Union Pacific's Great Excursion Adventure

Brainfreeze!

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Thursday: Coda
The rest of the work day turned out pretty well. Of course, after the way it started, it could only get better. I also got paid a really nice complAt lunch, I went out for a bit. I came home to pick up a couple of things (including my Florida State sweatshirt, as BYU is playing FSU this weekend…) and, on the way back, I stopped to pick up some fruit at Whole Foods… and a Slurpee®! That’s right. Frozen Wild Cherry and Pina Colada-flavored goodness.

After the workin’ day was over, I headed home. And we had dinner… and watched 300. Then it was time to go pick up and put down heavy things, with Melissa. Tonight’s workout consisted of:

  • Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs
  • Leg Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 140 lbs
  • Calf Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
  • Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/12 reps
  • Bent-over Rows: 3 sets/10 reps, 35 lbs
  • Sit-ups (incline): 3 sets/20 reps
  • Lunges: 3 sets/5 reps per leg
  • Lateral Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 15 lbs
  • Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs
  • Tricep Press (rope): 3 sets/15 reps, 60 lbs

Weight (morning): 184.5 lbs

Post-workout, just hanging out with Ms. SaraRules (and Heidi Klum)… which is a nice way to wrap up the day.

Tomorrow’s my 9/80 Friday off… and, even though I gave up The Leash today, I’m “on call,” as we only have one person in each office tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes.

Namaste.

“Try, try, try to understand… he’s a magic man.”

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Thursday – 17 September 2009
Another NBN Thursday has begun. And, to make it even more sweet: It’s my “Friday.”

I posted some engagement photos on Facebook yesterday. While many are cute and some are even “fun,” my favorite one of the set was this one:

For those of you who haven’t seen them, you can click here.

And…. my NBN Thursday has been shot in the foot. It happened about 0945 this morning: We lost power in the A.F. office for about half an hour. In and of itself, that’s not bad. “Bad” was, when the power was restored, some systems decided that they didn’t want to come back online. Getting them kicked into gear took an additional forty minutes. *sigh* Hopefully, the rest of the day will conform… or be cast out.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Comin’ for to carry me home…”

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Wednesday – 16 September 2009
Comics and Sushi Wednesday is upon us once again.  Amen.

Last night was kind of… lax. Not saying that’s a “bad” thing, mind you. SaraRules and her mom went shopping last night, leaving me at home to… well… pretty much do whatever I wanted. I actually made a few wedding-related calls – I talked with my ‘rents.  All’s well in their respective worlds.  Then I made calls to my Godparents, who won’t be able to make it out for the event. It was nice talking with them.  Then, I watched TV and cut some 6″x3″ pieces for use with a new WWG map and surfed the Interwebs.

Workout
Yesterday, Marci and I got in a short lunchtime workout:

  • Calf Raises: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
  • Leg Extensions: 3 sets/10 reps, 80 lbs
  • Leg Curls: 3 sets/10 reps, 80 lbs
  • Sit-ups (incline): 3 sets/20 reps
  • Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 185 lbs
  • Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets/12 reps
  • Side Bends: 3 sets/10 reps, 30 lbs

Pre-workout weight (morning): 184.0 lbs

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Paint house… Paint fence. Paint house… Paint fence…”

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Tuesday – 15 September 2009
We’re halfway through the month already. Wow. Where does the time go…?

Last night, I headed over to help and her ‘rents do some painting at her new place. I took my portable SoundDock, so that we’d have something to listen to. What I didn’t take was the remote control. I was under the mistaken impression that I needed the remote to change the volume on it as, unlike my primary SoundDock, the volume controls are not on the face of the unit.

Operative word: “Mistaken.”

I noticed, after I had gotten back home later in the evening, that the portable ‘Dock does have sound controls on it – they’re on the side of the unit. D’oh!

Football
Last night, there was a double-header on Monday Night Football:

Buffalo Bills at New England Patriots
24 – 25

I missed a good portion of this game, as I was helping paint. But, I caught a little of the first quarter and the last five or ten minutes of the fourth quarter. And, I was surprised and impressed with the last couple of drives: The Patriots’ two-minute drill to get the go-ahead score and the Bills’ hook-and-ladder play to try and answer it.

San Diego Chargers at Oakland Raiders
24 – 20

This was a solid game, top to bottom. I was especially impressed with the way the Raiders played – on both sides of the ball. The defense looked reminiscent of the Raiders of the 70s and 80s; the offense was… well… GOOD! They moved the ball, they didn’t make a lot of stupid errors. They played solid football, but in the end, Sandy Eggo took the “Win.”

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Summer’s going fast, nights growing colder…”

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Monday – 14 September 2009
Nothing like having The Leash start going off at 0800… just as you’re getting ready to head to the office. It was alerting me to a problem with an off-site server. Yay. We contacted the appropriate people – who seemed to be having issues of their own – and they handled it. Eventually. Welcome to Monday.

Yesterday was a good day. It was also chock full o’ stuff. Mark and Alex – a member of the SUU Ballroom Dance Team who came up to assist in the dance lessons – came up about 2:30. First, they worked with SaraRules and Steve for the Father/Daughter dance, then it they spent time with SaraRules and me for our first dance. It was more fun and less fearsome than I had expected. (And, we fortunately we have three weeks to practice…)

After that, SaraRules, Alex, Mark and I headed over to the in-laws-to-be for dinner: Bratwurst and football. Excellent combination. More on football in a minute. After dinner, Steve transferred the video of our dance practice to DVD for us – we need to have some kind of reference for practice, after all.

Football Update
Yesterday was the Ravens’ season opener at home.

Kansas City Chiefs at Baltimore Ravens
24 – 38

They tried to give me heart failure in the second and third quarters… and I wasn’t even watching the game, per se. In this market, CBS broadcast the Minnesota-Cleveland game, so I had to “watch” the GameCenter on NFL.com.  Granted, it was nice to see the Vikings hand the Browns a beatdown, but I would have rather seen the Ravens play. Because, let’s face it: Who wouldn’t want to see Ray Lewis break a little something off like this in real time…

…or watch as QB Joe Flacco goes and dials in 303 yards passing and 4 yards rushing, as the Ravens put up a total of 501 yards of total offense!? Crazy. How does that make you feel, Ray?

Yeah, I thought so.

Elsewhere around the league:

Miami Dolphins at Atlanta Falcons
7 – 19
Oh, well.. at least there are 16 more games in the season.

.

Philadelphia Eagles at Carolina Panthers
38 – 10
Ditto.

.

Denver Broncos at Cincinnati Bengals
12 – 7
Sorry, and .

.

Minnesota Vikings at Cleveland Browns
34 – 20
Congrats, … and
Congrats Commiserations, .

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Easy Like Sunday Morning…”

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Sunday – 13 September 2009
I was up later than I had planned to be last night/this morning; I was preparing and posting my auctions on eBay. They’ll kick off this evening and hopefully, by the end of the week, I’ll be a few ‘Clix lighter. (One can hope, can’t they…?)

This morning, we’re up and getting ready to meet our…. BUM BUM BUMMMM… dance instructor for our wedding dances. Mark Baker, SaraRules’ former classmate at SUU and the Director of Ballroom Dance at SUU, is choreographing our first dance and the father-daughter dance as our wedding present. (It’s nice to be able to “open” presents before the event!)

And then, there’s football! The Raven’s take on the Chiefs today. I doubt that the game will be broadcast here and we don’t have DirecTV and Sunday Ticket, but I can track the stats on NFL.com, if nothing else.

Stray Toasters

Right on to the friction of the day…

Namaste.

“We do more before 9AM than most people do all day!”

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Saturday – 12 September 2009
It’s almost 2:30 (at least it was when I started writing this…) and I’ve already gone out to have coffee with Perry, helped move (counts as today’s workout!) and run errands. And now, I’m stuck with something of a conundrum: What in the world am I going to do with the rest of my afternoon?!  SaraRules has to attend An Evening of Beethoven again – this time as an employee of US/UO – so I get to figure out what I’m doing tonight, too. There could be a lot of CoH and or WWG-building time involved…

Last night, we went to the aforementioned “An Evening of Beethoven”

The symphony performed:

  • Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, op. 43
  • Concerto for Violin in D Major, op. 61 (featuring guest artist Jennifer Frautschi on violin)
  • Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, op. 67

And they were very well done. It was a lovely evening out.

After the symphony, we caught up with the Clitorati crew for dinner. As an added bonus, Chris and Mary showed up. And, as a… hm… “bonus bonus,” I guess… Chris brought the Bishop HeroClix figure that he customized for me.

He did a great job on it. More pictures of it can be seen here.

Stray Toasters

That’s good for now.  I’m off to go enjoy some lazy time.

Namaste.

But… but… that’s not supposed to happen!

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I was following a thread on a gaming forum when the following popped up on my screen:


(click for larger image)

The “problem” is: I’m on my MacBook… running Snow Leopard.
Not Windows.
Not Parallels.

OS X.

Yet, lo and behold, I apparently – and somewhat magically – have hundreds of viruses on my (non-existent) “C: drive” and “D: drive.”  It even ran a “scan” to show me just how many there were.  How do I know?  Because the “Scan Procedure” progress bar moved while it was scanning!

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

“Well I guess we all have these feelings we can’t leave unreconciled…”

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Friday – 11 September 2009
Today not only marks the end of the (work) week, but it’s the eighth anniversary of the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

For my thoughts on the matter, I once again refer readers here.

Today’s an “on” day.
And I have The Leash this week.
Happiness and joy.

That’s right… I just broke out a haiku. Bow down.

Football Update
The NFL 2009 season kicked off with the Tennesee Titans heading to Heinz Field to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Tennessee Titans at Pittsburgh Steelers
10 – 13

It was a good game.  A seriously solid, well-played game. The defenses of both teams definitely earned their paychecks this week. The game was scoreless until late in the second half, when both offenses woke up and remembered what it was they were there to do. Excellent way to start the season… despite the fact that the Steelers won.

Four-Color Coverage
MarknTyme has come down with a case of “Life Happens,” which in this case means that he’s whipping his high school band into fighting shape. Because of this, he won’t be helping out with FCC for the near term. With that in mind, I’ll probably have a new (and solo) FCC to post sometime this weekend.

Stray Toasters

  • Twenty-two days.
  • I see a red door
    And I want to paint it black…
  • As I haven’t posted it in a while: Skippy’s List
  • just hooked us up with Irish Creme lollipops. (I know…!) They’re pretty tasty. He got them from Lollyphile.
  • What’s that you say..? Craig Ferguson has something to say about South Carolina Congressman Mike Duvall? Tell me more!

    …and…

  • PopCultureShock has some nice comic-related wallpapers.
  • IAAF urges caution over Semenya intersex claims
    And, I’m Ivory Soap-sure that this line wasn’t intended to be as pun-laden as it appears to me:

    South Africa will fight back if Semenya is excluded from further competition, Stofile said, adding, “It will be a third world war.”

    I don’t know if South Africa (or just parts of it) are considered to have “Third world” status, but is the reporter (unintentionally) saying that it would be a war of third world nations…?

  • David Lynch, window-dresser
  • Unearthing Solomon Grundy
  • Motorola’s comeback attempt rests on software
    Don’t call it a comeback
    [They’ve] been here for years

Tonight: SaraRules and I are attending Utah Symphony’s An Evening of Beethoven.  (Tickets are still available…)

Namaste.

Brett Favre pokes fun at himself…

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I am watching football… *genuflect* …and halfway through the fourth quarter, NBC aired this commercial:

Despite having seen this commercial many times, tonight was the first time I noticed something: The televisions are all showing scenes of Viking longboats.

For those of you who don’t follow football or who don’t understand why this is so amusing: This commercial began airing during preseason, when Favre was waffling over whether to retire from football or make a go of another season in the NFL… as a member of the Minnesota Vikings.

Well played, Brett and Sears. Well played indeed.

Long Live the (Levitz) Legion!

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Thursday – 10 September 2009
Another NBN Thursday is cruising right along.

This morning, I didn’t really want to get out of bed. It wasn’t that I was tired, just lazy. When I did get out of bed, I made my way into the living room… where I plopped down on the sofa. It took another ten or so minutes to get myself motivated to really start the day.

The work day hasn’t been too bad. There have been meetings… and I have The Leash for the next week. WOO!

On the “plus” side, today was also “Comics Thursday.” Not only did I pick up my four-color shwag, but I also picked up a book that SaraRules has been awaiting. My coworker Drew went with me on my lunch/comics run – actually, he drove – and we had lunch at Pasabocas, a Columbian restaurant that’s across the street from Dr. Volt’s. We both had the Carne Asada and we both thought it was quite good. I’ll have to go back and try some of their other fare.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

“Come together, right now, over me…”

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Wednesday – 09 September 09
That’s right, it’s 09/09/09.
Today is also Sushi and Comics Wednesday, but due to the holiday, comic book shipments will not be in until tomorrow.

Last night, Chris came over for another round of our GLC/SC Heroclix battle. (Pictures here) As usual, it was a good fight. In a manner that pretty much mirrored the comics, the first big fight was between Superbrat-Prime Superboy-Prime (sorry… “SuperMAN-Prime”) and Sodam Yat (Ion). Just like that battle, Prime hit Ion and cleaned his clock – six (6) clicks of damage, right off the bat — in the comic, Prime shoved a lead rod into Sodam’s torso.

Fortunately, Yat is a Daxamite and could take the hit, but it took him way off his game. We danced around the table for a while – both our sets of dice ran hot and cold – but, in the end, Chris went home with a “Win.” I believe that the Sinestro Corps is now 3-0 in our match-ups.

While Chris and I were playing, SaraRules went off to see a movie, Julie and Julia, I think… When she came home, she brought me flowers. (Coolest. Fiancee. Ever.) It was very sweet of her.

Stray Toasters

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Is it Monday… I mean “Tuesday”… already?!

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Tuesday – 08 September 2009
A new (and short) work week begins. And there’s already been “an issue” with another of our cooling systems.  Hopefully, the maintenance work that is scheduled for tomorrow will take care of it.

Happy Birthday, to Sib-4: !

I hope you like this birthday ecard better than last year's text message

Last night wound up being rather low-key. I finished cutting out the last of the 6″x6″ tiles that I had – I’m down to a hair over five minutes per tile, with all of the necessary cutting. I still need to cut some 6″x3″ and 3″x3″ tiles.

Tonight, Chris is coming over for a knockdown, drag-out Green Lantern Corps vs. Sinestro Corps ‘Clix game. We’re also using our respective Corps’ heralds: I’m using Ion (Sodam Yat) and he’s playing with Parallax (Kyle Rayner), based on figures that we made and custom dials that we’ve found.

(And, hopefully, we’ll be able to settle on a decent/respectable TA for the Sinestro Corps…)

Workout
Today’s workout was brief, but fulfilling:

  • Sit-ups (incline): 3 sets/20 reps
  • Bench Press: 3 sets/10 reps, 205 lbs
  • Compound Row: 3 sets/12 reps, 140 lbs
  • Flys: 3 sets/10 reps, 120 lbs
  • Push-ups: 3 sets/15 reps

Weight (post-workout): 188.4 lbs

Stray Toasters

Back to it.

Namaste.

Labor Day Weekend Update

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Monday – 07 September 2009
It’s been a good four-day weekend. There have been just about equal rounds of productivity and laziness. That makes for a good weekend, I think.

<< Rewind <<
After running errands on Friday – one of which took me to the office… twice! – I had a quiet afternoon and evening. Clitorati was good, both the company and the conversations. Also of note: Borders’ Cafe now has a Hazelnut Mocha, which is pretty tasty.

Saturday, SaraRules and I got up, went out for breakfast and headed to…


(click for pictures)

It was a few days shy of the second anniversary of our second date… which also happened to be at Hogle Zoo. We got to see the new Amur Tiger and Snow Leopard cubs, as well as a giraffe calf.

After the zoo, we had lunch, stopped in to see Kate, Perry and the kids and then hooked up with some of the usual suspects to check out Gamer. I thought it was a decent – but not awesome – movie, that made a couple of interesting points about gamer culture and society. SaraRules did not like this movie. In fact, she said that she’d consider seeing either The Spirit or Transformers: RotF again before seeing this again… and she hated both of them. That said, if you’re looking for much more than shoot-em-up fare, you might want to skip this one.

Saturday evening was quiet, with SaraRules doing some quilting and me cutting new tiles for new WWG maps.

Sunday, SaraRules got up early-ish to go help her father work on the new/replacement deck he’s building. I got up a little later and headed over to help. We got the deck and the lower trim finished; I’m not sure if the next step will be railings or steps. Fortunately, it’s not my decision to make – I’m just there for the heavy lifting. After the deck-building, I popped into Paragon City for a little bit. As of a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been a CoH member for four years. Where does the time go? After gaming, we (SaraRules, the in-laws-to-be, and I) watched The Mist. Not bad, if a little cheesy at points. And the ending…? Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t “completely” telegraphed, but you could see the proverbial writing on the wall.

> Play >
Today, we slept in. After breakfast, we set about doing a bit of cleaning. (The dining room looks like a “room” again, not just a storage depot.) Next up, we visited the Utah Museum of Natural History. SaraRules hadn’t been there in many moons and I had never been. It was a nice place. Their featured exhibit is called “Toadally Frogs,” which reminded us of a smaller version of the exhibit we saw at the National Aquarium in Baltimore last year. After that, we had dinner at Charlie Chow’s. (A huge “Thanks!” to SaraRules for taking one for the team so that I could have Chinese food!)

Tomorrow, back to the work-a-day grind.

Stray Toasters

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

Labor Day Weekend Kick-off

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Friday – 04 September 2009
It’s my 9/80 Friday off. Can you say “four-day weekend,” boys and girls?

I knew you could!

I fell asleep on the couch last night… watching football. That’s a sentence that I never thought I’d write. SaraRules was kind enough to wake me up and suggest that I call it a night. I did. And I slept in this morning. That was nice, considering that I won’t be sleeping in tomorning: We’re doing an early breakfast at Ruth’s Diner and then making a trip to the zoo. (I just realized that tomorrow’s trip will be almost two years to the day that we made our first trip to the zoo together.)

Today, I have a couple of errands to run, but other than that, it’s a wide open day.

Football Update
Last night, the Ravens played the Hawks, in Atlanta.  And won. Meaning they went 4-0 in preseason.

Baltimore Ravens at Altanta Hawks
20 – 3

The Raiders also took on the Seahawks in Seattle. They didn’t fare as well. Their preseason record: 1 – 3.

Oakland Raiders at Seattle Seahawks
21 – 31

Stray Toasters

Namaste.