Lend me $10 and I'll buy you a drink...

It's coming up threes, boys, coming up threes...

2009-02-08T18:00:00.002-05:00

So the new semester is a ball-breaker. I thought, since I took 7 hours last semester, taking 9 shouldn't be to much different. It is. I have a 12-page research paper for my anthro class, and a 10 page research paper for my English class. I have six books over 300 pages to read for the semester, in addition to the 30+ pages per week for anthro, plus research for both papers. I believe I have bitten off more than I can chew.

The problem is, I'm not sure which one I should have dropped. The anthro class covers two requirements for my degree, the English class is about writing papers, is required, and will hopefully be extremely helpful in the future. And the history class is required, and taught by my (so far) favorite prof, the one I had last semester. Ugh.

Hopefully I'll keep my head above water, and learn my my mistake.

I'll tell me ma when I get home...

2008-11-15T19:44:00.003-05:00

So, Mom is on Facebook. That is odd.

My "Shane MacGowan's Fucking Teeth" porter is now 9 months old. And excellent. Drinking a pint right now. I hope I still have the recipe for that.

So, I have two more weeks in the UCOL class, one more speech and a final in the COMM class, and one final in the HIST course. Almost done with the semester. It has been surprisingly easy to adjust to, at least compared to what I was expecting. Depending on how I do with the last speech and final, probably pulling a 4.0. So I'm pretty happy with that.

The countless white crosses in mute witness stand

2008-11-12T22:52:00.006-05:00

I hope you thanked a Veteran yesterday.

Two days ago was the 33rd anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. If one were interested in such things. For instance, if one memorized the song, and used to sing it in the shower. Not that I know anyone like that.

Who's a good dog?

2008-08-07T18:39:00.008-04:00

When the Ex Wife and I got married, we bought ourselves a dog as a wedding gift to each other. We met a breeder near Kokomo, and picked out a pure white puppy with ice-blue eyes. His parents were a purebred Malamute and a wolf/husky mix. We named him Akasha.

He grew up to be a massive animal, and when we had our first child, we decided to give the dog to my uncle. He lives on a lake in northern Indiana, with plenty of room and no one to keep him company. So we gave the dog up. My uncle, the eternal bachelor, had never had anyone or anything depend on him. But he soon (after some initial growing pains) came to love the dog like a child. And it was obvious to anyone who met them that the dog adored him, too.

That was 9 years ago. Akasha would have been 11 in December. The average life expectancy of a dog his size is 8 or 9 years. He injured a hind leg years ago, and my uncle spent a lot of money to have him put back together again. He injured the other hind leg this weekend, and the vet recommended having him put down. Akasha was euthanized today, around 5:30.

He was a crazy, untamable, untrainable Baby Huey of a dog. I loved him, and my uncle loved him, and he knew it. I'll miss him a lot.

Wearing corduroy britches, digging ditches, pulling switches, dodging pitches

2008-07-09T13:19:00.002-04:00

So, out of the blue, my lovely wife gave me my anniversary gift early last night. Accidentally. She received a package from Amazon, and thinking it was something else, opened it in front of me. It was the Pogues Box Set.

Apparently she pre-ordered it, it was out of stock, she forgot about it, and then it came in. :-) I'm a happy, happy man. Listened to all 5 cd's last night. Great, great stuff. If you're a Pogues fan at all, I recommend it.

Its hard to bargle nawdle zouss with all these marbles in my mouth

2008-07-06T16:28:00.003-04:00

Weird Al. Next time he comes to your town, go see him. He will make you his bitch. With laughter.

It was the most fun I've ever had at a concert. I don't think I stopped smiling the entire time.

A word about the Whitelies Lawn at White River State Park. It is a really enjoyable venue. They hand out lawn chairs for free, you don't have to rent them. Get there early, they're first come first serve. You can bring your own chairs, blankets, food, and drinks (no cans). They were organized, pleasant and competent. We were at the very end of the line when they opened the gates, and we were inside within 10 minutes.

From the opening tunes of "Polkarama" to the end of the stream-of-consciousness insanity that is "Albuquerque," Weird Al was entertaining, fun, and a joy to watch. His performance is loud, funny, and Al himself is indefatigable.

My only real complaint was that there were many, many costume changes. With the exception of "Fat" and "Amish Paradise," and maybe "White and Nerdy," taking 5 minutes between songs to change was unnecessary. I know I would have been happy to just watch him do his thing wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. During changes, clips from the short-lived "Al TV" showed on the big screens at the back of the stage. I could have taken or left them.

Aside from that, someone nearby us lit up near the end. But nothing like, say, the WEEN show last year. :-)

Overall, an incredible show, and I'm very pleased that we went. I will go again.

EDIT: Now with pics!

I know in my heart they think I'm white and nerdy

2008-07-04T00:29:00.001-04:00

Full review of the Weird Al show tomorrow. But in a word: awesome.

It was 1962 and I was 2 years out of school

2008-06-25T23:26:00.002-04:00

Started Back to School on Monday. Can anyone recommend a good pair of headphones?

I went to an ale-house I used to frequent...

2008-06-15T21:08:00.003-04:00

The Wife and Children took me to Brugge Brasserie for Father's Day. In the midst of a soccer game that appeared to be somewhat important (there were a bunch of people watching it on the wall-sized tv, and cheering), we ordered the charcuterie board. A fine mix of sausages, fruit, nuts, and bread. It was excellent. :-) There was a stone-ground mustard that was simply out of this world.

Main courses were hangar steak for the Wife and I, and peanut butter and jelly crepes for The Children. I had the red curry and bleu cheese sauces, the Wife had roasted-garlic aioli and horseradish sauces, and the kids had the homemade ketchup. The food was excellent. One note...if you ever order a hangar steak (from Brugge or anywhere else) have it cooked rare or medium-rare. Any more done, and it will be dry and tough. Rare, though, it is a work of art.

For dessert, the Wife and the Girl had Nutella crepes, and the Boy and I had Crepes Suzette. Again, spectacular.

For drinks, we started with a White ale, and then moved to the Tripel de Ripple. As always, the beer was phenomenal.

After lunch, we went to go see Kung Fu Panda. It was pretty cute, and the kids really enjoyed it. I really want to see Wall-E, which looks like it could be pretty decent. There was a trailer for Fly Me to the Moon, which I had not heard of, but looks like it could have promise.

Today, we went to Mom's and had a cookout with the kids, The Brother and his Wife. A good time was had by all. All in all, a fantastic Father's Day weekend. :-)

It's all skittles and beer, and lying in the sun

2008-06-04T13:28:00.002-04:00

Indy is becoming something of a beer town. June is looking busy...check out DIG-B's list.

It is surprisingly comprehensive.

Ales for Adoptable Tails? Really? Wow.

Seriously good eats

2008-05-30T08:42:00.003-04:00

I made Steak au Poivre last night. Great googly-moogly. It was the best meal I have ever made, and one of the top two or three I've ever eaten. I used the recipe referenced above, but I used strip steaks instead of tenderloin. And I added about a cup and a half of grated aged Cheshire cheese to the sauce. I paired it with a little bit of salad, and a 2004 Mondavi merlot.

I hate to brag, but it was out of this world. Every once in a while, I pull something like that off, and think to myself, "Why am I working with computers, instead of doing this?"

A point of interest, though. When you deglaze the pan with the brandy and light it on fire, yeah, it burns. Hot, and high. I had a column of flame about 3 feet high, and it lasted every bit of 30 seconds. Long enough to set off the fire alarm. Totally worth it, though. :-D

Edit: Yeah, it kind of looked like this...

In retrospect, a few things I would do differently next time. I would use tenderloin...the strip steak is a great piece of meat, but I think the tenderloin would have been even more mind-blowingly awesome. And I would reduce the amount of cheese I used in the sauce. It was excellent, but just a touch too thick. I'll cut it by about a quarter, or a third, next time.

Thanks, Alton!

The Girl's Poetry Reading

2008-04-18T08:45:00.003-04:00

The folks over at Second Story hosted a poetry reading for young writers last night, and The Girl was able to go and participate. She had a great time. Here's her reading.

I take delight, in the juice of the barley...

2008-04-10T19:54:00.007-04:00

My latest homebrew, "Shane's Fucking Teeth Porter," is getting steadily better (named in commemoration of Shane Macgowan...I made it right after going to a Pogues concert). A week and a half in the keg, and it's much more drinkable than it was a week ago. Good stuff. Pretty, too. :-)

I fear now I've lost you to health and good cheer

2008-04-08T18:40:00.003-04:00

By the way, check out my buddy Erik's homebrew kegerator. I helped him finish it up this past weekend. It's oh so pretty.

http://generik420.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!60025C41882D90CE!779.entry

And many an hour of sweet happiness, I spent in that neat little town

2008-04-08T18:31:00.003-04:00

I registered for classes last night for the summer sessions. It was a weird feeling, going back to school. Less than a month from now, I'll be taking classes. It's exciting, but it's pretty scary too. I'm a middle-aged father of two with over a decade of experience in my field...what am I doing going back to college?

Hopefully, I can get into the communication class I want, and avoid a speech class. I don't do well speaking in front of people. I know most people have a huge fear of public speaking, but I get so nervous I get light-headed and dizzy. Not pleasant.

Other than that, taking a "Music for the Listener" class. There's not an overabundance of 100-level courses to take online during the summer. So I took what I could. :-)

We'll see what happens...hopefully this isn't a big waste of time and money.

We sang a song, of times long gone

2008-03-26T10:38:00.003-04:00

Had a pretty good Easter with the family in Logansport. My folks, my grandmother, aunt, cousin, her kids, uncle, and my brother and his wife were there along with the kids, the wife and I. We had ham, potato salad, meatballs, crazy psychadelic bread, Irish soda bread, pasta salad, cake, and of course, RED CABBAGE. My grandmother showed my cousin how to make the infamous red cabbage dish, and she told me how to do it. I must try it soon. SOOOOO good.

We had dreams, and songs to sing

2008-03-18T20:42:00.003-04:00

My personal heroes are dying at an alarming rate...Arthur C. Clarke died today, aged 90.

In other news, got my official acceptance letter from IUPUI today. I start classes in May, I believe. This makes it real. And scary. :-/

In other other news, I found out that you can make a hell of a black and tan with Mill Street Coffee Porter and Bell's Batch 8000. Had a few too many last night. Was rough getting to work this morning.

Come on all you rambling boys of pleasure, and ladies of easy leisure

2008-03-07T16:27:00.009-05:00

Wow. Got back from Chicago at 4 this morning. That was an awesome show.

We stopped at Three Floyds in Munster on the way up. Had some incredible beers, some okay food, and I got a Dark Lord t-shirt. Alpha Kong is spectacular, as is Rodenbach Grand Cru, and Dogfish Head Fort. They limit the Fort to 1 bottle per customer...it's 18%, but drinks like wine. Good stuff.

Got to the Riviera around 5:30, seating didn't start until 6, so we went to a Border's across the street. We were the 9th and 10th people in the door. It was general admission, so we got to the wide-open area pretty early. A security guy saw us and informed us that there was a balcony, with first-come-first-serve seating. Well, after how my back felt for standing through the Ween show, we decided to check it out.

Got some great seats on the balcony, two rows from the front. Show was supposed to come on at 7:30. 8 went by, and I started getting antsy. Finally, the opening act came on. Not impressed. They were called the Ike Reilly Assassination. Ike Reilly is like Bob Dylan, if Bob Dylan only had a fraction of his normal talent, and sold out to do pop songs. After they were done, it took 45 minutes to change the instruments out. By the time they were done, I was getting pretty pissed, and impatient.

When Shane stepped out on stage, though, all was forgiven. Let me say, I understand that Shane is no longer a capable, or even acceptable, singer. Back in the day, before he rotted away from boredom and booze, he was barely passable as a singer. His gift was in writing songs. Now that appears to be gone, too. He exists now purely as a personality. But what a personality. He came out on stage in a top hat, and the crowd went nuts. His vocals were better than I feared, but I can't imagine anyone not already familiar with them being able to make them out. When he spoke to the crowd, he was so slurred I didn't understand a word he said all night.

After the awe of seeing Shane passed, what really struck me were the other members of the band. James Fearnley is, in a word, phenomenal. He plays accordian like Angus Young plays guitar. He runs around, he jumps onto and off of things; he did a jump from the drum kit and landed on his knees that should have put him down. The man is simply amazing.

Spider Stacey was spot-on, but I feel bad for the man. He's the tin whistler for the band. About 2/3 of their catalog has a tin whistle, and even those only have chunks of it. The man has spent half his life whistling for 15 seconds at a time, then tapping his whistle against his thigh in time to the song.

Phil Chevron was great, and his vocals on Thousands are Sailing were spectacular. I'd only heard Shane's version, and it's a completely different (and better) song with Phil singing.

They did two 3-song encores, and the second one included Star of the County Down, one of my favorite songs, and one I'm relatively sure the Pogues have never recorded. It was a fantastic rendition. I'm pretty sure that if the band had been willing to do more encores, they'd probably still be playing. The crowd was nuts. There was a huge fight in front of us, where two drunk (middle-aged) women nearly came to blows, and their families started lining up for a tussle. Thankfully a security guy broke it up before it got ugly.

Overall, a real blast of a show. It was great to see Shane, but in all honesty, the real show was the rest of the band. There was a chemistry there that even I, totally musically stupid, could see. They're all immensely talented artists, and it was an honor to see them do their thing.

Gary Gygax

2008-03-04T23:49:00.001-05:00

I'm sure I'm the millionth person to write about this on their blog today. But the passing of Gary Gygax hit me unexpectedly hard.

When I was younger, he was kind of a hero to me. He made a living being a geek.

I fell in love with my first wife through gaming. Our characters fell for each other, and that enabled us to admit that we had, too. I've gotten my second wife involved in gaming as well, and it has allowed us to spend many quality hours together.

Some of my dearest friends, past and present, I met or became close to at the gaming table. Several through high school that I won't name individually, Pendragon, the entire Egbert/Wright/Smorodinsky Co-Prosperity Sphere, my great friend Bob, Jerry, who owns the local game store. These are all people I wouldn't have met or become close to without RPG's.

Gaming is the one thing (aside from my wife and children) that I truly look forward to every week. Almost every day. If I miss a game, I get cranky and depressed. It allows me to flex my imagination the way nothing else I've found can. It allows me to blow off steam by slaughtering orcs and ninjas on Friday nights. This might sound laughable, but it allows me to explore parts of my personality that I otherwise might not. Demosthenia is a part of me, as much as it may scare me.

For all this and more, for the uncountable thousands of hours I've spent laughing and drinking and hanging out with my gaming friends, I have Gary Gygax to thank. I know he wasn't a saint...real people rarely are. But he was the father of, by my light, the greatest hobby in the world. Thanks, Gary.

Says my aul' wan to your aul' wan, "Will ya go to the Waxie's Dargle?"

2008-03-03T12:01:00.004-05:00

I am anxiously awaiting the Pogues show on the 6th. Taking a half day on the 6th, and a whole day on the 7th, off. We'll probably be bushed from driving up to Chicago and back in one evening. I can't wait.

Eclipse Video Posted

2008-02-26T12:38:00.004-05:00

Please ignore my inane chatter. I had a few beers, and I get weird when I get near a video camera.

Eclipse Video

2008-02-26T11:36:00.002-05:00

Working on converting the video of the eclipse right now. Should be up later this afternoon.

Gonna be a blackout, blackout tonight

2008-02-25T19:41:00.003-05:00

Ok, here's my log from the eclipse.

2/20/08 Lunar Eclipse

20:11 - Telescope & binoculars are outside, cooling. I have a fresh tape in the camcorder, and battery is charging. Eclipse begins in about half an hour, should reach totality around 22:00 and go almost an hour.

20:41 - Eclipse starts in 2 minutes. Clear skies, 10 degrees F, low wind. Headed outside.

20:51 - Definite shadow on lower-left side.

21:01 - Almost entire lower-left quadrant in shadow. Faint reddish tint beginning to appear at edges.

21:12 - Using telescope now, too. Reddish tint is very pronounced with scope on low magnification.

21:23 - I would estimate moon is half in shadow now. Reddish tint plain to naked eye.

21:41 - Very thin sliver remains. Color is a very deep garnet red. Gorgeous.

22:05 - Five minutes into totality. Tawny red color on the northern side, lighter on the southern side. In one word, beautiful.

22:37 - 37 minutes into totality, starting to brighten up just a bit. Starting to get cold in fingers and toes. 30 or 40 more minutes, tops.

23:05 - 13 minutes post-totality. Very cold, camcorder battery died. Going inside. Very faint white sliver visible at bottom-right of moon. A great evening of observation.

I'm just a fool, a fool driven to dust...

2008-02-22T15:16:00.003-05:00

I spent 2.5 hours outside on Wednesday night videotaping and logging the eclipse. I have about 45 minutes of video, and a page full of notes. It was 10 degrees, -15 wind chill, but I really only got cold in the last half an hour or so. Good times. :-) I'll be posting the log here, maybe the video once I get it transferred.

'Cause custom like yours, I could have any day.

2008-01-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

The wife has purchased tickets to see The Pogues in Chicago. On my birthday. *drool*

My wife rocks.