Drive-by Check-in

Tuesday April 29, 2014 at 1:49pm photography, gaming, house Comments (0) »

Just a quick note or two - not too much new to write about lately.

Continuing to evaluate possible new camera gear.  Now planning to rent a Sigma 10mm 2.8 fisheye in addition to the 14mm 2.8L II.  Also, office got a nice Tamron 24-70 2.8 lens which, on the 5D, gave me some sense of what the 14mm will be like on my camera.

Gaming has continued - still trying to finish up The Zero Line.  Kind of thought we'd be done with that by now, but our schedules have been really busy.  Scheduled to wrap it up saturday.  After that, probably going back to our 3.5 game.

Our office at home is in the midst of overhaul.  Painted, now just need to get Sheri's new desk designed & built.  Also, need to get my bookcase and comfy chair.

Random Stuff, pt. XXIV

Monday April 6, 2009 at 12:39pm video games, food, friends, comics, gaming, house Comments (3) »

Finally went to Thunderdome last night. Pretty cool place. We watched some guy beat Force Unleashed on a giant projector screen, played Apples to Apples and ate some tasty food.

The weather yesterday was awesome and we had a bit of a picnic at the Linear Trail park in Erwin. Due to the fact that there's only one picnic table in the area we went to, we ended up having lunch with a random couple. They were nice and fun to talk to. They lived in Alaska for a few years, which i thought was cool. Yay for meeting random people.

Went to John's on saturday to see if my MouseGuard stuff had come in yet. Still hasn't - apparently it's on back-order and some of it's hard to get. He did have a couple issues I didn't have though, so i picked those up (which was kind of nice - the last few times i've been in there it's been 'walk in, ask about stuff, walk out'). Actually, i misread the back of one and so accidentally bought one i already had... ...so Llama got to inherit it. Still much looking forward to getting the roleplaying book. :-D

Had a gaming session on friday night, which i think was good despite several of us being tired (and some occasionally nodding off...heh). The "plot" at this point is pretty open because i wanted to put the players into a situation where they have to decide what to do about the circumstances. This isn't bad, but it's less straight-forward and usually results in the players having to weigh lots of options and so it can move kind of slowly at times. I think they're doing well with it though.
I'm also really trying to get to a few plot points before Ginger moves... ...we'll miss her a lot...

On some house stuff: mowing season has begun, and it's already getting ahead of me. We had a pretty impressive storm the other night and the basement stayed dry - looks like my sealing job around the font doorjamb worked well. Oh, and i unclogged the sink which had been draining ridiculously slowly for a while.

I've been addicted to Super Paper Mario lately - I started it about a week ago and i've now played it enough to pass Ginger and Tony in the plot (though Tony's still a few levels above me - he's been working on the Flopside Pit of 100 Trials). It's a very fun game... ...and since Sheri won't let me play Okami...


~PS

Fall Projects, Part I

Monday October 13, 2008 at 3:31pm house projects, kubb, costumes Comments (0) »

Seeing as we're getting into the last nice days of the year (before it gets cold, that is), we decided it was time to stop procrastinating and make time for some projects: namely, finishing staining the wardrobe we bought earlier this summer, and stripping/painting the front door frame (so i can then seal it to keep water from getting into the basement) - so that's what we did for most of saturday. The wardrobe now just needs a topcoat, and the door is ready for sealing. We were quite productive, I'd say. Hopefully we'll have a couple of free evenings this week to finish these projects.

Also speaking of nice weather, we need to have a big Kubb-for-all before it gets too nasty & cold outside. I'm figuring we've only got a couple of weeks...

In more "fun" news, we've also be trying to put together some costumes for McKenna's birthday party on the 1st. This has been a lot of fun for me, as we've been trying to build costumes by getting individual pieces, as opposed to buying a pre-made thing. Trying to come up with ideas or ways to do things has been an interesting challenge. I think i've got mine* pretty much done. It looks pretty awesome for what it is, but i do wish i could afford the glasses i'd want to finish it off. Or the gun. Or a couple of other minor details, because i'm kind of obsessive that way. (also, myawwww!). Maybe if I ever wanted to wear it to a convention or something... ...of course then i'd need something for the hair as well... ...rambling thoughts. Anyway, I've found it's a lot harder when you're trying to emulate something specific, as opposed to just trying to have a fun costume. Still, i'm really happy with it.

Oh, and sheri totally beat us all at minigolf on friday night. By like 5 strokes. It was amazing.

~PS

The long weekend + painting

Wednesday May 28, 2008 at 3:26pm holidays, friends, house work Comments (0) »

After last week, i was ready for the long weekend. The downside is, I've now been back at work for two days, and I don't think i'm ready for it yet. I'm not sure if I needed the long weekend, or more of a vacation.

Well, it's not that bad really. This week has been a lot better. Just. Eh.

Anyway, the weekend was fun. We had a couple of cookouts - one here for Kevin's birthday/graduation and one at Robb & Edie's for Memorial Day. Much fun was had and many kinds of games were played. We introduced a couple new people to Kubb and played some rather epic games (the second time where we've been down to no kubbs and come back to win!).

We've also started finishing Spare 'Oom. Last week sheri cleaned out pretty much everything in there (no small feat!) and so far we've primed and got one coat of paint on it. I'm planning on putting the second on tonight (if it dries in time - it's really humid/rainy here). I'll put a picture up when we get it done. I'd put an 'in progress' picture up, but i'm feeling too lazy for that atm.

The yard really needs mowed too, but it's been raining. Gonna be pretty rough once i'm able to do it, i'm afraid.

~PS

Me vs House

Friday March 14, 2008 at 10:37am house Comments (2) »

I started working on it around 6:30pm last night, and was up until 1:30am this morning with it - but after 5 hours and two trips to wal-mart, our toilet's guts have been replaced/updated, it is fully functional and it no longer leaks anywhere on the inside or the outside. Sheesh. That was way harder than it had to be.

In other home-maintenance-related news, the score is currently Tree Sapling In Our Basement Window Basin 1, Jared 0. ...though if it ultimately survives having half of its roots dug up and chopped off and the half gallon of Roundup I poured on it, I'll be a bit impressed.

~PS

Pics from the Weekend

Monday February 4, 2008 at 12:46pm pictures, coffeehouse, pets Comments (1) »

Just a quick entry mostly to point out some updates to the Gallery -

Friday we had an open mic night at the the coffeehouse. Ginger & I took some pictures - I've put some of 'em up in a gallery for the coffeehouse. Had a good turn out too. Perhaps the open mic's will have a bit more success this year...

Saturday we had a good gaming session, and then Sheri & I took Ally over to Nick's house. Ally had never really been somewhere to play with other's pets before. That was fun. You can't pay for entertainment that good. :) Got some pretty good pictures from that in Ally's Gallery as well.

~PS

Good Times.

Tuesday October 2, 2007 at 11:56am work, coffeehouse, dogs, gaming, church, family, golf Comments (2) »

I've had quite a bit of fun the last few days.

On friday I built the framework for a sort of work side-project. I'm pretty excited about this one - it'll be really cool, I think. Yes, this counts as "fun". I'm a geek like that.

On friday night we went to the coffeehouse at Ginger's church. Not much was going on, but it was cool just to hang out and talk to people. I watched some friends play Go. Interesting little board game. Some of them were also talking about the world traveling they'd done. I kinda wish I had been / could go to some cool places like that...

On saturday our dog Ally got the bath she needed. She wasn't such a fan, but she's a good little beagle and so it wasn't a terribly difficult task - even by myself. After that Sheri and I walked her around the backyard for a bit and sat in the shade (of our neighbor's tree) for a while. It was a beautiful afternoon.

On saturday night we continued and wrapped up a d&d game I'd been running for a few sessions. I think it went pretty well. I've now started some work on the two new games I'm starting. With the Liimar game and Robb's Exalted (see below), this makes 4 rpg's I'm in or running. I think I'm insane. It's a fun insane, but still...

On sunday, we went to church in Erwin as usual. I'm very glad that we have a wireless net connection at the church now - since we're kinda stuck there all day. I spent most of sunday afternoon working on putting the finishing touches on the project I mentioned working on on friday. Very excited about that. Sheri was working on choir stuff. We did go outside and play a couple of games of Kubb (which happened to be in the jeep), however.

Sunday night was also the 'all-sing' - where the area churches get together and sing together and for each other. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but Sheri's choir sounded pretty good. Plus we got to hang out with people and have snacks after.

On sunday night my mom came back through from visiting my sister in SC. I'm always glad to see family. Don't see them much since they're all quite far away.

On monday morning, mom and I went out and played 9 holes at Pine Oaks Golf Course. That was lots of fun. Beautiful morning. I played better than I think I ever have - which was pretty impressive considering it had been almost exactly 4 months since I'd played - and I played terribly that day. As it turns out, I think my grip was most of the problem. A simple tip that mom happened to mention that she saw on her video completely transformed my game. I've never had a piece of technique make such a difference. I birdied a hole for the first time ever, and I par'd the 8th and 9th. Total score for the round was 48. I could have dropped a couple strokes if i hadn't made a few chipping/putting mistakes. More than that though, my shots just felt better - more solid. Of course now I'm setting myself up to do terribly next time, since I'll be expecting much more than I was yesterday...

I also thought about how lucky I was that I have a job where I can just kinda take time off to hang out with my family if they happen to come through.

On monday (last) night, we finally got to play Robb's Exalted game. I had a lot of fun. It's a pretty interesting premise and system. Plus I get to play a shapeshifter. I have a soft spot for shapeshifters. Also, there are some people in that group that I haven't gamed with in years. I'm looking forward to continuing this one.

So yeah... ...the rest of my week looks pretty boring compared to the last several days...

~PS

Painting [cont]

Wednesday May 30, 2007 at 11:06am our house, painting Comments (0) »

So i've spent a considerable amount of time the last few days doing some painting in the bathroom and the hallway. Strangely, to those of you who've seen these rooms in the last couple of months, you probably won't notice. See, those areas have been painted for a while now, but there is/was lots of 'touching up' to do, which is mainly what i've been working on. It's slow going and you have to do it in stages, but it's coming...

We now have about 3 areas painted. I'll put up a couple more pictures when I get a little more done.

~PS

Just some things

Tuesday May 1, 2007 at 4:19pm penguins, coffeehouse, music, gaming, lawn games, dentistry Comments (0) »

....been goin' on....

April 25th, for those of you who don't know, was World Penguin Day. :)

Friday was the last Just Coffee for the year. We had some fun hanging out and playing some music. I got to play with a marimba-like instrument and also I got to try playing violin. I can fake my way through 'Twinkle, Twinkle' - which I find pretty impressive since I'd never picked up the instrument before. I really want to learn now though.

We've got to game quite a bit lately. The Liimar (experimental campaign) is progressing rather nicely and continues to be lots of fun. I brought my currently running campaign to a close on saturday. That gives me a bit of a sense of accomplishment. I've been working on future games quite a bit as well.

We had a bit of a lawn-game party before the gaming commenced. It was quite fun, despite being delayed by the weather.

I went to the dentist for the first time in several years today. My teeth have several problems to fix, but it wasn't any worse than I expected - and in some ways, better. We get to start that mess next thursday...

I think that's about it for now...

Further updates as events warrant...

~PS

Some Posting

Wednesday February 21, 2007 at 9:45am auto repair, health, our house, painting Comments (3) »

Well, it's been a little while since I've made an entry here, so...

There's not a whole lot to say really, except that I'm about done with two things.

The first being the car problems we keep having. We have decided to go ahead and fix sheri's car - even though it's probably not worth it - just because we can't afford to be without another car right now. We have decided that we need to start looking for something else though. Hopefully something we have to worry about less.

The second thing I'm 'about done' with is my health - or lack thereof. For the last couple weeks now I've been pretty congested and occassionally quite sick. At least thus far I haven't had to cancel anything because of it.

In other news, the hall and the bathroom are almost finished in terms of painting. We've also got some nifty bathroom fixtures (things like towel bars and toilet paper holders) to put up when we're done. That, however, has also been put on hold as the paint fumes certainly won't help my illnesses and may well be part of my problem.

~PS

Triumphs and Nachos

Sunday February 4, 2007 at 9:57pm auto repair, gaming, our house, painting, food, video games Comments (3) »

A mere 19 hours after its ignition switch broke in the lowes parking lot, my jeep was up and running again - thanks to my jeep manual, a local junk yard, some special tools and the tremendous driving efforts of our friend ginger.

So, once again, we have a car to drive. Sheri's is still in the shop, awaiting some diagnosis.

Despite the jeep's crisis, we still had our game on saturday (a bit late). It was a good session.

Today we didn't have to stay in erwin. Instead, we came back here and put the first coat of paint on the hallway. It's looking pretty darn good.

After the painting, we did NOT watch the superbowl. Seems none of us care much about it. Imagine that.

Instead, we had some nachos with cheese/meat/tomato dip (recipe ala kevin) for dinner and played some serious mario kart. We have proven that Sheri makes the meanest yoshi ever.

~PS

Revenge of the Autos 2

Saturday February 3, 2007 at 9:13am auto repair, coffeehouse Comments (0) »

This seems to be a bad time for automobiles. At least 5 cars of friends and/or relatives of mine are currently functionless - two of which are mine and Sheri's cars.

Sheri's car broke down a couple weeks ago with a bad cylinder. We're currently waiting on the shop to replace the lifter to see if that fixes it.

Last night after we bought some paint at Lowes, we came out and the ignition switch in my jeep broke. I think it's some sort of mechanical failure. I've checked the manual and by all accounts this is an easy repair if you can get the part. I've got a line on two local junk yards that have one. I'm going to try to fix this one myself. If I pull it off, I'll be darn proud of myself. If I don't, I'll have to have the darn thing towed out to Milligan Auto.

This also leaves us completely car-less in the meantime. Grr.

This made for a rather irritating bump in last night's plans, but that'll happen. Luckily, Ginger came to our rescue and we all went out to dinner and to a bookstore and to the wapc coffeehouse - mostly to keep us from being too upset by our misfortune.

Well, Ginger's on her way over here and then we're gonna head out to see what we can see. If everything goes beautifully, we'll all be back here in time for today's game - with working jeep.

~PS

Work Zone, pt. II

Tuesday January 30, 2007 at 10:22am our house Comments (1) »

Once again, our house is under construction. Well, sort of.

As of last night, I've begun the second of our 8 or so house projects. The objective this time is to repair and paint the hallway and bathroom. Basically what needs done is filling some cracks, smoothing out some drywall, priming and painting. The colors I've picked out are a sort of tan and brown - which i think will contrast the green in the livingroom nicely.

I'll be doing my best to document this process online in the 'our house' gallery.

~PS

Things I did while not blogging

Monday January 29, 2007 at 11:31am our house, friends, food, birthdays, gaming Comments (1) »

Another weekend came and went. It was a pretty good one.

On friday and saturday sheri and I talked about some stuff for the house and decided that I'll start working on the hallway this week. I became much more interested in the project when we decided not to paint the hallway white. White is boring. The first step is to repair a couple cracks and smooth out the drywall. I'll be photo-documenting it and i'll try to put some pictures up as I go - or at least when it's done.

Kevin was in town this weekend too. It's always nice to get to hang out with out-of-town friends for a bit.

Saturday night we all took tony to Misaki's (japanese hibachi steakhouse place) for his 25th birthday. I've decided I like Misaki's pretty well - despite the fact that I don't like chinese much and I haven't been a fan of any eastern food in the past. It was tasty.

We gave tony a llama calendar and ginger gave him a shirt that says 'the penguin made me do it'. Appropriate on so many levels.

Last night we finally got to continue one of my d&d games that's been on hold for a while. We had a good session.

I think a couple more quotes got added to 'the list' this week too.

~PS

The Standard Report

Sunday January 14, 2007 at 12:16am friends, family, coffeehouse, music Comments (0) »

Well, it's been a pretty good week since the last blog entry.

Tuesday evening I went out to dinner with some friends, and then i returned to the Igloo where myself and some more friends (two of whom i believe to be parents by now) and my sister (who was passing through and stopped over for the night) all played Apples to Apples until about 10:30. Fun times.

Wednesday and thursday were pretty 'uneventful', though I have been wrapping up some pretty exciting work-related projects.

Fridays are always good. Went out to dinner again (same restaurant even) and then to the coffeehouse where some of us played Apples to Apples again. Seems this was the week for Texas Roadhouse and adjective/noun games.

Today I went and spent my christmas money. I'd been wanting a new electric guitar for a long time (ever since i started playing with the praise band at church) and today I went and spent quite a while playing several of them. I kept coming back to one of them though - a Gibson SG. Plays really nice. The guys at Morrell's were really cool too: Since I didn't want the gig bag (soft case) that came with the guitar, they kept it and took the price off the hardshell case that I wanted. Ended up getting the case for about half price. :) I've had the guitar plugged into Hikaru here for a bit. Looking forward to plugging it into my amp tomorrow. I'll probably put a pic of it up at some point.

This evening we had ging and llama over for chili and card games. Much fun was had - as always.

~PS

Hosed

Wednesday January 3, 2007 at 12:37am our house Comments (0) »

I am now adept in the use of the wet-vac.

About 1.5 hours ago I made a discovery when I went down to do some laundry. Seems that the pipe that goes out to the garden hose froze at some point and sheared itself open. We used the garden hose today, and the pipe left us about 30 gallons of water in our basement.

Overall, the event was pretty harmless. For the most part it avoided the stuff in the basement that would have mattered had it gotten wet.

At this point I think I've got the basement to merely 'damp' instead of 'puddled'.

Unfortunately, I still have laundry to do...

~PS

Living room rehab

Wednesday July 5, 2006 at 4:22pm our house Comments (1) »

well, its getting close to done. I'm not sure if it will be ready to accept gamers on saturday or not, but i'm working on it.

I haven't blogged much lately - i'm aware of this. Here's pretty much what i've been doing:

1) work work.
2) house work
3) yard work

There's been some occassional breaking for random fun stuff - including a great time swimming at steves and watching fireworks at ginger's - some gaming and a little anime, but mostly i've been working these last few weeks. All work and no play makes jared a dull blogger.

Apologies.

~PS

Productivity

Sunday July 2, 2006 at 9:13pm yard work, our house Comments (0) »

This weekend we have accomplished:

1) Entire yard mowed. Really, the whole freakin' thing. That yard is too big for push-mower - at least when it's so hot.

2) Living room prep-work finished, primed and given two coats of green paint. Lookin' good. Pictures soon.

3) 3 cars washed - mine, sheri's & ginger's.

4) random house work / bill paying

5) sheri repotted her plants

We did good.

~PS

Of Epic Adventures

Wednesday June 14, 2006 at 8:48am our house, moving, travel, pictures, we have your keys Comments (0) »

Take 2

Greetings one and everyone,

Much has transpired since my last entry but, for various reasons, i have been unable to blog about it until this moment.

Most notably, i have moved. Sheri and I closed on our house on the 1st around 5pm. Shortly thereafter, we and a small army of friends descended upon our little apartment and moved everything in it over to the house (about .4 miles away) in 3 hours. Afterwards we went out to dinner to reward our efforts.

The following day, sheri and I left for Arkansas to visit her family. While there we attended her brother's high school graduation party, went to Silver Dollar City in Branson, went out on her dad's boat, and played lots of Shadows Over Camelot. We also camped out on our way to and from. On the trip, we saw several quite amusing landmarks - including Fort Pillow and Yow Chiropractic.

While we were gone, our house was named The Igloo (probably because it's the only place of ours around that has descent air conditioning) and it was thusly decorated with paper snowflakes, cotton snow and blue saran-wrap ice (complete with incased frozen mammoths). We also found a group of stuffed animals gaming in our basement. I hope to have pictures of this stuff up in the gallery soon.

Since we've been back, we have begun organizing the place (though not too much, since we still have to paint pretty much everything), we have tested our washer and dryer (which seemed to work quite well once the hot and cold hoses were reversed), we have acquired a range and a refridgerator and have (finally) got internet access (and there was much rejoicing).

~PS

Today be the day

Wednesday May 31, 2006 at 12:11pm our house, travel, insane Comments (3) »

Arr.

This morning I recieved a call(s) from Vic Feathers at the bank saying everything seemed* to be in order for our scheduled closing this afternoon at 4pm.

(*actually, when i asked him, his exact words were "hell if i know")

Assuming everything goes relatively according to plan (a rather portly assumption), we will be starting to move stuff in between 5 and 6pm this evening.

Coincidentally, tomorrow also 'be the day'. Tomorrow we're intending to leave on a 10-day trip to AR to visit sheri's family.

Now, you may ask yourself: why would they go on a long(ish) vacation the day after moving into a new (and first) house? Answer: because we're bloody insane.

After our return, future plans involve organizing the place (you know, at least a LITTLE), getting some appliances, fixing up some little things, having a painting party and buying a mac.

~PS

House Hunted

Monday May 1, 2006 at 6:00pm our house Comments (1) »

Well, as of this afternoon, Sheri and I have a contract on the house we'd been wanting to get. It's been somewhat of a saga. First, we saw this house. Liked it. Wanted to go back and look again and probably make an offer, when it was snatched up by someone. We were somewhat disappointed. Well, time passed, and the house came back on the market. Turns out the prospective buyers learned of the house's somewhat high radon reading and backed out. The seller is now installing a radon mitigation system (at his expense) and is selling it to us. So, assuming the home inspector doesn't find anything terribly out of whack, we're gonna have a house soon. Funny how things work out.

I've made a gallery for photos of the house. There are a couple i neglected to take, but maybe i'll get those up sometime as well.

In other news, we will be having a painting party sometime after closing as almost all of the rooms need painted. Those interested will be fed pizza and soda.

~PS

House Hunting

Monday March 20, 2006 at 12:59pm our house Comments (5) »

Well, we've started it. So far we've talked to a bank, got pre-approved, seen 1 house, driven by a couple dozen others and looked at countless listings. It's been great fun, actually. Hopefully we'll find something sometime this year. It would be kinda nice if moving-time is during some decent weather, too - but i'll be satisfied if we can find sometime we both really like.

The house we looked at on saturday was one out here on Milligan hwy - only a minute or two from where we live now. It wasn't a bad little house, but we ultimately decided there was too much expensive stuff we'd want to do with it right away for it to be practical. We're all for learning to do lots of minor-to-moderate projects for home improvement, but we're hoping not to have to learn them all at once ;). We've got a few more we're interested in looking at and Robin's still giving us stuff. And we're in no rush.

I'd also like to state for the record, that it's snowing out here, in a major way. I'd also point out that this is a couple weeks after milligan's so-called "spring break".

~PS

I Slack, Therefore, I Am

Monday February 20, 2006 at 8:53am coffeehouse, gaming, video games, music Comments (0) »

...and here i was just getting on to Sam for shirking his 'net duties.

So it's been a minute or two since i've blogged. Maybe it's because i have nothing to say.

Or maybe it's because my life is so full and exciting i haven't had time to blog in the last week and a half.

Yeah, i wasn't buying that either.

The last week+ has been good though. Nothing incredibly blog-worthy, but good.

We didn't go to the coffeehouse this last week (*gasp*). I think we were all kinda burned out on it - though i probably wouldn't have realized it if ginger hadn't said something. We did have a good time going out to Cootie Brown's and wandering about JC before deciding we were all too tired to stay up much past 10:30.

Saturday we had a good game. My group seems to be a steady(ish) 6 players again. This makes me happy. It had shrunk uncomfortably low there for a while. I really like this hobby, so much so that i've ordered 6 more books. I'm fairly sure i'm not obsessed with it, but i do spend a good amount of time working on game-related ideas and projects (this website is about 50% game related) and i really like the idea that i can run a game that my friends enjoy and look forward to. Over all, i think it's the social aspect of the game that i like most.

After the game, some of us went out for pizza and then played some Mario Party 2. Fun times. ...though, if i'd have won half of the mini-games i won in our practice run-throughs, i'd have kicked much more butt.

Yesterday (Sunday) we spent in Erwin, as usual. Got to have some band practice. Looks like our praise band has acquired a bass player, which frees me up to play guitar and sing. I did enjoy playing bass though...

~PS

The weekend...as usual?

Monday December 12, 2005 at 11:45am birthdays, coffeehouse, church, music Comments (2) »

As was mentioned on the forums, last thursday was Sheri's birthday. We had a little party complete with cupcakes and yoshi. I got her a d&d player's handbook. I would say i'm a dork, but it seems that that's the present she's been most excited about.

Friday was coffeehouse night, but Sheri went caroling with some other ladies at church, so i spent most of the evening with Ginger and Tony. Ginger came over to the Rabbit Hole after work, where we proceeded to be not at all exciting for a couple of hours as i worked on some stuff, she played AOE and we talked about nothing terribly important for a while. From there we proceeded to the Lair where we met Llama. I won't say that made us more exciting necessarily, but it certainly made us more random. The three of us went out for dinner and discussed such deep questions as why ginger is unable to eat chicken nuggets while in our company (and if we could get a federal grant to research this), and how one would operate a usb toaster with passing references to our degree of normality.

On Saturday Sheri's choir had a rehearsal for their christmas program and then we came back here to game. It was great fun, though some of us are a little concerned that the pizza delivery guy may report us for conspiracy to commit arsony. Don't ask.

Sunday was the usual "stay in erwin day". This week, it was even more "stay in erwin day", since it was the 3rd of 4 possible trips to erwin within 4 days. We went to Wendy's for lunch and it was freezing because their heater had been broken for 3 days. I was amused to notice the marquee on their sign said "stay warm with a chili".

Sunday night was the Carol Sing at our church for which Sheri, Sam and I played Christmas Carols of the Rising Sun. We had quite a few compliments on it. Joel gave me a look that i interpreted to say "I really shouldn't admit that i enjoyed that, but i enjoyed that".

If you ask me, a great weekend.

~PS

Turkey Weekend

Monday November 28, 2005 at 11:11am holidays, coffeehouse, shopping Comments (1) »

Well, as far as i can tell, the Bunguin is on the mend. I've been ok - seems i've managed to hold whatever it was off thus far.

Turkey day was good - even with just the three of us. Since Justin (Xerxes) was kinda on his own this year, he brought over some mashed potatos and came over and hung out with us. I think i may have addicted him to AOE2.

Sheri made a great turkey - especially since it was her first time doing it by herself. We had/have a lot of it left over too - i think she had turkey at least once every day last weekend. She also made some great cranberry sauce jello stuff.

Friday we did NOT go shopping. Well, not really anyway. Most of the day we just sort of hung out. We did go over to Turtles Nest Toys for a while - not to buy anything, but because Sam (Shasam - not that he's signed on in forever) was working there and he told us to come by and check out a game they had called Dread Pirate. It looks pretty cool. We also put up some christmas decorations - namely the little tree we have. It's cool. I like christmas lights.

The coffeehouse that night was pretty fun. I got to play some songs with Sam for his show and later he and his friend Ben and I messed around playing everything from Decemberists to Cream.

On saturday Sheri and I went christmas shopping. It actually wasn't nearly as crowded as i might have thought. I discovered the advantages of having a cell phone yet again by calling my mom a couple of times from various places to ask questions about what to get for a couple of my family members. We got most of the rest of our shopping done that day, though some of the quests i believe were epic.

I think my favorite part of saturday's exploits was the sheer number of penguins encountered. This time of year is always pretty good for that, but, either i'm getting better at seeing them, or there are more and more of them every year. The giant Playmobile pirate standing outside Bear & Friends was pretty cool too.

We stopped at Dice for a few minutes to check the price on something and talk to Charlotte for a bit (she's fun to talk to). We showed her the penguinification pictures on here. It was only fair, seeing as she was one of the ones who helped buy it for me.

Yesterday was sunday which means we stayed in Erwin all day. This amounted to church, pizza hut, a nap on the choir room floor and a game of ticket to ride before choir practice that evening. Sundays always seem long.

~PS

Return of the Blogger

Sunday November 6, 2005 at 11:41pm website, coffeehouse, gaming, music Comments (2) »

It may seem like i have been neglecting the site in general and my blog specifically. The first part is completely untrue, but sadly the second is mostly factual.

Over the last several weeks, i've been rebuilding my website from scratch, fixing some things i didn't like, and adding some features i'd always wanted to. After about a week and a half of labor, Penguinsushi.com version 4.0 is up and running. I'm really happy with this new site and how it works - though it may take a little getting used to for some.

Aside from the web development (for work and for fun), the last couple of weeks have had some coolness in them that i haven't got around to talking about until now.

As you've probably already seen, there are now pictures up from the costume party. Yeah. Dressing up as a giant penguin is great fun. I think i was the entertainment for the evening...at the very least, i had the goofiest costume.

We finally started the second d&d campaign with Eric & Cory last week. I thought it went pretty well. I'm still not sure how much Cory wants to play, but she didn't seem actively bored and seemed to at least enjoy goofing off with us.

Last week we had an open mic at the coffeehouse again. I left my tuner on the piano again. It was a lot of fun though. Sam & I played one of my songs together - mostly because he insisted i play it, and i insisted that i wasn't going to unless he played it with me. I also played a new song i had written called "I think you're reading too much into this." I was very happy with how it sounded, though it's a sort of intense song, and playing it about exhausted me. Anyone who says singing and playing guitar isn't physically exertive has never done it.

also, my parents came down to visit this last weekend. That was cool, i hadn't got to see them since july. It was a short visit, but it was nice.

~PS

superblogiwebapostalolitypeacomment

Saturday September 17, 2005 at 11:03pm movies, coffeehouse, video games, website Comments (0) »

if 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' is something to say when you don't know what to say, what do you blog about when you don't know what to blog?

in case the previous bit didn't give it away, we happen to be watching 'mary poppins'. This movie amuses me for reasons i don't entirely understand. Maybe i have pleasant associations from my childhood...or maybe i like the layering of the fantastical with the ordinary...or maybe i'm just thinking more about it than anyone should think about a movie that won an award for 'best song' being something called 'chim chiminy'.

so anyway, today was a good day. we went to visit anselm earlier today - he misses ginger. we could hear him meowing from the bottom of the stairs outside her apartment. from there we went to dice & played quiddler with llama, eric and cory. llama won, but he didn't come anywhere close to his high score of something like 361 - though at one point he was pretty sure his hand was capable of summoning cthulu.

friday (since we had no game) we went to the coffeehouse to play some games and hang out. sue complimented me on the songs sam & played there last friday and asked if i'd play again when they had the next open mic. i said i would. now i need to see if i can get ahold of sam...

in other news, i've made it to the 5th world in (dude) yoshi's island and i've got an interesting colosseum session planned for the next one-shot i run...

i've also made quite a few changes to this site over the last couple of weeks - smoothing out the appearance and interface and just generally having fun with it.

~PS

blogging along

Monday April 25, 2005 at 11:21am coffeehouse, weather, gaming, music Comments (0) »

well, aside from the death of penpen, not much is new. (new computer parts on the way! woo-hoo!)

the coffeehouse on friday was pretty cool, though not many people showed up.

saturday was spent doing laundry and wandering around walmart & lowes looking for shelves. (not my idea, believe me)

sunday it freakin' SNOWED. what was who thinking? ...though, at the moment, the weather does seem to be back somewhere close to normal for this time of year....

sheri, ginger, tony & i played some ninja burger last night. that was fun. i'm not going to be surprised if 'i should have recognized your stylish ninja pacifier' shows up on the site somewhere... ...er, somewhere else...

looking forward to some gaming this weekend...

songs i've learned to play this week:
simon & garfunkel - "america"
cream - "white room"

~PS

Recency

Tuesday April 12, 2005 at 11:25pm coffeehouse, gaming, music Comments (1) »

so things have been pretty cool recently.

we went to the coffeehouse @ watauga on friday and got to see some slides about a trip around south america. there were penguins! this made me happy inside.

on saturday we got to have a little lan party, which was lots of fun... ...and ginger cooked some thai for us too. (thanks ginger :))

the weather has also been really nice lately (until today, anyway) and we've had a couple few picnics over by the creek at milligan - this is a nice thing about living across the street.

we also got a bocce set, which we've been enjoying.

i've also been working on version 2.0 of this website, but this comes as no surprise since tony has already pointed out its inevitability.

other than that, it's been pretty much the same stuff.

songs i've learned to play this week:
caedmon's call "i just don't want coffee"
eli "the lumber song"
pink floyd "wish you were here"

songs i wrote this week:
"two questions"

~PS