Fri, 18 Nov 2005

Here's some pictures from Margy and Steve's wedding.
It was really nice. NoseDive had it on her fishing boat, out of the Riviera Beach marina. Tour de ReBar was the same day, so we were thinking about doing part of that, and then riding to the marina, but instead we worked like dogs to replace the fence that blew down during the hurricane.

When we got there a crowd was already waiting to board. Steve's mom was relaxing in her chair, and Annette was videotaping the guests.

There was a lot of food, mostly middle eastern style. The seas were 4-5 feet, so the boat stuck to the intracoastal waterway. The wedding party got formed up, and moved to the back end of the boat (I think it's called the stern). Margy looked great, and the ceremony was nice. And quick. We watched from the second floor (I think it's called the upper deck).

After the ceremony was over the picture-taking continued. Here's four good shots of me and Linda. Except the camera lens was smudged. But the lighting was really good.

A bunch of Linda's students were there, so she sat with them. I got some good shots, except the lens was still smudged.

Here's a few more of Linda with her students, and one with one of the moms, who is also a volunteer at the school.

I like these shots of Community. The sunlight coming in through the windows had a great color to it.

Here's a couple more group shots with the last of the good lighting.

Now it was getting dark, people had been drinking for a while, and Bill brought out his camera.

Eventually our three-hour tour ended, and we all found ourselves back on the dock where we started. There were plans for the bride and groom to walk through a path of sparklers (sort of like crossed sabers) but we couldn't get the sparklers lit in the wind. Al and Sherri invited everyone back to their house for more festivities, which sounded like a great idea.
Back at the house the sparklers worked much better. Kids and adults ran around waving sparklers like light sabers. Amazingly, no one was hurt.

As we left the happy couple we could see that Margy was still enjoying herself. What a great wedding!

posted at: 07:28 | permalink |

Tue, 15 Nov 2005

Here's a rerun of a photo I took last summer.
It was in a bar up in Amherst, MA. I was captivated by the raw energy of the primitive artwork. I came across it while looking for pictures of Steve and Margy.

posted at: 07:18 | permalink |

Mon, 14 Nov 2005

An update to the bathroom page.
Now you can finally see the tile floors here.

posted at: 22:03 | permalink |

Garfield and Highbush had their pre-wedding shower on Thursday
at Al & Sherri's house. It was very nice. Lots of good food, got to meet Margy's mom and brother, and see some less-active hashers. Gf and Hb also received the traditional embarrassing items for the honeymoon night. You can see Gf opening one of the items in the second photo. They said the impetus for them getting married after 13 years of living together was when their cat died. Stay tuned for photos from the wedding itself.

posted at: 09:01 | permalink |

Sun, 13 Nov 2005

Linda made me a souvenier from last week's Gator game.
She scanned in the ticket stub from section 65, row 70, seat 20. I think it will make a good desktop background on my work PC.

posted at: 20:47 | permalink |

Fri, 11 Nov 2005

I got a tattoo.
I put it on myself. With a wet paper towel. Jerry at run and roll got some temporary tattoos made. So I put one on. I think it took three minutes off my time in the Friday night four mile run. And I didn't know I had that many freckles.

posted at: 22:58 | permalink |

Thu, 10 Nov 2005

Hong Kong to London in 22 hours and 43 minutes.
I saw the news about Boeing's record-setting distance flight in a 777-200LR Worldliner from Hong Kong to London in 22 hours and 43 minutes and I wondered how long it used to take to sail. So I google'd.
This page mentions a race from Hong Kong to London in 1859 between two ships. It took 120 days. I think I'd rather fly.
posted at: 12:01 | permalink |

I was the fill-in hare last night.
Because AI hurt his winky. We met behind the Kmart again. The cloaking device must still be working, because two different security guards rolled right past us in their golf carts.
    Us: "No, don't mind us, we're just drinking beer out of these coolers in your parking lot."
    Security: "Okay."
I hadn't actually scouted the trail. Instead I had spent a few minutes looking at the area on www.mapblast.com, and I had some ideas. I stocked up at the ABC Superstore on the way home (Reingold, Keystone Light, PBR, and a couple quarts of Mississippi Mud Black & Tan). Once enough people showed up, I asked for my 15 minute head start, started the GPS, and I was off. Westgate is one of your lower socio-economic neighborhoods, so there are still a lot of dirt roads and dogs back there. I tried to lay the twistiest trail I could, without getting bitten by a dog. I think it worked out pretty well. I couldn't find someone to drive my Jeep full of beer to a beer check, so I just stopped at the Blue Boar. Drib was close behind (but he didn't catch me) so he talked the bartender into allowing us in even with tank tops (oh the horror). The rest of the pack showed up quickly and killed the three pitchers I had provided. I laid a brief formality of a trail back to the start, which everyone except CA followed. He had a brief adventure in a low-income apartment complex.
The cloaking device continued to work during the circle, as the sheriff's deputy rolled by without stopping. Maybe it was because we employed the standard hash defense of singing "Kum bay yah" whenever law enforcement appears.Once the circle ended we headed to Bonefish Creek, where apparently it was Loud Chrome-Plated Harley night. The parking lot was just too full to park, so I bailed and went home.
Oh, and there's no pictures because stupid DST makes it too dark to take pictures with the camera phone. You'll just have to be satisfied with a map of the trail. Maybe the hash can take up a collection to buy me the flash attachment for my phone.


posted at: 07:28 | permalink |

Mon, 07 Nov 2005

Gainesville hasn't changed.
Much. We went up there this weekend to see the Gators take on Vanderbilt. Jenni and Charles let us stay at there house yet again. We met the three new cats on Saturday morning, and had a long, slow breakfast.

Then we went into town for lunch at Cafe Gardens. It hasn't changed much either. They did expand into the building to the west, but it's essentially the same place. Even though the game was scheduled for 7:15 pm there were still hundreds of older people in orange and blue everywhere. Not too many students, though.

We split up after lunch, with Linda and Jenni heading over to the Harn museum in the Cobra to see some art. I got on my bike and started riding around town and campus. Campus is still about the same; I was surprised just how much I remembered about how to get around. The new bookstore is part of the student union, and is really big. There are some other new buildings too. I cruised the used music and book places, and got some more food. I also rode past my old house at 703 SW 9th St. It has curbs around it, and the grass looks a little better, but otherwise it's unchanged. There was a girl studying at a picnic table in the carport where we used to wrench on the old VWs. I didn't bother her.
   "Hi, you don't know me, but I used to live here and..."
   "Get away from me, pervert! Help, police! Stalker!"
Just like old times. The cars in the driveway were definitely a step up from what we used to drive, though.

Then it was time for some real fun. I met Lisa and her sister and brother-in-law at Christian's fraternity house. I had seen the house for years on 13th St. It's three stories tall, with a big lawn and imposing white columns (now do you know which one I mean?). But this was the first time I had been inside. The first floor wasn't too bad, and they had a great barbecue. Then we made our way upstairs to the third floor, where Christian lives in "The Palace". It didn't really match the imposing facade out front. Let's just say the place looks like 61 young men live there. But they sure have some fun. Christian shares the Palace with three other guys, and it was standing room only. Or standing while leaning back and having tequila and margarita mix poured in your mouth room only. It was good tequila, too. I was disappointed that the photo of Lisa imbibing didn't come out. It would have made a great Xmas card shot. I think someone else fired a flash while my camera phone was making its exposure. We also got to see Christian's tiny (tiny!) bedroom off the side of the Palace, and his immaculate study area. And then Linda joined us in time for a margarita of her own.


Eventually it was time to go to the game. The spread was 19 points, and the over/under was 49. Julie and Lee had gotten us tickets (thanks!) and at first we sat with them in the 7th row in the northeast corner. It was like being on the field. Eventually, though, the people who sit next to them showed up, and Linda and I had to move to our real seats up high in the northwest corner. The view was actually better from up there, although with not as much detail. Vanderbilt was in the game the whole time, although the Gators did extend their lead to 28-14 at one point. With about four minutes left we were up 35-21, when Vandy scored, recovered an onside kick, and scored again. They were penalized for celebrating after the second score, so they had to go for a kick instead of two points, which left the game tied up at 35-35 at the end.

Time for overtime. Both UF and Vanderbilt scored TDs in the first overtime period. In the second period Vandy won the toss, so the Gators went first and scored a TD. Then Vandy was on a strong drive, when they threw an interception. Game over. Finally. Final score 49-42. We definitely got our money's worth.

The next morning I was scheduled to ride at San Felasco with Lisa, but motivation problems prevented it. So instead we hung at the C&J household for awhile longer, and were menaced by Captain Underpants, and then went geocaching. We did one at Bear Archery, which turned out to be a virtual cache. Then one at Lake Wauberg(?) which turned out to be guarded by mosquitos, and left us 0-2 for the day. Finally we all had lunch in Ocala, and then did the long drive home. All in all a really good weekend.

posted at: 07:43 | permalink |

Wed, 02 Nov 2005

P-rick set another classic trail tonight.
If by classic you mean a wandering, meandering, abstract approximation of trail. Me and Plop and Puke gave up halfway through and stopped at the Sandbar for some Bitburger. Mmmm.

There was a nice sunset on my way home from work. And I rode my bike down to the start. There were a bunch of serious runners there, since it started at Run and Roll. This might not have been the best introduction to the hash.

I hadn't been to the Sandbar for a while, but even though it's under new management it still seems the same. You can see Plop and Puke waiting for the pitcher, and Puke once it showed up.

Eventually P-rick showed up and ordered another pitcher of Bud for the hash, who arrived just behind him. Itsy appeared as well, after following trail all by himself. Sean, Biko, and Circumspector. Oh, and SMD got himself a boo-boo. Then we went back to the start for the circle, next to a dumpster full of rotting garbage.


posted at: 23:13 | permalink |

Tue, 01 Nov 2005

We only got one trick-or-treater this year.
It probably had something to do with the curfew. Plus I was only home from work for about 15 minutes before I went back out on the bike. One of Linda's cow-orkers lives on our street, and she came by with her daughter in the cutest little chicken suit. You have to look close, but you can see the red comb on top of her head. We didn't have any Halloween candy at all, but I did have a big Ziploc bag full of energy gels, so I let her choose one of those. She picked the mocha chocolate (with caffeine).

posted at: 07:13 | permalink |

Mon, 31 Oct 2005

Hashing and Dolphins football -
two great things that go great together. Yeast and GB did another football run yesterday. There was a good turnout. I brought both long-time slacker ChewToy and fresh meat first-timer Sheldon. There was a good run (4.98 mi) by Yeast, although both ChewToy and Sheldon opted to walk to the beer check with the women. Yeast supplied some sort of rum drink at the check, and personalized footballs for the FBI (Biko) and FR8 (Sean). Then back to the house to see the Dolphins (eventually) crush the Saints. We did a good circle during the first quarter, and Yeast and GB ran a raffle after each quarter. I didn't win anything.
Below, you can see the runners gathering, Yeast giving instruction, a long straight portion of the trail, and Sean wearing a giant piece of cheese on his head.


posted at: 07:15 | permalink |

Sun, 30 Oct 2005

Winey World had its last party on Saturday.
Yeah, right. Dribble and Winey may be moving (maybe) but I think there will be a few more events there. This one was mostly subdued, except for the fire. Locos decided he just had to have a fire, so Drib made it happen. He fired up the New Holland and started dragging logs and fence into a pile. Pretty soon the blaze was too hot to approach.


Drib was just having a ball with the New Holland. He said it was much more powerful than the old Bobcat. He had it up on top of a big pile of fence sections that had been knocked down by the hurricane. He was grinding it around on top of the pile, using it to break up the fence so we could burn it.

AI showed up with some good beer to counteract my cheap beer. So I drank his good beer. There's a weirdly-lit shot of Drib, one of Christian wearing Strawberry Shortcake's hat (there were a few people in costume) and finally one of me after I earned my wings.


posted at: 13:23 | permalink |

Sat, 29 Oct 2005

We all braved the curfew for the post-Wilma hash
and nothing bad happened. I got there a little late because we were on our way out the door to pick up a generator and a tank of propane from two generous friends when the lights came on! So we went to the hash instead. We caught up to them in front of Harry's, which was doing a booming business despite the lack of power or roof. Then we finished up at Tree's Wings, where the owner fried up chicken wings over propane, and let us bring our own beer. It was Addadichtomy's birthday so he got to run the circle, in his patented Angry GM style. Then we all had to clear out to make it home before the 7 pm curfew.

posted at: 12:00 | permalink |

Here's all my Hurricane Wilma photos.
The first one was actually taken a couple days earlier, on my way home from work. We were really getting a lot of rain, as a precursor to the hurricane itself.

We mostly stayed inside for the first half of the hurricane. The power went out about ten minutes into it. We looked out the window and watched the wind blow, and followed the storm's progress on the NOAA site. The DSL modem and wireless AP were running off the UPS, and the notebook computers were running on battery power. Once the eye came over us we went outside to look around. So did everyone else. It didn't look too bad. The house was still standing, although the Pineapple Park sign took a beating.

The house full of Mexicans across the street came out to check on things. Then it started blowing as the eye finished passing over head and the second half of the storm came. So we went back inside.

The fence started to come loose (just like last year). What a surprise. So I pounded some stakes into the ground to try and tie it down. It sort of worked. It was a good thing we had taken everything moveable out of the back yard.

Once I got the fence semi-secured we went out to see the hurricane. I really thought I would be able to take off with the help of the winds howling down the street.

Our next-door neighbors were out also. We stood out in the intersection and watched stuff blow by. Linda wasn't looking, and a piece of something hit her in the back of the leg.

After a couple more hours the hurricane blew over, and we went back outstide to check on things. The back yard wasn't too bad, although there was a dazed looking mourning dove up on the powerlines. The fence was down again. The city crews were there cleaning up soon.


We spent a couple hours picking up around the yard, and then decided to go drive around. We drove slowly down to Lake Worth. All the traffic lights were out, and there was a lot of debris, but we only saw one house with the roof off. We got downtown, and there were a couple places open. We parked to go to Ray's, and saw GH, so we all went in and had a beer. The chicken wings were coming out slow, so we decided to drive by the beach. On the way we passed by AI's house, and he was home. We stopped and talked with him for a while, and the Head showed up, so we got a group shot. AI's neighbor's house had the roof off. Across the alley from him was an aluminum canopy that had come down. We inspected the column, and decided that it failed because the weld had almost no penetration.


Then we drove a couple blocks down to Stiffy's house. He and IC welcomed us and offered refreshments. We sat around for a while, inside, with the lights on, because he had his generator running. I also got a shot of the beer keg graveyard outside the house.

It was getting dark, so we figured we should be going. Stiffy's car was blocked in by a very large fallen tree, so Linda offered to clear it for him. She got out her handy tow strap, hooked it to the tree and her car, and pulled it free. Pretty slick.

We almost made it home, but got stopped at a curfew roadblock a couple blocks from the house. Linda presented her voter registration card, did some fast talking, and we made it past. It had really gotten cold, around 60F, so we built a fire and sat outside, looking at the stars that we could see because there was no electric light anywhere around. Then we went to sleep, and waited to see if it would just be a bad dream in the morning.

posted at: 11:43 | permalink |

Fri, 28 Oct 2005

Plop laid a nice bike trail the day before the hurricane
It was lightly attended because people were busy putting up shutters and throwing their lawn furniture in the pool, but we still got eight or nine people. GoesDown showed up to show off her legs, and there is a distant shot of Wilbur. Princess and Tef showed up from down south. Plop made mac 'n cheese for everyone, and showed off the nice chainring tattoo on the back of his calf. And then we went home and waited for the hurricane.

posted at: 07:16 | permalink |

Sat, 22 Oct 2005

I did the Club Scrub time trial at Jonathan Dickinson state park
today (www.clubscrub.org). I finished in in 1:01:16. There were about 25 people there. I forgot my phone, so I couldn't take any pictures. And the size of the GPS track is large enough that it is difficult to see the details in this picture. But I put it up anyway.


posted at: 22:13 | permalink |

Thu, 20 Oct 2005

It was AI's birthday hash on Wednesday
so we all showed up down in Boynton. Nice run, two beer stops, lots of good beer that came in bottles and required an opener to get the tops off. And he had three kegs of home-brew. A stout, an IPA, and a cream ale. General consensus was to drink the cream ale.

The trail was good, and the pack had some difficulty following it. You can see AI giving instruction. I don't know where the blinding light came from. And there's AI wearing his crotchless apron.


posted at: 07:28 | permalink |

Sat, 15 Oct 2005

I got to see some computer techs in the wild yesterday.
It was like something out of Gorillas in the Mist. They had established a social order, and were happily picking lice off each other. Then one of them started adjusting a power supply. The picture isn't composed too well, because I didn't want to get closer and spook them. You can see the tech actually using a hammer to work on the power supply. Then another tech grabbed the power supply and began running around the room, doing a sort of ceremonial dance, to show the success he had in the hunt that day. I thought it would be best to blur his face.

posted at: 22:26 | permalink |

I saw a nice looking car outside the auto parts store today.
I noticed that the hood was one of those carbon fiber hoods like the ricers use, but it was tinted the same color as the car, so it didn't stand out at all. Very subtle. The whole car was like that, with no big wings or scoops. It looked like a 240SX, but different somehow. I was taking a picture of the hood when the owner walked up. He said that it was a 1995 240SX, but that it had a full Japanese-spec Skyliner kit on it. Whatever that is.

I just looked at the picture, and the reflection of the sky really makes it look funny. You can still see the weave of the carbon, though.


posted at: 22:17 | permalink |