Or, you know, as real as I get.

Not too much has been going on here. Watching the grass grow. No, for real. Since i strained my calf muscle, I haven't mowed the yard - which is now really, really bad. My plan is to start tackling it later today. That's gonna be rough.

Sunday was our church picnic. I took a few great pictures of the munchkins on the playground. I'm still learning how to best shoot moving subjects - a lot of my shots are a little soft. Especially the ones of Claire. She doesn't stop moving. Anyway, it was fun. Oh, and I made lemon cheese bars for it (the first time by myself :)) which were a big hit with at least a few people. There were only two left.

Ginger, Sheri, Nick and I went out to the Elizabethton city pool on saturday. That was cool. Actually it was downright *cold*. There were only a dozen or so others in the water. I think i know why. After 5 or 10 minutes you got used to it though... ...if only because you were at that point numb and couldn't feel the cold. It was a good time though. The weather's been beautiful here: very mild for this time of year. Tomorrow's high is only 78 and the lows have been near-record.

On friday we had a fun gaming session. The party wrapped up what they had been doing in the dwarven ruin and have now traveled to the city of Madrid for more fun and mayhem. That game continues to be lots of fun.

Mahto's band had a practice on monday & I went to listen in. They sound pretty good for a highschool group. I think if they keep it together for a couple more years, they could be really good. They're actually playing at a 'Battle of the Bands' this thursday that we're gonna try to go to. That should be fun. Robb and I got to sit outside & play some guitar on monday as well. I really miss getting to play in a group. We talked for a while about trying to put something together at some point, but i think we'll need to find at least one more member.

Not too much else. Calendar's pretty blank for this month.

~PS

addendum: late last night i finally finished the graphic design for sheri's new blog - you can see it here.

This last weekend was a blast. Those of us here in Johnson City, TN who are members of the GitP Forums all got together and also hosted several out-of-state members for the two-fold purpose of getting to meet each other in person and having a lot of fun.

I would say our mission was a complete success.

Sadly, not everyone who wanted to was able to come, but those of us who were present had an awesome time.

The meetup started friday night as we converged upon Llama's apartment. I believe Jerry was the first to arrive. Amanda and Ginger had also arrived by the time I got there around 8:00pm. Justin (who I'm told is Lord Xerxes on the board, but whom I've not actually encountered there) was also around, as it was his house too.
We tried to play a game of Kubb, but it got called on account of lightening. We had just begun a game of Apples to Apples when Ron arrived, so we dealt him in.
After some games and a run to the grocery store for refreshing beverages, some of our company departed to Ging's place for the evening. Llama was trying valiantly to stay awake on the couch while me & Jerry talked about random stuff until about 3am when Dave finally arrived.

On saturday, we went over to Ginger's place for breakfast around 10am for breakfast. From there, we went over to the Greenwood Challenge Course to use their little pavilion and field for some grilling out and playing Kubb. There we met up with Robb (who got the place for us), Edie and Ken. We spent the afternoon playing Kubb, eating grilled goodness and generally having a good time. I took a lot of pictures (see the gallery) with Ginger's spiffy camera. I kinda want one of those.

After we left our outdoor meeting location, we proceeded to Ginger's church's basement (where the Just Coffee coffeehouse is) for the evening where some of the group played the OotS board game and a couple played some other board games. Sheri, Llama, Ron and I played a D&D one-shot I'd made up a while back. It was pretty fun.

After church on Sunday, we met up with the group here where we did a little more grilling (with our spiffy new gas grill!) and hung out and talked until people needed to leave.

All in all, it was one of the coolest things I've done. :-) I am so looking forward to doing it again. Like I said after meeting Ceika and the Hippie (the first time), it was so cool to get to meet people from other states you'd only talked to online - especially when they are so much fun to hang out with.

~PS

Well, my parents left to return to IN this afternoon. We had a good time hanging out this weekend. It had been quite a while since we'd gotten to spend any real time with them. I miss them.

My dad couldn't resist fixing a few things around the place (a couple repairs on my little push mower, the garden hose spigot, and my jeep's passenger window) - which i much appreciated, but I was glad that wasn't all he did this time.

It was nice just to spend some time with them. We played some quiddler, and watched a couple of movies. Went out for dinner. That kind of stuff. On sunday, we went out and played some golf. I played terribly, but it was still fun. We also taught them to play kubb - which they greatly enjoyed. I'm betting my dad makes a set when he has a chance.

edit: I should have taken more pictures while they were here.... :-(

~PS

....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

Lawn games are fun. Particularly when you have a lawn to play them on.

Tony finally taught us to play Kubb last week. It's a fun little lawn game of 'throw the block, throw the stick'. On wednesday, we played an augmented version - involving munchkins running through the field whilst playing. The object then became 'throw the ball, throw the stick, miss the munchkin'. Anyway, by saturday, 7 new people had been introduced to this particular swedish lawn game.

On saturday we taught tony how to play Bocce - since he'd somehow managed to escape playing that game with us to that point. We had fun with that one on our hilly and lumpy backyard.

Other than lawn game mayhem, we had some other fun times this weekend. A bunch of us got together at Mike & Steph's on friday to play Wii and generally just hang out. That was fun.

On sunday we got to do a little gaming. That's always fun - particularly this game, since all the players do such a good job roleplaying these somewhat odd PC's.

Oh, also I got the backyard and a good chunk of the front yard mowed (again). I've also procured a weed eater that I may smite down the tall grass in the ditch on the edge of our lawn sometime soon.

~PS