Random Scribblings

Digging this Coffee Shop

2010-09-30T14:55:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting at Coffee and Crema, a coffee shop in The Fresh Market shopping center here in Greenville.

I can't commend on the coffee much (except for the great aroma) as I ordered an iced chai. The chai was made with Oregon Chai extract so it's pretty standard. I needed something cold to drink. It was cool and overcast this morning so I wore a longsleeved tshirt, but now I'm being punished as the sun came out and now everything is hot and dry. 81 degrees according to my toolbar.

This place is pretty nice and has all the standard coffee shop stuff you'd want; free wi-fi, decent music, mood lighting, and local art on the walls. They have a pretty good spot as I can't think of any other coffee shops between downtown and Haywood/Woodruff Rd. And I think I recognize the barista here from when she previously worked as the barista at Books-A-Million. I'm sure this place is a big improvement, not only in coffee quality, but also in clientele. Books-A-Million always seemed like the WalMart of bookstores to me.

Anyway, go to Coffee and Crema. It's pretty good. And now I need a refill.

Kind of dusty in here.

2010-09-30T14:47:00.002-04:00

Holy crap it's been ten months since I've posted here!

Of course, I'd had a lot of projects in that time, and most of the stuff I'd post here usually goes on Facebook now, but still, it's a bit disconcerting.

For mostly my own record, here's a list of major events in these past ten months:

1. I got married (yay!)
2. I went back to college almost full-time in addition to my job at EP.
3. I started a couple of websites that promptly died.
4. Finally jumped on the Linux bandwagon. Next up, the iPad bandwagon, coming next year. Maybe.
5. Megan and I took control of our finances and we're not hemoraging money nearly as much as before. Our non-mortgage debt is right at the 10k mark and we should be able to wipe that out in 2 years by the trusty debt snowball.

Not too shabby, but still lots of room for improvement.

Low-key Birthday

2009-11-22T13:37:00.002-05:00

Didn't do a lot of my birthday this year, which was really nice actually. Last year I had a great time with several friends out at Dougal McGuire's pub and then off to see a movie, but this year I wanted something subdued.

I went out Friday night at 7pm to see 2012 and hang out by myself for a few hours. Disaster movies are my guilty pleasure, so I loved 2012 and would like to see it again, however unlikely the story is. After that I went to a Waffle House (first time in years) and had a Texas Cheesesteak Sandwich with Hash Browns Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Capped. Afterward I drank coffee, smoked my pipe, and was pulled into random conversations. I didn't get home until 1:30am.

Saturday, my actual birthday, started out with me sleeping in late. Which was great. Meg and Josh went to run errands and I napped on the couch catching up on V and watching various movie halves. They got back and Megan got one of my favorite dishes for lunch - smoked gouda and bacon macaroni and cheese from Travinia Italian restaurant in Greenville. I then went out to rent Star Trek, and bought myself a new wok for my birthday. I came home and we watched Star Trek, I seasonsed my new wok with chives and pork fat, and then we watched GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which had fun explosions and interesting fake technology but atrocious dialogue.

All in all, a pretty good day.

31 Tomorrow

2009-11-20T16:19:00.003-05:00

I'm fairly meh about it. I told everyone I didn't want a cake or any presents.

I'm getting out of the house tonight for a few hours after Megan gets home from work. I'm planning on going to a Poetry workshop at The Bird & Baby and then go see 2012. I'm not expecting much out of it, but I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies.

Gaming Con Weekend

2009-11-05T09:11:00.003-05:00

Well, this weekend Megan and I are going to the MACE Gaming Convention in High Point, NC. This is the third year I've gone to this convention, and although I usually have a pretty good time I think this might be my last time going to an event like this for a while.

I would just much rather play games with my actual friends than with random people at this point in my life. With MACE, ConCarolinas, and DragonCon I've gone to three gaming cons per year for the past few years. I'm sure the $1,000+ I spend at these can be put to better use elsewhere.

Maybe I'll feel differently on Monday. If so, I'll notate that here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Back from the Dead!

2009-10-28T11:30:00.001-04:00

Wow, my last post was in June when Megan and Josh moved in. It has been an interesting up and down road, but I think most of the bumps have settled down for now and it's just a process of getting through to the May wedding.

This past weekend several of us went camping in Hot Springs, NC. As usual, it was beautiful and we had a great time. Our friend Eric, a chef, came along and prepared steaks, omelets, roast chicken, and other foods way above par for a campout. Saturday night it was incredibly cold and I had to get out of our tent, rekindle the fire, and hang out there for an hour to warm up.

I've been playing a lot of Rock Band when I can these days...it's become my current obsession, and I'm thinking of starting a small business to host RB nights in bars and at other events. I hosted a RB party at my house two months ago, at a local philosophy club, and at our friends Cory and Lauren's wedding reception. This saturday I'm setting up RB for Warren and Laura's Halloween party. Should be a good time.

Life is mostly good. I'm constantly worried about not having enough money to pay our bills and my life has become more complicated than I generally like, but it's not bad.

Goodbye Bachelorhood!

2009-06-04T14:34:00.001-04:00

No, we're not eloping. Not yet anyway. :)

Tomorrow afternoon, Megan and Josh are moving in full-time and I'm really excited about this. It'll be nice to not have to wake up to an empty house anymore, and I might even get an occasional breakfast. Mmm...breakfast.

I'm sure there will be a few growing pains as we adjust to this new stage in our relationship, but I can't wait to begin.

I'll do an update soon if we don't kill each other first. ;)

Picked up Rock Band 2

2009-04-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

I *finally* got around to buying Rock Band 2. Since Adam and Joe are visiting from Louisiana for the week and I have our housewarming party the next Saturday I figured I'd rent the game from Blockbuster and have it on hand for both occasions. Immediately after I paid the rental fee for the game I noticed there were a few RB2 bundles behind the counter. I asked the Blockbuster guy about those and he said that they were being shipped back as they didn't sell even after being clearanced. I asked him how much the one remaining xBox 360 bundle was and he replied $140. I pulled out my iPhone and according to Google and Amazon.com, you can't find it from a reputible dealer for less than $190 so I went ahead and bought it.

I hooked up everything on Monday night and am blown away by the differences. Here is my take on the differences between RB1 and RB2:

1. The drums are so much nicer. The drum heads are softer so they're both quieter and you don't hit them as hard so less fatigue. Plus, they're wireless and you can plug in two bass pedals and cymbals for extra drum action.

2. Bands no longer have band leaders. This solves a lot of frustration on casual RB party nights.

3. Characters are no longer tied to one instrument. See #2.

4. No fail mode. See #2 and also great as I have a six year old who likes to play along.

5. The song selection is pretty groovy. I can't wait to get the xBox hooked up to the net (DSL guy comes by on Friday) and then upload the 54 or so songs from RB1 and download the 20 free additional tracks from Harmonix to have a total of 150 songs or so to choose from. There's a handful of DLC songs I'd like to get eventually, but this is a pretty great selection.

6. The guitar is improved from the RB1 guitar in that it is wireless and a nice wooden Fender strat head. I still like Guitar Hero guitars much better than RB guitars and prefer my GHWT guitar to all the others.

All in all, a good buy. Now I just need to get a new xBox 360 and I'll be set. (I'm currently borrowing Jacob's xBox. Hopefully a trumpet I'm selling on eBay will pay for the next one before the party)

A New Computer!

2009-04-17T11:29:00.000-04:00

In my last entry I mentioned that I was pricing computer components to build a new system.

Years ago I worked at three locations as a computer builder/technician, so this is nothing new for me, although I haven't cracked a box in five years. For that time I've only had my laptop, which has been a faithful companion but is now starting to die of leprosy bit by bit.

I found a thread on FatWallet that priced out a decent system for less than $400 so I went with those recommendations other than a change of case.

Here's what I ended up with: (all from Newegg.com)

Item Number: Item Description: Quantity: Price:
N82E16811156098 CASE RAIDMAX|ATX-612WEBP BK 500W RT 1 94.99
N82E16820145184 MEM 2Gx2|CORS TWIN2X4096-6400C5 R 1 44.99
N82E16822136319 HD 640G|WD WD6401AALS % 1 74.99
N82E16819103244 CPU AMD|PH X4 9600 2.3GHz 65N R 1 94.99
N82E16813128379 MB GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H AM2+ RTL 1 79.99
N82E16827151173 DVD BURN SAMSUNG|SH-S223Q LS % 1 25.99

So, a 2.3ghz AMD Phenom Quad Core processor, 4gb of RAM, a 640gb 7200 SATA HD with a 12mb cache, and a nicely upgradeable motherboard and case, all for a little less than $400 after combo discounts (the discounts aren't reflected in the above prices). Also, I'm getting $50 in miscellaneous rebates, so it'll be $350 once all is said and done. You'll notice I didn't put a video card on there as the motherboard has decent onboard video, but I'm sure I'll stick a video card in there in a few months, probably with another HD.

I'm currently using an old 17" crt monitor. You can routinely find a 22" LCD for $150 these days so I'll upgrade in a month or two. I also have a nice wireless desktop I picked up last year, so my keyboard/mouse needs are covered.

As far as an Operating system, I'm thinking of doing a Windows XP and Ubuntu dual-boot. We'll see how that goes.

The only thing I'm really lacking is a set of speakers. I'll probably buy something basic either in person or on Amazon.

New Stuff for the House

2009-04-14T06:42:00.002-04:00

Well, our tax refund came back and it shot my checking account to the highest dollar amount I can ever recall seeing in the account. It's too bad all of the money is allocated.

Last Friday we bought a smoothtop convection range, an over-the-range microwave, and a dishwasher, all of which were black Frigidaire Gallery Series from Jeff Lynch Appliances. Megan's parents came over Saturday morning and helped install the range and microwave. I haven't gotten around to installing the dishwasher yet, but hopefully it'll be done by the end of the week.

After we installed the range and microwave, we went to furniture store #1 and picked up the dining room set we had put a downpayment on earlier in the week. We then went to furniture store #2 that had a great chaise sectional for a great price and proceeded to haggle them down another $115. ;)

And now I'm pricing computer components. My laptop is nearly dead after 4.5 years and we need a family computer.

Too busy

2009-04-02T12:27:00.002-04:00

Thankfully the show is over and I no longer have four hour rehearsals/performances every day. But, due to my ability to sign up for more activities than I can comfortably sustain, I'm without time again. I have Concert Band rehearsal tonight, D&D Friday Night, Concert band concert at SWU on Saturday followed by Browncoat Karaoke.

On top of all that, I'm still trying to get things done at the house and make time for the two new hobbies I want to pursue (leatherworking and gardening).

After starting to look like the Unabomber for the past few months, I finally got a haircut yesterday from my friend Laura. It was the most expensive haircut I've ever received, and even though I like it a lot, I don't think I will be able to afford to go to her regularly. I hope her salon does well and attracts more customers, but I'm more of a barbershop/Great Clips kinda guy. I posted a couple of bad photos (after driving with the windows down and being rained on) of the haircut on Facebook if you're interested.

Well I think I will walk across the street and buy a Coke Zero before my lunch hour is over and then it's back to the salt mines!

So Exhausted....

2009-03-26T15:44:00.000-04:00

So in addition to moving into the new house all last weekend and working my regular forty hours, I'm playing in the pit orchestra for a musical at the Fountain Inn Civic Center. The musical is Funny Girl, which premiered in the 70's and is what made Barbara Streisand a star. It's a pretty good show with decent comedy and good music. Notable songs include People (who need People are the luckiest people...), You are Woman, and Don't Rain on my Parade.

I'm having a lot of fun with two exceptions:

1. Since I've only recently begun playing trombone again (about two months ago) I have very little endurance and at first I could only play around 45 minutes before my lips were sore as well as my left hand (from holding up the horn). Last night our rehearsal was 4.5 hours. My arm and lips seem to have grown used to it, but I'm completely exhausted when we get out of rehearsal that I just go home, check email/Facebook, and go to bed.

2. Last night started out great but fell apart in the second act. Just about everybody missed a cue or came in on a wrong note. I think it was because we're all so tired. I think tonight (the dress rehearsal) will go much smoother.

The show over on Sunday though, so I can take a break after that. I'm looking forward to the cast party the city is throwing for us tomorrow night. It's great to be on (under) stage again!

Moving on up...

2009-03-20T13:16:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm moving into the house tomorrow. I'm very much looking forward to that and halving my current commute.

We're having some random issue with the hot water heater. It's designed with a pipe that goes outside in case it overflows so the garage doesn't flood, but whenever we turn the water on, the heater itself isn't filling with water but just passing the water out through the overflow pipe. Hopefully we'll get that that figured out tomorrow with the help of Megan's dad. Currently I have the water shut off.

Last night 10 of us gathered at Miyabi's for Chaos Mandy's birthday. It was a lot of fun, but a big hit to the budget. We won't be having another $60 dinner out for a while until we get lots of stuff for the house. It was soooo good, though.

House Update

2009-03-12T14:09:00.000-04:00

I guess I should give all four of you an update.

We’ve taken possession of the house. It’s not painted yet. We’ll probably do that on Saturday. Tentatively I plan on moving in the Saturday after that.

One of the drawbacks of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit is that you cannot efile with that form until March 30th, so I won’t be getting the refund back until around April 15th. So that will delay the housewarming party as I won’t have most major appliances or a dining room set until after we receive the refund.

Back into Band

2009-02-19T11:36:00.002-05:00

I'd wanted to resume playing trombone for years now, but never found the right time or opportunity. My friend Jenny works in the music department at Furman, and heard that the Greenville Concert Band was looking for trombone players, so she put me in contact with someone from the organization who told me to come by and sit-in with the band on Thursday evening.

When I burned out on music during my freshman year of college I sold my professional grade trombone thinking I would never need it again. Fool. I do have a small "pea-shooter" horn that looks great but has a scratchy slide. I'd always meant to get it fixed, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. So, I called my friend Richard who was wise enough to keep his pro trombone from high school, and I'm borrowing that for the moment.

Having a day or two before band rehearsal I took out the horn and put myself through the paces. It's remarkable how much came back right away. I can still remember every major scale, alternate positions, even some etudes and solos from over a decade ago. The only problems at this point are endurance, articulation, and range, which should all work themselves out in time.

I showed up at the band rehearsal and out of five total trombone players, I was the only one younger than 55. There were a couple of decent players there, but by and large it was like high school band: 2-5 great players, 5-10 good players, and the rest were mediocre or worse. I can't wait to get my chops back in gear and audition for a higher caliber group like the Foothills Philharmonic.

Also, at the rehearsal for the band last week the principal clarinetist mentioned that trombonists were needed for an upcoming production of Funny Girl. I called the musical director and now it looks like I'm in the pit orchestra for that show and will get a small stipend for my effort. I plan on putting the money toward a decent quality instrument.

I can't believe I've gone eleven years without playing. I never knew how much of a gap not playing left in my life until I was the rehearsal last week. I almost broke down weeping at the sublime joy of playing in a large ensemble again. I don't care how good a stereo system you have, it will never replace being in the midst of 50+ musicians.

So, I'm off to my second rehearsal with the band tonight, after which I should have my own folder of music, so I can stop sight-reading and start practicing.

Bridal Weekend

2009-02-10T14:31:00.002-05:00

Over the weekend two of Megan's best friends flew in and they spent the weekend together doing wedding stuff. They saw our house, went to the place we're having the wedding, ate lunch at the restaurant catering the reception, tried on dresses, and then they met us for karaoke at Guadalajara. I was there to view the house and go to lunch. Stacy and Maria are both funny and full of energy and it was great to see Megan perk up when they were around. It's too bad they live so far away.

We had a funny encounter at Perkins late at night, and luckily Pher was there with his camera. I got home and in bed at 3am or so.

On Sunday I woke up at 5am to meet them for breakfast and drive the girls to the airport. I went to church after that, but had to leave just after the sermon as I was getting a lot of sleep deprivation. I made it home and slept off and on most of the day.

The house inspection is in a couple of hours. Hopefully I won't find out the house is build over a burial ground. ;)

Looks Like We Have a House....

2009-02-04T10:21:00.002-05:00

We found a house we liked very much in Fountain Inn on Monday evening. We went back at 7am on Tuesday to see it in daylight, and decided to put in an offer. Since the house was a foreclosure where the asking price is radically lower than the average sales price in the neighborhood, we offered X for the house where X is the list price plus 3% closing costs.

I got the call yesterday that the offer was accepted. I'm depositing the earnest money check into an escrow account today, and should have a signed contract by the end of the day. I'm very excited.

The house itself is a 3bd/2ba with a two-car garage. It's a 2.5 year old house in a development. I really wish it were not in a development, but since this is a 5-7 year "investment" house and not our permanent home it'll be fine for that timeframe. Once we have the signed contract, I'll put up some photos.

Bidding War

2009-01-28T21:01:00.003-05:00

Well, my Realtor notified me that someone else submitted a bid on the house as well.

We have until noon tomorrow to change our bid and submit it to the bank that owns the house. I have no idea what their bid is and they have no idea what our bid is. Whichever bid is the highest will get the house.

We'll see what happens....

Made an Offer on a House

2009-01-28T12:59:00.002-05:00

Well, we put an offer in for a house last night. We were looking at two houses in the same cul-de-sac in Greer. House A is a 3bd/2.5ba with a 1-car garage and a more usable backyard while House B has 4bd/2.5ba, a 2-car garage, and a formal dining room.

By the time I met up with our Realtor yesterday House B was already under contract after receiving 3 offers that day. So we decided to put in an offer on House A.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed. :)

Housing Woes...

2009-01-25T21:34:00.002-05:00

Nearly a month since my last post!

Megan and I are looking for a house, which due to our desires and budget shouldn't be *that* difficult, but we're both good at finding reasons to pass on houses that would please most. Our budget is $75-110,000 and we're looking for a 3bd/2ba house on .5 acres within a half hour commute of downtown Greenville. Currently there lots of houses that meet that requirement (and *many* more if you remove the .5 acre) but we've found reasons to not like many of them.

This is the house we were initially in love with, a 2bd/1ba brick ranch on 1.5 acres in Piedmont, but we had a long discussion and decided that we needed a 3bd/2ba in case our family grows, so we had to bid this house adieu.

This is a really nice brand new house in a redevelopment area, but the schools aren't good and the lots are best measured with a yardstick.

Another was in a horrible neighborhood, while yet another needed too much work.

We thought we had found the one when we saw this house near Laurens Rd. & I-85. We liked it a lot when we were there, but after we left I began to have second thoughts. Sure it has .5 acres of land, but almost all of that land is on a high grade slope that would make it difficult for Josh to play in, not to mention mowing the lawn. Also, it had a fenced back yard, but it wasn't a privacy fence and our dog Kobi can get over the fence that is currently there.

So back to the drawing board. My lease in my current apartment is up at the end of this next week. I've been moving my belongings into a storage unit, and I'll be staying with my folks for a month or two until we find a house and close. Hopefully it won't be too long.

Interviewed for a Podcast

2008-12-29T01:02:00.003-05:00

This was definitely my most random holiday experience.

Tuesday evening 9pm I was sitting at home minding my own business when my friend Joffre (the proprietor of Silver Chair Books in Greer) called me asking if I'd like to be interviewed for their arts & culture podcast on the topic of board gaming. I never say no to local geek promotion, so an hour later I was at the Silver Chair with coffee and pipe in hand and had a nice talk with Joffre and Andy about board games and gaming in general. I didn't give the best answer to every question, but I've never really been interviewed in-depth before, and I was a bit nervous.

Here is a link to the podcast.

There is a brief poem read before I am brought on (you can skip to 3:54 if you like) and I ramble a lot about various board games and give a few shout outs to Upstate Boardgamers and Upstate Geeks.

It was an interesting experience and a lesson to me that in meeting lots of interesting people sometimes roads cross in ways I would have never imagined. It was a lot of fun.

Books for December

2008-12-18T13:14:00.004-05:00

I recently read the following two books:

The Sunrise Lands by S.M. Stirling - This is the second trilogy in Stirling's Emberverse, a fantastical version of our world where an event in 1998 fundamentally changed the laws of physics so that electronics or explosive chemical reactions no longer work. Cars are useless as are guns, and the survivors of the dark times are coalescing into various neo-feudal societies.

The first trilogy was about the struggles for survival in the Wilamette Valley in Oregon. That being settled for now, Stirling takes us ten years into the future and explores the children of the protagonists (and antagonists) as they head east to follow a mysterious message to seek out Nantucket, MA, supposedly the epicenter of the event.

As usual Stirling writes action well and does a good job of describing gritty heroes. I really liked one of the new characters introduced here (Fr. Ignatius) and the children of the first trilogy are starting to come into their own now. I'm looking forward to the next book of the series.

World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler - This novel takes place in the upstate NY town of Union Grove a decade or so after everything went downhill. It never lays specific blame on one element, but peak oil, a jihad in Jerusalem, race-riots, and economic depressions are all mentioned as elements of this framework of disaster. But, this book is centered on how the residents of this small town make a go of life and the challenges they face from without and within. Kunstler is author of several books talking about Peak Oil and the demise of our way of living so technically this book is a polemic, but it is not badly-written and isn't as in your face as you'd expect a polemic to be. It is a pleasant read that you might want to place on your list should you ever worry about shortages of oil, water, or civil government.

December Part One

2008-12-15T13:10:00.002-05:00

Maybe I should abandon the every day mini-update format. I'm getting pretty far behind. We'll continue for the moment, however, and just ignore the days I don't remember.

Tue Dec 2: Good Mandy sent me an email and asked if I wanted to meet her at the downtown Hyatt to meet with the people there to talk about hosting our big Firefly event there. The meeting went very well, and hopefully we'll be able to pull an event off at the Hyatt.

Later that evening, Andy and Scott came over and we played an impromptu game of D&D with Andy DMing. I played a Feypact Warlock and Scott played my brother a Rogue. It was a lot of fun.

Wed 12/3: I met Megan for lunch at her office. We had yummy PB&J's, pretzels, and a banana. I always love these frugal lunches where we can spend time together.

Sat 12/6: At noon I picked up Patrick at his apartment and we had lunch at India Palace. We then checked out an interesting used bookstore in Greer called The Silver Chair which specializes in theology and having a smoking room. I'll definitely be back. After that, we watched Serenity (his first time) and we went to Browncoat Karaoke. Karaoke was okay; We got there late and were seated next to an annoying young girl Tim brought along as a pseudodate. All the songs I sang I had never practiced, so they came out very mediocre. Oh well. We later had dessert at Stax's Omega and called it a night.

Mon 12/8: I drove with Good to Laura and Warren's house to meet with a small group of people and discuss the upcoming shindig. Long-story-short we decided to go for a one day event this year and plan for a three day event next year. Hopefully it will go well, it should be a lot of fun.

Thu 12/11: At Boardgame night Tom taught me to play Dominion and now I am utterly hooked. I played six games online last night, and I'm trying to budget a physical copy($45) into my next paycheck. Curse you Tom! ;)

Fri 12/12: After work, I picked up Patrick, we had a great dinner at the Pita House, then went to my place where we smoked pipes, watched The Boondock Saints (his first time), and practiced a bit of swordplay outside with two of his wasters. Lots of fun.

Sat 12/13: I arrived at The Command Post for UBG's monthly Game Day and ended up playing Race for the Galaxy twice, Dominion twice, and Yetisburg once. After that I met Megan and drove to Dozo's in Easley where had our Browncoat Holiday party. The food was great, but expensive, and the company was just as good. After dinner, Megan, Good, and I went to a different Patrick's house and played a 20 year old version of Trivial Pursuit and ate pecan cake while drinking eggnog. That was fun as well, but I ended up not getting home until nearly 2am.

Sun 12/14: I slept through church and Megan dropped by, woke me up, and we went out for lunch and to discuss upcoming plans. We then went window shopping in a couple of places and hung out for most of the day. After she left, I played xis games of Dominion online.

Well, that brings us up-to-date.

The rest of November

2008-12-08T08:48:00.004-05:00

Okay...so, again, I'm not so great at Updating regularly. Here we go:

11/26: Day before Thanksgiving. I got out of work an hour early and then went to my friend Jeremy's house to play Rock Band with him and his brother who is visiting from Charleston. It's nice to play with two other expert-level players. It was a blast and we're hoping to do this again around New Year's.

11/27: Thanksgiving. Turkey-Day. Tryptophan bomb. I went to Megan's parents house at noon and we ate at 1pm. We had turkey, "diseased" stuffing(cooked inside the bird), green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and rolls. For dessert we had pumpkin pie and a wonderful pumpkin cake with a pecan crust. After that Megan and I fell asleep on the couch watching football and then played a game of Scrabble Junior with Josh. By that time it was 4pm, so I left to go visit my parents. I called Adam on the way and caught up with him on the hour drive and then at my parents I had the missing Thanksgiving element that I had craved; baked macaroni and cheese casserole. Yum! I guess from now on I will have make this my contribution to the Compton family thanksgiving table. After a couple of hours there I met Megan and Evil Mandy at Cherrydale and we saw Quantum of Solace and then went over to Good Mandy's house for conversation and pie. All in all, it was probably the best Thanksgiving I can remember because there was no family stress for me. Sure, I don't know Megan's parents well yet, but they were friendly, so that wasn't too big of a deal.

11/28: Black Friday. I went shopping on Black Friday, but not your normal electronics and clothing maelstrom of commerce; instead I drove down to a leather shop in Columbia and spent $200 bucks on $320 worth of tools, dyes, kits, and leather. I've long wanted a hobby where I create something and with my lack of workshop space decided that leatherwork was the way to go. So far I haven't had much time to work on it, but I have a coaster with a carved rose that I'm now working on tooling, and I hope to have a couple of gifts by Christmas time.

11/29: Megan and I went to see The Duncan Estate, one of the sites we're looking at for the wedding. It was very pretty and we both really liked it. My only gripe is that it's in Spartanburg, but that's not really that big of a deal. We then drove back to Greenville, had lunch at Stax's Omega, and went by the Rock Quarry Garden downtown, another popular wedding site. We then went to my place and watched a movie then our friend Good Mandy showed up and we discussed plans for the SouthEast Shindig, which I will reveal more when the time is right.

11/30: I went to Megan's megachurch for the first time. We parked, went inside and dropped Josh off at his classroom after checking him into the kid's area, and after a brief walk-around went inside and found a seat in the main auditorium. There were two large projection screens with video ads for upcoming programs, but before the service started these images were replaced with a video of a strange Japanese game show where the contestants had to apparently say the right answer or were hit in the crotch with a mallet. Someone had changed the subtitles into inside jokes for the church. After that, there was a live rock band on stage that played three songs and everyone sang along as the lyrics were projected on the screen. Then there was an okay sermon from a young pastor of another megachurch in Charlotte. He seemed to be a bit too concerned adding humor into a sermon, but otherwise it was not bad. Afterward were another three songs and then it was over.

I can't ever imagine myself going to this type of church of my own will, but I'm sure she probably will say the same thing about my church once she experiences a full service. To my mind, these megachurches with their bad rock music, watered-down messages, and do-anything-to-get-thousands-of-people-inside mentality is most of what is I consider to be wrong with modern Christianity.

That said, I will be happy to go once a month or so without complaint because I love Megan and I don't want to encourage her to leave her church any more than I'm sure she would not encourage me to leave mine. This issue does seem to be one of our only stumbling blocks, but I'm sure we'll get through it in time. Right now our plan is to go to her church once a month, my church once a month, and then go to our own churches for the other two weeks. We will need a better solution later, but this will work for the next few months while we plan the rest of our lives together.

Weekly Update

2008-11-26T13:16:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I haven't updated in a while. Here's what's happened since Friday:

11/21: My 30th birthday. After receiving tons of birthday greetings on Facebook, I went out with Megan to Fitzpatrick's, where a few of the fifteen or so friends I invited would probably show up. We didn't make reservations for a group as we only had two people RSVP that they were coming. At about 7pm we had 13 people total show up, and I had a grand time talking, playing the jester, and mucking about. Thankfully Pher had his camera there. I received a few thoughtful gifts (card games, a candle set) and some even more thoughtful cash, which will go in the leather fund. At 9:30 we left as Megan and the Mandys wanted to see Twilight and we had bought tickets earlier for the 10:00pm showing. The showing was sold out, so those of us without previously purchased tickets had to wait until the 10:30 showing. The movie was okay, better than I thought it would be. I'm not overly familiar with the source material, but you could tell it was carefully crafted.

11/22: Went to visit my parents. My mom made a nice chicken dinner and pineapple cake for my birthday and gave me a card with some cash. More for the leather fund! After that, I drove home. Megan and Josh arrived soon and I hopped in the car to go to Evil Mandy's to have dinner and play boardgames. We played a game of Chez Geek (one of my birthday games), ate Megan's baked spaghetti, and then played Settlers of Catan, and Lord of the Rings Movie Edition Trivial Pursuit. It was a good time other than Josh being pretty cranky that the games weren't for him to play.

11/23: I met up with Megan after church and we spent some time in the mall. I needed to replace the great shaving cream I was given from a mall store a year ago, but of course they didn't have it anymore. We had lunch at the Japanese Hibachi fast food place in the food court, and then we had several hours to kill before the Trans-Siberia Orchestra concert. We went window-shopping at Ashley Furniture, CostCo, and Jason's Oak Furniture. We killed the last half hour or so by driving through some of the really nice houses on McDaniel Avenue near downtown.

The concert itself was fun, but not as awe-inspiring as I was expecting. I didn't care much for the Christmas story narration, and for every song I really enjoyed there were two I found kind of mediocre. The second show after the Christmas narration was more to my taste, being more symphonic rock.

11/24: Went to help an old friend from church hook up his audio/video system after work. I was repaid for my efforts with a nice dinner at Saffron Indian restaurant. Win/Win.

11/25: After work I met Fr. Nikolay at Spill the Beans for conversation and coffee. We talked about my getting back into communion at the church and also about my relationship and various other things. This was the first time I'd ever had a chance to talk with him for more than a couple of minutes, and it was very nice. He is only a year or two older than I, but is turning into an excellent priest. I'm looking forward to another talk sometime in the coming weeks.

Well, that brings us up to date. Tonight after work I'm going to my friend Jeremy's house for some Rock Band and tomorrow will be Thanksgiving at Megan's family. Friday, I'm planning to drive down to Columbia to visit Tandy Leather Factory and get my initial investment of leatherworking tools and materials. Hopefully all will go well.

Song List Meme

2008-11-21T14:57:00.002-05:00

1. Put your iPod/iTunes on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. If a question doesn't apply, just do it anyway for amusement's sake.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
Comfortable - John Mayer

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
The Last Dragon Slayer - Dragonheart Soundtrack

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
The Man in Me - Bob Dylan

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Fantastic Voyage - Coolio

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Beautiful Day - U2

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want - The Dream Academy

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Love - The Smashing Pumpkins

WHAT IS 2+2?
Yourself for the Day - Gattaca Soundtrack

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Old Sod - Spirit of the West

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
We are Nowhere and it's Now - Bright Eyes

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY
Viva La Persistence - Kimya Dawson

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Wonderful - Everclear

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
The Boss - James Brown

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Pretty Angry - Blues Traveler

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Imagine - John Lennon

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
The Ring Goes South - The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Jakey's Gin - Great Big Sea

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
The Mob - Gladiator Soundtrack

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Cry Baby Cry - The Beatles

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Narcolepsy - Third Eye Blind

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Days Go By - Dirty Vegas

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
Venus in Furs - The Velvet Underground

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly - Blues Traveler

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Momentum - Vienna Teng

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
The Slave Who Became a Gladiator - Gladiator Soundtrack

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
The Last Day of Our Acquantence - Sinead O'Connor

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
Good Life - Francis Dunnery

WHAT WILL YOU TITLE THIS?
The Last Word - Voltaire

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
Yarmouth Town - Great Big Sea

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables - Les Miserables Original Cast Recording

Hit with a MACE!

2008-11-16T19:08:00.004-05:00

I had a long post I had written about MACE last weekend, but somehow the interweb ate it, so I'll just sum up.

MACE stands for Mid-Atlantic Convention Expo, and is a fancy acronym for a gaming con. This was the 12th MACE, which seems to be held every year in High Point, NC which is just before Greensboro on I-85. Megan and I left my office at 5pm and due to a brief food stop and two wrong turns (one was my fault, the other was the directions we were using) we did not arrive until 9pm. At that point I was already an hour late for my first gaming session so I left Megan in our room to relax and I quickly went downstairs to see if I could lull anyone into three hours of open Eurogames.

Fate was with me, and I introduced a nice couple to Pandemic, along with a guy who just watched. We saved the world from the four diseases, so my count with the game is now 7 wins out 16 or so plays. (I went with the easy difficulty of only 4 epidemic cards) After that, I started a game of Agricola with a father and son as well a guy who had played the game before. To save time (Agricola is roughly one half hour per player) and to make it easier for the boy I chose to teach them the family version without occupation or minor improvement cards. Right after the first two turns there was a fire alarm at the hotel and we all had to evacuate for a half hour or so. I couldn't reach Megan on her cell phone, but found her outside after 10 minutes. Afterward we went back inside, she went back to bed, and I finished the game. I used a completely different strategy than my normal field/grain/bread strategy and I ended up in second place a few points behind the guy who had played before. Being that I was teaching the game, I intentionally went with a few suboptimal choices as I didn't want to be "that guy" who must win a game as they're teaching it.

The next morning I didn't have a game to run until 1:30pm so Megan and I slept in late and ordered breakfast from room service which was $33 for the two of us with tip! She had french toast, I had an omelet, and we both had OJ. Waaay overpriced, but it was nice to eat breakfast in the room in my pajamas. We then went downstairs, she got her badge, and we went to the very mediocre dealer room. After that I taught her to play Ticket to Ride, which she enjoyed, and we grabbed some food at the MACE cafe before I went off to run a D&D game.

At the table next to where I was running a D&D game was another lvl 1 game that was designed as an intro to 4th edition. We only had five players total show up for both games, so I decided to play in his game which was good as I've DMed 4th edition much more than I've had a chance to play. My (female!) Eladrin Wizard nearly killed the Warlord, but other than that her spells helped drop a lot of bad guys.

Following the D&D game was the annual MACE auction. All of the proceeds went to building a polar bear enclosure for a zoo in Charlotte. Megan won an auction for two hardcover books (Neil Stephenson's Anathema and some vampire chick-lit I can't remember) and I won an auction for miscellaneous 4th ed D&D supplements. We both did well as she won $45 worth of books for $25 and I won $75 worth of stuff for $20. I had planned on bidding on a limited edition of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries but they bundled that game with three others I had no interest in. I'll just have to make it a priority to get that game before all the copies on the internet dry up.

The auction ran late, and I discovered that I had a full table of 8 players for my Arkham Horror game, none of which had played the game before. I usually like to setup AH at least a half hour before people arrive as there is a lot to set up (especially with the expansion I was using), but in this case I had to try and explain the game while people were picking characters and make myself heard over the crowd, which was a bit frustrating. As such in the first hour we only went through two game rounds. Things sped up significantly after that, but we ran out of time and I had to cut to endgame: I woke up Cthulhu early and the players had to try to fend him off. Normally, this is almost impossible, and if I hadn't woken him up early I think he would have handily eaten the world, but since he was only a bit over half strength the players eventually whittled him down. All in all it was a gratifying but exhausting five hours after which I went to bed and collapsed.

The next morning we had nothing really to do so we went downstairs to eat breakfast in the hotel restaurant. ($22 for both of us for the buffet vs $33 for the same thing via roomservice) After that, we went back to the dealer room and Megan bought a cute claddagh pendant and we chatted up the interesting guy who owned the booth. I said goodbye to Jeff and Ron, the organizers, with the hope that we can get a mini-mace in Greenville sometime soon and we hit got on the road at noon.

The drive back was pleasant, with not much traffic and beautiful weather. We arrived in Greenville at 3pm or so and rode the trolley around, went to Mast General Store, and had pizza at Mellow Mushroom.

It was a great weekend and while I love Dragon*Con, small cons such as MACE are much more relaxing as a vacation destination. Cheaper too; The hotel was $150+taxes for two nights, my badge was free as I was a GM, hers was $25, food, and the tank of gas to get there were the only expenses. I'll definitely try to go next year if possible.

Family Night

2008-11-06T09:40:00.003-05:00

This is a busy week, but I wanted to try and find a night to hang out with Megan. She does not have a babysitter available on Wednesday evenings, so we decided that I would come over to her house and hang out with her and Josh.

Her parents were leaving as I arrived, and both of them only had enough time to say hello. Then, Megan and I ate the Chinese food she picked up (Beef and Broccoli) while I "played" Battleship with Josh. He's not quite ready for the full game yet.

We then went into the living room and talked while he watched a few cartoons: Max and (Erma?), Spiderman, and something else. At various times, he came over and sat on the couch with Megan and I and often wanted to climb on my lap. Megan also showed me her scrapbook of her high school trip to France.

Josh is a really sweet kid and I had a wonderful quiet night. I look forward to many more in the future.

(kinda) Happy Halloween

2008-11-04T05:00:00.005-05:00

Well, Halloween was kind of uneventful this year. We (Greenville Browncoats/UG/etc) had a Halloween party the previous Saturday and on All Hallow's Eve Megan went out trick-or-treating with her son Josh. That meant I didn't have much to do until midnight where I would meet up with Megan, Good, Evil, etc. to go see The Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) in it's last Easley showing/performance.

I would have liked to have gone trick-or-treating with Megan and Josh, but since our relationship is so new and Josh has only met me once, I didn't want to push into his world before he's ready to deal with me. It's okay though; there will be several more Halloweens to take him door-to-door for candy.

When I was at The Command Post the night before Halloween for Boardgaming, I asked Kevin (the owner) if he minded if I ran a game of Arkham Horror the next day. I like to ask and not assume he has room because Fridays are normally pretty busy there and AH takes up a *lot* of space. He was down with the idea, so I posted it on the usual boards and had a few people show interest. Since it was less than 24 hours before Halloween, most people had other plans. I ended up with Sandy, Tom, Chase, and Jon in addition to myself. I get along with all of them fine, but I find Chase and Jon to be pretty annoying. Fortunately, I have a high tolerance level for annoying people so it didn't get in the way of me enjoying the game. The game took roughly three hours, and it ended with Nyarlothotep rising from his slumber to eat the town of Arkham, but we were able to fight him off after a long battle. Here is my review of Arkham Horror in case you're not familiar with the game.

After that it was time to meet the ladies at the theater for RHPS. Jon and Sandy went along as well as they both live in Pickens county and it was on the way home. As expected, the crowd that showed up for RHPS was loud and costumed, almost like a small slice of a con.

For those of you not familiar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is probably the biggest cult movie of all time. It has become popular to not only show the movie, but to have a group of people dress up as the principal cast and act out the scenes above. Also people memorize various lines to yell at the screen in response to lines or action onscreen. Kind of like MST3K if you replaced the witty banter of MST3K with middle-school level bathroom and sex jokes. There were a few clever canned responses, but most of them were pretty bad. Throughout various points in the movie, people throw rice, shoot water toward the ceiling to simulate rain, and throw toast(!) and toilet paper around the theater. Also, at the beginning before the show started there was a ceremony to induct all of the Rocky "virgins" into the family through public humiliation, followed by a costume contest for everyone there. Some of the costumes were pretty good, but being a Dragon*Con veteran I've seen thousands of great costumes.

I can see the merit of a bunch of repressed kids and former kids wanting to get together and revel in this harmlessly odd tale of being strange and having sexual tastes outside of the norm. There are a lot of kids who want to explore options outside of what their parents offer to them and most of those are repressed severely, so situations to gather with other people who can understand them, sing with them, and scream obscenities at the screen together is a very ritualistic way for them to express solidarity in their individuality. Kind of like a erotic goth church service, but not nearly as interesting as you would think that would be. The movie itself contains no nudity or curses that can't be shown on television, but the fact that half the cast(on screen and in person) are in their underwear through half the movie seemed to give the room a bit of energy as the scenes themselves often revolved around sexual tension.

All-in-all it's pretty harmless fun for the people involved, who walk out hyped up by the energy of the group dynamic. They've had their sacraments, and they're fulfilled until the next service, er showing. I get it, but I really didn't enjoy it. But the geeks and the outcasts are my people, so I felt it was important to experience one of the major geek events, which I've now checked off my bucket list.

Great Big Sea concert in Atlanta.

2008-10-31T09:41:00.006-04:00

Tuesday night was the GBS concert. Megan and I left work a little early, drove to her house, and left in my car from there to Atlanta.

We miraculously avoided a pretty bad highway accident that stopped everyone else, so for five minutes or so we were the only car on I-85 South between Toccoa and Atlanta. The rest of the drive was straightforward and we arrived a half hour before the show.

Megan had her Nikon 40D camera with her, but the security guard told her that we couldn't bring in "professional" cameras. So we went back, put the camera in the car and went inside where we met Jacob, Elias, and Jesse. Jesse was in the middle of his week long trip from his home in Milwaukee.

Needless to say, the concert was great. It was my fifth GBS concert and the guys had all seen GBS before, but this was Megan's first time. Later on she told me it was the best concert she had ever attended. The only bad part was that the venue was a former movie theater, so there were theater seats in the way when everyone wanted to dance around.

Afterward we walked around the neighborhood (Little Five Points) for a bit and ended up at The Vortex.

As you can see from the photo of the entrance, the Vortex is an interesting restaurant. I had the Steakhouse burger with a 1/2 lb medium rare ground sirloin burger, swiss cheese, onions, mushrooms, and steak sauce along with fries and a Nostradamus belgian ale. Well fed, it was now time to say goodbye to the Brothers Kulp and drive home.

I drove half of the way back while Megan slept, and then when I started to drift off she took over and drove us to her house, where I drove home afterward. I got in bed at 3:30am and had to get up at 7:00am for work the next morning.

Speaking of driving, we took my 2006 Scion xB, which was still as-of-yet unnamed. (a crime I know) Since he is black and stealthy I went with Eben, which is a small name for a small car. He seems to be happier now that he has a name to introduce himself to other cars with.

Halloween Party

2008-10-27T11:04:00.004-04:00

We had our annual Browncoat Halloween Party at Laura and Warren's house on Saturday. Megan and I showed up early and helped with some of the setup. I made a Halloween mix cd, she made a broccoli salad, and she also brought cups, napkins etc.

Highlights:

1. I won runner-up in the Male costume contest. I wore my Renaissance Faire Scot outfit with pre-tartan kilt, cutlery, and a leine for a shirt. Megan wore a very fetching tavern wench type costume with a fake bodice that was very attractive.

2. Warren's homemade Applejack - I'm not sure what the entirety of the mix consisted of, but I know there was a lot of Jack Daniels, Apple Cider, and Cinnamon. This was my main beverage of the evening, and it fit the fall theme perfectly. Since we were leaving shortly after midnight, I drank this freely from 6pm-10pm and switched over to diet soda. That seemed to be the sweet spot for drinking when I know I will have to drive eventually. I got a very light buzz for about an hour and it slowly faded. By the time we left I was fully awake from the caffeine and ready for the 45 minute drive home.

3. Spinach Artichoke dip. Yum! I mainly snacked on this and the brie all night.

4. Rock Band. The group playing overall was not very impressive, but I got a lot of oohs and ahhs when I joined in playing guitar on Expert. No one else was apparently able to play at a difficulty higher than Medium, which was kind of sad.

I always have a great time at any event at Laura and Warren's house.

Browncoat Delivery Service

2008-10-23T07:44:00.002-04:00

One of the members of the Greenville Browncoats/UG gave birth to her first child this past Friday. Since neither her nor her husband's family could make it down for the birth, I got several local geeks to pull together and we got a lot of food together for them so that they don't have to cook with the first couple of weeks with the baby.

We had a slew of donations, including:

A 5lb rare prime rib
Homemade Jambalaya
2 Family-sized lasagnas
Cheese and Broccoli soup
Black Bean Enchilada Casserole
A huge pack of Chicken Pot Pies
Various Snacks
Homemade cookies
Breakfast Bread
Danishes
Frozen Veggies
Salad Mix

And even a Burt's Bees gift pack! Thank you so much to all the local geeks who gave generously of their time and money. Mandy was really appreciative, says that she will eat *everything*, and can't wait to see us at the Christmas party.

I snapped a couple of photos with my camera phone, but will have to wait until later tonight to upload them.

A Nice Little Dinner Party

2008-10-22T15:23:00.002-04:00

Megan and Jacob came over last night for dinner, and we all had a great time. It was nice to finally get my oldest friend and my girlfriend to meet each other and they both enjoyed each other's company.

Jacob brought a brie and some crackers and we munched on that while playing a game of The Settlers of Catan. Afterward, I made pasta and prepared the salad and garlic bread while Megan taught Jacob to play a vindictively fun racing card game called Mille Bornes. The sauce was made by Megan according to her great-grandmother's recipe, and was very tasty. She also brought a bottle of Greg Norman 2004 Pinot Noir and that was a very nice wine.

After we ate, we played two games of Mille Bornes together and chatted for an hour or so.

It was a great time, and I want to have another small dinner party like this again before the end of the year.

Meet the Parents

2008-10-21T06:21:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm running a week or so behind in my blogging, but I guess it could be worse. Last Tuesday, I had dinner with Megan's family, meeting her parents and her son.

At first, her parents were pretty reserved, but her mom seemed to warm up to me after a few minutes whereas her father less so. As the evening progressed, we cleared away our dinner plates to converse on the screened-in porch. The conversation steered toward movies and sports, and he opened up to me a bit.

Megan's father you can tell is a very steadfast man, someone you respect almost immediately after meeting and wish to earn his respect in return. Her mom is a warm and open caregiver, and you can see most of Megan's best qualities in both of them. I met her sister again; we've briefly met at Dragon*Con and at a movie gathering, but I've never really talked with her. She's nice, but very quiet around me as I'm an unknown at this point. I think she'll open up more as she gets to know me.

I had briefly met Megan's 5-year-old son Josh before Megan and I started dating, but this was my first time meeting him as "Mommy's special friend". Megan and I decided that we would wait until we were sure we're going to work out before introducing me into his life, and now that we're starting to make long-term plans, I'm overjoyed at finally getting to spend some time with him.

He's a sweet kid, very loving, and he was enthralled with his new Iron Man costume. As I pulled my car into the driveway, he ran out, grabbed my hand, and led me into the house. Megan tells me he can be a holy terror at times, but what five-year-old isn't? I look forward to getting to know him over the coming months.

Oh, dinner was fabulous. Megan's sister Jessica made a roast beef that was perfect; a bit more than medium rare, but less than medium well. I prefer my steak to be more rare, but for the roast it worked out well. Accompanying the roast were mashed potatoes, green peas, and corn. After the meal, we sat out on the porch and talked as the sun went down.

I made a couple of wrong turns in the subdivision, so it took a bit longer to get home. When I arrived home, I called Megan to ask how it went. Her dad told her that I was extremely nice, and that he approved. They must have liked me at least a bit as I've been invited over for Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it, and will be much less nervous than I was at this meal.

Camping!

2008-10-16T07:45:00.003-04:00

Megan* and I went camping at Hot Springs, NC over the weekend. We left my house at 1:30pm on Friday and arrived at the campground two hours later after a pleasant drive through the mountains. Being that this trip was for simple relaxation and not for wilderness adventure, the first thing we did was setup camp and then take a nap.

Later in the evening we discovered that I left my stove behind, so instead of the paella that Megan thought we were making, we ended up having pizza from the camp store for dinner along with a few screwdrivers. I had a hard time getting the fire going that night as the wood was a bit wet and I didn't have enough pencil-sized kindling.

The next day we slept in and read for a few hours until Lauren, Megan's friend from work, and her fiance Corey arrived. I had technically met them before, but had no idea they were such fun people. We played a game of Settlers of Catan, Stitcheln, and then we had hot dogs & smores over the campfire. This fire caught with one match now that the wood was dry and that I took the time to make proper kindling. We were up for hours hanging around the fire with a few beers, telling stories.

On Sunday we again slept in and had a late breakfast with Lauren and Corey. We left the camp around 1:30pm and stopped at a Boston Market restaurant in Asheville on the way back.

All in all an incredibly relaxing trip. I've now been to Hot Springs 4 out of the past 5 Octobers and Megan has stated that she wants this to be a yearly trip.

*you may have seen me use both Megan and Karly as the name of my girlfriend. Her birth name is Megan, but when she started using internet forums she wanted something more anonymous so she started using Karly and now several people only know her as Karly. I prefer to use Megan, but I'll probably use both from time to time.

Bailout: Just Do Nothing

2008-10-02T15:03:00.003-04:00

This is a cop-out as it's just a repost, but it pretty much echoes my opinion:

From The LA Times:

"I am a huge proponent, at all times, of doing nothing. Remember when everyone was filling bunkers with millet because computers wouldn't be able to handle a year with three zeros in it? I stayed Calvin Coolidge cool. After America was attacked on 9/11, I suggested keeping our armies home. When John McCain responded to the economic crisis he'd have to deal with as president by suspending his campaign, I started to think that maybe he's my guy after all.

Even though I understand so little about economics that much of my long-term investments are tied up in Costco products, I feel pretty sure that letting Congress give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson $700 billion to buy super-crappy mortgages is not the right call.

Sure, like any American, when I see a photo on the Internet of an adorable little investment bank and find out it's at risk of being put to sleep, I want to throw in $2,000 to $3,000 of my own money to adopt it. But instead of jacking up inflation, letting the dollar sink further and paying higher taxes so we can keep up cheap borrowing -- which is what this plan amounts to -- I think we need to let those who made bad loans get burned. We need to accept that credit will dry up and that maybe -- for just a bit -- we'll have to stop buying more than we can afford."

Although had I been more financially mobile before 9/11 I probably would have had a bunker full of millet.

Wonderful Evening

2008-10-02T12:03:00.004-04:00

Last night was probably one of the best evenings I've ever experienced.

Karly and I have been officially dating for just over a month, and yesterday she me at my workplace at 5:45. Since I work in the heart of downtown Greenville, we walked down to Falls Park and spent a few hours in the park walking around, swinging, watching people accidentally throw a frisbee into the river twice, and singing songs from Les Miserables.

As night encroached we climbed out of the park. I say climbed, because the entrance to the park is at street level and several paths take you further into a small valley until you reach the river base which is probably 100-200 feet higher in elevation. I showed her other pretty sections of the town and we had a wonderful kiss at the top of a waterfall that made her feel like she was back in Paris. We eventually found ourselves at Blue Ridge Brewing Company for dinner where she ordered the fish and chips and I ordered the Hunter's Pie, which is a shepard's pie with buffalo, duck, and rabbitt in a bechamel sauce. It was tasty, and she very much enjoyed her two foot-long planks of fish after she liberally doused them with Malt Vinegar. I had a high gravity stout with the meal and she had a hard cider.

Afterward, we walked back to my workplace and sat on a bench outside talking for an hour. There was a bit of kissing, and then we each went our separate ways.

Nothing fancy, but a wonderful evening.

Well, that's done...

2008-09-29T23:45:00.002-04:00

Just stepped down as an admin at UG. It was hard to do, but it needed to be done. Now life should be less stressful and I should have more time for other projects. I just hope the site continues to do well.

In happier news, Karly and I have been together a month now! It's kind of strange, as it feels like we've been together much longer, but Friday, September 29th was the first time we kissed, so I count that as the beginning. So far things are deliriously happy. Here's to the next month, and the next, and so on.

Man, I'm a lousy blogger...

2008-09-25T12:43:00.002-04:00

Well, I have twenty minutes left in my lunch hour so I will force myself to update.

1. Dragon*Con - it was fun, but I think three years of the Con may be enough for me. Of course Karly and I became involved there, and it's a big deal to her, so I have no doubts I'll be there next year. I'd like to try GenCon sometime.

2. Karly - Since most of the three people who read this blog are also on UG and/or Facebook I feel like I've gone over all this already. I have a new girlfriend, We've been seeing each other since Friday, August 29th at Dragon*Con. So far everything is going wonderfully well. Karly turns 25 next month; she is an artist, lives in Anderson, and has a 5 year-old autistic child. While she is most certainly a geek, she's not a gamer(other than participating in the Serenity LARP), but she's open to trying out board games, so there's hope for that. So far we're a really good match and I look forward to seeing what the next few months bring.

3. October - is quickly approaching and may threaten to be my busiest month of 2008. We have plans for the Renaissance Faire, UG Campout in NC, Sushi Dinner, Halloween Party, and my company picnic in addition to all the normal weekday stuff like boardgame night, my D&D game, book club, church, etc. I am sad that I have so little time to read or pursue other interests, but I am doing a lot of fun things so I can't complain too much.

4. I'm becoming more worried about our national economy and I'm resolving to spend less and build up my savings again should I lose my job or other disasters strike.

5. After a couple of years of no contact with anyone, and old friend is responding to some of the comments I make on his blog. This is wonderful and I hope someday I can see him again. He has a very hard life right now, and I wish I could do more to help.

So, that's my 20 minute update. Back to work!

Back in Town

2008-09-02T03:03:00.003-04:00

Got back in town from Dragon*Con earlier today. Noticed that I only had one entry for August. That's pretty sad. I will post regarding D*C in the next day or two.

Here's a teaser: Love must have been in the air at D*C as in our room of 12 people, we had 4 people inside the room pair off into new couples, including me. Three others in the room also found romantic encounters elsewhere at the con.

Happy Laborpendence Day!

2008-08-19T02:24:00.003-04:00

What's that you say? You haven't heard of Laborpendence Day, that hallowed day of portmanteau bacchanalian revelry? Neither did I ere a month ago.

My good friend Becky was kind enough to throw a Laborpendence Day party Saturday evening and advised me to bring bottles of brewed and distilled goodies to share. Oh yeah, that's my kind of party. I bought a bottle of Agavero, a tequila liqueur and a bottle of my favorite beer, Gulden Draak, as well as a healthy slice of brie.

I had a great time with friends new and old. I was crowned King of Laborpendence Day. I imbibed a bit too much and ended up sleeping on Becky's couch. All-in-all a pretty good evening.

So, until next year, I leave you all with a drink in hand and a hearty cheer: "Happy Laborpendence Day!"

Weekend Update...sort of.

2008-07-22T09:21:00.002-04:00

The sort of coming from that this is really a Thursday-Monday update.

Thursday after work a group of us from UG went to see The Dark Knight at midnight. We actually had a tailgate party that started at 11:00pm out of the back of several of our vehicles. Hot Krispy Kreme donuts, coffee, sodas, chips, and cookies made up the snacking implements and I made sure to intake caffeine, nicotine(smoked a pipe), and a bit of sugar(had 1 donut before the movie) to help stay awake. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I'd go into further detail, but since the media is going crazy about TDK at the moment, I'll refrain. Also, after the showing Evil Mandy and I were interviewed by our local Fox station for the 5am news. I didn't get a chance to see it, though. :(

I didn't get to bed until 4:30am Thursday night and had to get up at 7:00am the next morning, so as you can imagine it was a drowsy day fueled only by multiple energy drinks (5). After work, I met up with Evil Mandy, Leigh, Jo, Good Mandy, and John for bowling, which was a lot of fun. I was exactly in the middle of the score for both games. Afterward we ate at Denny's. I look forward to bowling again hopefully soon. I then passed out from lack of sleep around 10pm in my computer chair. At some point I moved to my bed and turned the light out.

Saturday I slept way later than I intended - from 10pm Friday until 2pm Saturday. So, I missed the Wings of War tournament I wanted to go to at The Command Post. Not a lot happened that day, other than going over to my parents for a few hours. At least I won't have to do that for a couple of months now.

Sunday was the Firefly Event over at Laura & Warrens, and I spend most of the morning preparing a Beef Korma. I also made a Moong Dal and Saffron Rice after I arrived. It turned out okay. Spent some time with a few good geeks and also two that seem to get on my nerves a lot lately. I think at least 75% of the reason for that is them, but it's probably also 25% me as well. I had a pretty good time and stayed too late.

On Monday I called in a personal day and spent the whole day moping around on the net. It was a waste of a day, but it feels like it might have recharged my batteries.

On to the rest of the week. I might get together with Linda on Thursday to see Hellboy II and Friday night is D&D with the guys.

Ideas I Don't Have Time For Pt. 1

2008-07-12T15:43:00.003-04:00

I continually have ideas for cool things to do that I don't have time to pursue. At least, *I* think they're cool. So, I thought I'd post a few recent ones here to see if anyone is interested.

1. International Cooking Group - This one isn't too complicated, just get a group of 4-6 people together who love to cook and who also love international foods of all types. Once a month, pick a country/region and have a dinner party with each person bringing a course/dish for the meal. I'd love to do something like this and go for belgian, romanian, egyptian, and other types of cuisine I haven't tried as much and are generally not represented in our local restaurants. I had this idea after looking at a post regarding Spaetzle makers at the Post Punk Kitchen Forums.

2. Budgeting/Money Planning Group - Even though I work in accounting, I have not had a good track record in managing my personal finances. This is something I want to work on, and even though I've read a few books on the subject and know about snowball debt reduction, envelope budgeting systems, etc., as Morpheus would say, "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path." So again, a group of 4-6 people who are willing to open up their financial info and be accountable to each other for their bad spending habits, look for shared ways to eliminate unnecessary spending, build savings/investments, etc would be good. I prefer the systems outlined in Your Money or Your Life, but I'm willing to go along with the Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman stuff too.

3. Start a Food Not Bombs group in Greenville. Those of you who know me well know that I have a mix of conservative and liberal political leanings, and on those political radar quizzes I am all over the place depending on the weighted questions of the quiz in question. I've scored everywhere from Communist to Libertarian to Socialist to Populist, so I guess I just have too many divergent political ideals.

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of unnecessary war and I also care more about homeless issues than most charity events, so Food Not Bombs hits two ideals that are important to me. Basically the way the group operates is that they weekly pick up surplus food that would be discarded from grocers, restaurants, and other sources and make a communal vegetarian or vegan meal that is served for free to anyone who wants it.

The main ideas put forth politically by the collective is that is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance. Here are the four First Principles:

1. If governments and corporations around the world spent as much time and energy on feeding people as they do on war, no one would go hungry.
2. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone, but so much of it goes to waste needlessly, as a direct result of capitalism and militarism.
3. Vegan food is both healthy and nonviolent.
4. Food Not Bombs works to call attention to poverty and homelessness in society by sharing food in public places and facilitating gatherings of poor and homeless people.
Anyone who wants to cook may cook, and anyone who wants to eat may eat. Food Not Bombs strives to include everyone.

Thanks, guys!

2008-07-07T22:02:00.002-04:00

I've spent the past hour or so reading the blog of a friend on UG that I've recently caught up with after nearly ten years of falling off each other's radars. This has caused me to thinking about blogging in general and my little blog in particular.

I started this blog a few years ago (my second or third attempt at blogging) and like the story always goes, start posting regularly at first but then months go by with no updates. No one really read it, so I had very little motivation for blogging other than having a timestamp for my thoughts and experiences.

These days, I have a small handful of actual friends who read little ego-journal and I wanted to say thanks for reading and especially for commenting. It is very encouraging for me to know that someone I respect and/or care about has taken time out of their day to see what's going on in my mental magic-8-ball.

THANK YOU!

Three Day Weekend Pt 2

2008-07-06T22:27:00.002-04:00

Friday - Went out to The Command Post to give Mike from the D&D Meetup a CD-ROM with some RPGA adventures for the game day he's organizing for July 13th. I really don't want to run this, but I have a hard time saying no when someone asks me to do something. After that I went to Cherrydale Cinemas and saw Wanted(good stuff), and then went to Hollywood Video and bought 4 dvds with their buy 2 get 2 free promotion (Once, Into the Wild, The Namesake, and Stardust if you were interested).

Saturday - Watched Stardust and hung around for home for a while. Went to Vespers for the first time in three years and enjoyed being there, but I hate everyone making a big deal about me being there. I just want to get past this interregnum and back into the normal SJOTL swing of things. Of course, it's weird to want to get back into church life when I am so hopeless and am practically agnostic these days, but for better or worse it's home for me. After that, I went to Browncoat Karaoke at Guadalajara. We had a smaller crowd than usual (only 10 or so as opposed to 25-30 last time), but had a decent time. I sang "Benny and the Jets" with Evil and Patrick(not my choice) and "Tupelo Honey" on my own. I had put in "Amish Paradise" but didn't have time for that. Afterward, I went with Evil, Karly, and Good to see Wanted at Hollywood 20(yes, for the second time in two days).

Sunday - Went to SJOTL, left out early, and stopped by my old place to check the mail. I received my paycheck for jury duty a few weeks ago; a whopping $66. Woo-frickin'-hoo. Since some of the mail was for Jacob and he had the day off from work I stopped by his apartment. I invited him and Elias over to my place to watch season 2 of Dexter and to make something interesting out of the leftover chicken breasts from the picnic that needed to be used up. We ended up making a mole sauce and serving the chicken with onions and peppers along with guacamole(that we made), rice(zataran's jambalaya mix), and steamed squash and zucchini. It was excellent, and a great way to end the weekend.

I'm still pretty depressed, but I'm opening myself to the possibility that I can be somewhat happy even if I do give up on achieving any of my dreams. Maybe the fact that I can't let them go is what is making me so miserable, and I should just accept the not terribly interesting lower-middle class person that I am.

Three Day Weekend!

2008-07-03T07:29:00.002-04:00

I'm looking forward to this break.

I decided to not make any plans and just relax around the house this weekend, which should be great. I haven't had a non-eventful weekend in months.

I need to do some straightening up around the house as well. So it should be a nice therapeutic introverted weekend. Yay!

Am I too nice?

2008-07-01T21:59:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I think I am too nice for my own good. I don't want to be the bad guy, so I let people walk all over me, and then I get depressed over that. I think being worried that people are intimidated by my size has gimped my personality into being a teddy bear who is everyone's friend but doesn't stand up even when he thinks he should.

Of course, I'm probably just blowing off steam right now. Sorry for annoying both my readers.

Depression...smash!

2008-07-01T11:27:00.003-04:00

So some good things are happening...I love my car I've had for almost three weeks(of course I haven't sent in a payment yet), I had a big turnout for the UG picnic I organized this past Saturday at Table Rock.

Yet, even with all of this going on, I still find myself almost continually depressed. Feeling like every avenue of possibility has closed to me and I am almost powerless to make even small changes in my life. That I’ll die alone after a meaningless life. The usual I guess, which is why I won’t bore anyone (including myself) with further detail.

Maybe the time has come for me to put up or shut up and finally see a shrink. I’ve been avoiding it for a long time; horror stories of couch-jockeys who don’t listen and just hand out scripts make me nervous, but I don’t think that analysis itself is the key anymore. Maybe I do have some kind of chemical imbalance that keeps me from enjoying life no matter how hard I try to silence the demons within. Maybe there is a pill that can make me not wish I was dead sometimes and get up with excitement. I kind of doubt it, but I guess it is possible.

New (to me) Car!

2008-06-14T08:34:00.001-04:00

After the second time of my Lumina being in the shop in as many weeks, I decided to stop delaying the inevitable and get a newer car. The Lumina is a 1999 model and has 150k miles, so I don't think there are too many miles left, and certainly not enjoyable miles at that. I'm giving it to my 17 year old brother as a first car.

Over the past two weeks, I've test driven many cars. Everything from a Volkswagen New Beetle to a Honda Pilot to an Audi A6. This was more to familiarize myself with the cars out there and decide what attributes are important. First of all is reliability. I'm tired of cheap american econo-sedans that all look the same and crap out after 100k miles. Second was fuel efficiency, of course. And the third was comfort. I am a big guy, and a Yaris would not be a good fit. These were my only major considerations, but I also wanted something that wasn't like every other Camry out there, and something I can be enthusiastic about instead of yet another ho-hum-mobile.

The first vehicle I seriously considered was a Honda Element. On paper it was a good match, and the look of the car didn't bother me. When I test drove one however, I was not impressed. The driver area was not terribly comfortable(the window controls jammed into my leg) and the car had very little acceleration.

I tried a Saturn Vue next. Another small SUV with not terrible gas mileage. There was nothing bad about this vehicle, but nothing leaped out as nice either, and since the ones I looked at were $15-17k I didn't want to spend that much on something I didn't really care for.

Enter the Scion xB. It also met all of my requirements on paper. I went to test drive a 2006 in Easley that I saw on Autotrader. When I arrived, the car listed as an automatic turned into a 5-speed. I haven't driven a 5-speed in 10 years, but it was easier than I remembered it being. I loved the car. loved. The salesmen were sharks, though, and I wanted to try an automatic, so I walked off the lot.

At that point I stated doing heavy research on the xB online and calling dealers all around SC, NC, and GA. The only xB in Greenville was a 2005 with 42k miles that the dealer wanted $17,995 for. I found my black box in Augusta, GA. A 2006 with only 18,039 miles with a sticker price of $15,000. I talked him down to $12,500 and agreed to buy on Thursday just after lunch.

I had already setup financiang, so I just had to take my blank check from Capital One with me, but the problem was finding a ride down to Augusta within the next hour. Since it was Thursday afternoon, I was betting that Elias might be over at Jacob's apartment and drove over there (he never has any minutes on his phone), but no luck. Just as I was pulling out of the apartment complex, Leigh called me. She said she was having a bad day and needed to hang, so I told her my predicament and she volunteered to drive me to Augusta if I'd pay for gas. An hour later(4pm) we were headed down the interstate to Augusta.

I bought the car at Augusta Dodge, and it was a very good experience. Since we had already negotiated price on the phone, there was no haggling involved. I showed up, test drove the vehicle, filled out the paperwork, and drove it home. They even filled the gas tank for me.

Since it was an econo-box with a 4 cylinder engine, I expected anemic highway performance, but was greatly surprised how easily it accelerated to 80 mph. It is boxy like an SUV, but it has the chassis and suspension of a car, so it handles well on the road. We had an uneventful drive back and I bought Leigh dinner at Stax's Omega as a thank you for schlepping me 200 miles and driving that back again.

All in all, I love my black box and will post some pics after I take them today.

New (to me) Car!

2008-06-13T23:45:00.002-04:00

I've been neglectful

2008-06-12T00:05:00.002-04:00

I haven't updated the blog in a while. Sorry about that.

The main reason is that I've been so busy at my website www.upstategeeks.com. We've had a lot of growth in the past month, and it's all I can do to keep up with the damned thing. :)

Brag: we just hit 100 members, we have over 6000 posts total and we've averaged 208 posts a day for the past week. Not bad for four months out.

Drinks, Depression, Panic Attacks

2008-05-10T09:42:00.002-04:00

After work on Friday, my friend Teresa came over to finish watching Juno, eat pizza, and drink. About an hour later, Jacob and Elias came by bringing more booze. For the first few hours we had a great time.

When Jacob drinks too much he often gets depressed. This happened last night and it took 2-3 hours to get him out of the depressive funk he was in. At this point Teresa was tired, so I let her sleep in my bed and told her I would take the couch. Very soon after she left, Jacob went outside to smoke a cigarette and calm down and Elias started going into a panic attack.

Elias' panic attacks are not your standard version. He growls, hisses, speaks in gibberish languages that sound like orcs, and grinds his teeth. I've seen him attack his brother a couple of times in that state, but usually he just flails around for a while and eventually calms down.

I wish there was more I could do to help both of them. We've tried therapists, prescription drugs, non prescription drugs, etc., with little effect.

After the panic attack Elias wanted to go home, so went outside and discovered that Jacob was asleep in his car. It was now three a.m. Elias wakes up Jacob and they went home. Since he'd had five hours of sobering up/sleeping time, I didn't try to prevent them from driving.

I hope we didn't freak out poor Teresa too badly. It was definitely an interesting night. What's that old saying, something like it being a curse to live in interesting times. Whoever said that had the right of it.

Scored an Xbox 360

2008-05-09T01:39:00.003-04:00

Monday morning at work one of our programmers listed an Xbox 360 for sale. The 20gb hard drive version with 3 games(Halo 3, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Tony Hawk Project 8) and several accessories (charge & play, media remote control, messenger bag carry case, chatpad and headset) for $325.

I've been trying to decide if should get an Xbox or a decent dining room set with my economic stimulus payment, but this made the decision for me. Less that five seconds after the for sale email was sent I sent a short email saying "I'll take it". It was a good thing I didn't take a minute to think it over; three more offers came through in the next five seconds, just after mine.

I haven't had a chance to play much yet, just a bit of Halo 3, but I can't wait to get GTA4 and start exploring Liberty City. I'll probably do that Saturday night after the D&D Meetup.

HOG Day/ Browncoat Karaoke

2008-05-09T01:34:00.003-04:00

Last Saturday was a great, if long, day. I picked up my friend Leigh and met Chaos Mandy and Evil Mandy downtown for HOG Day. We were originally supposed to paint low income housing, but were switched to working the afterparty at the last minute. Evil and I checked IDs and handed out free beer wristbands, which Leigh and Chaos staffed the volunteer check-in table. Three hours later and we hopped on board the free trolley to rest our bones and saw the elusive astroturf limo.

Afterward, we went by Free Comic Book Day at Richard's Comics and Collectibiles where we took all of the Stormtrooper, Iron Man, and Silver Surfer photos. We also spread the word a little about UG; it's really too bad I didn't have any business cards with me. After finding out how disturbing Evil's Superman obsession really is, we went to Atlanta Bread Company to chill for a bit before Iron Man.

For those of you who have seen it, I don't have to tell you that Iron Man kicks major ass.

After that we proceeded to Browncoat Karaoke. I made a short video of Patrick & Laura singing Time Warp from Rocky Horror, and the other highlight was all four of us HOG Day volunteers singing Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up.

All in all, a great time was had by all. In all.

Pascha 2008

2008-04-28T11:30:00.002-04:00

Well, after all of my deliberation, I went to Pascha Saturday night along with Jacob and Elias.

For those of you unfamiliar with Eastern Orthodoxy, Pascha is our celebration of Easter, and is usually on a different weekend than Western Easter. Pascha is the greek form of the word Passover, and is calculated in a very similar way on the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, which is why some years it is the same and some it is later.

The service starts at 11:30pm in a darkened church with prayers, readings, and hymns that harken back to Old Testament prefigurements of Christ (Jonah and the Whale, The burning bush, the three youths in the fire, Habbakuk, etc.). Then all of the lights are extinguished and the clergy start singing the Resurrection Hymn. Slowly from one lit candle passes it’s flame to everyone in the church and then a procession is made around the building with everyone singing. After that is a long, but joyous service that ends at 2:30am or so and after that we feast for a couple of hours and stagger home sleepy and full of the meat and dairy given up for Lent. Being that we are not teetotalers there was a decent amount of not only wine and beer, but also vodka and Jaeger shots.

At that point I went home and slept for a few hours and was back again at noon for a short Vespers service. Following that, we went to a family’s house for a huge party and I had more meat and drink. Well a few drinks; Bob has a bar in his house. I got home around 8pm yesterday and after nearly 24 hours of praying and partying I gratefully jumped into bed and slept until 7am this morning.

There were a few awkward moments, like when a guy who had been there maybe six months greeted me at the front door like I had never walked in the place before. Nice guy, but a surreal experience.

I think, though, that I will get back into going at least a couple of times a month. I’ve forgotten how nice the community is, and this is one of the few churches out there that combines ancient liturgies with modern views on many issues (evolution, gay church members, etc.). I’m still trying to work out a few issues of belief, but that will work itself out eventually or not.

Asian Night

2008-04-23T22:31:00.002-04:00

Tonight I met my friend Linda for sushi and we saw The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. It was equal parts campy and mythic, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It reminded me a great deal of a late 80s movies. Mix a little Karate Kid in with Kickboxer and a touch of Army of Darkness and you'll get something approximating this movie.

Sushi was good as always at Sushi Murasaki. I ordered a bagel roll(smoked salmon, avocado, cream cheese), a Clemson roll(spicy shrimp with black and orange maduro), and an asaparagus and avocado roll(this was pretty mediocre).

I also took my boss out to lunch at The Pita House today. He had never been and ended up enjoying the meat dishes greatly, but didn't care for hummus or falafel. I guess there's no accounting for taste. :)

Firefly/Serenity LARP

2008-04-20T23:15:00.003-04:00

Most of you should know that I'm a big fan of the shortly-lived television series Firefly and the movie Serenity that followed a few years later. My friends Linda and Good Mandy from the Greenville Browncoats have spent months organizing a weekend long Firefly LARP that took place this weekend at Camp Buckhead in Paris Mountain State Park.

For those of you not familiar with the term, LARP is an acronym for Live Action Roleplaying. Instead of the usual roleplaying game where you sit around a table and use dice to determine success or failure at a LARP you dress up as your character and are in game for most of the weekend.

The game was set in a small town on one of the planets on the rim of the Firefly 'verse. We had set up a judge's/sheriff's office, a restaurant, docks, and a bordello /bar.

My character was Samual Seamus McGee or "Sam the Sham". He is the bartender at Red Annie's, which is the local house of ill repute. Since alcohol is verboden in SC state parks, I served varities of soda with Firefly-esque labels: Tsunami Cola(Coke), Diet Tsunami Cola (Diet Coke), Blue Lotus Soda(Sprite), Wasabi!(Ginger Ale), and Ju!(Diet Sunkist). I also sold coffee, biscotti, and desserts when our kitchen could provide them. When you check into the game, you receive a character packet that has the rules, health coins, your deck of cards (more on this later), and your "cashy money", custom made currency to use to buy drinks and meals, item cards, services at Red Annie's(backrubs, hot towel shaves, and foot washings), and a few miscellaneous things. We also gambled quite a bit, as I ran games of blackjack and Texas Hold 'Em when the bar was slow.

The plot of the game revolved around a missing Alliance ship that supposedly crashed near the town years ago during the war that carried a vast amount of unusual plat coins. It's been a local legend for years, but just now a few of the coins have shown up and all kinds of untrustworthy folk are in town making life more interesting than it generally is. I won't go into all the happenings here, but if you go the this thread at UpstateGeeks.com you'll find more information.

Saturday night we had the annual "Festival of Lanterns" which wrapped up the game with a filk concert and an improptu drinking party in cabin ten. While we didn't have real alcohol in the game areas, many people discretely brought beverages to share in their cabins once the gameplay stopped for the night. I brought an entire cooler full of discrete: 1600 Reposado Tequila(a new thing for me), Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout, Maudite Belgian-style Ale, and the surprise hit: lots of mini bottles of various flavors of Smirnoff vodka that were $0.50 each. Next time I'm not going to get a large bottle of liquor, I'll just spend $25 on those mini bottles and get some decent beer. If I did that this time I would have spent about half of what I did on booze.

Anyway, a good time was had by all and Linda might throw another one in 6-9 months.

Prodigal Dave

2008-04-16T22:26:00.002-04:00

To follow up from my last post I went to church for the first time in three years.

It was awkward, but less awkward than I had anticipated. As expected, I was immediately pulled over into the choir.

I'll most likely go back for Pascha(Orthodox Easter) on the 26th. That should be interesting. It's a service that starts at 11:30pm completely in the dark, then a candle is lit in the altar and the flame is passed through candles held by every person and there is a procession around the building three times while singing. After that all of the blood red vestments, curtains, etc have been changed into snowy white and there is a service with some of my favorite music. The service ends at around 3am and there is feasting until dawn with lots of meat(usually a roast lamb) and drink(beer, shots, etc). The next morning at noon is a very short service and then everyone goes over to a party at someone's house with more meat and booze. It's usually a pretty good time.

So, no immediate self-realization of where I should be in life, but it feels good to reconnect with the people I've spent so much of my life with for the past ten years.

"Are you there God, it's me, Margaret."

2008-04-14T23:23:00.002-04:00

A few posts down, I was commenting back to Jenny regarding my religious history, and though I should just make a blog entry about it.

It's kind of odd for me, as I have a pretty different religious history than most.

From birth until age seventeen I had maybe entered a church building three times. My parents are culturally Southern Baptist, but never practicing. At around fifteen I started to read the Tao Te Ching and various Buddhist and Neopagan texts.

A friend of mine got me into C.S. Lewis, and a lot of his stuff made a great deal of sense to me at that time. I started going to that friend's Baptist church and as I decided to leave music performance behind at high school graduation, I looked for something to fill the void, and newly found religion was just the ticket.

I went to a private SBC university (Bob Jones lite), ran into several professors and students professing Hypercalvinism (there is no free will, God chose who was going to heaven and hell before the planet was created, Jesus didn't die for all people, etc) and that seemed like lunacy to me. I started to look at all kinds of churches in the area; Catholic, Lutheran, Wesleyan, etc., and ran into a close friend's father who is an Eastern Orthodox priest.

I talked to him several times and visited the mission church he was assigned to, and from the moment I walked in the door I was home. Everything, from the poetry of the liturgy and the chanted psalms, to the a cappella choir performing ancient chants, to the historic icon reprints, to the candles, bells, and incense enveloped me into a multisensory communion that I finally got an idea what heaven as a state of being might be like. Six months later I had gone through the catechumenate and was chrismated as a member of the Orthodox Church on Christmas day 1998. I was nineteen. The next day, I traveled with my sponsor(kind of like a godfather) to a monastery in Pennsylvania and spent a week amongst the monks.

I had a great seven years like that until some of my own issues got in the way and I felt the need to isolate myself. Up until that point the priest was trying to get me to go to seminary and I was directing choir and teaching church school. I was dealing with some of my own head issues and I kept telling myself that I was a complete hypocrite and that all of the people there would be much better off if I wasn't around. So I stopped going around three years ago.

At this point I've been away for three years and I'm not sure about some of the core beliefs anymore. I don't think there's anything wrong with gay men and women, I don't think premarital sex is always a problem. It seems like when I would pray multiple times daily that my life was much worse than it has been for the last few years. For the past few months I've started to drift toward agnosticism.

I'm going to go to a lenten Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts on Wednesday, see how awkward everything is, and go from there.

I miss the people, the music, the liturgy. I need to see if there are any holes in me that this fills again. "Are you there God it's me, Margaret?"

My Name is Waaay Too Common

2008-04-13T15:54:00.003-04:00

I just created a MySpace page for www.upstategeeks.com. (I know I know, MySpace sucks, but I want to build up some traffic for the site) I searched for my MySpace profile to send a friend request so that UG would have a friend listed, and I had to go through 5 pages of David Galloways before I found me! There were 12 pages of DGs total!

I'm seriously thinking about changing my name. I went to high school with two other David Galloways, but fortunately they were freshman when I was a senior so that wasn't too bad. In fact, when one of them was sent home early, I'd get the note since everyone knew me. And there is another David Galloway at my company of less than 200 people. We constantly have emails, calls, and mail sent to the wrong person.

I could go by my middle name, but that is Elias and one of my best friends is named Elias so that won't work. Incidentally, Elias' middle name is David. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm thinking of perhaps taking on another name. Haven't thought of exactly what yet, but there are a few that are rattling through my head, mostly Celtic and/or Norse names.

If the three people who occasionally read my blog happen upon this post, I'd appreciate any constructive criticism on if I should do this. Need input!

D&D Meetup 4/13/08

2008-04-13T11:01:00.003-04:00

Last night I went to the D&D Gamers Meetup for the first time in nine months, and had a great time.

I stopped going a while back because of some disagreements with the guy who was running the group then. He has had to step down because of health issues, and someone else has taken the group over. I'm sorry that the first guy is going through serious health problems as I never had a problem with him personally, but the new guy has really reinvigorated the group.

Anyway, the new organizer was looking for DMs, I sent him an email telling him how I DMed every Meetup for over a year but I stopped going because blah blah blah, and voiced my other concerns. He send a very lengthy sincere email that assuaged my concerns so I agreed to run a game for the group.

When I first walked into The Command Post(the gaming store where the Meetup is held) I was a little worried, as the only gamers there I recognized were people I did not want to have at my table. But cool people filtered in slowly over the next half hour and thankfully the people I didn't want did not come to my table.

Last night there were 22 people there divided into five gaming groups (I think). I had four at my table. We got off to a late start as two players had to make characters and the other two were an hour late and then left halfway through to get sandwiches for 25 minutes, so we only got halfway through the adventure. The players seemed to have a great time though, and we're planning on picking it back up next month.

The crazy thing was that the new organizer is giving out all kinds of schwag. In addition to every member of the group getting a membership card that lets you receive a 10% discount on D&D stuff at two gaming stores, all the DMs were given BI-LO gift cards and a set of every Eberron rulebook was given out as a door prize. I don't know where the organizer is getting his funding, but I hope it continues.

So to sum up, lots of fun. If you're in the Greenville area and like D&D be sure to come check it out.

Three Meals

2008-04-09T00:11:00.002-04:00

The past 30 hours can be summed up with the three meals I had in that time.

Yesterday evening I met up with my friend Linda who took me out for sushi as a "I'm glad you're out of the hospital" gift. We went to Sushi Murasaki and I had seaweed salad, a bagel roll(smoked salmon, cream cheese, and avocado), and a wasabi scallop roll(exactly what it sounds like plus green fish eggs). We then walked over to Cherrydale Cinema and saw Leatherheads. It was a decently fun movie that never had any great moments, but the entire thing was fairly enjoyable. Since a large chunk of the movie was filmed here in Greenville you can recognize several of the buildings. I never thought much of Clooney when he first became a star but since O Brother Where Art Thou? I've been slowly admiring most of his work.

Today for lunch I met Fr. Marcus at Handi Indian Cuisine downtown. A bit of background: I haven't been to church in over three years now and while I was in the hospital Fr. Marcus found out about it and visited me and asked me to forgive him if he did anything that drove me away. Now when I left I had a bone or two to pick with him, but it's funny how unimportant that is after three years. At this point in my life I'm not sure if I want to get back into going to church. Hell, right now I'd probably even consider myself more agnostic than not if I'm being completely honest. But I do miss the people and the liturgy. I spent seven years of my life with these people and for good or for ill I am connected to several of them in a very real way. Not seeing any of them for the past few years was very painful.

One might ask, "If that was the case why didn't you go back before now?" Well, my craziness manifests itself as a voice in my head telling me that I'm not good at anything, no one could possibly ever love me or probably even like me, and that these people are better off without me in their life. I realize that this is not reality but the crossed wires in my head messing with me, but it feels very real at times, and I let myself think that in this instance the voices might be right. I'm still working on that.

Anyway, lunch was great and it was nice to spend some time talking with Fr. Marcus again. He didn't pressure me into coming back, at the end when we parted ways he merely told me that I'm always welcome and he hopes to see me again soon. I want to go back as it's been a long time, but I'm worried about my current doubts. As the old prayer goes, "Lord I believe! Help my unbelief."

And the third meal was chinese delivery at Jacob's house where he, Andy, and I got together for our first poker night. We each put in $10, dealt out the chips, and played several poker variants including No Hold 'Em, Five Card Stud, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw, and Loser No Hold 'Em where you place your two cards on your forehead and everyone gets to see them but you. Jacob ended up winning after four hours on a No Hold 'Em hand where Andy and I both went all in. All three of us had straights, but Jacob had the highest one. Ten bucks is a good amount to use for a friendly poker night. It's not enough that you'll miss it, and the winner will get enough to do something fun. The chinese meal was Roast Pork with Mushrooms, which is my new favorite chinese dish.

So to sum up, three great meals and three interesting experiences. It has been said that the act of sharing a meal is the last natural act of communion that we have left in the modern era. From my experience I would say that is true.

Indian Cooking Tips

2008-04-07T00:04:00.002-04:00

I like to make Indian food. Okay, not as much as my friend Elias, and I'm going to have to make some of the recipes more healthy now, but I love me a curry.

Anyway, if you love eating Indian but have never made it, give it a try sometime. Elias, Jacob, and I all began making Indian from the cookbook Curries Without Worries by Sudha Koul. That and a dozen or so spices should give you a good start.

Maybe it's my own food snobbery, but I tend to avoid any recipe I find that calls for curry powder. Curry powder is a British invention to try and add Indian flavor without fresh spices. It's rubbish, don't use it. There are thousands of combinations of Indian spice mixes and using just curry powder or the step up ground Garam Masala is like putting Lawry's Seasoned Salt on everything you cook and calling it properly seasoned.

I also don't recommend premade spice mixes for specific curries sold in Indian grocery stores. It's like buying seasoning packets at a regular grocery store in that you pay two bucks for something that would cost you ten cents if you had a regular supply of spices at home. Go to the Indian grocery and spend twenty bucks on 7 oz bags of a dozen spices. You'll be good to go. You may also want to pick up some ghee(clarified butter), basmati rice, and loose-leaf tea while you're there.

Uneventful Weekend

2008-04-06T22:30:00.002-04:00

My only real excitement was on Friday evening (is that technically part of the weekend?) when Andy, Elias, and Jacob came over and we played a lengthy game of Robo-Rally, a great boardgame where each player controls a robot running a race through a dangerous factory. The robots can fall into pits, get crushed, travel on conveyor belts, and even shoot lasers at each other. Elias made fresh guacamole which was incredible. I need to research guac and see how bad it is for diabetics.

My parents were supposed to come over on Saturday at noon to see my new place, but something came up. No big loss.

I went out on Saturday and in addition to running errands (refill RXs, get gas) I went by Boardwalk and Park Place and bought a case of the new D&D Minis set. I've been buying this plasticrack for the past 2.5 years now, and I have over 3,000 in my collection. It's really the only thing I collect other than books and dvds, and I only spend around $200 three times a year so I guess it's not that bad, but it still feels excessive. When I got home with the case, I went through my ritual of opening each booster individually, taking each mini out of the plastic, marking that mini off on a checklist, and putting the cards in protective sleeves. This is a very zen-like process for me.

I also played a few mock minis games to familiarize myself with the new rules, which I think are mostly an improvement. I would like to play this game more often, but I don't know too many other people in Greenville who play.

Other than that I pretty much just hung out at home on Saturday and Sunday. I watched season two of Weeds and most of season one of 30 Rock through Netflix Online and did a bit of straightening up.

I went out to Publix a few hours ago to pick up some groceries, and now I'm in love with their freshly brewed iced tea with Splenda. I need to start making this myself, because at $2.29 a gallon I can go through at least five bucks worth a day.

More Back at Work Stuff

2008-04-06T22:18:00.003-04:00

Again, I was terribly pleased to get back to work on Thursday, but I'm glad I only had a two day work week as I'm still not 100% and my leg would get stiff in the last few hours of the day while at my desk.

I came back to 348 emails. 50-80 were intercompany chit-chat as EP is a pretty casual company and you'll routinely get company-wide emails from people selling their houses, showing photos of a stray dog they're trying to get rid of, or selling tickets to a show or game. The rest were things I had to attend to, and I took care of the mission-critical stuff before lunch that day.

We had two new additions to my department in the three weeks I was away. One was an accounting manager who may become my supervisor over the next several months. He seems like a nice, quiet guy, and I'm estimating that he's 3-4 years younger than I am. I think I'll get along with him with no problem. The other new employee is a 20 hr/week temp to help out the billers that I haven't even said hello to yet. I didn't mean to be rude, but I had a lot of work to catch up.

I also missed the (yearly?) drug test while in the hospital. I'm glad about that, not because it would have been a problem (Two half-joints in 1998 were my only illicit experiments), but I am kind of opposed to mandatory drug testing. If someone seems to be on something at work, or is showing evidence that they might have a problem great, test that person, but I don't think companies have any right to intrude on their employees in this manner if there's no job related problem. I guess I'm leaning more libertarian in my old age.

Anyway, once again it's good to be back in the saddle at EP. It's not my ideal method of employment, but I'm pretty damn happy with my coworkers, my usual tasks, and the company in general, and I earn a very fair salary with great benefits. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon and I hope the feeling is mutual.

Back to Work!

2008-04-04T10:28:00.002-04:00

I had the PICC line removed Wednesday afternoon and I went back to work yesterday.

No pain at all when the home health nurse removed the PICC line. She basically just removed the dressing covering the tube and started pulling it out of my arm slowly. It was around the same diameter as a thick spaghetti noodle, but 26 inches long. The wound will take a day or two to heal and I'm still not supposed to pick up anything heavier than ten pounds with that arm.

It's kind of strange to say, but I was really excited about going back to work yesterday. It's funny how many hugs and well-wishes you receive after you've been out sick for three weeks. My only problem was my leg stiffening up over the last two hours of work, but that should only be temporary as I've been mollycoddling my leg up until now.

Oh, and in the morning before going to work I met with a nutritionist to go over how I should modify my diet to deal with type two diabetes and lose some weight. It's a pain, but hopefully if I work at it I can stave off insulin injections and whatnot.

Not much to say...

2008-03-29T13:20:00.003-04:00

...still stuck at home, doing IV injections and sleeping throughout half the day. At least I have fast DSL and a projector to comfort me.

I may try to venture out with some friends for a few hours tonight.

Out of the Hospital

2008-03-26T23:26:00.004-04:00

Well, I was released from the hospital on Sunday. My ex-girlfriend Lisa picked me up and dropped me off because everyone else was busy on Easter Sunday.

I now have to self-administer vancomycin, my antibiotic, via an IV PICC line going into my heart. I have to do this twice a day until next Monday, when hopefully the damned thing will be removed and I can go back to work. Here's a graphic of the PICC line:

Being at home is better than the hospital, but I have to rest and elevate my leg so much I'm not getting anything done around the house and I can't really spend the time watching movies or playing around on the internet as I would like. Hopefully, I'll get a little more stamina soon.

Greetings from Allen Bennet Hospital

2008-03-17T18:37:00.002-04:00

Thursday evening I started feeling extremely nauseous with both a fever and chills. I left the board game event I was at to go to my old place and rest for a few hours. I fell asleep in the overstuffed easy chair in a weird position and when I woke up all the circulation to my left calf was cut off. I hopped around on that leg for a while and drove home.

When I woke up on Friday, the numbness was replaced by extreme pain, swelling, and redness. I called in at work and like an idiot I I'd give it another day before going to the doctor.

Saturday bore no improvement, in fact I felt worse. At this point I called Jacob and asked him to come pick me up and take me to the emergency room. I decided to go to Allen Bennett as I thought that would be less of a wait(I was right, no wait at all!), and at first the ER doc thought I might have a deep-vein-thrombosis blood clot. I had an ultrasound performed and discovered it was not a clot thankfully, but cellulitis and an infection. So I've been here since noon Saturday as an IV-dripping, bad food eating, open butt gown wearing, bad movie on tv-watching inpatient. I called EP this morning and let my supervisor Michael know what was going on. He told me not to worry about anything here but just concentrate on getting better. I also received a flower from EP a few hours later.

So this is day 3 of my hospital stay. I'm not certain when I'll be able to leave. Hopefully by Friday. Having a laptop and an internet connection is my one saving grace.

Rock Band Endless Tour

2008-03-12T01:18:00.003-04:00

Today after work I got together with Jacob and Andy at my old place and we played the Endless Tour on Rock Band. Basically, it is a concert where you play every song you have installed for Rock Band, one after the other. It was a total of 58 songs and took from 5:30pm to 12:35am, with a one hour break for dinner(mmm...Mexican).

We started with both guitars on hard and vocals on medium and passed whatever we were playing clockwise every three songs. It was a lot of fun, but not something I'd want to do terribly often.

Also, www.upstategeeks.com is coming along nicely. I put up some basic banners, and we're getting more users and more posts. I'm going to order some "free" business cards from vistaprint.com with the site to leave at game shops and other geek natural habitats.

Whirlwind Weekend

2008-03-09T22:11:00.003-04:00

They go by so quickly, don't they?

On Friday after work, my friend Teresa came by and we drank copious amounts of rum and some awful blackberry wine she bought. I bought lots of fruit and made some cracked out pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris in my uber-blender. We started the dvd of Sin City(she had never seen it) but only got halfway through it when I paused to get more drinks and we ended up with stereo typical drunken conversation. She slept on my couch and the next morning I made a simple breakfast of bacon and eggs and we finished Sin City. She was my first official houseguest.

On Saturday I pretty much just did stuff around the house and lazed about. I finally setup the wireless keyboard and mouse I bought a few weeks ago, and it is so much better than my laptop keyboard. I originally bought it to use in the living room when I connect my computer to the projector, but now I think I will use it on my desk at home as well. It keeps the monitor 10" or so further back than I'm used to, but the typing position is much more comfortable. I got a great deal on the keyboard/mouse combo as well. It's the Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 4000 which Staples had on sale for $15 as a doorbuster a few weeks ago. Of course they sold out in hours, but I took the flyer to Office Depot and pricematched it for $15 and they're also having a $15 mail-in-rebate on this item so I essentially got an $80 keyboard/mouse for free. Go Dave!

On Saturday night I also watched True Romance, which I can't believe I haven't seen before now. It's incredible how many people that Tony Scott got for this Tarantino penned script. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, but you'll also see Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Val Kilmer as the ghost of Elvis! It's cheesy as hell but as Nigel Tunney would say this one goes to 11.

Sunday had a bit more going on. I picked up my friend Linda and took her to a friend of her's house to meet a few of her gamer friends and test out the rules for the Firefly LARP she's running in April. I've volunteered to be an NPC, I'll be the bartender at the local house of ill repute. I'm not a big fan of LARPs, but she's putting a lot on the line to make this happen and I want to be a good friend and help however I can.

After that I met up with my friend Anna, picked her up(hmm, I'm seeing a trend there) and we went to Falls Park for the Irish Festival. Of course, by this point the Irish festival was really over and they were packing up everything. She bought a nice cheap pair of fake emerald earrings and we walked around the park for a while. She then wanted to go to a coffeeshop she heard about, but they were closed. Then she kind of retreated into herself and asked me to drive her home. After that I came home and watched the dvd of Once I borrowed from her. Wow, what a beautiful film. I am currently downloading the soundtrack(legally, from emusic) and will be acquiring the dvd shortly.

Not the best weekend in the world, but far from the worst.

Home Theater Trifecta Pt 2: Projector

2008-03-06T23:59:00.002-05:00

I've been researching projectors for the past month or so and after reading lots of reviews, recommendations, etc I had narrowed my list down to two projectors. One was a ceiling mount(Mitsubishi HD1500) and the other was a tabletop(Epson Moviemate 72). They both have 720p HD displays. The Mitsubishi has slightly better specs, but the Epson is an all-in-one system with an upscaling dvd player and four speakers built in. Since I'm starting from scratch, the all-in-one system is a nice choice since I'll have everything I need to watch a dvd and then upgrade the sound later.

After getting home monday night, I was pretty pissed off(see Preface to the Projector below) and wanted some retail therapy. The Mitsubishi was up from the price I saw it at Best Buy last week, but the Epson was on sale at Circuit City for $999. I did a quick price search online and found that all the reputable internet sites(Amazon, Vanns, etc) didn't have it any cheaper than $1200. According to the Circuit City website the Woods Crossing store had the Epson in stock. I checked the time: 8:22. Circuit City closes at 9:00 and I'm 12 miles away. No problem. I speed a little more than I should and pull into the parking lot at 8:47(hit every red light once I got into the city proper). The sales guy in the tv dept is watching a basketball game so I had to flag him down. Fifteen minutes later I'm the new owner of an Epson Moviemate 72 projector.

I still haven't had time to properly calibrate the settings, but it fits my little apartment perfectly. I get around a 100" display on my dining room wall. The only problem is that the white wall paint is glossy, so there is a bright spot where the light reflects back. I'm planning on getting a bucket of special home theater wall paint, but that stuff is very expensive so it's not at the top of my list. Sometime in the next few months.

After spending a few days watching a few favorites(first dvd seen on the projector? The Royal Tenenbaums) I'm extremely pleased with my choice. I even took it to the rollerskating work event (see Ready 2 Rock below) and everyone was impressed with the quality of the image.

Part three of the trifecta will be the receiver(probably an Onkyo 605 or Harman Kardon AV 347) but since I spent my budget for the receiver on stuff for the new place I'll wait a couple of months. That gives me time to check fatwallet.com and deals2buy.com for a great deal.

Preface to the Projector

2008-03-06T23:41:00.005-05:00

Last Monday I hung with a friend who proceeded to really piss me off. She called me at work at 4:30 wanting to drop by where I work and then go hang out. I was fine with that and gave her the dime tour of EP. We wound up at Coffee Underground where she kept talking about how she needed to make friends and spend time with people. After about an hour, she then decided to leave me and go hang out with some random people from a Meetup.com group who were going bowling.

Maybe I'm being oversensitive, but when someone interrupts your day to want to hang out, proceeds to spend an hour talking about she doesn't have any friends her age(I'm only 1.5 years older than she), and then leaves you behind to go bowling with strangers just seems like a shitty way of treating a friend. It wouldn't have bothered me so much, but in the conversation we had at CU I started to talk about some of the stuff from my past and I wanted to go into it a little, since she had an hour or so to talk about what was bugging her.

She's really funny and I like hanging out with her, but it feels like a one-sided friendship. I think she thinks I have a crush on her so she doesn't want to spend too much time with me. I could see wanting to go out with her in a few years once I get a few things together, but I really don't have any interest in anyone at the moment. I have been known to get flirty, so maybe she misinterpreted a signal or two?

Oh well. I'm just upset enough after this to not be proactive for a while. If she calls me and wants to do something, fine, but I'm not going to contact her for the next few weeks. I feel like my friendship has been taken for granted, and to be quite honest I have a lot of friends who want to spend time with me, I don't need to be anyone's doormat.

Ready 2 Roll

2008-03-06T23:13:00.002-05:00

I just got home from a company event at a rollerskating rink. Seriously.

It was actually kind of fun. I didn't strap on rollerskate, though, as I brought my projector and played Rock Band for three hours. We had a pretty nice setup with a white sheet used as a screen(fancy, no?), and a receiver and tower speakers from the 80s that cranked out enough decibels to drown out "Ice Ice Baby" "The Chicken Dance", and other roller-skating classics.

I've been at EP for nearly a year now and this is the first offsite gathering I've attended. It was kind of nice to see a different side of some of my coworkers.

I had two highlights of the evening. First, a 14 year old challenged me to a guitar duel(we were both on Expert) and I trounced him. It seems like that age group routinely stomps the 25-35 age range so it was good to draw a little blood for the "starting to get old" guys. The second was when one of the popular ad execs referred to me as "the cool guy in accounting." Really, what can I do to top that? Maybe be the white guy in Harlem or the fat guy at an anorexia support group?

I like most of my coworkers in the accounting department, but they can be kind of bland. But I find everyone interesting, so it's not a problem for me.

Here's the flyer one of our graphic designers made for the event:

Blogworthy?

2008-03-06T01:13:00.002-05:00

Since high school I've had a bad habit of starting a journal, making maybe four entries, and then forgetting about it for a year or two.

Ten years later and I'm still doing this on the interweb. I guess I don't view a lot of the minutia of my life as noteworthy. Of course few personal blogs are noteworthy, but I find myself checking the blogs of the people I know daily. Perhaps it is a need for connection of some sort.

You know those great conversations that you have every year or so that go on for hours and you're so into the conversation(whose topics range from life, the universe, and everything up to minor food and movie preferences) that you don't want it to end. Blogs to me are kind of like tapping into that metaconversation.

Anyway, it's past my bedtime and I'm rambling. Guten nicht!

Cybersnooping

2008-03-06T00:04:00.004-05:00

On occasion when I think about a friend I haven't seen in years I will search Google to see if I can find out what they're up to.

Tonight I found a blog of one of my closest friends from high school up until we fell out of contact three or four years ago. I want to email him, but I'm not sure if I should. He has had a lot of bad life experiences down here and moved away after college for a fresh start. I think if I went out of my way to reestablish contact it might bring up some stuff he's worked past.

It sounds like he's lonely and confused where he is. I'm pretty confused myself, and though I have lots of friends around I still fall into depressive moods of loneliness that are hard to shake off. But I've now had a couple of decades to get through depressive funks and generally only have a day or two a month where I go into self-isolation. I hope he'll get through the long tunnel he seems to be stuck in and find some comfort. It can't rain forever.

Mostly Moved in...Mostly.

2008-03-05T23:52:00.002-05:00

I've been in my new apartment for two weeks or so now, and it's starting to feel like home. I moved all the big stuff that wouldn't fit in my car over the first weekend, and have been slowly transitioning my books, kitchen stuff, and other crap that I haven't organized since who knows when.

Technically, I'm still renting the old place until June, when the lease is up. A little over a month ago I was going crazy with the need for personal space. I've shared a 1000sq ft 2bd/2ba townhome with Jacob for nearly three years now, and at first it was great since we had different schedules and hardly saw each other. Over a couple of years those little roommate quirks that grow into full-fledged annoyances started to bloom like weeds in a flower patch. It also didn't help that Elias was over from Thursday afternoon to Sunday evening just about every week. The place was full of smoke from the two of them, and I needed my own sanctuary.

The last week of January, I was jonesing to move out and occupying myself with browsing apartment listings on Craigslist, when I found a place that sounded perfect for me. 1bd/1ba apartment built into the lower floor of a log cabin 20 min outside of Greenville. It's only 650sq ft, but the layout makes it seem huge for just me, and the fittings and fixtures are much better than anywhere I've rented before. I even have a garden bed to try and grow a few herbs and veggies. The best part; it's only $450 a month, utilities included.

I couldn't pass up this opportunity, so, long story short, I took it and made a deal with Jacob where I would pay $200 (half of our current rent is $272.50 per month) for the four months left on the lease and move out now. Spending an extra $800 sucks, but I made the right decision for me.

I'll post a few photos once I get things a bit more setup (with actual books on my bookshelves and rooms without boxes everywhere).

Home Theater Trifecta Pt 1: Speakers

2008-02-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

After asking advice on a Home Theater setup on this forum, a guy in the know recommended KEF 1005 5.1 Surround speakers which retail for $300 or so. He also mentioned that Circuit City just put the next step up in that line on clearance for the same price.

That speaker set is the KEF KHT2005, and you can read all about it in this Cnet review. These speakers came out three years ago for $1500, and the electronics industry being what it is they were replaced by virtually the same set with a new badge(KHT3005) 1.5 years later and went down to $1000. If you read the reviews and the specs the speakers are virtually identical except the newer model has a rounded subwoofer.

Anyway, I went to the first of two Circuit City's(or is it Cities?) in Greenville on my lunch hour today, and they sold out of that set two weeks ago. I then drove to the other CC and luckily enough they had a demo set still available. I listened to them for a few minutes(kickass sound, btw) and asked the sales guy how much for the floor model. Long story short I walked out with $1500 speakers for $199.95 plus $29.95 for a 10 year service/replacement plan. Normally that plan would be $150-200 but it is keyed the price of the speakers. If something blows and they can't fix it they have to give me a model of equivalent specs, not equivalent price.

So, now I have a set of bad mamma jamma speakers and need an equally 733+ receiver and projector. Stay tuned for that.

Experiencing a Sumble

2007-12-24T22:39:00.000-05:00

In my youth I was fascinated by a lot of the religions that are now filed together under the banner 'neopagan', but my experience was limited to books and a few conversations. I had never taken part in any rituals.

Fast forward a decade or so and now I'm invited to a Sumble, which is a ritual followed by Norse inspired neopaganism. I have no interest in pursuing this line of belief, but from my former studies and my curiosity to experience everything I accepted an offer from a new friend to take part in the ritual.

I arrived at the friend's house a couple of hours early and played Rock Band for a few songs on drums or vocals. We then had a wonderful meal with a roast turkey with the usual turkey accoutrement. Afterward I had a piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a bit of a homemade berry cordial for dessert. It struck me a bit ironic that that we were having a traditional American holiday meal yet were about to engage in a practice that most Americans would not identify with. But as we are a melting pot of traditions, it also made sense in a wacky wonderful kind of way.

Anyway, at this point the dishes were cleared away, and the host made sure that each participant had a votive candle and a glass with whatever the person wanted to toast with. Most people started with beer or mead and a few who had to drive home later switched to iced tea or Pepsi after a few circles. I went with a large bottle of Victory Golden Monkey Tripel Ale and a bottle of polish mead called Kasztelanski. The host had these really cool glasses that looked like viking drinking horns.

A Sumble basically is several rounds of toasting where the host begins by filling a large drinking horn with mead(homemade is preferable to store-bought) making the first toast, and the toaster drinks from the horn while everyone else drinks from the glass in front of them. Then the horn is passed clockwise to the next person, and the process continues until the horn reaches the host. We only had six people at the Sumble, so the rounds were fairly swift.

The first round is traditionally for the gods. The host bid his gods to come and witness our toasting and boasting and give their approval, we all toasted, he lit the candle in front of him, and passed the horn. A few of the participants invoked "the powers that be" and one young guy invoked "The Good Lord." When my turn came up, I was kind of unsure what to do as I did not want to offend my host or make a statement contrary to my beliefs. I think I said something along the lines of "I invite all of the forgotten ones once venerated but now left by the wayside." It sounded quasi-mystical in a H.P. Lovecraft kind of way and I was a bit put on the spot as the second person in line, but I think it was okay. I took a swig of the homemade mead from the drinking horn. The mead was excellent; spicy and sweet, but not too sweet. I then lit my candle and passed the horn.

The next round was for the fallen or the heroes where we toasted. Again I was kind of put on the spot and as I did not have any close relatives or friends die recently I quickly tried to think of a hero to toast. I had read a magazine article earlier in the week talking about all of the good things that John Chapman did during his life. John Chapman is more commonly known as "Johnny Appleseed" and a wikipedia search will reveal the millions of dollars of real estate and material goods he gave away while sleeping outdoors in rags. I thought that is pretty damned heroic, so I toasted to Johnny Appleseed and everyone seemed to find it fitting after I explained why I had chosen him. Most of the others had close friends and family that they lost which made for a solemn round.

Next was a round of boasts. Each person was to boast of something they have done in the last year that they considered a "mighty deed". I boasted of my NaNoWriMo win.

The rest of the rounds were more open where you could toast whatever you wanted. Some of the toasts I recall include to women, men, alcohol, ingenuity, compassion, kilts, gaming, computers, and the transistor. What can I say, we were all geeks.

All in all, it was definitely a positive experience. From my research, the main purpose of the Sumble was to build community and be a bonding ritual, and it certainly works very well for that. In fact, if you change the first round to the gods to instead toast the virtues you hold dear you would probably find very few people out there who would find it objectionable. Of course, my Astaru(Norse neopagan) friends would probably retort that doing that would "take the piss out of the whole thing" and water it down into yet another tepid team-bonding attempt that can be found in pathetic office environments. Try it if you get a chance and it doesn't conflict too strongly with your beliefs.

The only other ritual I'm currently looking to do is to participate in a sweat lodge. If anyone knows if one happening within an hour or so of Greenville, let me know.

Bearded Cap

2007-12-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

The Bearded Cap by Vik Prjónsdóttir. This is even more cool than the Jayne hat, and I did not think such a thing was possible. At $125, I think I'd rather try getting one of my crafty friends to knit a reasonable facsimile.

Things I Can't Live Without

2007-08-06T11:13:00.000-04:00

Things I can't live without :

Preamble: I don't count people, beliefs, etc., as things and as such will only be mentioning actual physical possessions.

1. My Laptop. I've been a computer junkie since Oregon Trail in grade school, and pretty much grew up with computers becoming more and more important in modern life. High school saw the first years of Web searches, ebay, and by the time I left college I needed a computer and an internet connection to feel complete. I wanted a laptop forever, but the damned things were so expensive it wasn't worth doing. About a year and a half ago, my homebuilt tower system bit the dust, frying the mobo and cpu. One month of research at work later and I had a nice shiny Dell 9300 17" laptop. I will never be without a laptop ever again. I've replaced the keyboard once and am having intermittant power issues, but nothing beats having access to your music, games, movies, internet, etc wherever you go. Many people can work anywhere in the world with a laptop and a cell phone and I hope someday to make that same claim.

2. Swiss Army Knife(SAK). The knife was the first and arguably most useful tool man ever devised. Add in screwdrivers, scissors, bottle openers, etc., and you'll have the tools to MacGuyver your way out of many problems thrown in your path. I prefer the Victorinox Compact model as it doesn't weight down my pocket and has the essentials for me(knife, scissors, bottle/can opener, screwdriver, corkscrew). In the past, I've had a lot of "everything but the kitchen sink SAK's(including one with a torch lighter), but now I prefer smaller and more mobile. The Compact is great quality and only US$20 or so.

3. Bandanna. Endless uses for this little square of fabric, but I mostly use mine as a napkin, tablecloth when eating something messy like a piece of fruit at my desk, wrap my ipod in it to protect from scratches, and as a potholder. If I'm outside and it's hot I'll pour water on it and tie it around my neck for evaporative cooling. I usually try to find a tissue or paper towel to blow my nose, but if not available, I can use the bandanna. Of course, I don't do any of the other uses with it until after it's laundered in that case. Since I have 5-7 of them, I get into a daily rotation. Also, it was a lifesaver in one instance of a roadstop bathroom not having any TP. I'm glad that one was a 99 cent walmart cheapo, 'cause there was no way I was keeping it afterward.

4. Wok. I love my grandmother's cast iron skillet, but a wok is the most useful piece of cookware ever. In addition to stir fry, I've made eggs, soups, curry, fried chicken, and just about any type of cooked food can be made in a wok. I have a carbon steel wok(got it at a thrift store for US$6!), but one day I'd like to get a cast iron wok and lid with no wood parts so I can use it as bakeware. Also, if you get into the wok, make sure you get the necessary accountrements: lid, spatula(s), steamer basket, etc. http://www.thewokshop.com/ is a great resource.

A Late Christmas

2007-02-05T15:44:00.000-05:00

Since Lisa and I had so much going on at Christmastime, and I was just starting a new job(read: no paycheck yet) we decided to postpone our own Christmas celebration until later in January. On January 20th, she dropped by my office, we exchanged gifts, and then went out to eat. We set a gift budget of $100, and sent each other wish lists, so we'd actually get something we want.
The gift I want to talk about is my green Lamy AL Star Fountain Pen.

I've had a few fountain pens over the years, but they've mostly been a novelty for me. But hearing the guys at edcforums.com gush over the Lamy Safari in thread after thread made me want to have one of my own to try out. My pen is the same as the Safari, but it has an anodized aluminum exterior instead of plastic and is a little more expensive($32 instead of $23 from pendemonium.com).

Those same guys also gush about a brand of ink called Noodler's. Apparantly, it's designed to be archival quality and be impossible to remove once it has dried on the paper surface. Plus, the graphics on the bottle are fun, the inks come in a lot of interesting colors, and aren't very expensive($12-13 for a 3oz bottle). So I also put on my wish list a bottle of Hunter Green(sadly out of stock) and Legal Lapis(I don't really like blue ink myself, but it is preferred for legal forms, and is the only color of ink we use at the tax office).

If anyone wants to get into fountain pens ever, I highly recommend this combo. You can get a Lamy Safari pen($23), Ink converter($5), and ink of choice($12-13) for under fifty bucks from Pendemonium.com.

My other gifts included a replacement keyboard for my laptop, The Dunwich Horror expansion to the Arkham Horror boardgame(see previous entry), a couple of tshirts, and a christmas ornament. My gifts for Lisa included an iPod Shuffle and a sewing machine box(something she actually really needed). Overall this was a great system, and I'm very happy with the way things turned out.

Tax Time Yet Again

2007-01-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

Well, three months with no new entries and now I'm back.

I'm now managing a tax office location for a local income tax prep company. I've worked for the company both full time and part time for five years now, so it was an easy transition. My office is in a good neighborhood, a busy commercial district, and only a mile or so from my FLGS.

I have four employees working for me, all women. I get along with all of them fairly well, and all of them are intelligent enough and friendly enough that things should go very well this tax season.

This year there is a one-time credit to repay tax overpayment on phone bills for the last three years. Phone companies charged a Federal Excise tax on all phone bills long after the government stopped requiring the tax. It would go back more than three years, but the statute of limitations only goes back that far. The credit ranges from $30-60 depending on filing status and dependants. You can read more about it here.

Stupid Car

2006-10-08T10:46:00.000-04:00

My car's electrical system is having problems again. I couldn't get the engine to turn over at a restaurant parking lot. Had to leave it for two days and then my dad met me at the car, and we put in a new battery. With the new battery, it would run, but it still has an electrical problem, so we quickly drove it to the mechanic before the faulty electrical system kills this battery also.

Times like this make me wish I lived in a city with better public transportation. Oh well...

Arkham Horror: Crack in Boardgame Form

2006-10-05T16:15:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I was able to play a half-game of Arkham Horror at the bi-weekly Boardgame night at Lava Java. Set in the Cthulhu mythos, Arkham is a long involving boardgame where investigators are drawn to the many peculiar events happening in small town 1920s Massachusetts. Monsters are rising in city streets, cultists are gathering in occultist groups, and whispers are told of ancient old ones, alien monstrous leviathans that desire conquest and consumption of our world. At the beginning of the game, an old one is chosen to be the foe for the players, and it is that old one that is threatening to awaken and causing gates to other worlds to open in Arkham.

The game is a cooperative game, where the players are not competing against each other, but against the evil creatures in Arkham.

Each player is dealt(or chooses) an investigator with various abilities and equipment. Investigators range from a private eye, a student, a photographer, a professor, a psychologist, even a drifter named Ashcan Pete with his trusty dog Duke. The game tends to blur the line between boardgames and roleplaying games, and involves more storytelling than that average boardgame. The game takes a long time to play (3-5 hours is standard depending on the number of players) and can handle 1-8 players. You win by either sealing enough gates so that the old one goes back to peaceful slumber or if the old one awakens first the investigators have one last ditch battle to try and defeat the gargantuan old one.

This game has a high level of replay value, and although it seems overly complicated, the fun factor is worth learning the game. Actually, as long as one player has a good grasp of the rules, they can help the other players.

In the game your character can be a sword wielding motorcycle riding monster slayer, use the Necronomicon to learn arcane spells(although this will sap your sanity), become a town deputy or a member of the mysterious Silver Twilight Lodge.

It's a big chunk of change to drop at $50 msrp, but you will get a lot of value out of the investment, not the least of which is being able to play in Solitaire mode when you're alone with not much to do.

There are two expansions to the game so far: Curse of the Dark Pharoah, and The Dunwich Horror.

If you get a chance, try it out.

Bikes and Groceries

2006-09-26T03:53:00.000-04:00

Saw an link to Xtracycle, a company that is hoping to make bicycle travel more common by providing better carrying options than standard saddlebags/trailers. It even adds a "backseat" so you can more easily carry a passenger. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words:

You can also add on an aftermarket power system called Stokemonkey. Thanks, Josh, for pointing that out.

Also, for those of you who want to bring your own grocery bags to cut out waste, go to this site.

Browncoats and other Serenity Apparel

2006-08-29T04:23:00.000-04:00

I spent a few hours tonight reading the Dragon*Con Homepage to find out what events, panels, etc., I'd like to attend. After finishing that, I wanted to see if any of the vendors I liked at the GA Renn Faire would be in attendance. One of the company names on the vendor page that caught my eye was Abbyshot Custom Clothiers.

Apparantly they have a 100% accurate version of Mal's browncoat for only $491. Eeegads! Now, I like Mal's coat, and wouldn't mind having a similar one, but I don't really care about having the same 100% screen accurate version because I don't consider myself that much of a fanboy to drop five c-notes. Nevertheless, I found myself caught in a tangent, and spent an hour or so browsing Firefly fan clothing, buttons, etc.

Here are some of the more worthwhile links:

Fashionably Brown - This place has links to western wear companies, patterns for clothing used in the show/film, and links to most of the other clothing sites. Also, the Fashion for Your Ears page has direct links to Firefly filk mp3s if that's your kind of thing.

Browncoat Patches - This is more my kind of thing. Something that a hardcore fan can pick up but doesn't scream dweeb to the masses. I especiall like the Independant Army Shoulder Emblem patch, this is what was used in the series pilot when Mal ripped off the lieutenant's patch to get access codes so he could get some "gorram air support!"

I'm usually not this much of a fanboy, but sometimes I have to uncork the inner geek. Hoorah!

95 Thesis of Geek Activism

2006-08-29T04:17:00.000-04:00

Found this site while on a random search string. Thought it was a great read. I'm pasting the preamble and first 15 thesis below, as I'm pretty sure the author in question won't mind if I link back to him.

95 Thesis of Geek Activism

Geek activism has not taken off yet, but it should. With the gamers recognizing the need for a louder voice, EFF gaining momentum and Linux taking on the mainstream on the one hand and recent severe losses in privacy, freedom of speech and intellectual property rights on the other, now seems to be the best time to rally around the cause.

Geeks are not known to be political or highly vocal (outside of our own circles)- this must change if we want things to improve. So here is my list of things people of all shapes, sizes and sides of the debate need to know. Some of these are obvious, others may not be meant for you. But hopefully, some of these will inspire you to do the right thing and others will help you frame the next discussion, debate or argument you have on these topics.

Reclaim the term ‘hacker’. If you tinker with electronics, you are a hacker. If you use things in more ways than intended by the manufacturer, you are a hacker. If you build things out of strange, unexpected parts, you are a hacker. Reclaim the term.
Violating a license agreement is not theft.
All corporations are not on your side.
Keep in touch with everyone you can vote for and make sure you know where they stand on the issues you care about.
More importantly, make sure they know where you stand on the issues you care about.
Everything will enter the public domain some day- even Mickey Mouse.
Read the original 95 theses. Yes, they are irrelevant to these causes. Yes, they are religious- and not even close to my religion. And yes, they are 500 years old. But they do demonstrate how stating your beliefs clearly, effectively and publicly to challenge the status quo can change the world. Of course, I have no delusions of grandeur!
Use TOR for privacy and anonymity.
Trusted computers must not be trusted.
Democrats may seem to be on your side, but keep an eye on them. They may only be the lesser of two evils.
Republicans may seem to be the enemy, but that is only because they are in power now. The true enemy is a lack of accountability.
Read Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Why do I have to jump through hoops just to get video off my own home movie DVDs?
Know the DMCA so you know what you are up against.
The true enemy is the line: “If you haven’t done anything wrong, what do you fear?” The problem with that line, as Schneier has said, is that it assumes that the desire for privacy implies wrong-doing.

Read the others, interesting information to be found. Here's one of the later thesis for Chris:

Calling Microsoft evil buys you nothing- it only polarizes the argument.

Enjoy!

Cheap Eats: Aldi Foods

2006-08-28T03:07:00.000-04:00

Since I'm a tightwad, I plan on adding an entry here and there on cheap but decent recipes, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. I've been on an extremely tight budget the last couple of weeks, and Aldi's has been like unto a saviour for me. Most people just know it as the strange grocery store with no name brands where you have to pay for bags and spend a quarter to get a grocery cart.

True, Aldi's has it's quirks. They try to keep costs down by elimating unneccesary manpower, so you won't find any bagboys or cart attendants. To get a grocery cart, you put a quarter in a slot on the cart and it releases. When you're finished shopping, you take the cart back and you get your quarter back. Aldi's doesn't add the price of "free" bags back into the groceries and being a European company, they're pretty pro-environment, so they encourage people to bring reusable bags. You can buy a paper bag for $0.05 or a heavy duty mall-department-store shopping bag for $0.10. They also encourage customers to use packaging materials from the store as free boxes for your items, so I typically grab a banana box to carry all of my groceries. The cashier rings up my purchase(cash or debit only) and puts everything loose in the cart for me to bag before leaving. These systems completely eliminate the need for a bagboy/cart attendant.

Now about the food. It is true that 95% of the stuff is Aldi's generic label, but I've been pleased with everything purchased there so far. If you don't like an item, you can take back the packaging and receipt for a double refund. I hate generic soda, so I've never tried theirs, but everything else I like.

Here's my last receipt from Aldis:

1 gal whole milk $2.95
Honey Wheat Bread $0.79
Hot Dog Buns $0.65
Plain Bagels $0.99
Cheese Crackers $0.99
Bite-size shredded wheat cereal $1.69
3 boxes Macaroni & Cheese $0.87
1 doz large eggs $0.85
Chocolate Spread(generic Nutella) $1.69
Strawberry Jam $0.99
Crunchy Peanut Butter $1.29
1 roll Paper Towels $0.59
1 lb Ground Turkey $0.79
1 lb Ground Turkey $0.79
Frozen Orange Juice $0.89
Parmesan Cheese Shaker $1.89
Smoked Sausage $2.19
Frozen Orange Juice $0.89
12 oz Hot Dogs $0.59
Cinnamon Crunch Cereal $1.69
Cinnamon Graham Crackers $0.99
1 lb Frozen Meatballs $1.69

Total w 5% tax $28.07

Pretty good. You can do better with coupons, but this is no hassle. www.aldifoods.com

My Beautiful Girlfriend Lisa

2006-08-28T02:20:00.000-04:00

For my first topical entry on this blog, I wanted to introduce my girlfriend Lisa. Blog....Lisa, Lisa...Blog.

We just celebrated our six month anniversary last week, and I'm damned lucky she puts up with me. I met her at a local game meetup here in Greenville. Shortly thereafter I started a D&D Campaign with several people from the Meetup message boards. Lisa was one of the first people who showed interest in the game, and at first I only saw her at the monthly Meetup and at my biweekly game.

After a few weeks I remember calling her to ask something about the game and we spent an hour or so chatting. It was a friday night and I didn't have plans, so we wound up meeting at India Palace and had a great, but short, meal and conversation. Short because I got a call from my roomate that his brother and my friend Elias had an accident while mountain biking and was in the local emergency room. So we had to cut the night short so I could go and spend the next 10 hours at the hospital(Elias was eventually fine, he had a pretty bad concussion where he would ask the same questions every few minutes, but steadily improved over a day or so).

A few nights later, Lisa called and asked if I wanted to go to a Rascal Flats concert. My primary and secondary reactions were 1. Awesome and 2. Who the hell is Rascal Flats? I agreed and spent some time on Google and found out they are a country boy band that is popular with mostly women. I kind of regretted saying I would go now, but I wanted to spend some time with Lisa, and I'm always up for a new experience. The concert wasn't that great; the venue was horrible (Bi-Lo Center I hate you and your seats made for 90lb stick figures; seriously, my knees were in the back of the guy in the row ahead of me, I had knees in my back, and I had to maintain constant vigilance not to accidentally kick or bump the drunk twentysomething couple next to us.), and I remain unconverted to the pied pipings of Rascal Flats. But it wasn't a total loss; because of the cramped seating, I pretty much had to keep my arm around Lisa all night and one of the opening bands was fun in a drunk honkey-tonk sort of way.

At this point, I wasn't completely sure if we had gone on a date or a pseudodate. I called her a couple of days later, she wanted to grab some food, and I asked with forced nonchalance "So, are we dating now?"

Pause. "Umm...do you want to be dating?"

Short pause. "That sounds good."

"Great"

"Awesome"

Hey, it's not one for history books, but it worked for me. I've had a great time getting to know her in the past six months and hopefully she won't get tired of me anytime soon. Here are some of the dates we've had so far:

The homemade french food date (I made Coq au Vin, sauteed asparagus, saffron rice, with a nice Bordeaux)
The St. Patrick's Day Date (she made me corned beef and cabbage and proceeded to drive us to Dougal McGuire's Irish Pub for fun in the conventional Irish sense)
The first bad movie date (Ultraviolet, avoid at all cost)
The first good movie date (V for Vendetta, probably my favorite movie this year as of yet)
The chick flick I actually kind of enjoyed date (Failure to Launch, it's not gold but Zooey Deschanel is always funny)
The Rennaissance Faire date (Of course we went with three other friends, hell of a time, though)
The Great Concert Date (Great Big Sea)

And others I can't remember at the moment. Looking forward to more memorable dates in the near future.

Here There Be Dragons!

2006-08-28T02:12:00.000-04:00

Well, what can one say with the first post in a blog?

I guess I could try to sell you on why I'm an interesting and informative guy, someone who you'd want to waste your time reading.

Or I could give one of those David Copperfield introductions that details everything down to my social security number and favorite cheese.

I think I will end the mediocrity here and actually post one or more topical entries instead of just bibliographic masturbation.

Friends with Blogs:
Chris Williams (Software Dev, Game Developer, Game Store Owner, Gamer par excellance)
Katiemac (Katie is my friend Andy's wife and is an authority on breastfeeding and anything crunchy granola. :) She is also becoming an authority on crafty stuff including knitting, sewing, etc along with my girlfriend Lisa)