Rising to live again

Recovered enough to feel like I'm rejoining the land of the living. Might actually get something done this week other than recover from being sick and beating assassin's creed 2.

I got another semester of A s, am adjusting pretty well to the new job duties at work, and am doing a pretty decent job of handling house and home.

I went to an allergist on monday. Found out that I have a type of asthma that's rare and hard to detect, an allergy to roaches and a mild one to dogs and cats, and absolutely no tree or mold allergies. Also have a sinus infection, which is why I feel like death.

All said and done, 2009 has been a pretty good year.

So now, 2010 lies around the corner. I've got some plans. I'm not going to call them resolutions, because most resolutions fail.

1. Make beer. (I managed to get most of a beer making kit this year, and want to use it).

2. Make whatamidoingright.com, bigger, faster, stronger, and more user friendly. Or, you know, something other than under construction or down.

3. Make the frankenbox into a true webserver, with better everything and a raid array - This will make making the website better somewhat easier.

4. Get an iPhone. (Jan 15... jan 15... jan 15...)

5. Translate the improved breathing from better health into a more active lifestyle(that's right, now that I can breathe, I might actually exercise)

6. Get ever closer to the degree. (depending on how things play out, still might get the associates by the end of 2010.)

7. Write out the plot diagram for Dystopia Lost.

8. Write a short story.

9. [...............]

10. Profit.

And that's my 10 step plan for next year.

An update test

Testing the facebook/blogger cross posting thing...

Posting rough notes from the trip, backdated to when they were written.

Honeymoon Blogs pt 3

The last leg of the trip home. Writing this from the skies over... well,
over somewhere between atlanta and austin. Two things stick in my mind
as I watch the glowing spiderwebs of cityscapes pass beneath me, one,
that relevance is a matter of perspective, and two, it's an odd thing to
be racing the setting sun in a thin metal tube.


Things that have happened since I last updated, as they often do. We
found food, a not so inexpensive Chinese place not far from the hotel. A
review of the place had described it as not bad a bad place to eat, with
the usual food and atmosphere. I have to say, who ever wrote that review
must have been quite used to pomp and circumstance. The waitstaff was
polite, and responsive, the former being much more common than the later
among dublin servers. The food was tasty, with a slightly different
selection than I would expect in the states. I had the salt and chile
chicken, and it was delicious. The wife had the green curry, and said it
was the best green curry she's had.

The night wound up with us enjoying a few pints in the bar in the
hotel with a talkative contractor from northern ireland. He told us tales
of a misspent youth, the economic troubles facing workers in the emerald
isle, and the location of a bar where the bartender's daughter poured
the perfect pint of Guinness. We closed the place out, talking of life,
drinks, and ages gone by.

The next morning found us on a bus, touring county Wiklow. Here we found
the lush beauty that had been so often described to us, the peaks and
valleys that had given birth to tales of fairies and other creatures of
magic and wonder.

Anyone you ask will describe me as a city boy, too long from the pulse,
the action, the throngs of people, and I go a little crazy. But ruins,
oh the ruins, so rich and full of history. The remains of buildings over
a millennium old, the tales of kings and queens, abbots and bishops,
saints and sinners, all laid out in the ground before us. I could spend
a year, or two, or more, wandering the Irish countryside, cataloguing
the history of this wonderful place, though I'm sure it has been done,
many times over.

We finished the tour with a stop at a little cafe in a town full of
weavers. My old hat, having been bent, battered, and misshapen from the
wind, rain, and time, was replaced with a rather smart wool cap.

The trip home was long, and sprinkled with socio-political commentary
from our driver, a jovial yet jaded man who felt the recession, and had
hope in change.

That night we wandered swords, and I found myself trying irish fajitas,
which weren't so much bad as confusing. The irish seem to have a rather
solid disdain for any dried seasonings except salt and pepper, leading
to a much different eating experience.

The next day was our last full day in this beautiful country. We decided
to turn our focus to the city we had come to visit. A hop on, hop off
tour of the city, where we got the grand tour of the cities rich
heritage, a walk through a green (park (square)), and a tour of the
Guinness brewery. Unfortunately, we're finding most beverage tours to be
the same, and, save for the free pint at the end, wasn't quite worth it.
We ended the tour in the Temple bar area, the area we tried to explore
the first night in town.


Pausing now, to fill up on airline peanuts and margarita, complements
of our previous delay. We are losing the race with the sun, only a faint
rainbow glow on the horizon. 30 min of laptop battery remain, and I hope
I can finish this before it goes.

Refreshed, I return to the tale of our last night in town. In the temple
bar area, we stumble upon a pub, if you could call it that, called the
Bank. Situated across the street from the more local Banker's lounge,
where we went the first night, the bank was a historic site, carved from
a quite obviously victorian bank. A copy of the book of kells lay on
display in the lobby, and the place was nothing if not posh.

I was finally able to have the long sought steak sandwich, cooked to
perfection, delightfully vegetable free, and served with fresh cut
fries, something that I had been missing from home.

I had my last pint of Guinness with the masterpiece of thin sliced
cow-meat, and capped the night off with a finger of the 18 year Jameson.
In case any of you are wondering why you didn't get souvenirs from this
trip, I must confess, I drank most of them away that night. And let me
tell you my friends, it was magnificent. Full of flavor, smooth, the
perfect whiskey.

All good things must sometime come to an end, and so it went that this
morning, about 18 hours ago, we woke and headed for the dublin airport.
Plagued by mechanical failures and odd customs' customs, we are drawing
near to the end of our journey. My first trip off the continent, my
first exploration of the old world, the first step of the journey into my new life.
I can tell you, my friends, it won't be my last.

Until next time, a fond farewell, kind regards, and a heartfelt cheers.

Honeymoon Blogs pt 2

Thur evening, 9/24
Plane ride was pretty decent. Found it hard to sleep on the
international flight, despite how easy it was to nap on the trip to
atlanta. Landed in dublin at 10am tues on less that two hours of sleep.
Delta plane food kind of sucks.

Customs was easy to get through. "Are you american? Are you staying
long?" and our baggage miraculously showed up at the same time we did.
No complaints there. However, we asked for directions to the castle from
what has been later described by other dublin residents, as the dumbest
woman in all of ireland. We got to take a bus-wide tour of the city, for
free, thanks to the fact that the bus didn't take paper money, and the
driver took pity on some poor lost americans. We wound up at a train
station, and the ticket agent there told us the proper way to get back.

After three or four vague sets of directions. "You take the lane to the
end of the way, and then a left and a right gets you right there." we
actually found ourself at the castle. The hotel staff met us with smiles
that quickly turned into furrowed brows and waved down managers.
Eventually they explained to us that the hotel had been overbooked for
the weekend, and, they did not have room for us on thursday, friday, or
saturday.

However, if we were willing to to move over to their sister hotel for
those nights, they would be willing to upgrade us to the honeymoon suite
for our nights at the castle, complete with a bottle of champagne, and
provide us with dinner. Additionally, they would upgrade our room at the
crowne plaza to a king, and provided us with a cab ride over there, and
a shuttle to the airport. With heavy hearts, we accepted, trying not to
skip as we headed up to hotel room that dwarfed a few of the apartments
that I lived in.

Once up there, reunited with the contact solution for the first time in
three days, I effectively blinded my self, and we took a short nap (that
turned into 4 hours) before heading down to temple bar area in search of
the elusive steak sandwich.

After a bit of wandering and a fair amount of being quite lost, we
stumbled into the recommended pub, the Banker's something or other, only
to be told that their chef had the night off, and that we should try
back another night, but that we could have a pint and some bacon crisps
before we go.

A well meaning couple at the pub pointed us in the direction of
Darwin's, a full fledged steakhouse. It was good, though a bit pricier
than the steak sandwich. Legs tired, we decided to call it a night.

The next morning found us on our way to Howth (rhymes with both) and we
ate at the Bloody Stream. (Named after a battle that left the stream
blood red for quite a while, not for any other reason you might be
thinking) Had a bacon cheese burger there. The irish interpretation of
bacon is interesting, to say the least. It's more like thin ham steak
with a lot of salt.

We wandered to docks, looking at all the restaurants and shops, watched
a fat seal fight with seagulls over the fish that the tourists were
tossing at them. we walked along the edge of the ocean, stood under a
lighthouse or two, and photographed an island in the distance.

That night we took advantage of our complimentary dinner, and it was
quite good. The sheer number of ways that steak can be prepared is
astounding. Topped that off with a night at the hotel's bar, reaffirmed
the knowledge that Irish Guinness is the best beer I've ever had. Found
that the american exports seem to exclusively be budweiser and coors
light. Not sure why we're exporting only the worst beer we have, maybe
we just want to keep the good stuff for ourselves. After all, if people
drink that piss they call Budwiser, I can't imagine how fast they would
down a good bach, like shiner, or any of the texas microbrews.

Caught up to this morning, where we awoke and headed down to O'Connel
street for some shopping. Department stores seem to be a universal maze
that traps the unwary male with his new wife. Having struggled free an
hour or so later, with nothing actually purchased, we made our way to
another pub, where I finally got my long sought steak sandwich, and
another two pints of the good stuff.

A little more shopping, and we began the process of finding our way
home, took the taxi from the castle to the new hotel ( the new room is
nice, in a very businessy sense, but no honeymoon suite) and now I sit
writing this.

Feeling quite caught up, it's now time to search for some more food, and
a pint or two, before calling it a night.

Honeymoon Blogs pt 1

Trip notes, evening, 9/21:

For those that don't know, our plane from austin, delayed on the ground
and in the air, instead of landing the 45 min before the dublin plane
left, like it was supposed to, landed just in time for us to run across
half the airport, and skid to a stop in front of the gate to be told by
the gate attended that we had missed it by just about 8 min.

The delta customer service was, contrary to most reports, was friendly
and as helpful as regulations allowed them to be, though a little worn
from having about 15% of the air travelers for the day yell at them.
Storm season is a bad time to work in airline customer service.

We got a discounted hotel room, and a couple of tickets for free drinks,
and were rebooked for the next flight to dublin. Unfortunately, we had
not counted on exactly how rare flights from georgia to dublin actually
are, so the earliest was a flight boards 8:25 tonight, a full 24 hours
after our previous plane left. We had lost a day in Ireland, and were
both frazzled and upset.

A little food and a good night's sleep later, we were able to consider
the upsides. Atlanta, despite the fact that we really didn't want to be
here, did have a pretty wide range of cool things to see and do, and a
comprehensive mass transit system that could get us there.

We made it out to five points, the atlanta underground, and the
coca-cola museum. We were thinking of heading to the aquarium and a
movie, but time and weather worked against us.

We made it back to the airport, checked in, and changed currency, and
are now waiting outside the gate for boarding. Looks like we'll be
waiting another half hour or so.

Surfacing once again to document.

House is good.

Got the promotion.

Wedding in less than two weeks, ireland after.

When it rains, it pours

Not good at the small posts, so just a quick recap of the last 2 months.

Home - Purchased the house, moved into house, got really stressed by moving, spent an awesome day at the Oasis drinking wonderful margaritas, far less stressed. Learning to love/hate home depot. Still setting up for house warming.

Job (as much as I can talk about without getting in trouble) Got really busy with WWDC . Stayed busy. Many projects. Training assistant. Assistant may become replacement? (in a good way, more on that later)

Website - Set up home server. Difficulty reaching webpage from out of the network. Still working on it. New whataimidoingright.com will be up soon...ish.

Wedding - On track - bought pants. Need to buy tie. Have trench and fedora, and baddass shoes. Bachelor and bachelorette parties coming up soon. Shouldn't be too much trouble.

Social - Been hooked on facebook and twitter. Use twitter for famous people. Use facebook for people I actually know. Weird that my grandmother is friends with me on facebook.


Really should be getting back to setting up the house. Wanted to write though.

Bloggery

Wow, Been almost 2 months since last update, and what pair it's been.

Rather than filling in everything in one giant post, I'll try and recap over the next few days.

Here is the warning.

Content shall follow.

Another day, another dollar

For those of you that live in austin, and like to support local businesses, and like/need to get your haircut, may I recommend Birds of Austin. The music is good, the stylists talented, and it's one of the only places where you can get your haircut by the lead singer of a metal band.

I'm waiting to get my haircut right now, third in line, and since I brought my laptop, I figured I'd post a blog.

First in line and next in line just got called, this may be shorter than I thought.

Other news, today we're having the house inspected. We've put an offer down, and are working on the 7 day option period. I'll post the results later.

I'd like to say that there is much new and exciting that happened since I last blogged. Work has been busy, waking up in the mornings sucks, school has been hectic, and the iPhone is sci-fi.

well, I'm about to be called. Already the sideburns are gone, and I'll be trading the curly frizzy shag that I've had for the last few months for a more clean cut look, hoping for something like Bogart from the Maltese falcon. Though with my trademark thick rimmed black glasses, it may be a little more like buddy holly.

We'll see.

Enjoy your weekend.

good morning sinners

Like the phoenix, I have arisen from the ashes of the blogoshpere. My face is beaten and bruised and sticky, and I have come back to judge you all, and find you all wanting.

Note to self, don't read warren ellis and blog at the same time, at least not until better at being warren ellis.

Thunder and lighting, sounds of rain coming down. Made my first tweet on twitter. Felt dirty. Dog seemed unimpressed. With the tweeting, and the rain.

Work was hectic this week. Very busy. Made a lot of people happy, job feels fairly secure, but in that omg worked lots of OT type way. Needed time among the commoners and the pleabians again. Inspired. Will head to the mountain when things slow down, and come back with my words carved into stone tablets. Or, at the very least, have come up with ideas to keep me busy through the whole summer.

Car alarm somewhat more impressed with thunder than dog was.

Class is going good so far. Public Speaking instructor unsurprisingly brilliant speaker.

Distance learning (different class) good for things like programing, where I'm refining what I already know. Already a week ahead. Go team venture.

This leaves suprisingly little time for life, the site, and blog.

Option period on house. Close on July 7th. Move in july 25th, if all is good.

The lady has purchased a snail lamp....

Sooooooo tired. To early to sleep. Living old man's hours. Will work more on web programming instead.

6 down, two to go

The only people of the nine left without blogs are chris and kai.

I don't count kahlua as people.

Had a class assignment where I had to write how I would make the world a better place. It was for web design, so I advocated absurdism.

Speech will be interesting. Want my book to hurry up and show up. The proff is a damned decent speaker, spent a year interning at the CIA studying terrorist websites.

Had a bit of crazyiness and stress with the house thing. Worked it out. Also managed to find my W2s for the last 5 years, while trying to find last years.

Atending seminars at work. Seems to mainly advocate structure, and order in the life.

Also, don't like getting up at 6:30 for work. I remember when 6:30 was a mythical time that only existed in dark legends.

On the flip side, getting off work at 5 is niiiiiiiice.

This will be a short one, more homework to do. Signed up for 11 hours of class in the fall. Only one more year of this and I'm free, free.

Congrats to the good Dr.

Dr Darby won his bet. Awesome.

I was not even able to meet the once a day posting for a week. 

So what happened on the weekend? 

Well, I went golfing.  For those who don't know, I am not, by any means, a golfer. This was the first time to have ever gone, and I enjoyed the hell out of it, though I wussed out by hole 16 and just hung around with darby and our friend adam (adam is the reason we went golfing. He and his lady are going to get married this weekend and he got a trip to the golf course at a fancy country club as a gift, and was gracious enough to let us come. Side note: Adam got a job at the country club, so there may be more golfings in the future) while they finished the course. 

I came home sunburned and sore in muscles that I didn't even know existed, but I had a great time and will do it again, if the opportunity comes up.

Also decided that at least once a month I will do something that is either new, outdoors, or both. Stagnating inside is a bad thing.

Anyway, back to the trip. Once golf was over, took adam and z out to a little hole in the wall chinese restaurant called China Inn. 

The service was spectacular, the food was well above par (well, golfing weekend. below par? Whatever translates to tasty.) and msg free. (their menu claimed it was msg free, and I saw no reason to doubt them. However, take my recommendation at your own risk. ) Best of all, there was hardly anything on their menu that cost more than $10 (most closer to $6) and they didn't skimp on the portions. Three of us left with pretty heft to-go boxes, and we made fun of the 4th for eating so much, though admittedly, he had a long hungry day. I would give it a 4.7 out of 5

 

One short drive from SA later, that pretty much brought saturday to a close.

Well, except for an almost run to the beauty bar (the ladies went, I passed, because I was about to pass out) and a disney sing along with the kiddos (roommate's friends, I don't actually have kids) that cumulated in a little too much flashing for my taste. 

That brings us to Sunday. 

Sunday was a breakfast brunch at lambert's for another friend's birthday. The ladies got her pretty gifts, and the rest of us just ate a bunch of fancy bbq brunch.  

Lambert's review: The food was good, but the bbq suace was a little sweet for my taste, and by the end of the meal, everything tasted pretty sugary, including the baked mac and cheese.  The wait staff was polite, though only marginally attentive, and rather distant. The hostess seemed to be unable to gasp the concept that a large party would want to sit together, and sat us at one table/booth, and one round table with 2 empty table in between. All that said, the french toast was amazing.  3.9/5

The rest of the day was devoted to looking at houses (which led to a frustrating monday) and star wars battle front, which was fun but frustrating, and will probably lead to an old school review later. 

Today was my first day of working 8-5, a transition I'm making for school. Most of work falls under the hush-hush umbrella (not because of any actual work I'm doing, just because I work for a company that likes to keep things hushed up)  so I'll leave it that. 

Spent any spare seconds I had today rushing around trying to get all the stuff needed for the loan pre-approval so that me an the lady can make an offer on one of the houses we saw sunday. It seemed like everything we gave them led to more stuff being needed, and I hope we can work it out before someone else snatches it up. 

After work was grocery shopping, dishes, laundry, dinner, my pre-assignment for my distance learning, trying to secure my book for my classroom class, and then blogging. Today was a busy, frustrating, and productive day. 

So goodnight blog-o-sphere,  let's hope tomorrow brings good things for all of us.

- F

The city under my feet

The laptop now allows me to do something that I've dreamed of since the long ago days of reading Transmet in the girls dorm that I was living in at the time (long story).

I can now take to the streets, and write the stories I find there.

Of course, I've yet to use it that way.

I should.

There's something about austin, the way I feel in the pulsing crowds of 6th street, the sounds of buskers and beggars and drunken children staggering through the night, the sights, garish and gritty and hopeful and sad.

There's the relative calm of the porch of my dive bar on Airport Blvd, where people of all walks of life can share a drink, as long as you don't make trouble and don't ask too many questions.

The resteraunts, the homegrown buisness. The hilariously named mayoral candidates. The life that finds a way.

Every building has a history. Every person has a story to tell.

I think it might be fun to find them out.

But maybe everyone feels that way about their home, the life it breathes into them, the desire to seek out it's nooks and crannies.

Maybe not.

It's getting late, and I've written a lot tonight. Time to stop musing about life and start living it.

Peace

It is hard to write creatively with the joined cacophony of music that is not mine, the ladies talking in the kitchen over the pops and hisses of Indian food sizzling in the pan, and with a stomach that is full of freshly grilled steak. (Yes, heathen that I am, I ate before coming over. But come on, the steaks would go bad if I waited too much longer)

I want to write something poetic, or, at the very least, something that means something, but the words are not flowing, and it looks like tonight might be a series of short blogs about the moment.

I've come to the realization that unless you are somewhat famous, or a very good writer, or both, most people are not interested in reading about your day. So then comes the choice, the decision if I'm writing for myself, or for my as yet non-existent audience, or simply for the sake of writing.

One way, I don't think I'll ever be happy with what I produce, and another, I'll be held to the whims of others, so I think I'll just let the words flow organically, and become what they will.

Besides, this free-flowing ramble is all that I can come up with if I'm typing on the computer. It seems that most of my creativity flows from ink pens onto wrinkled pages of notebooks.

and I've been interupted, accosted by a kitty, one that seems a little camera shy:


Yes, that's my side being raked with Missile's claws. She's a feisty lady.

One in the process of hacking up a hairball. Fortunately, she's on the other side of the room now.

Cats are gross.

The spices from the food being cooked are making my eyes water.

I declare this post officially rudderless and adrift somewhere off the coast of finland.

This is why I want to be a writer (short)

Writers are, for the most part, know for their way with words.

Except apparently when winning awards.

Though that now means, any time I win something, I should start my acceptance speech with "Fuck, I won a __(insert name of award)___"

Short post tonight, maybe more later.

The sounds of home

I'm writing now to the whoosh-bang of nail-guns, the gentle hum of an air compressor, the scraping and slurping of the dog at her food bowl, and nearly inaudible conversations in Spanish coming from the roof.

The buzz of mosquitoes is conspicuously absent, unlike the mosquitoes themselves.

Now the hiss of the air compressor dying, sounding so much like the steam whistle in the Flintstones opening, signaling the end of the workday.

Since the mosquitoes either don't like the taste of the blood of the workers or are simply too numerous to be sated on anything but my flesh, and the dog has finished her business with the outdoors, I am moving this inside.

The roofers are hammering now, a much more intrusive noise inside than out, and the sound of my roommate and his girlfriend can be sporadically heard above the pounding, speaking of video games and love.

The sounds of exodus continue, truck engines grumbling to life, the clatter of ladders being withdrawn from the roof, the back gate scraping shut.

The final car door slams shut, and the engine sounds fade into the distance.

The house is relatively silent, only the hum of the air conditioner, the creak and whirl of the fan, the scrape of the dogs claws against the sliding class door, and the clicking of the keys of my laptop fill the air.

Cinco de Mustache

Some of you are asking, what, pray tell, is Cinco de Mustache?

No, we are not gringos simply mispronouncing everyone in Texas's favorite reason to drink in the early part of May. There is a method and a madness to Cinco de Mustache.

The first thing you do is shave.

Completely.


Well, all of your face, at least.

This happens on April 1st.

You end up looking something like this:




Then you let your facial hair grow. Weeks pass. First, you realize you can use your chin as sand paper, then the itching sets in, and sometime in there your fiancee refuses to kiss you anymore because of the scruff on your face.


At that point, you look vaguely like this:



More time passes. There is a noticeable lack of comment from your co-workers. The end of April looms. Something to your right distracts you:





Before you know it, it's the 5th of May. 35 days of not touching a blade. 35 days of not having to try and remember the last time you shaved.

So how does one celebrate this momentous occasion?

You go to the store, buy a can of shaving cream, and some razors, and you cut your beard into the most fantastic and whimsical thing you can think of, invite your friends over for fajitas and boozamahol, and take pictures of your face.

This was the best I could come up with. I call it the "Fucked-up-lemmy-with-sideburns":




The Captain couldn't make it to the party...



...but his Mirror Universe counterpart could. (yes, we are, in fact, geeks. This should not be that big a surprise) (side note, blogger thinks shouldn't is not a word)



The good Dr pulled off the actually Lemmy quite well.



The paisley gentlemen went with a rather boring pointy sideburns, which he seems inordinately proud of...


wait... no, he had a goatee and sideburns combo:





wait... something's not right....



oh, the horror!


I honestly think he was as surprised as we were.

We did not shave half the puppy, despite her claims that it would make her better at stealing things:




All in all, it was a great bad idea.

Selling Out

Now there are new things on the blog. Things like ads.

Now, just need to get enough people reading the blog to make money.

Also, considering getting a twitter.

Scratch that. Already have twitter, just use it to follow people. Considering actually posting things with twitter.

Work makes me not want to code

So apparently, I'm not supposed to blog about work. I'm ok with that. At least, I won't blog about any of the details of things or super secret stuff that I know.

Mwuhahah.

Anyway, work, is the main reason why I haven't been updating lately. Well, updating the site, not updating the blog. I have no excuse for not updating the blog. So I'm going to do my best to match the good doctor on the bet that I made against him.

So site has been stagnant, except for the new blog that was added. That might change soon, depending on how it goes with school. If I can work on the site for class, I will. Otherwise, it may fall even further behind. Sigh, there's just no time anymore.

Especially with the looking for a place to live. I really enjoyed my two years at the Thames house, but it's time for it to come to an end. Part of it is, I'm becoming an old man, and want those damn kids off my lawn, the other part of it is, I hate... and I mean hate, my landlord.

Over the last few weeks he's been building an extra bathroom addition, taking up a good chunk of the back yard. On Saturday, he took out the back door, I'm assuming in preparation for joining the old parts of the house to the new, and nailed a holey piece of plywood over most of the covering.

No work has been done since then.

Hot air and bugs are now free to come and go as they please. This upsets me. Especially the bugs.

That reminds me, on an unrelated note, read John Dies at the End. It's great, though won't be readily available from bookstores until the fall.

Need to focus. Maintaining a train of thought is harder than I realized. Right. Land lords. Ok time to call out to the strangers of the interwebs. If you've got a story about a crappy landlord, post it in a comment. The best one wins a prize.

I'm not going to lie, it'll prolly be a crappy prize.

In other news, a wedding is only weeks away. Not my wedding, but my buddy adam(I'm not sure if adam has a blog, or livejournal, or website, or anything like that. If he does, I'll hyper-link it). Two weeks from now he'll be hitched. Freaky. I'm going golfing with him next (this? I'm never sure how that works... the upcoming, I guess) weekend to celebrate. Also freaky. I think it will turn into me shooting rediculously above par and heckling myself and others.

My wedding is also steadily progressing. Goomsmen are being attired. Bridesmaids are being prettied up. Wedding planners are... planning.. and caterers are... charging a lot of money...
But the food should be pretty awesome.

I'll try to be better about posting news and pictures, from the wedding and from the week after in Ireland.

More random book love. Read Lamb, by Christopher Moore, it's brillian.

I've had thoughts for the idea of my next tattoo.

This tree might be involved:


As might this quote :

"Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." - Neil Gaiman.

But I'm not sure how or if the two will meld, and if they do, how that amalgamation will merge with my skin.

Saw the Reverand Horton Heat at the rockabiliy revival. It was awesome. Fighting urge to buy, and utterly fail to learn how to play, stand-up bass.

Started going to TXRD. Cherry Bombs rule!Next time we go, we'll prolly have posters. Cause we're classy. I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Think that's all I have for tonight. More tomorrow.

And then the updates lag...

Been mostly working, and working on the site. It's went through two versions since I last updated it. It's not quite where I want it to be, but it's better. Yay AJAX. 

The Trudy's challenge is scheduled for the next couple of weeks, as well as the completion of  another bad idea of Darby's, Cinco de Mustache, and a new segment called $10 Bets. Posts detailing the $10 Olympics, and the month and a half your heroes spent growing beards will be up shortly. 

Nothing major going on on the grilling front. 

I've finally gotten 1/2 the addresses I need for the wedding invites. Yay, I'm helping!

And now, food time, because I haven't eaten all day. 

Nothing to see here

Hmm, it seems blogger will uneat posts. Weird.

Now with titles!

Ladies are doing a photo session, fashion type thing.

I'm mainly posting to test out title aspect.

New toys are fun.

Well, it seems that blogger ate my first post. The one explaining what I'm trying to do with this whole blog.

I suppose that's ok, I mean, not every blog needs a 'hey look at me' intro post, one where I tell you about the website and how it's still in the early stages of construction, and while not too much to look at, will one day explode with php and html goodness, or tell you that this will be a place for me to write about work, and grilling, and the various projects I'm working on, or the wedding in which I'm predominately featured.

While it was quite clever (moreso than you can imagine or than I can reproduce) it might not have been completely necessary.

Anyway, now you know why you're here, or why I'm here.

So enjoy...

... or, you know, go to hell.

Pork Chop Rub:

I've been using this rub for about a week now, and figure I should document it. It is delicious with whole grain pasta with a roasted garlic alfredo sauce.

Measurements are inexact, at best

thin coat:
Fresh ground black pepper
Fresh ground sea salt
Crushed dried garlic
Cayenne pepper
Tarragon leaves
Ground California lemon peel

roast the pork chop over an open flame, don't over cook it, it tastes great.

Will do pictures soon. Pictures of food are good, right?