Droopy's Diatribe

What a slide!

2010-04-23T14:53:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've ever seen a baseball slide quite like this. Awesome play!

Music Monday

2010-04-19T16:32:00.002-04:00

3 different flavors of "Down in the Park". I'm not a Marilyn Manson fan at all and I don't really like their cover. But it is interesting to listen to different interpretations on a theme. My favorite is the Foo Fighter's version, I think.

Gary Numan

Foo Fighters

Marilyn Manson

Why it's hard to STFE

2010-04-07T16:40:00.003-04:00

Liz sent me this link earlier today and I thought it tied in nicely with Mike's latest blog posts about dieting and not eating.

Compulsive Eating Resembles Addiction

I like how it says that the rat needed constant stimulation from tasty food to avoid a state of persistent negative reward. Wouldn’t having to always eat untasty food be a state of persistent negative reward? And that must have been some really tasty food if the rat was willing to take an electric shock to get it!

Home again!

2009-09-22T16:57:00.006-04:00

When last we talked I was in the airport in Hong Kong. Since then, I've made it all the way home. Here's a recap of the rest of the trip and the recovery so far.

The hop over the Pacific wasn't too bad. I think I got about 5 or 6 hours sleep from Hong Kong to Vancouver. It wasn't great sleep since my head kept falling down and waking me up. I was doing the dead man on a horse sleep.

The plane landed in Vancouver to refuel and we had to deplane and take all our stuff with us. Canada wanted to inspect the plane as it came into the country and any personal belongings left on the plane was going to get thrown out. Funny thing is that we landed in Vancouver before we took off from Hong Kong. We left Hong Kong at 12:15 AM on 9/20 and landed in Vancouver around 9:15 PM on 9/19.

We waited in Vancouver over an hour before we got back on the plane and headed to JFK. That flight was fine. It was only 5 hours. Better than the 12 over the Pacific. I only slept about an hour on this flight. We landed in JFK around 7 AM on 9/20. Had no trouble clearing customs and re-checking my bag for the flight to RDU. I got a cup of coffee from Starbucks to try and stay awake.

Our next flight was scheduled to leave at noon, but we looked at the board on our way to the gate and noticed there was a flight heading to RDU that left at 8:30. We decided to hoof it to the gate and see if we could get on that flight to get home earlier. This meant I had to sacrifice the ginormous coffee I bought because I couldn't gulp it down in time to get through security. It was a necessary sacrifice!

We were able to hop on the earlier flight to RDU but there was no way our baggage was going to make it. But getting home earlier was well worth not getting my bag. I've got plenty of clothes at the house. I didn't want to sit in the airport for 5 more hours if I didn't have to! I called Liz and told her I was getting an earlier flight that was going to come in around 10 AM instead of 1:45 PM.

The flight to RDU was uneventful. Except I was very anxious to land and finally be home! I got a text from Liz when I landed that Johnny was asleep in the car and I should come out after I landed. We decided to hang around baggage claim just to make sure our bags wouldn't make it. Sure enough, just like the dude at the gate in JFK had said, our bags weren't there. We talked to somebody in the baggage claim area to see if we had to come back that afternoon or if the bags would be pulled and we could claim them later. She said the bags would be pulled and we could come back later or even the next day. By this time Johnny was awake so he and Liz came into the baggage claim area. It was awesome to see them again!

We got back to the house around 11:30 Sunday morning and I had a shower. For the first time in over 2 days. I was grungy. A shower felt awesome! Then we went to Smithfields and I got a BBQ platter. Yeah, pork! You know, I don't eat that much pork, but when you're in a majority Muslim country and you can't hardly find pork, I find that I start to crave it!

Sunday afternoon I took a nap when Johnny did around 1 PM. And I fell dead asleep. Liz came in at 3:00 to wake me up and I did not want to wake up. I felt groggy all afternoon. Liz, Johnny, and I walked down to the park in downtown Fuquay and had a picnic Sunday evening. That was really cool. Instead of all the toys we brought, Johnny ended up playing with the plates we were going to eat on! He had a pretty good time and we feed him some green beans while we were there. We came back to the house and I gave Johnny a bath and a little bottle and put him to bed. I called my parents and talked to them for a while and then it was about 7:30 or 7:45. I crashed and slept hard. Until about 3:00 AM. Then I slept fitfully the rest of the night.

Monday I stayed home from work to recover from the trip. I kept Johnny home with me and we had a good time. I got to see all the new tricks he learned while I was away. He learned to sit up on his own, pull himself up, and has begun to crawl. These developmental spurts are amazing. I took a nap when Johnny took his afternoon nap. That may have been a mistake because I feel asleep hard again. I was pretty groggy the rest of the afternoon.

To keep myself awake I went to play softball last night. I don't know if you can call what I did "playing" softball. I felt like I was in a fog bank out in the field. I missed a ball down the left field line that turned into a homerun for other team. I also misplayed a high fly ball that went off the fence. I should have had enough time to get back and catch the ball, but I couldn't find the fence and turned myself around. Oh well. I did hit the ball OK. Funny how the ying and yang of hitting and fielding work. At least for me anyway. It's rare that I have both a good game in the field and a good game hitting. Usually one is better than the other and they even out.

After the game I ran some errands for Liz and went to the airport to pick up my bag. By the time I got home it was after 10 PM. I was falling asleep driving around so I had to stop and buy a Mountain Dew before I got home. I showered and got ready for bed and didn't get to sleep until almost 11 PM. I slept good until about 4:00 and then I woke up and had trouble going back to sleep.

Today has been interesting at work. I've got a whole lot of work I need to do, but I'm having trouble staying focused. One of the reasons for this blog post! I hit the wall around 3:30 and have been struggling to stay awake ever since. I'm definitely going to bed earlier than 11 PM tonight!

The end of ClubMed and the trip home so far

2009-09-19T10:54:00.002-04:00

I finally got out of meetings around 3:30 PM yesterday. We decided to go over to this trapeze bar they have set up. If you're going to do something like swing on a trapeze and somebody asks you if you've had any alcohol, say no! I had a beer right after we got out of our meetings and before I changed clothes and headed to the trapeze. After everybody figured out you couldn't go based on my response, they all just said they hadn't had anything to drink. Oh well, no trapeze for me. I went to play basketball instead. The courts were right beside the trapeze setup.

After playing basketball for a while I was ready for a dip in the pool. The problem is the pool water is so warm that it hardly cools you off! I hung out in the pool until almost 7:00 PM. I ended up playing with some Australian kids that looked to be between 8 and 12 years old. I would throw a little football up in the air and then they would have a huge scrum trying to fight for the ball. Pretty fun! I also saw what had to be the worst mojito in the world. It had so much mint it looked like a salad in a glass. A salad sitting in a glass of swamp water.

ClubMed went all out decorating the place up last night. The dress code was "White Elegant" (whatever that means!) and they put white covers over all the chairs. The show was pretty good. Lots of dancing. They had a big runway setup by the bar and the chefs got to parade up the runway with everybody cheering for them. That was pretty cool that the club recognized the people who work so hard making all that food. I started falling asleep on a couch by the bar so I called it a night around 11:30. I went back to the room and packed.

This morning I woke up around 6:30 and talked to Liz. Then it was checkout time. To checkout, you just leave your bag outside the door. I had to go to reception and turn in my key. Then I headed to breakfast before our shuttle left at 8:15. Our bags were sitting outside the bus and you just had to point out your bag and they loaded it up. We had no problems at the airport in Kuantan. In fact, the guy at the ticket counter said that he could check our bags all the way to RDU. I let him do it so we'll see how that turns out! I'm betting my bags end up lost somewhere in Southeast Asia!

The flight to KL was uneventful. We had a long layover there so we bought access to a lounge. For $36 USD we got food, drinks (including beer), wi-fi, and a massage. It was worth it for a 6 hour layover! I ended up working on a prototype and whitepaper I have to have complete by Wednesday, the 23rd. By the way, if I don't ever drink another Carlsberg beer, it won't hurt my feelings. I don't know what it tastes like in Denmark, but in Malaysia, it tastes like Busch Light. But, it was free at ClubMed and this lounge, and it was the only beer they had. Even though free beer tastes better, I'm still tired of Carlsberg.

When we got to the gate in KL we found out that we had been upgraded to business class on our flight to Hong Kong! It was awesome! BusinessClass on Cathay Pacific is amazing! The seats are like little lounge chairs set up obliquely so that the chair will lay completely down. Yes, I tested it! The food was very good and I can't tell you what a luxury it was to be able to completely stretch out my legs. Had a nice glass of shiraz with my meal and some Haagen-Dazs ice cream for desert.

Now I'm sitting in the airport in Hong Kong enjoying some free wi-fi and waiting for my next flight, the long hop across the Pacific. If only I could have been upgraded to business class for that flight!

ClubMed, Day 6

2009-09-17T21:52:00.002-04:00

I didn't get out of meetings yesterday afternoon until about 5:30. I grabbed a beer at the bar and then went back to my room and changed into my swimsuit. I hung out in the pool until 7:00 PM. I was a prune by the time I got out!

After supper, I played some pool for a couple of hours. There were 7 of us in the room here that has the pool tables and the poor air conditioning could not keep up. I can't begin to communicate how hot and humid it is over here. I thought I'd experienced humidity, but I haven't seen anything like this.

After playing pool, we went back up to the bar area. The nightly show was over and they had set up some gaming tables. There was roulette, a couple of black jack tables, and a couple of poker tables. There was no money involved. They just gave you a bunch of chips to go have fun with. I played roulette for a while, but sucked it up. After I left the roulette table, my old boss called me over to play poker with him. I ended up beating everybody at the table in the poker game. I got lucky and got some good cards. That and 60 year old drunk Australian ladies are terrible poker players!

Brian had run into a couple from Canada while playing blackjack so we hung out with them for a while. It was cool to talk to somebody from our side of the world. Not many people from the US come over here. Many times when I tell somebody where I'm from they'll say that they've never seen anybody from the US come here. The Canadian couple are on there honeymoon. They're taking a 3 week trip around Southeast Asia! I ended up staying up way too late last night. It was after 1:00 AM by the time I went to bed. We had to wait for the rain to stop to walk from the bar back to our rooms. It started pouring a little before 1:00.

So far today I've been sitting in meetings. This afternoon we're supposed to get out at 3:00 PM and have some free time. I sure hope that happens and we don't have another 2 hour breakout session like yesterday!

ClubMed

2009-09-17T01:34:00.003-04:00

Day 1
Sunday at ClubMed was a completely free day. We didn't have anything planned and meetings didn't start until Monday. We had a late breakfast and then found a pool table! It was more expensive to play here than at Berjaya. 10 RM (~ 3.33 USD) as opposed to 3 RM (less than 1 USD). We played pool for a couple of hours until lunch and then went back to the big buffet to eat more. I'm getting spoiled (and fat) eating a buffet for each meal!

After lunch, we headed down to the beach. There are 2 beaches here. You can't go swimming in the one closest to the resort and the pool. Apparently the currents are very strong at that beach and they won't let you swim. So, you have to take a shuttle or a 10 minute walk to get to the beach where you can actually swim. The water here is very shallow for about 150 feet out and then it gets deep quick. The waves are not good for riding at all. But they do have kayaks and sailboats you can use. We went swimming for a while and then took some kayaks out. There is a buoy that marks the "boundary" you're supposed to stay in with the kayaks and we rowed out to it. It's about half a mile, maybe more, from the shore so it took a while to row out there. After all that work, we deserved a beer at the beach bar.

Sunday night we went to dinner and then there was a show at the pool we watched. Every night here at ClubMed the staff put on a show. It's usually dancing, some sort of comedy skit, an acrobatic act (trapese, ropes, etc.), and more dancing. The shows are pretty good. After the show, I went to bed to get ready for the first day of meetings on Monday.

Day 2
Meetings started at 9 AM Monday. I enjoyed another large breakfast at 8 AM. I've been eating big breakfasts every day since I have a buffet available to me! Our meetings lasted until around 3:30 PM on Monday, but I had to stay late and demo a prototype. I didn't finally get out until after 5 PM. I took a quick dip in the pool and then went to supper. After supper, we went to play basketball. This was around 9:00, but it was still unbelievably hot and humid. The rims here at the court are bent pretty bad so it's hard to make a bank shot at all. We played a game of 3 on 3 to 10 by ones and it took forever. I was pretty much drenched with sweat at the end. The people at the bar enjoying there drinks after the show looked at me like I had 3 heads when I walked up all sweaty and asked for a glass of water!

I slept good Monday night!

Day 3
Tuesday's meetings went from 9 AM to 5:30 PM. Even though we got an hour for lunch and a couple of breaks, it was a long day and I was ready to get out of there by the end! I went swimming in the pool for a while and then went to supper. I found out I could swim the length of the pool (25 meters) under water in one breath! Yes, we had a contest.

It was Arabian day at ClubMed on Tuesday so all the staff was dressed up like they were in Aladdin! We had a few drinks after supper and then went to the belly dancing show. It was pretty good! After the show they had some hookah pipes set up so I smoked out of one of those for the first time. Tuesdsay was an interesting day!

Day 4
Wednesday was a team building day. I found out on Tuesday that I was supposed to organize that! Basically, I couldn't keep my big, fat mouth shut. Somebody suggested a ping pong tournament, but then I took it to an extreme and said we should make it like a decathalon where there were 10 events to compete in. So my boss told me to plan everything. Serves me right, huh?

We were under some time constraints (other people had meetings in the afternoon) so I ran our event from 9 AM to noon. We had a ping pong tournament to start things off. We had 16 participants so I just ran a standard bracket. At the end, Chun Siong who is the director of the Malaysian staff (and the CTO at SchoolDude) won the tournament. He was very good at ping pong. He held the paddle in a weird backhand way that took a while to get used to. I played him in the second round and he beat me 21-11.

Then we moved to the archery range and had an archery contest. I ran into the guy who runs the range (Nic from South Africa) Tuesday at lunch and then after the belly dancing show at the hookah pipes. He hooked me up with a "crazy archery" tournament. We paired up into teams of 2. For the first shot, the shooter stood on one leg and his partner held the other. The shooter shot 3 arrows into a target and then we calculated the number of points they hit. The other person then became the shooter and stood on one leg. For the second shot, you had to sit on the ground and shoot at the target. For the third shot, you had to spread your legs wide and then squat down until you're thighs were parallel to the ground. It was pretty fun!

For the third event, we had a free throw shooting contest. The plan was for everybody to shoot 10 free throws and whoever made the most would win. In case of a tie, all those that tied would shoot 10 more until there was a clear winner. Everybody practiced for a while, but nobody would step to the line to start the contest. I went ahead and stepped up to the line and hit 10 for 10. I'm not the greatest free throw shooter in the world so I will say that the line was only about 10 feet away instead of the normal 15 and the rim was lower than normal because it was bent. My 10 for 10 ended up standing and I won.

After free throws, the CEO wanted to play some "lazy" pickup games. Well, those lazy pickup games turned into full scale wars in the blazing noon day sun. There was a lot of hacking and fouling as people got tired. Horatiu, the team leader from Romania, got black eye when the CEO accidentally hit him with an elbow!

Wednesday afternoon we were free to do anything we wanted. I went back down to the beach and went kayaking. A group of 5 of us rowed out to the buoy again. Around 4 PM, they had a grill on the beach and cooked up some hot dogs and beef and chicken satay. It was tasty!

I came back up to the pool around 5:30 and hung out there for a while. We did some racing and then played "cup" games. We took empty cups and would put them on the bottom of the pool and let them go. The person's cup that came up first would win! It's amazing the games you can come up with.

The show on Wednesday night was right beside the bar. After supper we had a few drinks and watched the show. Then it was karoke time! There were some good and bad singers last night in a lot of different languages. I heard a lot of Japanese karoke last night! That was probably the language that was sung the most.

Day 5
Thursday morning at 9 AM, it was back to meetings. I had to give a presentation Thursday morning. The presentation went well and it was short enough that we got out for lunch a little after 11 AM. I went to play pool for a while before lunch.

After lunch it was more meetings and they're still going on now. I better start paying attention again to the meetings because we're getting ready to move to a breakout session where I'll have to participate. I just wanted to finally get out of some of what's been happening at ClubMed.

9/11 and 9/12

2009-09-12T10:29:00.002-04:00

The dinner cruise on Thursday night was OK. We got rained on for about 30 minutes in the beginning but then things cleared up. By the time we were on the way back into port the sky had cleared up enough that you could see the stars. And there were a lot of them! We had some grilled beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp on the boat. Food was pretty good, but nothing to write home about.

Friday was the last day of classes. We had a keynote in the morning and then a team building exercise until about 2:00. After that, we were free until a social hour at 6:00. I went to the pool and the beach (and I wore sunscreen Liz!) and had a good time. I even took a nice little nap on the beach at one point. The social event at 6:00 included heavy appetizers, cocktails, and beer. It was a good time! We got to hang out with the KL crowd after a little social lubricant and it was like a whole new world. I think we've made some breakthroughs in terms of relationships and communication this week and I hope they carry through after we leave Malaysia.

After the social event we found a place at the resort that had a pool table. How in the world I was there a week and never found the pool table is beyond me. I had a great time playing some pool and drinking some Guinness! Yes, something other than Carlsberg!

Today has been a travel day. Our shuttle was leaving Berjaya at 2 PM to take us to the airport. Before we took the shuttle, we rode a cable car to the top of the mountain at Langkawi. It was 710 meters to the top, so that puts it at roughly 2,200 feet. The view from up there was amazing! We were lucky because it rained right before we went up and the sky was clear by the time we got up there.

The flights were all right today. Everybody made it safe and sound to ClubMed so far, although a couple are still coming in later tonight. The resort is very nice, at least from what I've seen so far. The place is all inclusive and the food is very good so far. I don't think I've ever seen a bigger and more diverse buffet than the restaurant here at ClubMed Cherating.

Off to take a shower so I feel less grungy.

9/9 and 9/10

2009-09-10T01:27:00.002-04:00

My presentation yesterday afternoon went well. It ended up being pretty short. Between 45 minutes and an hour. I changed into my bathing suit that I had in my bag and went straight to the pool after class. I hung out at the pool with Dan for a while and then went down to the beach. The ocean water is warmer than the pool here. I'm not sure how that happens. The ocean is really about the temperature of bath water. I'd guess it's about 88 degrees.

Last night we met in the lobby at 7 and took a bus to another town close by for dinner. We ate at this really good restaurant that I can't pronounce the name of, but it had really good food! We had some really good fish and giant Tiger Prawns. The prawns were grilled and they were awesome! They're so big they have to be butterflied before they are grilled. When they butterfly it they don't bother to take off the head or tail. The whole prawn comes to the table split in half! We also had some chicken satay which is grilled chicken on a stick with some peanut sauce for dipping. It was awesome!

We got back to the hotel around 10:30 or so and I went on to bed around 11:00.

So far today it's been nothing but classes. Today is the last day of classes and we're finally going to get some free time tomorrow after a team building exercise in the morning. I'm really looking forward to some time to lounge by the ocean!

Tonight we're supposed to go have dinner on a yacht. That should be interesting! There are 33 of us here so I can't imagine how big this boat is going to have to be to hold us and feed us.

I gotta run back to class. Later.

9/8 and 9/9

2009-09-09T01:15:00.002-04:00

Tuesday afternoon I got out of my last presentation early (around 4:15) so I went to the beach. I played volleyball with some of guys from the KL team. Man, do I really suck at volleyball. And playing in sand doesn't exactly make it easier!

After that, I met Dan (one of my co-workers) at the pool bar where he had run into an Australian couple named Rob and Jackie. They looked to be about my age or a few years younger and were really nice. They were from Melbourne so it was cool talking to them and learning more about Melbourne and Australia in general.

Around 6:00 I went back to the room and changed to get ready for dinner. We took a bus to a town about 45 minutes away that had a lot of restaurants and shops. We ended up at this really good Chinese restaurant where they had pork! One dish was the foreleg of the pig slow cooked until it was almost pulled pork. They had a sweet chili sauce to go with that and it was almost like eating BBQ back home! I had some good seafood, too. We had a nasty looking fish with teeth in his head that was pretty tasty once you got past the ugly face. There is no such thing as de-boning a fish or chopping his head off over here. They scale and gut it, but bring everything else to the table. We also had these really big Tiger Prawns. They were huge!

After supper I fell asleep on the bus ride back and pretty much collapsed in my room while watching TV.

So far today I've been in classes all day after breakfast. I thought about going to the pool during lunch, but didn't end up doing it. I got sunburned yesterday so I thought better of it. I put my bathing suit and sun screen in my bag so maybe I'll go after class today.

And speaking of that, I have to give my presentation at 3:30 this afternoon. I'm betting it won't take a full hour and a half, unless people ask lots of questions. Hopefully the presentation will go well!

The first 2 days

2009-09-08T01:49:00.003-04:00

I made it safe and sound to Malaysia. One of the hardest parts of the trip was transferring to the international terminal at JFK! The signs in JFK aren't great and I really thought I had done something wrong when I left the secured area. But we (I was traveling with a co-worker) finally found the train we needed to take and go going in the right direction.

When I checked in at RDU they checked my bag to KL, but only gave me a boarding pass for my flight from JFK to Hong Kong. I didn't have a pass for the flight from Hong Kong to KL. So once we finally found the terminal at JFK that housed Cathay Pacific we went up to the ticket counter and they set us up all the way to KL. But then I had to go through security again.

The flight to Hong Kong was fine. We stopped in Vancouver to refuel, but we didn't have to de-plane. Most everybody left the plane so I got a chance to stand up and walk around some. The seats on Cathay Pacific are very comfortable and each seat has a TV with on-demand movies and TV shows. I wanted 4 movies and several TV shows on the way to Hong Kong. We arrived in Hong Kong about an hour early because we had a good tailwind.

I had to go through security yet again when I got to Hong Kong. But we didn't have any trouble finding our gate and they had free wi-fi there. I was able to cruise ESPN to look at college football scores and to send a few emails.

The flight from Hong Kong to KL was uneventful. Once we got to KL we had about an hour and 45 minutes to go through customs and get on our plane to Langkawi. We breezed through immigration and customs (because we didn't have anything to declare) but it was hell trying to get our boarding passes to Langkawi. The airport was packed, I guess because it was noon on a Sunday. We couldn't use the self check-in kiosks so we had to go to the counter. And apparently there isn't anything like a line or queue around here. It was like a big cattle pen where everybody was milling around. We finally got our boarding passes and made it to the gate after going through security yet again.

The flight to Langkawi was short and not very crowded. There was a shuttle waiting for us at the airport to take us to the resort. We finally got to the resort around 3:30 where I had a beer and a shower in that order. I felt like a new man! My 30 hour trip was finally over!

We had supper Sunday night on a restaurant on a pier over the water. The atmosphere was awesome. The food was Thai and kind of spicy. At least the appetizers were spicy. The main course wasn't as bad.

After supper a bunch of us from the American team sat at the pool with a couple of guys on the Romanian team and drank Romanian moonshine. Talk about some stout stuff! One of the Romanian's has an uncle who made the moonshine and he smuggled it into Malaysia in a 1.5 liter water bottle. It was a fun time even though I was pretty tired.

After breakfast on Monday we started our meetings. We had a break in the morning after a group picture where we had some free time. I went to the pool and the ocean. The ocean here is warmer than the pool water which was kind of interesting. The ocean isn't as clear as I thought it would be. The pool has a bar in the water which is interesting. I've never stayed at a place with a pool bar before.

Monday afternoon we had a team building event which was pretty much a ropes course. It's very hot and very humid over here so after 3 hours of standing outside and running through an obstacle course, we were all pretty exhausted.

Monday night we had a traditional 4 course Chinese dinner. It was good and I used chopsticks the whole time and didn't have to resort to the knife and fork the waitress brought me. She asked if I wanted something other than chopsticks and I told her that I might need something as a backup. Apparently I ate fake shark fin soup last night. My favorite thing was this deep fried red snapper. And I mean it was the whole fish, head bones and all, just dropped into a frier. It was tasty though! I collapsed after supper Monday night and went to bed at 9:00.

I woke up this morning around 6:30 and headed over to breakfast after a shower. This resort is so big that they have shuttles running around to carry you from your room to the lobby. You have to dial 4 and call a shuttle when you leave your room. It's been nothing but meetings so far today and tonight we're supposed to go to a nearby town for supper and shopping. We'll see how that goes!

My Malaysian Odyssey

2009-09-03T08:51:00.002-04:00

I'm heading to Malaysia for 2 weeks. I leave tomorrow at 6 PM. I'm really not looking forward to the flights. Check out my flight itinerary getting there.

Flight	Departure Airport	Departure Time	Arrival Airport	Arrival Time
AA5437	RDU	9/4 @ 18:00	JFK	9/4 @ 19:59
CX889	JFK	9/4 @ 22:40	HKG (Hong Kong)	9/6 @ 7:00
CX723	HKG	9/6 @ 8:50	KUL (Kuala Lumpur)	9/6 @ 12:30
MH1446	KUL	9/6 @ 14:00	Langkawi	9/6 @ 14:55

So I lose all day Saturday on the plane. I start traveling tomorrow night at 6 PM and land at my final destination at 2:55 PM Sunday afternoon. Total travel time is 30 hours plus the 12 hour time difference.

Once there I think everything will be pretty cool. The first week we're staying at a place called the Berjaya Langkawi Beach and Spa Resort.

The second week I have to get from Langkawi (an island on the western side of Malaysia) over to Cherating Beach (on the east side of the country). The second week is at Club Med which looks very nice. It's supposed to be all inclusive which works out great for a fat man like me that likes to eat.

Penultimate

2009-08-28T09:48:00.002-04:00

The other day I read an article on MSNBC about Ted Kennedy passing away. In the article there is a quote by his son, Patrick, who apparently represents the state of Delaware in the House of Representatives. This is the quote taken from the article...

"He has authored more pieces of major legislation than any other United States senator," Patrick Kennedy said. "He is the penultimate senator. I don't need to exaggerate when I talk about my father. That's the amazing thing. He breaks all the records himself."

The penultimate senator? Really? He's the next from the last senator? Penultimate does not mean the pinnacle of ultimate!

Now I know that I'm not an English major and I speak Southern (97% Dixie was my score) instead of English, but the use of penultimate there just jumped out at me.

Caning

2009-08-19T20:40:00.002-04:00

Most of you probably already know this, but I've got to go to Malaysia for 2 weeks in September. I fly out on September 4th and return the 20th. I'm going for two different sets of meetings, both of which are at beach resorts which is cool. But getting there and back, plus not seeing Liz and Johnny for 2 weeks, are going to be very tough.

While looking around on the internet today I saw this article about a Muslim woman in Malaysia who is about to be caned for drinking beer. Apparently she was busted at Cherating, which is where I'm going to be my second week there. Hopefully they won't beat a tourist for drinking a beer!

I can't help but wonder what kind of beer this Malaysia woman was drinking. Think she was drinking a Red Stripe?

30 and 31

2009-06-19T16:12:00.002-04:00

I haven't talked about beer here in a while. Hell, I haven't talked about much of anything because I'm a terrible blogger. So I thought I'd take some time to blog late on a Friday afternoon and avoid doing some work.

Last week on my Friday off I bottled the hard cider I brewed. It's number 31. Yep, I've made 155 gallons of beer, mead, and cider at home! Anyway, the cider was made from a kit I got at a brew store and it turned out pretty good. The flat cider I drank last week was pretty tasty at least. Not too sweet and not too dry. We'll see what the carbonated product tastes like next week.

And speaking of flat, Rudd Beer IV (#30) was flat down at the beach on Memorial Day weekend. But it has carbonated up nicely and has turned into a pretty good beer. I don't know who kept all that was left over from the beach, but if you haven't had a bottle lately, you should try it. I don't know if it's the carbonation that has changed the flavor or what. Carbonation really does change the perceived taste of any drink. I've told Casey and Dennis this so many times that they probably want to shoot me, but the bubbles actually activate pain receptors on your tongue. If you don't believe me, stick you tongue in a carbonated beverage for about 10 or 15 seconds and see what happens. I think that "bite" from the pain receptors firing may have offset the bland sweetness of #30 when it was flat.

In conclusion, there is a new brewery we need to tour down in the greater Fuquay-Varina area. Check out Aviator Brewing Company. I've heard good things about them from a few people but haven't taken the time to drive by and drink some of their beer. Maybe we can get a group together to go on their tour one Saturday.

Project Natal

2009-06-16T14:34:00.002-04:00

Wow! Somebody here at work showed me this the other day. All I can say is wow!

The Year 3000

2009-06-04T16:15:00.005-04:00

Conan brings a new take on an old classic with the Year 3000 on The Tonight Show.

That last joke is awesome!

A matter of taste

2009-05-18T13:43:00.002-04:00

I have made the world's most tasteless beer! If you doubt me, try a bottle this weekend. I bottled Rudd Beer IV on Friday and, based on the sample I tasted, I'm not sure it's even beer. It could just be a golden colored water. It makes Coors Light taste like a full flavored pilsner. Hopefully it will be carbonated enough by this weekend. That's my only worry at this point. Well, that and how it tastes!

I think I was so worried about the hop rate after the disaster of Rudd Beer III, otherwise known as Barely Adequate, that I erred on the other side and made the beer too bland. It weighs in at about 4% alcohol so it will do the job even if it is like having sex in a canoe.

Rudd, if you don't like this beer, I can't help you!

Funny sites

2009-05-12T15:55:00.002-04:00

I've found a couple of funny sites over the last couple of weeks that have been making me chuckle.

First, www.fmylife.com. This is a site where people post little blurbs about the bad things that happen to them. I know it's bad to laugh at other people's misfortune, but hey, they put the stuff out there to share. If they didn't want you to laugh at them then they shouldn't have posted!

Second, www.textsfromlastnight.com. On this site people post funny and weird texts they send or receive. Here you'll find gems like...

(831): Hey, what are you up to?
(802): Drinking wine with the guys and watching 7 Pounds.
(802): Looking back I guess I could have changed that to beer and Die Hard.

The Mission

2009-04-30T13:57:00.006-04:00

I like my satellite radio. I hear all kinds of things. I'm not sure if I ever posted this, but about 6 months ago I was listening to an outlaw country station and heard a song called "Fat Girls and Weed" by Renegrade Rail. It was pretty damn funny. But I digress...

Listening to some of the alternative rock stations, I've been hearing a song called "The Mission" by Puscifer. Check out the song...it's kind of catchy

Puscifer is the brain child of Maynard James Keenan of Tool and A Perfect Circle. (A different Brother Maynard than the one from Monte Python or the one who lived in 702C Sullivan for a while.) Puscifer is his little side project where he collaborates with different artists. The first Puscifer song I heard was Cuntry Boner. There is a reason you won't hear this on regular radio. The lyrics are definitely NSFW, unless you have headphones!

One thing I found very interesting is the girl singing in "The Mission" is Milla Jovovich. Yes, the same Milla Jovovich from Dazed and Confused and The Fifth Element. I had no idea she was interested in a singing career.

Cheerwine

2009-04-22T15:49:00.003-04:00

I like Cheerwine as much as the next man. Probably a lot more, actually. I like stopping at Wendy's pretty much anywhere west of Asheboro because they have Cheerwine. And after all, it is one of the primary ingredients in the greatest mixed drink of all time, Andrew's Asshole!

I don't know if Cheerwine is trying go national now, but I saw an advertisement for it on Hulu.com the other day. This article from the Salisbury Post says that Cheerwine will also start running ads on MTV, VH-1, and Comedy Central.

I will say that the ad I saw looked like somebody on crack made it. The ad referenced a website called www.itsasoftdrink.com. The website also looks pretty crack-tastic. Saying it's a soft drink and then producing ads and websites that look like a drunk guy made it isn't exactly reinforcing the soft drink angle!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta run get some Passport Scotch and Canadian Mist.

High on Air?

2009-04-21T15:05:00.002-04:00

Man, people in London will do some crazy things to get drunk! But inhaling vaporized alcohol? That seems out there.

It reminds me of a story my father-in-law told me one time. He and 2 friends wanted to drink but didn't have much money. They went to a bar and ordered one shot of whiskey, stuck a fork in the shot, and then sucked the whiskey off the fork. Same principal as a vaporized gin and tonic, I suppose.

Booty is booty

2009-04-09T13:30:00.002-04:00

You can also check out Sir Mix-A-Lot's new Photo Shop

Johnny sent me a smile!

2009-03-26T16:09:00.002-04:00

Johnny just started smiling last week and we've managed to snap a few pictures. Liz sent me an email this afternoon with this picture attached and I couldn't help but smile back at him. I thought I would share.

Coming soon to the DBAP?

2009-03-25T14:59:00.002-04:00

Man, it's been a while since I've posted anything. Between having a kid and being really busy at work, I haven't been able to contribute my normal jackassery to this blog. But at least today I have a little something, something...

As a testament to gluttony, and the fact that minor league baseball teams will do lots of things to get butts in seats, I present a 4,800 calorie burger.

I think I'd rather just stick to dollar hot dog night at the Durham Bulls game. That's much better than watching people drop over dead from heart attacks after eating this monstrosity.

Super Freak

2009-02-05T12:04:00.002-05:00

If only at the end Ricky had said, I'm Rick James, bitch!

Risky behavior

2009-02-03T10:14:00.005-05:00

Irkutsk will be the next to fall...

Pearls Before Swine - 02/03/2009

Good advice

2009-02-02T17:10:00.002-05:00

So last Friday I was talking with a couple of guys at work and one of them mentioned how his 13 year old son wanted to get a web cam so he could video chat with friends. That brought out the usual Dateline and online predator jokes. He said he told his son that if was sitting in front of the web cam with his pants off it was probably a good idea to take a step back and think twice about things. We decided that was pretty good advice no matter what situation in life. If you find yourself in a situation where you're about to take off your pants, it's probably a good idea to think twice.

But then Dennis, Casey, and I met a really cool older guy at the CBC brewery tour Saturday afternoon. Somehow we got to talking about Viagra after the guy learned that Casey worked at a pharmaceutical company. He said that guys our age should never waste a good erection because what you take for granted today might not be there in the future.

So I leave you with this new and improved adage:
Never waste a good hard-on, but think twice before you take off your pants!

Uh...WTF?

2009-01-23T10:04:00.003-05:00

Hello boys and girls. In today's installment of WTF, we're going to discuss a commercial I heard on the radio yesterday. It was a commercial for Pepsi Max and talked about how this was a diet drink for men. One of the last lines said that drinking Pepsi Max would let you look your cojones in the eye. Really? That's supposed to make me want to drink this stuff? Unless you're into homoerotic contortionism, I can't see how staring at your own balls would make you want to drink a soft drink.

And if you're balls have eyes that you can look into, man, you've got a whole other set of problems!

Public Service Annoucement

2009-01-21T19:43:00.004-05:00

Last Friday a group of swolls descended on Maggiano's to eat family style. If you're not familiar, family style is pretty much a buffet that they bring to your table. You just say you want more chicken parmesean and they bring you another plate. You never have to get up!

Unfortunately there are unforeseen consequences of such gluttony. Witness the picture to the right.

Actually, that picture was taken before we started eating because afterwards nobody could move. I went from hungry straight to miserable. I completely bypassed full, stuffed, and uncomfortable. When I got home that night I weighed myself just for kicks. I weighed 208.5 Friday morning and 217 when I got home from Maggiano's. I gained 8.5 pounds during the day and most of that was supper! And it was awesome!

Is today a good day?

2009-01-16T15:46:00.001-05:00

Did momma cook breakfast with no hog?

***Update***
Flowchart research tool...

The World Series...

2009-01-15T20:56:00.003-05:00

...of Beer Pong!

Meggan Monroe sent me this link earlier this afternoon. Man, for $50,000 I can drink beer and throw ping pong balls into cups!

This probably is the only World Series in which I could participate although I've only played Beer Pong once in my life. I will admit that I was pretty good at throwing ping pong balls and drinking beer (mostly at drinking beer though).

I may be getting too old to go through all the necessary training to become a pro, though. After all, take a look at this excerpt...

The 6'4", 280-pound Hamilton chugged a bottle of Jack Daniel's beforehand. "The key today," he said later, "was me getting real drunk."

Now that, my friends, is a finely tuned athletic machine. How can I hope to compete against that?

Wow, I suck...

2009-01-13T21:04:00.002-05:00

...as a blogger. How is it possible that I haven't posted a single thing in the new year?

I'm sure most everybody knows that Liz got off bed rest last week. That's been a huge relief. I'm going to tell on her now. We went out to dinner last Thursday night to celebrate. While we were sitting at the table she turns to me and says that she didn't realize how heavy her stomach was. She's been laying down for the last 12 weeks and wasn't used to standing up and carrying the full weight of her new stomach.

On Friday Liz went to get her haircut. I went with her and ran some errands while she was under the scissors. After the haircut we went out to lunch at Melvin's in downtown Fuquay. Then we drove down to Campbell to deliver some files to her office and visit some of her co-workers. It was pretty awesome to go on a min-road trip with Liz!

What else is new? I got some money for my birthday and Christmas, and after much hemming and hawing, I decided to buy an XBox 360. So that's cool. I've been playing Halo 3 and blowing crap up for the last couple of days. You want to know my favorite feature? The wireless controller that can turn on and off the whole console. Now I can sit in my chair all the way across the room and completely control the console without getting up. It's the ultimate in lazy!

Well, back to watching Scrubs. Later.

In the news today...

2008-12-30T13:24:00.002-05:00

Stories that caught my eye looking at the news today. Yes, I'm really bored and lacking motivation here at work today.

Boy Scout earns all 121 merit badges - Now that's pretty impressive. You only need 21 to reach Eagle. I don't know how many I got as a Scout (I'd have to go home and count the number on my sash), but I know it wasn't much above 21.

Real life superheroes - Can you say Watchmen? Who knew there was a World Super Hero Registry?!

Name that beer!

2008-12-23T15:55:00.003-05:00

I need some help. My latest beer is finally ready to drink and I need a good name for it.

Dennis and Casey helped me bottle this beer on 12/7. The beer is an attempt at a spiced "holiday" ale. It's got honey, orange peel, cinnamon, and some ginger in it. It's got a pretty good flavor. Light and sweet. I think I can taste some of the orange.

Anyway, the name on the recipe was "Winter Warmer" and I've just been calling it my holiday beer. "Winter Warmer" doesn't exactly follow the precedent established by my last beer, the Ol' Scrot Porter. I need a better name than wussy warmer for this beer. You know, something like Reindeer Butt Beer.

Next up in the beer queue is to remake the holiday beer with some cloves in it this time. And then a cherry wheat for Adam. I still need to figure out how to make hard cider for Jeremy if I can.

TPIR

2008-12-22T10:16:00.004-05:00

You know, I've been thinking about my previous post. The one where the guy gets his bid exactly right in the Final Showcase on The Price Is Right. He wins both showcases because he gets within $250 of his prize. But if you get your bid exactly right in the Final Showcase, shouldn't you get something more than both showcases? There needs to be a $5 million bonus or something! I mean if you get your bid exactly right on contestant's row to get up on stage you get a $500 bonus. How much more impressive (or lucky) is it to get your Final Showcase bid exactly right?!

23,743

2008-12-19T15:40:00.004-05:00

42 is no longer the answer to life, the universe, and everything. 23,743 is.

I've seen a lot of stuff in my life, but that...was...AWESOME! Sorry about your bid, lady. That sucks.

Club Sandwich

2008-12-18T10:17:00.002-05:00

This post is mainly for my brother, Adrian, who will probably never even see this blog. Adrian heard Mitch Hedberg give his club sandwich bit on a XM radio comedy channel one day. He told the bit to me and had me rolling on the floor.

I propose that baconnaise be added to the club! All in favor, say aye!

Juicy

2008-12-11T19:40:00.002-05:00

Holy crap! It's been a long time since I posted anything. I don't really know why I've neglected my blog so long. It's not like random and idiotic thoughts have stopped coming to me. Those come non-stop. I guess I have been busy lately, what with training the Malaysians and all.

So, earlier this week I was in a meeting at work. This was a standing weekly meeting that my boss had set up for 8:30 AM. So 8:40 AM rolls around and guess who the only person not in the room was. Yep. My boss. How do you forget to come to your own meeting?

While waiting for the boss to arrive one of my co-workers said he was at a party over the weekend and heard one guy say the following to another guy, "You're beard is so juicy! Can I touch it?"

Yep. I thought it pretty much sounded "the gay", too. But what's worse? Calling the guy's beard juicy? Or trying to touch another dude's beard?

Am I mental?

2008-11-24T09:32:00.002-05:00

My corporate basketball league finished up last week. Tuesday, 11/18, to be exact. My team made it to the championship game (after finishing the regular season in 3rd), but lost to the #1 seed by 10. We played a good game with only 6 players. We were up by 2 at halftime. Heck, we were up by 2 with about 5 minutes left but we just couldn't hold on. The team we lost to had 3 guys over 6'5" and they just wore us down eventually.

I started shooting the ball better the last 4 or 5 games in this league (averaged 12.5 points per game). I think I finally started feeling comfortable out on the floor. But the one thing that didn't improve much through the year was free throw shooting. I shot 50% from the free throw line during the year. I used to be a 75% free throw shooter back in high school. I admit, that was 15 years ago, but still...

I'm convinced that 75% or more of my troubles were mental. Sure there were times when I had tired legs. But before the game last Tuesday I practiced free throws and hit 10 in a row without blinking. I could consistently do this at the gym as I practiced free throws all year. But come game time when I step to the line I let things get in my head. I start thinking too much about trying to make it instead of just stepping up, relaxing, and shooting the ball. You see, doubt that I would make the shot had crept into my head.

That got me thinking, is there a more mental challenge in sports than shooting a free throw? It truly is a "free" shot. There is nobody guarding you. Nobody can (legally) distract you. Sure you stand 15 feet away, but you have 10 seconds to prepare and shoot the ball. It's just you and your mind. You practice free throws enough and the mechanics of shooting become second nature. Sure, mechanics break down some with fatigue, but I'm convinced that it's the mind more than the body that lets you down. It's the hundreds of tiny muscle movements and corrections that your brain initiates as your thoughts wander.

That's my excuse, anyway! And what an excuse it is. I have a weak mind! Hmm, maybe I'll go back to my mechanics being bad...

Mascots

2008-11-18T09:14:00.000-05:00

Ahh, those silly mascots. The last one is my favorite by far!

Beer is good and stuff!

2008-11-17T17:01:00.002-05:00

I had a couple of the Old Scrot Porter's this weekend and they were quite tasty, if I do say so myself. And I think I may have made a dark beer that The Natureboy will drink! I'll try to send some up with Casey to the Christmas party so everybody can try it out. Of course, that requires me to not drink the rest between now and then so it will be touch and go there.

I forgot to talk about the batch of beer I brewed after the porter. It's my attempt at a spiced, holiday ale. It's got some honey, cinnamon, orange zest, and ginger added to a base of light and amber malt extract. I used 1/2 pound of crushed black patent malt in my grain mixture which should give a nice dark color without imparting too much bitterness. It's been fermenting for about a week now, and, unlike the honey amber, I'm going to make sure the honey has completely fermented before bottling. I don't want to make any more carbonation bombs!

I wanted to add some cloves to the holiday ale because I really like cloves and thought they would go well. In fact, I chewed on a whole clove while I brewed up that batch. When I talked to Liz about how many cloves I should add, she asked if the recipe called for it. I said no. She reminded me that deviating from a recipe had disastrous results in the past. So this time I followed the recipe verbatim. But, I've got enough honey for one more batch! So my next batch of beer will be Holiday Ale Part Deaux. I'll cut down on the cinnamon, add some cloves, and add some nutmeg.

After that, my next batch will be a cherry wheat for Adam. Anybody got requests for something they'd like to see after that?

Self defense?

2008-11-14T13:26:00.003-05:00

Today is my Friday off. Hooray for not having to go to work! I had planned to work in the yard today but the rain has squashed those plans. Instead, I grouted the tile that Liz's dad has put up in the kitchen this morning. So far this afternoon I'm keeping Liz company and surfing the internet. I found this interesting little tidbit on WRAL earlier...
Man shoots best friend 45 times

There were a couple of things I found interesting here. How do they know the guy was still alive after 32 of the 45 shots? And the guy says he acted in self-defense? Really?! You used a .38 caliber revolver to shoot a guy 45 times. I've never seen a 45 shot revolver. You have to stop and reload every 6 shots. How can you possibly think you'll get away with a self-defense plea if you stop and reload 7 times?

Natural born killers

2008-11-13T15:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday we presented a commercial from a Channel B television station. Today we show a video of hornets attacking a honey bee colony. From B's to bees...

30 hornets against 30,000 bees and the hornets win! Watch the method of kill...the hornets bite off the honey bees heads! Now that's hard core!

Those silly British...

2008-11-12T11:43:00.001-05:00

Adrian emailed me this video and for some reason it just tickled my funny bone.

I present "Goldfish Funeral"

I'm civic minded

2008-11-04T20:49:00.002-05:00

Monday I went to donate blood after work. That always makes me feel good. Makes me feel like I'm helping others. This morning I did my civic duty and voted (and then STFU).

I'm feeling very civic minded after giving blood and voting. I need 4 others to join me and we'll be the new Civic Minded 5! I've got dibs on being Carpeted Man.

Let's make a difference!

Baconnaise

2008-10-29T11:39:00.005-04:00

As many of you know, we here at Swoll Industries have been bringing fine food products, such as "Pigs Fat Ass" and "Swiss Swoll Rolls", to the fat ass community for years. However, it seems our fine Research and Development department has lost a close race to develop "baconnaise". That's right, it was our ultimate goal to combine the artery clogging qualities of bacon and mayonnaise into a super coagulant capable of stopping your heart from beating after a single bite.

On a serious note, this product may be one of the most insanely awesome things ever invented. Who doesn't want bacon on every sandwich? But who has the time to cook all that bacon? I'm morbidly curious (because I'm pretty sure it will kill me) to try this product.

And on a side note, notice in the picture there is a "lite" version of baconnaise. Really? Is that necessary? The people who are interested in mayonnaise that tastes like bacon don't strike me as the "lite" crowd.

Old Scrot Porter

2008-10-27T13:44:00.003-04:00

Man, I haven't posted on the blog in a while. I need to do better!

Liz is doing fine resting at home. Her mom and dad have been staying with us and are helping around the house. That is a huge help because I can go to work and not worry about Liz staying at home all by herself. Her parents went out of town this weekend so Liz and I spent a nice quiet weekend on our own. I worked in the yard on Saturday until it started raining and then I listened to the craptastic NCSU vs. Maryland game. I multi-tasked by listening to the State game on the radio and watching the LSU game on TV (Liz's parents both went to LSU) and let's just say that I didn't find it be a good day for football on Saturday!

Now, I'd like to try and get back to the rambling poo to which many of the patrons of this blog have become accustomed (I think that may even be correct English! I didn't end the sentence with a preposition!)

Three weeks ago yesterday I brewed a new batch of beer. This is my most adventurous brew yet and you'll see why when I got through some of the ingredients. The recipe I found and followed was originally called Goat Scrotum Ale. With a name like that, how could I not try to brew it? The ingredients list looked like (and note this is all from my head so I may miss some things):

5 lbs. dark dry malt extract

1.75 pounds crushed grain

1 lb. crystal malt

.5 lb. dark patent malt

.25 lb. roasted barley

1 lb. corn sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup molasses

2 oz. hops

2 oz. fresh grated ginger

4 oz. unsweetened cocoa poweder

Ale yeast

That's right. This beer has everything but the kitchen sink in it! It should be very interesting and it'll be ready to bottle in the next couple of weeks.

It's a porter style beer and I've decided to call it Old Scrot Porter. In the fine tradition of some of my other Blue Ball Ales, I'm sure this one will also be an explosion in your mouth!

And what blog would be complete without a silly ramble...talking of scrotums (which I must say that I don't do very often) reminds me of sitting in left field at Southwestern Randolph High School as a freshman on the JV baseball team. Andy Conway was in center field and there was some jackass sitting in the first base bleachers that was heckling us. I mean really! Who heckles at a JV baseball game! So Andy finally gets tired of the guy and yells out, "Lick my scrotum, big boy!" I don't think I've ever laughed so hard on a baseball field!

Finally home

2008-10-20T20:33:00.002-04:00

Liz and I finally got back home around 3:30 this afternoon. It took forever to finally get discharged. I had to run back out and get some prescriptions filled and then I mowed the grass. That's pretty much why this post is so late after we got home.

Thanks again to everybody for the visits, thoughts, and prayers.

Monday...and we're going home

2008-10-20T09:51:00.002-04:00

I spent the night here with Liz and everything was quiet. The doctors came around this morning (early!) and examined her and everything looked good. So, we get to go home today! We're waiting around now to be discharged and I don't know how long that's going to take.

At home Liz will continue to be on bed rest. She'll be able to get up and take a shower and go the bathroom. The doctors said she could even get up to fix a sandwich for lunch. She can lay on the couch and she can prop herself up in bed or on the couch. She won't be able to sit in a chair though.

Friday we're supposed to go back to Rex for another ultra-sound checkup and we'll get a more detailed plan of checkups for the future.

Saturday/Sunday update

2008-10-19T11:09:00.002-04:00

Meant to post yesterday but I never did and was too tired when I got home last night...

Thanks to all who have visited and thanks to everybody for all the prayers and thoughts!

After talking with the doctors here at UNC over the past couple of days it looks like Liz will get to come home sometime tomorrow. She'll still be on bed rest, but at least it won't be at the hospital anymore. If she starts having regular contractions (like she's going into labor) while at home we're supposed to come up here to UNC until she's 30 or 32 weeks along (that cutoff hasn't really been defined yet). After that, or in cases of emergency like her water breaking, we'd go to Rex.

Which is really good news. On Wednesday, when we first went to Rex, we were under the impression that she would be in the hospital until the baby came. At least this way we can go home and do best rest there. It seems that after 32 weeks she may get to move around a little more and that if we can make it to 36 or 37 weeks that she'll get off bed rest entirely. But we'll find out more tomorrow.

The hospital stays and the transfer to UNC have really been precautionary I suppose. Because her cervix shortened so drastically in a short time (just one week) the doctors were worried that something might happen. And we are still at a much higher risk of preterm labor, hence the prescription for bed rest. The uncertainty and transfers were shocking and scary for us in the beginning, but things have been quiet since we've been in the hospital under observation and we're starting to feel a little better.

I'm going to spend the night up here with Liz tonight so we can both talk to the doctors tomorrow morning. I may or may not go into work depending on when she gets discharged and how long that process takes.

Liz and Little Boy Blue

2008-10-17T14:56:00.002-04:00

As many of you may have heard, some complications have arisen in Liz's pregnancy and she's on bed rest right now. The goal is the keep the baby in gestation as long as possible. She's at the UNC Women's Hospital in room 5W09 right now. Here's a run down of what's going on...

On Wednesday we went in to visit the OB because Liz just didn't feel right. We had an appointment scheduled for Thursday afternoon, but Liz called the doctor on Wednesday with her complaints and they asked her to come on in.

Her doctors have been monitoring her cervical length during her pregnancy because she was at risk for cervical incompetence. The cervix is the gateway to the birth canal so it's basically the doorway or floor of the womb. When it shortens you run the risk of it not being able to hold the weight of the baby (cervical incompetence) which can bring on miscarriage or preterm labor.

During the appointment Wednesday her cervix was critically short and the doctor told us to go straight to the hospital. We went across the street to Rex where Liz was put on bed rest. That was a bombshell out of the blue! Both Liz and I were in shock at this point.

It took us a while to get checked into Rex because neither one of us stopped at the security desk to check in. We just went straight up stairs to the admissions desk. After filling out all the paper work we waited for a while. I finally went back to the desk and asked what was going on. The admissions lady wanted to know if either of us had checked in with security. Apparently the hospital didn't know we were there since we hadn't stopped at the security desk.

Anyway, we finally got into the room and Liz got into bed. And at Rex, bed rest meant you stay in the bed no matter what! She had to lay with her feet elevated above her head and had a catheter put in. They hooked her to monitors that measured the baby's heartbeat and if she was having any contractions.

Thursday morning she had a consultation with some of the doctors from UNC (UNC has a small office at Rex) to determine if a procedure to put a stitch in her cervix (a cerclage) would help. The doctors recommended not to do that procedure, but wanted to move her to UNC in case the baby does come early. She continues to be on bed rest, but bed rest here is much better than at Rex. She got the catheter taken out and can get up to go to the bathroom and to take a shower. She can also sit up in bed while she eats (it's hard to eat laying down w/ your feet over your head!)

We don’t know right now how long Liz is going to be in the hospital. Apart from some mild and infrequent contractions, she's doing well and showing no signs of preterm labor at this point. Wednesday we were given the impression that she would be in the hospital until the baby came, no matter how long that was. Yesterday and today the doctors at UNC have given us hope that she may be able to come home for bed rest at some point. I think we’ll know a lot more in the next couple of days.

It’s been completely surreal to go from normal to crazy like this so quickly. Liz and I were both in shock for most of Wednesday and Thursday. Things are a little better today as reality sinks in and we talk to more doctors and realize our situation and options. I think things will settle out in the next couple of days and I'll keep writing updates here on the blog.

Weird Al

2008-10-14T16:03:00.003-04:00

Earlier I listened to a interview with "Weird Al" Yankovic on XM. That's a very interesting dude! He sang several of his songs and the last one was "White and Nerdy". That song makes me laugh every time!

The question of Captain Kirk or Picard reminds me of something Liz sent me a few weeks ago...

Mail Goggles

2008-10-09T16:16:00.002-04:00

Google has launched a new service called Mail Goggles. It essentially acts as a breathalyzer test to keep you from sending drunk emails. It asks you a series of math questions with a timer to answer them. If you can't answer the questions in time, or get the questions wrong, it apparently keeps you from sending an email.

I thought this was pretty funny. And now I kind of want to get drunk and see if I could still do the math!

Weekend at the beach

2008-10-06T17:00:00.002-04:00

I had a good weekend. Hope all of you did. Here is a running recap of the events. A narrative sure to keep you on the edge of your seats. Getcha popcorn!

Thursday night I was supposed to have a basketball game at 9:10. Yes. 9:10. It's one thing to play softball at 9:00 at night, but basketball is another. I really didn't feel like going and apparently the other team didn't either. They only had 3 players show up so we won by forfeit.

Friday I went to play golf with Mike and Mark. Well, I didn't really play golf so much as hit the ball into the woods and cussed a lot. We played Crooked Creek and it's probably 7 or 8 years since I've played there. The last time was at a Progress Energy golf tournament so that gives you an idea of how long it's been. It's very wooded on the back nine with some tight fairways. But I had a great time getting some fresh air and hanging out with Mark and Mike.

Friday afternoon Liz and I went to the beach with her parents. But before we left town we visited with her friend Kaye. Kaye and Bob were in from Colorado on a visit and this would be the only time we could catch up with them. Kaye was at a doctor visit with her sister so we were supposed to met them at Bob's mother's house over in MacGregor Downs. Bob was putting their son, Daniel, down for a nap. So we go to the house and ring the door bell and nobody answers. We knock and big golden retriever comes to the door. But no people. So we go back to the car and call again. Kaye says that the front door should be unlocked and that we should just go on in. I didn't feel quite right about breaking into the house, but Liz said that it would be fine because Kaye said we could go in. I told her she could tell that to the police when we were in jail. But we went in and everything turned out all right.

After that visit, we went to big Wake Med to see Matt and Julie. Julie had their little baby, a girl named Madeline May, Thursday morning. Man, that is a big hospital! It's like a city it's so big! Matt was back at their house trying to catch a nap and we ended up catching Julie while she was trying to eat supper. But we got to see the baby and talk for a bit.

We finally started for Nags Head around 7:00 or so Friday night. We didn't make it to the bed and breakfast we were staying at until after 11:00. But we did finally make it! With only one turn around so we could eat supper at Sonic. Yes, those tater tots are good enough to make a car turn around!

The place was stayed was called the First Colony Inn and it was very nice. We spent the day Saturday lounging on the beach and the weather was perfect. I even went swimming. 3 times. It was cold. Colder than the Mediterranean was. But it wasn't unbearable once you got used to it.

Saturday night we ate at Basnight's Lone Cedar Cafe and saw Marc Basnight. He was walking around the dining room asking if everybody enjoyed their meals. And the food was good.

Sunday we drove back home and stopped to buy some maternity clothes and look at cribs on the way. We got back home late afternoon and I racked my mead again. This will probably be the last time I rack it and in a month or 2 I'll bottle it. I took at specific gravity reading and poured the sample into a glass. It was very interesting. It smelled like honeysuckle or a very sweet scuppernong grape. But it tasted a lot like ginger and alcohol. I let the sample sit on the counter and aerate for a couple of hours and it tasted much sweeter then. Much more like honey. I think the mead will be very good but we'll see what the final verdict is in a couple of months. Now I've got to pick out what 2 beers I want to brew next and order some ingredients!

Racquetball

2008-10-01T10:18:00.002-04:00

Man, the word racquetball sure is spelled funny. At least it looks like it to me. Anyway, I played racquetball for the first time in over 10 years yesterday at the gym. Adrian and I went to play a couple of times back in college. We would basically use it as an excuse to lock ourselves in a room and beat the crap out of each other.

Yesterday I went with a guy I met playing basketball at the gym. I ended up having a lot of fun. A lot more fun than I thought I would have. Maybe I'll try playing some more in the future.

I also had a basketball game last night with the work league I'm playing in. Man, it's been a long time since I've played in a league setting and it's hard to run for 40 minutes. In pick up ball, you can take a break every now and then and walk up the court. But when you're the tallest guy on your team, you don't get much bench time and you really can't take a play off and walk or you'll get burned. Somehow I'm leading this league in rebounds which isn't bad for an old dude with a bad wheel! Hey, I know my role. Play defense and get rebounds. I only score on chip shots and garbage collection.

Find what?!

2008-09-30T15:21:00.003-04:00

Man, I could really make this blog completely about WTF! Got an email today from a travel website with this subject, "Find Fright in Flight this Halloween".

Really? You want me to get scared while I'm on a flight? What marketing genius thought this one up?

Uh...WTF

2008-09-29T14:14:00.005-04:00

Today's theme, children, is the phrase "Uh...WTF?". Made famous this weekend in a driving downpour at Carter-Finley stadium. Indeed!

Uh...WTF were you doing in a driving downpour in a football stadium? It wasn't watching a football game, that's for sure. I suppose it was half a game because USF came to play. State came to slide around in the mud and play two-hand touch. And apparently I don't have the sense to get in out of the rain.

Uh...WTF made some of my beer so carbonated? The honey amber is a very nice beer, but about 1 in 5 seem to be overly carbonated. They taste pretty much like air then. Not sure if the priming sugar didn't get mixed good with the beer in the bottling bucket or if there was some residual sugar from the honey that fermented in the bottle.

Uh...WTF happened to my cutting board? Tailgate fajitas turned out pretty good. I think we'll definitely have to do that again. And I was glad that we did some hamburger for tacos, Mike. But somehow I made it home without my cutting board. I'm sure it will turn up somewhere. Or it grew legs and walked away. In that case, I didn't want it anyway, because a cutting board with legs is just freaky.

Uh...WTF stung me on the arm Saturday? I'm assuming it was a yellow jacket, but this sting sure has bothered me more than any other recent sting. And I usually get stung by yellow jackets at least once or twice a year. I find all their nests around my house by walking through them. Yellow jackets aren't very hospitable when you visit their nest.

Uh...WTF happened to my fantasy football team? Liz and I went shopping yesterday afternoon (to look at baby cribs) around 2:00 and at that time my team had scored a whopping 25 points. Henderson had Laveranues Coles playing and Coles was outscoring my whole team. I got back home around 8:00 figuring I got my ass kicked based off how my team started playing. Turns out I scored 138 points and ended up winning by 18 points. Go figure.

Uh...WTF! How is it Monday already? Alarm clocks suck. Mine scared the poop out of me this morning. Not literally. Because that would be gross. Not as bad as a cutting board with legs, but close.

Rebel Meets Rebel

2008-09-23T16:58:00.003-04:00

On the way back home from the William and Mary game a couple of weeks ago I forced everybody to listen to my David Allen Coe greatest hits CD. Liz was driving the truck so I got to drive the radio!

I mentioned to Casey that night that D.A.C. did a little project with some members of Pantera, including Dimebag Darrell, called Rebel Meets Rebel. I don't know why I thought of this today, but I did, so I thought I'd share a sample of their music. The song below is called "Nothin' to Lose".

What a weekend!

2008-09-22T17:11:00.002-04:00

State beats ECU and Carolina loses. Can it get any better than that?

Other than working like a dog on my day off, I had a good weekend. I re-seeded my lawn Friday by renting a slit seeder. That things was harder to operate than I thought it would be. It about wore me slap out!

Saturday it was off to the State game. I cooked a little bit of breakfast out in the parking lot before the game. Is there anything better than drinking a beer at 9 AM while making pancakes and eating a donut? I don't think so either. By the way, I am the pancake master. But eggs get cold fast when it's 60 degrees outside and they're pretty gross when they're cold.

The game was awesome! Carter-Finley was rocking. Casey and Elizabeth hooked Liz and I up with tickets in Vaughn Towers. Now that was an experience! All the food and drink you wanted while up there. And good food, too. The snack they brought out after halftime was popcorn chicken and NC State ice cream. University Dining can sure make some good popcorn chicken! Man, I miss going to Fountain on BBQ sandwich and popcorn chicken (or fried chicken) days! And the seats were comfortable with a pretty good view. The view was actually much better than I thought it would be. But it's not the same, visceral experience as being down in the lower sections.

Sunday Liz and I went to Asheboro for a family reunion. We picked up some KFC on the way there as our contribution to the covered dish. Any day with fried chicken in it is a good day! I ate so much (even though the gathering was at 2:00) that I didn't eat supper last night. Although I did have a piece of cake as desert for my non-existent supper. A true swoll always eats desert, even if it's for an imaginary supper!

Monday's normally suck, but I brought leftover fried chicken in for lunch. So, by the fried chicken principle, it has to be a good day. Well, work is almost over. So that's good. Getting stuck in a 5:30 meeting was not good. It's 6:15 and I'm finally leaving work!

College class of 2012

2008-09-18T17:27:00.002-04:00

Liz sent me this a couple of weeks ago and I've been meaning to post it. I always enjoy these things...but this year the incoming freshman class going to colleges and universities were born (for the most part) in the year that I started high school. Damn, I'm old!

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are "wired" and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and "green" generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.
For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce "tax revenue increases."
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to "whatever," they have recognized that some people "just don't get it."
13. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
14. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
15. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
16. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
17. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
19. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
20. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
21. Students have always been "Rocking the Vote."
22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
23. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
24. We have always known that "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."
25. There have always been gay rabbis.
26. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.
27. College grads have always been able to Teach for America.
28. IBM has never made typewriters.
29. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
30. McDonald's and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
31. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
32. There has always been Pearl Jam.
33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
34. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
35. They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium.
36. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
37. Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
38. Lenin's name has never been on a major city in Russia.
39. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
40. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
41. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.
42. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.
43. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
44. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
45. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
46. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.
47. They never heard an attendant ask "Want me to check under the hood?"
48. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
49. Soft drink refills have always been free.
50. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about "nothing."
51. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
52. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
53. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.
54. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
55. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
56. Michael Millken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.
57. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
58. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
59. There have always been charter schools.
60. Students always had Goosebumps.

Pollyanna

2008-09-18T14:52:00.002-04:00

I get an email notification of all bugs entered into our tracking system here at work. A bug just came in because some lady named Polly Ann is getting 2 copies of some email notifications. But I scanned the email quickly and read her name as Pollyanna. That made me do a double take. Why would you name your child Polly Ann when you know the Pollyanna jokes are going to rain down like Steve Kerr threes? Why not just name the child Pippi Longstockings?

So then I searched through our user database just to see if there were any Pippi's. Apparently nobody hates their children that much. No Pippi, Pippy, Pipi, or Pipy. And yes, I looked, no Pollyanna's either.

Buck Owens vs. The Remembrandts

2008-09-16T17:37:00.002-04:00

Listening to the radio just now and I heard the instrumental "theme" music that Buck Owens and His Buckaroos used to play. Take a listen to the first part of the YouTube video below and tell me that it doesn't sound like the theme song to "Friends". Maybe it's just me...

My lovely speed humps

2008-09-16T09:55:00.002-04:00

On the way to lunch yesterday I saw an interesting sign at the entrance to a subdivision. It simply said...Speed Humps. I have heard of "speed bumps" in the past, but speed humps made me think I was supposed to have sex really fast.

As you no doubt know by now, I can't stop at just one random thought. No, my random thoughts are like Lay's potato chips, I can't have just one! And admittedly, I had help this time since I was riding in the car with 2 other guys. So we moved through the Black Eyed Peas and my lovely speed humps to the concept of speed titties.

I hereby propose to rename speed bumps to speed titties. Among the many benefits of this name change (well, OK, it being funny is really the only benefit), this leads to a measuring system that doesn't exist today. As you know, some speed bumps are larger than others. If you're like me, you may go over a large bump and call it a speed mountain instead of a speed bump. But you usually don't find out how big the bump is until you're over it. By applying cup sizes to warning signs, you'll have an idea how big a speed titty is. That speed mountain becomes a "DD", while the small ones that you still drive 40 mph over become "A".

Return to the popsicle stand...

2008-09-15T14:04:00.004-04:00

All good things must come to an end. This includes weekends.

Hope everybody enjoyed theirs. Mine was pretty good. Friday night Liz and I cooked a Mama Blue lasagna (she sent us back with 2 frozen lasagnas the last time we visited) and watched "United 93". I thought that was a very good and powerful movie. Watching it the day after the 7th anniversary of 9/11 made it even more moving for me.

Saturday we went and visited some friends that Liz went to Spain with. That was a good time hanging out and catching up with them.

Sunday we hung around the house and I did some yard work and watched football. Good to see Droopy's Dozen pull out a win in fantasy football this week. Although before the 4:30 games kicked off I was pretty sure there was no way that I would win. Go Phillip Rivers!

I just looked out my window and saw a shit load of crows fly by. That's kind of an ominous sign if you ask me. Nothing quite like a flock of carrion birds to welcome the week, eh?

On a lighter note...who doesn't love good 80s music? And what could be better than an awesome 80s mashup?

Let's blow this popsicle stand!

2008-09-12T15:08:00.003-04:00

Earlier this afternoon I was writing an email to Liz and I used the phrase, "blow this popsicle stand", as in, "I can't wait until 5:30 when I can blow this popsicle stand." What a funny statement. Where in the hell did this come from? Looking it up on the internet comes with all kinds of explanations. Most of them just weird.

So then my random mind takes it another step. Like a game of word association, the first thing that popped into my head after that statement was the Cheech and Chong movie "Nice Dreams". Anybody remember that one? The one where they're selling dope out of an ice cream truck. Also had Pee-Wee Herman in it. And the famous, "Hey man, what does poison oak look like" and "Scratch my balls!" lines!

I literally laughed out loud here in my office when I remembered watching Cheech in a straight jacket rubbing his ass along the floor yelling for somebody to scratch his balls! Sometimes I crack myself up. Figuratively, that is.

Video Game vs. Real Life

2008-09-10T13:29:00.002-04:00

I've shared this Guitar Hero video with several people in the past. It's a guy playing Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert. It is insane how fast the notes fly at you.

I used to think there was no way that playing the song in real life could be as hard as that song is in Guitar Hero. But then I saw this...

Which is harder? Real life or the video game? You make the call!

Wow! Did you see this?!

2008-09-10T10:33:00.002-04:00

I didn't see this until this morning. Watch Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno hurdle a Central Michigan defender. And I don't mean a guy laying on the ground!

Is the world coming to an end?

2008-09-09T17:28:00.002-04:00

I'm sure by now that you've all seen the articles about the Large Hadron Collider firing up for the first time tomorrow. Will we create a black hole that sucks up the entire planet?

Not if you listen to Professor Brian Cox from the University of Manchester. He dismisses those fears as nonsense. Did I mention that he used to play keyboard with the pop band D:Ream (look in the 3rd paragraph above the picture)? This obviously increases his scientific credentials! Why is this statement in the article?!

The Snowman passes

2008-09-09T17:10:00.002-04:00

Somehow I missed the fact that Jerry Reed passed away earlier this month. You'll remember him from movies like "Smokey and the Bandit" and of course as Coach Red Beaulieu from "The Waterboy", but he was a talented musician as well.

How about a little "Amos Moses" in tribute...

Zack and Miri

2008-09-08T17:29:00.002-04:00

For those of you who don't know, Kevin Smith has a new movie coming out this fall. The title is "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" and stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. The trailer below is clean and hilarious!

The red band trailer is not as clean, but equally hilarious!

And so we begin again...

2008-09-08T15:56:00.003-04:00

I find the word stupendous strange this afternoon. Does that ever happen to you? Right now "stupendous" sounds like it is derived from stupid and should have a meaning opposite of the one it does. Indeed (that one is for the tailgaters out there), I'm weird.

I've discovered that no matter how long the weekend, it seems to go by fast. It's like some weird warping of the space/time continuum to make 3 days really seem like 2.

Friday I did all my chores around the yard since a) there was a tropical storm coming and I wouldn't get to work outside Saturday, and b) I was going to the NC State game Saturday night.

Saturday was full of football and football related activities, like cooking ribs. And it's always nice to watch the Wolfpack win, even if it wasn't the best game I've ever seen at Carter-Finley.

Sunday, Liz and I went down to Mom and Dad's for Klay's birthday party. That was a good time with another big meal in the middle of the afternoon (we ate around 4:00 at the tailgate on Saturday and had an early supper/late lunch on Sunday around 3:00). Eating meals so big that you don't need supper does tend to throw your eating habits off.

Tomorrow, I rub my meat!

2008-09-04T13:25:00.004-04:00

I'm putting a dry rub on some ribs, you dirty pervs! I wonder what sort of Google Ads that title will generate!

Tomorrow is my day off, although I do have to call into a 2PM conference call. Hopefully that won't last long. On the agenda for tomorrow is to create my rib rub and apply that to the ribs for the tailgate on Saturday. I also need to de-bone my dove breasts and start marinating them.

I'll rack my mead and get it off the ginger. The mead is still fermenting away. It's probably still 3 months from completion. I'll rack it again in another 2 months and then wait for it to clear (probably another month after that). At that point it will be ready to bottle.

By the way, XM Radio is pretty amazing. I swear, you can hear just about everything ever made if you listen to it long enough. Did you know that Prodigy has a song called "Smack My Bitch Up"? I shit you not. That's the name of the song. It's pretty much techno for 5 minutes with random shouts to, and I quote, "Smack my bitch up!" For your listening enjoyment, I found a You Tube video of the song that includes some clips of the battle of 1,000 Agent Smith's from the second Matrix.

Google Chrome

2008-09-02T16:41:00.002-04:00

Google has entered the browser arena with Google Chrome. The comic book description of the browser was pretty cool!

A beta version went live today. I downloaded it earlier and have been playing with it this afternoon. So far it's pretty cool.

Voice over king dies

2008-09-02T16:07:00.003-04:00

Don LaFontaine has died at age 68. He's the voice over guy that always said, "In a world where..." and was recently in some Geico commercials.

This made me think of a video I saw a few years ago of several famous voice over guys. It was interesting to put a name to the voices you've heard thousands of times.

Long weekend + 3 day work week = AWESOME!

2008-09-02T09:27:00.002-04:00

As the title suggests, this Friday is my alternate Friday! So between Labor Day and my Friday off I'm going to have 2 three day weekends with a three day work week in between. Not too shabby!

I hope everybody had a good weekend. Mine was quite nice. Saturday morning I bottled number 25 (my honey amber) and it tasted good! I didn't end up using honey as the priming sugar because I thought it tasted sweet enough as is. I was afraid that using honey when bottling would make the honey taste too overpowering. We'll see what it tastes like in a couple of weeks when it's carbonated and ready to drink. It ended up being around 6% so it should get the job done. If it's ready to drink I'll bring some to the ECU game on the 20th.

Saturday night Liz and I went to dinner at Maggiano's. We're trying to get lots of dates in before the baby comes! I know this will be hard to believe, but I didn't get chicken parmesan! I know. Shocking. I got chicken saltimbocca instead and it was excellent. It really did jump into your mouth!

Sunday we had our fantasy football draft. Hopefully my team will be better than the bunch of misfits and rejects I had last year. Last years team may as well have been 3-eyed sheep fuckers. It was a lot of fun hanging out and talking smack with everybody at the draft. Except for Mike's vicious farts, it was a good time!

Liz and I went down to my parents on Labor Day. I went dove hunting and she hung out with Mom, Kerri, and baby Klay. Yesterday was actually Klay's 1st birthday. Happy birthday, Klay! I had a pretty good day hunting yesterday. I shot better than I had in years. I ended up knocking down 7 birds (after taking 49 shots), but only found 3 of them. We were hunting at a soybean field and the beans were over waist high in many places. That made it very difficult to find anything that fell in the field. Only downside was that it was hotter than 40 hells yesterday and wearing long pants and long sleeve camo made for a sweaty afternoon. It was fun and now I've got 9 dove breasts I can cook at the tailgate on Saturday.

Off to meetings and other fun Monday stuff.

Michael Jackson turns 50

2008-08-29T11:28:00.002-04:00

Wow! Michael Jackson is turning 50! Don't really know why, but this just struck me as odd. He looks kind of ageless in a weird sort of way, and even though I know he's been around for decades, I was surprised to find out that he's 50.

I'm afraid to imagine what sort of mid-life crisis he's going to have!

NCSU Football: 0-1

2008-08-29T09:56:00.003-04:00

Tough game last night for the Wolfpack. Tough for me to go to sleep after staying up and watching the whole thing. I was spitting nails by the end of the game after watching those Cocks run up the score in the 4th quarter.

I was very impressed with how our defense played. That's a good sign. But our offensive line doesn't seem to be improving much. True, Andre Brown had over 100 yards rushing and the line did a pretty good job of running that little trap play. But pass protection and even snapping the ball really hurt us.

Poor Russell Wilson got killed last night. I'm very glad that he just has a concussion because I thought he might have broken his neck. Watching on TV it looked like he got knocked out cold.

The designed runs for Wilson did keep USC off balance, but also got Wilson hit a lot. I thought Wilson got hit late twice (one on a pass and one when he slid after a run) but they weren't called. I'm afraid Wilson really will get hurt this year if we can't block better. And USC just pinned their ears back and went after Evans because they knew he wasn't mobile enough to run away.

Turning points in the game...the last possession of the first half where the shotgun snap is about 2 yards wide of Evans and South Carolina recovers the fumble inside our own 10 yard line. Our defense holds to a field goal which was a huge boost. But we receive the kickoff to start the second half and throw a quick interception deep in our own territory. USC scores a TD and NC State deflates.

I'm going to have a son!

2008-08-27T17:30:00.003-04:00

Liz went to an appointment with the OB/GYN yesterday and they were able to tell the gender of our baby. We thought it would be another couple of weeks before we would be able to tell, but it turns out we were wrong! It's a boy!

Now we've got to pick out a name. Mark informed me today that Droopy apparently had a son named Dripple.

Since my nickname is Droopy it fits perfectly, right? Somehow I think this would be like calling him Sue. He'd grow up tough or die.

Around the world in 80 beers

2008-08-26T17:08:00.004-04:00

So I got a semi-spam email from a travel site earlier today and the title was "Around the World in 80 Beers". Effective and catchy because it made me read the email. It walked about trips to Munich for Oktoberfest, to Brussels to drink a nice Lambic, or to Prague where apparently a good pilsner is easy on the purse strings.

Remember back in the day when you would measure distances by the number of beers you drank while riding there? For instance, Ramseur is 3 beers away from Raleigh. The beach or Charlotte may be 6 beers away. Of course, this depends greatly on your rate of consumption because sometimes Ramseur is a 12 pack away and you can get lost trying to get out of a McDonalds after you've peed in the bathroom sink.

It's Mythos time!

2008-08-26T08:53:00.002-04:00

Another good weekend has come and gone and now we're back in the work week. When will the 5 day weekend actually become a reality? In the meantime, I've got a good thing going where I get every other Friday off. I work 9 hours per day from Monday to Thursday and 8 hours one Friday. The other Friday I have off. This past weekend I had my Friday off and a nice 3 day weekend. Friday I did all my yard work so I could enjoy the rest of the weekend.

5 of the Malaysian developers from our KL office are visiting the US and Liz and I took them shopping Saturday morning. We went up to the Streets at Southpoint and turned them loose for about 3 hours. First stop, the Apple store. I played w/ an iPod Touch and damn those things are cool!

After dropping the Malaysians back off at their hotel in Cary, Liz and I went on a date! We went to the movies and saw "The Dark Knight". A very good movie! Darker and grittier than I thought it would be and I thought I had set my expectations based on what I had heard and read from others. After the movie, we went to a Greek restaurant. And they had Mythos! Yes, I had an "authentic Hellenic lager beer" for the first time since leaving Greece. Good stuff. And my souvlaki was very good as well. Liz's moussaka was all right, but not great.

Sunday afternoon we went to my company's annual picnic. That was a pretty good time. Got to eat some good BBQ and meet Imaginary Girlfriend 1.0 or IG1.0 (pronounced igloo). This was a running joke in Greece about Danny claiming he had a girlfriend. Turns out she is real!

All in all, a good weekend with the discovery of Mythos the shining moment!

Blue Brew #25

2008-08-21T16:45:00.002-04:00

About 6 months ago I had a Red Oak for the first time in a long time and it tasted very sweet. Adrian thought that it had honey in it and from that point on I've had in the back of my mind to try brewing a honey amber beer.

So that's what I tried to do last weekend. I did some research and made up my own recipe so we'll see how it turns out. I used ~ 1.6 pounds of Dad's honey and I'm also going to use honey as the priming sugar. This should give the beer a nice sweet finish. Original gravity was pretty big (1.0612) but that was probably boosted by the honey. We'll see how it finishes up, but it has the potential to be a nice big beer. The honey amber should be ready to bottle in a about another week. I'll probably bottle it on the 30th.

So this means that I have two fermentations going at the same time in my guest bathroom between my mead and this beer! First time that's ever happened. Never thought I'd use 2 carboys at the same time.

By the way, #23 (the grapefruit juice or Rudd Beer III) is mellowing out over time. I'll bring some to the football draft for anybody who would like to try it. It's gone from barely drinkable to barely adequate! What a slogan that would be! "Blue Brew: It's barely adequate!" I think the explosion in your mouth slogan is still the best, though.

Strong like a Barbie fishing reel

2008-08-21T13:25:00.003-04:00

A North Carolina man recently caught a state record channel catfish using his granddaughter's Barbie fishing reel. The fish weighed 21 pounds and at 32 inches long was 2 inches longer than the fishing rod! It was caught on 6 pound test line.

The little girl asked him to hold her pole while she went to the bathroom. The fish hit and he fought it for 25 minutes! Amazing!

I shouldn't be allowed to drive in the morning...

2008-08-20T09:10:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I think it's a wonder I actually make it to work in the mornings. Today I drove off with my coffee thermos still on top of the car. Didn't notice it until it fell off. I got lucky this time and not all the coffee spilled out of it. Notice I said this time. This is the 3rd time I've done this in the past 3 weeks. Soon the roof of my white car will be coffee colored from all the spills.

However, I can say that Thermos makes one hell of a travel mug! That thing has fallen from the roof my my car at least 6 times and still works like a champ. A little scratched up but it still keeps coffee hot.

The game of Wall

2008-08-19T08:45:00.002-04:00

Last Christmas I bought each of my co-workers a Nerf N-Strike Maverick dart gun which has provided hours of fun and stress relief. Since we're huge dorks, we like to make up little games to play with our dart guns. We can't be satisfied just wandering the hallways and shooting each other like normal people. That gets boring. Unless of course we did something like this...

In honor of Scrubs (remember "Steak", the competition between Turk and J.D. to eat a steak the fastest), we've given all our games simple names. The most popular game by far is the game of Wall. To play, you stand in the hallway at my door frame and shoot at the wall at the end of the hallway about 50 feet away. The object is to hit as high up on the wall as possible. Each player alternates a shot until their 6 darts have been fired. This is harder than it sounds since the wall is out of effective range of the gun. You have to swing or push the gun to provide enough momentum for a dart to reach the wall. Sounds easy, right? But there is nothing more emasculating than when you try too hard and end up with a "dart of shame", where the dart either dribbles out of the gun or misfires and doesn't make it out of the barrel.

Other fun games to play include Sign (hit the sign hanging from the ceiling), Trash Can (shoot darts into a trash can), Name Plate (hit a name plate as many times as possible), Fire Extinguisher (hit a fire extinguisher and the dart must stick), and Coaster (hit a leather coaster in the air after it's been thrown by another).

Weekend et al.

2008-08-18T14:58:00.003-04:00

Besides the dishwasher crapping out, I had a pretty good weekend. As usual for me, I measure things by the meals I eat. Friday was homemade pizza w/ peppers, onions, and pepperoni. Very good! Then I watched the Olympics until I was falling asleep in my chair.

Saturday I got to eat at Chick-fil-a in the mall while shopping for a dishwasher. Anytime I get Chick-fil-a is good! Saturday afternoon Liz had church choir practice. They've started practicing their Christmas cantata. I tried the Christmas in July joke before I realized it was August already. Saturday night one of the choir members had a cookout where I got to eat lots of hamburgers, hot dogs, and deserts! Then it was more Olympics, playing Civ 4, and falling asleep in my chair.

Sunday afternoon I went down to Mom and Dad's to visit. Liz had a medallion ceremony at Campbell she had to attend so she couldn't come. I got to go swimming and then eat some steak! And some very good pound cake from a Paula Dean recipe. That probably means the cake coagulates in your arteries, but it very well may be worth it!

And now the work week begins (although I finished writing this around 5:00 on Monday afternoon)...

I loathe my diswasher...

2008-08-18T10:30:00.003-04:00

There. I've said it. And I'll say it again. I loathe my dishwasher!

You may think that's a harsh sentiment for such a helpful appliance. After all, is there anything worse than having to hand wash all your dishes? Well, my dishwasher is a piece of poo. There is a temperature sensor that keeps crapping out in it. I've replaced that sensor at least 6 times and one time I replaced the whole control board thinking there was a problem with it. I've poured more money in parts into that thing than it would cost to buy a cheap dishwasher.

Last Monday, when I got home Liz told me that the dishwasher had crapped out again. I told her that I wasn't going to fix it again, but she looked and I had one more spare temperature sensor. So I pulled out my multimeter, took off the dishwasher door to expose the control board, and started searching for the short. Sure enough, it was at the damn temperature sensor. So I replaced it and said that it was the last time I was going to work on the dishwasher. Well, Friday I get home from work and the dishwasher is broken again.

So Liz and I went dishwasher shopping on Saturday. The new one is supposed to come in Tuesday. I loathe my old dishwasher and hope the new one is better. As long as this new one doesn't sound like a jet taking off and runs without breaking for more than 2 years it will be the clear cut winner!

Space Ghost and the Macho Man

2008-08-14T15:46:00.002-04:00

So on the way back from lunch last week, Danny (one of my co-workers) tells me that there was an episode of Space Ghost where Randy Savage plays Space Ghost's grandpa. I couldn't remember ever seeing that episode, and it sounded awesome, so I went a searchin'.

I present one of the funniest episodes of SGC2C I've ever seen. My favorite quote..."You're pet monkey hit me with a folding chair."

And this just makes me think about driving down Hwy 40 in a big ol' pickup truck!

This took a lot of time!

2008-08-13T17:55:00.003-04:00

This is pretty darn cool (and nerdy)! Especially at the end when the Superman theme kicks off and the DC guys start showing up.

Stop action with action figures has got to be grueling. Limited mobility and all. Just think of the time involved...
Assume it's 10 "frames" (pictures) per second
Movie is 8:42 = 522 seconds
522 * 10 = 5220 pictures
30 seconds to take each picture = 156,600 seconds = 2610 hours
If you worked 8 hours a day we're talking about 326.25 days!

At 8 frames per second you're still talking 261 days!

More Olympics coverage

2008-08-13T14:39:00.003-04:00

Apparently Olympic athletes are horny. 100,000 condoms are being provided to Olympic athletes in Beijing. There are 10,500 athletes at the games which gives a break down of ~ 9.5 condoms per person. Wow!

In Sydney the athletes went through 70,000 and another 20,000 had to be brought in. I guess for the Beijing Olympics they didn't want to take any chances.

New Olympic slogan...
Wrap it before you tap it or you may bring home something other than gold!

Team Handball

2008-08-12T17:24:00.003-04:00

I've really enjoyed watching the Olympics so far this summer. I think NBC is doing a good job with their combination of television and on-line coverage. You can watch highlights (and sometimes live coverage) of just about anything you want to online.

And that brings me to handball...
Earlier I talked about watching some of the women's handball games. I've started watching some of the highlights over the last couple of days (because I'm strangely fascinated) and I got tired of not understanding what in the hell was going on. So I looked up the rules. Not sure I really understand the game better after reading those!

And check out the Wikipedia article on handball. Who know the game had origins in Ancient Greece and Rome?

A weekend in review

2008-08-11T10:24:00.005-04:00

Weekends are usually good and this one was no exception. I had my first Friday off (from my alternate work schedule) in about 2 months. 3 day weekends are definitely better than the 2 day variety!

Friday morning I helped Liz move into her new office down at Campbell. The guy who had the office before her still hasn't moved all his stuff out so we pretty much put the boxes in a storage room for the time being. Then we went to Melvin's for lunch and I got a couple of hot dogs because that Homewrecker hot dog got me hungry for hot dogs all last week!

Friday afternoon we drove up to Marion so we'd be closer to Jeremy and Staci's for Evie's birthday party Saturday afternoon. The funny thing was that Liz's parents were up in Chesapeake visiting Liz's brother and sister-in-law. So we stayed by ourselves in her parents house Friday which felt a little weird.

Saturday morning we got up and assed around the house. Watched a little of the Olympics coverage. Saw some women's volleyball and handball. That handball is some weird stuff! I'm not sure what's weirder, curling in the Winter Olympics or handball in the Summer games.

Saturday afternoon we drove to Jeremy's parents for Evie's birthday. That was a good time. Little Evie really enjoyed her birthday cake. And by enjoy I mean she face planted into the sucker! I also got to meet a porn movie reviewer (technically she was a PR rep for Adam and Eve) which was pretty interesting. Apparently you can get paid $0.40/minute to review movies. Who knew?

Sunday I ate a crap load of fried chicken at the New Member's luncheon at church, and then I worked around the house mowing grass and stuff. I also started my first batch of mead Sunday afternoon! I used honey (17.5 pounds) that Dad had given me so this may be the cheapest batch of alcohol I've made to this point. I decided to make a ginger mead so we'll see how it turns out. It was fermenting in the guest bathroom when I left the house this morning. Starting specific gravity was 1.126 (biggest by far of anything I've done) and the finishing is expected to be between 1.020 and 1.035. For context, most of my beers have a starting specific gravity around 1.040. This mead will turn out to be 12%-14% if all goes well. It will take 3-4 months for fermentation to complete so hopefully by the new year we'll have something new to try.

So how about Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes passing away over the weekend?! I must say that I was shocked by both of these deaths. Bernie Mac sure didn't look 50! I also didn't know that Isaac Hayes had a stroke in 2006 and that was the main reason he left South Park instead of the lampooning of Scientology. Both actors will appear in a movie, "Soul Men", that ironically enough has a plot revolving around death. Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction.

Is it sad the picture makes me hungry?

2008-08-07T17:11:00.003-04:00

Speaking of food, Kevin sent me this yesterday and it's too good not to share.

I give you, what has to be the world's largest hot dog!

Check out the full story and make sure to watch the YouTube video at the bottom where the place is featured in an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

So where to you get a 15 inch hot dog that weighs a pound? Is there a company out there that actually makes such a thing? I can't imagine that demand is particularly high!

Gotta start somewhere!

2008-08-07T14:52:00.003-04:00

Well, you've got to start somewhere so here we go...

After eating a combo plate of fried chicken and BBQ (w/ collards and boiled potatoes on the side) from Cooper's for lunch, this just seemed appropriate. I present to you, the BBQ song!

Some of you may recognize these guys from the Cornhole song.