Fourth Week in January 2011

Monday was a very busy day at work. After work I managed to have a few minute dinner with VK, and by a few minutes, I mean a like ten, I met her at Whole Foods, and we had the pizza special. She had to go to an appointment. I went home and literally slept as soon as I got home. Tuesday and Wednesday were normal days, and then Thursday was the next edition of Mass Chaos Bowling. I bowled a 399 series, this makes my average 136 so far.

Friday after work I went to Jillian's for dinner. Lee, Maggie, Anna, and David were there also. I don't think any of them quite believed how much food I ate. We then went to the dance. I had a funny moment shortly after we got to the dance where I was out of breath after one short dance, but later in the night I was just fine. It took me a couple days, but I figured out that I just ate a lot before hand.

After the dance, I joined Joe, James, and Vesper at the UNMC ice rink (who even knew they had one) for a benefit skate-a-thon for Parkinson's. It was a magical experience, not too cold, you could see stars, there was a group of skaters who did 'Thriller' on ice, and we also did the chicken dance!

The view from the skate house. Not pictured: Joe on his butt.

Saturday was Beddescon. I figure you may not know what it is, but that's okay. It's an all day board gaming event. I wanted to go last year, but I was on call. This year, I was not. It was in the conference room at a hotel, and there were probably about 40-50 people who came and went, maybe more.

I played six different games starting with Castle Ravenloft. This is the second time I've played it, and the heroes won again, this time fairly handily.

The second game that was played was Tsuro. It can be played with up to eight players. We played three games, and I did not win. It seemed to be very popular game, at one point there were three different sessions going on.

Surprise, Annette showed up. Well, I wasn't surprised, but she was that I was there. Jess and I got some lunch ... okay I got lunch and she went with me. Afterward, CJ showed up and we played a game of Puerto Rico. This is the #2 game overall on the site, and it's a good one, but it's not my second favorite. CJ won, but for the first time I can remember, I did really well. There was a table in the corner that seemed to be playing all games with a betrayer in it ... I decided not to befriend anyone there ... you know, just in case.

We then played a game called Vikings that was new to me. I didn't win, I came in second out of four. I liked it, but I may have gotten really lucky with how my game went, so I can't really say much about the game until I play a few more times.

The next game was a game that Kevin liked to play, Empire Builder. This is an old school game (1980) of railroad building. I generally suck at this game, and this time was no exception. In my opinion, it relies too much on luck, but like life you have to overcome your bad luck. I started out bad, but closed well.

The last game that was played was a favorite of mine, here. We played the five player game, and it was really interesting. In the end I didn't win, but I thought it to be quite exciting. This game is easily in my top five. I like that so many different strategies can be played by different people at the same time and all can work, in other words, it's a well balanced game. In the end, I only won the first game, and only as a group, but it was very fun.

CJ, Jess, and I left immediately after the Ra game and went to the Maple Road location of La Mesa for dinner. VK, Bente, and Amber were already there, and Chris joined us shortly after that. Yes, that's a mixed group of friends. CJ and Bente had not met before, and they were very entertaining to listen to talk ... very entertaining.

After dinner, Chris, CJ, and Jess went back to Beddescon. While VK, Bente, Amber, and I went over to Boondockers for karaoke. It was a big crowd, Joe (the instigator, I mean organizer), Lindsay, Merinda, Troy, Amanda, Chris, and Ben ... I'm sure I am missing someone. I sang Moondance ... badly, I need to get a few songs and practice them. The best part was five of us dancing behind Bente when she sang Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. And that was Saturday, it was a very magical day.

Sunday was the latest installment of Mass Chaos. Afterward we went out to eat at Village Inn, our 40 minute wait time was about ten minutes. I took the camera in and took some artsy monochromatic pictures.

You can see the rest of my Village Inn pictures here. The rest of Sunday was spent being nappy.

Next week: snowmeggedon!

Third Week in January 2011

Monday evening I got a late phone call at work and I ended up not getting out here until 1900, and then I took the slow way home through Hy-Vee and a couple phone calls and got home around 2015 with some groceries.

Tuesday was one of the strangest days I have ever had.

• I was woken up by a migraine at 0600, took meds and went back to sleep.
• I woke back up at 0815 and went to work.
• I worked for about an hour and came home.
• I slept from 1030 to around 1200.
• I woke up feeling great.
• I ran errands.
• I went back to work.

Usually if my meds don't work in half hour, they aren't going to. Napping doesn't usually help headaches either. It was just strange, but a happy strange.

Wednesday after work I was feeling super restless, the kind of boredom and desire for excitement that I don't get much anymore. Troy and Merinda were very funny and understanding ... they made me laugh, and broke the tension using just two cats and a handful of hair ties as props.

Thursday was the first ever Mass Chaos bowling adventure. I did really well in the first game, I bowled a 180, but then finished badly and ended up with a three game 418 (corrected). I really think I need to get my own bowling ball. It would help tremendously, and it would be under $100.

I had Friday off, so I got up and got the snowblower working and cleared the driveway. I then went out to Whole Foods and went shopping in preparation for the cheese party on Saturday. I bought a Pecorino, which is made from sheep's milk ... more on this in a little bit. I came home, had a nap, and then went to get Kevin for the dance. We were going to go out to eat at China Buffet, but the line there was crazy, so we ate at Chipotle instead. I ended up at the dance, then left to pick Maggie up at the airport, tried fixing my radio's time issue which amused Jillian, then headed back to the dance. I went home early, and got some sleep.

Saturday was the cheese party. My Pecorino did not win, but I did like it. Lisa's cheese won, but I didn't like it very much, I thought it was weird. Here are a few scenes.

I tried Vivian's homemade cheese to be nice, but then liked it!


My prize for the 'cheesiest' joke. Photo credit: Matt


The new cheese champion is crowned.

You can see the rest of my Cheese Party pictures here, Matt has some, start here and go towards 'newer', and Jillian posted starting here and go towards 'newer'.

It was snowing when I left my house, the party went on for several hours, and by the time I got home there was a pretty good drift piled up around the garage and front door.

This led, on Sunday, to the first ever cancelation of Mass Chaos. I woke up about 8:45, and got out to snowblow and shovel the drive and sidewalk at about 9:30. I figured it would be about 90 minutes to finish. Eek, that was a lot of snow. I gave up on it twice (and then kept going). The street plow came through about half way through, so that made it better, although I had to reshovel the end of the drive afterward. I'm really glad we did decide to cancel Mass Chaos. I'd have never gotten out of the neighborhood.

I'm also glad I started so early, I was having people over at 1400 to watch both football games and playing some board games.

So just a quick few words about football. Thanks Bears, you did well this year. All of you whiners, just lay off Cutler because he doesn't react like (you imagine) you would in the same situation. If you're playing in the NFL, you're plenty tough already, it's not a league for _______.

As for board games. We played three games, two were new to me. The first game I played was Castle Ravenloft, which is a Dungeon and Dragons game. It was Lindsay's first time playing any D&D game at all. We later played a game of Creationary, which is like "Pictionary" only with Lego's. It turned out to be quite funny with a lot of flexibility to the rules. We also played a game of Princes of Floren, which I didn't win, but I just feel like I should.

Second week in January 2011

Monday was the start of on call. The only thing that happened was some light, powdery snow that covered the area. I upgraded my iPhoto to '11, and on Tuesday I worked with the facial recognition feature, it was funny who it would mistake for someone else ... do I look like Jenny? Really. I also found a bunch of photos that I thought were lost forever from 2002-06. Yay! Wednesday I stayed home and didn't do much.

Thursday after work VK came over and we had dinner and then did a 20 minute yoga workout with Merinda too that was horribly difficult. The lady in the video could not have been more amazing with her flexibility. I was still sore on Sunday, and I wasn't trying very hard to match the lady at all.

Friday after work I came home and played some video games. After it seemed like there would be no calls, I went to the last 1:15 of the dance, and then our to Alvarado's afterwards.

Saturday was a whole lot of sleep interrupted by the occasional work issue. When I was awake, I played Borderlands. Later in the evening, Maggie came over and we watched Singing in the Rain. It's always amazing to watch the dancers, and I have two thoughts, modern dancers just plain rip off Donald O'Connor's Make 'em Laugh routine. The other thing that blew me away was Gene Kelly standing up (slowly) from a kneeling position with toes pointed backwards to standing on his toes. He did this without waving his arms, just legs and core muscles, it was amazing. We had to watch twice to make sure that's really what we saw. I tried to find a YouTube video of it, but I couldn't.

Sunday was the latest installment of Mass Chaos. After Mass Chaos, we went to Brewsky's at 153 and Q to watch the Bears game. This was the Bears first playoff game with Jay Cutler. It was a fairly dominating first half by the Bears. I know a bunch of people have thoughts about the Bears, I do too.

The Bears are a pretty boring team, but they are very good when they just do what they do. I admit, the Packers are a better football team. If both the Bears and the Packers played a 100 games against random teams, I would expect the Packers to win more, however. The Packers were built to be the best team, but the Bears were built to beat the Packers, and oh by the way, they aren't too bad either. The other thing about the Bears that I find interesting is they can, especially the defense, act a lot like the second run the Bulls had with Michael Jordan, they conserve energy when they don't have to play hard. The offense got them out to a big lead on Sunday and then the defense kind of coasted. This is not necessarily a compliment. The difference is that Michael Jordan had a killer instinct, and I'm not sure the Bears do, of course no one had it like MJ.

Here is another thing that makes me think the Bears should do well on Sunday. Vegas likes to make money, and the line sure seems like some sucker bet. Packers by 3 and over/under of 44. I bet the 'smart' money is going with the Packers and the over, that's what the experts are saying, the Packers winning big, I heard one expert say 33-17 Packers. Ha! Vegas will soon have your money. In two games this year the composite score was Packers 27, Bears 23. I think there is a possibility that the Packers could blow out the Bears like the Patriots did, but it's unlikely. Whenever any NFC teams matchup, I think 'close game with the home team winning'. That's my prediction this week, if so, hello Super Bowl.

First Week in January 2011

I had a headache Monday through Thursday of last week. It was no fun at all, but I made it to work every day. Tuesday I took on call for a coworker, I thought I was going to do it all week, but it didn't turn out that way.

By the time Friday rolled around, I felt better, but I was cranky. Thank you to all my friends who helped to cheer me up with e-mails and text. After work I joined a group of people down at Malara's for dinner, then we headed over to the dance. After the dance I went out to Alvarado's with a different bunch of friends. The people I hang out with are quite fun.

Saturday during the day I went out with Kamber to have lunch at Schlotsky's. She didn't eat all over hers, but I sure finished mine. She shared what happened to her when all the Millard schools were put on lockdown following the shooting at Millard South on Wednesday. I'm certain it was a scary experience.

In the evening there was a game night at Sarah's (small, don't fret if you weren't invited) apartment. I met VK for dinner at Summer Kitchen Cafe before heading over to Sarah's. We started off playing Imaginiff, then played a game of Quelf, and finally the most epic game of Things ever. Suffice it to say it was not mature, but I was laughing so hard I was crying, Joe could barely breathe, and Frank had to lay down on the floor. I was home not too late...

...because Sunday's version of Mass Chaos was at 0900. I was going to go home and sleep, but somehow that didn't happen. I ended up at Kaleb's house watching the Chiefs game. They didn't win, in fact, it wasn't a good game. After watching the Bears play all year long, watching the Chiefs play was a vindication of the style of play the Bears have on defense. Most tackles by the Bears are surrounded by Bears players. The Chiefs by contrast, had only one or two people near every tackle.

When it was obvious that the Chief's were not going to win, we played a couple games of Roll Through the Ages. I like the game, but it's kind of obvious that I suck at it. I would like to send out a big thank you to Julie and her cheesy dip. After I left there, I went and met VK for a while and we wandered around Sam's club and looked at huge over sized items, like two gallons of mayonnaise. I then went home in the snow and parked in the garage!

2010 / 2011 Bridge Week

Monday I got a surprise invitation to play Cutthroat Solitaire at VK's house. Naturally, I won, but both VK and Kristie made it close at the end. It's a fun game that kind of plays into a few of my strengths, pattern recognition and peripheral vision. I have been beat at it ... I think, but not by Vivian.

Tuesday was the roughest day at work in a long time. I was very frustrated, and I had to remind myself that the worst day at my current employer is about an average day at Cox Communications. I did need to come home and unwind however. That is what laundry is for.

Wednesday was the latest installment of Pathfinder. It was the craziest ending of a session I have ever seen. We were just wrapping it up when Chris (Bypoe / Human Monk) and Jess (LaSandra / Half-Elf Rogue) decided to try to disarm the door to the room we were going to rest in. They tripped something and a portcullis slammed down, with four of us on the inside, and those two on the outside. Grrrr. We spent the next twenty minutes (of real time) trying to find a release for it. It was quite the cliffhanger with a construct (robot) approaching them and us stuck behind the portcullis.

Thursday night was a special edition 'game' night at Kaleb's house. By game, I mean the Husker's bowl appearance. One of the big problems I have with the bowl system is that teams don't always show up to play, and it is hardly ever the fault of the coaching staff. Sometimes the players on one team aren't ready to play, or don't look interested, or think they should have been in a different, more prestigious bowl. The Nebraska team looked that way this year. Oh, and quit your whining Nebraska fans, having a good football team is something to be treasured, not a birthright. If you can go to a BCS game once every five years you probably are doing pretty well.

Friday I relaxed all day and then got ready to go the Jitterbugs New Years party. I had set up duty. I had a good time, but so did a lot of people. I was very happy with my camera.

This was the view of the fireworks from the Eagle's Lodge parking lot.


Okay, so I'm not quite as in love with this as when I took it, but it's still a pretty dang good picture.


I sat out the shim sham to take a few photos.


Maggie and Jillian risked serious razor burns to pose for this picture.

The new year dawned with, what else, a party at our house. In celebration of the new year, I changed my clothes four times in two hours. I also had some trouble drinking, so I didn't.

There were camera shenanigans ...


... dancing shenanigans (yes, this is actually dancing) ...


... and just plain old shenanigans.

A good time was had by most, if not all. I went to bed at 0445. You can see the rest of my New Years party pictures here, and Jillian's are here. The rest of Saturday was spent at home recovering my energy.

Sunday was the latest edition of Mass Chaos. We had are largest crowd yet, sixteen. Immediately after Mass we went out to eat at Don and Millie's to eat, and then to my house to watch the Bears game. We lost, but we're in the playoffs and heading in the right direction.