Tag Archives: folks

8968 – sunday funday!

Still too hot to do much of anything out and about in the Crisco soup-like atmosphere, so we opted to take in lunch at the Sbarro’s in the Annapolis Mall and then hit a movie. Who knows why we woke up at 7:30 on a Sunday, but it gave us a solid head start.

We finally caught the Simpsons Movie on the big screen… I was surprised – it was a lot better than I was expecting… pretty solid TV episode from back when it was funny. We only saw 3 bits that would make it warrant a PG-13 rating – an instance of nudity, a curse word (or two) and some drinking / drug use. I could see them showing all of it after 10pm on network tv unedited, or without those three instances any time at all.

On the way home, we noticed that ATW has changed the sign again, as the search for “the man” continues. (atw is now a tag just for my ease of searching the story thread and pictures, now.)

Click to view larger
0826071649.jpg atw tv
ATW NEWSROOM
‘THE MAN’
BOOT RECOVERED
FINGERS POINTED
Police say ‘NO Statement – NO case’
Meanwhile, Man Sightings run rampant
Psychic to be called.

It was a good thing we caught an early show as the later part of the day was comprised of –

BHK Birthday Part II: Electric boogaloo!
allisonbdaycake

Party at Tina’s place… Mexican food! Both Meat and veggie protein varieties – Tina’s not a big carnivore, either. Matt (her new boy) seems like a nice enough fellow and I hope they have maximum fun / minimum glum together. He’s certainly more social and generally conversational than DR or W. Dessert was yellow birthday cake with chocolate icing, compared favorably to yesterday’s lemon cake with lemon icing. Added bonus, BHK’s mom didn’t absent-mindedly start slurping the frosting off of the removed candles like last night, rather than giving them to the b’day girl to taste.

Aside from Tina and Matt, Adam, Jimmy, Louise, Chris and Larry all made it to celebrate. We fit pretty comfortably at Tina’s townhouse… I wasn’t sure if we’d all be able to manage, but it worked out quite well.

BHK’s Loot received:

from Louise : Necklace and bracelet of multi-colored pearls.
from Tina : A pair of Peridot Earrings / Hello Kitty purse (which looks like ms. kitty is making a gesture I’m sure wasn’t intentional)
from Larry & Chris – Red Coral necklace and Earrings / and some lovely crockery
from Danny – A swell looking green-stoned ring in gold. (and he got Tina some yellow-stoned earrings, too!)
from my Mom and Wilt – Turquoise and silver necklace, Halloween Snow globe, a little cornucopia and a really lovely card.
from me – a lot of knickknacks – Grease & Grease 2, a pair of pink pseudo-crocks, some stripy socks that mismatch/match, a pink headband with little jolly rogers, bath scrubbie, black cat bowl, a green wire basket, some fuzzy slippers and a gift cert to scalped.

I’m the only person that didn’t get her any jewelry… she told me specifically *not* to get her any. Now, I understand why.

May’ve recruited Adam and Jimmy into a parlor game night. Who knows, maybe they’ll lure Kendall and Amanda into it, too, and we’ll have a big night of it sometime!

I don’t know if Matt is into parlor games… I do know he digs the Redskins and is willing to put up with chick flicks. come to think of it, I don’t know for sure if Tina is interested in boardgames or not… I suspect that she, like the in-laws aren’t really into abstract games. Louise is a good candidate, but is harder to reel in to a date or time than the teens. The last time we saw her was her birthday, about 6 weeks ago.

Poor Danny has students in his classes now – he’s back to running the Sci-fi club, and is incorporating Pirates into the after school program. I should send him a bucket of heroclix or mage knight commons/doubles as a donation. He really liked the Superhero stamps and Lord of the Rings Risk game we shot off to him a little while back.

1 year ago – back from an all too brief visit, nose buttering, bunny suicides, events of the day, liberty city psp homebrew hack, jojo the cannibal kid, maple cookies, folks, met Adam / Future In-laws

2 years ago – power out phone post, hurricane katrina aftermath pictures (and Newt), Bro out, Techs unavailable

3 years ago – BK heads north, random visit to a 2001 entry, behavior variances, quiet-please

4 years ago – sleep schedule, zombie game (poor thing aborted), monkey helpers, first lost child.

5 years ago – Deer Hunter, Apache, Equality/freedom Poll, Emerson, flying saucer, heroclix 200 point armies, McD hot dogs, wpoison

6 years ago – that piercing woman , lj vibe change, many links (not all work anymore)

7 years ago – Godzilla, quizzes, leftyrok added me, IMT threatens to move all operations north to Tampa, dean martin Geotarget

8901 – Monday

Restless night sleeping, accidentally booted Newt off the bed once, but he stuck with me throughout the night. BHK was restless too, but I didn’t leg-sweep her out. Pye visited briefly, but high-tailed it after the barest commotion. I dreamt that BHK and I were hunting animals, tagging them for reference, and re-releasing ’em into the wild. A side effect of geocaching, perhaps?

Bugah & Neil went fishing – to no avail, as the water was too choppy.

Half day tomorrow! North Beach Fireworks are going to be something else!

via jwz – Search for Lonesome George mate is long shot

While scientists search for a mate for “Lonesome George” — the last known survivor of a species of Galapagos tortoise — some say the effort to fend off extinction may be in vain. Even if a mate is found, George has not been interested in reproducing in the past and may not know how, former keepers and others who have worked with him said.

“He has problems … he probably never saw a female and male of his own species reproducing,” said Swiss biologist Sveva Grigioni, who worked with George 13 years ago.

Grigioni, now back in Switzerland, said she could normally get tortoises to ejaculate within minutes, but spent months manually stimulating George and never extracted semen from him.


Age is not George’s problem. He is estimated at between 60 and 90 years old, and could live to be 200 and still reproduce, scientists say.

The visual differences in tortoises from different islands were among the features of the Galapagos that helped 19th Century British naturalist Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution. Since then, the tortoises have been hunted by pirates for their meat and their habitat eaten away by goats introduced onto the islands. George, who weighs 198 pounds, was found on Pinta in 1971.

Reviewing Openads for the company’s ad server for the web. it seems pretty reputable and reliable, thus far.

Fire drill this morning was a welcome break in the day – cool outside, everyone seemed laid back and calm – helped move the rest of the time that much more rapidly. the 2pm meeting went well… lots of good information for me to ruminate over the next few projects. I really dig that I’m in an environment that will allow me to use the skills I have! (Last gig wasn’t bad, but a lot of repetition. This time, there’s a lot of room for creative thought along with brute force.

Day closed with S’mores over a fire pit, some preview fireworks, and then Bugah and I played a bit of “Destroy All Humans”. Not a bad thing.

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8899 – Sunday

We spent most of the day out and about, Geocaching with the Newsoms. They’re really into it, with a little over 100 finds in recent memory. It was fun tooling around a bit and seeing what’s what. I also dropped off tinkle pig in a cache… time for her to see the world. I retrieved a toy soldier cast from civil war bullets, who will ride with Bruce Moose and Gaytor until a suitable resting ground is found for him. The cemetary caches are almost always my fave – the woods were a hoot too, but ticks are a real fear for the kids, especially since Em was out sick just recently. (Heck, nobody wants lyme disease.)

A brief synopsis of Cache visits-

Dropped off placed Hula Wyvern (Travel Bug Dog Tag) in Little Southern Maryland School [visit log]
Dropped off placed “Wajima, Japan” Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug (Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug) in Little Southern Maryland School [visit log]
Found it found Little Southern Maryland School (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Parkkin Cache (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Flashover (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Can you see the ghost?! Again! (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Relaxation for Redlights (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Book Worm (Traditional Cache) [visit log]
Found it found Time is the key (Traditional Cache) [visit log]

Aftwerwards, we took a quick pitstop at Aardvarks, had an ice cream and picked up kanoodle for BHK (I’m sure I’ll be playing it too.)

Spent a little more time puttering around Solomon’s Island, went to Stoneys for dinner. (their treat! yum!)

On the road between points, I got a call from my Mom, and it turns out that Bro isn’t in a work crew, but just a rehabilitation center. Taking classes, etc. Hopefully some of the lessons will stick, but if not, at least he’s out of circulation for a while.

After that, we paused at the Barker’s to water the Mom-in-Law’s plants, and to do a little dock-walking. I paused for a breather upstairs, but before I could get my nap on, Adam and Kendall showed up to say hi and to drop off some fireworks.

Man pummels vampire peacock

NEW YORK (AP) — A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a Burger King in New York City was beaten by a man who insisted it was a vampire.

Animal control officials in Staten Island say the bird was beaten so fiercely that most of its tail feathers fell out and it had to be euthanized.

The seven-year-old male peacock wandered into the restaurant parking lot and perched on a car hood last week. Charmed employees had been feeding it bread when the man appeared.

A restaurant worker says the man grabbed the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started stomping it. She says when he was asked what he was doing, he responded, “‘I’m killing a vampire!”‘

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them.

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8847 – friday

Follow-up meeting at IANA on Tuesday; I think it’ll go pretty darn well. Shortly, I’ll be going to meet the technologists both in and outside of the industry.

I’m looking forward to modifying my linked-in profile to include county work and possibly the guys above, too. I added a few more of them here and there, so we’ll see how that service goes.

I’ve already benefited from having my own domain name – one of the interviewers typo-ed the first half of my email address. Fortunately, the bit bucket catches any names on the dot-com account.


1 year ago – walnut gold-trading babies, house guest plans, bro to court, get crank radio-light, scooby guests,

2 years ago – wep key cracking, chico crime, martial arts and felt, sentences, RR fixit, Sweet Strawberry Jam!, stopped someone from doing something stupid and permanent.

3 years ago – Bro crap (status remains the same), vaseline, singing science, speak & spell, moved to madcow

4 years ago – Skull dream, Scooby-doo fun & book henge in There, Ghetto Fries?

5 years ago – Pam got bell’s Palsy that lasted for a bit. Ann and Bob have adisagreement. Beans. Gummi Bears vs. Fingerprint Sensors, Charlie’s LJ mentioned

6 years ago – connubial, cadaverine, flamingos pink because they eat shrimp, tension thinking

7 years ago – Journal will be born in 1 dayGeotargetVisitor Map

8173 – Friday!!

I have been waiting for songbird since I first heard of iTunes. Super-duper reworking of the idea and allows open source.


May be going out with Vicki and the gang to Opa tonight to celebrate her Birthday (it was yesterday) and her new gig at the riverside. Flaming cheese, table dancers and smashed crockery!

Oh and as a public service announcement, the famous resturant across from Quiet Waters Park, Samurai Sal’s, has closed down. Who would have thought that a sushi/italian restaurant wouldn’t fly? I’m shocked. You’ll all have to go elsewhere for your sushi and pizza cravings.


Micro Retro A-Go-Go

Newish games journal Re:Retro reveals that “the world’s smallest website,” Guimp, has put up more of its adorable tiny clones of vintage arcade games, now including Pong, Pac Man, Asteroids(my personal fave), and Space Invaders.

Each game is boiled down to an 18-pixel square screen, replete with minimal-pixel graphics and clunky sound effects. It’s a concentrated dose of nostalgia as well as a design experiment gone horribly well.


via JB –

FREE PANCAKES! NO STRINGS ATTACHED!

On February 28, 2006 from 7 AM to 2 PM IHOPs across the country will celebrate National Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday) by offering our guests a free short stack of pancakes*. This is going to be our biggest one day celebration in our history.

National Pancake Day has a rich history that stretches back centuries and has always been a time of celebration. National Pancake Day always falls on Fat Tuesday and this year it will be a celebration at IHOP.

So gather your friends, family and neighbors and come to your local IHOP and enjoy a short stack of pancakes on us. All we ask is that you consider making a donation to a great charity like First Book or other local, worthy cause. Where else would you celebrate national pancake Day than IHOP? See you there.

* Limit one free short stack per guest. Valid for dine-in only, no to go orders. Not valid with any other offer, special, coupon,or discount. Valid at participating restaurants only, while supplies last.


elouai's doll maker 3
Why I’d never make it as an Asian Cartoon Character. No goatee!


1 year ago – Bro & HI, website income to AmeriCares, I miss CJ (I still do), Danny gets Debate, mirror newt pics, still talking to mel, #3 for kp/rs shenanigans, Newt Love, Danny sick (and he is again this year), sedef & crew adorable, MmmmMMMmonkey, masked grader,

2 years ago – shopping for condos, zombie night club

3 years ago – memes, dreams, Streets of San Fran, computer sculptures, Pith, Good quote of the day, interviewing, hot shower

4 years ago – up early on a Sunday, Finished reading FAFCwGM, nice weather, tulpa plot

5 years ago – kid tv-memories, valentinesGeotarget

6921 – Free pineapple! Yum.

I met a lot of interesting and influential people last night. Lorraine Thomas (Wife of Dave Thomas, of Wendy’s Fame) is a nice gal and very conversational. Very personable for a person that has more money than most of the countries on earth. Congressman “Skip” Campbell is a politician… he mentioned the dirty name of JW, but all worked out. FDLE folk are always a pleasure to talk to.

Sakes… if I ever thought waste management=mafia before… Man. I’ll tell you, what I saw would set any cause to change that presupposition back a good couple of decades. Nice guys… Dangerous, greasy mooks, but nice, dangerous, greasy mooks.

Demos went well, and impressed most of the crowd, especially the P.I.s and Legal-folk.


pente.net is slow about getting emails out… it just got around to letting me know that I’ve had a couple of turns waiting for the last 18 months.


Kiwanis lunch meeting today… I’m going to be the youngest person by at least 30 years…in some cases, the youngest by nearly 60. I’ll be helping one of the members to do a presentation with the overhead projector, so my life as an A/V Geek in junior high is returning to haunt me. I will get a few hours out of the office and a free lunch out of it, so it’s a good deal.


RC hooked me up with a lot of promotional goodies from Latin Fest… I’ve got Giant t-shirts and visors for all sorts of booze companies, now. I like the Finlandia shirt the best. What Finnish Vodka has to do with Latin Music, I have no idea.


Everything you can think of is true
Before the ocean was blue
We were lost in a flood
Run red with your blood
Nigerian skeleton crew

Everything you can think of is true
The dish ran away with the spoon
Dig deep in your heart for that little red glow
We’re decomposing as we go

Everything you can think of is true
And fishes make wishes on you
We’re fighting our way up dreamland’s spine
Red flamingos and expensive wine

Everything you can think of is true
The baby’s asleep in your shoe
Your teeth are buildings with yellow doors
Your eyes are fish on a creamy shore


Thinking of her. A day like any other, really. Good thoughts.Site Meter


Current Mood: Next Week will be simpler. Everything you can think of is true.

Current Music: What Barry Says

6874 – Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down

Pretty cool… a lot of anonymous activity in last Sunday’s entry… folks debating about heading down to Orlando this for the honeymoon. I agree, it might be a good idea to postpone. It’s rare that I see anonymous non-spam activity. Hope the entry is helpful!


I got 17 out of 18 on the arcade sound quiz. (I missed the one about Zelda/FF/Bad Dudes – I was never a good nintendroid.)



Why is something so destructive, so lovely?


Danny likes “reality tv”.

Amish in the City and the Survivor series, in particular.

I remain a skeptic and suspect behind the scenes scripting.


Big Kahuna has been very generous to me lately. I think that having a work ethic while other people act like little punks might have something to do with it. I got a new chair, she offered to take some call this weekend, and some other nice fringes. Hopefully that’ll mean a raise sometime soon, too.

Heartbreaking case last night… old man with Alzheimer’s. He’s a habitual wander off, and apparently his caregivers can’t give him the attention he needs. He’s constantly taking off on his family. The last time he took off, he had a moment of clarity and tried to commit “suicide by cop”.


Now none of my LJ mail is making it to me automatically. Forgive me if I don’t reply immediately.


I’ve had lovely chats with Sammy, Whims, Phillykat, Jen and K lately… it seems I only rarely get pinged from AIM, ICQ, or MSN anymore, with last night being a pleasant exception.

Speaking of the first two… I’m glad to hear Sammy’s back in CoH, and There’s having trouble opening up on my system. I think it’s something to do with the new update. Reinstalled, and it works fine now. Had a grand time running around and getting reacquainted with folks.


Duran Duran got back together… Why couldn’t it have been The Talking Heads ? (A whole album is streamable from there.)


Building a cultural bridge through monkey-chanting Continue reading 6874 – Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down

My Evil twin – TMBG

My evil twin, bad weather friend
He always wants to start when I want to begin
It scares me so, like I scare myself
With that book of Nostradamus up upon my shelf

Playing hangman ’til the morning light
Doing donuts on the neighbors lawn
Then sleep all through the day, get up and start again
I can hear some sirens somewhere but I don’t know why

My evil twin runs home again
Search lights look for an alibi, but I’ll be home by then

Here he comes again, my evil twin
My friends have seen him hiding underneath my skin

Who cut the arm off the voodoo doll
That resembles a Republican president from long ago
I’d hate to see you leave
‘Cause I have grown so grateful for the
Blame you save me from

My twin
My twin
My twin

(My twin) I know he looks like me
(My twin) Hates work like me and walks like me
(My twin) He’s even got a twin like me

My evil twin, bad weather friend
I know some day I’ll meet him
But I don’t know where or when

I’m still worried for/about her… I’m confident that she’ll be less anxious once she gets ‘back on track’ but I wish I could give her some sort of supplemental happiness, strength or good feelings. I love her so much, and want her to feel maximum goodness, and the absolute minimum downsides needed to make her healthy and complete. I can offer a strong arm, an accepting heart, and a willingness to ride with her through any troubles that may come… and of course all my love.

Ah, the ‘mat. How delightful. ramble with know real beginning middle or end. I’m just sayin’.

Stuff about laundry Well, my sweetheart hit the sack early, and I had laundry to do. so… I subjected my duds to a sudsy spin downtown.

There, I met a doppelganger, but a kindly one… he was sam shepherd to my grizzly adams. a fellow man-mountain intent on having an outfit clean enough to go to work in tomorrow. We talked for a little while, finding a common bond in that we were the only ones there that were male, over 20, but under 100 years old, and spoke English instead of a loud, shrill Creole or drunken Spanish singing. A rambunctious, cross-cultural, multi-aged cacophony, to be sure.

A little back story, first. This is the same laundry where this happened, nearly a year ago. since then, I’ve been primarily going to the other one, by the chit-chat lounge, because that’s right next to the bakery… and fresh baked goods makes people-watching go by so much more pleasantly. Sadly, since I did my laundry tonight, the bakery was closed, so I opted for the ‘mat of Evil. It wasn’t so bad, but it was rather loud in there… I remember now why I usually do my duds in the morning, on the weekend… far more machines avvailable, and the crowd is still half asleep, rambling through some kind of thorzine shuffle, instead of beer-fueled migrant worker-men and young mothers with rowdy,runner-kids, squealing…. but it makes for an interesting study in people and society.

Tonight I saw –
4 kids playing a weird verion of calvinball involving an uno deck, matchbox cars and a lot of high speed running and screaming, saying somthing about not me! not me!

More paper bags coverin’ beer cans than I have ever seen before. Maybe there’s a public ordinance about boozing it up in the ‘mat? I felt sort of out of place drinking my tasty, tall arizona orangeade (obtained at the beer dispensing gas station across the street)

A cute little girl who was the epitome of “how to be good” sitting on the bench, coloring nicely… strange to see her there, across from all the rowdy grownups, but the parents were close, keeping an eye, fortunately.

I had a fascinating conversation with this big guy (name of Mike, by the way), and we both agreed that it was louder inside than most concerts…chatted about books, got a few reccomendations that I’ll be looking into, and maybe he’ll look into house of leaves and enjoy it.

Head count? about 15 assorted kids, 6 drunk men, myself, mike, 12 women. a mob. I swear.. it sounded like 100…I’m glad that just stepping to the back parking lot quieted it considerably.

mornin’ kids

Got some feedback and resolution from friends today… I’m happy that it was at least partially dealt with. (the blowing off thing.)

today seems to be back to normal, but I must not become complacent anymore, at least in regards to this job. A couple of places will make things work for me. I’ve narrowed it down…virginia’s probably out…. but seattle, staying in florida or arizona are all still some strong possibilites.

Thank you so much to all the supportive and kind folk who offered up kindness.

🙂

feelings hurt?

some folks I talked to fairly frequently last month have kind of all but blown me off. It saddens me, as I’m a nice guy. Folks get caught up in other situations, though, I guess. One’s an LJer, two are folks that have moved out of state, and one that left where I work currently.

I’m happy that there are other folks that are around for me to talk to, both on LJ, and in real life. The really irritating thing is, I call and e-mail, and get no reply. that’s just rude. If you don’t want to talk to me, tell me, don’t have me glean it from holding one-sided conversations.

This has been a public service announcement. Treat people with honesty and courtesy.

That’s all

too much drama in my life?

ok. more weirdness to add to my current situation. I get a phone call out of the blue from my pal Chase. (I’ve not heard from her in about 3 months)… apparently she and her girlfriend of 10 years are ready to have a child together. Problematic, as they are both lacking testicles, and want to give birth, not adopt. Enter Scotto. “He’s got sperm! and I bet he’s not using all of it!” Well. Truth be told, I’ve just been using it recreationally, and not procreationally… but yeah, I guess so. Here’s the deal, they’d just as soon not go to a clinic and pay some guy to take it out of me, and plug it into Chase… they’d prefer the old fashioned, free installation that mother nature provides. Ok. I’m at the “Well, won’t there be jealousy, or something from you having sex with me?” part of the conversation… and Chase says, “No, we’ve talked it out, and you’re a nice guy… not emotional strings or anything, and we like what you have to offer…(she rattles off some stuff about me being healthy, etc, I come back with my apnea and back trouble, she says that they’ll cope with the advantages over the disads. *egoboo*) Then she mentions that if everything’s still cool, that her gf would like to have a baby about a year after the baby is born, and they’d like it if I agree to the first, if I’d agree to that too. Um. Well, let me think abut this, it’s pretty important stuff…

that’s where I am now. I think she expected me to agree right away, but was happy that I’m taking it seriously.

my immediate concerns are this –

I’ve really never had sex with someone I’m not attracted to ‘as just friends’. The closest I’ve gotten is some silly stuff with someone I had a crush on, and she was just fooling around, although I took it a little more seriously. It’s a good cause, and I’m honored they asked… but I’m not sure what my responsibility to the baby will be, should I draw up some sort of contract? Should I sire a baby with someone else, when I haven’t had any of my own kids yet? I don’t know what my feelings to a child I’m just serving as donor semen for will be, especially since I’d probably be there with them here and again, visiting.

Something for me to think seriously about.