This is very funny... and by that I mean, when you read it you will laugh, because it is funny.

Some of you may read Jonah Goldberg from the National Review Online. If not, regardless of your political ideology, it's worth the read. If for nothing else, he faithfully utlizes Simpons quotes into most of his pieces. Well, anyway, Jonah wrote the following gem regarding Harry Ried and something he said recently which I thought was hysterical:

"In Washington, soft-spokenness is often confused for intelligence and subtlety. We're so accustomed to shouting that when someone whispers we assume there must be something more thoughtful in the offing. A case in point is Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader. Just the other day he told reporters, "There's a dark cloud hanging over the White House." Then, to clarify this obscure metaphor, he added gravely, "It's really a storm cloud."

One expects more Solomonic nuance from the man any day now: "Something's fishy in the White House. And by that I mean the White House really smells much like a fish. An old fish. The sort of fish that smells bad." Or: "Look before you leap — because that way you'll know what you're leaping over and might not fall.""

LOL - I think that's great... and why isn't Yogi Berra a US Senator?! So, I got to thinking, what other obvious metaphors or cliches can I come up with that are just as funny with unnecessary descriptions added? Well, there's always the one all sports stars use, "We're just gonna take it one game at a time." Yes, and by that, I mean, we're not going to look ahead to future games. We're going to focus just on this one. Just this one game. You dig?

Then there's thanking Jesus for everything. "We couldn't have pulled this one off if it weren't for Jesus," I mean, if it weren't for Jesus, we wouldn't have won. Jesus was just pulling for us, and was opposed to the other team winning. God and Jesus both hate the other team. You dig?

I was listening to one of the financial podcasts this morning and they were talking about "Black Friday," after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year. If shoppers don't come out, apparently it's a black day for the economy. So anyway, the added description could go something like this: "Retailers are dreading Black Friday, which is coming this week. If shoppers don't come out, it'll be a black day for them. It means consumers aren't spending and the day will be black - black like a lump of coal Santa leaves in your stocking if you're bad. The retailers aren't bad people, but they're getting a big black lump of coal from Santa this year on Black Friday. A big, black, lump of coal - which is worthless to them - cause they don't even have a coal burning furnace, so it's twice as bad."

I think I could write these all day! Please feel free to add your own gems!

Time for a LIVE post!

Well, it's live while I write it, but it'll be long dead when I'm done. I'm sitting here at the Old Toad being a total nerd. I could just be drinking my Blackbird Oatmeal Stout, however I feel it's necessary to bring the computer along just in case. In case of what? Hmmm.... in case I actually need to interact with real people, rather than just AOL Instant Messenger people. What makes this especially nerdy is that Jason Childers is sitting next to me playing on his computer!

I've discovered a great game recently - on Yahoo games - Literati! OK, it's just scrabble without the license, but it's a great game. It makes me realize how lousy a scrabble player I am. Now, I'm not terrible, but I never know all those two letter words that fit in between other words so I can count like, oh, three words at the same time for 40 or 50 points. But it's still a lot of fun and my vocabulary is at least good enough to compete at if not a high level, a fairly high one. For some reason, I have never been a big fan of Yahoo. I've never used it as a search engine, and the only time I do use it is occasionally on Yahoo Messenger to talk to Julie who refuses to get an account on AIM. Granted, all our friends are on AIM, but whatever.... she uses my computer all the time anyway while I'm logged in, so for whatever it's worth.

Well, that's enough for now... maybe I'll write again when the quiz is over. Cheers!

RNA Medals Needed

I assume most people don't give a rats ass about coin collecting, however it's one of my passions, and I've got a list of RNA Presidential Medals I still need. I'm posting it here mainly for my covenience, however if anyone happens upon this and actually has one of the medals I need, all the better! Here's the list:

1915, 1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1923, 1926, 1928, 1929... then ALL of the 1930s... then 1940, 1941, 1942, 1946, and finally 1950. That's it! All in all, not too bad. I only need 5 medals from the 40s and the 1950 Pittman medal, and I'm all set from 1940 and up. Then it gets a little more tricky with those early medals, but they do show up from time to time.

UPDATE: Just got the 1944 Hutchinson medal at the RNA's coin show on Saturday. Yay! One down, twenty-six to go.

Off topic: You've Gotta be Kidding Me

Sandy Parker, CEO of the Rochester Business Alliance knows how to merge two corporate cultures into one! Read this from today's Democrat & Chronicle: "On the changes in the organization: "When we put two organizations under one roof, we really didn't spend the proper amount of time making sure integration worked. We didn't create a culture for the RBA. We had two cultures. So we needed to spend a lot of time on that. We've done it, and I think we have a staff now that is focused on moving the organization together and moving forward."

Please reread that quote from Ms. Parker. Now, let me run a few names past you:

Tom Mooney, Angela Monachino, Charlie Goodwin, Gael Barrett, Libby McShane, Anna Vulaj, Wyoma Best, Bridget Pulver, Andrea Paul, Kevin Kelley, Jean Kase, Henry Gottfried, David Benesch, John Zaepfel, Claire Kenney, Liz Perez... and me! (I may be forgetting some folks - including the HTR staff - so, please correct me if you recall them).

There are six still at the RBA - Becky Brown, Nan Brunett, Nina Shelton, Paulette Birch, Susan George, and Danielle Smith (who is putting in her two week notice on Monday)... so really, there'll be FIVE former Chamber people left.

That was how Sandy successfully created a culture - by eliminating all the Chamber of Commerce staff, keeping the vast majority of the IMC's staff (a couple of them are gone, but at least one cut his own throat through amazing stupidity, and a couple others left for better things). Did this require amazing management skills? Did this really merge two corporate cultures into one? Well, it eliminated one culture and basically said to those remaining: YOU ADOPT OUR CULTURE OR YOU'RE FIRED MOTHER FUCKER!!!

Does that about capture it?

Best cards

Well, before I post anything else, gotta post pics of the best wedding cards. OK... by far, the best card came from Chris Barrett. Here are the pictures of it first:




OK.... now, for the best part? It's HANDMADE! Julie and I were like, "NO WAY! THIS COULDN'T BE HANDMADE!" Well, lo-and-behold... it is indeed handmade. Chris - start making these professionally!

Now, card number two is from Josh Liller, and here it is... (needs no explanation?)



GREAT card! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Thanks Josh!

More good wedding stuff to come!

Married and back home!

Haven't had a chance to post in quite some time, however I had many good reasons! For those who may not know, Julie and I were married on October 22nd! In fact, got back from our honeymoon in St. Lucia yesterday (November 1st), so I've really been unable to get anything updated on the weblog. However, thanks to some smart friends, I have a link to some of the wedding photos: http://homepage.mac.com/paploo42/PhotoAlbum1.html. Thanks to Jason Childers for setting this up!

We should also have a link to all the photos taken by our photographer, however I haven't gotten word from him yet on where to go to view it all. As soon as I know, it'll be posted too. Scott Fybush also took video at the wedding, so as soon as he's got something for me, I'll be sure to turn it into something that can be posted online. Probably not on Blogger - I don't know if there's a file size limit, and I can only assume a big video file would be frowned upon. Then again, Blogger is owned by Google, and since Google would like to have a repository of all informaiton everywhere, perhaps they don't care? Regardless, I have lots of sites to host the video on.

I've also got tons of pics from the honeymoon in St. Lucia. I'll have a separate post about the honeymoon shortly. But for now, thought everyone would enjoy the first pics. Again, thanks Jason!

Woah

Well, what a night it's been. It's about 12:20am as I write this and I'm sitting at Spot Coffee. The day started out with so much promise! Julie and I went to the farmers' market, had breakfast at Highland Park Diner, went over to Powers Farm Market to check out the teepees... all was going well. Later in the day, I smoked a nice Cuban cigar. After that, my future brother-in-law, Mark, came over and we watched Bubba Hotep... a great movie staring Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ozzie Davis as John F. Kennedy. It wasn't until shortly thereafter when things took a turn.

I am the designated driver for Julie and her friend Julie tonight for a work baccelorette party. As we're leaving, getting ready to turn onto Dewey Avenue, we notice that her brother and his girl friend have pulled the car into Pizza Hut. Next thing I notice, they're PUSHING THEIR CAR into the parking lot. We immediatly turn into the lot to see what happened. Turns out their car just stopped running. Well, I picked up the two Julies, dropped them off at Mex on Alexander Street, and then drove back to Greece to see if they'd gotten the car started. No such luck. They end up calling AAA to get the car towed. I run home to grab my laptop, thinking it's going to be a while, and drive back over to Pizza Hut after wolfing down my second Lean Pocket of the day.

We wait... for what felt like a very long time. Finally a FUCKING VAN pulls up. Now, I'm no towing expert, but a van isn't usually what I think of when it comes to towing a car. Apparently, AAA didn't believe us when we said the car wouldn't start and that it had nothing to do with the battery. Maybe it was the fuel pump, we suggested. Anyway, this kid gets out of the van and boldly states that he's going to jump the battery. Um, yeah, there's no problem with the battery you shithead!

A bit of a side note: Mark's car is a thousand years old. Well, not literally. It's a Plymouth of some sort with a 1988 body and a 1991 engine - sporting about 130,000 miles. About the only parts of this car that aren't going bad are the battery and the starter which was replaced just a week earlier. So anyway, the kid decides jumping the battery ain't gonna work! Next, he pours some gasoline directly into the fuel injector to see if that will get the car to start. Again, no luck. He calls a tow truck.

The tow truck is a good HOUR away. Apparently, there was a vehicle on the Parkway that lost a wheel (it was a drunk driver incident, according to the two truck driver). We wait, and wait, and wait some more. Eventually the tow truck comes and we get the thing hitched up and we're off. Where are we off to? THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!! Hamlin, to be exact, but really I think I heard banjos playing in the distance. Apparently Diane's cousin, or newphew or whatever owns his own shop. I felt like I was driving into the middle of the woods to dispose of a body - or in this case, a dead car. We get to the shop - driving down a winding path about 1000 feet off the main road, through the woods, with no one around. They drop off the car, and Diane's mom comes and picks them up. She did not appear to be thrilled to be there.

Anyway, my next step is to figure out where the hell I am so I can find my way back in time to get back downtown to pick up the two Julies. Apparently, as long as you drive north, you eventually hit the Parkway again, which took me back to Lake Avenue, and back downtown.

The journey is now over, running from 7pm to just before midnight and here I sit at Spot Coffee waiting for the call to take everyone home. I'm not sure how long Spot is open, but so long as everyone doesn't stay out past 2am, I should be ok. Exactly the way I wanted to spend my Saturday night! Too bad I didn't get any pictures...

Toronto pics

Nothing too remarkable here - and not much of a story to tell - however, I did want to get these pictures posted at some point. Basically, they're from Photonics North, albeit not the show itself. Ferry ride over, really, which was great! The boat runs smooth as can be, and it's FAST. Or, at least it feels really fast when you try to stand on the rear deck with the boat in motion. I can see how people might lose all sorts of things off the back of that boat (glasses, wallets, keys, friends...)

Here they are - inside the boat, outside the deck, through the front observation lounge, and a nice view of Toronto as we arrived:

M&Ms

I still need to post my fast ferry pics - which I'll do later - but in the mean time, just a quick observation. We have a "large" jar of M&Ms at our office for Javelin, Infotonics, and other folks to enjoy. I put large in quotes because I don't think there's a size large enough to satisfy everyone! I just took a small handful of them and realized I hate orange M&Ms. It's not that they don't taste exactly the same as all other M&Ms, I just don't like that color. They're the first ones I eat, too, so I don't have to look at them. I guess I can see why weirdo muscians demand bowl's of single colors before and after a show. Granted, that's absolutely insane, but they're musicians, and apparently allowed to be crazy-go-nuts.

Anywho, that also got me to thinking about the worst experience from my Vegas trip - the M&Ms Store. Holy shit, what a pain in the ass THAT was. I like M&Ms, but to have a whole store dedicated to them? Filled with plush dolls, games, shot glasses and other crap? Yeah, yeah, yeah.... I collect COINS, for cryin' out loud, so how's that any different. I guess it's the FRENZIED INSANITY of the store. There are four or five floors (I forget the exact number) and each floor is filled with FRENZIED PEOPLE. Kids and adults going crazy - like all this shit is going to disappear into the ether if they don't get their hands on it NOW. Not too mention, the over priced "special" colors of M&Ms you can only get THERE. Lines of people demanding their special colored M&Ms (is that politically correct? can I call M&Ms 'colored'?). I was waiting for Rob to buy his stuff and it was nearly impossible to even find one place to stand and not totally be in the way of other folks desperately trying to buy their M&M memorabilia.

I might be going a little overboard here, but the experience was so unpleasant, I'm thinking of only buying Reece's Pieces from now on. Is there a Reece's Store somewhere that can ruin that for me too? Perhaps I should stick with Neco Waffers - everybody hates those.

Ignore that last post... except for the calendar part

Well, as of today, Jason is no longer at R-Surplus. I won't really go into it, as the guy who runs it is a friend, but needless to say, it wasn't working out for Jason. So, you can pretty much ignore that piece of the below post. On the other hand, be SURE to go to Fybush.com to check out the North East Radio Watch and buy your own copy of the 2006 Tower Site Calendar. It's the perfect present for someone, um, who, um..... yeah.... Well, buy one anyway!

Ok.... now, what else to talk about? Going to Toronto on the fast ferry on Monday morning! We're going up for Photonics North which will be held at the Toronto Congress Centre. It'll also be the official launch of a new group that Javelin is managing called the International Photonics Commercialization Alliance. What is the IPCA? Well, it's essentially an alliance of clusters and other industry groups, as well as researchers in the area of photonics and optics. The purpose of the group is really to encourse the commercialization of new photonics technologies. That means finding industry partners, assisting in patents, licensing, venture capital, SBIRs/STTRs, etc. Should be an interesting endeavor.

While we're talking about SBIRs, just submitted my first one for Javelin with a lot of help from some great folks at Infotonics. It's a USDA sponsored SBIR to do a feasibility study in developing a "MEMS-Safe" brand for organic foods utilizing microsystems technologies to track and trace these organic goods. It's kindof unlikely that we'll win on our first try, but it's definately good practice. I'm now working on our second one - it's through the Department of Energy and has to do with managing data and facilitating the decision making process for businesses, not-for-profits, and research institutions. The primary focus of these SBIRs, however, is that the technology proposed can be commercialized in three years or less. As it's a software solution, that's no problem.

That's about it for now. I'll post some pics from our ferry ride and Photonics North.

New Tower Site Calendar - 2006!!!

For all of you radio fanatics out there - not the kind who just like to LISTEN to radio, but also love radio towers - good buddy Scott Fybush has released the 2006 Tower Site Calendar. Go to THIS PAGE to purchase your own copy. I have all of them from past years - and you should too!

And, while we're pimping out friends, be sure to go to R-Surplus to either buy company surplus, or, if you ARE a business with a ton of stuff just lying around and you're looking to get rid of it, use their service!

Hmmmm... let's see... who else? Well, there's Javelin Associates, but we're too hip for a website of our own.

New Digital Cameras

Cameras and printers, that is. I'm on the brink of buying a Kodak camera and printer after the announcements from the last couple days from Kodak. Yesterday, Kodak announced the launch date that you can buy the new EASYSHARE-ONE. Here are the specs:

4.0 MP and KODAK Color Science Chip

SCHNEIDER-KREUZNACH C-VARIOGON 3X Optical Zoom Lens

256 MB internal memory* stores up to 1500 favorite pictures

3.0 in. (7.6 cm) share-friendly, rotating touch screen and stylus

Wireless for instant sharing

Controls to create pictures and video just the way you want

PRICE: $599

(A little pricey for only 4.0MP, why does Kodak always get something wrong? 5.0 is like the damn STANDARD these days, and that 1MP might make the difference between someone buying it or something else!)

And, here are the pictures:





For me, I love the idea of being able to wirelessly transmit my pics from the camera to my computer from anywhere that's got WiFi. Possible applications? Well, I have a wireless network in my house which also covers my whole yard - I'm outside, snapping pictures, send them up to the computer from there and I don't have to bother doing it manually. Seems like a good idea to me.

But what I like even more are the new EASYSHARE printers that have universal compatibility and have WiFi capability. Right now, whenever I print pictures, it's kindof a crapshoot as to what the output is going to be. Usually what happens is I get my settings fucked up, and I end up with terrible quality images printed out. Personally, I like the idea of being able to print my pictures and put them in a damn PHOTO ALBUM (I know, what a concept!). A photo album is easy to show to people, the images themselves don't degrade for quite some time, and it's a nice backup to having your pictures all on your hard drive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're all supposed to back up our drives, but how many people actually do it? (Except maybe Benesch - got to have a reason to have all those terrabytes of storage space, right?)

To help me expedite the process of having high quality images, which I can show to grandma, who, quite frankly, has no interest seeing these images on my laptop, Kodak came out with the EASYSHARE Photo Printer 500. Here's the picture:



Looks pretty cool to me.... here are the specs:

Large 3.5 in. (8.9 cm) LCD screen

Print from digital media cards and USB devices

Features KODAK PERFECT TOUCH Technology

Red eye reduction

Wireless capability (Wi-Fi ready*, BLUETOOTH® wireless technology enabled)

Compatible with PictBridge-enabled digital cameras

Four print sizes and four color modes

PRICE: $249.00

Yeah, I know, printers are cheap these days, but I'd rather pay more to be sure that I get images that are any good! Anyway, just my thoughts for now... I'm sure they'll change later. I'd just like to actually buy something make by Kodak. Is there something inherently wrong with that?!

The NFL COULD be the stupidest organization in the world

DATELINE SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - The Saints will head to San Antonio after their preseason game against the Oakland Raiders on Sept. 1 because most of New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina. Tens of thousands of refugees from the storm have been staying at the Superdome, but officials said they would have to evacuate as flood water continues to rise. The storm ripped two holes in the curved roof of the building. The team is still uncertain whether the Superdome will be ready for its home opener against the New York Giants on Sept. 18.

WHAT THE FUCK?! The team is STILL UNCERTAIN?! Let's see.... hundreds, maybe thousands are dead. Around five million people were without power. Eighty-percent of the city was flooded. The levees are broken and the water levels are rising. Thousands upon thousands of people are without homes, cars, supplies, water, food and the like. And the fucking NFL won't say today that the team won't play at the Superdome? Do they have a problem with oxygen reaching their brain? OF COURSE THEY'RE NOT PLAYING AT THE SUPERDOME IN TWO WEEKS!!!

Is the NFL so stupid, or conceited, or both, to think that they will be playing football there? This is like if the NFL had their main offices in the World Trade Centers and on September 11th, say, 20 minutes after the attack, the NFL makes a statement that the office might have to relocate tomorrow. If the Superdome sunk into the ocean, would they try to play under water? These guys are so self important that it makes me sick.

D&C Troubles

UPDATE: This is as good as it gets! http://www.rbj.net/fullarticle.cfm?sdid=56591.... this was just published a few minutes ago.


Does anyone else in Rochester think this is nuts? http://rochesterdandc.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050824/NEWS01/508250328

I've heard about the rift between the union and the D&C for years, but it must have just really hit me that they've now gone 13 years without a contract. THIRTEEN YEARS???? Doesn't this harken back to a time when US Presidents inserted themselves into these kinds of labor disputes? Reagan and the air traffic controllers? Or Clinton and the MLB? There must be some way to resolve this labor dispute. Clearly negotiations are not "in good faith" as Thomas Flynn suggests. If they were, perhaps there'd have been some conclusion to this, oh, say, a decade ago!

I have a buddy who's a local and national news nut - yup Scott, that's you - who's been keeping me informed on this for years, but I've only paid coursery attention to it at the most. But I think the D&C, by running the story in the first place, has finally caught my attention. There are no labor disputes that cannot be resolved. There is some give and take in every negotiation. Scott suggests that it's up to the subscriber base of the D&C to cancel their subscriptions and write to the paper letting them know that it's because of the labor dispute that they're cancelling. That may be a good solution, but would enough people actually care to do it?

Would a resolution of the labor dispute lead to higher quality reporting in the pages of the D&C? I tell you what, that's something that would grab MY attention. Most Sundays for me are spent first reading the D&C Sunday paper and realizing how mediocre it is. I then usually hop in the car, head over to Wegmans and pick up a bagel and a copy of the New York Times. I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon sitting outside with my coffee, bagel, and NY Times and read it almost from front to back! I then think to myself, "Why is the D&C such a crappy paper in comparison?! Why do they even get the comics section wrong!? We're a good sized city with lots of stuff going on... maybe if they raised the price a nickel?"

I've also gotten into the habit of reading The Buffalo News on occasion, and their local news coverage is far superior. Their editoral section is better, and I'd say it's more broadly based in terms of opions expressed. Now granted, their a far more independent organizations, but shouldn't the D&C - founded by Frank Gannett - the former headquarters of one of the biggest newspaper companies in the world - be one of the best small market papers in the world? With our educated workforce, and with the proliferation of the internet and information, isn't there more that could be written that isn't included in the D&C already? I ask you!

Vegas trip, et al

Well, right after I posted that last weblog entry we got an announcement that the flight was delayed because of "bad weather in Chicago." Riiiiight.... let's see... thanks to the WiFi at the airport, and weather.com, I immediately checked the weather which was basically nice. So, immediately I knew United was lying to me. Oh well... perhaps I'd be spending the night in Chicago? We did get back on track about and hour-and-a-half late, and once on the place got the straight story. Apparently there were air traffic control problems. The captain added that is was windy in Chicago (imagine that!) and that they were only using two runways. But the real problems were technical. Add to that they had issues with an airshow that was being held over the weekend with a couple jets accidentally touching wings, and some pieces falling off, and that couldn't have helped.

Just one more comment about the flight, before I post the pics, but I decided to listen to the flightdeck through the headsets they give you. Very interested stuff. I don't know what many of the acronyms mean, but as we were flying over Buffalo, control said something wasn't working and the response from the plane was "Oh God!" Yeah. That's really what you want to hear!

Anyway, here's the photos!

First off... if you ever get the chance to drive from Rochester to Tucson a word of advice: DON'T. Granted, I guess it's better than being at work, but 15 hours of driving per day, stops for gas and generally mediocre food, and an aching back sure don't make for a fun time. I tried listening to local radio shows throughout the trip and ironically, some of the funniest stuff was heard as we were driving through BUFFALO. The rest of the country has something in common... here's a picture to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:



Yes people, that's purportedly the world's largest CROSS. The farther away from civilization you get, the more religion you drive by. There was one stretch where Rob and I counted a half dozen churches in probably only 30 miles. Not small churches, but these enormous houses of God. When we didn't see churches, we saw the following:




Yup, lots of billboards. I thought this one was particularly interesting. Fireworks and pancakes. How can you go wrong? The other picture came out really nice, and I think was taken while driving through New Mexico. Actually, that pic is much better than most of the rest of the ride. We had overcast skys from Rochester to just about New Mexico. It's just that the land was very bare.

Now, onto the more fun stuff. For instance, here's a couple pics of the strip from around New York, New York, and the Star Trek Experience:







That Star Trek Experience is amazing! Anyone who's a, um, nerd like me, will love it. If you're not a ST fan, you'll find this whole thing ridiculous. When you're standing in line to enter and a Ferengi pushes his way through the line to cut to the front, and think this is perfectly normal, you know you're a ST fan. I also got the obligatory picture of myself sitting in the captain's chair which I'll scan and post later. Also got to go into the Borg assimilation chamber, though I didn't get my picture taken in it. Oh yeah, and the Klingon ride is great, unless you get motion sickness easily. I do. Hell, I get sick reading in the car! But it was still really amazing. The Borg 4D thing was cool, but it seemed too short, or was generally lacking something. But I still highly recommend it. Even had a drink at "Quarks," though nothing with alcohol as it was AFTER the Klingon ride and I was still feeling like making my own gagh right on the bar.

More to come later!

Vegas Trip Nearly Over

Well, I'm sitting here in the airport waiting to board my flight back to Rochester (via Chicago) watching folks get off the plane. I know this is a bass-ackwards way of posting about my Vegas trip, but unfortunately, I stayed at a, um, classic Vegas hotel which apparently hasn't figured out wi-fi for all the hotel rooms yet. Ironically, in the middle of nowhere in Missouri, I had BETTER access to wireless. But the Vegas airport seems to be doing quite well.

Anyway, as soon as I'm back in town and have a moment to reflect on this whole trip - including such exciting times as driving from Rochester to Tucson - something EVERYONE should do at least once - to driving from Tucson to Vegas, and then all the nifty stuff we saw, did, and ate. I wish I had carried my camera more, but it's a little too large to comfortably carry with me all the time. Guess it's time to pick up a new pocket-sized digital camera.

Anyway, we're boarding soon, so I'll post this and get some pics up later. Cheers!

Here's some pics from our big night, albeit without it going until like 4am (if you're a fan of foodie movies, you'll know the reference). Pics of Julie, myself, Chris, Rob and Chastity. This was the big fancy meal before our trip to Arizona. See how nice Rob and Chastity look together? And WHY exactly is he moving? Oh well... gotta get it out of his system I guess! Anyway, enjoy the photos below... and be sure to look for pics from our across country drive. I'm waiting to see if we have any interesting chase pics... running away from locals who want to lynch us, or local police who want to throw us in jail in return for massive bribes, and I'm sure the many beautiful places that make up America!

Jason as Arbiter Bibendi, last quiz for Rob (at least for a while)

Below are pics from this past Monday's quiz over at the Old Toad. We did pretty well, something like 12 out of 20. We always think we should have more, but it's usually a crapshoot. If we're lucky, we guess right from time to time. Anyway, the pics below show Jason reading, Jason with the Toad's manager, Jules, Jason with the winner of the quiz, and a couple pics of the group... including a none too flattering pic of Rob and Chris which I think Rob will be demanding I take down! Of course, if he hadn't kicked my ass in poker during my bachelor party, I might consider it. But at this time, he's SOL. Then again, he did get me a bunch of really nice cigars... and we're going to Vegas next week (after driving to Arizona) so maybe he'll get crushed in REAL gambling.

Jason's link fixed...

Hmmmm.... well, i left off a "t" in Jason's blog address.... it should work now, if anyone's interested!

Insert Title Here

First off, you HAVE to read my brothers first weblog entry. It's at jasongott666.blogspot.com. Really funny stuff. It's a run down of a recent interchange of emails between himself and this weird'o girl on Friendster. I think I started to create a Friendster page, but frankly, it requires a little more effort than I'm willing to put in these days. I think just doing occasional weblog entries is remarkable.

It's Sunday, around 12:45pm as I'm writing this. I just spent the last couple hours sitting in my backyard reading The New York Times as well as various pieces of the D&C. Joining me, my papers, and coffee, was a neighborhood mystery cat who hopped up on my lap for about an hour and purred. She was very friendly, and maybe I'll get a picture if she ever comes back. I think she's a Mainecoon cat, as she is very large, but looks like she could stand to eat a bit more. Then again, that's hard to judge as my own cat is so, um, mildly overweight!

I have to say, on days like this, it's nice to just sit outside and enjoy the outdoors - even if I'm just sitting on my ass reading the paper. Julie and I are thinking that next year's project will be having a stone patio installed in the backyard. Then, I'll extend the garden to be right up against the patio. We're also looking to add some privacy back there, particularly as our neighbor's house on the other side (not the new house next door) is kindof an eyesore. Big leafy bushes should take care of that, so long as I can thin out the trees hanging over the yard enough to let in at least two hours of light daily.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of progress photos as that project progresses. In the meantime, I think I'll head back out and get some photos. Of what? I'm not sure. But I haven't really gotten a lot of use of my digital camera. Of course, my bachelor party was last night, so I MIGHT have taken some pictues then, but of course not! Oh well... All I can say is, thank god we've hired a professional photographer for the wedding, or we might miss out on documenting it as well.