Dearth

Thanks to Wayne (@whall) for resurrecting my blog’s DNS entry. Now, who do I see about new content??

GalveCon 2011

Yesterday, Wayne and I drove 4 hours each way to Galveston to spend the day hanging out with @queenofpink and @hellohahanarf. We had a great time even if the late night drive home was a bit of a struggle. (Actually, Wayne took over the driving halfway home, which was much better and probably much safer!)

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NoVACon 2011 Recap

I finally took the time to go through the photos from my trip to D.C. for NoVACon and post them to my Albums site. I had a great trip and was happy to finally meet Cissa and Metalmom, as well as getting to hang out with Rachel, Bellaventa, Bubblewench, BlondeBlogger, Shiny, Poppy and Dawg again. Plus, several non-bloggers who were somehow still able to attend. I kid, it was great to meet them as well!

After my late arrival Friday night, I went into the city and met up with Cissa and her minions (aka kids) to watch the Cherry Blossom parade. We were eventually joined by her friend Courtney in time to watch an engine fire break out on one of the (under-powered) tow vehicles in the parade.

After a 30-minute delay for the fire, we watched the parade for a bit longer until we decided to head to the nearby Japanese Street Festival. We got some lunch there and Shiny met up with us to tour the festival for a while.

Eventually, we all went our separate ways and did our own things until the official meet-up in the evening. I accompanied Cissa and her kids on a quick tour of a couple of the exhibits at the American History Museum. Then, I walked around D.C. for a bit before heading to my (new) hotel to get ready for dinner.

Not Cherry Blossoms

As it happens, several of the other attendees were staying at the same hotel, so we got together before dinner and had a blast.

Eventually, it was time for dinner and we made our way to Otani Japanese Steakhouse where we met up with the rest of the attendees and had fun with fire. The group-agreed highlight of the event was when Wayne almost magically converted from a video image via Skype to an in-person appearance! Surprise! I’d been hiding Wayne’s presence in town until this moment.

Fire Demon - Not Wayne!

Back at the hotel after dinner the fun continued, though occasionally tempered (Think of the children!). A short rest later, much of the group met of for a last hurrah at the local Silver Diner for a late breakfast. Most of the remaining group headed home after breakfast; all good things must end, after all.

I, however, wasn’t headed home just yet. Instead, I accompanied Cissa and her kids to the Cherry Blossom Kite Festival on the National Mall. There, we met up with more of Cissa’s friends along with Shiny and his family. While I was walking around the festival taking pictures, a group of four international college kids asked me to take their picture in front of the Washington Monument. Without “any annoying kites”. With my camera. They were in high spirits and I can only assume it was some sort of prank, but I was happy to play along. I took a few shots including one I particularly liked, so I showed it to them. This resulted in a request to use their camera to take the same shot, which I gladly did. I have no idea what the point of the prank was.

As always, I’m already ready for another trip!

Vegas, Baby!

In about four hours, Wayne and I will be flying to Las Vegas to celebrate our upcoming birthdays (his is this SundaySaturday and mine is next Sunday).

I’m feeling particularly lazy pre-trip, so go read Wayne’s post about our trip. You could even win a copy of BioWare’s Mass Effect for the XBOX 360.

You can follow our escapades on Twitter, or follow the entire VegasBB crew, or just the #VegasBB tweets.

WHALL-anti-cats

I’m guest-posting for Wayne over at whall.org today. Go check it out. Now.

Santa Fe Trip: Day 3 – TequilaCon

Wow, what a great day!
Great food and great company
Great sights and great times.

As you may have guessed,
It’s time for a summary
Given as Haiku.

Santa Fe Trip: Day 2 – BeerHer

Saturday summary, photo-bullet style.

	On our way from Lubbock to Santa Fe, we passed a number of establishments named after various people we know (well, not really, but you know what I mean). Our favorite was this sign in honor of Dave2.
	We took highway 285 to get to Santa Fe, which turned out to be a big mistake. A portion of the road was down to a single lane shared by the traffic going each way. So we spent quite a while just sitting and waiting for our turn. My guess is at least 20 minutes, but I’m not really sure.
	When we finally did get to go, we soon discovered that for a large portion of the supposed single lane road, there was really no lane at all. It seemed very odd to be driving on a highway and have it become basically a dirt road for a good stretch.
	While we were stopped waiting for our turn, we decided to take the top down on the convertible. Wow was the weather perfect for this. It was so nice — definitely one of the best convertible rides I’ve ever had, right up there with driving around Kawaii in a convertible a number of years ago.
	We finally arrived at our destination, the Santa Fe Sage Inn. One of the nice features is a complimentary shuttle to and from anywhere in downtown Santa Fe (probably a 4 square mile area, I would guess). We took advantage of this to head to where we had last heard Karl was, but he was no longer there.
	Eventually, we met up with Karl, Geeky Tai-Tai, bellaventa and Libragirl at the Hilton. We got some food and drinks and hung out at the Hilton pool for a while. Eventually, it was time to go get ready for BeerHer.  The order in the picture, from left to right, is: Libragirl, Geeky Tai-Tai, me (in back), Karl, Wayne and bellaventa.
	We all met up again at the Santa Fe Brewing Company for BeerHer, along with NYC Watchdog and Poppycede, as well as…
	… Sarah!  It was great to get to meet and hang out with all these new people, though I felt like I already knew several of them. It’s a strange sensation meeting for the first time, someone you already know. The Santa Fe Brewing Compony turned out to be a perfect venue for the inaugural BeerHer, and we found an S-shaped table that was just right for the number of people we had.
	Later on, Marty and his wife Reba joined us for the tail end of BeerHer. It was wonderful to meet them as well as Marty is another one of those people whom I felt like I already knew.

After BeerHer ended, Wayne and I decided to head for a casino for a little while. We wound up at the Camel Rock Casino, about 15 minutes north of Santa Fe. We arrived too late for Craps, and there were just a few BlackJack tables open. We played BlackJack for a while and then hit the slots. We both made reasonable donations to the casino so that we can have good luck tomorrow.

Next up, probably some more casino time, some photo tourism and the main event, TequilaCon 2009!

(I’m staying up later each night of this trip. At this rate, I may not sleep at all tomorrow night.)

Santa Fe Trip: Day 1 – Driving to Lubbock

I had thought we were going to try to get out of town early in the afternoon, but apparently the fact that I didn’t really commit to it led to Wayne scheduling some other activities. Thus, our departure time was delayed until 5:30 PM (at the earliest). In truth, with a stop at Target to get Wayne some sandals, we really didn’t get going until well after 6 PM.

Thankfully, Wayne likes to drive, so he drove the entire time today. I’m not sure if I’ll be driving tomorrow or if he will continue. Despite the yawn, he drove at least five more ours.

We stopped in Lampasas for a quick dinner at Storm’s Drive-In, Inc. I like little places that I’ve never heard of, but this was just meh. We both had the (chicken-fried) steak sandwiches and we shared some fries. Very similar to Sonic, though the fries were quite different. Anyway, much driving later, we had the following Twitter exchange:

whall: What the heck are these synchronized red blinking lights all along the horizon in Sweetwater, TX? Like 270deg horizon
renagerie: @whall windmills, obviously. Couldn’t you just have asked me since we’re in the same car?

OK, I’ll admit that it too some time for me to figure it out, and I really wasn’t certain until we got close enough to see some blades passing near the lights (it was too dark to see much). Also, I’ve driven this route before, so I was at least aware of there being wind farms in the area.
When we finally got to Lubbock (our halfway point), we had a bit of trouble getting a room. The place I had originally chosen, but not reserved, ended up only have a smoking room available, and we didn’t want that. I called around to several other places nearby, but most of them had no rooms available. We eventually ended up at the Motel 6, where we had to pay $3 for WiFi (an oddly low, yet non-free price) and the beds are a bit too short (as shown in this image).

I should’ve gone to sleep at least an hour ago — I keep drifting off trying to finish this post. I tried to fix all of the resulting typos, but I may have missed some. I’d better get to sleep in case Wayne wants me to drive tomorrow (he’s been asleep for a while now).

Can’t wait for TequilaCon, but first, BeerHer tomorrow night!

Glass Renagerie

Glass Renagerie screen capture

I’ve been thinking of starting a photo blog for a while, but just never got around to it. Today, when I saw that Finn had her new photo blog up and running with WordPress, I decided to take action.

I asked Wayne about setting it up on his server (better bandwidth) and he said no problem. A short time later and it was up and running. Thanks Wayne!!

I’m going to try to post a photo per day, but not necessarily a new photo. In fact, I expect that most will be photos I’ve taken in the past and just want to share. I would appreciate any feedback, suggestions, etc.

And thanks, Finn, for the unknowing push and for the theme inspiration.

Davestin

 

Bad Monkey Keeping it Weird

 

On Friday night I went to my very first blogging event, Davestin! I had a great time at Opal Divine’s. I even took the bus downtown from work, though I hitched a ride back with Wayne. I think there were thirteen people there, including myself, though I may have lost count of some of the later arrivals. I spent most of the evening talking with Dave, Karla, Mags and Badger (and, of course, Wayne and Christy).

 

In addition to the custom badge and cool button-flair pictured to the right, Dave also handed out decks of playing cards featuring his artwork. I had wanted to order a deck of these cards before, but figured Wayne had probably ordered eight — which he had. I was going to get one from him, but now I don’t have to — Yeah!

By the way, the shrimp tacos at Opal Divine’s were the best I’ve ever had.

It would be nice if I could take the bus more often and more places, but it just doesn’t work out that way. The nearest stop is five miles from my house and requires a transfer to get to work. There’s also the issue of picking up my kids and delivering them to whatever after-school activity they have that day. Oh, well.