Friday, August 31, 2007

Brutus who?

And so the most obnoxious time of the year begins in Columbus, Ohio. Why is that? Because the sun rises and sets over those college boys on High street that play football on Saturdays. I'm don't have a problem with the student athletes, the coaches and trainers. I have a problem with the people who have nothing else to live for this time of year and the ENDLESS media coverage. But hey, the sun's got to shine on a dog's rear end someday; and today the sun is shining on dog butts that are painted scarlet and gray.

Yea, so we are having a house warming party tomorrow. Silly us, not being on top of the football schedule--we planned our party on the same day as the first game of the season. I had to send an addendum to the original party invitation that I had sent out to my co-workers telling them that it's okay to stop by after the game. Unlucky for them because there is some big fight with the cable companies about who is going to carry the game, so they can't watch it at our place. The day I have to get cable to watch a local football game is the day I stop following football.

So today we cleaned up the house and got ready for the party. We also went to the store and bought a station wagon full of burgers, hot dogs and beer. I was going to get a keg, but not too many heavy hitters were RSVPing...the last thing I want is leftover beer. So instead I got some cases and a mini keg of Heineken. You better get here early to get the good beer!

Off to the movies with the wife! Rush Hour 3!

Monday, August 27, 2007

My coke experiment is complete.

I took the wheel's off of Peanut's crib and I soaked them in a can of Coca cola for about 2 weeks. Here is a before picture of the wheels.



Here is the after picture.


And here is a picture of the residue left in the tupperware from the 2 weeks of soaking. Yes, I threw the tupperware away.


I should have soaked them in some WD-40 for day or so, but I don't think we'll be rolling the crib from room to room upstairs so there is no need.

Work is going to become much easier for me (at least in the short term, for now) because tomorrow we will ship 2 systems that I've been working on for the past couple of months. That will mean an end to this project that I've worked on for the past 15 months. Wowsers.

And in case I forgot to mention, we are having a Labor day party this saturday and everyone is invited. We'll provide the keg, burgers and dogs; you provide the side dishes and yard games.

See you there!

Monday, August 20, 2007

you know, that famous author guy

So remember a month ago when we went to the wedding in DC? Well, as it turns out the bride's mother's cousin is married to a famous author that Hugs and I (and only 3 other people I know) really like. This famous enough author is Robert Jordan.

We were really psyched about the wedding (definitely more excited about the opportunity to meet RJ than the wedding) and were hoping to chat with him (more like sit on his lap and let him tell us stories) at some point during the wedding weekend. However, RJ's has amyloidosis and that prevented him from attending. When we first heard about plans for the wedding, the couple was actually thinking of having it at his house. We would have died if it would have been there.

Despite all that we ended up chatting with the bride's cousin and we exchanged business cards and I emailed her about a week ago. I couldn't think of anything cool to say, so I wrote this in a lame email:
***************************
"I would just like to say that I really enjoy the Wot series and I am looking forward to Memory of Light.

Maybe something you'll find interesting is that I started reading the books because of the cover art. My girlfriend in college (now my wife) would bring the books over to my apartment to read because I had to study (she was in education, I was in engineering) and I was fascinated by them. I think the cover art is great, and that calendar that came out a few years back with all of the covers is awesome.

I've only read all the books once (the first 4 twice) but my favorite part in all the books is when Mat beats both Galad and Gawyn in the practice yard in the beginning of book 3, The Dragon Reborn.

I can't believe how blank my mind is that I can't think of anything else I'd like to say, but I really enjoy the world that you have created with the books and I very much enjoy them. Thanks.

Again, I wish you all the best with your health."
***************************

So there was my one opportunity to say something to someone famous and that's how I spent it.

I exchanged another email or two with the cousin of the bride and she asks for our mailing address. A few days later a letter arrived that was a print out of my email that had written in ink at the bottom "I like that particular fight myself. --Robert Jordan"

So that's pretty cool, huh? I think I'll try and get a color photo of the cover of The Dragon Reborn and put that in a frame with the signature. Something else to keep me busy this winter.




Sunday, August 19, 2007

I can't remember

I can't remember if anything bloggable happened this week. I worked a bunch of hours and didn't make much progress through the week on things around the house like getting ready for this kid that could show up at anytime.

However today I got some work done on the crib. I put the 2nd coat of stain on it and on the poster-board, so those are done. Although I have to come up with new hardware for the crib. I was hoping to get new wheels for it, since the current ones are old, wooden and don't roll. However, I decided that replacing them was going to be more trouble than it was worth, given my timeline, so I embarked on a science project to clean them up.

I grabbed a can of coke, some Tupperware and put the wheels in there. This is a before picture. I'm hoping it will get rid of the rust and the cursed yellow paint. So far, it's working.

When we arrived home from church today, this is what we found.


As you can see, Mom is mad.


Aaaah, Min and her toilet paper.

Bye.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Thunk, corpse, masters class, swarm, party, euchre nazis

Thunk. Thunk was the noise the morning dove made this morning as it crashed into the window of our back room. It made a nice grease spot on the glass which I'm going to have to scrub off. It didn't wash away with the hose.

Corpse. The poor little morning dove became a corpse after it bounced off our window.

At work today I took a cable off of a part, handed it to technician #1 and said "This one isn't labeled." He turns to me and says "What do you call that DUMMY!" and points at the label. Technician #2 says "They problee taught him that in master's school."

I work with some real wordsmiths, true master's of the English language.

Swarm. As I was in the garage working on Peanut's crib, Amanda notices these black things swarming in our neighbor's front lawn. There was a dozen little black things with wings circling about 3-5 feet off of the ground. I walk over there and it's dragonfly's. I've never seen that before and it was quite strange. The neighbors were a little weirded out as well.

Party! I think we are pretty set for our Labor Day Weekend Bash. It's going to be saturday from noon until whenever. I think. I just want to double check one more time at work that I won't end up having to work or travel that day and we'll send out email invitations.

Work is going pretty good. The project I'm on right now is pretty...intense/important/crucial. So 3 times in the past 2 days our President/GM has come back to the lab to check on me and see how things are going. No pressure. I think I can feel my hair falling out.

Today we had a brown out at work so while we were waiting for the power to come back on we played Euchre. Did you know that it is against the rules to deal the cards one at a time? Yup. You must deal them 2-3-2-3, 3-2-3-2, or 1-4-1-4, 4-1-4-1. If you don't and you are playing with some super-dupers Euchre Nazi's they jump all over you...which is what happened to me today.

Next time I'll deal them 0-5-0-5, 5-0-5-0.

Sometimes some people just don't grasp the realization of the situation and completely overreact. Dude, this is just a little brown out euchre...nobody is here for money. Let's all just take a deep breath.

All together now. In through the nose.

Now exhale. Out through the mouth.

Aaaah.
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Friday, August 3, 2007

happy anniversary

So yesterday we celebrated 4 years of marriage. Wow, I can't believe it. To celebrate we went out to eat (thanks for the gift certificate Ikkin!) and rented a movie. We had our hearts set on renting Alien, but Blockbuster didn't have it.

Why Alien? Because I guess there is this whole alien birth thing that happens in the movie, so we thought to prepare ourselves for the real thing, we'd treat the movie experience as a primer. So after more than 30 minutes at Blockbuster, we finally settled on Cape Fear. Wow, that was an awesome movie.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

cake compliment

So Amanda made a cake and I took it to work to share with my co-workers. Everyone raved, of course, but some of the memorable statements were along the lines of:

Coworker 1: "Hey Chicks, tell Mrs. Chicks her cake was guuuud."

Coworker 2: "[I'm too full from lunch] Hey, save me a piece!"
Chicks: "I ain't cho wife, get it yourself!"
Coworker 2: "Shut up before I pimp slap you."
Chicks: "Go get it yourself."
Coworker 2: "I swear to God I'll slap you so hard I'll knock the curl out cha hair."

So yeah, the cake went over very well.