I worked up a little web creativity today and created a front page for Swalrus.org. I did it in the vien of the Fake Company. Basically I ripped off the front page of the Wildlife Conservation Society, I thought it would be cool to make it seem like the swalrus was a real animal. The tiny swalrui need our protection!

Anyway I thought it was a neat idea. I don’t know how much more I’m going to do on it. I may fill out a few of the detail pages, but I’m already losing steam on the project. If I can create some kind of template that I can just drop text into then I think it will go much smoother.

Later!

So i’ve been not doing much blogging recently. I just thought I’d give some updates. My computer is still farked. I think I fried either the motherboard or the processor sometime during my late night modding session. Therefore I had to buy a new one. So lets hope that my landlord waits till thursday to cash the rent check. Shouldn’t be a problem seeing that she just deposited the check from last MONTH. I’ve been spending too much money on everything. I need to go back into cheap mode. It’s kind of hard to do that with everybody coming back into town and trying to plan all these trips with me. I think I can afford them but I really shouldn’t.

Besides the computer projects I have been working on the Kegerator improvement project, which is on the verge of turning into a total debocle. I’ve been taking pictures so I should have some good blogging to do. We’ll see how that turns out tonight?

Mark

Wednesday shall here to forth be know as “What could we have been thinking Wednesday”. Jesse and I in our infinate wisdom decided that it would be a good idea to see if we could drink a beer every 10 minutes for as long as we could. So long story short… an hour and a half later… actually the Wednesday night situation wasn’t that bad. But the Thursday morning repocussions leave something to be desired. That should now be called, “Though I might die Thursday”. I’m really short on witty banter. so I’ll leave it at that.

Later!

Dude Man, you heard man, you heard!

So I’m back… back again. Back from camping this weekend in NC. Pilot Mtn to be specific. I’ve got a really relaxed vibe that I’ve brought back with me. It’s only broken up by the programming that I’ve had to do at work today. Which is leaving me with a much more frustrated vibe. So this post is going to flow, flow baby, flow.

So Google maps was way off with it’s 7:15 hr estimate for the drive time from Vienna to the campsite. Even the Mapquest estimate of 5:45 hrs was off. It took 6hrs, and we got stuck in traffic around Gainesville VA and Ate dinner at the intersection of 66 and 81. Not the worst drive I’ve ever been a part of. We watched Family Guy episodes and then Star Wars. Ellen hadn’t seen Star Wars yet, WTF! So just after 11:30 we get to the site, have Brent come get us and transfer our stuff at the gate. ( the park closed at 6pm) Then we proceeded to set up the tent in the dark, which actually wasn’t as difficult as you would expect. There were some rude comments and actions, but I blame that on the fact that I’d been driving for 6 hours. After we were satisfied that we had shelter to cover us we broke out the “warming liquids”. The Rustic Light beer of choice was of course Miller, with a smattering of Yuengling here and there. The conversation was great, ranging from truth or dare, to favorite TV bullshit. Over all a good night. With the temperature dropping rapidly we headed for the tents. Lest our Ton-Ton freeze before we reached the first marker.

The night was brisk… and by brisk I mean cold… and by cold… I mean freezing. Unfortunately my sleeping bag was not rated for these drastic settings. Usually I’m good because of the amount of heat that my body tends to produce when I sleep. But I think I found the limit. I slept till around 6 when the call of nature forced me to get out of the tent. By that time it was too light to just pee anywhere, so I moseyed on down to the bathroom complex. It seems kind of odd that I would meet one of the 3 other campers down there, but as he explained. “This is about the only thing that would get him out of the tent on a morning like this” With my bladder empty I went back to the tent and got another 3 hours of sleep.

After everyone else had started the breakfast activities, I emerged from the tent, bleary eyed and ready for oatmeal. I had a double helping of instant Maple and Brown sugar Oats and hot chocolate mix. It was scrumptious. We waited around for some other people to get there and then we set off on the hike. Which will now be referred to as “walking straight up a long long hill”. Actually I’m being a little harsh on the hike. To spare it’s feelings we’ll just say it was “difficult in parts” It was designed in stages. level walking phases accompanied by vertical quad burning, please make it stop phases. But even the most out of shape of our group made it to the top. Where we were rewarded with great views of the mountains and neato rock formations. Oh, and sandwiches.

Some of the group walked back down the trail, while others drove down the mountain. I bet you can guess which group I was with… well you’d be wrong.. I walked, sucker. We got back to the campsite in record time. But soon we realized how tired we were. In an hour or so It felt like it was either time to sleep or eat. But since it was only about 3:15 we decided that it wasn’t early enough to do either. So we just built a fire and sat around it. Good times were had by all. After a while we made whatever food had been brought for dinner. I would say that my group had the most elaborate setup with hotdogs, corn, potatoes, and steak. MMmMM it’s what’s for dinner! After that the some unusual conversations were had. unfortunate jokes were made at other’s expense. You know… the usual. We half played drinking games, while half having conversations and telling stories. It was a good time.

The next day we packed all of our crap up and headed out. the Masochists of the group decided that they were going to tackle the strenuous trail. The Nova people said “Peace out” and split. We sped back on 81, or deer meat lane as it should be called. Stopped in Roanoke and ate Mexican food. Then back on the road. 2 Star Wars movies later, and we were home. Filthy and happy.

Later!

  So I was walking blearily around the 7-11 in the morning. I’d decided that as long as I was going to be late for work anyway then I might as well be full of food. I was going for my staple diet, the egg and cheese croissant. It’s a tasty beast, especially when heated to #2 on the microwave. I almost past the display thinking it was the Reese’s display with Helio Castroneves, the IRL driver. But something caught my eye… and thank god it did! Special Edition Kit Kats
I love candy that incorporates chocolate and crunchy bits. Crunch bars, Twix, that new Take5, and especially Kit Kats. I’d been eating the equivalent of one per day in bite sized versions since Halloween. These two were Coffee and Orange/Crème… and here is their story.
I had to restrain myself from just eating them both at once. One, because I knew that I’d be all hyper later in the day. and Two cause I wasn’t sure the combination of orange and coffee sounded all that good together. So I ate the coffee one first. I was actually still drinking my coffee at the time so it mad a good match. It tasted good. really good. Not overpowering with coffee taste, but really creamy goodness. I highly recommend it.
I was going to eat the other one later in the day, but I forgot and left it on my desk. I’m lucky the cleaning lady in my office seems to ignore whatever I leave lying around. So I waited till after lunch to eat it. Orange and Crème sounds like an after lunch Kit Kat anyway. It was everything I could have hoped for. From the bright orange color to the creamsicle like smell. Tom, being disgusted with the shear concept of Orange and Crème, did not approve. But I powered on. Having been trained to like the combination by my parents frequent trips to Steak and Shake. Orange Freeze… MMmMMMMM The heat in the office had made it a little melty, perfect. It really doesn’t taste like a Kit Kat, probably because the only relation it has to the real Kit Kat is it’s form factor and it’s crispy innards. MMmMmm, crispy innards My opinion is that if you are not offended by the marriage of Orange and Crème you will like this. But I have a feeling that not as many people will like this one as do the coffee one. Anyway, it was worth the 1.65 I spent on them.
Later!

So It’s been a little over a week since the Halloween party, I really should get around to doing these things more often. But I had other things to do dammit. Plus I always get really stressed out when I have to plan something this big… and then clean up from something this big.

The decorations were mostly finished about a week before the party. We put spiderwebs all over the outside of the house and green and orange lights in the bushes and around the windows. On the inside we had the requisite fog machines working, the tens of black lights, and of course glorious streamers. I really don’t remember if I took any pictures of the decorations… lets assume that I didn’t.

I’d told everyone that the Beerpong table would be complete by the time of the party. So I had a little bit of pressure to get it done. I really wanted to just say that I didn’t have enough time to finish it. But that would have been a cop out. The project kind of went like any other development project. I started with some grand designs and a deadline, I ended with a deadline and a functional table. Without all the whosits and whatsits. Oh well, even in that state it’s still awesome. The table has been taken down for completion after the party

Of course Jesse and I owned the first 3 games on the table. Before we lost, I think we might have thrown it just to get off the deck. It was really cold out there.

Not everybody who said they were going to be there came. I don’t think any of my “maybes” came. But I really didn’t expect them to. Most of them were people that I hadn’t seen in a few years, so they can wait till another day. But the whole crew came out for this one. Of course we had the Cash Money Crew. Who all came in excellent costumes, Iceman, Maverick, a Tetris Piece… just to name a few. Ellen came as Anna Nicole Smith… and her costume got better as she drank more! Wade was his own creation… the Screw-nicorn, he basically just wore a strap-on on his head.. but he wore it well! I was technically a Beastie Boy from the Sabotage video… but I’ll settle for “a 70’s cop” you losers. A close second in the costume contest was Jesse who came as “Professor Chaos” from South Park. His costume was so great! Plus we call him Butters on a regular basis, so that makes it better! But the king and queen of the costumes were Brent and Susan. Wine and Cheese. First of all I always like when couples do joint costumes. Second I like things made out of cardboard. And Third I almost lost it when Susan realized that she couldn’t fit through the sliding glass door while wearing her cheese suit. ooh wait! and Fourth… That Brent’s “nozzle” was fully functional!

Overall I think the party was awesome. We definitely learned some things for next year, number one being either buy 2 kegs or have a supply of back up beer. We underestimated the ability of our friends to destroy a massive amount of beer. Cause the keg ran out at 12:08… just past the time when we could have done anything about it. Lesson Learned! But nobody freaked out, we gave out yeungling to the people we know and told the others… well sorry, get the fuck out!.. ahahah. But after a little while of making sure that everyone was ok and that Jesse and Charlie knew to watch out for the place. I crashed out, and it was glorious… I made it to 2am. That’s like 5 for the normal person.

Jesse was sad that this is our one big party of the year. We’re passing around the idea of having another big party over the winter break, maybe new years… but I have another party to go to then. Maybe something right after school gets out. I’ll let you guys know.

Later!

Halloween Party Evidence