April!

So, I tend to let months fly by faster than I can say "I really need to blog more", but it seems that March has passed me by already. Hopefully this won't be my only entry for April, but you never know. I've become a lazy blogger. On the flip side of that coin, I've apparently become a much more motivated worker. I think I owe that to having a job that I actually enjoy.

So, the usual stuff is going on, I guess. The kids are getting bigger and doing new things. I'm hanging out. Occasionally playing video games. Working. Recording songs. Etc.

The weather is getting much warmer, and spring is finally here. OK, that's about as lame a paragraph starter as I could possibly craft, but it's true anyway. With spring come good things, like not wearing a giant coat, not shoveling snow, getting outside for walks, actually meeting our neighbors, etc.

I have to go off on a tangent here. I may or may not have talked about the Orson Scott Card theory of Philotics before. I don't think I have. Anyway, according to Card in his Ender's Game universe, there are lil' things called Philotes that kind of tie the universe together. People that develop relationships also develop Philotic Connections. Yes, this is all fiction, but it explains nicely the way that when I haven't seen a friend in a while and I start thinking about that friend, the universe sort of seems to arrange things so that I reconnect with said friend. It happens to me all the time, and probably to you as well. I truly believe that SOME sort of connection is made between people that's beyond physical.

For example, I was talking to Ryan the other day about not having seen Reuben in a while. That night, Reuben called me. There was no conversation between Ryan and Reub, it just happened independently. There are other examples. I've found myself wondering whatever happened to person X, only to go home and find out that they've friend requested me on Facebook.

Anyway, lately I've been trying to track down a friend of mine from high school named Mike. Since I now live in the same town as his parents, I looked them up in the phone book to see if I could find his number from them. Upon looking in the phonebook, I realized that they had moved...to the house that's literally out my back window. Our back yards touch. Crazy. Weird. Philotic connection? Either way, perhaps I'll meet them again soon, since it's spring and people are outside. (See? This all connects.)

Still, calling old friend's moms isn't high on my cool things list, so I just sent a FB message to his brother. LOL. That seems to have worked, as I got his phone number and sent a message. We'll see. Go philotes go.

Too much going on

Yes! I have TONS of free time now! It's a crazy, weird feeling. Yet amazingly, I'm able to fill it up with a whole bunch of stuff going on. Too much! How do I do this to myself?

It's not entirely true. Yes, there's a lot going on -- mostly stuff having to do with unpacking boxes and organizing furniture -- but there have also been plenty of TV watching nights. Those fill up fast when I'm watching all three CSI shows, a bit of V, a touch of Survivor (for whatever reason) and a bit of Biggest Loser (to feel good about m'self)...yeah. Sloth is the NEW homework!

So yeah. Time to haul that treadmill back downstairs and get back to exercising. Or maybe just wii fit, which almost counts as exercise. It'll be nice to actually do some of that without a GIGANTIC PICTURE WINDOW through which the neighbors get to watch me doing yoga poses and running in place.

I went for a rousing D&D session at T-Rav's place last Saturday. We finally got a chance to try out 4th Edition, and it exceeded every expectation. Absolutely awesome. Thanks to Lars for driving me down, and to T-Rav, Lundo and Amy for playing.

Lars drove me back to Benson on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, I woke up and drove back to the cities for my new nephew's baptism. Sunday night we drove back to Benson. Know what? That's four trips to or from the cities in two days. Know what else? It wasn't bad at all. So to all ye bold heroes with qualms about the drive to Benson, COME VISIT ME! IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL! ;^)

I signed up for NaNoWriMo again, but I think I'm giving up. I just don't have the motivation that I had last year, when I was completely insane. My new motivation is to hit level 80 in WoW before the baby comes. We'll see how that goes.

Tired

Pashooooooooo...

It's been over a month since I've written anything. That's no good, but I assure you I have my reasons. See, I've been studying for the bar exam, and it's sucking up a lot of life. My bar review class meets essentially every night, and I'm still working full time of course. I don't get any time off of work until July 16th, but at that point I get 2 weeks off. I anticipate that my days will be full of studying at that point, however. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

My bar review course has been interesting and a bit grueling. Most of it is lecture, but there are always practice tests to complete, and some of them are actually turned in for grading. I've been told that the Barbri program tends to exaggerate when they grade practice exams -- exaggerate on the underside in order to motivate students to work harder. There have been two so far that have been graded, and my grades have certainly been crappy on them. Ugh.

One point of fun and relaxation thus far came last weekend when Kerry and I met a bunch of our friends for the triumphant return of Phish to Alpine Valley. The show was an absolute blast. The boys were completely on fire -- their playing was tight, the sets consisted of a bunch of songs that made Kerry and I very happy, and everything went off without a hitch. I really couldn't have asked for anything more. It even occurred during a lull in my classes, so that was fantastic.

I'm pretty tired this morning. It's early, of course...currently 6:46 but I've been up for a little while now. My daughter tends to wake up early. I was up late last night watching Clerks 2, and it was incredibly well done. Super funny movie, and very very true to the original. Makes me want to watch the rest of the Jersey movies. Well, not Jersey Girl. I still haven't seen that, but I've heard it's crap so I haven't had any motivation.

Well, that's about all I've got at the moment. I'll try to pop in again soon. Stay classy, Minneapolis.

Too old for rock and or roll

Ugh. Wow. I'm sore today.

So last night, I went to the Triple Rock Social Club with my cohorts Ryan and Travis. We saw, among others, the band Valient Thorr. I probably blogged about them from the last time we saw them...we were introduced to them because they opened up for the Sword a while ago. I'll let you read all about it on Travis' Blog.

For some reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to spend some time in the mosh pit. As T-Rav mentioned, it was a very friendly and helpful pit. I still managed to get elbowed in the face twice, and I seriously thought I was going to have to come in to work and explain a shiner. Thankfully that wasn't the case -- my eyes are quite normal. Well, they're bloodshot, but other than that they're normal.

We had a ton of fun at the show. I have a couple of V.T. albums, but still can't recognize more than like one song. They were very energetic and fun to watch, though, and their music made me pump the ol' fist a time or two. You know, before being knocked to the ground and whatnot. I must say, I still don't know what he's talkin' abowwwwwwwwwwwt.

It was really good to get out to a show, as I haven't seen any live music in a long time. It was fun to hang out with the guys, too, because I don't spend enough time with my friends. I'm generally kind of a social butterfly, and being cooped up in a classroom has really hampered that. But hey, on this coming Monday I'll go to my

last
law
school
class
ever.

And that's something.

The dreaded three point five

Last night, I was scheduled to play some D&D 3.5 with a different group of friends. It almost feels like cheating on a significant other, in that I'm totally devoted to 2nd edition AD&D, and I'm currently in the midst of an adventure with my group. (The adventure is a 1 fight over the course of 3 hours, 8-player affair, though, and we honestly don't do a lot of playing in the semi-annual playing sessions). I wanted to try out the new(er) system, and I wanted to do something that I haven't done in a role playing game in far, far too long: I wanted to be a player.

I rolled up a character and everything. It's neat. I'm a rogue with aspirations of being an assassin, and I should be pretty cool.

Then Gwenner got some sort of a stomach bug. She puked a few times yesterday. Not cool. I opted to stay home with her. Because of this, the DM canceled the D&D session. Yep, that's right. Because of me, and my character's absence.

OK wow. So, let's see here...this is a very very type-A personality group that I'm getting into. They know that I'm in law school. The DM's wife is a lawyer, so they know how this is. I think that they're expecting a commitment that I am in no way ready to dive into. Therefore, perhaps it's in my best interests to just stick with my own group. We'll see. Maybe in an opening sequence of derring-do, I'll leap to my (character's) death or something. That would be interesting. Or maybe someone should get some 4th ed. books and I can play as a player with a different DM. If you're reading this, you should think about being that guy or girl. :D

Gwen is feeling much much better today. It wasn't the flu after all, just some sort of upset tummy bug. It breaks my heart whenever she's sick, though. Puking is so difficult for a lil' punkin to understand. She was a trooper, though, and today she makes little silly puking noises and talks about not feeling good. It's super cute. She woke up singing this morning, which is also adorable and has honestly brought tears to my eyes on a couple of occasions. I don't want to be an overbearing dad that forces her to go one direction or another with her life, but she's seriously very very musical for her age, and that makes me beam with pride and puff up like a peacock. She doesn't just toddler-sing, she actually carrys a tune. That's impressive to me. I know I'm biased as all get out.

SHE'S A GENIUS! AN ABSOLUTE GENIUS! I HAVE A WUNDERKIND! OK maybe I'm jumping to conclusions there, but I love her tons and I'm very proud of her. :)

Mario Madness

I love video games. I just adore them. And in particular, I adore old video games. That's why I really love my wii.

You see, when I fire up an old NES or SNES game, I'm instantly transformed into me at age 11. OR 14. Or even 22, depending on the game. But seriously, the nostalgic effect of video games is wonderful to me. On a lot of levels, old console games are simply more fun than the new games that I play, console or computer. They just are. I can't explain it, but sometimes when you take away all of the gaudy flash and realism and you make the game a simple mechanic of move + jump + fire, the result is much more fun and relaxing.

Then again, it can be incredibly frustrating. I won't deny that I had my fair share of controller tosses and the like at ages 11 - 22. It happens.

I'll get back to that. I had a wonderful and fun, albeit low-key, NYE. Kerry and I did the hotel thing again this year, and it was a very good time. After my awful hangover from last Sunday, I decided to take it easy on NYE. And easy I took it. I drank more mountain dew than beer, and I was still able to go to sleep at 12:30. I woke up blissfully clear-headed.

Gwen had a huge nap yesterday afternoon, because she had been up late with my parents. Kerry decided to match Gwen nap-for-nap, which left me with a wonderful three hours of doing whatever the heck I wanted. This is where I get back to video games.

I looked through a couple of the old school gems on my Wii, and decided on a little Ninja Gaiden. I got bored with that rather quickly, and saw Super Mario Bros 3 staring at me...taunting me. I decided to make it my mission to go through the entire game. Every single level.

See, with other mario games like Super Mario World or Mario 64, going through every level ain't no big thing. You can save your game and go back to it at any time. Historically, with Mario 3 (and 2 and 1), completing every level was much more of an undertaking. Especially 3.

There's a reason that 3 is even harder to accomplish in this fashion than 2 or 1: 1 and 2 are very linear. If you don't warp, then you go through the game in essentially a straight line from point A to point B. Mario 3 introduced the overworld them, wherein you can go either this way or that way, and you often don't have to do every level in a world in order to get to the airship at the end. (Super Mario World continued the overworld theme, with even more levels, but see my previous comment on the ability to save).

Yeah, well things are different now. Now, when I turn my wii off and go back to the game, I'm in the same place that I was before. Mua ha ha.

So anyway, I've gone through worlds 1 through 5 thus far, and I've beaten every level available to me. It's been wonderful, and will be for the remaining three levels.

Also, that may seem like cheating, because I can now essentially save. To that, I must answer that once upon a time, Corey and I took it upon ourselves to go through every single level of Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3 in one day. Pretty much one sitting. We did this on a 15-inch TV in my grandparents' bedroom. That was hardcore.

Ugh

Holy hangover, Batman.  This sucks.  Seriously.

So I was surprised to discover that my friends Travis and Katy, from Yuma, were in town for Christmas.  They came over to my house last night.  The rest is history.  A blurred, drunken history of which I am not incredibly proud.  I'm sure we had fun.  This morning (and afternoon) no such luck.

I just managed to consume a slice of pizza, and I'm not entirely sure that it's going to stay where I want it to.  After reaching my 30s, it seems that hangovers have changed from the morning inconvenience of my college days, and are now a beastly all-day affair.  At this rate, I'll probably still feel like crud tomorrow.  Ugh.

I guess I deserve it.  It's a nice reminder to myself to take it easy on New Year's Eve

I got a bunch of fun stuff for Christmas this year.  My darling wifey got me a Bose SoundDock, which is awesome.  The slight problem with it is that the remote control doesn't work, and I have to contact Bose directly because it's a factory refurb.  I'm lazy, though, and have just been controlling it un-remotely.

I also got a kit of some Irish Stout from my in-laws.  I was going to brew it tonight, but I'm rethinking that idea.  The smell of brewing beer will not be a fond one this evening, I'm afraid.

Well, looks like I'll go back to my day's activities of sitting and/or lying on this couch.  I leave you with my work-in-progress ode to a hangover, Hands of Fate.

What up, player?

I have ONE final left tomorrow, and studying for it is getting old. I've got such a complete and total lack of motivation for school right now that powering through my studying is becoming a real chore. I can only imagine how hard it's going to be in May, when the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and it's my last set of finals ever. (Besides the dreaded Bar Exam, of course.)

One good thing about next semester is that I've successfully registered for classes that are basically fluff. So that rules. I'm excited for some good old fashioned slackin'. Coming from a guy whose current semester allowed him sufficient time to write a novel in a month, saying that I have fluff classes next semester is saying a lot. Hopefully it's actually true. Heh.

On a totally different note, my friend Lukas was interviewed on NPR yesterday, regarding the mortgage industry. If you didn't get a chance to check out the interview, here it is. It's very interesting and informative, and it (*gasp!* I know that this next sentence will be shocking) actually makes me happy about my current job. I don't have to do any cross-selling, nor do I get any incentives for getting someone into a product that they don't need. Woot for credit unions. (I still don't bank here, though, because I don't poop where I eat. LOL.)

During my finals week, my limited spare time has been spent sneaking snippets of the Twilight series. I'm forced to admit that I really liked the first book. It's the teen girl in me, as previously discussed. The second is equally gripping, although for much different reasons. Most of it is kind of irritating me, honestly. Vampires rule, werewolves drool.

On the subject of the undead and lycanthropy, it's freakin' D&D time on Friday! WOOOOHOOOO! I'm super excited for that shizzle. I've got quite the crew coming over to throw down. I've since moved my keg of porter into the basement, so it's a nice temperature and easily accessable by players that want to get rowdy. (Taking that sentence out of context would be funny for the use of the word "player". Like "playah!" Yeeuh. Unfortunately IN context it denotes a player of the lovely game of Dungeons and Dragons. Aww yeeuh, thugg life.)

Ahh Music

My friend and yours, the Jabberboard, has been ridiculously inspiring lately. It's been filled with videos of myself and others, engaged in the art of playing music. It's been really fun to watch all of the videos and see the performances throughout the years. It's really made me want to play some freaking music! I'm going to categorize this post by my dreams, hopes and aspirations, as broken down by individual bands of which I am currently a part. Bear in mind that there's this whole law school / children thing that makes playing in bands supremely difficult to do on a regular basis, not only for myself but for my friends as well. Anyway, here are my desires:

Jabberwocky -- Let's play another show. I say it all the time, but we could really do this if we discovered the motivation to make time to get together. We always say "summertime", but you know, it turns out that this coming summer is really bad for me. I've got a bar exam to do, and after the recovery from that, it seems I have to move. Stop that, Jabberwocky. Stop being sad. You sad little monkey. NO. Listen. I have a car, a driver's license, and motivation to come and jam. This is proven by my successfully playing in the band Alterego through my entire college career whilst practices were held in the cities and I was in Morris, MN. I'm digressing. The Jabberwocky thing starts with getting together, sitting down in a basement, and playing music. That's really the beginning. Show or not.

Ghola -- You're not dead. You're only sleeping softly in your Axlotl tank, awaiting your rebirth. The Craw Wurm will rise again, as soon as anger sufficiently fills the heart. Until Then...

A Flock of Kobolds -- I'll be honest, my dear Irish Pirate Music, you are my muse of late. It's the wonder of a new medium (for me, not the world) that's got me craving more and more of this music. Guys, let's get together. In the meantime, I'm still going to crank out songs and record my part on my end. Who knows, we could get a really fun Flock album out of the deal, even if the quality of the thing isn't perfect. I love the Kobold music.

Piehole -- Yes, there is a time for punk. That time involves wearing silly headgear and recording a cover that I've already mentioned. We should really do that. Really. For the kids. For posterity.

Gods' Dice -- Dudes, I have a lot of fun on the extremely rare occasions that we get together and bash out 90s covers. Grunge lives on in my heart, and there oughtta be a time that we can find ourselves in the LundoCave with a couple o' cases of beer. We all know that it's not outside the realm of possibility, and it's a super fun outlet.

OK bands, I've talked to all of you separately. Now I'll talk to you together. I love music. Music music music. It's a fun time for one and all. I want to get together for each and every one of the above mentioned things, but probably not all on the same day -- my voice would get really tired. I'd need a break in between, so the festival would have to add a couple other bands to the festival bill. ;)

I welcome your comments. :^D

Sick

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I wish you all copious amounts of delicious turkey, potatoes, stuffing, yams, aardvaark, crowned rack of lamb, possum pie, pork roll egg and cheese kaiser buns, cranberry sauce, and roasted alligator. That is, if your Thanksgiving is like mine.

I'm still a bad blogger, and it's still for the same reason: My writing time this month is being sucked up by a silly idea of a spare time novel. So anyway, yeah. Here we are. What's going on this week, you ask? Well, I'll tell ya.

Actually, Ryan J. Nelson, my hero and compatriot, summed it up nicely with a rather famous post of his from the days of old. That's pretty much what I've been up to. I've been sick since Friday night. I pretended that I was better on Saturday night when we had some people over for a movie night, but in reality...yikes. It hasn't been pretty.

I'm done with that now, though, and the future is looknig bright! The family and I are heading up to my grandparents' house for turkey day, and it's going to be fantastic.

School is winding down once again, with my last day of classes next tuesday, followed by fun-filled finals week. SUCK. Oh well. This is the second-to-the-last finals week ever.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Gobble Gobble!

Big weekend

It is finished. Well, mostly. This weekend, my parents came to town and went to work. On Friday night we finished ripping up all of the old vinyl tiles from the kitchen floor. It was backbreaking, sticky business. Sticky because of all of the adhesive that was still on the floor. This made for some hilarity whenever a cat or Gwen tried to cross the floor, because their little paws or feet would just...stick. It was funny. Poor kitties and Gwen.

Saturday morning I went to class as usual, and my Dad started tiling the floor. That project lasted until 8:00 pm, so he worked for 12 hours and I worked for 8 (with a break to mow the lawn). It's done now, and it looks awesome. It's not such a gigantic change aesthetically, because the tiles are still white. They just look a whole lot cleaner and better and are ceramic. I now have to go through the process of grouting, which is a chore but shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Kerry was camping with her friend Megan all weekend. She had a blast, but I missed her (of course). Gwenner is quite the handful these days, because she's just about two. I had a lot of fun hanging out with my girl.

Saturday night I had some dudes over to play poker, and we had a lot of fun. A good bachelor night was had by all.

Yesterday was rainy, so Gwenner and I went shopping, because I was getting cabin fever and there was nothing else to do. Our first stop was Best Buy, because I wanted to pick up the newest Flogging Molly CD. I have most of my music in digital form these days, but I really wanted a CD that I could hold, look at the artwork, flip through the booklet (in my hands, not on a screen)...that sort of tactile thing. I think that it's unfortunate that those feelings of removing the shrinkwrap from a CD and opening it up and holding it in your hand are all kind of going away. I'm going to hold on to them as long as I can.

Well, we got to Best Buy, and it was closed. I had 20 minutes to kill, so I went to the Target that was nearby. Gwen and I meandered around the store, looking at pumpkins, and I made some random purchases. (A ream of paper, a 12-pack of diet coke, and most importantly, a new ivy cap). When we got to the car, I immediately placed the hat on my head and went to Best Buy. Gwen just held my hand in the store, and we walked up and down nearly every aisle. She got sucked in watching a 60" TV that was displaying elephants and zebras and giraffes and monkeys and all manner of creature that she knows and loves. I was able to pry her away eventually, and we succeeded in my mission of finding music.

It wasn't until I got to the cashier that I realized what a tool I was to be purchasing Flogging Molly while wearing an ivy cap. Ahh well, I'm positive that I wasn't the first.

Projects!

A great and total transformation is currently underway in my kitchen. My wifey has taken it upon herself to completely redo the floor. OK, not completely all by herself, but so far yeah. We're going to replace our ugly vinyl with some nice ceramic tile.

Kerry started ripping up the vinyl on Monday night. We had a bit of hope that under the vinyl we would discover wonderful hardwood. When the first tiles were pulled up, we realized that lurking under the vinyl tiles were....

...more vinyl tiles. Which is kind of lame, because they're probably the original 1954 floor, which could mean that they contain asbestos, which means that we don't want to rip them up. No siree. So, we'll continue pulling up the more recent vinyl, and put some ceramic tile on top of what remains and it will be beautiful and wonderful and so on and so forth.

I'm trying to organize a poker game for this weekend, because my wife will be out of town. So far, responses have been slow, but hopefully something comes together...it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good bachelor night. Gwen will be sleeping at that point, which is good, because she's a heck of a poker player and I would hate for her to embarrass my friends. ;)

Well, that's about all I've got for right now. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and all is well.

I'm old!

They're married! Rhyno and Meghan tied the knot this weekend in a beautiful ceremony and a superfun reception. I was successful in most of my best-manly duties, and gave what I thought was a pretty darn good speech. The day was a lot of fun, and I offer sincere congratulations to both of them. Have fun in Cabo.

Yesterday was the anniversary of my birth. I am now officially 32. Funny, I don't feel a day older than 31. Har har har. It was a pretty low-key day, as the mornings after big weddings usually are. I took my tux back, did some hanging out with my parents, racked my mead, played some video games, read some more geek book, and watched most of a movie with Kerry. It was nice.

Kerry got me a kegging system! This means, ladies and gentlemen, that I will have my own homebrew on tap at my house. That is sofa king cool. No more running upstairs for beer during D&D sessions. Oh no! Just reach over to yon tap and fill thy frothing mug with ale! My lovely wifey also got me a Flogging Molly T-Shirt, because she rules.

Yesterday afternoon, our 2nd realtor came over after having done a market analysis. It was like night and day compared to the first lady that came (see previous post). The news was much more to our favor, and this lady really has her stuff together. The last chick seems to have been doing exactly what I thought: Trying to get a quick, small payment now rather than wait out the winter. Well, good luck to her in her endeavors, she won't be selling our house.

It sucks to be back at work, because the weekend went by like lightning. That's always the problem with a power-packed weekend. So, here goes. Time to work.

Hung over, boring, unlucky and clumsy

Well, I made it through the crazy bachelor party weekend, but barely. The problem wasn't the party itself, but the day after. I had to wake up fairly early and drive back to Minneapolis, which wasn't fun at all. I think that my hangover lasted until around...Tuesday.

The rest of the week has been fairly boring. Life is fairly boring right now. Oh well. Like some jabberboarders have mentioned, there is no boredom, only boring people. I guess that makes me a boring person this week.

This weekend my friends Ryan and Meghan are getting married. They've honored me by asking me to be the best man (thus the whole bachelor party planning and whatnot) and I'm very excited to celebrate with them.

So far, this week has been a bit of a series of unfortunate events. Last night, during my break from class, I went to get a coffee from the gawd-awful-coffee-machine at school. I put in my dollar, made my selection, and watched in horror as all of my coffee went not into a cup but instead directly down a drain. Apparently the machine was out of cups. Last night I filled out a document for a class, only to find that when I tried to save it it cleared the form completely, causing me to have to do it all over again. This afternoon, hankerin' for a snack, I went to my work vending machine and purchased some cookies. I jammed my finger, rather painfully, whilst trying to retrieve the delectable snack, which I then took downstairs and proceeded to spill all over the floor and myself when I tried to open them. It's these little things. They're adding up. In fact, I just found out that I have a 7:00 a.m. meeting tomorrow. Barf.

Maybe it's anxiety about the wedding. I'm not stressed about the wedding, but there might be a tinge of nervousness about giving a speech or something. Maybe it's my upcoming birthday. I turn 32 on Sunday. Maybe it's just the initial symptoms of lycanthropy or something. Either way, I tend to go through these extreme periods of klutziness and bad luck every once in a while. Such is life.

Arrrrr

Arr arr HEEyar arrrrrrr arr. Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ye scurvy sons of sea hags! Tis September the Nineteenth today, and I can hear the wail o' the wind an' smell the salt o' the sea, callin' ta me, down ta me boney bones.

OK enough of that.

It's been a pretty uneventful week for me, unfortunately. I can't really recall anything particularly spectacular that's happened, it's just been kind of the same old situation. Work's been workish, school has been schoolish, and everything has been trudging along. The week has plodded it's merry way toward today, blessed Friday, and the utter awesomeness that is a weekend. This weekend in particular.

Of course, I have to get through class tomorrow morning, but that oughtn't be too tough. It's a pretty entertaining and engaging class.

Tomorrow at approximately noon, I set sail (parrrrrdon me seafarin' references!) for lovely Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, in wanton celebration of the death of Rhyno's bachelorhood. Don't worry, Ryan...it's not such a bad thing to lose. If I know anything about you, it's that you're ready to get married to that blushing bride. First thing's first, though, and that first thing is a party.

So that's what we're a'gonna do.

Other than that, we've got the second opinion realtor coming over tonight. That should be fine. We'll see what she has to say (doubtfully anything of substance tonight, we'll find out more later)

I'm playing pirate ballads at work today. People are confused, but when they ask, I just tell them that I'm celebrating the holiday.

Disconnect

Ugh. I’m really down and disconnected this morning. I grant that it could have been the beer consumed last night at the Flock of Kobolds rehearsal, but I have no physical symptoms of that action. I’m going to chalk it up to being the first night of school. I’m happy to be going back and getting it all done once and for all, but there is still a ton of stress involved with the whole situation – leaving the girls at night, studying, and general preparation for the huge life changes that will be associated with graduation. I know that I should really focus on one thing at a time, but there’s a lot to think about: packing up stuff and getting the house ready to sell, finding a house to move into, moving, starting a new job in a new town…all of these things are a long time away, but I’ve seen firsthand how fast years have started going by, and I know that this one will be like a rocket.

I’m not all that worried about school. I pretty much know the drill there, after three grueling years. There are little things about it that are bugging me, though. First off, it’s hard to go back to having no free time. Second, it’s always rough (as mentioned before) to be leaving my family every night. (Thankfully I actually managed to get two nights off per week this semester. That will be nice.) There’s also the stress involved with graduating this year – you know, making sure that I’ve actually managed to satisfy every requirement. Finally, there’s the bar exam looming over me next summer. Tackling that will be no small feat.

Last night’s practice was super fun, but there was kind of an air of…I don’t know, some sort of disconnectedness, maybe? Discontent, perhaps? I’m sure a ton of it was in my own head because of stress in other areas of life, and if that came through into band practice I apologize, guys. Anyway, hopefully we’ll be able to get together again soon, because it’s hella fun to play ancient ballads and whatnot.

Kobolds and Kart

Well, tonight’s the night that I get to start studying again. Blech. It’s always an awful feeling. I would have put it off until tomorrow night, but I’m going to be far too busy playing Irish music, work songs, pirate ballads and songs from the wood to busy myself with a schoolbook. So there you have it, a Flock of Kobolds shall invade tomorrow evening. May the world tremble.

I picked up MarioKart for the Wii the other day. The game does the franchise proud – it’s incredibly fun. One especially cool feature is the ability to play online with friends. However, there are some gripes I have.
1. Far too many of the tracks involve places that you can fall off. It gets annoying.
2. All of the weapons cause you to lose your weapon when you’re hit. That’s LAME. The fun of the old versions was having that red shell in your arsenal for that moment that the jerkwad that hit you with the shell passes you. Lightning bolts aren’t supposed to rob you of your defenses.
3. The addition of motorcycles and different karts for each character was unnecessary. Come on, each of the characters is different from the others…there’s no need in my opinion to clutter the game with more choices to make.
4. Online play is fine and dandy, but Nintendo should REALLY think about some sort of voice chat or typing thingamajig or something. There is simply no way to communicate with your friends while playing this game, and that’s who I want to play with: My friends. I don’t care to test my mettle against the kid in Beijing. Nope, he can have the trophy, he’s way better than I am. But I want to be able to actually converse with my friends during online play, rather than resort to canned messages that I point at with my wiimote in between games. The only alternative is to have Skype running on a nearby computer, which neither of the dudes I was playing with last night have.

That’s all I’ve got, really. Despite my grumblings, the game rocks.

Small World

The following story might seem a bit convoluted, but if you follow me to the very end, it will all come together. Kind of like the movie Memento, which is awesome and I highly recommend seeing. On with the show.I went golfing last night with Kristian and Ryan. More on that later.

Just after getting out of the car, I got a phone call from Kerry. She told me that she had just gotten a call from her boss, who relayed to her that he was vacationing with some friends on Madeline Island. Said friends have known Kerry for years, as they are residents of the town she works in and frequent the nature center that she works at.

Making a long story very short, it turns out that they own the building that was the one-time residence of none other than Creepyguy himself. Yep. They’re his landlords. Crazy small world. They also confirmed that he no longer lives there, which is reason in itself to cheer and whoop and celebrate.

So last night’s golfing was fun. The night started well for me, but soon some darkish clouds started inching their way across the sky. By the fourth hole we started to hear some thunder rumbling, but the three of us pressed on, trying to convince ourselves that the thunder was far away and that there was no lightning.

By the end of the fifth hole, the lightning was becoming a bit obvious, and the sky was looking a little grim. The horn blew as we were on the tee box from the sixth hole, which signified that the course was closing. The problem was that that tee box is literally the farthest point on the entire course from the clubhouse and parking lot. So, we three brave golf warriors set out across the wide open course, dodging lightning bolts all the way to the parking lot. OK, all except the part about the lightning bolts.

We hopped into the car and drove off, and not two minutes after we started driving it started POURING. It was an absolute deluge, to the point where other cars had pulled off the road because they couldn’t see the road. It was an adventure, to say the least. That would not have been fun to have been stuck in.

After that I went home and played a little Starcraft with Reuben, who fell asleep. I stayed awake way too long after that, playing poker online (for fake money). I discovered this fun little browser-based site, which unfortunately screws up every once in a while. I blame Safari, Apple’s browser, which has some nice features yet still gets all wonky from time to time.

Pirate ballads = the new bluegrass

Years back, the Cohen bros released the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and billions of people bought the soundtrack…myself included. It was filled with old timey bluegrass music, and was quite good. I enjoyed it.

A year or two ago, I saw an ad for an album in Relix called “Rogue’s Gallery”. It’s a 2-disc collection of pirate ballads and sea shanties. I just got it, and it’s freaking amazing. I have a number of friends who are also thoroughly enjoying the collection. It was actually put together by Johnny Depp, who got into pirate songs (you guessed it) after doing the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. So anyway, once again a movie (or three) becomes a medium for releasing old fashioned music on the populace. I care not a whit for the musings of the populace, but I’m quite happy that I got the music.

This, of course, is all because of the infamous aforementioned Flock of Kobolds, who will soon be adding pirate ballads and sea shanties to their ever-growing pub-friendly repertoire. Fal riddle da, wack fol the riddle timmy roo dun dah.

This weekend was pretty uneventful, but fun. Kerry worked on Saturday, so I chilled at home with my lil’ girl. She was quite adorable, as usual. On Sunday the three of us (well, Kerry and I…Gwen didn’t have much input) tried to think of something to do and couldn’t, so we went to the park. Gwenner LOVES slides. She had a great time on the playground equipment.

Last night I got together with Ryan and Corey and we brewed some friggin’ beer. I love brewing, especially outdoors in the summer time. The smell of the wort is just fantastic, and sitting in the driveway tending a boiling kettle gives a sense of peace that can’t really be described, it’s just a good feeling.

The idea behind last night’s brewing is that the beer will be done and ready for drinking just in time for Rhyno’s bachelor party. We’ll have some blond ale a la Ryan, some Scottish ale courtesy of Corey, and some Honey Amber ale by yours truly. Yum times three.

Ootlawed tunes on ootlawed pipes

I’ve been kicking around this idea for at least a year: The idea was to get together a bunch of rowdy guys and make a band that plays Irish music. Well, this idea came up again last week during a conversation with T-Rav, Rhyno, and Lundo. It expanded a bit to include some earthy-type rock music and some sea chanteys and the like. Anyhow, it finally happened last night. The name of this new acoustic superpower is “A Flock of Kobolds”.

We played through a bunch of tunes in Ryan’s basement, and actually ended up with semi-decent recordings of eight songs. The recordings were just into an open microphone, which resulted in some fairly loud cowbell and keyboards and some kinda quite guitars and vocals, but the whole endeavor was fantastically fun. The moments that really made us all go, “Yeah!” were on the choruses of songs where all of us in the room (including Brian, our audience of one) were singing at the same time. Another highlight was the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, where we went around the room with a new singer each verse. Good good good times. However, it turns out that all of us really suck at playing the bagpipes.

It’s a pretty effortless band, too. I don’t doubt for a second that we could play one of the Irish pubs around the city. It’s just a matter of getting all of the little details worked out, after the garishly big detail of preparing the music to the point that an audience, not just the players, would utter the collective, “Yeah!”.

I’m daring to get my hopes up here, but we haven’t seen Creepyguy since Sunday. I think that he actually did move away. I hope that he actually moved away. We’ll just have to see.

The summer is flying by at a horrific pace. I start school again in just two weeks. Yikes. That sucks. However, it’s my last year of school EVER, and that is quite a lot of awesome.