Frank Hunt

A very nice birthday

2009-11-10T02:45:31Z

It was a very busy day at work where I was assigned a new, intensive, project. That was a pretty good birthday present itself.
When I got home, my wife had a nice bunch of balloons for me.

To get a nice picture of it it was anchored by blue_micha

Then, we headed off to Pampas for dinner.

zosh, yebo, julytooth and perrin_o_ravnos met us there as well.

I really like this restaurant because they cook meat on spits over a fire. Then, they bring the spit over to your table and carve off pieces for you.

They also have a good salad bar that some folks used for beet sculpture.

I ate a whole lot of meat. (Plus some beets and salad, but don’t tell anyone.)

Then, we came home and had cake. It was very nice.

Wedding sword fights

2009-11-09T02:19:16Z

We didn’t get a picture of the sword arch at yesterday’s wedding, but I went through the video of the sword fights and took some frame grabs from the three sword fights.
I really like the ones where the frame is lit by the flash of cameras.
They’re in the order I grabbed the frames, not the order they happened.

Look at the bend in Tom’s sword in these photos.

I’d say he cheats, but it was his wedding and we’ve been doing this choreography for 6 years...

perrin_o_ravnos did the first sword fight with him, so had the most folks taking still pictures. He said it was blinding. I can’t imagine why...

I was very impressed with morgan_lafaye doing the fight in that costume.

Tom got married!

2009-11-08T16:47:25Z

It started Friday night when we had the wedding rehearsal.

It was a simple ceremony so it didn’t take a whole lot of rehearsing. The biggest problem was getting people there in Boston area traffic.
The church, there for 350 years, if undergoing major renovations, but Tom said that fit with the whole “Halloween” theme.

Soon we were off to a nice dinner at the place where the reception would be.

We got home just after midnight and quickly fell asleep.
In the morning, we found the trees had something they didn’t like and coughed up a whole pile of leaves all over my car.

At the rehearsal Tom had said that he wanted all the Phoenix people at the wedding to do a sword arch for their entrance. We had thought only half a dozen or so. But, needing more swords, we stopped by the practice grounds and picked up all the others.

Given how bad traffic had been the day before, we left lots of time getting there. So, we got there an hour early. Given our preferences and the location next to the parking garage, we went to the museum.

No, not the Witch Museum. That is one of the very few museums I’ve ever been to that I don’t like.
We went to the Peabody Essex Museum, which is much nicer.
Granted, we didn’t see much except the gift shop. But, I like their gift shop too.

We then headed over to the city common to meet the others.

But, even with the museum visit, we were still early and had to wait for the others to show up.

It wasn’t all that long before the bride and groom arrived.

I did feel bad that some of the wedding party was not really dressed for outdoor photos in New England in the fall.

But, that just encouraged people to get the photos taken and head to the church.
With that in mind, we took the bridge across the bay to get there.

There were already a bunch of Phoenix people there waiting.

Soon others arrived, some in costume, some not.

I thought it was very nice that the ceremony started with them lighting a candle in memory of Tom’s father. I hadn’t seen that in other weddings and thought it was a nice memorial.

Some of the wedding party had to do readings.

Vows were said and Tom and Brett were married.

The reception had a halloween theme.

It started with a pumpkin carving contest.

I had to explain to some people that dinner didn’t start until pumpkins were carved. And, dressed as they were they might not want angry mobs in Salem.

Offers of pox not impressing me, they carved their pumpkin.
My own work on the pumpkin was intended to impress the judges with a straightforward bribe.

But, other folks at the table decide to improve on my theme and explain why there was a 20 on the pumpkin.

danielgreenwolf was on hand to entertain the crowd before dinner and everyone seemed to enjoy that.

In general, people seemed to be having a good time.

Instead of a wedding cake, they had wedding cupcakes.

But, they had a large one on top so they could do cake cutting.

Eventually the pumpkins were carved to the bride and groom’s satisfaction and we were fed.

For entertainment, there was a talent contest for the guests. Several of us were pressed into sword fighting the groom. (Nice enclosed space for a sword fight, but we’ve done worse.)

Tom’s family comes from Martha’s Vineyard where they were fisherfolk and whaling folk. So a bunch of his family got up and sung sea shanties as their talent.

I knew two of the three quite well, one of which is my favorite. So, staying off to the side, Tom told me to sing along.
There was also poetry reading and dancing.

We’ve had Casey juggle for us for years. But, I’ve never seen him do it to his wife playing the French Horn before.

Several folks there had been in productions of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so there was a Time Warp performance as well. No photos of that as everyone with a camera was up there doing it.
I’m told everyone won the contest.

It was a good time. I’m very happy for Tom and Brett. I know both of them have looked for the right person for a long time. I’m glad they’ve found each other.
And, I’m glad we could all be there to share it.

In the town of Salem...

2009-11-07T14:28:00Z

I hate Salem. I know there are people who really love it. Not me.
And, to be fair, Salem hates me back.

That was where, when performing for a children's fundraiser, I tore my pants in half while being video taped.
It’s where, when performing at a haunted house, I really started to think I had been sucked into hell.
It is where the burger place could not make me a burger without cheese. Even though on the third try I scraped it off in front of them and threw it on the counter. The fourth try still had cheese.
It is, to date, the only city I every spontaneously made up a song about hating. (It was the split pants day.)

Last night was no exception. My wife and I were both singing my "In the Town of Salem" song.

First, getting to Tom’s wedding rehearsal the Google instructions sent us to the post office one major road over from the church. To be fair, the post office did look like a church. But, the road wasn’t even the right name.
Then getting to the restaurant.

The directions, from Google, said go out, turn left, follow the road, turn left, then left again.
It completely left out turning left on a major road to get to that second left.
So, we came to where the road ended, and the name of the road was not where it said to turn left.

Now, Salem appears to have burnt its street signs in support of local witches. We had driven through an intersection where three roads come together and there was only one sign. The sign said “Downtown this way”, not what any of the roads where.

I actually thought I knew where we were going. But, when I turned down the road I thought it was it said it was “Brown street”.
“We want Church,” I said. “I guess I was wrong about where we’re going.”

“We’re after church street,” I said. “I bet that’s one of the roads downtown with a big church on it.”

But, it’s an old New England city. One once gripped by such religious fever that they started accusing everyone of being witches.
So, there’s a big church on EVERY road downtown.

So, I started aiming for steeples.
“Let’s go to that one over there! We haven’t done that one!”

So, we circled around again. And, again. And, again.
Finally, we spotted Church street and turned down it.
Two blocks down, it changes name to Brown street.
Salem hates me.

The good news is, when we got there, everyone else was just getting out of their cars too.
Ron, the best man, said “I thought I knew where I was going, but the street name didn’t match and I ended up driving around in circles.”
“I know just that feeling,” I said.

The restaurant is the same place where the reception will be today. So, after dinner, Tom asked us to help carry some stuff in for the reception.
“Let’s go grab my car and bring it around.” he said.
Tom used to live in Salem. When I met him he spent every weekend at that haunted house about 1/2 mile from where we were.

We circled the place three times trying to get back onto Church street.

I’m wondering if today someone should wait at the post office and direct people...

Does this happen to Agatha Heterodyne?

2009-11-05T01:59:00Z

I’m spending most of my time at the new place designing fixtures to make assemblies and sub-assemblies better.
One way I thought of to align two plates at the top and bottom of a machine is to buy a laser plum bob rather than a very expensive set of plates and rods to reach the distance. I found a nice one for only $25 at Amazon.com of all places.
But, when it came in, it wasn’t the right laser. Instead of the one I wanted that would fire straight up when centered on a hole, this one fires out horizontally and makes a line. No, it can’t just be pointed up. It has an anti-tip feature that shuts it off it if tilts up more than 5 degrees. That’s nice to stop it from blinding you if it tips over and fires up. But, it didn’t help me.
The one I ordered was $25. They one they sent was $130. So, financially it was good for us.

But, I really felt like a mad scientist when I opened there box.
“My laser is here, hahahaha,” I said. “Now we’ll get those plates in line!
“Wait, what’s this? This is a horizontal laser! This won’t work at all!”

So, I had it sent back. Hopefully they’ll send the right one soon.

I’ve also joined the folks who walk around the local parking lots at lunch. That may not sound like much, but they do two laps of a route that is more than a mile long. And, they walk fast.
But, I need the exercise.

New Year’s adventures

2009-11-03T00:55:42Z

The weather has gone from cold, to wet, to warm, to nice in the last week or so.
Once in a while it has hit that clear fall air I like so much.

We celebrated the Celtic new year by picking up my wife’s new glasses, eating at O’Connor’s and Sunday morning making waffles.

Our waffle maker is old enough to drive. And, I think it must age in dog years because it is clearly ready for retirement.
For the last 16 years, I’ve sprayed it with oil every 4-5 waffles and it has been fine.
Sunday, waffle #2 stuck in it so badly that I had to unplug the waffle iron and chip it out.

When it got to the plate, it wasn’t much better.

In many years of waffle making, this was the only time I’ve ever seriously considered just throwing the mix away and making something else.
But, the night before I told my wife we were going to have waffles for breakfast and she clapped her hands in joy and said how happy she was to hear that.
So, I went through a lot of non-stick spray Sunday morning. And, I think there will be waffle iron shopping in the future.

But, at least I have a new mouse.

The old one just got more and more ornery about scrolling when I wanted it to. And, the Apple store told me they did get the shipment.
Picking dinner time on a big party Saturday, I went back to the mall and it was practically deserted. I was in and out with the mouse in about 10 minutes. That’s how it should have been last week too, but it’s my own fault for going at peak hours.

Yesterday at practice we had our big fight review for the coming show in Mobile.
Folks trying to hide their identity were dissapointed.

Everyone put on a good show and the over all rating for the fights went up about 10%.

Some people went up more. The judges clearly had a favorite and her scores were very high.

Without any offense to her, I was very surprised. The fight I did with her was rated very highly and one person said best of the show. But, I know I screwed it up. So, I expected it to be pretty low, not up near the top.
That is why we bring in outside judges. What my wife and I think is good isn’t always what other people want to see.
My wife and I were both happy to see that the scores for the new folks went up. Some of them have been trying very hard, and driving long ways to get their early, and I’m glad that the extra work shows to outside people.

Yet another strange dream

2009-10-31T20:12:43Z

Last night I had a dream that we were visiting a combination Ren Faire and World Of Warcraft LARP.
There were lots of people in blue makeup being trolls, but that was about it for the WOW stuff.
We got bored with it pretty quickly, but stayed for the day because for dinner they were going to have Top Chef contestants cook for everyone there.
My wife and I spent most of the afternoon hanging around “The Inn” which was a log cabin type thing, only larger. It looked like, and probably was, a summer camp sort of thing.
I did find there was an upper level where I could look out onto the grounds. It was a fairly small area, with more mud then grass, and the blue “trolls” were walking up and down the way WOW creatures do when PCs are not near them.
There was a spot where you could look in at the kitchen, so we decided to do that to see the top chef people cooking.
It was like a window into the kitchen, but there wasn’t any glass in it.
There was only one contestant using the kitchen at the time. They had the big grill on and were cooking everything on that. What they were cooking was some sort of rolled thing with a brown outside wrapper. It looked a lot like a brown sushi roll, and they had it standing up on the short end to cook. There were a couple of dozen of them and they had them all packed into the back left corner of the grill. The guy cooking put them all there and then walked off to the far corner to talk on his cellphone.
He turned away from the grill for the call, so he didn’t see that one of the rolls fell.
We saw it turn a darker and darker brown as it sat with the long side on the grill.
“It’s going to burn and he’ll lose,” my wife said.
She crawled through the window and went to pick it back up.
“Don’t touch it,” I said. “You’ll be interfering with the contest and they’ll blame you if the food isn’t good.”
The dream ended with her standing in front of the almost burning roll deciding what to do while the chef continued to talk in the corner clueless.

Halloween horror!

2009-10-31T15:17:39Z

So, $700 more in car repair.
Pisser.
But, now with us both working, we need both cars.
The good news is that we’ve got the money. We’ve been very frugal this year with me out of work, so there is actually some money set aside for these things.

Of course I am a bit surprised at the end of the month to see that I made less this month then I would have on unemployment.

What I used to make is added as a taunting reminder. Of course, that assumes that I would have been approved for extended benefits as my main ones ran out. But, I probably would have.

Of course, the reason it looks so grim is the place I’m working now runs their financials Thursday to Thursday, and I turned my first time sheet in on a Friday. So, I missed the first week’s cycle. Now that I’m clued in, I turned in this week’s on Thursday, so next week should get a check for 9 work days. That will mean I should catch up well in November.

Of course two work weeks with one 3 days (trip to Mobile and Thanksgiving) remind me that I am no longer one of those people who gets paid for vacation or holidays. But, I do make more an hour then I used to, so by the end of the year I should do well in catching up to the old level. Even with a week off at Christmas.

That doesn’t mean I like the fact that replacing breaks is expensive. But, it does mean that we can afford to do it and if things keep going well will be doing well soon.

EDIT: OK, the key is too small to see. The blue line was my old job that paid every other week. The red line is what unemployment was giving me. The green line is what I'm making as a contractor and project making with my days off.

Revenge for all those Polish jokes

2009-10-31T12:14:13Z

I’ve never been a big fan of “Polish” jokes or any other category of people based on them being stupid.
But, that has never stopped people from telling them.

So, when I read this story about the US Navy cleaning a loaded machine gun while in a Polish port it did make me laugh.

Not how I pictured it

2009-10-31T00:57:58Z

I've never liked Tuesday and Wednesday very much. I actually like Monday better.
So, I've often thought it would be nice to get rid of them.
Where I've been working the past couple of weeks, the financial week ends on Thursday, so that's when I've got to turn in my time card.
So, technically the week started today, and I'll have the second and third day off.
I guess that's what I asked for. But, somehow it isn't as good as I expected...

Happy Perrin!

2009-10-30T10:45:06Z

Happy, Happy, Happy,
perrin_o_ravnos, perrin_o_ravnos, perrin_o_ravnos
Happy, Happy, Happy,
perrin_o_ravnos, perrin_o_ravnos, perrin_o_ravnos

Happy Perrin!

Chasing the big rodent wearing thee pairs of pants

2009-10-30T01:16:26Z

We had our capybara class tonight. OK, Capoeira, but that isn’t as much fun as the world’s biggest rodent. But, I’m not allergic to it and am to the rodent, so it works out.
There was one point I had to say “This is old people take a break time now.”
I can’t do all of the moves. As I’ve said before, I didn’t stretch that way when I was young and I’m not going to now.
But, some of the balance and movement things I can do, so that’s something.
Of course when the instructor starts doing flips and spins in the air that is something else.
Sadly, one of the folks who is 25 or so years younger then me did collapse at class. I guess she’s got some sort of problem that makes her pass out from time to time, and after doing a bunch of spin kicks, it kicked in.
She recovered quickly and her friend took her off to her room. But, it freaked the instructor right out and pretty much ended class for the night.
I don’t speak Portuguese, but I can still tell he was saying to the other instructor over and over “what if that happened when we were sparring?”
As someone who pays for liability insurance, I know the feeling.
He did spend some time after that teaching me to kick the right way. You step right, then spin left. Or, step left and spin right.
But, being very iffy on the whole left right thing I tended to step and go “Which way now?”
Hopefully I’ll remember.
Then, I pulled on my pants over my bathing suit and underwear and we headed home.
In all honestly, I’m not as tired as last time. Probably because we quit 20 minutes early. But, I’m going to claim I’m getting used to it.

Small steps

2009-10-28T00:08:09Z

One of my first assignments at the place I’m working was to come up with a better way to make a tube take a U turn then paying to have a small metal pipe made.
I found a Y connector the right size and blocked the end of the Y to make it an effective U.
The parts came in today and seemed to work well:

I’m not sure how little room I had for this was clear, so I took the picture again with something to scale it with.

Hopefully this will make the product better.

Museums, malls & mice

2009-10-25T00:46:46Z

This morning my wife, palusbuteo and I drove into the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Due to the one way streets and the fact I grew up taking the subway and walking around Boston, we drove around a bit before getting there.
I can’t say we were lost as at any point I could tell you where the museum was and where we were in relationship to it.
It was more a case of “I can’t turn left here? That road is one way the wrong way?”
Things like that never happened to me when I was walking from the subway.
But, we got there. We had to park in their poorly designed, old and tiny museum. Construction closed the entrance near the garage, so we had to walk around to the front of the museum to get in.
Despite that, and the light rain, I still think it was a beautiful day in Boston.

Even the statue out front of the place seemed frustrated with it. I can just picture him saying “What? I can’t park this horse at this entrance? Since when?”

One of the things they’ve added in the “rotunda” since we were last there is mirrors so you can look up at the art on the ceiling.

It is somewhat strange to see, because when you look at it from the side, it looks like people are staring at nothing or themselves. But, eventually you can tell they are looking down to look up.

They had a special Egyptian exhibit that palusbuteo really wanted to see.
Sadly, as true with all of their special exhibits, no photos allowed.
But, it is pretty cool.
They had a collection of figures about 6” tall on all sorts of miniature boats. Priest ones, guard ones, cooking ones, exploring ones, baggage ones.
I’m sure the intent was not to make me think of Star Wars action figure collections or GI Joes. But, that is what it made me think of. Not that I didn’t find it cool, because I did.
But, because it made me say “wow, action figures from 3000 years ago and they haven’t changed that much. This guy had the whole collection, but took it out of the packaging.”
(Yes, there was information on how they had to restore the action figures. Think of how much the museum would have liked it if they were in the original package in mint condition!)

I actually liked the gift shop better then the exhibit. They had some cool stuff there. I bought my wife a present and some stuff for the godkids this Christmas.
They had lots and lots of books. I was sorely tempted to buy a dozen or so of them. But, I settled on only one, which was the catalog of the exhibit. (I like to get that for all the special ones where I can’t take my own photos. I’m sure that’s part of why they don’t let me take photos...)

With Palusbuteo with us, we stopped to look at some books too.

I was sorry that perrin_o_ravnos wasn’t with us this trip as the gallery where they have a lot of the Dutch artists was open this trip.

When we were there last they were having some sort of meeting/luncheon in there and we couldn’t go through. I know the paintings there are his sort of thing. There are certainly some where the artist was showing off.

Some struck me as being very strange due to the anachronistic elements. One, a painting of “The Arrest of Jesus” had the Roman soldiers in armor from the 1500’s.
The one below made me ask “which apostle is known for wearing blue lycra?”

One thing that I saw today that I haven’t at other trips was lots of people doing sketches of the artwork.
They were everywhere. Usually I see one or two. This time there were more than that per room.

Palusbuteo also got in on this.

I’m not too big on the Egyptian stuff. It’s cool and all, but not my favorite. I like other things like these:

Or, the light rail vehicles outside.

We tried to go to lunch at the Bugaboo Creek steak house in Framingham. They told us 10 to 15 minutes and we sat down with a bunch of other people in the waiting room.
15 minutes later, none of the people in front of us had been seated. Zero. Everyone was still waiting and getting nasty. And, we could all see that only half the tables in the place had people at them. Maybe not enough wait staff to go around, but still. They were keeping at least a dozen people waiting and lying about the wait time.
So, we went to a Chinese/Japanese place I like down the road.

Palusbuteo seemed to think it was very funny I was wearing a Godzilla/Tokyo shirt while eating with chopsticks.

(Don’t blame me it’s blurry, I didn’t take it.)

As we were near the Apple store, I wanted to go look at the new mouse they came out with and see if it was really better then the one I had.
Sadly, it turned out that everyone in the universe wanted to go to the mall today too.

My wife, who hates crowds, stayed in the car and Palusbuteo and I made our way through the crowds to get to the Apple store.
The mouse is cool. I tried to buy one. They didn’t have any.
I’m pretty unhappy about that as the Apple website says “now shipping” about it on there. But, the store says their supply of mice won’t get there until the middle of next week.
I’m not only sad I didn’t get the mouse I wanted. I’m sad I had to spend half an hour trying to park and fight to get to the store to find that out.
But, not much I can do about it. (Other than send a complaint to Apple, which I did.)

On the way out we got stopped by a political science student collecting signatures to remove tolls from the Mass Pike.
He was from Ohio and not at all prepared for the apathy of New England.

“I thought people would rush me when they found out I had a petition for getting rid of tolls on their roads,” he told us. “Instead they laugh at me and tell me things are never going to change.”
“To be fair, this isn’t the first time this has been on the ballot,” I told him. “I know I’ve voted for it before and Governor Weld tried to remove them decades ago.”
“But, this time we’ve had a law professor write the petition in a way they can’t legally ignore,” he said.
I didn’t laugh. I did sign. I expect to continue to pay tolls my whole life.

Although still annoyed at the lack of mice in stock, it was a very nice day and I had a really good time.

Astro Boy

2009-10-24T03:56:12Z

We went to see the Astro Boy movie tonight. It was not crowded. At the 9:30 show on opening night there were 6 people.
Hopefully, for the sake of the people who made it, it will be more popular with kids and people will go tomorrow.

I really liked the movie. The art work is fantastic.

I’ve really been looking forward to this movie, and I’m not sure why. I don’t have any memories of watching the show when it was on 40 years ago. I don’t remember ever reading the comic.
It’s a famous comic/anime, so I’ve know of it.

A few months ago when we were at the movies, the preview for it came on.
Before they said the name of the character, or showed him on screen, I knew what movie it was.
“They’ve made an Astro Boy movie!?!” was my reaction.

I don’t know why it has such recognition for me.
It was an animated show on in the US when I was very young. (Under 5.)
Perhaps my sister watched it when I was young? It is the sort of thing she liked.

I can tell you which episode of Star Trek I first saw. (The Paradise Syndrome)
I can tell you the theater where I first saw Star Was. (Brockton)
I can tell you when I first read The Hobbit. (5th grade)

But, this has that sort of feel for me of something I’ve liked since a kid. But, I just don’t remember even knowing about it as a kid.
It’s very strange.

I still like the movie.

Mouse envy

2009-10-23T23:45:17Z

Apple came out with a new mouse this week. I looked at the ad for it and said “wow, that looks like a really cool mouse.”
Almost as soon as I said it, the scroll wheel on my current mouse stopped working.
I had no idea computer mice got jealous.
The bad news for the mouse is that it makes me more likely to actually by the new one.
Sad for the mouse. We’ll see...

Oh come on now!

2009-10-22T23:19:56Z

So, for one of my projects at work, I need to find a way to mount some shaft couplings.
I went to the internet, went to a search engine and put in “shaft couplers”.

I got back a search result of “rigid shaft coupling” from Climax Metal Products....

When I got home, I checked the link. It seems OK and they really do make parts for linking other parts together.

But, it wasn’t a link I’d try at work...

Happy Saeble day!

2009-10-21T22:27:27Z

Happy, Happy, Happy,
Saeble, Saeble, Saeble
Happy, Happy, Happy,
Saeble, Saeble, Saeble

Hope you have a good one!

Robot freezers

2009-10-20T01:22:21Z

Today was my first day at the robot freezer company.
It's interesting work and there appears to be plenty of it.
I'm told that if I do a good job then there is a very good chance of a full time job out of it. So, as I would anyhow, I will do the best I can.
It is only about 20-30 minutes from home, which is about the same as the last job. Traffic is a bit worse, but I've driven through those bad spots before and know what to expect.
Hopefully it will work out. It certainly has a lot of potential.

Apparently it was a matter of honor for Perrin.

2009-10-18T11:41:55Z

This morning my wife, perrin_o_ravnos, julytooth and I headed up to Tom’s new house to help clean up the place.

Actually, the above photo is of the outbuilding behind his house. This is his house.

When we got there, Tom wasn’t there. He had sent me an email Thursday asking for the help Saturday, and I had replied that we’d be there.
So, I called him. It was obvious that even though it was after 11, I had woke him.
“Frank? Why are you calling?”
“You asked for help on your house today.”
“Oh yeah. Well with the bachelor party tonight, I thought I’d skip working on the house today.”
“That’s bad.”
“Why?”
“We’re standing in your yard right now.”
There was a pause.
“Let me take a shower first. It might take an hour to get there.”

I went and told the others. There was much discussion about the bathroom and if we could get to it without Tom being there.
“I’m quite sure I could get in,” I said. “But, I’m not sure it would be worth it to scare Tom letting him know that.”
My phone rang. It was Tom. He told me how we could get into the house before he got there.
So, with only a little worry about breaking and entering charges, we waited for Tom.

We got pizza while we waited and it wasn’t all that long before Tom showed up. The place was looking much better now that they have upstairs painted.

So, we concentrated on the dust downstairs left by the contractors fixing the walls.
Now, you may think that 5 people working all day would easily dust 3 rooms.
You don’t know this dust.

Moping the ceiling was harder then I expected when I started. Perrin did the second ceiling and agreed the dripping down the length of your arms was weird But, we did get it much cleaner.

palusbuteo showed up about the time we finished. My wife and julytooth headed home in my car and we headed to Tom’s friend’s house to get ready for the party.

Our destination was off on the coast, so I climbed into the back of palusbuteo’s car and we drove off through the night.

We met up with the others and had a nice dinner.

There was a lot of beef eaten.

Then, we went off to the strip club.
I’m not big on strip clubs myself. This is only the second time I’ve been to one, and the other was another friend’s bachelor party.
This apparently was a concern to perrin_o_ravnos.
“I like to make sure people have a good time at these,” he told me. “But, I don’t know what to do about you. I usually buy people drinks, special dances or massages. But, you don’t drink, don’t like people pretending to like you, and don’t like to be touched.”
“I’m glad you understand,” I said.
“Unless I can find a dancer with a degree in history or physics, I’m not sure you’d enjoy it.”
“And, with this music I’m not sure I could have a good conversation either,” I said.
He promised to think about it, but didn’t have to worry too much. The guest of honor liked all of the above regular choices.
After dinner and the cover charge to get in, I had $6 left.
My diet Coke cost $5.50.
The ATM at the restaurant had been broken, and I couldn’t see one in the club.
One sip into my soda, and one of the dancers was behind me putting her hand on my shoulder.
“Hi, you want a special dance?”
“It’s his bachelor party,” I said, pointing at Tom. “He’s the one who should get a special dance.”
But, I was not quick enough. He was already off with another girl.
“He’s busy,” she said. “Don’t you want a special dance?”
“What I really need is an ATM,” I said. “Tell me where it is and by the time I’m back he will be ready for his next dance.”
“I know we have one,” she said, looking around. “But, I don’t know where..”
So, she went off and and talked to the DJ then informed me the ATM was out in the lobby.
There was quite a line, and quite a discussion in line about what the fees to use it would be. But, it was only $5. While high, it was no where near what I had feared.

perrin_o_ravnos got palusbuteo one of the special dances. It turned out the girl’s name was Isis, which the three of us all found very amusing given his attraction to Egypt...

While there was no pool table (sad) there were two big projection TVs playing on the wall near the balcony. At first I thought it might be the National Geographic channel, but it only was an ad for it. Instead it was Fox sports. So, I watched the Bruins lose and the Yankees go to at least 13 innings in their game.
Not being a sports fan, the TV might not have been so interesting if the girls were good dancers. But, for most of them it was: walk on stage, take off clothes, pose in front of people sitting along the stage until they threw some money.
There were a few with some interesting moves, but not many and not a lot of interesting moves.
The diet Cokes eventually drove me to the bathroom. The attendant there was a young man who was very enthusiastic with the hand soap. As I washed my hands he leaned towards me and started pumping it towards me. I dodged and kept it off of my hands.
“Please don’t do that,” I said. “I’m allergic to a lot of those soaps.”
“Oh, OK,” he said. “But, you must want a towel.”
“A paper towel will be fine,” I said, pointing to the dispenser on the wall.
“That’s what I’ve got here!” he said. “I’ve already taken them off the roll for you!”
He motioned towards a counter of small bottles, sprays, gels, candy and other snacks.
“Is there anything else you want?” he asked me.
“I’m all set,” I told him.
As I left another guy said: “I need something that will make me smell good to the girls who work here!” Personally, I think he was out of luck.
When I got back to the table perrin_o_ravnos asked me about the mens room. I told him the story, and he soon headed off himself.
When he came back, he tossed me a Hostess cupcake.
“There you go!” he said. “I found you something you like at a strip club!”
Being dubious about snacks from a strip club men’s room, I examined the cupcake. It was sealed in the air tight plastic well.
I ate the cupcake.
“I was right!” he said. “I found something!”
I agreed that his honor was satisfied and he had found something I liked at the strip club.
We were there until the club closed at 12:30. That seemed early to me, but I was just as glad.
As Tom got into his friend’s car to hear back I took this to prove he was alive when we left him.

Actually I didn’t think he was even all that drunk. But, he seemed to have a good time and that was what we were there for.
I got home about 2. Despite the shower, I’ve still got the smell of the air freshener there on me. I fully appreciate why they have a powerful one there with lots of sweaty people in an indoor space. But, it made my eyes burn the whole time we were there, and is still doing that a bit.
So, between that and the gallon or so of caffeinated soda I drank, I didn’t sleep well. I probably got a couple of hours before I just gave up and decided to write this up.
As I said, I think Tom had a good time.

A pay check!

2009-10-16T20:52:07Z

Today I got my first paycheck in 6 months!
As a contractor it doesn't have all those nasty taxes taken out of it, so I'm going to have to keep track of all of that on my own and pay up quarterly.
But, it's nice to get a paycheck again!

I managed 40 hours this week, even going home early yesterday and today, so next week's will be even nicer!

Like there was a stick up my...

2009-10-16T01:28:04Z

Well tonight at that cappybera stuff I hit something I couldn't do. (Not counting the whole handstand/cartwheel thing.)
My legs just don't bend under me the way the teacher wanted. I think it took a while for him to realize that.
Most of the strength things I'm OK with.
Most of the balance things I'm good with.
But, even when I was the age of these college kids taking the class with us, I couldn't bend that way.
I never remember a time when I wasn't the least flexible of any peer group I had.
It has never been my strength.
Ah well. At least I can stand on one foot longer than the kids...

And, on the way home, it snowed on us.
First this year, at least in these parts.

Mobile Hotel

2009-10-15T21:57:51Z

Well, I've booked the hotel for this year's Mobile Ren faire.
I got a good rate in exchange for a no refund policy.
So, I hope all goes well.
See lots of you there.
Right? Right?

Damn B

2009-10-15T20:32:01Z

So, my budget ran out at 2 today.
It's not bad getting an afternoon off.
And, I've got a project for tomorrow. So, I'm back in the office then.
But, it is weird working day to day. Not what I'm used to.

I hate it when they use the “B”-word

2009-10-15T01:15:09Z

The other engineer where I work came into the sever room today with a project. (It is sort of my office. It is where I work...)
“Wait,” my boss said. “I’m not sure we have the budget for Frank to work on that!”
“It won’t take him long,” the other guy said. “He’s very good with Solidworks.”
“OK,” my boss said. “But, he can’t spend long on it. As we don’t have much to spend on it.”
So, I guess it turns out I’m not the only one who is very aware of how much my time costs these days.

I’ve got mixed feelings about it.
The down side is that it is a reminder that they’ve only put aside so much money for me and when it runs out, I go home.
That reminder of how tenuous my employment is wasn’t a lot of fun.

The up side is that my time is valued and the people I work for don’t want me wasting it.
Now, you might think that’s been true as an engineer for a long time. But, it’s not true.
I’m spent many, many hours doing things that were total wastes. Some of them were even known to be wastes when I did them.

So, I’m trying to think of the good part of being concentrated on useful work and not on the idea I might not stay as employed as I’d like.

The good news on that front is the other place emailed me today with my start time for Monday. So, even if the budget runs out this week, there will be a next week.

In other stranger news,:
I spent some time this summer trying to grow some stuff on my balcony. Although the parsley was very parsly-ish, none of the other things grew more than green.
As it’s been getting cold (I had to scrape ice off the windshield this morning) I’ve brought the plants in for the winter.

But, right under the tree tonight, just where you’d expect to find fruit, I found this:

Yes, it’s a crunch bar!

We’ve thought it was a “dragon” plant. But, apparently it is a candy plant and grows chocolate right along with the wrapper.

I ate that one, just to be sure.
We’ll see if any others show up.
That would be cool.