Tattoo Time?

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

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkg4tdhLs9XkdBeDWsjkVzvdccH4GmDiz5qnG6r87RvEO2YC2xK5vQfryMDLszvPjNz3svxgKy6o40yxczMeMGH4AWevZeJj4_gGa4rnh5ct5KqoaxA6m2hOpcPygmNgAQsWwtLs7ZQF-/s400/tribal-lion-tattoo-designs_03.jpg

Here are some others:

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

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA4gMd4BHMYbX6aQ9544eXmUJsl7g1Ftq7NI27Ere0ycSg7wO6fI7ORbPrpoUx0LdIjzK0BlZaJVfwqxE8vqcp1dmsLEG0DdUVxH3VsE-3k5_N7PiIinNlzN2TI6VXLoUO_V-aOO9L_3s/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?

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..

A series of downers?

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?!

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

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. 

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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

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..

:D

Irvine Week 8/1 - 8/5

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

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

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

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..

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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..

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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

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..

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

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 ...

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..

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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

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?!

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.

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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!

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

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..

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

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!