Union Pacific's Great Excursion Adventure

Shoot me.

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I was about to fire up Dreamweaver, to do some more PHP work, and I started whistling the chorus to this.

I think I need to scrub my brain now.

“Ah’m so hungry, ah could eat a wagon wheel!”

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Thursday – 06 March 2008
I woke up a little later than planned this morning. I made up for it by doing my best impression of The Flash and was ready to roll shortly thereafter. Of course, to make up for such a metabolic surge, I stopped at the local B&B for a frozen mocha. Double shot. Shaken, not stirred.

The crew from SageWater showed up this morning a couple of minutes before eight. One of the guys – I’m assuming the lead on the project, if not just for my apartment – noticed my Ravens pennant on the wall. He asked if I was familiar with Baltimore; I told him that I grew up there. He then mentioned that their company was based out of North Carolina (which I already knew), so I asked which part (which I didn’t know). Raleigh. I then mentioned that I had a sister who went to school in Durham and grew up outside of Greensboro. He went on to tell me how broadly he travels with the company. (A LOT!) His next job is in Seattle. I neglected to ask how long they are typically on the road.

Stray Toasters

Namaste.

Of coffee and phantom cartoon theme songs…

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Wednesday – 05 March 2008
Sweet frozen mocha.
Double-shot of espresso.
Good start to my day.

More days should start with haiku.

I’m not saying that “every” day should, but the occasional haiku can’t be a bad thing.

Of course, this is coming from the guy whose internal radio kept looping the theme from Inspector Gadget while getting ready for work. (I blame for this, per usual.)

“Lead us not into temptation…”

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Tuesday: Coda
After work, I headed to Far West Comics. Chris had them hold my Dawnstar (Long Live my tiny plastic Legion!)… along with a Nightwing and Starfire and a new Blue Beetle. Triple-score.

Then I started looking at some of their other figures. And I walked out of there with:

…and a Spartan with Dual Plasma Rifles. Just because I didn’t have a Master Chief figure. Until now.

Damn, Chris. *shakes fist*

Next, it was off to ‘ place for Scion. had a surprise for me: This. I was greatly amused by it. and John couldn’t make it, so it was just , and me. We had an abbreviated – but good – session. And no one died. No one on our team, that is. And that’s what counts.

Stray Toaster
pointed me in the direction of this video. She said it would make me smile. She was right.

Namaste.

“Send your signal ’round the world…”

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Tuesday – 04 March 2008
Sunny day here in the valley… but TWC warns of a threat of snow. 30%, but still…

We had a meeting/training this morning, but the videostream didn’t work – it had buffering issues and was thus quite choppy. So, it’s been postponed. It was actually rather amusing to me: It reminded me of the scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader is having a holo-conference with captains and Moffs, but the feeds are laced with static and/or breaking up because of interference from being in an asteroid field. (Unfortunately, no one got struck by an asteroid in our meeting, though.)

Stray Toasters

Quote of the Day
From a conversation with Dwim:

(11:09:00) Dwim: Flying’s for lazy pansies.
(11:09:15) Dwim: Real superheroes take long walks for their health.
(11:09:38) Me: Not even Batman walks – he swings from rooftop to rooftop.
(11:09:56) Dwim: Superman on Earth-105 jogs everywhere.
(11:10:01) Me: Oh.
(11:10:03) Me: Huh.
(11:10:18) Dwim: Blue and red leg warmers, baby.
(11:10:29) Me: *eyes burn*
(11:10:40) Dwim: Sewn by Ma Kent from the sweater he wore from Krypton.
(11:10:53) Me: Wow.
(11:11:03) Me: No amount of drinking will save me from that mental image.
(11:11:42) Dwim: Drinking’s for the lazy. Real superheroes take their liquor through their gills.
(11:12:01) Me: But, I wasn’t born in Atlantis.
(11:12:16) Dwim: As usual, Aquaman can’t hold his liquor. The guy’s a lousy drunk, frankly.
(11:12:39) Dwim: He… doesn’t get by on land as well as you get by underwater when he’s drunk.
(11:12:55) Me: I would imagine not.
(11:13:02) Dwim: Superman always has to jog him home.
(11:13:08) Me: In the ocean, you can just… drift along on the currents.
(11:13:13) Me: On land, you just… fall down.
(11:13:14) Dwim: It’s a long jog from the JLA orbital platform.
(11:13:31) Dwim: Easier just to drop him.
(11:13:47) Dwim: *plop*
(11:14:04) Me: Re-entry must be a right bitch, though.
(11:14:14) Dwim: Sucks to be Aquaman.

And that’s a wrap for now.

Namaste.

“One town’s very like another, when your head’s down over your pieces, brother.”

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Monday: Coda
Ten-and-a-half hours.

That’s how long my Monday work day wound up being. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not complaining. Sure, it was a long day and I had a fairly boring and rote task that took up the back half (or more) of the day, but I was not a bad day by any stretch of the imagination. Just… long. And, on the “plus” side of the equation: That gives me an “extra” two-and-a-half hours to play around with on this week’s schedule, if I want.

After work, I came home for a short bit and then headed back out to take care of a couple of errands before heading over to Mary and Chris’ so that Chris and I could play dolls HeroClix. As usual, he cleaned my clock, but I had a lot of fun. The first game (400 points), I tried a team with something of a Green Lantern focus:

This was something of a war of attrition, but Chris’ tactics and skill wore me down. We decided to play one more game (200 points) before calling it a night. I decided that I wanted a “fun” team, so I went with a Justice League International theme. (I deserved to get my ass kicked just on principle for that one.) This team’s lineup included:

Chris brought out Nick Fury and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And Blade. Between some rather craptacular dice rolls on my part and some pretty good ones on his part, he picked my team apart. It was almost as funny to watch/play as the JLI comic series. Almost. But, again, it was fun.

We loosely talked about getting together again and playing in the not-too-distant future. I had a couple of ideas for themes, based on the point values we decide on: The Earth GLs, The New Mutants or the Captain Marvel family.

Stray Toasters

That’s close enough for jazz for tonight.

Namaste.

“Superman and Green Lantern ain’t got nothing on me…”

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Sunday – 02 March 2008
It’s been a quiet and lazy day.
And that’s not a bad thing.

The morning didn’t start (for me) with comics and coffee in bed. It did start with coffee – and SaraRules did read the most recent acquisition of The Walking Dead in bed – but we wound up in the living room listening to music and hanging out.

In the afternoon, we headed to Jitterbug for a coffee and a quick bite to eat with . Next stop, Toys R Us. After all, it’s “The World’s Biggest Toy Store.” It wasn’t the longest TRU excursion on record, but it was nevertheless fun. And I managed to find a Justice Lords (1, 2) 3-pack of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman.

From there, on to SaraRules’ parents’ house for dinner and to hang out. After dinner, we watched 30 Days of Night. During the first third to half of the movie, I multi-tasked and played City of Heroes while watching the movie. By the time I was done, I was three bars closer to Level 46. Not too shabby for 30-40 minutes’ work. After the movie – and talking geek with SaraRules’ dad for a bit – we headed home. Since it was still early, we decided to watch something fairly light before calling it a night. We agreed on Justice League: The New Frontier. SaraRules liked it, especially because of its different spin on the characters; I liked it because… well, yeah.. “just because.” Duh.

This morning came early. Very early. We got up, ready and out the door and had breakfast at Paradise Bakery and Cafe before SaraRules had to head off to pick up one of her roommates and hit the road for southern Utah.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
This I Believe – Leaving Work Early to Watch the Sunset

Stray Toasters

“…right on to the friction of the day.”

Namaste.

“I’m building it brick by brick…”

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Saturday – 01 March 2008
Jason and I went to the driving range at Old Mill for lunch yesterday. It was the perfect day for it – not too warm, not too cool; sunny; almost no wind. I had a few good drives and a lot of “Why, yes it has been six months since I did this…” ones, too. It was a lot of fun and a great change of pace. If the weather holds, we’re going to go again next week; we even have a couple of other guys who sound interested in joining us.

Last night’s Clitorati gathering was quite good. Mary and Chris joined us. After last week’s adventures with Wolverine and Colossus, I decided to take my Sentinel a bag of LEGO bricks (and assorted pieces) with me.


Who knew that Sentinels could be left-handed?!

Holy cow! The LEGO pieces were a big hit! got some good-natured ribbing from OnlyAly about how quickly he opened the bag and started the play… until she grabbed some pieces and started build things of her own.


OnlyAly’s LEGO Condo

joined the building party, as did . All-in-all, a good time was had. And no coffee was spilled nor were any cameras dropped in the taking of these pictures.

I’m not sure what’s on tap for today. SaraRules and I have talked about heading to the State Fairgrounds to see the Sixth Annual Bellydance Spring Fest, so that’s a possibility.

But first up: Breakfast, coffee and cartoons.

Stray Toasters

And with that… Long Live the Legion!