Binary Menthol Asparagus Nuclei

*Sheri recently got a promotion calendar from a company that's trying to get her to buy them as gifts for clients, which she has no intention of doing, so that sample found it's way into my hands. Now I have a calendar for 2011. What's the first thing that I put into it? Not my birthday, or Sheri's, or our anniversary, or anything else like that. The first thing to make it onto the calendar for 2011 were the recently released dates for next year's Ohana. Sad? Perhaps. But I am not going to miss it next year. Period. OK, if you want to know something that is either sadder than that or an indication of how good a party this is, depending on how you look at it-there are people who have already reserved their rooms for the 2011 event.

*Heading out to Tiki Terrace again on Sunday evening for the next Ohana Night (not to be confused with the FOM weekend of a similar name). Maybe this time around I'll try their zombie, since I wasn't too impressed with their mai tai. I think I'll ask the bartender for their recipe for that mango colada that Sheri likes while I'm there.

*Not that it's all that surprising, but I have exceeded the storage capacity of my iPod Nano. Guess 8 gigabytes doesn't go as far as it used to. So, that means I'll be putting a full-size (standard) iPod on the wish list for the nearish future.

*Just when I thought that the mosquito population may be on the way down, we get drenched with all this rain, and the so-called 'flood' mosquitoes come out. These are the ones the are even more vicious than your standard mosquito and are active at all times of the day and night, to boot. Hate 'em. Hate 'em, hate 'em, H-A-T-E them. But, it is ever so slightly satisfying to watch a dozen or more of them bounce against the garage screen in a futile attempt to get at me while I work. That is, until I actually have to go outside. I would say that the dogs are getting it far worse than I am, but even though they get swarmed every time they go out, they don't seem to care, so that doesn't really count.

*May have started seeing signs that Reka's age is catching up with her more than we want to admit, or even think about.

*The anniversary party at the Chef was a blast. At least the half of it that I got to go to was. Wasn't quite as packed as I thought it would be (not a bad thing), and the bands weren't quite as loud as I thought they might be (also not a bad thing). I think I like The Concussions better than Wraygun, but that may only be because The Concussions played two sets and had CD's available. Wraygun had a chick playing sax, which is hard to top, though. Tried a Dr Fong, which was pretty good, and a scorpion, which was just OK. Their hot and sour soup continues to be the most mystifying blend of flavors I have ever encountered in any restaurant. Not to say it's bad, or anything like that, but it's just differently flavored than any other soup by the same name that I have had the chance to try. It was also nice to meet some more of the Red Palms family, and I will apologize in advance to each and every one of those whose names I will forget before I see them again. It was nice to see that there was a bit of competition going on for what I had donated, even though Lake Tiki had a whole display of stuff set up at the back to the room. It was also nice that even though TAT teased me more than once, I resisted the urge to go overboard with my beverage consumption. The most mind blowing part of the whole evening was the after-Chef drop-in at the Bamboolodges. The only way I can think of to describe the things I saw in their basement would be to say the it's the Smithsonian Institute of Tiki Culture. Made me feel like a rank-ass amateur collector. Not to say it's going to stop me from getting more stuff, but it sure reminded me of my place in the grand scale of things. All in all, a most wonderful evening. Secret plans were set in motion, alcohol was transported across state lines, and I got Maister Brau-ed for the second time in a week. What more could you ask for?

*Looks like Friday the 20th will be the next time the Blue Moai Room will be open for consumption of beverages, unless I end up demolishing the area in an effort to construct the new bar (keep reading). I was toying with the notion of going out for dinner beforehand, but there's really nowhere tropicalish in the area, and the get-together at the Chef is the next night. Not to mention that I think Sheri is working that night, and she doesn't like being left out of the fun.

*The fate of the Four has been decided. The form it will take for each of them has not.

*The Blue Moai room has gotten a bit stagnant. Time to do a remodel. About 2/3 of the space works really well, so that part I intend to leave alone. It's just that the whole bar area really doesn't work well at all. Or maybe it would be better said that it doesn't work the way I wanted it to. Gonna store a couple pieces of furniture that are over there, and then build a more functional (hopefully) bar area. I have to admit that part of the genesis for this idea came when I heard Sheri mention that we were going to convert the other downstairs room into a library. Oops. That kinda takes my idea for putting a bar in there and tosses it out the window. But, that kinda depends of if she ever gets that room cleaned out, which is looking doubtful at the moment. Still, I think she wants to keep a bit of a foothold in the basement, so I better not get too grabby, lest I end up loosing ground, and good will, in the end. So, I'm thinking that the bar will be on the right at the bottom of the stairs, and the other room will just be another seating area and extra display space for my collection. A tiki-esque library, if you will. And, at the same time I'll be working on that, I'll be trying to come up with an idea for a sign to go in the stairwell. Or maybe at the bottom of the stairs. Not sure which yet.

*A break in the rain and a day of sunshine and warm winds let me finally haul the mower out and tame the wild savanna that my yard had become. Seeing the herds of bison crossing the yard made me think that it was finally time to do something about the grass.

*Just waiting to hear back from Julie on what color she'd like her signs to be, then that project will be done and out of my way. And only a couple of months late (ish). Still have the idea for the fridge project, but I'm still not sold on it. Plus, I haven't been to the shop in a while, so I have no idea what's been changed since I was there last.

*

Spooky Poodle Noodles

*Crap. I just realized that I haven't had any coffee yet today.

*Double crap. I just realized that I'm probably going to have to wait till the end of the year for season 6 of Lost on DVD.

*Triple crap. The cost of the cars and the refi may have killed our chances at even a brief end-of-year vacation.

*Seems that a contingent of the FOM will be descending on Trader Vic's in Chicago tonight. I, however, will be at work. So, no mai tais or hot Hawaiian waitresses for me. Need I even mention just how much that completely and totally sucks?

*I offered. That is my complete defense to the whole incident. If I see her about to try and cut something, I offer to do it for her. Sometimes she accepts, other times it's taken as an accusation of incompetence. My reasoning is simple in that I'm used to working with cut up fingers more than she is, and, at the very worst, I get paid sick time off of work. Neither of those is the case with her, and she often does very scary things with knives. My offer today was met with the response of 'I can do it myself'. And she did fine, right up until the very last cut she made. It was that last little shifting of her grip that made the whole piece of bread move, and the blade of the knife went right across the side of her finger. Fortunately, her fingernail stopped the blade from going down to the bone. Unfortunately, she got a couple of days off of work and a tetanus shot. All I could say was that I could really, truly, earnestly, and deeply empathize with what she did, and next time, I'll slice the bread.

*Got a Friday off and no real plans to speak of. I do need to finish potting Julie's signs, and there's a desk full of paperwork that needs to be done, but those don't really count since they are absolutely no fun at all. Also need to get some gas for the mower, which again leads me right to something that isn't any fun. I could tackle the basket of shredding that needs to be done, but that's only entertaining for about 10 minutes or so. Right now, it's looking like Friday will just be filled with all kinds of unfun 'catch-up' type projects. Whoo-freakin-hoo.

*Just got word that all tropical drinks at the Chef on Saturday are going to 34% off. And they were already super cheap to start with! Still, knowing that whatever I save on beverages still wouldn't be enough to pay for a divorce, I don't see more than a couple on the horizon for me. I am betting that the place is going to be packed to the rafters, since there are already going to be 2 large tables just of FOM folks. What I have yet to be able to figure out is where the bands are going to be set up to play. I think that taking sonic refuge in the bar area with the Boss may be necessary to keep her from getting a migraine. Not really sure what time we'll be heading out that way, either. The bands start playing at seven, so it would probably be good to get there and get some food before the place goes completely insane. I'm thinking that if I take (and actually use) my camera, I could possibly use it to keep myself out of any major alcohol related trouble. Complete evasion of trouble of any sort, though, is something that remains basically impossible for me.

*The Goat remains ominously silent.

*The concept had seemed so totally ludicrous as to be laughable at first, but I am beginning to think that it just may be what will fit the bill to such an exacting degree as to be painfully astonishing. I just need to polish the inflection a bit and work my way through the accent, and then the Work Character will be all ready for public display and usage. I thinking of maybe Tuesday as a rollout date, but we'll see how things go.

*Kittyluv seems to have vanished completely off the face of the planet, and I think she took Dhawk with her. Bluegirl flits in and out of the fringes on occasion, and the rest are but infrequent visitors in my dreams.

*

Arcsine Over Tangent

*It's orange. The name of the color on the can was "paprika", but it looks pretty damn orange to me. But, she's happy with it, the project is done, and her stuff has been moved out of the garage, so I can't complain a whole lot. At this point I think I'm even willing to forget the slight orange, excuse me, 'paprika' colored haze that settled on most everything in the garage.

*I think I could very easily end up spending lots and lots and lots of money in the I-Tunes store if I'm not careful.

*Was Hot Tub Time Machine better than The Hangover? Nope, not in my book. Amusing, yes. Definitely a guy movie. Just not as funny overall as The Hangover.

*Why it is that I always have good ideas for projects that involve a ridiculously short timeline, I'll never know. For now all I can say is that if I can get what I'm working on now done by Saturday, it will be awesome. If not, it'll have to be awesome for next month, even though it will lose a few degrees of awesomeness in the process.

*Got an interesting call from the State's Attorney this week. Turns out that the guy whose DUI case I was supposed to testify in this week failed to show up at some pre-trial meeting, so the judge cancelled the case and put out a warrant for his arrest. I love it when things come to such a neatly self-fulfilling ending.

*One more step taken, but for now the rest of the path remains shrouded in mystery. Will there be an announcement Saturday? All I can do is wait and see.

*Concrete is heavy. Seems to be a simplistic statement, but it gets more complicated when you're trying to guesstimate just how much weight someone else can pick up. I need the concrete to be the weight in the bottom of the signs I'm making for Julie, but the pots themselves already weigh 12 pounds on their own. If I throw 50# on concrete in there too, the wind won't blow the sign over, but that would all but eliminate the mobility factor. I'm thinking that I'll be going with about 20# per pot, which should put the total weight of the end pieces in the ballpark of 40#. That should still be moveable by a person, but be pretty resistant to being tipped over by the wind. I hope.

*Pearls Before Swine is now officially my #2 favorite comic strip of all time, right behind the immortal Calvin and Hobbes.

*Both cars are now functional and finally back in our possession. Our bank account is also $2K lighter as a result, making me think once again that I am not in the correct line of work. On top of all that we just refinanced our mortgage to a lower rate, so we're out another $900 to make that happen.

*We were offered yet another free dog. This one was a 4 year old, 200# mastiff. While it certainly would fit the bill for what the Boss wants in the next dog, it just isn't a time when we can take on such an animal.

*For some reason, the spider population this summer has exploded into freakishly high numbers. Must be all the mosquitoes they're eating.

*Another night in the Blue Moai Room, and another good time was had by all. There was an exploding cocktail shaker, a command appearance of the kilt, and general agreement by all females in attendance that they'd do Sean Connery at the drop of a hat. I still have yet to clean off the top of the bar, and came within mere fluid ounces of acquiring a cripplingly wicked hangover. I discovered I can trade Oreos and Dr. Pepper for a hug, and drinks that taste strongly of lemon still really don't agree with me (bad bad bad tequila memories). And even thought the annex was open, the oppressive humidity kept anyone from using it. I have also hade the decision that if I ever get my hands of the purple room, not only do I want to build a new bar in there, I want to try and build a booth in the one corner. Or, I may just build the booth in the main room in the corner where the bar is now. That space has always been a pain in my ass, but a booth would work there quite nicely.

*The so-called 'beanbags' are actually full of corn, and I don't think we ever had any real hope of beating Bart and Steph, but beyond that, it looks like Cornhole will be something the Boss and I can enjoy and actually play against each other at a fairly equal level.

*Seem to be hitting a stretch of time when there's just way too much fun stuff to be doing, and not enough time to be able to do it all. Not sure what's going on Friday (Trader Vic's maybe?), but there's part two of garbage pickup on Saturday morning, the Chef event Saturday evening, and Kane Co Flea Market the whole weekend. Next weekend got a family dinner on Saturday and Ohana night at Tiki Terrace on Sunday. The weekend after that is Festiki in Dayton. Just a few too many things going on all at once. Might just be time to fire up the ol' cloning pods.

*It is an extreme rarity for me to work a "normal" Monday through Friday work week, but I did this past week. If I hadn't swapped a day so I could go out to the Chef next weekend, it wouldn't have happened. Anyway, these 5 in a row workday schedules suck. Now I remember why the weekend used to seem like such a wonderful thing. Still, I won't be going back to that schedule anytime in the near future, if I can do anything about it. This week I'm on 3 days, off 2, on 1, off 1. Ahhhhh. That's so much better.

*I knew there was a name for it, but never knew what it was. Now I know it's called Mid-Century Modern. And thanks to Tim for pointing me in the direction of Atomic Ranch magazine so I could find that out. Now if he could just point me in the direction of a few hundred grand so I can redo my whole house in that style.

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