Dentistry

I got 5 fillings today. It was only supposed to be 4, but I guess they missed one. I don't think they charged me for it though, so there's that. It took way too long and way too much Novocaine to get my lower jaw numbed, not to mention the pain of the the trial and error checking to see if it had kicked in yet. As a result, the left side of my face was numb until about 2 this afternoon. Between licking my lips and my hair being mussed from sitting in the chair for 2 hours, I was feeling like the Joker all the way up to lunch. "Well hello beautiful!"

The Daily Show

Every time I watch the Daily Show, and I mean every time, I ask myself why I don't watch it every night. Now that the full eps are online, mayhaps I'll start in on watching the weeks worth on the weekends. The commentary is spot on, Jon Stewart's delivery never fails, and the guests are full of win. Watch the below bit on don't ask/don't tell.

Flight 595

I'm back in the Bay Area. I got in something like 14 hours late. Flight out of Omaha to Denver was delayed from 4pm to just past midnight. I missed my connection (as you may expect), got booked on a flight from Denver -> SFO at 6am, that one got canceled, got another at 8:30am. Slept (if you could call it that) on the floor at the gate in Denver.

All the shops in OMA closed at 8, right after I had my first, and thus only, 6 dollar beer. It wasn't anything special (Bud was 5.25). Denver's shops must have closed at some point before I got there, as it was fairly deserted there. This meant I had next to nothing to eat from 2pm central when I had lunch (Vindaloo!) to nearly 7am mountain. Lucky for me I had a box of granola bars with me, so I made do.

That's about it for the end of the trip. I'll never fly United again if I can avoid it.

TDK++

Dark Knight view count: 2. Next up: IMAX in SF (hopefully).

I went by myself, as my cohorts go to bed early like. They did come with me to mark another fast food chain to my list: Sonic. I was tired of seeing those commercials without ever going to one, which I suppose makes it effective advertizing. Perhaps not cost effective, but I'm in no place to argue. Grilled chicken sangwich, vanilla coke, and a chocolate malt. Traditional drive in grub. Well, traditionalish, should have had a burger/fries, but I stand by the Vanilla Coke and the Malt. It was pretty good, I've got to say. The grilled chicken in particular was quite good, and I do love me some vanilla Coke. So much so, in fact, that I broke my HFCS rule for it.

Oh, something else: anyone who's played any GTA game can tell you you're more likely to see other cars of the same model you're driving. There's a real reason for this in that sort of game, it's a system memory thing. The same sort of thing happens to me all the time now. Ever since Adam got his Mustang, I see them everywhere. Now that I'm driving a wonky little PT Cruiser, I see them all the time. Here's a picture (unrealted to this concept, but funny none the less) - pastel car showdown!

PT Bruiser

There's a hotel room and rental car shortage in Omaha. Word is the Junior Olympic Swim Trials are in town, so the company was scrounging to find rooms and cars for us this week. As a result, I've got sort of bottom of the barrel on both counts:

No, I'm not in a basement, in fact I'm on the second floor. That tiny little thing on the upper left is a window. I have a (sort of) view of the roof of the bar down stairs, where they charge 5 bucks for a beer.

That's my car. It's even more obnoxiously blue in person. I can't help picturing it parked at a beach with a surf board sticking out the back. Anyone who's played any Grand Theft Auto games knows you see the car you're driving on the road. In video games, it's due to memory constraints. In real life, it happens the same way, but it's just a mental thing. I've been seeing them all over town starting with following one all the way across town from the airport. None quite as eye catching as mine though. My old Albany cohorts spotted me driving back from the office tonight, and came back to pick me up for dinner and beers. Score!

Dollhouse

It's all happening again! The World Series is on fox again this year. Run while you can Joss!

Fat Man!

One more post vacation thing: it may or may not have come up the last time I saw you, but I lost 15 pounds. I made sure not to bring it up unless it was brought up, so I didn't point it out where no one noticed. I tried to keep to eating healthy in NY, and I did ok in Auburn, but by the time I hit Albany it was over. PF Changs, Hibachi, BBQ, breakfast, and so on. It just got worse in NYC: pizza (one of my old favorites sucks now, BOO!), hot dogs, beers, it was all over the place. On the other hand, I did alot of walking. Anywho, I was expecting a bit of a roll back. Low and behold, on return, my weight is unchanged. I fell off the push up wagon, so I think I lost the little muscle I had gained, but my pants still feel loose, so I couldn't have put that much back on. There's a gym here in the hotel in OMA, mayhaps I'll hit that up.

Of course, I just had a 13 ounce NY strip and a baked potato, so my number has probably increased. Time shall tell.

I should be asleep

Yeah, it's late.

I found out an hour or so ago I have to be in to work at like 7:45. Still, I'm awake. Knocked Up is on HBO, so I'll use that ending as my "up way too late" point. I've got a whole lot of things I want to talk about, and I know if I don't do it now, it will just slip away, so here's a whole pile:

New York went great. The whole state. Yankees game was sweet, despite being (literally) 3 rows from the top. Them winning certainly helped on that. Seeing a whole mess of people I haven't seen in forever was great as well. Pictures will follow, when I'm in the same state as my camera.

The most touristy thing I've ever done in New York: photographed about 7 of the Parade of Statue of Liberties they put up for the All Star Game. Again, photos to come.

I spent... way too many hours of the last 2 days in planes or airports. Delays in JFK on the way back from NY got us in about 3 hours late. Came home, straight to bed, up at 7 to pack, right back to SFO. Minor delay in SFO gets me to Denver late, and despite my connecting flight also being delayed I missed it by 10 minutes. All the same, I'm pretty sure my luggage wouldn't have followed me if I had. So, 3.5 hours waiting in Denver, picked up my car and bag, promptly got lost as hell. I did get to see Iowa, so, that's good, I guess. Travel sucks. The one good thing about it was I got to play alot of Tactics A2, which rules. Twenwy is fun in it's own way, and to some degree seems like the perfect DS game, what with how many of it's features it uses. It just wouldn't work on any other system. On the other hand, graphics aside, A2 could run on a GBA, but it's just so much fun. I highly recommend it. It is so choice.

Taking off from Denver I spotted something really odd at first, but upon thought it makes perfect sence - crop circles. Well, sort of. Usually the farmland you fly over is all patchwork style, so it was trippy to see verdant circles in the brown, but hey, irrigation systems work that way. I saw them as we drove past, on "the trip". Yay efficency.

Oh, last thing, and I might split this into a separate post, as it's funny as hell to me, and sort of major: if you're reading this, you probably participated in a social experiment I conducted over the vacation. It began as a grooming experiment: I wanted to see what I looked like with a beard. I was pretty sure I looked rediculous, but I kept it anyway. Odd thing: no one commented on it. Or almost no one at least. A list will be provided later of those who did speak up, along with photos of the deconstruction of the vacation beard.

Guess that's it. Knocked Up is over, it's almost 2. I have to be up in 5 hours, and probaby give a presentation in 8 or so, despite not having worked in 18 days.





Oh, and in case everyone else you know isn't telling you to, watch Dr Horrible. Just remember, I was first. Well, probably. You have to pay for it now (I didn't have real net access when it was free, so I have to as well), but you know it's worth it. I can't wait for the sound track to come out. And check over NPH's shoulder in the opening scene:

Yeah, it's Serenity. Made of pots and pans. You love it.

Why So Serious?

Go see Batman. Now.

I don't care if you already saw it. Go again. I might just go see it every night this week in Omaha, what the hell else am I going to do?

Bobby Flay made me eat cheese

Yeah, I know, it goes against my primal nature. But I'm not going to leave food on the plate when salad was 10 bucks. Backstory: we went to Mesa Grill, because we were nearby and met my mother after she got done with some work thing. She offered to take us there, but we arrived pre-dinner, so all the could do for us was seat us at the bar and sell us overpriced drinks and appetizers/salads. There were 6 items to choose from. All but one featured cheese prominently. I ordered the odd one out, a chopped salad, and even that had cheese all up ins. So, I'm not going to leave it there, and how many chances am I going to get to eat Iron Chef cooking, right? So, I ate it. And it wasn't bad. Perhaps this will start me down the dark and cheesy path. Perhaps not. Either way, it's a good thing we got there early, I wasn't really comfortable with my mother paying for dinner for us at a place Zagat estimates at $55 a person. I did enjoy the experience of eating there at all though. Maybe we'll budget in a trip to something on par for next time.

Camp Rising Sun

It's been a packed few days. We got into Albany on Thursday and went out to PF Changs with Jen and Justin - high quality Chinese food, I was quite pleased with it - then saw Jen's apartment and cats. Friday we hung out with Adam during the day, doing some last minute wedding gift shopping, and then went out to Hibachi for dinner with quite a crowd, and finished the night off with a few games of Bang.

Saturday was the big day, the center piece of our trip. Jared's party was a great time - good food, lots of people we'd not seen in forever, a good time all around. Pics will be posted when we can get them off the camera. After the party Erin/Chris/Linda/Steve and I all went to see Wall-E in Kingston before making the run back up. The movie was great, as to be expected from Pixar, and I'm glad we finally got the chance to see it, even if at the expense of seeing Hellboy II.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the trip so far was on the drive to the Theater. The party was hidden away on the back roads of Red Hook, and we quickly got lost on our way out. Chris and Linda had a GPS, so we let them lead the way, despite that taking a different route than we had taken coming in. About half way through our dark and winding path, we rounded a turn, and the light from our headlamps through brief illumination across a gathering of people just off the side of the road. There were perhaps 25 of 30 of them, ranging from children to adults, standing shoulder to shoulder with arms locked behind each others backs and their heads bowed. One man stood outside of the circle, dressed all in black, the rest were wearing street clothes. Other than the light we introduced in our drive by, they were in complete darkness - no campfire, no flashlights, nothing. They didn't seem to notice our brief presence. A sign glimpsed as we drove by named the place Camp Rising Sun.

SYR

Some further details on the flight from Philly: we were on a twin prop plane. 36 seats. Smallest plane I've ever flown on. There was no jet way, it was just walk out on the tarmac and up the stairs that folded out of the door. 1/6th of the passengers were wearing orange; these Syracuse people take their college sports seriously.

This weekend has been good, though a bit of a blur in retrospect. I can't really recall what we did on Saturday. I know we ate at Shari's on Fri & Sun, and I got some grilling in. My steak confidence has increased, though I under estimated a few of them. Not that big a deal, as that's correctable given more time while the opposite is not, and there were enough rare fans that it worked out anyhow. Still a lot to do in this chunk of the state. Still to come: wine tasting, Meghan's concert, Sammi's soccer game. I'd upload pictures, but I'm without the proper equipment to do so at the moment.

Oh, right, that's why I forgot about Saturday, we went out drinking for Meghan's belated 21st. We found someone who can beat me at car bombs, an impressive feat indeed.

Empire State

If you're reading this, I'm likely in the same state as you. Oddly, SYR is the first airport I've been to that doesn't charge for wifi. Trip was good, slept a bit on the red eye. We'll see in a few hours how hard jet lag hits. Oh, and the Philly airport has a chick fil a, so I'm aiming for stopovers there every time I travel east from now on.

Gas

I filled my gas tank on Sunday. Just over 50 bucks for 11 or so gallons. I get 200 miles to the tank. That means biking to work saves me 2 bucks a day - not insignificant! - and only takes me an extra 15 minutes or so. I'd been planning on doing once a week, I might just have to bump that up.