The day after

Thanks to all who showed up at the ‘surprise party’ last nite…and those who tried 🙂 The Wife had a little trouble with directions, but after arriving and sniffing stain for 15 minutes, bowling commenced! (Stain reference: the bowling alley apparently was remodeling their bar/lounge area, and in the midst of staining the far wall; they were using a sprayer to apply it). Needless to say there was not much ventilation (the guy doing it wasn’t even wearing a mask)..)

Which reminds me I need to just buy myself a damn ball; I know the weight I need (14 lbs), but this place had what seemed like only 13 and 15 lb balls. Either pins wouldn’t fall that should have, since the ball bounced off of them, or I couldn’t control the weight of the 15er….

But present-wise, just had to give honorable mention to The Wife’s present (one of them), ‘Essential Blue Oyster Cult’ on CD; after so many mentions of it recently, she seemed to even get more of a kick out it than me…

Not much else to report…oh, wait a minute, FYI for music fans who give a rat’s behind about the music I rave about here, I finally found out what happened to AudioVent. Not surprisingly they are no more; haven’t found out the reason why, but singer Jason (Boyd, brother of Brandon from Incubus), is in film school now and the rest of the band has reformed as Agent Sparks. Seems a little different flavor than Audiovent from what I gather, haven’t listened to their demos yet….

BTW, I can pry assume the reason for AV’s breakup was that Jason got sick of the Incubus comparisons and moved on; those comparisons were so wrong anyway, it was annoying. I know they got it alot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Notice the slight ‘genre change’ to Agent Sparks.

Happy B-Day to me…

Well, D-Day has arrived; ah, it’s not that bad, just kidding around. Another day, another year….now only the milestones are worth looking towards, and I’m not necessarily talking about birthdays, either. But thanks to all who remembered so far and sent in notes…

Hit St. Anthony Main over the weekend again; man, the humidity that night was just awful! Those storms left quite a saturated ground, and when the sun finally came out, albeit late in the afternoon, the humidity just sky-rocketed! It didn’t let up until well after 11:00 or so….

But back to b-day related things, luckily reunion.com is there to remind me of these special days; got this email this morning:

Hi Craig,

…It’s Craig’s Birthday!

wow, thank you, I almost forgot! I guess just in case I pulled a Frank Ricard…

And also had to note my grandmother’s birthday would have been yesterday; this is the 2nd one since she passed, and it was nice to have someone’s birthday right before yours, we had twice the party….

Not much to note today, as I’m trying to get out of here at a normal hour and relax, as I’m still busy as hell, but this week should be the last such, and posting will be back to normal….later

1 Reason not to drink IceHouse

Seems a local Twin Cities arsonist was recently caught and convicted, due to his love of drinking IceHouse beer while committing his crimes…from said article:

Police officers spotted Enger standing in a nearby yard watching the fire, Sgt. Sean McKenna said Friday. When police tackled Enger, a can of Ice House beer fell from his jacket. Another can was found on the steps of the [burning] duplex.

Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar said Friday that DNA found on the beer cans matched Enger’s.

That would suck! Being busted like that…and can you imagine, a can of IceHouse under such scrutiny at a country crime lab? ‘Yes, sir, I believe it truly is 50% water! But one helluva kick!’ I didn’t even know they still produced that beer; I moved onto micros and imports a long time ago…

[disclaimer for protection from producers of IceHouse beer: the brand of beer really had nothing to do with him being caught, or causing his arsonistic (?) tendencies; all statements were done for artistic humor (at least IMHO)]

On to other news…not much from me this week, I know, dang ol’ client I mentioned before had me under the gun yesterday; in fact I was at work until 11:00 last nite…yes, a Friday nite! Just didn’t want to have this load sitting there on Monday morning to deal with.

For the first time in a long time, I won a drawing this week. While at our outing a couple weeks back at Saint Anthony Main, which I mentioned here, a couple of us had signed up for a drawing for tix to see Jewel. I did it half-jokingly; I actually like old-school Jewel, pre-pop-princess, plus we all know how beautiful she is.

So I got an email this week, rather short and vague from CityPages saying I had won tix to the concert, which was the next night. At first I had no idea what this was, thinking it was a joke or spam, etc. Then I finally remembered the events mentioned previously. Unfortunately with it being my hell week at work (no, really, worse than those other hell weeks), I couldn’t go. Plus it was a solo acoustic concert at St. Catherine’s, not the ideal environment/type of concert to me to see live music. So I passed the tix along to vinylgod’s wife and guest; turns out they were front row, I heard the view was amazing 🙂 All I requested was an autograph or kiss from Jewel, but alas was denied…don’t worry, vg, I would not have expected a kiss..and just remember me if you ever win SOAD or H.I.M. tickets….

Just kidding, kids, hope it was fun (and I heard it was)…

Hella lotta rain just dumped here; bad storms this morning, thank god, my lawn needs it; gives a good excuse to not do any yardwork, too. I’m too lazy to go out there in 90+ heat (and humidity) and hose it down…hopefully it’ll also keep us away from the 100+ heat index today, as they were assuming it was going to be sunny all day. May be doing another Saint Anthony Main run tonite…

Anyway, I’m slowly crawling towards my birthday next week, yes, moving higher and higher into the 30s…not much planned, but my first wiffle game is coming up a couple days later, so nothing like revisiting a little of my past. Hopefully my practice sessions in the backyard as a kid pay off….

later…

I got a fever! And the only prescription is more cowbell!

OK, so after yesterday’s fiasco, I’ll give this post another try <save> Friday nite The Wife and I went to meet some friends for dinner <save> at the new 2021 restaurant <save>…just kidding, I’ll stop noting when I’m saving this post….

Anyhow, we went to meet what has become my ‘bermuda triangle’ of ex-co-workers, 2 other couples involving people I have crossed in my many paths of employment. In Couple #1 I used to work with the husband way back when I first started working in the Twin Cities upon moving here 6 years ago. Couple #2: I worked with the wife of that pair. But ironically, the two people not mentioned so far (the wife of Couple 1 and the husband of Couple 2) had also worked together; got it? I can draw a picture if needed…so our ‘circle’ finally came together in our first group meeting last Friday nite….

Anyway, 2021 was a nice restaurant, somewhat pricy (about $60 a couple, albeit with little alcohol that nite for some reason). It’s a family-style restaurant, and as it is owned by Wolfgang Puck, dishes like the duck were just awesome. Unfortunately the menu has mainly an Asian slant to it for most dishes, which got a little old towards the end of the meal, but was still very good. The staff was very cordial, offering to help pick the appropriate number of dishes, etc. Appetizers were yummy, drinks were nice and strong (hell yeah!), and I recommend not making a reservation….well, that’s kind of a joke; we didn’t have one ‘for some reason’, but put our name in, and I think within 45 minutes we were sitting down. Now we did show up at 7:00, so I think it gets busier later in the nite. Because as we were finishing up dinner and just chatting, the hostess came by and asked if we would mind stepping out on the terrace, for some free dessert, as they had a reservation for the larger table we were at. Well, that was a no-brainer, we stepped out onto their terrace, which faces Hennepin Ave and has a few tables for sitdown dining and drinking. So it was an awesome view, etc., if only it weren’t so damn hot here! We were still in the midst of a heat wave, and Friday was 96 or so, 90 degrees when we were outside that nite, high humidity, and absolutely no breeze. The terrace is walled in a 2 sides, so it was rather sticky!

But we had our (many free) desserts and chatted for awhile before the younger folk had to get home to bed…kinda ironic, eh? The Wife and I headed downtown as we were supposed to meet a friend after the Mike Doughty concert at the Aquatennial; unfortunately, when we got there, we realized how damn hot it was, and how true it is that downtown is warmer than the burbs; even worse than the terrace at 2021, the pavement was just radiating! So after trying to cool off inside, The Wife was having a little trouble and we decided to call it a nite…

Anyway, Saturday was spent outside yet again, on yet the hottest day so far, 97 and high humidity, but luckily the wind was gusting rather heavily so contrary to what the weatherman say, a breeze is a breeze and we were kept cool enough to not melt away. We were at a park pavilion in Golden Valley, so luckily shade saved us as well…ironically there was a wedding party going on at the other pavilion; sorry, but if you are going to hold your wedding in mid-July, it should be law that you must have a reception with air-conditioning available. Those suits and dresses must have sucked really bad!

Saturday nite and Sunday were spent doing not much, a little work for myself, as The Wife had a big project to finish up before Monday of her own. Although I did catch the best of Christoper Walken on SNL, which of course the 2nd skit was of him as Bruce Dickinson, uttering the famous quote:

Guess what? I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more cowbell!

And a legendary band was made!

Deja-vu, the third time this ‘skit’ has come up in the past week…ha, ha! I just found a copy of the transcript online…

end of boring rant…move on, nothing else to see here (yet)

SON OF A!!!!

Damn web browser!!!!! I had 75% of a nice big weekend recap post done, and the damn browser shutdown ‘out of the blue’…have no idea what keys I hit that caused it, wasn’t near Ctrl-Q or other combos I know of, no errors, but it just closed with no confirmation Guess I’ll have to use the “Save Draft” feature more often…

I’ll be back tonite to ‘recreate’….

Learning .NET 2.0

Want to learn .NET 2.0 the quickest way possible? I highly recommend the Developer’s Notebooks line of books. Definitely not for the 1.x beginner, as they start out assuming you know 1.x and explain the differences through short lectures (more like a paragraph or 2), and then show through example. There are always plenty of links provided in each section, to find more information or explanation. I found myself doing both (reading this book and following the links), as sometimes the explanations were a little too quick. But they will also serve as a good reference resource down the road, quick intros to topics you can’t remember the details about.

Hence their name….

Pokeware

‘Gag order’ lifted: here is the latest technology that could be huge on the interactive web, Pokeware, which is currently in beta. Basically Pokeware allows you to point and click on a music video, e.g., and find out who did so-and-so’s hair, or what conditioner they use, or that couch in the background you wouldn’t mind buying. In essence, embedding ads and info into the viewing experience.

You know, at first I was ambivalent about it, as I’m not the biggest proponent of commercial advertising, especially on the web. I just feel over-saturated at times; but thinking more about it, this could actually be a good technology in that aspect. I’m amazed videos don’t have more blatant advertising, Pepsi cans on every table, etc. I could see product placement being huge and think it’s inevitable, but this technology could let it happen with a better user experience…

But check it out, there’s a sample site linked to from their homepage…

BTW, you think with all the money Ticktmaster has, they could get their TV ads for concerts to show at the correct times, even such ‘localized’ commercials. As reported earlier (and incorrectly) on this blog, SOAD tix for their concert in Saint Paul are already on sale; it was LAST Saturday. I saw the commercial on Sunday…I should have learned by now, this happens all the time with their commercials…

Wifflin’ for Wishes 2005

Posted a link to the Wifflin’ for Wishes tournament coming up on Labor Day weekend (see Links link above, or see sidebar)…hopefully they don’t mind a hotlink for now, I don’t get that much traffic anyway…but it looks like I’ll be there!

Wie Watch: she won twice today, 3 matches away from the Masters…

I have no use for a Tiger Watch (although he surprisingly is leading the British Open after the 1st round), he’s overrated anymore; actually I should say just a normal player, no need for a Watch…

Quick followup on Wie

Holy crap, I almost forgot the other funny twist to the Wie saga…according to an article on Yahoo! Sports, talking about Wie’s next opponent, Mr. Hockersmith:

Hockersmith, whose eyes remain open when he sleeps, said …

His eyes stay open while he sleeps?!? I’ve never heard of that before, in humans that is…

Going to do some research, this is fascinating…no Mesmerizing (heh, heh, see sidebar)

UPDATE: and as promised, more on the ‘sleeping with eyes open’ here