. Well, apparently the ESPN Zone does not have a happy hour!? Or at least they don't offer any drink deals, they do offer food deals but I didn't want to eat there. While I was at the ESPN Zone Sarah (the girl from OKCupid) ended up texting me to see if we could meet up now instead of Tuesday. I left Disney, met her and went to Wahoo's Fish Taco for dinner. It was very good and very cheap.. SoCal Mexican is certainly a unique flavor, it's very fresh and alive if that makes sense. It was so nice after dinner, we decided to go to the beach and grab some wine, unfortunately the search for wine was harder than we thought and he sun was going down too quickly.. So, switch to plan B. Go to the hotel and have wine and chocolate in the room. :) She is a very cool person and I'm looking forward to hanging out with her again next time I'm in town..

Tuesday I went to Newport Beach and ended up eating at a brewery near the beach. I had a cobb sammich which was a great idea! It was turkey, bacon, avocado and cheese on a sweet bread. The beer was really good too, they had a blonde on happy hour special so that's what I had and it was right up there (if not better than) with Red Hooks old Blonde Ale. Watched the sun set over the beach and went back to the hotel and hot tub for the night cap.. Oh, and I also went to the short man's store on Tuesday before dinner and got two new shirts. One of my shirts had apparently ripped so I was in dire need of a replacement and what better town to be in need of a shirt.. Before we leave the topic of Tuesday, I went to the former site of Diedrich Coffee and had a moment of silence for that company as I enjoyed my Starbucks iced coffee...

Wednesday I decided to hit the Irvine Spectrum to get sushi at the cool place I have a frequent buyer card for... Things do change over the years let me tell you.. Plan - go the Fox Sports club and have a beer during happy hour while watching the Mets game, then go get sushi.. Fox Sports Club, gone! Sushi place, gone! Well smeg... How about plan b - go to the Yard House for a beer and then the new sushi place for dinner... The new sushi place was banging, I got what they called deluxe sushi combo which was mackerel, toro, abalone, and a few others with a toro tuna roll! As if toro was not tender enough they chopped it up for the roll... Sooo good, it was like butter in your mouth! After dinner I ended up hanging out in the courtyard at the hotel chatting with some of the people who were there for the swim competition..

Years ago Irvine high school built a massive pool facility with many Olympic sized pools. It was a massive burden on the tax payers but I guess it's paid off because they hold competitions there many times a year where people come in from all over the world.

Thursday I basically puttered around after work.. I went to Panera and ended up sitting outside at the seating area for hours while I played with my phone and enjoyed the sun. I also grabbed a screen protector and then went to the beach once again for a bit before finally heading to the airport for my LATE flight.. I really, really hate the red eye! But these are the things I do for Laire... I got a 9:40 flight (CA time) and landed in Atlanta after VERY little sleep around 4am. Hung out in Atlanta for 2 hours pacing the airport terminals and then flew to Hartford. I did sleep on that flight, I actually fell asleep before we took off and woke up on landing... WIN! Still was not nearly enough sleep.. Came home, did laundry and headed to Laire...

Sweeps week.. 7/23 - 8/1

2010-08-13T12:46:00.004-04:00

Got home on Friday the 23rd just to run back out again to Boston.. Jessie had gotten tickets to see Marc Maron at a bar in Allston, she listens to his WTF podcast. I listened to it once or twice and have been eh about it but I figured it would be at the very least funny.. I called the club and they assured me that the 7pm start time was accurate so against Jessie's better judgement I met her on the way and we drove up without eating first. I just have to say Smeg off to that bar! The doors opened at 7 but nobody went on for a long time after.. I can't be too upset at the cock knockers because we did end up with front row seats which is really great because of the way Marc Maron makes eye contact with his crowd and really seems to connect with them..

The first guy (who runs the comedy show there every week) came up and was pretty funny, he did a bit about hybrid Halloween costumes and did a Marty McFly / Abe Lincoln mix which was very good, his Michael J Fox impression was perfect and Abe Lincoln stressing out about getting back in time to free the slaves was awesome. He did another bit which was almost awesome, I saw almost because he went a bit too far with it.. It was about how he found a leather jacket at a hand-me-down clothes store and what he could deduce from the previous owner by what was in the pockets.. Great joke during the inspection of pocket number one, went to far when he looked in pocket number two.

The second guy was a local guy, Sean Sullivan, and he was very good. He did a bunch of jokes about buying a house in a horrible area and about buying a new toilet for that house. His stand out bit was certainly about the toilet..

Finally came Marc Maron who was the best of the night.. The only thing I will say about him is that if you ever get the chance to see him grab it.. I think he has a comedy central presents and a few other recorded stand up bits, actually I know he does because we have one on our iTunes. If you like funny with a bunch of real thrown in check him out.. Seeing him live will make me go back and try the WTF podcasts again, just need to get off my arse and put them on my iPod.

...

Saturday was Scott's wedding, me and Jessie drove down and checked in at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott before the wedding and then walked over the church. The church part was a church wedding, the music really stood out for me which is not surprising since music is a big deal to Scott. They actually had one of Scott's friends there via webcam so he could watch the wedding which was a really awesome idea.. The reception was a ton o' fun! It was nice to see everyone (including my brother) be silly and relax, it was so silly and relaxed that I even ended up on the dance floor for the end of the night. Lots of great pictures on my cousins facebook site, they had a silly photo booth which ended up being the biggest hit. You go in and click the button and it would take four pictures.. Great idea, will steal it... :D After the reception the place had a burlesque show so we stayed for the beginning of that, I was so tired and it was a very low energy show that we didn't stay long. It was more like half naked cirque de soleil then what I think of as burlesque. I want my burlesque to fun, goofy and high energy, I guess I can thank Pam for that..

Sunday we drove home and I got to spend a little bit of time with Lynz at Thompson Dam before the super work of cleaning my house on Monday..

Sweeps week... I was a bit stressed out about getting my disaster area of house set up for the bbq.. Luckily for me Kevin and Hoyle came over and helped me rip through the basement on Monday! We even cleaned the windows in the basement and garage! Vacuumed basement floor, walls and ceiling.. I don't remember which day I figured this out (might have been Monday), but the Furminator works wonders on getting cat hair off furniture! I spent a lot of hours working on each chair, couch and cushion so that our pet allergic friends could bare to be in the house for an extended period of time. I was going to bail on Tuesday dinner to clean but once again, thanks to Kev and Hoyle, I felt that I was able to go because the house was almost done. Wednesday I went to the Mets game and watched the Mets come back in the late innings just to lose in extras because our manager does not manage to win.. When you're home you can't reserve pitchers for innings yet to come, you need to play each inning in extras as if it were the last. Because of that he left one guy in too long and we ended up losing. That really sums up the entire season for the Mets.. We don't need to win today, as long as our players are healthy and rested tomorrow! How can your team lead the league in shutouts and era and be under .500!? Sigh... Maybe they will lose so many games between now and the end of the season they will have no choice but to fire him and bring back Bob Vay..

Thursday and Friday were spent prepping food and making sure all the last minute shopping was done. Oh, I forgot to mention, as if the normal load of getting the house ready was not enough.. We had a pipe burst in the basement! Luckily it was the outbound pipe so there was no water running into the basement unless you ran the sink and/or dishwasher. Almost $400 later we were able to do the dishes which had been piling up.

The bbq was great, thanks all for coming out! I even got to get out from behind the grill and play some games and hang out..

Sunday morning I got up and with Brad and Chris' help got the place cleaned up before heading out to Irvine...

--This weeks cleaning and being home was sponsored by teaching an online class!

Deep in the Heart of Texas - July 18 - 23

2010-08-13T12:44:00.000-04:00

I flew to Dallas on Sunday and met up with my friend Christine, she was a student of mine back in Chicago and we ended up hanging out that week a few times. Anyway she was waiting for me at the hotel when I arrived so I got changed and we went to dinner. Well, actually it was a bit early so we first went to the Stadium Cafe bar for a drink. Dinner ended up being at a micro-brew house that had opened up since last time I was there. The beer was just 'eh' but the food was actually really good. When I say the beer was 'eh' I'm being nice to it.. Christine actually didn't finish hers and I had to "down it" after I finished eating. We were walking back to my hotel room and walked by the comedy club which appeared to have an open showing, last time I was in town the comedy club was closed to the public for a best in texas competition. We went in and found that Jon Lovitz was doing a show that night, actually he was doing a show as we entered. The CC machine was already shut down and the box office was technically closed but they took some cash and brought us to a pretty close seat. The show was awesome!

Monday night I brought Josh to the Magic Time Machine, it was certainly not as cool as the first time. This time we had Wild Bill as our waiter and he might as well have been any generic dude. Not only that we were sat no where near the bathroom so I didn't get to see any cool bathroom heckling. The food was still amazing but the show was lacking...

Speaking of lacking shows, Tuesday night I went out with Josh and a few students to a Tepinyaki place, when the guy said "this one is japanese ketchup" I laughed till I realized it was ACTUALLY ketchup!! Then I was just sad.. The cook was very slow and did almost no tricks, and the ones he did do he did sub-par like the onion volcano. He absolutely killed the sprouts with soy sauce but he did an awesome job on the steak, scallops and shrimp so once again the food was great but the show sucked..

Wednesday we went to a mexican place and I had an amazing portabella mushroom burrito. It was an asian/mexican fusion dish, it had sesame seeds and a oriental style mushroom gravy.. So good! We didn't take advantage of it but when we arrived they had an avocado and some lemon on the table for you to make your guacamole. You could either make it yourself or have them make it at your table. We chose neither.. The chips they gave us were nice and warm and perfectly salted and the salsa was OMG amazing! I tried to buy some but to no avail.

Thursday I went to the Ballpark at Arlington to see the Texas Rangers.. I would rank the stadium pretty high up on the list.. What makes a good stadium? Food, view and ambiance.. The food - how about a bacon wrapped hot dog slow cooked over a bed of onions!? Not feeling that? How about some beef brisket, or a chicken fried steak sammich? The view - eh, I got row 1 in the upper deck and the bar was annoyingly in my view the whole game, I could either lean forward or scrunch down but I could not just sit normally without having the pitchers mound be blocked. If I was not in row 1 this would not have been a problem so I don't want to kill it on that. The ambiance - they have a giant kids play area behind center field complete with batting cages, pitching cages and a whiffle ball park. Unlike Citi-Field the lines were not crazy for the whiffle ball, probably because you had to pay ($1 per kid). They also had a statue of Nolan Ryan with all of his achievements in the middle of the kid play area. They had a Rangers Hall of Fame but it was closed due to a private party which sucked. The field level was very open and as you walked around the concession stands you got a view of the field which is nice, but the upper deck was not. The upper deck was the standard go through a tunnel to the food area behind the seats, I guess they all can't be Citi-Field.. My biggest knock on the stadium was the scoreboards, they looked like they were straight out of the 80s which does not make sense since it's a somewhat new ballpark. Before the game they did a great introduction with a song from each year the club was in existence with highlights playing during each song. Oh, and the awesome (or hysterical) thing was they played Deep in the Heart of Texas during one of the breaks! I laughed, then videoed the scoreboard!

Woke up FAR to early on Friday to get to the airport..

This week was Josh's co-teach for this class so we took turns teaching and watching.. Once he gets qualified it should free me up to do the Symm Config class more which is an online course which means more home time..

--Diversion of the Day

New York Week July 13 - 17

2010-08-09T12:52:00.004-04:00

New York Week:

I just re-read my last blog and I actually don't have to much more to say about New York week, Thursday night I met up with a girl from OKCupid. I went over her sublet and we chatted for a while and played a game she is co-designing called Mingle, it's a game designed to help you get to know each other better. It was a good game but the ending mechanism needs a bit or work. If the game goes massive I can say I played a beta version.... :)

Class got out at a decent time on Friday so I decided to see if I could grab an earlier train back. Waiting in line at Amtrack in Penn Station sucks! But it was worth it since I got on the earlier train afterall. I was planning on the fact that I was not going to be able to get on an earlier train so Jessie went out for the night. I stopped at Mohegan Sun to hit LUSH on the way home and the place was empty! It was so empty I decided I'd eat there and ended up at Bar Americain where I even ate the squash! I got a cod with mussels in a spicy corn sauce, the cod sat on a bed of raw spaghetti squash.. The sauce was so good I probably would have eaten anything you put in it..

---

One day home is CERTAINLY not enough, but I guess that's what you get sometimes.. I was home for Saturday and me and Jessie spent a nice lazy type day hanging around Thompson Dam..

---

Flew to Dallas on Sunday - to be continued in next blog.. I decided I would write these as separate blogs to make the reading time less overwhelming..

phew

2010-08-04T19:59:00.003-04:00

I've been away for a while... I'll be back soon I promise.. I have to catch you up on NYC and Dallas, our BBQ and Irvine.. In the meantime I uploaded a bunch of pics to Flickr and a video to Youtube (the ones from my old phone).. Enjoy..

I will really be back soon, I'm on vacation next week so at the latest I'll put something up Monday or Tuesday..

Back..

2010-07-15T12:34:00.003-04:00

In the New York Groove...

I'm teaching in Manhattan this week, I'm actually right in Penn Station.. Well, I guess it's technically in 2 Penn Plaza which is right upstairs, the entrance is also the entrance to Madison Square Garden.. Hotel is right in Times Square..

They are in the process of closing Broadway to cars! They are starting in Times Square (47th - 42nd) but I guess the plan is to close it to cars for most of Manhattan, I think it's a good thing because that stupid street does not follow the grid anyway so I think it will help car traffic and it will certainly help people walking in Times Square.. They are starting to put neat things to look at in the middle of the street, right now they have a "runway on Broadway" which is a row of mannequins dressed in designer clothing.. Speaking of designer clothing, Macys is going to have a Material Girl collection starting in August. I can't wait to see what they have.. :D

My office being in Penn Station has a great view of the Empire State Building and the building down the street has this really cool air bridge. I took a picture and will post it to Flickr later today..

I came down by train on Monday, I found out you can take Amtrack from New London right into Penn Station. It was supposed to be a quick train ride but the train had some kind of issue and therefore had to drive real slow.. We ended up being an hour late to arrive. Felt like kind of a dick pushing through Manhattan with my luggage but I was not about to take a cab 10 blocks. Got to the hotel and unpacked before heading out into the mob that is Times Square, took some time to check out the runway and then grabbed a salad wrap at Chop't which was very good. You start by picking your salad base, I picked mixed greens, then you pick up to four additions (mushrooms, cucumber, egg and cheese) and then a dressing (bacon thousand island), they take all that and cut it up and put it in a wrap. It was actually so big I only had about 2/3 of it. A friend from Laire picked me up around 8pm and we went to a bar in NJ for drinks and wings. Got to hang out with a bunch of people I normally only see at Laire so it was lots of fun but I didn't get back to real late..

Tuesday I went and hung out with Jim, we met at his new apartment which is super awesome, he even has a patio big enough for table and chairs.. We went to a mexican place for dinner and afterwards to a sports bar for drinks with one of his friends.. His friend of course assumed I was gay and when he found out I was not could not give me enough crap for it.. Not in a bad way, just in a really funny way.. It was very funny to be discriminated against for being straight.. lol

Yesterday I meet up with Rick and Michelle. We were going to go to Shake Shack, they opened a new one in Times Square, but the smegging line was insane! We ended up going to 5 Napkin Burger which was voted best burger in NYC, it lived up to the hype! Here is a good trick, when you forget your ID in the hotel room just talk about working in a bar as the waitress comes up and bingo no carding! Michelle dropped her stuff off in my room before we went out and she realized she forget her ID. We were actually talking about Laire and she was saying something like "she came up to me at the bar and asked if I would charge her cell phone, I said I didn't want it behind the bar because I don't want to be responsible if anything spills on it", the lady waited till she was done and asked what we wanted.. It was not done on purpose but it is a great technique! We planned to go to a 9pm show of Toy Story 3 so we went to Dave and Busters to kill some time, we played some good games and one real bad one before heading to the cinema. The movie was great!!! It was very touching and very well done, I won't say too much about it other than to say it revolves around Andy going away to college. Señor Lightyear was OMG funny!!

---Diversion of the Day

FiveFingers Take Two

2010-07-08T11:17:00.004-04:00

My VibramFiveFingers broke again the other day, I put the piece of the strap somewhere for safe keeping till I had a chance to sew it back on.. But... It would appear that wherever I put it is so safe that I can't even find it now... The only thing left to say is SMEG!

I kinda need them functional for this weekend since I'm playing Chatima and wear them as him.. I decided today to look for a knockoff pair but after searching for a while I'm finding that Vibram is doing a great job of shutting those places down as soon as they show up.. grrr.. The few that were still up and running were charging $50-$60 for the shoes + shipping.. The only place on ebay I did find for $25 wanted $25 in shipping and is in China so no hurried shipping would be available.. I hear REI has a crazy return policy so I might just buy a pair there and that way every time they break I can bring them back. I sent Vibram an amusing email today, they had a big thing on their website about if you have any information on counterfeit ones you should email.. Here is my email..

I purchased a pair of your fivefingers back in August of last year. They ripped for the first time in April, when I called your company the response was "well, you're not supposed to wear them everyday" and "we know they rip, you should try duct tape".. With comments like that how can you expect people to *not* purchase counterfeit ones? I sewed mine in April and have been wearing them everyday until they just ripped again. I now begin the process of looking for a counterfeit pair, I understand that they will probably fall apart in less than a year but how is that any different than yours?

Anyway, I ended up cutting the straps off today, I was reading on the vibram forums and people said that the shoes stay on with no straps. There are few people who say otherwise but at this point I don't really have another choice since I lost half of one of the straps anyway.. I figure I'll wear them today/tomorrow this way and if I really need to I can stop and REI on the way to Laire tomorrow..

....

Anyway, back to the Zev Zev..

I was up to Saturday July 3rd which was spent at my friend Chris' birthday party in NY.. Well that's not entirely true, most of the day was getting there.. We had a lazy morning but it was a good lazy because we didn't really have a time in mind to be there. He had these fireworks which can only be described by watching it in action. I have found a youtube video so you can enjoy the smegging beauty.. They are called Magic Snakes!

Sunday morning we (me, Jessie, Dianne and Randy) went to a raw restaurant in Beacon NY called Superfood Citizen, I can't find their real website in my 1.5 seconds of searching so here is the google link... :) I had a pizza and a "purple drink" which was all very good. The purple drink was beets and mangosteen as well as other good stuff. It did however make my pee purplish for the next few days.. After brunch we went to Brotherhood Winery which is right near their house. It is the oldest (never closed) winery in America, they made a alter wine before prohibition so they petitioned the government to stay open because the church needed their alter wine.. Gotta love the church?! Smegging politics.. Anyway, they make a really good riesling and one of the best meeds made commercially.

Monday was a craft day.. The main accomplishment was getting my Laire closet fixed, we took everything out of it and made a new frame for the top and then re-supported the straps and actually nailed it into the wood. It is MUCH bigger now and has everything in it.. We also found the tent we will get for FI, it's the Coleman Hampton Tent, it's $199 at Target but I'm sure I can find it cheaper online when we are ready to order. Interesting.. I may need to go get that now.. I just did a search for that tent and it's not listed on Coleman's website and the only sites I do see it on are more than Target... It's apparently a discontinued tent.. Here is a picture of it from an ebay listing..

Tuesday was dinner, Hoyle brought a little grill and we used that and Ryan's to grill up some tastiness!

Last night I went to my brother's house for dinner because we will be watching the kitties while they are away.. So you know how a lot of houses have a little loft area above stairs? Well, they have one of those areas and it's been just a wasted area till now... They made it a cat haven with their food, water scratching posts and play things.. So cute and probably the best use of that space I've seen.. :D

All night by the ...

2010-07-07T14:16:00.004-04:00

All night by the dead Zev
All night by dead Zev I did lay
If only my tears could be real
I would rust myself away

All night by the Zev Zev
All night by the Zev I lay
I found her tongue along my casing
Licking my dirt away

All night by the Zev Zev
All night by the Zev I did sigh
As she whispered sweet nothing to Stanley
While plunging a fork in his eye

All year by the Zev Zev
All year by the Zev I lay
I found her fist jammed in my neck stalk
And pleaded for it to stay

All year by the Zev Zev
All year by the Zev I lay
I found her smile bathing my being
Oh it should always be this way

That's right, that made no sense and no bearing on anything really.. Just felt like posting it..

....

I have not blogged in a while because I really have not had the time to sit down and type stuff up, and when I have I've been dealing with other stuff and junk.. Speaking of which..

I just got my PC fully working again, apparently McAfee had installed an update of Site Advisor and it decided to block most programs that were trying to get out to the web including McAfee updater!? Anyway, after fighting with McAfee Tech Support and then finally fixing it myself (with a co-workers suggestions) I am back up and running, and apparently blogging.. :)

....

Now the daunting task of running back through the last two weeks, jeez, it's really been that long.. If you're out there reading I'm sorry for the disappearing act.. Last time I blogged I was teaching in Milford on antibiotics for Lyme's Disease and getting ready for Laire. Stupid antibiotics made me so tired, especially when in the sun.. Laire + Sun Avoiding Antibiotics = Not a good idea.. I played Chatima to boot which means I got to wear a sleeveless shirt and LOTS of sun screen! I actually had a real enjoyable time playing him, got to laze about the camp and just sorta enjoy the weather. I am a bit disappointed I went to bed early on Saturday because I didn't get to see the awesome big battle but, sleep won out in the end so oh well..

.... - Week in DC

Left Laire on Sunday and drove to Mclean, Monday night I went to dinner at Zaytinya with Pam. I got into DC early so I walked over the National Mall and the Washington Monument before circling back to meet at the restaurant. It's a greek mezze restaurant, we got a few dishes and they were all very good but the best one was probably the lamb special dish. After dinner we wandered around the city for a bit and ran into a street corner big band, they were pretty good and surprisingly all dressed in shirts and ties carrying big brass instruments in the heat! Speaking of heat, for dessert we went to Pitango which is a gelato place that uses all grass fed milk.. After dessert we wandered around a bit more before I dropped her at the bus and headed back to Mclean. Tuesday I had dinner at Pam and Christian's house, they made fish tacos and cauliflower which was very good. It was the first time I had met Christian but it felt like I was reconnecting with an old friend instead of meeting someone new. Lots of fun was had just sitting around the kitchen table chatting and telling stories.

Wednesday I went to Gordon Biersch with Josh and Marvin from work.. I got them to use my frequent buyer card for all our bills so I should get some serious points for that.. Thursday I went into the city pretty early and went to the Smithsonian for a bit before heading over to the Folklife Festival, I was a bit disappointed in the festival because they were in "rain mode" which meant everything was either closed or mostly closed. The main concert was supposed to be at 6:30 but they cancelled that because it started thundering. I went to the American Museum which was a thrill a minute, they had such artifacts as Archie Bunker's chair..

Drove home on Friday and once again got stuck in MASSIVE traffic in CT! I'm getting real sick of 95 between Greenwich and New Haven, it used to only be bad around Stamford and New Haven now it seems to be bad the entire way!

.... - Two Weeks Home!?

Saturday I went to Kaitlyn's birthday party, the food was awesome! Her dad made chicken wings which were a-maz-ing... I unfortunately didn't hang out there too long because I was still on the antibiotics and was already getting tired so I didn't want to press the tiredness while attempting to drive home.

Sunday I went to the Mets/Twinkies game with Kevin and Hoyle. It was a good game and the weather was great, the stadium now has Poutine at the fries place.. Oh wait, it's not poutine, it's Disco Fries.. What a stupid name, they would probably do better just calling it Poutine. If you don't know, Poutine is fries with cheese curd, cheese and brown gravy.. I had it for the first (and many) time(s) in Montreal so it was nice to have it again.. But, um.. Should have realized they would American size it! For $10 it was enough food for me and Lynz to be full on.. I ate about half of them and then had a few bites of a pulled pork sammich from Blue Smoke. We sat in our seats till about 3:30 when we moved to section 424 which is where I want my seats to eventually be. They were already in the shade and the view is so much better there. Not that my seats stink but those are better..

Had a nice (but very quick) week at home, Lynz and Anja came over on Monday and we finished up watching Life. Tuesday was dinner. Wednesday I went with Lynz to dinner at Asian Bistro for our do-over anniversary (remember the beginning of this f'n Lyme's Disease started on our actual anniversary).. Thursday.. Thursday.. Something just occurred to me... Feel a tangent, must control it... nooooooo

It's amazing how you communicate with each person in a different way, I would say I talk to Jessie and Lynz at least once every day.. Any re-cap or important conversations however are either done on the phone (Lynz) or in person (Jessie), if I look back in my IM logs for Friday I don't see anything about Thursday.. Then I realized that used to be my fail safe because I would always IM Holly with the re-cap of the day/weekend before.. It's just odd to me that in the entire time I was with Holly I don't think we had one conversation over 10 minutes via the phone but yet we talked almost every day..

Anyway, back to Thursday.. I figured it out (I think).. I remember watching the last episode of Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps, I think that was Thursday.. Then again that could have been over the weekend. I know we watched some Chopped and ICA as well..

Friday night was the Putnam Fireworks, Hoyle came over for that and before hand we went to Bellas for Big Al's BBQ. We got to the fireworks right before they started and somehow still managed to get the best possible spot! We were literary right in front of the shoot off point.

... I'm going to end this blog now because I want to go home.. Will blog more later.. In the meantime, enjoy..

Two Pints & the Shark

2010-06-16T08:14:00.002-04:00

Just finished the final season of Two Pints of Larger and a Packet of Crisps the other night. My dad got the DVDs from the UK and me and Jessie have been watching them over the last few months, the show literally jumped the shark in the beginning of season 7 when one of the main characters won a trip to America and died in a shark attack after jumping it.. That season was pretty painful to get through but it redeemed itself in season 8 for a very good finale. One really odd thing is that the final season DVD does not have the final two episodes which apparently aired as a special after the season DVD came out!? Thanks to TV Torrents we now have those two episodes but have yet to watch them.

Onto other shows.. Comedy Central just got the rights to air the old It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which I caught while in Philadelphia last week (ironically), it reminded me how funny that show appears to be so we downloaded season 1 on TV Torrents. I also stumbled upon Junk Yard Wars on Discovery, it's a game show where teams have to build odd devices out of stuff in a junk yard. I only watched one episode so far in which they had to build a off road golf car to hit a soccer ball without human intervention, gotta love building stuff from junk!

...

This week has been very tiring, this Lyme's Disease is kicking my ass on a daily basis but it will be over soon.. Wednesday night I went to Tony Luke's to get a Philly Cheese Steak, Tony Luke bought the building across the street from his original cheese steak stand and turned it into a sit down restaurant. It was raining pretty hard (not always sunny in Philadelphia) so we (me and Josh) went inside instead of to the stand. Got an original wiz cheese steak with a side of alfredo pasta and was NOT disappointed, I'd had a Tony Luke's cheese steak at Citizen's Bank Park the other year but it was certainly much better at the restaurant.

Thursday I went out to Matt's house which is about 60 miles from Philadelphia, unfortunately about 40 of those miles is on a two lane road that goes nothing but straight right across NJ, it's a VERY pretty road but the traffic going to the ocean was out of control. My GPS said it would take an hour but it ended up being more like 2 hours 30 mins.. The ride was worth it though. We went to a little crab shack and I got an egg battered tilapia with crab meat on it. When I say crab meat I don't mean the normal bread crumbed crab meat, it was big chunks of naked crab meat! The ride back was great till I hit Philly, the last 20 miles took me over an hour!

Friday was driving home day and I of course I got stuck in major traffic in NYC and CT, had a late dinner and a very quick weekend. Went to Mom's house on Saturday for dinner and to meet her new dog Storm. We made portabella mushrooms on the grill and asparagus with lots of bacon on them. Sunday I went up to Nurit's house for her birthday and played DDR and Dominion, I ended up calling it an early night because I was tired but I had a good time.

...

Long drives are always made better with good books, I am currently listening to Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt, it grabbed me right from the beginning and I would recommend it to anyone who likes Time Travel books. Before that I listened to Castle in the Air by Dianna Wynne Jones, it is the 3rd book in the Howl's Moving Castle world. Her books are very fun and good for all ages. You know, I just said it was the 3rd book but apparently I (and audible.com) are wrong, it is actually the 2nd book in terms of publish order but the 3rd in terms of reading order.. I guess that counts of 3rd right? Anyway, I think I'm going to grab some of her other books in the months to come.

...

Last thing I want to mention, Vote Wright! David Wright is in 2nd place for 3B in the all-star game voting. Got to MLB.com and vote, you can vote 25 times per email address. If you have 2 email address you should vote 50 times!

---Diversion of the Day

Lyme's Disease?!

2010-06-08T22:42:00.002-04:00

While in Miami I got bit by a tic. I didn't even realize at the time that I was bit, I felt a itch and saw the tic walking on my stomach so Jessie grabbed it off with a napkin. Well, I got home and went to Laire and after I was tired.. Wow, tired after Laire, that's a real shock. As the week went on I started to feel dizzy as well and figured I really needed sleep. Lynz came over on Friday and we found I had a 103 fever! Kept ice on my head over the night and kept my fever under 102, woke up Sat and my fever was about 100 so I went to the Mets game because my dad got us really good seats. Slept (or tried to) on the way down while Jessie drove, we stopped at Raw Soul and got some food, I had a juice before the game and sat at the seats till about the 5th. I was starting to feel real dizzy and when I took my temp it was at 104!? Jessie figures the thermometer was getting a bad read but either way we went inside the Ceaser's Club and iced me down for a while. I ate some good raw avocado soup from Raw Soul that we brought in and then headed home. I once again tried to sleep on the way home and when we got home I went to bed and crashed, woke up around 12:30 on Sunday and watched the game on TV. While I was watching the game Jessie noticed the red spot on my stomach so Monday morning I went to the dr to get the official diagnosis. End results are 3 weeks on antibiotics!?! Oh well, could be worse.. At least it will be gone after that because we got it early enough.

...

After the doctor on Monday I drove down here to Philadelphia to teach this week. Only 4 students and so far things are running smoothly, tonight I went with Josh (another instructor) into Philadelphia and went to Milah which was very good.

I'm going to do my best to eat healthier while on these antibiotics because I don't want them to destroy my stomach too much.

Buck nekkid in Miami!

2010-05-27T17:43:00.001-04:00

Whose bright ass idea was it to get a 5am flight out of Boston? Logan airport parking is crazy expensive compared to Hartford and Providence, we look into other options but apparently nobody wants to travel with mass transit in the late night/early morning. The Logan express bus from Framingham and the trains do not run that early, what kind of a city is this anyway? The subway (T) stops from midnight to 4am, the bus is worse. Jessie ended up finding a external parking lot near the airport so we parked there, hopefully the shuttle from the airport to that parking lot will be easy to find when I get in today.

Anyway, we got to the hotel in the late morning and took some time to plan out what we wanted to see and when. Monday we ate lunch at a local brewhouse that Abita Purple Haze on tap! The burger I got was good and Jessie got a fried platter, the highlight was probably the deep fried pickles.. After lunch we went to a real upscale mall so Jessie could go to a designer's (DVF) clothing store. She tried on a few dresses, I think the cheapest one was $300. I really liked the little black dress she tried on but I don't think I could justify the cost, her plan was to find her size and then look for them on eBay or on some other such site.

I've been to the ocean now in a bunch of different locations around the world and one thing remains the same.. The water is smegging cold! We were in Australia and the water was so smegging cold I only stayed in for a few minutes. So naturally I don't change into my bathing suit because I figure I'll just walk in the water and be done. After hitting the water I was shocked by how warm it was, we went and got changed and I spent almost an hour in the water. I loved getting hit by the waves and I even swam across one as it was breaking, when I say across I mean along it on top. Only for a few seconds but it was neat to have the white break under me.. :)

We went to get changed again but the bathroom was closed!? We walked back towards the car and I found a great little set of bushes, there was one big one running along the sidewalk and another two in a V creating a triangle, there was a walkway into the center of the triangle but only viewable from the parking lot and not from the street or sidewalk. If you went into the center of the triangle you can't even be seen from the parking lot so I called it a dressing room.. Nothing like being balls naked in the middle of the city in the middle of the day! :D

We decided to get some rock crabs while in the area since it seems to be a big "to do" thing. We were going to go to Fifi's but it was in a sketchy area and their menu was not impressive so we ended up going to Billy's Crab House. Billy's was impressive but also very expensive.. Apparently "market price" was $40+ a plate.. The rock crabs were served cold over ice, the shells were cracked already so it was just a matter of ripping them apart. I would recommend them if you're in the area and have some extra money to spend on food..

Tuesday we went to the Seminole Indian reservation and did a water tour and a buggy tour of the Everglades at Billie's Swamp Safari. We saw some aligators, one up real close, it was pretty much touching the boat. The buggy tour was more impressive, but only because of the driver. He got out at one point and grabbed some of the bark of a palm tree and then later got off in a recreation of an old Indian house and started a fire with flint and steel and the palm tree bark. All the animals were free range and would walk in front of the buggy, at one point a bunch of animals were blocking the road and he used a horn to make them move, he said it was the first time he used he horn and in the past they would just bump the animals to make them move. We ate lunch at Billie's and I got a ethnic burger which was rolled in dough and then deep fried! It was really good but sorta scary. I posted a video of the burger on youtube.

After the swamp tours we went to a museum and saw an old ball and post game that the Indians used to play. We walked their nature walk for a bit before heading over to Sunlife Stadium to see the Marlins play the Braves. Sunlife stadium would be a great place to see a football game but for baseball most of the bars and stands were closed, they had the entire upper deck closed because they didn't have enough fans to warrent opening it. We sat eight rows from the Marlins dugout and had a great view of the Mermaids when they came out and danced for the 7th inning stretch. The food was nothing special, we ended up getting Boar's Head sammiches which were over priced and not very good. We then got a hot dog from the same kosher place that's at CitiField. I enjoyed the stadium but it certainly felt like the Marlins were playing in an away stadium.

Wednesday we went south to the Fruit and Spice Park and Coral Castle. The Fruit and Spice Park was very cool, they bring in plants and trees from all over the world, before the tour you can eat some of the fruit off the trees. There was one cherry which was star shaped that was amazing, unfortunatly because of the odd winter/spring they had there was not much fruit to be had. The tour guide was very good and kept stopping to show us different plants and explain what they were used for. After the tour we stumbled on a sign for a winery so headed there..

Schnebly winery was very pretty, they had a sitting/party area built out back with native huts and a waterfall. Because grapes in Florida are apparently crappy they use other fruits to make the wine. We got some of the Avocado wine, some of the Mango wine and some of the Guava wine. While we were at the winery it poured but it had stopped by the time we left (gotta love Florida weather)..

Coral Castle was very cool, apparently the guy who built it did so because a girl spurned him. They had an audio tour that was supposedly done by the guy who created it and he was a bit insane. He built chairs, tables, beds, etc all out of coral. They were suprisingly comfortable. I layed down on the bed and was actually comfortable, and the chairs rocked! I think it helps that the guy who made it all was five foot nothing so it all fit us.. :)

For dinner we went on a raw restaurant tour which started in Whole Foods where I got a Monk in the Trunk amber ale. I saw the name and had to get one, it was actually very good. After Whole Foods we went to OMGarden and got a main course. The place was in a run down area of Miami and the owner/waitress was a bit of a bitch but the food was great. Went from there to Green Wave which was closer to our hotel and got dessert. They have a water cooler that requires no water?! It sucks the humidity out of the air and filters it to drinkable water! What an amazing concept, the water tasted like bottled water..

Got back to the hotel on the early side and walked around the plaza across the street looking for somewhere to get a drink, ended up grabbing wine at the grocery store and came back to the hotel so Jessie could do some laundry.

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Now I'm sitting in the airport in Cleaveland, to be more specific I'm sitting in Great Lakes Brewery having another great Amber ale.

From Chicago to Miami with a quick stop in Catalyst

2010-05-27T17:16:00.001-04:00

The last time I blogged I was out in Chicago.. That night I went to see a friend of mine in a burlesque show. The show was not till 10 so I went to Chicago Diner for dinner and then wandered around the city for a bit. I had a mock pastrami sandwich with mock bacon, it had banana peppers and sprouts on it and was very good and very large. All the mock meat at the Chicago diner is made with gluten so if you have gluten alergies don't even think about going there.. :(

Afterwards I was wandering around and stumbled upon a guy on a crazy bike trying to drumb up money to do a trick. The bike's frame has a circle above the rider and has a tire attached to the frame, he does a trick in which he pushes forward and rolls the bike over. If you pay him $5 he will do a single roll, for $10 he will do a double roll. The crowd he was talking to had already given him most of the money and I contributed to the pot to get it up to the $10 needed. He rode down the street a bit and came back doing his rolls as he passed us, I got a real good video of it and posted it to youtube.

Met my friend at 9pm and hung out with her before the show. It was the first time we met face to face after years of talking on IM. She is as cool in person as she is on IM, no strike that, she's cooler in person.. :) Speaking of firsts, it was the first time I went to a burlesque show and I really enjoyed myself. There was eight dancers and each one did a song/act. I can't say all burlesque shows are awesome but Chicago's Vaudzilla certainly is, if you're ever in the city you need to make time to see them. I am going to make a point to see other burlesque shows to see if they are as cool.

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Saturday I went to see Iron Man 2 with Jessie and dad, it was very well done and I loved the fact that they tied in the Avengers movie. Two of the Avengers comes to Iron Man and evaluates him for membership in the Avengers. There was not as much action as the first movie but they did a great job of showing the political and business aspect of Iron Man.

Sunday me, Badger and Jessie went back to the Robin Hood Springtime Festival with her friend Drew. The weather was amazing and it was great to be able to have time to just wander the faire a bit without having to worry about running from plot show to plot show. Me and Jessie did a vow renewal ceremony with Friar Tuck.. :D After the show I went with Lynz to JD Coopers for dinner and pool.. All in all, a great weekend home..

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Most of the week was working with Kevin trying to get everything ready for Future Imperfect, we got everything but Kevin's new chest plates done. Still want to make small changes to mine like put brown leather around the whole thing instead of the black tape that I put there for the time being. Kevin got his armor wearable but still has a long way to go to make it the way he wants it.

Thursday night me and Jessie met John, Lynz and Anja at 3rd Thursday in Willimantic. We ate some dinner and watched a folk band in the beer garden.

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Future Imperfect was just as good again, I know I've said it before but that game really is awesome! The guy who runs the game setup a module for the players to gather food for the cooks to make for dinner. He actually went out Friday night and dug holes and buried potatoes and carrots, he also made "boar poo" that had resources in it. The poo was so realistic we were avoiding stepping in it and at one point Kevin was getting close to it so we decided to move it so people could dig without worrying about it. I grabbed a stick and when I stabed it to move it I found a resource and that's when we realized it was fake! What a site to see the colony officials breaking apart poo to get resources!

This weekend coming up is Laire, I hope it can be half as fun as Future Imperfect..

Vibram Five Fingers - Shoddy Materials..

2010-05-13T09:30:00.004-04:00

The strap on my Five Fingers finally broke the other day.. I got the shoes in August of last year and the strap on my right shoe split already?! I noticed it happening so last week I called Vibram, their response to the problem was to point me to a fan site which tells you to duct tape the straps to stop them from ripping! So, basically Vibram understands that they make shoes that will fall apart in less than one year and really don't care.. How can I recommend these shoes to people if I know they won't even last a year? It might not be so bad if they were only $30 or so, but they are $85 and that's a lot to pay for shoes that don't even last a year. These shoes are meant for outdoor sports which means they are meant to beat up, how can you make flimsy shoes that are meant to be used for outdoor sports? So now I'm left with three options: buy a new pair (am I really going to give them more money for another 8-9 months of shoe wear?), duct tape the ones I have (now that it fully ripped how well is the duct tape going to last?), find another manufacturer who makes similar shoes? I'm going to do the 2nd one for now but I will be on the look out for the 3rd option because I am not happy with the quality of these shoes. Now the trick is finding brown duct tape, you would think it's not hard but it seems to be out here in Chicago. I've gone to three different places and they had all kinds of crazy colors, but no brown..

Terra Plano makes a shoe they call Vivo Barefoot but they are not "toe shoes", I wonder why they call them barefoot? I'll have to find some and try them on. According to their website there is ONE location in the US and it's in NYC. Maybe I can find someone else who carries them?

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This week I'm out in Chicago, it's cold and wet and I forgot my duster.. Well, that's certainly not going to keep me from adventuring out.. :)

I got here on Sunday night and went over to the White Chocolate Grill for the amazing Balsamic marinated Rib Eye. I've been to that restaurant four times and every time I've been there I have gotten the same thing.. Yes, it's that good! If you ever get a chance to be near a WCG make sure you go and get that steak. There are few of them across the country so you never know..

Monday night I went to the Cubs game, I was debating it because of the weather but I figured I'd head over to the stadium area at least. Once in front of the stadium I have to admit I couldn't ignore the allure of spending a night sitting in the brick and ivy. I got a cheap upper deck ticket and headed over to Goose Island for a pre-game beer. Got one of their new summer ales and headed into the stadium. I was originally going to do dinner at the Chicago Diner but timing was bad so I ended up eating two bison dogs in the stadium, those two options are equally healthy right? Yes you read that right, bison dogs.. Wrigley field now has bison dogs and hot dogs, the crazy thing is that they are the same price! It was a good game but man was it cold, the wind whips through the upper deck worse then in NY.

Tuesday I went into Chicago with two students and we went to Goose Island for dinner. As we were leaving the Cubs game was getting out so instead of getting stuck in the sardine of a train we walked over to the Chicago Diner area. We were looking at the menu in the window and Christine commented that she had not a Fat Tire in a long time and that it was one of her favorite beers so we went in to get one.. Unfortunately they were closed so we went to a pub nearby and got one there, we ended up staying and chatting for a long time and didn't get back to the hotel till about 2am.

Yesterday I went into Chicago to meet a girl from OKC. Met near her apartment and walked around a bit before deciding on an Italian place (forgot the name but it is over by House of Blues). She moved to Chicago recently from New Hampshire and is still getting familiar with the city. After dinner I headed back to Naperville and tried to find brown duct tape which was a failure as previously noted.

Tonight I'm going to see a Burlesque show at Blue Bayou. It's not till 10pm so I may end up going over to a concert venue to see Kim Taylor before hand.

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Last week I was home catching up with everyone.. Kevin came over and we made enhancements to his armor and made me a breast plate and hat armor for FI. It looks pretty bad-ass, I am going to post pics on Flickr in a little bit so you can see.

Saturday we went to the new CT Robin Hood Springtime Festival. It started out as a miserable day with TONS of rain! Luckily the rain stopped before any of the plot shows and it ended up being a really nice day. If you're familiar with the Pope and Cardinal show you would be interested in knowing that the guy who played the Cardinal wrote the plot for the Robin Hood faire and the guy who played the Pope is the good king.. I have to hand it to both CT Ren Faires, they make you have to go twice because of the sheer amount of shows and things to see. We are going back on Sunday of this week to see some of the regular shows, hopefully it will be nice out..

Mclean VA and Camden Yards

2010-05-03T12:27:00.002-04:00

Tuesday night I went to the local sports bar. I stress the word local, to say this was Cheers-like would be very accurate, I walked in and the bartender before taking my order asked me my name and where I was from. She then introduced me to the other people around the bar! Ordered some food and she threw the Mets/Dodgers game on the TV over the bar. Shortly after I got there Mike and John asked me if I wouldn't mind if they put the Basketball game on that TV since it's playoff time. I said sure and they moved the baseball game to a side TV. Got included in a free round by Jim, one of the regulars and my burger was really good. Hung out for a bit after the game ended because I was enjoying hanging out with my new friends.. :)

Wednesday night.. Robyn cancelled because she got called into work so I ended up going alone to Gordon Biersch, got lobster bisque and sea bass. After dinner I went back to Neighbors because it was Donna's 50th Birthday and I wanted to stop in and say happy birthday.. Hung out for a few drinks but left somewhat early because I was starting to feel get a sinus cold.

Thursday night.. I got tickets to see the Yankees and Orioles at Camden Yards. Met Matt, Sile and Daniel at McCormick and Schmick's for dinner, I had a Parmesan crusted flounder cooked with capers. It was so good! After dinner me and Matt walked over to Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the game. We got there early and walked around the stadium, when you first enter the stadium you're in the highlight of the park. There is a road past that runs from the CF corner to the LF corner out past the wall, during game days they close that road off and it's part of the stadium. It was very pretty and was full of historical things to look at like the Oriole Hall of Fame, and a great moments in Baltimore sports history section. We had just eaten so we didn't pay too much attention to the food, but they had a bunch of Baltimore local microbrew stands which were very good. Went up to our seats and found that there was two bars in our way of the field view. The seats were very wide but only the first row had cup holders. Around the 7th inning I got hungry so we went in search of something to eat.. Hot dogs, hot dogs, sausages, hot dogs and hot dogs was about all we found. I was very disappointed in the food selection at the stadium, to be fair they also had hamburgers and one place on the right field corner of the field level which sold expensive wraps. We walked the entire stadium and I ended up with a pretzel which they only sold at one location behind home plate on the field level! Maybe I'm spoiled by the food at CitiField but I have come to expect a mix of high end and low end food. In order to get into my top list of stadiums you need some sort of special food and they just didn't cut it.

Friday was drive home day.. Lynz came over but I was probably at the height of my sinus cold so we just ate some dinner and snuggled on the couch..

Saturday I got my bike back and on the road! I didn't ride much because I was coughing and sneezing while trying to ride and not very good when wearing a face shield and helmet.. But, it was the most comfortable I felt on my bike since I've gotten it! That night we went to Foxwoods to eat dinner and to see Mark Knopfler. Ate at the Grill at Two Trees and had Salmon in capers and kalamata olives which was very good. The concert was great, the sound quality at the MGM might be one of the best I've heard in a long time if not ever. It sounded like you were listening to a live recording, everything was very good and no echo or hard to hear instruments/vocals. The concert itself was also very good, it was very "trance" and you could just close your eyes and let the music flow over and through you.. It was odd seeing how old Mark Knopfler is because he's one of those people you don't see, never see videos and he usually has pictures of instruments on his CDs.

Sunday me and Jessie went to see her mom... It was, umm.. Fun? Sure.. Dinner was great! We ate at a little seafood place on the Hudson and I had a prime rib with crab stuffed shrimp.. Yum!

Quick Recap 4-27

2010-04-27T14:16:00.005-04:00

Last Friday was travel day.. I got home right before 6 and spent the night relaxing and catching up on the TV.. South Park has been great the last few episodes, saw the Facebook one and the two part 200th episode and all three were very funny! If you don't normally watch it I recommend grabbing those on Hulu.

We also caught on the Daily Show and his reaction to South Park was perfect, it's a good thing he is a "comedy show" and can get away with what he does under that guise..

Saturday we went to Armsby Abby and then to the Heavy Metal Festival in Worcester to see Eluviette, they only played for about 30 mins but it was worth it. It was amazing to see how many people were actually there just to see them, we arrived while they were setting up the stage and all the people around us had done the same. When we were leaving so were others and they were also only there to see them.. I think it's time for a Folk Metal Festival in Worcester!

The night was far from over, we went over to Lynz and John's house for Cheese Fire and hung out for a while.. It was a very good time, I expected it to be fun but was actually surprised at how much so.. :D

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Sunday, rainy Sunday... Went to the Mets game for a bit on Sunday before driving down to Mclean. It was cold and rainy and I didn't stay very long, the game got suspended shortly after I left and finally cancelled because of the rain. The entire ride to Mclean was massive rain, so much so that I had to use my wipers on full blast..

Got in around 1:30 and stayed up chatting with dad for a bit while he drove home from NY.

Monday night I was in the mood for Buffalo Chicken so I went to local sports bar here called Chicks n' Wings, the service was so slow I almost left before ordering. I'm glad I stayed because the food was actually very good once I got. Found out that the manager only scheduled one girl to work, normally Mondays are slow, but not during the hockey playoffs.. Way to plan...

Yeah, Like the Groundhog Phil...

2010-04-22T18:24:00.002-04:00

I've decided the last few days have been almost Groundhog Day-ish.. Get up, grab some Dunkin Donuts on the way to work, teach, find a sports bar with the Mets game on, eat some dinner, watch the game and go to bed...

Tuesday night I went to the Hub which is right by work, they have a free buffet from 5pm-7pm provided you buy at least one beer and their beer is $2 for a draft from 5pm-7pm! How about a $6 dinner? The Mets/Cubs game was on WGN so I was able to watch it there and hang out with some cool people in the process.

Wednesday night I went to the Hub to find out they don't get the MLB Extra Innings so I could not watch the game there, it was CSN or SNY or MLB Extra Innings. Still ate there, because of above mentioned buffet with beer. Tuesday night it was pork tenderloin with a corn salsa, Wednesday night it was fettuccine with mushrooms in a brown gravy. Both nights also had Ceaser Salad and both nights were very tasty. Left there in search of Mets game, went to Twin Peaks which is a sluttier version of Hooters, they didn't have the game either. From there I went to Champs which did have the game and hung out with a few beers and watched the Mets get smoked.

Tonight? Going to Stadium Cafe which is right by the hotel and according to their website gets the MLB Extra Innings and has a free dinner buffet from 5pm-7pm with the purchase of a beer!

Class went well and ended real early because the students didn't need some of the information in the class so I breezed through it.

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Other news... I changed over the Bella's site to a new design, check it out if you haven't already. www.bellasbistromarket.com.. I also moved it to a new server because my old one didn't support PHP and my cousin was giving me shit about writing everything in generic HTML. It is much easier to do broad changes in PHP so it will be much better this way when I need to make changes.

Heading home tomorrow for two nights! Friday I have "relax at home" on the schedule, Saturday I have the Heavy Metal Festival in Worcester and then Lynz' Cheese Fire. Sunday I leave for McLean VA..

Burn that Candle...

2010-04-20T09:44:00.003-04:00

I told my co-worker how I was flying home from Seattle and going to a concert Saturday night in Maine and then leaving Sunday for Dallas, fly home from Dallas and go to a concert again on Saturday before leaving on Sunday for Mclean. His response was "man, you're really burning that candle at both ends", both ends you say? I think I found a few spots in the middle that burn too.. :)

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Last day in Seattle

I got out of class and headed back into Seattle to go back to the Science Fiction Museum, I'm glad I did.. In my hurry to look around the first time I missed the Red Dwarf model, they had one of the original Red Dwarf models used in the show, unfortunately they keep all the displays dark so I was not able to get a good picture. One of the big interactive screens I walked by the first time was a space dock that had bunches of ships dock and then fly away again, under the big screen they had little screens which you could interact with each ship that shows up on the big one. They listed the speed, maneuverability, fire power, distance, size and crew capacity for each ship as well a little blurb about who made the ship and why. It was really neat to look at and compare the different ships from the different sci-fi stories.

Walked around downtown a bit more before spending way too much time in the airport..

Hung around the airport and met a girl who was flying home from Hawaii, she grew up in Florida and moved to Hawaii because her husband got stationed there with the Army. She was telling me about how great the health care is there.. Is anyone surprised? You mean government provided heath care for all is a good thing?! Who knew... Oh wait, I (and probably all of you reading this) did...

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Landed later than I thought but I did get a bit of sleep on the plane, on the flight from Atlanta to Hartford I had an empty row so I was able to lay down. Me and Jessie hung out at the house for a bit while I did laundry and then we headed up to Maine. We got to the concert venue a bit before 6 and got a chance to walk around before the show, the highlight was a used toy/comic store which had tons of awesome stuff from the past. We ate at a local pub and got to the concert just in time to get front row seats. The concert was awesome! Jessie was concerned because when she saw it in Cambridge they had guest singers for each part and here they only had Anais singing. I have heard the CD before but never really realized how much she looks and sounds like Alyssa Jones from Chasing Amy, it was so close I actually looked up on IMDB to see if they were the same person or at least related. They are not..

When we first got to the venue there was a guy holding the door open for the musicians to bring in instruments. I asked him what time the doors opened and he went and found out, while he was gone Jessie informed me that he was the bass player... doh...

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Got up early and came down to Dallas via Cincinnati.. Went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and watched the Mets lose on ESPN.

Monday lunch was great, work provided because we have customers in the class and they brought in Chicken Marsala with a tray of grilled veggies and roasted potatoes. It was so good I went back for seconds. Speaking of good, dinner was great too.. I went to Magic Time Machine which is a theme restaurant over by the hotel. All the waiters are dressed as different characters, my waiter was Jack Sparrow and he did a great job of the part. They also had Dr Evil, Mr Incredible, Cinderella, the Mad Hatter and others. One of the funniest things was the bathroom calls, if you made the mistake of being seen going to the bathroom they would yell things at you.. One example was Cinderella asking a guy "Are you going to the potty?! Try not to pee on the floor again!", and don't make the mistake of asking anyone where the bathroom is because then they walk you all around the restaurant announcing that "this guy has to pee". Dr Evil had a guy following him as he asked each table if he could borrow their cups because this guy had to pee! He walked the guy around the restaurant like three times before he finally showed him to the bathrooms.. The food was just as good as the entertainment, I had a blackened stuffed prime rib which was two 5 oz prime ribs with crab meat and scallops between them, take that and put on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and some asparagus. So good! I was going to just get a Rib Eye but Jack Sparrow recommended the stuffed prime rib, I just have to say thank you Capt Sparrow..

Got back to the hotel and watched the Mets game, which was once again on ESPN. After the game I went down to the hot tub to find they closed it early?!

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I slept good, but I must have slept odd because my back is killing me today, hopefully I can get to the hot tub before they close it today. I'm feeling something healthy for dinner, maybe sushi? Lunch today was mexican and just ok..

Bellevue Trip Part 3

2010-04-16T14:51:00.002-04:00

I left my co-instructor to watch the labs and headed out into Seattle yesterday afternoon. I parked over by Pike's Place which was crazy expensive ($5.00 per hour or $35 for all day), I figured this was ok since it was a city and I did expect parking to be high, but more on that later..

I had .50 cents in my pocket from the my purchase at Fred Meyer and I knew exactly where that money was going, or at least half of it. Seattle has a very old peep-show strip club called the Lusty Lady, remember Madonna's Open Your Heart video? This place is kinda like that but a bit, umm dirtier.. Anyway, I was told that this was a Seattle staple and that it was closing in the next few months so I figured I would check it out. You go in and there a bunch of booths around a glass enclosed stage, you go in and for a quarter you get a minute view of the stage. There were probably 6-8 girls standing around naked on the stage and when they saw your window open they would go over and rub against it. I guess it's ok to "take care of business" in the booths because they have tissues and a garbage pail in each booth. I spent my quarter and now I can officially say "been there, done that"... Went from there to a real strip club for a few songs and then over to Pike's Place Market.

The Market was really nice, it is the kind of place I would certainly shop if I lived in the area. They had lots of fresh fish, produce and artwork. The back end of the market was overlooking the ocean and most of the restaurants had outdoor seating, I didn't eat there because it was too early and I was not hungry yet. I spent some time in the park at the end of the market and then walked over to the Space Needle. The Space Needle is in a big park complex which has a kiddie amusement park and a few museums. Parking across the street, $7 all day!!! I went up the Needle and walked around the outside and hung out a bit inside before coming back down.

After that I went into the Science Fiction museum and the Rock and Roll Museum, the SciFi one was really cool, I didn't have much time there but they stamped my receipt so I can go back today if I get out of class early enough. Some of the highlights, they had a bunch of original Star Trek props including uniforms. They had a droid exhibit which had Tweeky, the robotic dog from BattleStar Galactica, R2D2, Robbie from Lost in Space and the robots from Black Hole. The exhibits were very dark so I didn't get many pictures that came out well enough to post on Flickr. They also had an original ET used in the movie, the Deathstar model, a Blade Runner exhibit, a Planet of the Apes exhibit, etc, etc, etc... If you're ever in Seattle I recommend it.. The Rock and Roll museum was probably as lame as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but I did see an awesome banjo/horn combination instrument from the 1920s.

In case you were wondering about how stupid I felt about parking... There is apparently a monorail in Seattle, it has two stops.. 1: the Space Needle, 2: Pike's Place Market! Grrr, could have saved a bunch of money if I had known where to park... Oh well, took the monorail back and found some live folk music in a park.. Yay?! No! It was a Fox News anti-Obama rally!!! Left there and found the best homeless guy ever, he had a sign saying that is father turned to the darkside and he needed money for an x-wing! I gave him money and took a picture of him and his sign. I'm not sure he was homeless, I think he was just out of work..

Left Seattle shortly after that and went back to Bellevue.. Ate dinner at Jack in the Box! You knew I had to one day... Got my Bacon Ultimate Burger on Sourdough! Just the 2000+ calories I needed...

Class is just wrapping up, some students still working on labs and then I think I'm off back to Seattle before going to the airport. I unfortunately have a 10:25pm flight so I will have lots of time to kill...

Bellevue Trip Part 2

2010-04-15T11:33:00.002-04:00

Long time ago Dianne (Jessie's bff) was dating a guy Kieth, he moved out to the Seattle area for work shortly after they stopped dating. Last night I hung out and caught up with him.. I picked him up from work and we went to 3 Pigs BBQ for dinner, they had a $15 special for all you can eat ribs with 2 sides. The Ribs were very tender and the sauce was good, could have been a bit spicier but I did order the medium grade. After dinner we went to Fred Meyer because as a Glen Phillips fan I had to see where he would be living after the apocalypse.. (Above link is to song, not store) We wandered around the store for a bit and then went to the Mustard Seed to play pool. We got one game in before we were told that they had a Pool Tournament and we had to move on. No worries because there was another bar about 2 miles away that also had pool tables. Hung out there for a few games before heading back to the hotel.

Today/tonight I'm planning on going back into Seattle to see the Space Needle, Pike's Place Market and walk along the pier.

I uploaded new pics to Flickr but am waiting on getting my "standing in front of Fred Meyer picture" from Kieth.

Hoyle sent me an article on the evils of Cilantro, here is a quote from it..

In a television interview in 2002, Larry King asked Julia Child which foods she hated. She responded: “Cilantro and arugula I don’t like at all. They’re both green herbs, they have kind of a dead taste to me.”

“So you would never order it?” Mr. King asked.

“Never,” she responded. “I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.”

---Diversion of the Day

Also from something Hoyle sent me about a shirt.. The shirt is ok, but the poem with it was awesome..

We’re so sorry

Uncle Ackbert

We’re so sorry if your flippers are restrained

We’re so sorry

Uncle Ackbert

But we’re going up against the Empire

And the fleet’s not gone away

We’re so sorry but intelligence was wrong, today

We’re so sorry

Uncle Ackbert

But at least you’ve got that hot ship

Just fly in closer and engage

drrtdrtt drrtdrtt drrtdrtt drrtdrtt drrtdrtt

We’re so sorry

Uncle Ackbert

But the Emperor’s already on his way

We’re so sorry

Uncle Ackbert

But the Empire’s fully armored

And the shield won’t go away

Nieeeeen numb

Ooo ooo oo oo oo oo ooo

Nieeeeen numb

Oooo ooo ooo oo oo oo oo

Oooo oo oo ooo ooo ooo ooooooo

Whoooooo's inside the bunker?

Bunker

Whoooooo's broken inside?

Whoooooo's inside the bunker?

Bunker

Whoooooo's broken inside?

Admiral Ackbert notified me

We’d all just been trapped by Imperial fleets

Our only hope was to just take down the shield

And then we could fly

Rebels, looks alive!

Everyone form on me, and into this shaft we’ll dive

Whoooooo's inside the bunker?

Bunker

Whoooooo's broken inside?

Whoooooo's inside the bunker?

Bunker

Whoooooo's broken inside?

Hey there, mister, you’ve a sister, she’s been found

she’s been found

Guess we don’t need you around

With my saber I will pound

No, you heavy breather, I will take her all around

All around

I have earned my knightly crown

Now I’ll knock you to the ground

Parrrrrrty near the bunker

Bunker

Little fuuuurry things are inside

Hey reeeeeeeeeebels, light a pyre

Pyre

Fiiiiireworks in the skyyyyyy

ooo oo ooo oooo ooo ooo oooo ooo

ooo oo oooooooo ooo ooo oooo ooo

Wear this shirt: when you’re returning!

Don’t wear this shirt: if you want revenge.

This shirt tells the world: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

We call this color: Bladmiral Blackbar

Bellevue Trip Part 1

2010-04-14T17:06:00.006-04:00

I'm here in Bellevue WA watching my students do their labs. On the way here I was bumped to 1st class, oh no the horror.. The nice thing about first class is they feed you for free, your luggage is free and you get free drinks. The seats being bigger is not a draw for me, it was actually the opposite in fact because they were slightly higher off the ground which made me not be able to put my feet comfortably on the ground plus with the wider leg room I couldn't put my feet on my bad which was under the seat in front of me. I know, bitch bitch bitch...

On the flight from Hartford to Minnesota I got a turkey sammich with mozzarella with a bowl of fruit and a really good cookie. I wish I had my phone/camera readily available because on the way down I got a real nice view of the city with the Metrodome on the left and Target Field on the right. By the time I got my camera out it was already past. Quick layover and onto the next flight. This time I was in row 1 which sounds cool but there was no pocket in front of me which means I had to put everything overhead including iPod for takeoff and landing. On the flight I met a guy who works as a psychiatric evaluator for the Twins, he travels from ballpark to ballpark talking to the players, coaches and managers. The food was even better on this flight, I had a grilled chicken sammich with cheddar cheese and feta, it came with a bowl of fruit again and a caramel brownie.

My rental car is anything but first class, I have a Hyundai Accent which has roll up windows, non-automatic locks and manual mirrors. It does however have a aux input for my iPod but there is a nasty whine while it's playing. The hotel is very nice, there are lots of trees, stairs and curves in the middle of all the buildings, there are two hot tubs but I have not used them yet. I did let a lady into the pool area when I got back to the hotel last night and ended up chatting with her while she sat in the hot tub, it was too cold for me to go in I think. She was a nice older lady, I figured she was a bit older and was surprised to hear her kids were between 29 and 25. I would honestly say she looked to be in her low 40s but apparently not..

Anyway, so, back to Monday night.. I checked in and got a card for Pumphouse which is a local bar with lots of beers on tap, also on the map of local restaurants was I Love Sushi which was right next door to Pumphouse. I was so not hungry after eating massive meals on the plane so I went to the bar for a bit. I had a few beers: Pyramid's Summer called Curve Ball, Mack and Jack's Amber, and Lazy Boy Amber. I started with the Curve Ball which was nice and refreshing, sorta like the old Rally Cap Ale but maybe a bit brighter if that makes sense. The next I tried was the Mack and Jack which is a local favorite, I don't know if I would put it in the "Amber" category because it was a bit spicy, not like hot spicy but spicy like it had a bite. After that I went over to I Love Sushi and had a very quick dinner, I was probably gone from the bar for 30 mins and that included sitting, ordering, eating soup and a sushi entrée which had 8 pieces of sushi and 1 tuna maki roll. The first thing that impressed me was no spoon was given with soup, then the sushi came and was expertly cut and prepared. I want to go back there I think because they had a bunch of other cool looking rolls (some with jalapeños) and I was just not hungry enough to experiment. Back to the bar where I had the Lazy Boy Amber before heading back to the hotel. The Lazy Boy was a true Amber and was one of the better ones I've had, it's not as good as James Squire but it was in the top tier anyway.

Last night I was hanging out at the hotel watching the Mets get crushed by Colorado and trying to figure out dinner when I started chatting with a girl on OKC. We chatted for a bit and decided to go get some food, I headed into Seattle. I figured the traffic would be bad but it was not, I was on her street in about 10-12 minutes but it took me a long time to get over the smegging train tracks! There was a freight train going back and forth as it dropped off cars, finally it moved enough so I was able to cross the street and park. She lives right across the street from Safeco Field which is great except for right before and right after games when the traffic is out of control. We went to a Greek place close by and I got Portabella ravioli in Alfredo sauce which was great. I had never had Greek Alfredo sauce and I really enjoyed it, it tastes like they added cucumber and or lemon to it which made it very different from Italian Alfredo sauce.

After I got back to the hotel I added her on facebook and found out she is friends with another of my friends who moved here a long time ago which just proves the small world theory. I'm actually hanging out with him tonight for dinner but more on that later..

Rains, Sprains and Bonemeals

2010-04-04T08:18:00.004-04:00

Firstly, I take no credit for rhyming automobiles with Bonemeals, the Internets had a list of words that rhymed with Automobile and Bonemeal was in there and it does make sense in the narrative..

...

Rains:

What more do I really have to say but that single word "rain" to make those in the New England area shudder. We have gotten hit with so much rain up here that we set new March rainfall records for MA, CT and RI. With massive rain comes massive flooding. Tuesday I was hanging and work minding my own business when people start texting and emailing me telling me of their massive flooding problems, now I had already ran into lots of road flooding on the way to work (Rte 193 by the Thompson Speed Way) so I was pretty concerned with the status of our house. Got permission to leave early and my concerns were realized when I got home to find about 3 inches of water in the basement and the river out back up to the driveway.

Went to get a wetvac and found everyone out so I borrowed my friend Mikes. The poor little thing really didn't have a chance with it's little 4 gallon tub. It was quite literally pump for 10-15 seconds and take the thing apart to dump it. While I was working on that Mike was calling around and found us a pump at the Auburn Home Depot. We drove up there and got the last one off the shelf, Home Depot in Auburn has 4 self checkout stations 3 of the 4 had people buying the same item.

After Home Depot we went to Tuesday dinner for a little sanity and some amazing food, Badger and Marie were both at the top of their game. Hung out for a little while and headed back to the basement.

We used our existing garden hose and had little success, the hose was too long and too thin to really get effective pumping. Decided to stay home the next day and go back to work, before starting I went and got a real size hose which made the process much more effective. I had it down to puddles by the time I went to lunch, I was gone for about 30-40 minutes and when I came back it was back up to about 1.5 inches! Pumped some more and with Amber's help I moved some stuff around to vacuum up the dirt, the pump does NOT like all the dust and dirt that was on the floor so getting that up made the pumping much easier.

Jessie came home early and we went out to Providence to see TSO with Kevin and Erin. It was the first time I was at Kevin's apartment and I have to say it's a pretty nice looking place. The concert was great, I personally loved the change of pace of having a new (non-christmas) story. The story was Beethoven's Last Night in which the devil tries to trick him into handing over his music for his soul, he can't figure out how the devil owns his soul in the first place and so Fate brings him back over his life choices. In the end he finds out that the devil lied to him and does not actually own his soul. What I didn't love about the show was missing some of our normal "east coast" TSO members but the good out weighed the bad and the show was very worth it.

I got up way too early the next day to head up to Anime Boston, when I got up I noticed the basement had water almost back up to the original amount. I had no choice but to leave it to Jessie. She has now pumped a few more times and last I heard the water was still coming in but it did at least slow down.

....

Sprains:

Major League Baseball opens tonight with the Red Sox playing the Yankees in Boston at 8pm. Luckily I will be leaving the city via train so I won't have to deal with that traffic. The Mets open tomorrow in NY. Another year, another hope right? Or is that another year, another injury? The Mets were crippled with injuries last year and that's the thing that really can't happen two years in a row right? Apparently it can, or so it seems early on.. Carlos Beltran is recovering from knee surgery and will hopefully be back around May, Jose Reyes has just started his spring training and they have no time table for his return, and now Daniel Murphy sprained his knee and is expected to miss 2-6 weeks! That makes 3 of our starting 8 players already on the DL. The annoying thing to me is that we don't even have our best available players on the field to start the season, apparently Gary Matthews Jr got the CF job over Fernando Martinez, who is starting the season in the minors.

...

Bonemeals:

Ok, so that one's a stretch, not only is it a bad rhyme for automobiles but it's kinda misleading too. I went with that word for this title because UMass Memorial Laboratories is signing up people for Bone Marrow donation at Anime Boston and their booth is located right next to me.

I had lots of fun at Anime Boston this weekend but it was also lots of work. I got there way too early on Thursday morning after fighting with traffic and the T. I got checked in and met Christian and Mara in the empty dealer room. We watched them put it together and around noon we unloaded the Anime Boston truck and started setup. The vendors started rolling in at 2 and we worked till about 11pm setting stuff up and making sure the vendors had everything they needed.

Friday morning I got down to the dealer room around 8:30 and once again made sure the vendors had everything they needed before opening to the public at noon. Being in the front of the vendor room made for lots of great scenery, unfortunately most of the really sexy outfits were being worn by people far to young to really enjoy them. Nothing to major happened Friday during the day, one vendor was caught selling bootleg bags and I found out that Alex and Alyson were there selling chain mail jewelry. I got Dominion Intrigue for cheap and a really amazing steampunk leather book cover for me to use as Laal in Future Imperfect. Speaking of Laal, I was called Laal by no fewer than four people over the course of the weekend. I guess I have not played FI long enough for people to know my real name. Also, while on the topic of FI, it's nice to know the president of the con.. I got permission for FI flyers to be randomly left around the con and some of the players did exactly that, hopefully we can get some new players out of it.

During the day I went to a Steampunk/Cyberpunk panel expecting to see some cool outfits and stuff to get ideas for FI, instead it was just a rant about how different movies showcase and/or influence the genre. After we closed Friday night I went and got some food and then went to the Cos-Play dating game which was really cheesy, it was an 18+ show where everyone played their character in a dating game. It might have been better if I had known the characters better but I've been so out of the Anime scene that I probably only knew like 15% of the characters. I went to the rave after but only stayed there for a few minutes before checking out the gaming room which was pretty dead. After that I went to the bar across the street and ended up hanging out with some of the vendors. The bar across the street, Bukowski's Tavern, had a lot of really good beers including Maudite on tap! I had a really good beer from Troegs called Hopback Amber, we only recently found that brewery and they are really good.

Back to the dealer floor Saturday morning at 8am. The dealer room opened at 10am and we spent MOST of the day handing out tickets for the Masquerade that started at 6pm. The Masquerade was more or less a cosplay talent show, I went and checked it out after we closed the dealer room at 7 and only stayed for 1 skit which was a dance off between characters I didn't know. Saturday saw some really amazing costumes just like Friday but this time there were a lot more adults.. :)

I took a bunch of pictures and will post them to Flickr later today. One kid "dressed" as a guy from Avatar, I say dressed in quotes because what he did was paint his entire body with latex paint. When I say his entire body I mean it, he had a loin cloth on which apparently shifted while he was in the food court to show his blue privates. He got removed from the con. If you think that was ballsy (pun intended) there was a lady dressed as Leia from Return of the Jedi. Her clothes were made of chain mail and she was wearing nothing underneath but a loin cloth, even at a quick glance you could see her nipples sticking out between the links.

Back to the dealer room, during the day on Saturday a vendor came up with a kid to inform us that the kid had just bought a bootleg toy, we investigated the booth he got it at and found that everything in the booth was a bootleg. I learned a lot from Christian on how to spot bootlegs and we ended up kicking the vendor out which meant we had to hang in the room after it closed to make sure he left peacefully which he did.

After he left I went up to the Artist Alley and spent a bunch of time looking at wonderful artwork. I got an amazing cat magnet, I will put up a link to her site later because I left her card at home.

After visiting the Masquerade and the Artist Gallery I ended up going to an Irish pub for dinner and then to the Formal Dance where I hung out with Christian and Mara's friend Kate. It was awesome to see how much effort people went into to make formal gowns for their cosplay characters. After that I went back to the game room and was uninspired to hang out there because it was really dead again. Went to the rave again for a few minutes and then went to a panel on how to make fan dubbed anime, that was a pretty interesting show actually. The security guard there had nails that made Holly's nails look small..

Found out that Saturday night was more exciting for the security team which ended up having to deal with an overly drunk under age girl and her friends.

Sunday, 8am, dealer room... Spent almost all of Sunday taking pre-regs for the 2011 Anime Boston con which will be April 22-24. After the room closed we took apart everything and I left around 5pm.

You know, when I wrote this I could have just used Trains as one of my points... When I left I found out that the Hynes Convention Center T Station was having construction and the outbound platform was closed, "For outbound go inbound one station"... Went inbound and got off at Copley to find that due to flooding you couldn't go from the inbound platform to the outbound platform... "For outbound go inbound one station".. Went in again and finally got on an outbound train, with all the Red Sox game traffic which means I had to stand with my bags in a cramped train for a few stops before they all got off for the game.

...

Got home to find more water fun.. The fridge has started leaking water from the freezer into the fridge and ruining food. Searched the Internets and found it to most likely be a problem with something frozen inside the fridge so we took everything out and loaded up the downstairs fridge and freezer before heading to bed...

...

The other week I went to Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect, it was a great weekend.. One thing that they do that I think is great is that they ask for a Post Event Letter so that the guys who run the game can see what everyone is up to. I think this is a great idea for LARPs to do but I wouldn't want to be the guy responsible for reading them all.. Anyway, here is my weekend...

Friday night could possibly be one of the unluckiest nights ever.. It was certainly the first time I've ever had to res twice in one night. Did a few rounds with Rooster so he could show me the boundaries of our jurisdiction, got into a few fights along the way with Brigands. We found some resources on them and ended up giving a Petroleum and noble metal to Grinner so he could make his Medical unit. I was standing with Rooster while he was talking to someone else and I noticed three people sitting by the water. I went to investigate and as soon as I got close enough I got three quick bullets to the chest from our little Num friends. They picked me up and walked me out past low town to meet up with their scientist. One hysterical DNA extraction later (see favorite cast) my Karma kicked in, I noticed four things, a - my neck was killing me, b - I saw a white lab coat to my right, c - I saw a black trench coat to the left and, d - I saw a clear path ahead. Instinct kicked in and I ran for it. I almost got a full message to Rooster on the radio before a bunch of nums who were waiting around the corner unloaded into my chest again. Not taking chances this time they granted me a quick death and I took the long slow walk to the res bed..

After getting back up I had Grinner check out my neck, he told me that they got my DNA and that he knew how to destroy it if we could get the bottle back. I radioed Rooster and found him in a firefight in low town so I ran to assist with Dink and a few others. After the fight we headed back to where I remember waking up, I saw the white coat and a bunch of other hostiles. We didn't engage, instead we went back to town for re-enforcements. We got re-enforcements including Pulse and headed back up to the area. By the time we got back they were all gone but I did find my shot gun.

We had a few skirmishes with some nums but none of them had any vials. On the way back into town we found some people on the path, we were attacked by the brigands when Rooster identified himself as Marshall. Dropped them and went back to the commissary.

Spoke with Pulse about his still while setting up our camp. We didn't get a chance to put straps on his armor (before the event) so we quickly attached it to him using duct tape. After setting up camp and getting him armored we started wheeling and dealing our resources for the ones he needed. Got most of what we thought we needed and headed to the auto-forge to see he had in storage. We were ambushed in the science center by another group of nums and they dragged everyone out but me. I was bandaged up and we went up to high town to get Pulse and the others back. We stormed a cabin and defeated the nums, I was bandaging Pulse when the nums got back up and we dispatched them a second time. After the interruption I went back to bandaging him up, Frost asked me if it would take a while and I said yes. Just Pulse was coming awake I got shot in the arm, I turned just in time to see the next bullet hit my chest and Frost nowhere to be found. Pulse was shot after trying to radio for help and we both laid there and bled out. We got out of the res bed minutes before the game was called for the night.

...

Saturday morning started with me and Pulse cooking breakfast for everyone, Pulse cut up the boar and I cooked it along with potatoes, beans and french toast. Breakfast ended about 10 and we headed up to the commissary for the gathering so that Rooster and Pulse could officially announce their candidacy. After the meeting we went back to the auto-forge to drop of more resources towards his still and found we only needed one more patroleaum.

Came back to the commissary to find the science meeting already in progress so I quietly joined. Spoke with Mabin after about Amps and she said if I provided her the resources she would make me some amps so we headed to the science center.

On the way we ran into a new thaw who was cowering from everyone, she seemed to have something mentally wrong with her (she kept smelling a hospital smell) so Mabin tried to cure psych procedures which only made her more upset. I got her to calm down and walk with me to the rec center. I tried to see if the smell was physical so we had her remove her hat, clothes etc to see if something had the smell on it. We had her sit by the lake to see if the nice smell would help overpower it. After not having any success there I called Rooster over for his opinion and he had little to add. Convinced her to come to the commissary so she could get something to eat and drink to see if that would help. Kept her away of people who obviously looked like doctors or scientists to try and keep her calm so she could remember some of her past. She could not remember as long as the smell was there so I tried to distract her smell with alcohol which apparently was a bit strong because it knocked her down (1 damage from the drink). Got her bandaged and back up, when she came to she saw the bandage and ripped it off causing her to fall back down. Carried her over to Grinner's healing machine and healed her using that.

She was a bit calmer now that she was drunk and the smell seemed to only come back when I asked her anything about her past so I tried to just sit with her for a bit to see if we could help, as the drink started to wear off the smell came back strong so we got her some chocolate which seemed to help for a very short time. I called Grinner over to get his opinion and he suggested his laughing gas, she would not do it unless I did first so we both sat there laughing for the next 5 minutes. After the gas wore off she seemed to be pretty calm but when I asked her about her past the smell came back but this time it didn't seem as strong, she stayed calm but just said she could smell it. Thinking the only thing that will return her past is time I asked her if she wanted to stay with me and Pulse. She agreed, I had someone lend her some new clothes so she didn't have to keep wearing her hospital gown and walked her down to our camp. On the way to the camp we agreed that I would call her Kim until such time as she remembered her past.

Afterwards I came back to the commissary and put in my vote for the election and started walking with Mabin once again to the science center and we met up with the two scientists who were looking for research assistants, I declined but ended up getting the last patroleaum that Pulse needed from them. Mabin went to talk to them and I went to find Pulse. I spoke with Rooster and he told me of Dink's death, then I grabbed Pulse and we went to the science center to build his still. He transfered the resources to the device account but ended up not having the paper he needed to bring the still into game.

Pulse, Carptenter and myself went off site to dinner..

After dinner I went over to the movie, I enjoyed it but didn't stay long as the freeborn were going to meet at our camp. We got the fire going and were updated with specifics for the nights raids against the exile complex and specifics about the exodus list. We broke into groups and I was assigned to Rooster's group which didn't end up going, instead I spent most of the night monitoring the radio, patrolling the area around the commissary and keeping people informed when to expect the refugees so they wouldn't be surprised by strange people walking down the path. During this time I finally got resources to Mabin and she made me some amps, I also got Pulse's back plate attached to his armor so he would be better protected if we were needed in battle. I was playing cards with Pulse, Carpenter and Vos when they called for Rooster because George was coming. I left the card game and went with him to meet George.

A little while later we got the radio call that Buckles had been captured and that Grinner needed help going after him. Frost told us to go so I grabbed Pulse, Vos, Carpenter and Orion and headed up to Aleph Complex. We went up the back way and apparently Grinner came down the other way so when we got there we found nobody waiting. I was getting spotty reception on the radio but after moving about up there I got enough signal to get in touch with Rooster who told us to come back to the commissary, as soon as we got back we found Grinner getting ready to leave so we walked back up with him. We went inside the complex and through the long tunnel to the room with Buckles and lots of hostiles. I was doing good shooting people over Pulse in the tunnel until Pulse finally ran in and I moved up. I only got one more shot in after I moved up before getting shot in the head. Grinner got me up and we finished off the hostiles. Back through the tunnels to the elevator to find we were above max capacity for it. Grinner said he would stay behind and I jumped out as the doors were closing to stay with him. While we waited one of the bodies came in trying to find it's res bed. The elevator came back and we jumped in, the body was trying to get in but Grinner got the door closed just in time to hear it banging itself against the doors. We got back to town and spent the rest of the night around the firepit. People were hungry for late night snacks so we made beans over the fire and put them into shot glasses to invent a "shot of beans".

...

Sunday morning was lots more cooking but this time it was far less crowded so I even had a chance to eat before it was all gone. We came up with the "freeborn sandwich" which was a piece of french toast with beans and ham folded up, it was messy and very good. After breakfast we went up to the commissary and heard the happy results of the election. When they started calling names for the exodus I went to the bathroom, when I came out Pulse looked at me with an odd look and pointed across the room where I saw Vos Walker standing in the line. Before I could react Grinner came up and asked what was going on with him and then called for him to come to us. His name was on the list and he didn't know about the refugees taking the place of anyone not wanting to go. We sat him down and sent someone in his place. After everyone left I was talking to Vos about it and was going to hit him with a knockdown from my shotgun when he pushed the barrel at the last second and I ended up hitting Jacobi instead. I got hit with a knockdown punch from behind and went down, after I got up I went over to apoligize and took another knockdown punch from Shlea too.

...

Now back to our regularly scheduled big ass-blog... I'm going to end this here because it's getting WAY to long.. Make sure you check out this diversion, it's a 10 part review of Phantom Menace..

---Diversion of the Day

Dropkick Murphys at HoB

2010-03-16T09:55:00.006-04:00

Last night we went to Elephant Walk which is a Cambodian / French restaurant right near the House of Blues.. Dinner was great but it took WAY to long, we got there at before 6:30 and left after 8:30! I just went to paste what I ate but my entree is not listed online..

My starter was:

Rouleaux (available Vegan)

Two Cambodian spring rolls filled with ground pork, crushed peanut, beanthread noodles, carrot and onion; served with fresh greens and herbs for wrapping and tuk trey on the side for dipping

My second course was:

Leah Chah

Prince Edward Island mussels sautéed with garlic, Asian basil, red bell pepper, jalapeño, and scallion (gluten-free)

My entree was:

Duck in an orange sauce with really good crispy potatoes and asparagus.

My dessert was:

Mousse aux Fruits de Passion

Refreshingly tart and sweet passion fruit mousse served in an almond lace cup; garnished with fresh pineapple macerated in dark rum, sugar and lemon juice

It's a tough call to say which was better between the duck and the mussels, everything was great except the dessert which was just ok. I had an amber ale from Cape Ann Brewing in Gloucester MA, it was no James Squire but I would certainly drink it again.

One more thing about that restaurant, they had an entire page on their menu dedicated to gluten free.. :)

...

The concert was amazing.. We got there after the 2nd band which is kinda lame because we wanted to see the 2nd band. The House of Blues does not normally have Irish beer but they had a special stand setup with Guiness and another special stand with Celtic Ale. Dropkick Murphys is set to release a new live CD/DVD today and they had it at the concert last night cheaper than the in-store/online prices! Got the CD/DVD, a shirt and a sticker for my car..

Last night made me really glad for my Achilles Tendon surgery, I was jumping around and dancing for most of the show and have no knee/leg pain! There really is something special about having multiple bagpipes playing at the same time, and I don't mean multiple bagpipes playing as one. They let TONS of girls on stage during "Kiss Me I'm Shitfaced" and a ton of guys during one of the last songs! It was really neat seeing the entire stage filled with people.. The last song they played was Shipping Up to Boston and luckily I had plenty of room to dance around!

Something I realized last night was how welcoming Irish people are, I've been all over the world now and nobody is as welcoming as the Irish. You can live in Japan your entire life and no matter what you're still "gaijin", you go to Ireland and walk into any pub and you're family, just don't order the wrong beer.. ;)

Early on a guy bumped into me before the show started, we just looked at each other and raised our glasses in a toast. Everyone was bumping into each other while dancing and there were no fights or crazy crap you would expect at a crazy type concert like that.. I was very tempted to crowd surf, it was the first time I felt that was a good idea, I didn't however because they were kicking people out for doing it, I felt bad for the guy who crowd surfed during the 2nd song and had to miss the rest of the concert..

I was talking to a guy while waiting for in the coat check line and he handed his iPhone to some random dude before he jumped on stage and that person not only gave the phone back when he got off but also took some awesome pictures of him on stage with the band!

....

Speaking of Irish, Badger is making a big st pattys feast tonight for Tuesday Dinner.. Should be great..

---Diversion of the Day

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

2-8 weeks...

2010-03-11T20:27:00.003-05:00

/sigh... Jose Reyes was told he has to rest for 2-8 weeks while he takes medication for his thyroid.. That leaves Reyes and Beltran out for the season opener.. ugh... Who ever heard of a smegging baseball player having to sit because of a thyroid problem...

I finished Sea of Monsters this morning, it was very good and I'm looking forward to the 3rd book, but before I do that one I am doing Good Omens which was finally released on audio. So far it's good, I like how any tape left in a car for more than a fortnight becomes Queen's greatest hits.. :)

Speaking of music, Jessie just sent me a Folk Opera, the music is very good and it's coming to MA in April, I may have to go see it if I am free.. Check it out here..

Last night I went to Lov'n it Live which is a raw vegan restaurant in southern Atlanta, I went there the first time I was in the area and it was just as good if not better. I got a seaweed soup which was good and a nutloaf with broccoli & cheese which was amazing. The broccoli that is, the nutloaf was just ok. I asked for the recipe for the broccoli but they wouldn't give it to me. I took the train there instead of driving and it only took like 40 mins total to get there, the food took forever to get, I was getting upset as I sat waiting for them to serve me. It took almost an hour to get the soup and about 20 mins more to get the main course. They are just lucky they are that good.

After class today I went to Old Norcross and wandered around, it has the feel of Putnam with cute little nick nack stores and antique shops. They have a neat coffee house that offers beer and wine tasting as well as coffee. They also have a real expensive steak house and the british pub I went to the other night. I walked around for a bit and took some pictures of the really cool kids park. Not the one I was in the other night, this main street area has two really cool parks (one on each side). Hopefully the pictures will do it justice, I will post them either later tonight or tomorrow from work. After hanging out there for a bit I came back to the hotel and then to Barnacles for dinner. Brandon was there tonight! I hung out with him for a bit before he went home and I came back to the hotel.

Now I'm just listening to the songs from the Folk Opera while waiting to play my OOTP games against Lee. Meeting him online at 9.

Crappy things with people are not so crappy...

2010-03-10T13:51:00.002-05:00

Last night after dinner and after Barnacles I went back to the worst hot tub ever.. This time however it was not so bad, there was three people who work for Dominos as area managers in the hot tub who were in the hotel for training. One guy had a really nice celtic knot cross on his arm and his girlfriend had a rose on her back.

Speaking of not so good.. Last night I went to JR's Loghouse which is a rib joint in Norcross. They have all you can eat ribs for $12.99 so that should tell you about the quality, the first batch of ribs was pretty poor but the broccoli and rice side was good. The second batch however was great, if they 1st batch was that good it would have been a good place, but inconstancy always ruins it..

After dinner I went over to Barnacles and watched some bad karaoke before heading back to the hotel and hitting the hot tub and bed..

---

Tonight is a balance night, I am going to go to the raw place south of Atlanta.. I say that now but we shall see when I get out, it's raining here and has been all day and I'm a bit beat because we had lots of lab equipment problems today..

Kings of Metal...

2010-03-08T21:53:00.006-05:00

I just got back from the worst hot tub ever... It was certainly HOT but it only had one working jet... I'm in Duluth Georgia again, you know last time I was here I was also healing from getting my tattoo done, this time it's all the way healed at least but I'm still hesitant about being submerged in water but that's ok since the main pool is closed for repairs and the hot tub sucks..

Last time I was here I spent most nights at Barnacles and met some really cool people. I went there last night and I was the only white person in the whole bar. I went by there again tonight after dinner and once again nobody I knew was there.. :(

A guy in my class found a bbq place he heard was good so I think I'm going to go there tomorrow, tonight I went to a British Pub that's about 9 miles from the hotel. I was told about it by a girl from OKCupid who I have not seen online since.. Speaking of OKCupid, work blocked that as of this afternoon, I guess it was just a matter of time.. Anyway, so this place ended up being pretty cool, they had Fat Tire on tap and sold fish in chips in a single or double portion, I got the single portion which was plenty of food. Left plenty of room for my Fat Tires.. :)

Another guy in my class was talking about how great the hotel next door was, I wish it were a Marriott because this place is pretty lame (hot tub & pool suck and TV/channels are weak) but it's all about the points..

It's been a long time since I blogged but I'm going to pretend that nothing of interest happened during that time because I was starting to feel overwhelmed with trying to recap the ever missing blogs.. One thing I will say.. I went to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief, it was bad like one of those made for TV fantasy movies, the sets however were great. Speaking of Percy Jackson, I read the first book recently and it was VERY good and I just started the 2nd (Sea of Monsters) and it's just as good so far. Whoah, this blog is truly a tangent in a tangent... Speaking of books, I just finished And Another Thing which is the 6th book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. It was written by Eoin Colfer with permission from the estate of Douglas Adams.. It was very good and really captured the feel of the old books. If you're a fan of the books I recommend it. And another thing regarding books (see that clever use of the previous title), they finally released Good Omens on audio! I have that on my iPod and it will be the next book I listen to right after Sea of Monsters.

I've decided I like blogs that are a stream of thought so.. I didn't get a chance to watch/listen to today's Mets game but John Maine started today, he left after facing only 8 batters and striking out 4 of them! Apparently he moved weird towards first base and they decided to pull him before he hurt himself again. Can't say I blame them.. Speaking of the Mets, Perez pitched the other day and got shelled, ugh! We are paying that smeghead 13mil for another 2 years.. I am however excited for the upcoming season, I think with the addition of Jason Bay our team will do much better than last year (especially if we can stay healthy)..

Right, so back to present day.. I was at the airport in Hartford waiting for my flight then none other than Don King comes and sits down across from me! He is looking old but he is an awesome guy, took a few peoples pictures with him and talked with him for a bit.. During that excitement I met a really cool girl who lives in Springfield, she works as an interpretor and was flying to Las Vegas to meet her boss. She had not flown in a VERY long time and I helped her get a seat assignment and I helped her get to her connecting flight in Atlanta, we are going to get together when we both get back. :D I also met a really cool guy from Middletown CT who travels almost 90% of the time for work. I ended up sitting next to him on the flight which made the flight go pretty quickly.

Umm.. So, back to tonight.. Yay, tangety (is that a word) blogs... I went to the British Pub as I mentioned, it is on a street that ends in a really cool park, I wandered around the park a bit before dinner and took some nice pictures which I will hopefully post tomorrow at work when I'm not on a really slow internet connection.

My car this week is a tiny little car called a Cevy Aveo.. I took some pics and will post them tomorrow as well. It's not a bad little car actually, the steering wheel is very thin but otherwise it's nice to drive.

Ok, I guess I'm done for tonight.. See ya all later..

Oh, one more thing.. I found out that there is a Marta station about 10 mins from work, the Marta runs every 8-10 minutes into Atlanta so one of these nights I will be heading into Atlanta to eat at that raw place (Loving it Live) without having to deal with traffic.. :)

---Diversion of the Day

Jessie found this band last night while staying up too late, hope you like it (I know I did)..

Donut Sammich?

2010-02-24T14:39:00.003-05:00

The other night I went to Mohegan Sun to get some stuff from LUSH. On the way down I text'ed around to see if anyone wanted anything.. Jessie asked for some Krispy Kreme donuts so I brought them home like a good husband, little did I know the horrors that would ensue.. Ok, I did know and I brought them anyway.. Does that make me a bad husband?

So, what happened?? A long time ago we had seen a Paula Dean show in which she took two donuts and put a burger between them.. Jessie, the healthy food lady, decided it would be a good idea to make an egg sammich using Krispy Kreme donuts.. Apparently it was indeed a good idea.. She said the end result was nothing but tasty..

Jessie had sent me a picture but I guess I didn't save it.. :( I will have to get a new copy and I'll post it to Flickr.

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Tonight I'm getting my tattoo touched up.. I know it needs to be done but I'm not really looking forward to it. Good thing is Red Dwarf afterwards, we are going to watch Season 7 tonight so everyone is almost caught up to real time.

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No recap today.. Maybe tomorrow..

---Diversion of the Day

Trad Sessions in Willimantic

2010-02-05T09:34:00.003-05:00

Wednesday night I finally watched all of Something Something Darkside.. If you have not seen it yet I do recommend it. At first I was pissed that they chose to release it right to DVD/BluRay but after watching it I realize they could probably never air it on TV, especially on broadcast TV. Leah to Han before carbon freezing "I love you", response "fuck off".. Emperor to Vader talking about Luke "I want you to turn him", response "Well, turn him? That might be tricky. I might be able to make him go bi, but all the way?" Now that I've watched it fully I want to watch it again with the "pop-up facts" turned on. Watching for the first time with those I felt was distracting.

Yesterday Lynz found out that Cafemantic, a coffee house in Willimantic, was starting to do Trad Sessions on Thursday nights. We decided instead of bowling to go there.. I got there a little late and found Lynz happily sitting on the stage playing her fiddle.. It was very cool to see and hear her playing up there with everyone but it was also very odd to be at a Trad Session without beer.. I had some really good green tea and a turkey panini but.. The coffee house is across the street from Willi Brew Pub, maybe next time I will bring my "water bottle" in with me and go get it refilled across the street.. :D

Shane is coming over tonight and tomorrow is Future Imperfect's one day event. Should be a great time..

---Many Diversions of the Day

- Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly

- Who Stole My Fries (Thanks Matt)

- Keith and Beckie's Singing and Dancing Snowman

- And Finally.. Lynz at her first Trad Session

Ah Symmetrix, my old friend..

2010-02-02T10:03:00.003-05:00

This may be a long blog because I actually have things to say I just haven't taken the time to write them down..

I am in Symmetrix Installation and Maintenance class this week.. Why you ask? I am branching my knowledge back up an old branch.. I will be adding Symm classes to my repertoire of classes I teach, should not take much ramp up time since I worked on that product for 5 years before becoming a SAN instructor.. Being in the class is pretty boring because it's amazing how little I forgot.. :)

So bored at work means time to blog..

My dad got a hold of the Sunday ticket plan games for 2010 so I spent this morning looking over games and which ones conflict with other plans. One thing I realized is that I set my Disney Vacation for the beginning of the playoffs, will that matter? Depends on how good the Mets do this year.. It would be bitter sweet if they made the playoffs and I was in Disney for it but I will take my chances.. :)

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I've read some very good books lately and wanted to mention one that really stood out above the rest.. Paul Levinson's Plot to Save Socrates.. I don't want to say too much because I do recommend you read it if you like time travel and especially if you have a keen like of Ancient Greece.. Here is a cut and paste of the Wiki article on it..

The Plot To Save Socrates deals primarily with the concept of time travel, and while the novel rarely discusses time travel directly, it poses several questions about its validity and possibility (or lack thereof). The story begins in Athens Greece in 2042 with the main character, Sierra Waters, thinking to herself, at which point the rest of the story begins as a flashback (both in her head and in the sense that the characters constantly flash in and out of historic eras). Sierra Waters, a graduate student, receives a copy of a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates is being offered an escape from his death sentence in ancient Athens by a person (named Andros) offering to take him into the future and leave a clone behind. The document appears to be genuine, and this takes Sierra onto a path that leads her to a time traveling adventure of her own. On her path she meets up with the great historic inventor Heron of Alexandria but soon realizes that Heron is a suspicious character himself. The story tangles itself a bit as more and more characters appear to be intertwined with each other and on occasion even the same person at different points in life. However, the novel ultimately untangles itself, somewhat satisfying the plot's plausibility although leaving unanswered any deeper metaphysical qualms the reader might have. The story also involves Plato, Alcibiades, publisher William Henry Appleton, as well as several fictional characters. There are scenes across time, placed in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Victorian New York City, and Roman London.

Another book that I would recommend is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. If you've seen Miyazaki's movie by the same name you will not be disappointed by this read nor by the movie after reading it. Obviously the movie has alot of things missing and some differences but Miyazaki did a great job of presenting the book in movie form.

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Back to the 20th.. The last time I wrote a blog I was getting ready to go meet Amy and Mitch for dinner. The drive down to their house really sucked, there was an accident a mile away from their exit so the 20 mile ride took me about 90 mins! I got there and we hung our for a bit before we went to Daks, a local non-chain restaurant, for dinner. Dinner was good but the place was crazy cold, Mitch found a space heater tucked behind one of the tables so we pulled it out and turned it on under our table which made it much better. After dinner we went to Baskin' Robbins near Daks and ended up leaving because they had an un-open container of chocolate peanut butter but would not open it!? The guy looked at me and said "we don't have that flavor tonight", I said "but it's right there", and he said "yeah, but it's not open"... wtf?! We drove down the road about 5 mins to another Baskin' Robbins and they had the correct ice cream so we got some.. :) It was so nice to be able to spend time with Amy and Mitch and I'm looking forward to my next trip to the DC area in April so we can hang out more. Hopefully next time she will be in better condition so we can enjoy more active activities, she had recently gotten into a bad car accident and could barely get in and out of the car because of pain..

Speaking of people I miss hanging out with.. Kaitlyn came over on the 24th and we went to the Willi Brew Pub with Lynz and Jessie. We had some good food and some good beer (as expected at the Brew Pub).. After dinner me, Kaitlyn and Jessie played some Guitar Hero.. Kaitlyn played drums and a great time was had by all..

Janine and I had planned to watch Wicked on DVD, we finally scheduled it for the 25th.. Idea, me and Jessie would go to Hoyle and Janine's house for dinner and afterwards watch Wicked.. Fail in the plan, I can't find my Wicked DVD.. Anyone have it? I know I lent it to someone but don't remember who.. Well, after spending way to much time looking for the stupid DVD me and Jessie headed over. After dinner we ended up watching Inglorious Bastards which I really liked. It was very long (153 mins) but it kept my interest throughout, Jessie was not as impressed. The only thing I would have liked was more on screen time of the Inglorious Bastards..

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Me and Jessie went to the Laire Awards ceremony this Saturday. They always have it at Dave and Busters in West Nyack NY, the last time we went the food was just "eh", this time the food was actually quite good. The Order won best group which gives us one free ward a month.

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The final episode of Dollhouse aired on Friday night. It did a good job of ending the series but I really wish it was longer, the episode seemed to be on the verge of fast forward and I think they could have done alot more with it. Hopefully the DVD set will have a longer version of the final episode. I remember reading somewhere that the final episode was going to be 2 hours but it was only 1 so who knows. Maybe my source was bad, maybe the cut an hour out for broadcast. I hope the 2nd one is true.

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When I started this blog I think I had more to say but now I don't remember what it was.. I should have made an outline before I started but oh well.. Perhaps I will remember more later and write about in another blog..

I just found out that there is a sequel being written for Plot to Save Socrates. It's called Unburning Alexandria, no listed release date but something to watch for.

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Dimension Jump XVI is being held in London on July 23rd-25th. When that schedule is being written I'm going to ask my boss if he can send me to London that week.. Dimension Jump is a Red Dwarf convention, the rumor is they are going to show episode 1 of series 10.

---Diversion of the Day

http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20100129.html

"richly chewy" <-- words used to describe Ice Cream!

2010-01-20T14:09:00.005-05:00

Last night Robyn came over, when she got there we decided to grab some food. Not know what was around I asked the guy at the front desk of the hotel, he recommended Shamshiry Chelo Kabob which is a Traditional Persian Cuisine restaurant a block away from the hotel. Having never tried Persian food we decided to give it a shot.

The food was excellent but the menu was all the entertainment we needed for the night, well almost.. Here are some actual menu item descriptions:

Salad Shirazi $ 2.99

There is an Old Persian saying that it takes four people to prepare a salad: A generous man to add the oil, a stingy man to add the vinegar, a wise man to give the right touch of salt and pepper, and a fool to mix it well. Diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions mixed with olive oil, lemon juice, and seasoning provides a pleasant combination to prepare you for your dining experience.

Panir Sabzi $3.25

Panir or goat’s cheese is an extremely delicious cheese, which the Persians habitually eat. If you walk down the avenue in Tehran during lunch hour, you will find the mason, and cobbler, the shopkeeper – everybody – eating bread and cheese. Very often Persians eat Panir with raw vegetables and herbs (radishes, basil, scallions, tarragon, or fresh mint). It pleases the palate.

Torshi Bademjan $ 3.99

The Persian homemaker takes pride in the quality and variety of the pickles kept in the pantry. This appetizer of eggplant, parsley, garlic, mint, cilantro, vinegar, salt, spices, and black caraway in uniquely Persian and extremely palatable.

Shirin Polo $ 4.99

This is one of the most excitingly different, unusual, and demanding of the Persian rice dishes. But it is also one of the most rewarding. The sweet rice is seasoned with spices, perfumed with sugared orange peel, and made crunchy with pistachios and almonds. It tastes as if imaginative honeybees created it.

Baghali Polo $ 4.99

This fragrant and devastatingly delicious dish is made with dill, a most delicate herb. Persians have favored dill for many years and use it in many dishes. One of the more famous and extremely tasteful dishes is Baghali Polo, where dill is used in combination with rice and soft good tasting fava beans. It’s a treat you will want to share.

Chelo Kabob Kubideh $ 9.55

Kabob is the Persian word for meat or fowl cooked over a charcoal fire. There delicious strips of charcoal broiled ground meat are served with a snowy mound of rice topped with saffron. All the beef dishes achieve greatness when you add a raw egg yolk on the side, which you rapidly pour into the hot rice, continuing to toss it so that the egg coats all the grains as the heat cooks it. Stir in as much butter as you dare, and sprinkle in the brown powdered sumac that’s in a shaker on the table. It’s tart spiciness is irresistible.

Chicken Kabob $ 9.55

Chicken kabob is made with breast meat that has been marinated in a special recipe. Persians serve chicken for the same occasions that Americans serve turkey. If the Persian homemaker has a guest, she will almost always serve some form of chicken. This is special. The chicken, served with rice in a snowy mound, will give your meal a whole new meaning.

Persian Ice Cream $ 3.99

Persian saffron ice cream, tinted a golden pink will remind you of midsummer. It is fragrant with rose water and as richly chewy as the most eggy creamy ice cream aspires to be. You can order it alone, or with Paludeh.

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As promised here is your update blog.. Or a bit of one anyway..

Jan 6th - Lynz and Anja came over and I made chicken cutlets with gluten free bread crumbs. I added honey to the egg and it came out nice, next time I'm going to add some X-O Hot Bean Paste and see where that goes.. After dinner we watched all of the Simon's Cat videos on Youtube, if you have not seen those yet I recommend them.

Jan 10th - Went to Steve's house for a board game day, it's been a long time since I went down there so it was nice to do that for a change. We played Redneck Life which was an ok version of Life, the spin on it was that you started with $0 and everything you bought put you further in debt and you could gain and drop kids quite often. It was funny at times but overall it was not spectacular. What was (and is) spectacular is Dominion. Randy brought that and we played a few hands of it before the night was up.

Jan 11th - Made a buffalo, sausage, veggies and rice dish for dinner. I was going to put in corn and mushrooms, Jessie recommended Okra so I added that too. While cooking I realized the mushrooms were bad so I added a veggie mix instead. After dinner we played Dominion and listened to some music..

Jan 12th - Make it a Dominion week? I brought it over to Tuesday dinner and played a few hands after dinner.. What a great game.. :)

Jan 13th - Dad came over for dinner and to rescan all the DVDs for sale. I made my homemade teriyaki sauce and cooked it on a pork tenderloin. After dinner we watched a few episodes of "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" which is a show from the BBC. It's very funny and reminds me a lot of "Coupling".

Jan 14th - No really, make it a Dominion week! Lynz came over and I made a swordfish steak with the leftover teriyaki sauce. After dinner we played Dominion and listened to music..

Speaking of Dominion, I ordered the "online only" cards from eBay and got them on Friday.

The weekend was Laire and I have to say that I'm finally back to full Laire ability. I did some serious ass kicking, I was swinging so much on Saturday my arm felt like it was going to fall off. In all my years of playing I don't think I've ever felt so swarmed as I did on the Saturday mod. The waves of undead were staggering, the only thing I could see was Lascula (we were fighting so close we were touching for most of the battle) and walls and walls of undead. If not for the Double Power Fortitudes I'm sure we all would have dropped in the first encounter of the mod. As it was we didn't make it all the way through the mod but it was a success (sorta) as we survived. I stayed till the end of the event and was exhausted driving home. I woke up on Monday morning to stagger my way to the airport and the beginning of yesterday's blog..

btw - I love Blogspot's auto save feature! I accidentally clicked on a link to get you the diversion of the day and closed this window. I went back and the whole blog is still in tact!

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Meant to put this into the other day's blog.. The Mets called me on Sunday morning, unfortunately they insisted on calling my home number and not my cell phone even though my cell is listed as the primary number. Since they called home I didn't get it till I got back from Laire. I called them Monday morning before getting on the flight and got assigned seats. I don't know if I would have gotten better seats if I had talked to them on Sunday but I moved from 433 to 430. The eventual goal is to get into section 424 but I guess a little closer is still better. We are in Row 3 and have an aisle seat. I could have taken Row 1 but I would not have gotten an aisle in Row 1.

---Diversion of the Day

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1h9a3A/astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/coordsmotion/daylighthoursexplorer.html

Winter in New England, who knew?

2010-01-19T16:19:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting in class in Mclean VA watching students do labs and I have been AWOL for far too long.. So..

I flew down here on Monday morning after a long Laire weekend. I got on the plane and when they were done boarding they made an announcement that there was a big pile of snow behind the plane and we therefore could not taxi away from the gate?! How did the plane get there if there was a big pile of snow? I assume that the plane must have been there overnight.. Snow pile moved and we are on our way.. Until.. The pilot tests everything out and finds that the wings are frozen! Now we are sitting between the gate and runway and they have to send two trucks out to water blast the ice off the wings, they then coat them with a green liquid and after a min or two the wings start to move again and we can finally take off. Now, I understand that things freeze but wouldn't it make sense that they looked at these things *before* loading the plane? If I were down south I can understand them not taking the steps to de-ice the plane before hand but you would think that those who run Logan Airport would know better..

Had a good nap and arrived in DC with no further issue. Getting the rental car was a bit of a humorous event, I get the car (Toyota Corolla) and leave the booth. After you drive out of the booth you hit a stop sign, there was no sign so I went straight to "outside". "Outside" meant into the car wash area?! I drove around for a bit looking for another way out and found that I was apparently supposed to turn left at the stop sign and go back into the garage to go down levels and out into the street. Only way back now was to go in as if I were returning the car and drive around. OK.. Back around and out to freedom.. Got to the hotel finally and relaxed a bit before heading to Sunflowers for dinner.

For a starter I got the One Mouth Happiness which is a few pieces of each of their sushi rolls. Roll 1: Zen Roll - Avocado, hiyashi seaweed and cucumber. Roll 2: Rainbow Roll - Carrot, pickled daikon, inani and cucumber. Roll 3: Inani Sushi (Marinated Tofu Skin) - Stuffed w. brown rice, sesame seeds, crispy bean curd, seacress & shiso condiment. That came with edamame soy beans on the side.

I probably should have stopped there but I didn't.. I got Raw World as my entree, which is listed as "Japanese style akatosaka, aotosaka, jicama, tomato, organic sunflower seeds, avocado, pine nuts, dried blueberry, dried cranberry and daikon on a bed of mixed greens". I was not happy when it came, it was a big pile of iceberg lettuce with separate piles of each of those things. Actually that's not totally true, the sunflower seeds, pine nuts, blueberries and cranberries were in a cup on the side as was the dressing. Oh, and the avocado was entire half of an avocado, not even cut up, just scooped out and plopped on top.

To boot the Lemonade I got was minute maid lemonade. I figured in a vegetarian/vegan restaurant the lemonade would have been made from real lemons.. I am probably going to go back and get their General Tso's tofu. We shall see...

Today Robyn is coming over and tomorrow I'm meeting Amy and Mitch.. No plans yet for Thursday but I'm working on it.. ;)

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I will post a "catch up blog" tomorrow which will talk about Jan 5th - 17th, for now I'm logging off so I can get out'a here..

Goodbye 2009...

2010-01-04T13:41:00.006-05:00

So, I had this great idea to write a "Year End Letter" blog making it as over the top as possible and then posting the Garfunkel and Oates song as the Diversion.. Then Jay Leno and NBC pulled the video off you tube and ruined my idea.. The blog wouldn't have been funny without the song so the idea was scrapped.. Notice the link above.. It brings you to the song on you tube, it's a somewhat new link so I don't know how long it will last.. If you have not heard it check it out before it goes away again.. btw - if it does go away you can always get it on the Jay Leno website but the involves loading the episode and fast forwarding till you find it. So, I was looking for the link to the episode on Jay Leno's site and I found something better... Here is a direct link on Jay Leno's site..

Now that I have a link that will work I'm still not posting my year end letter blog.. Unless I get lots of requests for one.. :)

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I was on TV Torrents a while back and found a fan made Star Trek show called Hidden Frontier, I just watched the first three episodes with Jessie last night. The story was good and the special effects were good, the acting however was very bad. Jessie is not interested in watching anymore of it but I'm going to go through a bit more to see if the acting gets better. They have seven seasons of Hidden Frontier and a few spin-off shows, I downloaded all that was available today.. TV Torrents had the low res versions of all the episodes, the above linked website has the high res versions as well as the low res versions so I replaced all mine with the high res versions.

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I got Guitar Hero: Aerosmith a while ago and every time we play it we get frustrated at the quality of the songs, not just the selection but also the mixing quality. It was starting to make me poo on the entire Guitar Hero franchise but no more.. I just got Guitar Hero: Smash Hits and it has redeemed Guitar Hero in my eyes, every track is good or better and they play much better than anything on the Aerosmith one. The other cool thing they did.. If you had Band Hero you can type in the code from the Smash Hits book to make the songs from Smash Hits available in Band Hero, this also works for Guitar Hero V.

In other Guitar Hero news, Rock Band and Guitar Hero have finally come to an agreement to allow each others instruments to work. The only exception is the original Rock Band and Guitar Hero stuff. So, if you have Guitar Hero II + instruments they will work on all Rock Band games except the 1st one. If you have Rock Band II + instruments they will work on all Guitar Hero games except the 1st one. I'm pretty happy because now I can play things like Rock Band Lego which has a bunch of Queen songs.

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Some people take bowling very seriously, I don't.. If you don't take it seriously this might be for you.. Go find a duck pin bowling alley and have them put up the bumpers on the gutters. Now you can play ricochet bowling! It's like Pool and Bowling combined into one game. I went bowling with Lynz and Anja and we had a blast.. Nobody got a strike and there were only two spares (one for me and one for Lynz), we wanted to see if we could knock 'em all down so we each rolled two balls at the same time. Six balls going at various angles netted us 9 pins!

After the game we chatted with the guy at the counter, apparently there has never been a perfect game in duck pin bowling. The pins are spaced just as far apart as they are in regular bowling but the pins are much shorter. When they fall they are not big enough to hit the pins next to it so you don't get that wonderful

domino effect.

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I finally agree with Board Game Geek on something.. I played Dominion with Randy and Chris on New Years Eve and it is a great game. It's a card game but it feels like a board game. I would say it's my favorite of the newer games I've played, by newer I mean games that came out in the last two years or so. Board Game Geek ranks it at #6 all time.

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There is a great article in the January 3, 2010 Boston Globe. I am going to cut and paste it here so you don't have to go to the link and read it on six pages with ads all over the place.. Here is it:

Love’s new frontier

By Sandra A. Miller

January 3, 2010

Jay Sekora isn’t actively looking for an additional relationship, but he admits to occasionally checking a dating site to see who’s out there. Sekora’s girlfriend, Mare, who does not want her last name used here for professional reasons, said she is not pursuing anyone, either, but is “open and welcoming to what might come along.” In the three-plus years they have been together, a few other people have come along, like the woman whom Sekora, a 43-year-old systems administrator from Quincy, met online and dated briefly until she moved away. There was also a male-male couple that Mare and Sekora, who identifies as bisexual, dated for several months as a couple. Other than that, it has been the two of them. Well, sort of.

Through the lens of monogamy, this love connection may appear distorted, but that’s not how Sekora and Mare, who is 45, describe their lifestyle. Adherents call it responsible non-monogamy or polyamory, and the nontraditional practice is creeping out of the closet, making gay marriage feel somewhat last decade here in Massachusetts. What literally translates to “loving many,” polyamory (or poly, for short), a term coined around 1990, refers to consensual, romantic love with more than one person. Framing it in broad terms, Sekora, one of the three founders and acting administrator of the 500-person-strong group Poly Boston, says: “There’s monogamy where two people are exclusive. There’s cheating in which people are lying about being exclusive. And poly is everything else.”

Everything else with guidelines, that is, although those vary according to the agreed-upon needs and desires of the people in the relationships. After all, this isn’t swinging, in which a couple seeks out recreational sex. This isn’t even the free love of the ’60s and ’70s, characterized by psychedelic love-ins. And despite the shared “poly” prefix, this certainly isn’t the patriarchal, man-with-many-wives polygamy that has earned increased public attention with the HBO show Big Love. Polyamory has a decidedly feminist, free-spirited flavor, and these are real relationships with the full array of benefits and complexities -- plus a few more -- as the members of Poly Boston’s hypercommunicative, often erudite, and well-entwined community will explain.

“With affairs, you get sex. With polyamory, you get breakfast,” says Cambridge sex therapist Gina Ogden, citing a well-known poly saying. Ogden is the author of The Return of Desire, in which she dedicates a chapter to affairs and polyamory. “Polyamory isn’t a lifestyle for everybody, any more than monogamy is for everybody,” she says. “Keeping one relationship vital is a lot of work, and if you start adding more relationships, it becomes more work.” Though common descriptors used for monogamy don’t easily apply to polyamory, there is a recognizable spectrum of how open these partnerships may be. On the closed end, you might have a couple in a primary relationship who will then have one or more secondary relationships that are structured to accommodate the primary one. There’s also polyfidelity, in which three or more people are exclusive with one another. On the open end, there might be chains of people where, for example, Sue is dating Bill and Bill is dating Karen and Karen is dating Jack, who is also dating Sue.

“I’m not sure there are as many ways to be poly as there are people who are poly, but it’s close,” says Thomas Amoroso, an emergency room doctor from Somerville and member of Poly Boston. Amoroso, 48, who identifies as straight, has been in a committed relationship for five years with a woman and man who live together within walking distance of his Somerville apartment. Amoroso is only sexual with the woman, who is sexual with each of the men separately, but they all consider the others life partners. “No one has said the words ‘Till death do us part,’ but I think that’s the intent,” Amoroso says. Divorced in 1999 after 15 years of marriage, Amoroso felt unable to express his affectionate nature in the confines of a monogamous relationship. When a woman he had just begun seeing revealed she was polyamorous, the concept, new to Amoroso, resonated. Amoroso and the woman stayed together for five years, while each sustained additional relationships, including -- for her -- one with Sekora that drew Sekora and Amoroso together in a close friendship that they still maintain. For Amoroso, being poly is less about sex than the authentic expression of caring for more than one person. “People tend to harp on the sexual component,” he says, “but the relationship component is just as important.”

It’s complicated, as the poly catch phrase goes. It’s also still surprisingly closeted. Nonetheless, Valerie White, executive director of Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund in Sharon, says we are ahead of the curve in Massachusetts, particularly compared with the South, where teachers have lost their jobs and parents have lost their children for being poly. But she notes there is no push in the poly movement to legalize these relationships, largely because there’s no infrastructure for it. “It was easy to legalize gay marriage. All you had to do was change bride and groom to person A and person B. But we don’t know what multi-partnered marriage looks like,” White says.

“The gay struggle is a larger struggle, and as poly people we don’t have to be political,” says Amoroso, who, like many poly people, does see the need for a clearer legal recognition of relationships that aren’t marriages. (If one of his partners were to fall ill, for example, he would want legal visitation rights.) But he also thinks the lifestyle can gain acceptance. “Most poly relationships that I’m familiar with are heterosexual, and that’s a lot more understandable to people, even if they wouldn’t do it this way,” he says. “The fantasy of more than one boyfriend or girlfriend is fairly widespread,” he adds.

Women may face more criticism for living a polyamorous lifestyle, according to Valerie Sperling, professor of women’s and gender studies at Clark University in Worcester. “This is a hot-button issue for women,” Sperling says, “and if a woman is out as having two or more boyfriends, people might label her oversexed, versus the ‘boys will be boys’ idea that kicks in when men have sex with lots of women. What a stud. What a slut.” She points to this double standard as a possible reason so few poly women would speak on the record for this story.

For even more serious reasons, Opeyemi Parham kept her poly lifestyle closeted for the 20 years she worked as a physician in Boston. A divorced woman who for several of those years was in an open relationship with a male partner, Parham feared both the professional consequences and the possibility that she could lose custody of her two children, who are now in their 20s. Since leaving conventional medicine to work as a health educator, Parham says she is now beyond those consequences and wants to show people that her lifestyle is not threatening in any way. “Boston, in my experience, has a uniquely cerebral approach to life and is somewhat disconnected from the body. Therefore, issues of sexuality can be a little more volatile and open to misinterpretation,” says Parham, who moved to Greenfield in 2003. “My agenda is a society where people can choose how they relate with other humans sexually without legal penalties, professional penalties, and the emotional penalty of shame and blame,” says Parham.

“The conventional paradigm of monogamy is very much entrenched in our culture,” says Randi Kaufman, a clinical psychologist who has counseled nearly 40 poly people in her Cambridge office. “Practicing polyamory means setting aside the basic principle of monogamy that one person will meet all of another’s needs in an intimate relationship.” Though Kaufman has seen polyamory work well, she also has counseled clients on some poly-specific challenges, such as “new relationship energy,” referring to an intensified focus on a new person that can cause someone to neglect his or her other partners while in the throes of new love. Just as in monogamous relationships, sex can drop off in poly relationships, too, says Kaufman, but poly people can still get their sexual needs met by others without damaging their primary relationships. Then there’s the issue of jealousy.

“A lot of poly people who feel jealous say it’s a warning sign that your needs aren’t getting met,” says Sekora. He says he’s felt insecure about relationships but not necessarily jealous of his partner’s partners. He recalls a time early in his relationship with Mare, however, when she felt threatened by a woman he had started dating. When the three sat down and talked, the women got along well and Mare’s worries dissipated. “Sensible, mature, self-reliant, and stable partners would be a welcome asset” to their relationship, says Mare, who began to identify as poly five years ago when she tapped into the Poly Boston community. Even though she grew up in a more sexually permissive era than her mother did, Mare remembers being in high school and college in the 1980s and envying her mother’s 1950s young adulthood when people dated around. For Mare, who likes the thought of having deep, enduring love with Sekora -- and the possibility of more first kisses with other people -- a polyamorous lifestyle is the answer.

Growing up in Macomb, Illinois, Sekora never felt any inclination toward monogamy. He gave it a try with his first girlfriend at 16 and quickly knew it wasn’t for him. Through reading about other times and cultures, the intellectually curious teen realized he might not be the only person on the planet who felt hard-wired for open relationships the way some people are meant for monogamy. As an undergraduate at Yale in the 1980s, Sekora never met anyone else who identified as non-monogamous, but when he moved to Princeton, New Jersey, in 1989 for his first post-college job in technical support, he got plugged into a bisexual community that helped him claim that identity. Through that community, which Sekora and others say has a large overlap with the poly community, he met a significant number of non-monogamous people and had his first relationship with someone who already identified as poly and was looking for open relationships. Sekora remembers it as a learning experience. “I think you can play the part of a monogamous person without necessarily having to think what it means for you,” he says. “There’s a cultural script that we learn from movies, sitcoms, songs on the radio, and watching our parents. Because there isn’t a similar script for poly relationships, you have to think about what you’re doing and decide what you want.”

Many people find the journey from a closed to a sexually open lifestyle scary, according to Dossie Easton, coauthor with Janet Hardy of 2009’s The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures, a book many consider the poly bible (the first edition came out in 1997). “Most of us will have to deal with challenging emotional responses to new experiences as we move into more openness in our relationships, and work to find ease and security beyond guarantees of love based on sexual exclusivity,” says Easton, a licensed marriage and family therapist in San Francisco who made a conscious decision 40 years ago never to be monogamous again. The benefits, she says, include the freedom to engage in relationships that are not about life partnerships but may provide different perspectives, adventures in sexuality, and new connections with many people. Easton also cites the value of a poly community as a place to exchange information and support with people who understand your lifestyle.

It was Biversity Boston, a thriving, well-organized bi community, that helped draw Sekora to Boston in 1992. After a few years, he and two other non-monogamous bisexual friends envisioned a similar organization and separate social space for poly people. Their research revealed that a small, albeit active, polyamorous group called Family Tree had already been in existence locally since 1980. (Valerie White says Family Tree was one of the first established poly groups in the country, perhaps pointing to a progressive social attitude in the Boston area.) But the Family Tree meetings usually took place, and still do, in the suburbs, and its members were generally older. Sekora imagined Boston-centered, T-accessible events that could also draw an urban crowd. In December 1994, Sekora and the two others who are no longer active in the community launched Poly Boston as a mailing list of five people. Six months later, it started taking root with new members. Sekora took over the list in 1998, steadily helping it grow to its current 500 members, with an almost equal number of men and women. He says bumps in new subscription requests usually come in the wake of Poly Boston’s appearance at the Boston Pride Parade or its booth at the associated festival.

While primarily still a mailing list and website with no formal organizational structure, Poly Boston hosts weekly gatherings at a cafe in Somerville’s Davis Square and monthly dinners at a restaurant on the Red Line. Occasionally, the members meet for ad hoc discussion evenings or day trips. The events, which typically attract a few dozen people, are not meant to be places to shop for partners, but some of that becomes inevitable, according to Amoroso, who attends a gathering every other month. He admits that if you’ve been in the community any length of time, you’ve probably dated a significant fraction of the people in it.

As the website administrator and first point of contact for new members, Sekora maintains his original goal of fostering a healthy, welcoming poly community here. The flavor of the group reflects the city in general, with a fair amount of students as well as people who came here to study and then stayed on. But, demographically, it is more bisexual than the city at large because of the identities of the three founding members. Information technology, academia, and biotech are well represented among the professions, but, though the group is somewhat skewed toward the sciences, plenty of Poly Boston people work in the humanities or the service industry, according to Sekora. The most obvious common feature beyond their lifestyle may be a love of intellectual ferment. “It certainly seems to be a group of people who are, by and large, interested in the discussion of ideas,” Sekora says. When it comes to dating within the group, Sekora observes that, unlike with monogamous breakups where there’s a tendency to divvy up friends and social events, this isn’t the norm in Poly Boston. “I think the line between lovers and friends is less impermeable in the poly community, and that can help avoid drama,” says Sekora. “But that isn’t the way for everyone,” he adds. “I certainly know people who can’t show up for an event because their exes might be there.”

* * *

Poly Boston members Alan and Michelle Wexelblat of Burlington take turns attending the cafe gatherings. As the parents of two boys, 6 and 9, the poly couple find that the get-togethers -- though child-friendly -- conflict with homework and dinnertime. “There’s nothing that having kids didn’t affect in our lives, including how we date,” says Alan. That would be dating each other as well as other people outside of their stable 10-year marriage. Both Alan and Michelle identified as non-monogamous when they met and hit it off 15 years ago at a science-fiction convention in Philadelphia. Authors such as Robert Heinlein, whose stories often feature nontraditional marriages, are frequently credited with the striking overlap of poly people and science-fiction fans. But there seems to be no causal relationship between discovering these ideas in books and putting them into practice. More likely the Internet, a longtime hangout for sci-fi fans and poly people, is the common denominator.

“People have been practicing polyamory for eons,” says Michelle, a social worker at a community mental health center in Lawrence. “It’s not necessarily polyamory, but there is this concept of relationships with multiple people in them.” She cites biblical writings that refer to multiple wives and hunter-gatherer communities where men and women stayed together for a few years before moving on to new partners. “This is common if you look at anthropology,” she adds.

Alan and Michelle kept in touch after the convention and eventually dated their way -- although not exclusively -- into their open marriage. Prior to becoming parents, they would each typically have at least one or two relationships beyond their own. Currently Alan, a user interaction designer for a local software company, has one -- a steady girlfriend of four years -- and Michelle has none. How long has it been since Michelle has dated anyone? “Long enough to be annoying,” says Alan, who would like to see his wife find a boyfriend.

Michelle, who calls herself a romantic, says she gets wistful rather than jealous when her husband goes out on dates, and while she would welcome having someone new in her life, it also has to be the right person. There’s compatibility to consider but also schedules, goals, and, of course, the feelings of other partners. Alan likens the experience of introducing new people into the relationship to the awkwardness of bringing a boyfriend or girlfriend home to meet the parents. They both note that dating outside the poly “tribe” is difficult. “It’s easier to date people who already share a certain set of beliefs about relationships,” says Alan, who, like Michelle, wears a wedding band and asserts that they are both upfront about their lifestyle when meeting a non-poly person they would like to date. “Why wait until you’ve got the other person interested and it could be complicated to tell them?” says Michelle.

Then there are the kids, who in this case, according to Alan, understand as much about their parents’ lifestyle as they want to. The two boys have attended several Boston Pride Parades, and they know and interact with their parents’ partners as they would with any other close adult friends. But the Wexelblats have not yet explained the specifics of their lifestyle to their sons. “Kids deal well with things they think are normal,” says Alan. “To the degree that we can help them be comfortable with this, then they will treat it as normal. That’s the theory, anyway.”

That theory is starting to get support from research. In 2006, Elisabeth Sheff, an assistant professor of sociology at Georgia State University who had been collecting data on poly families since 1996, launched the first long-term study of children raised in such families. While her findings are not yet conclusive, Sheff says her initial generalization is that kids raised in poly families have access to many resources, such as help with homework, rides when needed, and the additional emotional support and attention that comes from having other, nonparental adults in their lives. Sheff adds, however, that “kids in poly families also sometimes feel extremely upset when their parents’ partners leave, if it means the end of the relationship between the kid and the ex-partner.” She says that poly families often pass as mundane, blended families from divorce and remarriage and therefore easily fly below the radar.

Many poly people don’t necessarily want to stand out, but quietly seek acceptance for a lifestyle that they say is challenging, often time-consuming, and yet rewarding. “For some people, being poly is a lot of constant work,” says Sekora. “It is probably intrinsically harder balancing three people’s wants and needs than two people’s. But if I had to choose between monogamy and celibacy, I would choose celibacy.” For Alan Wexelblat, being poly is important to his identity, but hardly the whole of his and Michelle’s life. “Ninety nine point nine percent of our lives is ordinary stuff,” he says. “We have jobs. We have kids. We worry about school. We check homework. For us, living as a poly couple is just living as people in modern society.”

Sandra A. Miller is a freelance writer living in Arlington.

Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

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And Finally...

---Diversion of the Day

http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2009-12-08/index.html

Welcome to the Dollhouse, now get out!

2009-12-28T22:36:00.002-05:00

When Dollhouse first aired me, Jessie, Ryan and Sara watched the first episode. I remember really liking it and we added to the season pass of our TiVo but that was on our old TiVo before it died. During the TiVo replacement process we decided not to deal with copying off Dollhouse because we figured we could just watch it on DVD when it came out. So.. Fast forward a bit.. Dad got Dollhouse on BlueRay and a few months ago got us an awesome BlueRay player. When we got the player we borrowed Dollhouse Season 1 and it sat in a pile, we never watched it because it seemed like so much to watch and we never have the time..

We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house again this year. I made a lime chili tilapia with acorn squash and Jessie made her raw pasta sauce. Towards the end of the night Jessie started to feel strep like conditions, when we got up Christmas Day we were in no hurry to run over to my brother's house because we were both now feeling sick and even debated going to the emergency room because urgent care was closed on Christmas Day..

What do you do in the winter when it's cold outside? Stay inside... Add to that not feeling good equals LOTS of staying inside and lots of TV. We caught up on all of our shows (Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Iron Chef America, Chopped and Monk) and went into the BlueRay pile.. First - My Name is Bruce which was a crazy silly Bruce Campbell movie, it was pretty funny but the movie was overshadowed by the theme song! (see diversion of the day)..

Speaking of Monk.. Wait, were we? Sure... Why not... Anyway, Monk.. We watched the last nine episodes over the last few days, if you ever liked that show I recommend watching at least the final few episodes. It could have been one of the best series finals of all time.. I was not a big fan of last season, but this season (especially the last few episodes) really made the entire show. You will be missed Mr. Monk... Thanks go out to Tony Shalhoub for brightening our lives for the last eight years!

Back to the Dollhouse.. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now Dollhouse, all on my list of all time best TV shows.. Joss Whedon has created four very distinct and very great shows. The only annoying thing about Dollhouse is that we now have to wait to watch the final few episodes in real time. There are three episodes left to the series. Low ratings and an odd concept led to a very early cancellation, at least this time he has gotten the chance to wrap up the storyline unlike Firefly.

---Diversion of the Day

How about a welcome home snow storm?

2009-12-22T23:33:00.003-05:00

It snowed Sunday like a bitch... Well, Saturday evening into Sunday.. We got at least a foot or two.. Welcome back, right?

I have not blogged in a while because I didn't have internet on my PC for the ride home and as you know it can get away pretty quick.. I just got home from Tuesday dinner and am watching ICA while Jessie makes food for her luncheon tomorrow. Gwen made a turkey today and it came out really good, I don't normally like turkey but I enjoyed it quite a bit tonight. Joe brought Setcube which is the game of Set in a Scrabble type setting and Kevin brought Monty Python Flux so it was a fun night filled with fun games.. :)

So, back to my last blog... When last I wrote I was getting ready to leave for Animal Kingdom. I was happy to see that they added quite a bit to Animal Kingdom since the last time I was there, the safari was better than I remember and they opened Everest (a roller coaster) as well as the completed Dinosaur play area. Speaking of the safari.. I was getting on the ride and the guy on the platform looked familiar, I looked closer and realized it was a friend of mine I hadn't seen in years! When I worked for Lechters I met Justin who had at the time recently moved to the North East after working for Disney. We both left Lechters for Natural Surroundings and from there we both went to Best Buy. He left Best Buy and last I heard had moved out to the middle of the country so it was pretty crazy to see him working back at Disney! I hung out with him for a few minutes on his lunch break, we were going to hang out that night but he ended up having too much school work to do. Instead I ended up at Downtown Disney, Disney Quest and Pleasure Island.

Disney Quest was pretty lame for a single player, most of the games are at least two players if not four players so there was not too much to do by myself. Disney is in the process of changing over Pleasure Island to a sorta restaurant row. All of the old clubs are closed and they are starting to open up some new restaurants, I ate at one of them (forgot the name now, but it was the South American restaurant) which was really good. I got a skirt steak and sat outside on the water listening to live music, Downtown Disney is across the lake from Saratoga Springs and they had the Tree Houses lit up so you could see them across the lake.

...

When I arrived at Disney I saw a advertisement on the table in the hotel room for 40%-45% off your next trip provided that trip is booked while your currently in Disney and as long as you come again during 2010, well since me and Jessie are planning to go in Oct of 2010 I called the number and booked our trip. You actually had to call from the room which makes sense. I set up a week in a Fort Wilderness Cabin, if you set it up online it's almost $3,000 and by setting it up while there I ended up paying $1,500!

Monday me and dad went over to Epcot and finished up the Kim Possible missions that were available. Uncle Larry, Tina and Cameron came over and met us but we didn't stay long as we had dinner reservations over at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom. Cinderella's Round Table was an interesting experience, I guess I did once before when I was younger but I don't remember it. I was expecting the food to be somewhat generic because I figured you were paying for meeting Cinderella and sitting in the castle but the food ended up being real good. I had a salmon crab cake for an appetizer which was probably the star of the meal.

I woke up early Tuesday and headed out. I probably would have done better waking up later because I got stuck in real bad rush hour traffic in Orlando. Once out of Orlando it was mostly smooth sailing to get to North Carolina. This time I went to Keith and Beckie's house and Beckie made dinner. Rich came over but Harry and Nicole did not because Harry had the bronchitis.. Beckie made Taco Pie which was croissant dough in a baking pan with ground turkey, cheese, chips and spices, it was very good and I think I will try to recreate it for one of the Tuesday dinners. Speaking of great, she made a salsa which was so good I actually had her print me the recipe. I always enjoy hanging out with Keith, Beckie and Rich and it was nice to see them again.

Wednesday I drove from North Carolina to Virginia. Hung out with Robyn for lunch before heading over to Amy and Mitch's condo. I probably have not seen Mitch in five years and it was very fun to see him again, I was surprised at how young he still looks. I saw Amy earlier in the year but it's always awesome to see her, we had a great night doing nothing but playing cards, talking and listening to music.

Thursday was a LONG day on the road! I went shopping with Amy in morning before leaving which was the best part of the day. Got stuck in DC traffic, missed my exit in Delaware and ended up driving about 40 mins out of the way up 95. Got stuck in accident traffic in both Trenton NJ and crossing the bridge into Staten Island. By the time I finally got to Amber and Kris's apartment we had just enough time to eat before they left for a midnight showing of Avatar.

Friday I got up early and grabbed the Ferry from Long Island to Bridgeport CT. Friday ended up being a pretty great first day home. I met Holly for lunch and Lynz on her way home from work/doctors's appointment before finally getting home to see Jessie. I wanted to get home before Jessie but traffic nailed me again, this time on 395, so I got home a bit after her. Hung out with Jessie for a bit before meeting Lynz at a Barnacle concert in Johnston RI. Barnacle is a good band and the percussion guy was amazing, he had a set of bones in each hand and was playing two different percussion lines! If that was not amazing enough he grabbed a shaker in each hand and had that going while still playing the two bones.. Enough already? Nope.. He grabbed a tambourine and dropped it on the floor and started playing it with his foot!!!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday was a whole lot of cleaning and catching up on TV. Monday night I went out Christmas shopping with Lynz and Anja. Today I finished cleaning and wrapped all my presents. I came up with this great idea to make the boys (Tim and Rowan) boffer daggers, I could find any CPVC or pipe foam so I ended up ripping apart my old staff to make them daggers. I did the entire project (ripped apart old staff and made two daggers) in less than one hour!

---Diversion of the Day

Matt sent me this article today, interesting??

Future World

2009-12-13T07:05:00.000-05:00

2nd day in a row I'm the first one up.. Spent the day over in Epcot yesterday.. Me, Uncle Larry and Cameron got over there for 9am (park opening) and did Test Track, Mission Space and Energy all before the crowds showed up, we were able to basically walk onto each of those rides. From about noon-close Test Track had around a 110 minute wait so it was good that we got on when we did. spaceship Earth was the first ride where we hit a line and that one was not too bad (20 minutes). Dad and Tina joined us after Spaceship Earth and we went over to the Land pavilion and Soarin. Soarin's line said 50 minutes but it ended up being over 90! They added some interactive stuff to do in the line but it was still pretty painful to wait that long.

After Soarin we ate lunch at the quick serve place and I got a goat cheese and beet salad and some corn chowder. Went from there to the Land ride and the Lion King living with the land movie to finish off the Land pavilion.

They recently changed the Sea pavilion, the replaced the entry with a Nemo ride and added a "Turtle Talk" show which is like Monsters Inc. Crush comes out and talks to the audience, I am in awe at they way they do those two shows. Obviously the lips don't sink 100% with the voice but it's close and the movements do sync which is crazy. Journey into Imagination and Honey I shrunk the Audience ended the day.

How big is Epcot? We went from 9am - 7:30pm and completed the 7 main buildings of Future World. We didn't step foot in Innoventions or the World Showcase.

Ate in the Land pavilion at the Garden Grill which is the rotating restaurant.. Cameron loved it because Chip, Dale, Pluto and Mickey were there and kept walking around and interacting with everyone. Chip snuck up on him (I don't really know how) and Cameron was so excited he fell out of his chair! The food was good and pretty cheap so no complaints on that end.

Dad left after dinner and the rest of us went to the UK for some beer and Illuminations. We managed to get a table in the Rose and Crown, when I say a table I mean the best table in the house. It was located outside and in perfect line with the show, we were so close firework debris landed on the table!

Today is Animal Kingdom and last I checked the weather it was going to be in the high 80s. I guess that cold front is thankfully over..

Iron Chef Cat Cora..

2009-12-12T08:03:00.002-05:00

Not much has changed at Disney's Hollywood Studios except the name. Actually I guess that's not entirely true. We got to the park and upon looking at the show times decided to head over to Star Tours because they had an early morning "Jedi Academy" show. The Jedi Academy show is not supposed to be funny but when kids are involved there is usually some good laughs. There is a line of kids waiting to be Padawans, they take a bunch up on stage and teach them how to use a lightsaber. The guy who played the Jedi Master had an awesome sense of humor and he kept having to tell these two kids to face the audience. He would be teaching and almost every other sentence was "it might work better if you faced this way", or "it might work better if you turned around".. The Jedi Academy show might have been my favorite part of Hollywood Studios because the Jedi Master was just that cool, at one point he made a real bad joke and the audience didn't laugh so he waved his hand and said "you will find my jokes funny" and told the same joke again, of course this time we all laughed... :D

The other new things.. American Idol.. They have auditions in the morning and shows in the afternoon into evening, the audience judges and the winner gets a real American Idol audition. Toy Story ride.. I didn't ride it because the line was too long, it's a shoot 'em up ride where you get guns attached to your cars and have to get points while you drive around. Narnia show and props show.. They bring you into a cave and show you the entire plot to Prince Caspian and then open the doors so you can walk around to see clothes and props from the movie.

I left Hollywood Studios around 4 and went over to Epcot.. Epcot was very crowded and I spend the next few hours doing Kim Possible missions, I've now done missions in Mexico, Norway, China and Germany. While in Germany my locator tab broke, I went back to the booth to get another one and one of the guys who works there came with me to test it and we ended up hanging out while I finished Germany and did China. He had just gotten off work and was looking to hang out for awhile before going home, he was a nice guy but I was kinda glad when he left.

It had been cold all day and I finally caved and bought a new sweatshirt, it's an Epcot one of course but it's different than the one Jessie has. I got over to dinner a little early and they were really crowded, I ended up getting seated just a few minutes later than my appointment. Does cold weather effect Iron or am I looking for excuses?

I was having a real big problem warming up so I decided to get warming food, if you looked over the menu you would probably assume I would get the fish dish which was an entire fish cooked with oil, olives, greens, fennel and other spices. What I got instead was a Cinnamon chicken dish over rice which was good but certainly not Iron, I actually think my cini-maple chicken is better than her dish. My first course was a roasted red pepper and chick-pea soup which was very tasty and really did a good job of warming me up. Next came the chicken and the wine. Cat Cora has a series of signature wines, I had the Pinot Nior with dinner and every time I would start to think this meal is just eh I would have a sip of wine and be blown away once more, there are more flavors and textures in each sip than there were in the entire meal. I bought two bottles to take home.. For dessert I got doughnuts which came with raspberry and vanilla dipping sauces. I tried each separately which was good and then both together which was better.

So, to sum up.. I would not put her in the same realm as the other Iron Chefs but she is certainly not anywhere near as bad as Nakamura.. I will update my Iron Chef list blog later and rank them.. :)

I was the first one up this morning.. :D Going to Epcot with everyone today.. I thought today was Animal Kingdom but they were wrong when looking at their restaurant reservations.

Disney Dec 2009 Day 2

2009-12-11T08:01:00.003-05:00

Yesterday started the night before.. When I was getting ready for bed we realized we had no blankets or pillows for the living room beds.. I called the lobby around 11pm and finally got blankets and pillows at 1:30 after calling them 3 more times.. Between that frustration and my dad watching TV in his room it took me a long time to get to sleep so I was extra upset when at 5am uncle Larry turned on all the lights to make coffee! He came in and was trying to turn on just the light above the sink but there didn't seem to be a switch to do that. After he started coffee he went back into his bedroom and I was now wide awake and grumpy.. Took a shower in the living room bathroom which was lame because that shower has a single shower head and it sprays in a straight line so it's like pouring a pitcher of water..

Dad was hanging out when I got out of the shower and I tried to convince him to come to the Magic Kingdom, but he decided to wait for them to get up and moving. The Magic Kingdom had "extra" morning hours yesterday so I went over for the early opening. I went on a few rides and was very impressed with the Monsters Inc show. The Monsters Inc show is a new addition to Tomorrowland, while you're in the waiting room for the show they tell you text jokes to them so they can use them in the show which I thought was a joke but turned out to be real. I don't know what magic they use to do this but it's an animated movie where they interact with the audience! Imagine being at a comedy club but the comedians are cartoons, at first I figured it was pre-programmed but then the person sitting next to me got harassed so I knew it was real. I would be bold enough to say that one show is worth going to the Magic Kingdom. They also changed up the line for Space Mountain and added video games you can play while waiting in line. Met up with everyone as they were coming off Pirates and I went on Splash Mountain with uncle Larry and Cameron and got soaked! I've been on that ride many many times and never got as wet as I did this time..

Back to the hotel for a nap and change of clothes.. After nap I went over to Epcot and quickly remembered why that is the best part of Disney. I didn't get real far actually, I went in and found me and Jessie's "Leave a Legacy" marker right away, man we looked young in that (put up in 2001). Next onto Starship Earth which they changed a bit, they updated some of the special effects and added a computer to the cars which asks you questions about how you want your future to look and then shows you some of the new or upcoming technological advancements that can make your future a reality! The ride now drops you off into an area which has some activities, one of them tested your reaction time, memory, and hand eye coordination and showed how in the future they can use a machine like this to perform physicals, uploading the data to the doctors office. They also had a 3D operation game which was really neat looking.

Went from there to Innoventions where I spent the rest of the day. I played a waste management game, they would ask you questions about your usage and then you get a "truck" of garbage, you have to bring the truck over to the recycle station and separate trash from recyclables, then to a trash burner to burn whatever you can and finally to a land fill where you can make a nature preserve with your remaining trash. Also played a Piggy Bank game where they teach you how to save money by bringing a piggy bank from station to station and collecting coins, diversifying your loot to hide it from the wolf and fighting the inflation balloon.. From there I went to "Sum of all Thrills" which shows you how you need math to do things like build roller coasters, once you build it you ride it on a mechanical arm which whips you about to simulate the motion of your coaster. From the wild to the mild, the next stop was the Segway which I got to ride up and down a pre-set course for free! It was a bit tricky at first but once you get the hang of it you can move around pretty good, it steers like a motorcycle and the only thing that was tricky was mounting and dis-mounting. What else? Oh, right, then I played a fire prevention game which was there before but still lots of fun and watched the effects of wind and weather on a house.

Finally left Innoventions right around 6 and went up to Canada to watch Off Kilter which had their last show of the night at 6:15. I got two more of their CDs and there are apparently two more which they were out of yesterday. If you don't know Off Kilter, they are a band very much in the vain of Kilt and Great Big Sea. Check your iPods because you may already have their first CD.. ;)

Decided to eat while I was in Epcot so I went over to the UK and had me some fish and chips while sitting on a quiet bench at the lake. The fish and chips was very good and apparently got me in the UK mindset (more on that later).. After dinner I accepted a Kim Possible mission which led me from the UK to Norway to Mexico. The way it works is they give you a cell phone which gives you hints to lead you from place to place, the cell phone interacts with items around the park to make them change, etc. These could possibly be the best thing that could happen to make Epcot even better, there are (from what I've been told) 7 different cell phones, in each cell phone there is a mission in each of the Worlds so that's a lot of different missions! I see a long day of me doing nothing but playing these ahead.. What a great way to make sure you see everything in the World Showcase.

After I solved my mission I went over to America to watch some of the Candlelight Performance which was very pretty, the left and right side of the choir was dressed in white to look like snow, the middle of the choir was dressed in green and those at the top of the tree in gold so that when you stood back it looked like a giant Christmas tree! I thought it was going to be a parade but it was just a stage show of choir music. I watched a song before heading back to the UK to get a seat for the fireworks show. I went up and ordered a beer and the guy said $8, I handed him a $10 and then pulled my coin purse out expecting a $2 coin! Silly America and our reluctance to use coins..

I filmed most of the fireworks show with my camera phone but can't post them because the hotel blocks youtube as R rated content.. I will have to post it later.. After the park closed I went over the Boardwalk so I could see where Cora's restaurant was. Got back to the room and all was quiet because dad and uncle Larry went to the store to get breakfast stuff. I turned on the little light over the coffee maker and went to sleep so that there would be no "lights on" event again this morning.

Got up and took a shower in dad's bathroom which has a great shower, it has a real shower head and a rain shower head so it was a nice happy making shower. Uncle Larry made egg sammiches and I'm now sitting in the lobby on the WiFi because dad is using the room internet to do work.

Today.. Heading to Hollywood Studios (used to be called MGM)..

Disney Day 1..

2009-12-09T22:25:00.002-05:00

Last night I relaxed in the hot tub and watched some Daily Shows on my laptop. Lag time was pretty horrible and kept buffering but I got caught up to date.. Woke up this morning and finished the drive to Disney.. Got to Disney at the same time as my dad, uncle Larry, aunt Tina and their grandson Cameron. Me and dad went over to the Magic Kingdom to get me my annual pass and food discount card, I managed to convince him to come into the park with me and we went to a few rides before meeting back up with Larry, Tina and Cameron to head to dinner.. The lines were all very small which is a good thing. I was a little disappointed in the lack of Christmas decorations, the only place that was decorated was the Main Street area.

Tonight dinner was at Citricos which is in the Grand Floridian hotel. I had Berkshire Pork Two Ways which was Pork Tenderloin and Braised Pork Belly with Herbed Gnocchi, Heirloom Apples,

Swiss Chard, and Madeira Broth. The wine they recommended with it was the King Estate Pinot Noir, Oregon ’07 which was a little too sweet for me. I thought the meal would have been better with a more full wine but oh well.. For dessert me and Tina split a Warm Chocolate Banana Torte with Vanilla Ice Cream which was really good.

We are now in the bar/observation deck in the hotel. We are in the Bay Lake Tower which is at the Contemporary hotel. Our room is on the 12th floor and we have a wonderful view of the Magic Kingdom. The only problem I have is that the room does not have locks on the bathrooms..

Speaking of hotels, they re-opened the tree houses. There are 60 units and they attached them to Saratoga Springs which means they are part of the Disney Vacation Club..

Play pool for money?

2009-12-08T16:56:00.002-05:00

Went to dinner with Harry, Nicole, Josh, Keith and Beckie at a place called Wasabi over by Keith and Beckie's house. If you remember from the other day I had sushi with Jessie, Holly and Louie and had these things I had never seen called Johnny Mussels.. I almost died when I saw "Spicy Mussels" on the menu at Wasabi because they were the same thing.. So, now I saw (and ate) them twice! They were just as good at this place.. The regular sushi and maki was not quite as good but it was still very good. It was nice to see Beckie and Keith again and we had a great time over dinner.

After dinner Harry, Nicole, Josh and I went to Rodie's Tavern which is a biker bar over by Harry's house. The owner was an awesome guy who seemingly bought the bar to have fun. He goes around to each person and offers them challenges like beating his score at a boxing game for a entire day's worth of food and drink. I was shocked to see they had Yuengling on tap, I even more surprised to find it was only $1 per beer and/or $6 for a pitcher! We played a few games of pool before the owner came over and asked if anyone wanted to challenge him to a game for a beer. Harry took the bet. This guy was good and Harry was just as good if not better! The owner won the first game and they played double or nothing on game 2 which Harry won. Very fun night.. I really felt at home at Harry's house and was kinda sad to leave..

Left Harry's with the intention of meeting up with people in Duluth but as I was most of the way there I found out nobody was available that night.. doh.. I could have just stayed at Harry's house another night, but oh well.. Since I was almost at Duluth I figured I would stop at the sports bar and get a Fat Tire while I figured out my plans. After some research I booked a room using Marriott points in Jacksonville Florida. After a long drive in which I got pulled over I arrived at the hotel here. I was talking to Jessie and being very aware of the speed limits when I passed a cop. I checked my cruise control (65) and checked the speed limit (55) and figured I was safe. The cop pulled out and insisted I was going 80! I argued with him for a bit once it was obvious he was going to give me a ticket and he basically said since I'm out of state he knows I won't fight it but that he would write it out for 75 in a 55! WTF!! I guess the lesson here boys and girls is don't drive at night on back roads in Georgia with Gay Rights and Mets bumper stickers!

This morning I got up and went for a walk around the hotel, ate lunch, went to a state park in the swamp and went to a state park on a peninsula. Took lots of pics and even one video which are posted to Flickr and Youtube respectively. I have been taking some very nice pics this trip if I do say so myself.

Tonight? I don't know.. Go to the pool? Grab some dinner? Just be lazy.. Tomorrow I drive to Disney.

Rock Slides and Blizzards...

2009-12-05T23:42:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting at Harry's house in North Carolina.. We are going to go get lunch and see a movie soon but I figured I would try and bang out a blog since I have not in a week. I tried last night but I was exhausted, I did however upload lots of new pics to Flickr last night (some from Nov and some from Dec).

Sunday night (last Sunday) me and Jessie met Kaitlyn and her friend Bean at the People's Pint. When I checked their website they didn't have anything listed for entertainment so I was pleasantly surprised to find the Trad Sessions were indeed on for the night. My favorite beer of theirs is the Slippery Slope which was apparently making it's return to the menu that night! They switch between that and a few others to keep things new so it worked out well that we had postponed dinner from last week. Not only would Slippery Slope not have been there but there would have been no trad sessions because they are every other week. The session players started out small but grew as the night went on. Kaitlyn had just come from her family's house and had a bunch of left over desserts in her car so after dinner we walked out and ate a bit in the parking lot before coming back in for some more beer and music. Didn't get home till real late but it was a great time..

Monday was a somewhat quiet day, Nurit came over for lunch and I had dinner with Janine. Nurit and I went to the Courthouse and then spent some time at Victoria Station and Wonderland Books, I found out that not only is there a book that Howl's Moving Castle was based on but there is a sequel! I added them both to my Audible wish list. Janine and I ate at Red Robin in Millbury.. The Millbury FYE is closing so they have everything on clearance sale, the prices still are not very good, but they are better than normal "in-store" prices. I went to look up if all FYEs were closing or just that one so I went to Trans World Entertainment's site and found out that they own Suncoast now!? Both Suncoast and Saturday Matinee are listed as their stores now.. Odd...

Tuesday.. Me and Jessie went down to NYC to see Storm Large at Joe's Pub. The trip was not too bad and we arrived a bit before the show, parking was easy and there was a Starbucks and Gamestop nearby so we had no problem wasting time before the show. We had dinner reservations for 6:00pm with the show starting at 7:30pm. The dinner was just ok, but that's not why you go there.. So... Storm.. The reason to drive to NYC in the middle of the week? You betcha, she was amazing. I would say the best thing of the show was seeing her do I Want You to Die and Hopelessly Devoted to You. I know there a few of her concerts on the web and I really hope that show will show up. I was trying to grab Hopelessly Devoted for my diversion but the only live versions have really bad sound quality. The only thing I feel robbed about was that they didn't sell shirts between the shows. They had them (I saw them being counted before the show) but they didn't want to sell them because they needed to clear the house.

Wednesday.. I went to lunch with Lynz, I picked her up at work and we went to a lunch place we have been to before, funny thing.. That lunch place is right near Holly's house! It was really funny, I was driving there going I know this place and then I realized why.. Two times South in the same day.. After lunch I got my oil changed for the trip and then I went back South with Jessie to meet Holly and Louie for dinner at Johnny's Peking Tokyo. They have an appetizer called Johnny Mussels which are mussels with eel sauce, tobiko and a few other things. They are so friggin good! Apparently Holly and Louie get them every time they go there, I can see why.. I got tuna tar-tar and bunches of sushi & sashimi, everything was great and I want to go there more.. After dinner we played pool and I lost all three games! Game 1 was me and Jessie v. Holly and Louie.. Game 2 was me and Louie v. Jessie and Holly.. Game 3 was me and Holly v. Jessie and Louie..

Thursday.. I packed and went to Lynz's house for lunch, we went to a cafe near her and got sammiches.. After lunch I drove to Matt's house in NJ.

----

Drive to Disney part 1..

I picked up Matt at his job and went to his house for the night.. Sile made dinner and afterwards we watched a Ricky Gervais stand up DVD. I never saw him do stand up and it was very very funny.. He did a bit about an HIV awareness pamphlet for gay men, I was laughing so hard it hurt.. That and his bit about glory holes were probably the best bits of the DVD.

Woke up early and drove to Virginia, got to Robyn's house around 2pm. Hung out and chatted for a while before going to get an early dinner at a fish restaurant near her job. They had a Gorgonzola bacon special sauce which I got on a Sea Bass, it was really good and the portion size was not too big.. After dinner I drove the grip to Harry's house in NC. I got a ticket on the way when they randomly lowered the speed limit of the highway from 75 to 65 and then to 55! They had cops at each lowering point and were pulling everyone over. Finally got to Harry's around 11pm.. Hung out and went to bed pretty late which made the early rise and drive a bit annoying..

Well ok.. That's not really what made the drive annoying.. The Rock Slide on Rte 40 which was the first part.. Rte 40 on the NC/Tenn boarder is closed and has been since October, apparently there was a bad rock slide and they are estimating March to clean it up. The Blizzard was the other part! It was raining when I left Harry's house around 6:40am and by the time I got to the boarder it was snowing BAD! I decided to listen to the gps which told me to take 40 to 25 which went over and through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ride over them was nice but would have been much better if not for the blizzard. Anyway, after 7+ hours of driving I finally got to the Parthenon in Nashville. I really don't think you can get a real idea of how big the Parthenon is when you see it on TV, I took some amazing pictures which are up on Flickr.. The one of me standing in front of Athena will give an idea of how big it is.. The Parthenon in Nashville was first built in 1897 but they had to fix it up a few times, the statue of Athena was finished in 2001. The entire place is painted as it was in Ancient Greece.. They have an American Art museum in the basement (under the Parthenon) and they have some of the original sculptures in the main room against the walls. 7+ hours of driving got me back to Harry's around 10:30pm.. That's right, left Harry's at 6:40 and returned at 10:30.. Long ass day of driving...

I slept late today (around 10am) and lazed about with Harry.. We went to the Jockey underwear store and ate lunch.. Now we are just watching stuff on YouTube before dinner..

---Diversions of the Day