Category Archives: Uncategorized

Busy Yet Fun Weekend!

Well yesterday was a bit nuts and I didn’t get a chance to write much. Let’s backtrack a bit, shall we?

Saturday was surprisingly busy. I was up stupidly early, as usual (darned early sunrises) but that gave me some time to relax before my follow-up appointment with the podiatrist. It was a blessedly short visit, pretty much just long enough for him to check that my toe was healing well, give me some simple after care instructions, and send me on my way (with no co-pay. yay!). I woke up takaza when I got home and after a bit we went down to The Firkin to meet up with linnaeus, roho, and genet. After a delicious meal and some excellent beer, Paul had to take his leave to return to his evil employer. The rest of us wandered around a bit and picked up some yummies from a local bakery. After that we retired back to Roho and Genet’s place and spent the afternoon chatting on their deck and enjoying the lovely weather. Once we finally rousted ourselves out of the sun-induced torpor, we trekked up to Gander Mountain and shopped around a bit (we got some new folding chairs), then stopped by Jewel on the way home and picked up some munchies. The rest of evening was spent sampling some tasty beer and enjoying several episodes of Venture Bros.

On Sunday, Dan and I finally got around to getting some work done around the house. I took apart the plumbing under the sink to find the cause of the leak I had noticed there; I determined the cause, finally, but I still need to stop at the hardware store to get the parts to fix it. I also finally got around to hooking up the ice maker, a reasonably simple task that cost all of $8 (the cost of the ice maker tubing kit). We now have ice! We also did a good bit of housecleaning, which made me feel a bit better. Roho, Genet, and Linnaeus joined us that evening for dinner, the online MFF staff meeting, and The Amazing Race. Genet made an extremely tasty pot roast, supplemented by Dan’s mashed potatoes and a salad with a quick vinaigrette I threw together. Much fun was had, plus we got to enjoy said bakery yummies from the day before.

And here we are, a new week. Work is keeping me busier than usual, as I noted above; it will be that way for the next few weeks, I think. This weekend, mirkowuff will be joining me, Dan, and Linnaeus for a scavenger hunt hosted by the local park district. I’m really looking forward to that! Meanwhile I hope to get some MFF work done, and I also need to come up with at least one more person for my staff for Anthrocon. Anyone have any suggestions?

Outage Notice

An update on what’s been going on in our lives will be coming later, but for now I wanted to make note of this:

It appears that Puma’s servers are offline right now; preliminary indications from my inexpert testing is loss of DNS. This means that any websites or e-mail lists associated with catbox.com, furfest.org, furry.ca, mifur.us, ohiofur.net or wolfhusky.org (my personal e-mail) are temporarily inaccessible. I haven’t spoken with Puma, but I have every certainty that he’ll have things back up and running as quickly as possible.
Edit @ 10:49 AM CDT: Everything is back online!

In the unlikely event that anyone needs to e-mail me RIGHT NOW, I can always be reached at my username, tabrady, at the mailserver gmail.com (it normally just forwards to my wolfhusky.org address, but I can pick up my mail from there, too).

Weekend Recap Before I Forget Completely

Right. So. the weekend that was.

Takaza had taken a half day off from work so that he could meet up with linnaeus and they could go to see a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Well, sort of at Wrigley Field; they were actually across the street in pretty posh digs. This meant that they were in the city by the end of the afternoon. I was itching to do something, as was nymphara, so we all agreed to meet up in Vernon Hills. We walked around Barnes and Noble and the game store at Hawthorn Mall for a bit, then decided to head north for dinner, eventually winding up at Lovely Thai. I liked my entree a lot more this time, a barbecued-pork-and-vegetable noodle dish, and the company was excellent. Sadly, although we’d talked about playing some games afterwards, by the end of dinner we were all too tired and everyone tottered off home.

I had big plans for Saturday, a nice list of all the things I wanted to get done around the house. Unfortunately, a darned ingrown toenail got in the way. I had to go to a podiatrist in the morning, and he cut away about a quart-inch of nail along the side of my right big toe. It was of course numbed all to heck and didn’t hurt a bit, and only took about three minutes. The bad news is that I had to spend the rest of the day staying off of it and keeping my foot elevated. We watched a lot of TiVo on Saturday 🙂

On Sunday, after a rough night (aided by a bit of Tylenol 3), I gambled a bit on how much I could walk and how far. We went to cheer on invncble at the Blackwolves game against the Madison Thunder – and the Blackwolves won! It was fun to hang out with datahawk and her mom and RC, as well as jimcyl and perro and darkwolph. Alas, my foot was hurting and Dan had a ton of work to do, so we had to pass on the reception and Wolves game afterwards, but I hope everyone had fun!

And here we are back in the work week. I’m gimping around a good bit still, pumped up full of antibiotics and trying to stay off my foot (and failing). I’m hoping that things should be back to normal by the coming weekend, though.

Midwest FurFest Announces Great Things for 2007!

First off, we have our theme: Critters on the High Seas. It’s a little something for all of your nautical furries: pirates, sailing ships, and all of that good stuff!

Next up, we have our Guests of Honor. Midwest FurFest is pleased to welcome Cara Mitten. Cara is a gifted artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in Dragon Magazine, Magic: the Gathering, several books by White Wolf Publishing, Anthrolations magazine, and both the Kennel Club and Bestiary card decks.

We are also pleased to be joined by Jill C., aka Jill0r. Jill is an excellent illustrator, cartoonist, painter, and costumer. She recently completed a BFA in Illustration and Animation. Her professors nipped at her heels, barking that she “choose a style and stick with it,” but unable to follow directions, Jill is doing whatever she darn well pleases and is having a good time with it.

Finally we welcome Will Sanborn. Will is a talented author whose work has been featured in South Fur Lands, Anthropomorphine, and Fur Visions, and he has had several story collections published by Sofawolf Press.

We invite you to visit our newly-revamped website at http://www.furfest.org for more information, and we’ll see you in November!

Where to find the words

I attended Virginia Tech from 1991 until 1995, obtaining my Masters in chemical engineering. During that time, I spent the majority of my waking hours in Randolph Hall, which is located a hundred feet or so across a parking lot from Norris Hall, where the worst of the killings took place.

I’ve been in a very strange place since first hearing the news yesterday. I can’t begin to express my sorrow for those whose lives were taken, nor my rage and confusion over how a person can do such a thing. I think Dan put his finger on it last night – a place that I had fond memories of, someplace where I felt safe, has been violated. I suppose I’m fortunate to be twelve years removed from campus, and things aren’t quite as raw as for those who were there just recently. For those attending Tech, I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to try to resume a normal campus life after such a tragedy.

Through all of this, there’s an anger over something I admit is small and irrational, but irritating nonetheless: For the next few years, Virginia Tech won’t be a school known for a fine engineering school, a place for skilled architecture graduates, or even a school with a good football team. It will instead be “that school where all those people were killed.” It’s as if the schools identity was taken away, and replaced with this horrible albatross around its neck.

I probably won’t say much else about this matter – I just can’t put it into words much more than this. But I wanted to get this much out.

How To Recruit Staff for Fannish Conventions

Here’s an essay I wrote last year and never got around to posting. I updated it a bit and cleaned it up. Enjoy!

How To Recruit Staff for Fannish Conventions

Since a couple of people have mentioned that they had issues with putting together staffs for their departments at various conventions, I thought I’d post some thoughts that I had on the matter. I have run Registration at Midwest FurFest for the last six years and Artists Alley at Anthrocon for the last three years. I have put together quality groups of people to work both of these labor-intensive departments with minimal year-to-year turnover, so I figure I must be doing something right! I don’t expect that anyone is going to read this and suddenly all will become clear, but I hope that it might provide fuel for thought and at least some of this might be helpful.

I’ll break this down into three sections: Before the Convention, During the Convention, and After the Convention.

Before the Convention

Snow, Doctors and Weekend

Great fun here yesterday, as we got five or six inches of wet, heavy snow. This caused numerous blackouts in the area as tree limbs started falling on power lines, but nothing too bad. It played heck with a lot of people’s commutes, even doubling the length of my commute! ‘Course, since it only takes me five minutes to get to work, I don’t expect a lot of sympathy.

It’s been a boring week so far; not a whole lot going on at work, and evenings have been quiet. Just for a change of pace, I’ll be heading down to the doctor’s office after work today to have an ingrown toenail looked at (right there with ya, rustitobuck!). It’s gotten bad enough that it’s making me limp a bit and the pain is waking me up at night, so yeah – time to see what can be done. This will probably be my last visit to this doctor – while she was convenient to my last job, that’s no longer the case. Her office is a good half-hour away (and 45-60 minutes back, with traffic). Couple this with the fact that what used to be a small office with a receptionist, one nurse, and one doctor, all of whom knew you by name (and I their names) and were all quite friendly, has suddenly grown to a three-doctor practice with multiple support staff. I understand the economics of it, but it’s like I’m going from being a valued patient whose history the doctor knew without looking at the chart to just a another insurance claim to be filed. Time to check with Aetna and see what doctors are on their plan in the Round Lake/Grayslake area.

Meanwhile, it looks like I’ll be doing some work around the house this weekend, finally getting the bathtub in the master bath unclogged, and probably pull the elbows from under the kitchen sink and clean those (oh, those are gonna be gross) as well as doing some house cleaning. On Sunday, it appears we’ll be seeing some hockey with friends, which is always fun as well.

Time to go grab a soda, I think…

Weekendness and stuff

Now that was a fun weekend. As planned, we had lunch on Saturday at The Firkin in Libertyville with roho, genet, feren, and lady_curmudgeon. I need to remember that while their beer is divine (mmm, bocks) and their appetizers are tasty (the duck quesadillas were to die for!), their entrees aren’t quiet always up to snuff; the steak sandwich I had tasted like a whole lot of horseradish and not enough of steak. Still, I’d go back, even if I only ordered a couple of appetizers. Afterward we wandered town around a bit, including a stop by Rocky Mountain Spotted Chocolate Factory, where we introduced everyone to the yumminess that is “Apple Pie Apple”, an apple rolled in white chocolate, caramel, and cinnamon sugar. Yum! Afterwards we stopped back by our place to pick up nymphara and headed up to Antioch for an evening of hanging out, pizza, boozahol, and Apples to Apples. We had a wonderful time!

On Sunday I finally got my taxes taken care of (yay federal refund! boo state taxes due!) and we cleaned up a bit, and did some grocery shopping. Roho and Genet came over for dinner and we enjoyed some yummy burritos and watched The Amazing Race. A nice, low-key day.

So, other random stuff going on: We have tickets to see Weird Al Yankovic in June! He’s playing at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, IN. takaza saw him on his last tour, and apparently it’s a great show. I’m really looking forward to it. Hey – anyone else want to go? Get your tickets now, ’cause they’re going fast!

Maybe more later – gotta run!

If Only It Were Friday…Oh Wait, It Is!

So the office has that Friday-afternoon-before-a-holiday ghost town feeling to it. The boss has gone home and I’d wager folks are going to start trickling out over the next hour. He told me I could leave anytime I want to – which is dandy, except as a contractor, I get paid only for when I’m here. Ah well, 4:30 it is.

I’ve been updating a few things for Anthrocon Artists Alley, and giza set me up with editing privileges on the AA page on the AC site. That’s pretty cool, though I doubt I’ll use it much between now and July. Meanwhile, I’ve had a bit of fun with the new “My Maps” feature on Google Maps and created a map of stuff in the vicinity of Anthrocon. Pity they don’t yet have an easy way to plug everything into the Google Maps API, but hey, it was an interesting experiment.

Going into the weekend, I leave you with two nifty YouTube clips:
1.) The Gossip’s “Standing in the Way of Control” – I don’t much care for the video, but the song is quite catchy. I came across a reference to them in an article in today’s Chicago Tribune, “Proudly, loudly gay and on a major label? Sure”.
2.) While surfing around LJ I came across the_gneech‘s post with this infectious little ditty: ROFLMAO. Recommended for both World of Warcraft players AND fans of The Muppet Show 🙂

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Midweek Stuff

It’s a typical week, which is to say not too exciting.

nymphara is crashing at our place for a few days, as she is in between apartments. Various errands have kept her busy all week, though, so we haven’t seen much of her!

I thought that we were going to a party this weekend, but apparently not. This means we actually don’t have plans for the weekend. Shocking! I’m sure something will expand to fill the available time, though (like maybe a lunch trip to The Firkin in Libertyville. Hmm…). Pretty much the most exciting thing is that I picked up some pre-marinated skirt steak from Garden Fresh Market the other day; I’m really curious to see how it cooks up tonight, but if the small of our refrigerator is anything to go by, it should be quite tasty!

Among other errands I need to run is a stop by the Round Lake Park District offices to drop off our entry form for the Spring Stampede (pdf link) that we’re going to do with linnaeus and mirkowuff. The tentative name for our team is “Hungarian Soup Orchestra”, something that will make no sense to anyone who hasn’t watched the last few seasons of The Amazing Race 🙂 I should check out their gym facilities while I’m there, too.

On the topic of Anthrocon, I got a happy surprise yesterday when I made some lists of who I have for help and I actually have more people than last year. Awesome! We were stretched pretty thin last year, so the extra person will make a world of difference. Right now, I’ve got danruk, linnaeus, Grandma & Grandpa Kage, bullethc, woodychitwn, frostyw, nymphara, and rooth for my staff, with additional help from datahawk, roho, and genet for payout each day. With takaza‘s staff of daveqat, jimcyl, and wild_rhythm, we might be able to make it through this year without completely falling apart (though if anyone feels the need to demand that I spend a half-hour on the massage guy’s chair again, I’ll be quite OK with that!). I’m always looking for a bit of additional help, though, so if you’re interested, let me know. I took some time yesterday to update the staff instructions for Artists Alley and Con Store; I’ll be sending those out sometime next month, I expect. I’ve arranged the signup room and times with kuddlepup, so that all seems to be in order. I need to make a list of forms I need to print and info I need to get from Kage, then I’ll be pretty much good to go.

Oh, I almost forgot! Many of you have heard me rant and rave about Intelligentsia’s Black Cat Espresso. I’m afraid I have a new love in my coffee life, though: Alterra Coffee’s Delta Mud. Oh man, is that stuff good! And their prices are much more reasonable than Intelligentsia’s, even with shipping included. I still like Intelligentsia’s stuff, but unfortunately it’s just a pain to get out here in the burbs.

Back to work for me, now!

A Trip To The Mitten

Y’know, before this weekend, my sole experience of visiting Michigan was back around 2002 or so, going north about a mile on I-69 from the Indiana Toll Road, turning around, and continuing my trip on the Indiana Toll Road. Hey, at least I could say I’d been to Michigan, and therefore every state east of the Mississippi.

This weekend I got to see a bit more of Michigan than that. I left work at 11 AM on Friday and picked up takaza from his employer an hour after that. After carefully checking the traffic reports, we were able to slip through downtown Chicago and out the Chicago Skyway with minimal delays. The trip across Michigan on I-94 was uneventful; I wound up doing most of the driving, since Dan was sleepy. We arrived at the Best Western Executive Plaza in Ann Arbor at close to 6 PM EDT.

We were there for the Dorsai Thing, an annual private relaxacon that the Dorsai hold annually. It was a bit awkward, since we didn’t really know many people there, though giza and petercat from Anthrocon were in attendance, and indeed we spent a good bit of time hanging around and chatting with them. Although they had several tasty dishes available in the con suite, Dan and I opted to go out and grab dinner at Zingerman’s Deli, part of the Zingerman’s conglomerate in Ann Arbor. I had done a bit of googling before we left, and the deli was described as the one place in Ann Arbor (or “A2”, as the local hipsters refer to it) that should not be missed. I have to say, I was extremely impressed with the place. They are clearly set up that funnel massive amounts of people through their store quickly and efficiently, though fortunately there weren’t that many people there that night (I think it was Spring Break at the University of Michigan, so that helped). Dan had a turkey sandwich which he found close to transcendent, and my beef brisket sandwich was pretty darned tasty (great BBQ sauce, but it needed more smokiness in the meat). We drove around downtown Ann Arbor a bit and it struck me as a rather pleasant college town, albeit one that supports a freakin’ huge college. After dinner we went back to the hotel and I crashed early, while Dan stayed up too late making a video blog.

Saturday was pretty laid back. I stepped out from the hotel early to hunt down a tasty cappuccino and had a chance to read the local paper; this only reinforced my opinion that Ann Arbor is definitely a small town in big-city clothing. That has a certain quaintness to it, though. that afternoon there were a few pseudo-panels (more like discussions) on how to be a duty officer (i.e. how to head up and deploy the Dorsai contingent at a convention) and how to negotiate contracts with conventions. These were quite interesting from an outsider’s point of view, and it’s worthy of note that the Dorsai think that Anthrocon is a whole lot of fun, and have nothing but nice things to say about the convention. From the discussions, it sounds like they’ll be working at another furry convention this year, too (not MFF). Following the panels, there was The Spanish Inquisition. This was an entertaining contest where each team had to take ten minutes and do…something. The judge (Sergeant Steve, scs_11) would only tell them if they were doing something wrong, or not wrong. Oh, and the judge could lie at any time. Between your team’s activities and observations made of the other team’s activities, the goal was to deduce what the rules were. It was very silly, and people had a lot of fun with it. We worked with Giza and Peter and we were, of course, “Team Furry”. Of the four teams, we somehow won, for which we got a nifty action figure!

After that, we gave Peter and Giza a lift to the local Kroger where we purchased supplies for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster contest. The goal was to create a drink that best embodied the description of a drink that was “like being hit over the head by a gold brick wrapped in a slice of lemon.” Peter and Dan’s entries were quite tasty, though Giza’s was…well, I’ll have to track down some pictures of the reception that Giza’s drink received. I think the best comment his drink received was, “A bit harsh for marinating pork or chicken, but maybe not bad with beef.” Dan won a nice set of martini glasses for his drink!

Sunday morning we stopped by the breakfast buffet briefly, but decided to go ahead and hit the road to beat the weekend traffic back through Chicago. Sorry to everyone we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to! The drive was uneventful, but difficult due to nasty crosswinds most of the trip. We arrived home and pretty much collapsed on the sofa, enjoying the two hours of The Amazing Race that aired last night. Then it was off to bed.

Many thanks to Steve and all of the other good Dorsai Irregulars we met this weekend! We had a lot of fun and I definitely look forward to seeing many familiar faces when Anthrocon rolls around.

Long Days, Video Games, and Peanuts on the Floor

It’s Thursday, and as this day begins…

Oh wait, it began a while ago, didn’t it? Anyway. It hasn’t been a very exciting week, but things are picking up. I’ve been coming in an hour early each day (7 AM – 4:30 PM) so that I can leave at 11 AM on Friday. Why? More on that below.

Earlier in the week I finally finished Okami. How sad is it that I fired it up again for a bit yesterday just to see what happens when you start it again (oooh, you have lots of cash and stuff, that’s what!). I don’t foresee playing the whole game through again, but it’s remarkable that the playability holds up even after finishing it. And even though it’s the most expensive game we’ve ever bought, at 40+ hours of gameplay, it was very much worth it!

Yesterday when takaza got home I started to make dinner – farfalle in a tomato-sausage sauce. Except when I unwrapped the Italian sausage from the fridge something wasn’t…quite…right. Rather than speculate on just how spoiled the sausage might be (hey everyone it’s food poisoning roulette!) we elected to seek dinner out. We wound up trying Pat’s Pizza on 83 in Grayslake. Wow, what a throwback that place is. Peanut shells on the floor, tables decorated with pages from the 1967 Grayslake High School yearbook…yeah. As much as I wanted to like the place, though, the pizza was unremarkable, as was the garlic bread. It might be a fun place to go with friends, though, just not on a weekend night – that place gets seriously crowded then!

After dinner we made a short drive up to Antioch to visit our favorite booze supplier, Antioch Liquors (nee Armanetti’s, and now apparently part of the Cardinal Liquors chain, though they haven’t changed their sign in over a year). We got a six pack of the Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale that I had at the bowling alley a few weeks ago; as I feared (and the stupidly low price was the tipoff) it’s an Anheuser-Busch product. The stuff from the tap was reasonably good, though, and at three bucks for the six pack, if it’s nasty at least I didn’t gamble much. We also got a bottle of Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka (giza is so doomed!) and a bottle of Aberlour a’bunadh (I’m so doomed!). I toyed with getting a bottle of the extremely tasty Stolichnya Elite, but we were already damaging our wallets enough, so we stopped there. From there it was back home for a boringly early bedtime.

Today has been somewhat busy but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. After I leave work at 11, I’ll be picking up Dan at work then we’ll be hitting the road for Ann Arbor, Michigan and the Dorsai Thing, a nice little relaxacon. I have no idea what to expect, but I’m sure it’s going to be entertaining one way or another. I’m really looking forward to this because it’s been a while since we did any kind of a road trip (since last July, I think?) and I’ve been antsy to get out on the road again, even if it’s just a short jaunt over to Michigan. For those going to Congenial this weekend, I’m bummed that we won’t be able to make it and I hope that you all have a blast!

Things Don’t Always Go As Planned

Well, takaza and I were supposed to go away last weekend for a relaxing mini-vacation together, but after evaluating our finances we decided that it would be better to postpone that trip until April. So what did we do instead?

I got a last-minute call for help from wyldekyttin on Friday afternoon to lend a hand with moving on Saturday morning. I got up far too early and headed down to the Chicago to help out. I learned how to remove the seats from the Element (man, that’s easy!) and I was impressed just how much extra space that buys you. Because of the huge turnout of folks, I didn’t have to do too much heavy lifting (many hands, light work, etc.) , so it wasn’t an unpleasant experience at all. After dropping everything off, I headed back home and spent some quality time with my wonderful husband. Sorry, woodychitwn – I wish we could have made it to the party, but it sounds like you had more than enough fun without us. mirkowuff wound up crashing at our place for the night after he left Woody’s party.

Sunday was all about Midwest FurFest – first the Board meeting, then the staff meting immediately after. Both meetings went quickly, and there’s lots of good stuff on tap for 2007 and 2008 (yeah, we plan that far ahead!). We had a pleasant late lunch/early dinner with friends afterwards, then headed home. Dan napped a bit while I played some Okami (I’m just starting the final part of the game – maybe someday soon I’ll break this addiction!). We were mildly annoyed when the basketball games pushed the start of The Amazing Race back by 40 minutes, causing us to miss about 15 minutes in the middle of the show. Fortunately, we didn’t miss too much, it seems (mainly everyone attempting to get out of Johannesburg Airport), and I was more than satisfied with the results. I note that next week’s episode is two hours long. Yay!

I’m working long hours this week, coming in each day at 7 AM so I’ll be able to leave at 11:30 AM on Friday. We’ll be heading over to Ann Arbor, MI for the Dorsai Thing, which should be a new and different experience. Other than that, though, it should be a boring week.

Because This Needs to Be Publicized Everywhere

Precautionary Dog and Cat Food Recall
Menu Foods is recalling a huge number of dog and cat food products that have been tied to the deaths of nine cats and one dog and an unknown number of kidney-related illnesses. The recall applies specifically to “cuts and gravy” style products in pouches and cans. Menu Foods makes pet food products for a wide variety of companies, from Iams and Eukanuba to Publix and Schnucks. For a full list of the products being recalled, see the following links:
Dog Food Products
Cat Food Products

Ursa Major Award Voting Has Begun!

I’ve been slack about mentioning this: Voting for the 2006 Ursa Major Awards for Best Anthropomorphic Literature and Art is now open, and runs until midnight (PDT), April 14, 2007. the Ursa Majors website has the voting ballot with links to as many of the original works as possible. You can vote by either e-mail or snail mail. Check it out, and hey – maybe you’ll learn a bit more about our wacky fandom, too!

Hump Day Musings

Not a whole lot going on this week, and it’s really quite nice. With our Heroes on hiatus that has left us free to watch other good stuff like The Dresden Files (which, though technically set in Chicago, is actually shot in Toronto. Not quite as bad as Vancouver, which “looks like Boston, California”), and accumulated low-priority animation shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy. Tonight I think we’re going to check out the second episode of BBC America’s Robin Hood and the premiere of FX’s The Riches, which got rave reviews (and the idea of Eddie Izzard maintaining a strict American accent amuses me to no end).

Thanks to everyone who responded to yesterday’s call for help at AC. I’ll be in touch with you soon, trust me. We also need to have a little sit-down with roho to discuss the feasibility of point-of-sale software for Artists Alley; this is probably something for implementation in future years. Something like that could really streamline payout, but as has been noted in the past, what is it worth to knock twenty minutes off a 45-minute process that we do three times each year?

Yesterday’s weather was fabulous, just with the high just a hair over 70 and breezy. I opened up all the windows and aired the place out (and discovered a missing screen on one of the windows in the master bedroom). Relaxing in the living room with the breeze blowing was just lovely. Of course, because it’s Illinois in March, the weather today has taken a turn for the icky, with the temperature crashing down into the 30’s by tonight and a chance of rain and snow.

Finally, in case anyone missed it, the fursuit photos that nymphara took at Midwest FurFest are now available online. If you want a high-quality copy of any of the pcitures, just drop takaza a line.

Get into Anthrocon for free!*

* – There’s a small catch, of course. There’s always a catch.

Hi everyone! Remember me? Your old pal Uncle Duncan? (Hi, Uncle Duncan!)

Yes, it’s that time of year once again, the time where I look at Anthrocon rapidly approaching, look at the number of people I have available to work Artists Alley/Con Store, and completely freak out. Yay!

So, what’s involved? Mostly, it’s running a cash register and sorting little slips of paper. We also need help with artist payout at the end of the day (I usually need about ten people for this each day) and

[info]takaza

can also use help in the cash handling room. Scheduled hours will never be earlier than 9:30 AM and never later than 6:30 PM.

What’s in it for you? Well, you’ll have a schedule in hand before the convention even starts so you know where you need to be when. As always, I’m willing to tailor your schedule around other stuff you want to do at the convention; that’s why you’re there, after all, and that comes first. Then there’s that whole “free admission” thing: Anthrocon requires at least fifteen hours (or more) of volunteer time for a complimentary admission. If you can only put in ten hours, that’s cool – you’ll at least get a free T-shirt out of the deal. And if you can only spare a couple of hours, that’s OK too – you’ll get a hug from me (if desired 🙂 and my undying gratitude (or baked goods after the convention, if local. We’ll talk).

Interested? Then please comment here or drop me a line at duncan AT wolfhusky DOT org  ASAP and I’ll add you to the list. Thanks!

NOTE: Even if you’ve already told me you’d be helping out, I’d appreciate it if you responded here. Anything to help jog my sieve-like memory 🙂

The Flashing Lights Are The Policeman’s Way Of Saying Hello

It’s Monday and man am I dragging. A nasty bout of insomnia last night had be up between 12:30 and 1:45, and when I did get to sleep it was pretty shallow and I kept waking up. I’m looking forward to 4:30 when I can head home and collapse.

I haven’t really done a substantial update in a week, so I guess I should look back over the last seven days.
Tuesday at the Meat Faucet!

Stuffed Roast Pork

So, we had a housewarming party last weekend. We provided the entree (stuffed pork roast) while others provided various side dishes and desserts. The pork went over amazingly well, and several people have asked for the recipe, so here it is

Our House Is Now Fully Warmed!

Wow, what a weekend!

After a week of preparations and a morning of frantic cleaning, by 3 PM or so on Saturday we finally had the house ready for our Housewarming Party. I decided to commemorate that fact by taking the camera out and creating a virtual tour of our new home.

siriuswolfstar and simbalion showed up early, followed shortly after by roho, genet, and steviemaxwell (welcome back, Stevie!). Shortly thereafter followed a slew of other folks, and lots and lots of food, booze, sodas, and more food. For the entree, I made up about ten pounds of stuffed pork roast (see the following entry for this). We started things at about 5 PM and eventually kicked the last few folks out at 2 AM. We had a lot of fun, played games of Fluxx, Apples to Apples, and Lupus in Tabula, packed entirely too many people into our tiny living room, and everyone ate really, really well. Thanks to everyone who attended!

On Sunday, I woke up far too early at 7:30 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. Unfortunately, the drapes in the master bedroom aren’t nearly as light-blocking as we had hoped, so we’re going to supplement them with some inexpensive blinds from Home Depot or someplace similar, the theory being that since the drapes will usually be closed, it doesn’t much matter what the blinds look like, so long as they block as much light as possible. Anyway, eventually we got everyone up and moving by noon and made the (short) pilgrimage up to Antioch to indulge in breakfast at my favorite diner in the area, Las Vegas. After an excellent meal, we dropped Sirius and Simba off at the train station and spent the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening hanging out at our place and watching TV with Roho and Genet. We caught up on a few episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”, “Dinner Impossible”, and the first episode of the BBC’s new Robin Hood series (great casting, great sets, crappy modern editing. At least they kept it to only one “You’ve got to be kidding me!” moment). Then, since they were there anyway, R&G stayed and watched the latest episode of “The Amazing Race” as well. It was a deliciously lazy and unproductive afternoon.

And now we have a new week. We have dinner engagements on Tuesday and Friday of this week, at a Brazilian steakhouse (note to self: don’t eat breakfast or lunch tomorrow) and at a new steakhouse in Wheeling. It’s gonna be a carnivorous kind of week!

I’m thinking that napping at my desk would be bad, but man I sure wish I could!

A meme from me? Good heavens!

Enough people have done this for me, I suppose I should return the favor:
1. I’ll respond with something random about you.
2. I’ll challenge you to try something.
3. I’ll pick a color that I associate with you. (that’s a bit silly, but whatever)
4. I’ll tell you something I like about you.
5. I’ll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I’ll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I’ll ask you something I’ve always wanted to ask you.

Beer, Lasagna, and Laziness

Well, this was the weekend of “Gonna do it…but didn’t.” But in the end, that’s OK, I reckon.

The weather forecast for Saturday was dismal, but as the day approached the arrival of the sleet/snow/icy death was pushed further back, finally to late afternoon. We’d been intending to stay in all weekend, but an enticing invitation from roho and genet found me joining them for lunch in Libertyville (takaza had actually believed me when I said we’d be staying in all weekend, and very reasonably opted to sleep in instead). We met up at The Firkin. I really liked this place! Imagine someplace like The Hopleaf only without quite the insane number of beers and a bigger menu (and not insanely packed!). They have a good 25 beers on draft though (as well as Sprecher’s root beer, cream soda, and ginger ale!), and appear to change them regularly. I was in a bock mood, so I started out with an Anchor Bock, which was delicious, then moved to the always-reliable Spaten Optimator. Since they were running Creole/Cajun specials for Mardi Gras, I opted for the smoked alligator sausage and blackened chicken fettuccine, which was…well, it was capable, and the sausage was good. I’d probably stick to their regular menu, which is supposed to be much better.

After lunch we walked around a bit until I was safe to drive to enjoy the shops of downtown Libertyville. We found a fun little kitchen shop that offers cooking classes, then got ice cream from a little shop that also hosted children’s parties on Saturdays. Gah. Anyway, I took my leave of R&G and headed back home.

As for the rest of the weekend? Wow. Not much to say. Saturday night Dan made a fabulous lasagna-esque thing with chicken, tomato sauce, bacon, and lots of cheese. I played a whole lot of Okami (yeah, I’m an addict). And we watched the snow come down from Saturday afternoon through Sunday night; I think we finished off with about six inches of snow and sleet, all told. I also made a very tasty chocolate bread pudding on Sunday night, though the recipe could have been slightly sweeter.

So here we are this week. We have a housewarming party coming up and a good bit of stuff to get done before then. Tonight my main goal is to get the drapes in the master bedroom up, and put a few finishing touches on the guest bedroom as well. That’s pretty much all the structural stuff – after that it’s just cleaning and cooking.

Oh, and last night? Yeah, we watched Heroes. And were suitably blown away by all the wonderful plot tidbits that were leaked out. I very much agree with those who have said that that episode alone qualifies Jack Coleman (“Mr. Bennett”) for an Emmy. For those counting along, that was episode 17 of 23 for the first season, so the finale is coming soon!

More Heroes Geekery

Oh dear. I wasn’t aware of the mini-comics NBC has on their site which offer backstory and off-camera plot developments (like the origin of Wireless, who showed up this week – she’s ex-Mossad!). Each comic is 5-7 pages long, and very well done. NBC seems to be going all-out with this, since there’s also:
* The Heroes wiki
* Hiro’s blog
* Episode commentary (this week featuring producer Greg Beeman and the actors who play Sylar and Suresh, the latter of whom has no accent whatsoever)
(Great quote: “You know, we don’t really talk about this much, but it’s incredibly convenient that all the genetically mutated people are like, really hot.”)
* And, of course, the full episodes can be streamed from their website

Neat stuff!

Caution: Possible spoilers in the comments if you haven’t seen this week’s episode.

Domestic Bliss

That was a lovely weekend that just passed. What did we do? Well, not a whole lot. Hooray!

On Friday, takaza was going to take a half-day because they were finally coming to fix the window in his office. The glass company said they’d be there between 7:30 AM and noon; they actually showed up at 7:35 AM. Wow. They fixed the window in a matter of minutes and were gone by 8:00 AM. Dan elected to call off the rest of the day and spent the day trying to bring some sense to the jumble of boxes down there. Because the room is below grade and has only one vent that is probably not properly balanced, the room stays close to 55 degrees when the rest of the house is at 68. That’s fine for Dan, but I’d freeze; come summertime it should be nice, though.

Dan informed me that we were going to celebrate the window installation by going out to dinner, meaning that neither of us were particularly motivated to cook. We opted to try one of the many Mexican places down the road from us, Rancho Nuevo in Round Lake. Downtown Round Lake (all one block of it) is rather amusing – it’s a toss-up whether there are more signs in English or Spanish. Not surprisingly, between that and Round Lake Park (the short commercial section on IL 134 that’s right around the corner from us) there’s approximately a half-dozen Mexican restaurants. Rancho Nuevo had a reasonably authentic air, though the decor tries a bit too hard, and the “Learning Spanish Is Fun!” placemats are just over the top. We split an order of asada quesadillas and each had the carne asada, mine with a cheese enchilada. The food was delicious, but unfortunately, the service was terrible. There was a decided language barrier with our waitress (though when does “beer” sound like “horchata”?) and the long periods of unrefilled drinks (a bit of a problem when eating moderately spicy food) might keep us from going back. Maybe if we don’t sit sequestered in a corner, outside of the view of the servers…

On Saturday we ran all kinds of errands. We’ve been trying to stop, as I put it, spending like drunken sailors as we continue to set up the new house. Fortunately, we have a little extra unaccounted-for income that we can put towards expenses like that, but at some point we need to stop. It wasn’t too bad for the most part, but it wasn’t until we stopped by the framing place to have three pieces properly matted and framed (to the tune of $300) that I started humming “What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor” under my breath. Still, it’ll be worth it – one of the pieces is Kenket’s original artwork for the 2005 Midwest FurFest con book cover. That is going to look spectacular in our living room, I think.

We stopped by Lovin’ Oven Cakery, the place that supplied the truly deadly chocolate cake for my surprise party. They had king cake! Woo! It was wonderfully moist and tasty, too, but just too darn big for us to get one. We picked up a couple of tasty pastries to sustain us, and I am quite impressed with the range and quality of their products.

On Sunday Dan continued to putter in his office while I did some general housecleaning and cooking. I made a couple of loaves of challah that turned out quite nicely, as well as a wonderful garlic-potato soup from the new issue of Cook’s Illustrated. roho, genet, and linnaeus joined us for the season premiere of The Amazing Race: All Stars. The show was good – better than I expected, even – and the outcome was pretty good too. Numerous comments were made that Joyce looks a lot like chebutykin. By the way, this season they have a series of web episodes called “Elimination Station” the will follow the eliminated racers as they get to “Elimination Villa”, a mansion in Acuapulco where they will be sequestered while the rest of the race goes on. That looks like it could get entertaining.

Yesterday was spent relaxing, and I got to indulge in my latest video game obsession, Okami. It’s a very enjoyable, very pretty game. Not too challenging, but hey – that’s not what I look for in a game. This is something I do to relax, and I like the visuals and the music.

So, this afternoon I have to tend to a bit of house repair (the soap dispenser fell off the wall of the shower) and a few other things around the house. I expect tonight will be another early bedtime, since neither Dan nor I have slept too well for the last few nights.

In Other News…

So, other stuff going on…

I neglected to mention that last Friday we met roho and genet for dinner at Scott Dogs, a tasty find on Grand Ave. in Lake Villa. I had a couple of homemade empanadas and the (gulp!) deep fried dog. It was excellent, but the cheese sauce was over-the-top. Afterwards we went down to Wine Knows in Grayslake to check out their Friday evening tasting and Roho picked up a bottle of a tasty Spanish cava. We capped off the evening by going next door to Something’s Brewing for some dessert; takaza got a hot chocolate, and I got to demonstrate the lost art of pouring hot beverages down the front of your shirt. No harm done, except to my dignity.

On Saturday evening, we met Roho and Genet again for a coffee tasting at Grinders in downtown Grayslake. It was definitely an introductory session, but they covered some interesting aspects of regional coffee variations, and we had a lot of fun. I’ve never really drank that much black coffee, and I found out why when all that acid returned with a vengeance later that night. Ugh.

This week we’ve been relaxing a bit, which is nice. Erin (nymphara) hitched a ride home with Dan on Monday night rather than deal with her commute in from the South Suburbs on Tuesday – good call. We had a pleasant evening watching some good episodes of Heroes and The Dresden Files. Then last night we went to work on shipping out the leftover sponsor items from MFF. We actually sold seventeen sponsorships after we ran out of pint glasses, and in the chaos of the holidays then moving this was the first chance we’ve had to get these out. Dan kindly packed everything up; I had to print up the letters to go inside the boxes and the shipping labels today. I’ll seal them all up and put them in my car tonight and take them to the post office tomorrow. After that, my focus tonight is going to be on making a tasty batch of chicken and dumplings. Yum!

Finally, PICTURES! Erin posted the pictures that she (and Dan) took at my surprise birthday party on Sunday. Lost of great (and embarrassing) shots there 🙂

Yep, It’s That Day Again

So here we are, another year, another Valentine’s Day. Buy y’know what? takaza knows that I love him – I tell him that every day, and that love isn’t going to increase or decrease based on any given date on the calendar. I’m a very lucky guy, and I know this.

So instead here’s wishing a Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends. I’m surrounded by an amazing group of people, and I count myself fortunate to have such caring, generous, and funny people in my life. Thank you all, and I hope that our friendship endures and only grows stronger with each passing day!

Well, That Was A Surprise

As many of you noted (and thank you all!) yesterday was my 39th birthday. I was expecting something kind of low-key from what takaza had talked about: a quiet lunch out with the two of us, a spot of shopping, and dinner with roho and genet. Little did I know that Dan had been working behind my back on other plans!

We headed out at about 11:30 Sunday morning. Our first stop was Lovin’ Oven Cakery, where Dan picked up a birthday cake for me (I wasn’t allowed to see it though). After a so-so lunch (Dan’s first choice was closed, unfortunately), we did some grocery shopping, then went over to a bowling alley/arcade/pool place. All the alleys were booked and the arcade games were lackluster, but they did have a Pirates of the Caribbean pinball game that I was able to run pretty well, as we got a succession of free games out of it. Dan suggested playing some pool, but the smoke from the bar was getting to me and irritating my still-recuperating sore throat, so I was more inclined to leave. Dan said we had to stop one more place, and directed me to Culver’s, where we split an Oreo concrete. Then we headed home. I was expecting to relax for a bit, then start brining the chicken for dinner and start other dinner preparations. We pulled into the garage, unloaded the car and started up the stairs. I got as far as the living room and heard

“SURPRISE!”

I looked over and stuffed into the living room were datahawk, emrldgirrl, wiktowasichu, rustitobuck, justincheetah, posicat, feren, lady_curmudgeon, moryssa, brianblackberry, roho, genet, woodychitwn, luckytheevildog, nymphara, and Scott.

Yep, they got me. Fooled completely and thoroughly, and I’m not unhappy about it a bit! It turns out that Dan had been planning a surprise party for the last three weeks, and had pulled it off flawlessly. The rest of the evening was a blur of great conversations with friends, some very large peach-pomegranate cosmopolitans, pizza, incredibly rich chocolate cake, and a very silly (and large!) game of Apples to Apples. I received some lovely gifts, and I had a truly delightful time. Thanks to everyone who attended! I’m so lucky to have such great friends, and even luckier to have such a wonderful and caring husband. I love so much, Dan!

Well, That Bowl Wasn’t So Super (But Who Cares?)

Another busy weekend passes by…

You know folks who say they’ve lived someplace for years and are still unpacking from moving? That would make me insane. On an unrelated note, we invited a small group of friends over to watch the Super Bowl. Couple the desire for getting the place unpacked and into some semblance of order with a mania to have the house look perfect when company comes over and you get a sense of urgency that just won’t quit. (This is the part of the entry where I nominate takaza for sainthood for putting up with me when I get like this 🙂

On Saturday I was up far too early (before 6 AM), and by 11 AM had run various errands, including a sizeable grocery store run. We spent the afternoon putting up blinds in the kitchen and living room and I am pleased to say that we now can have privacy in our house. Hooray! We finished out the day with a little more unpacking and sorting. We briefly considered going out to check out a little Mexican joint in Round Lake I read about but instead ordered pizza and salad in because neither of us wanted to face the sub-zero temperatures and wind.

Sunday I was up early again and doing some preparatory cooking. After making too darn many crepes, I took a break from the kitchen and Dan and I cleaned the house from top to bottom, stowing any remaining boxes, vacuuming, and generally whipping the place into shape. We finished right as folks were expected to show up. I was expecting a night of food and boozing, but it was a lot of the former and not much of the latter. The amount of food we had was crazy: cheeseburger dip, monkey bread (both herb and cinnamon sugar), guacamole, and chicken tenders. My contribution was a pair of baked crepe dishes. One was crepes stacked with bĂ©chamel sauce, spinach, mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese and baked together, the other was similar only with a fresh tomato and garlic sauce, prosciutto, Parmesan, and fresh mozzarella cheese. We finished off the meal with a pair of homemade frozen treats: Dan made cinnamon ice cream, and I made a green apple sorbet (aka “booplesauce!”). Though good individually, the two combined to be quite yummy.

Oh yeah, and there was some football game on, and the Bears lost. Eh. Nobody was particularly upset about the loss, and watching the game on TiVo made the game move SO much faster. Of course we watched the commercials, and though there were some funny ones, overall we were generally unimpressed. We sent folks on their way on the late side, and as a result I’m dragging badly this afternoon, something not helped by the fact that I’m fighting off some kind of upper respiratory ick. I’ve got an appointment with the doctor at 5 PM today, and even if she can just treat the symptoms, that will be an improvement.

datahawk spent the night last night, with the intention of just heading to work from our place this morning. As cold as the night was (-12 degrees F), it’s no surprise that her car didn’t start this morning, and as far as I know hasn’t started yet. She’s instead suffering through the torture of relaxing in the living room and cuddling up with our TiVo. It’s a tough life 🙂

It was lovely having folks over and getting the house into shape, though we still have some stuff that we need to figure out where it goes (mainly that’s all in the garage). Dan and I are thinking about throwing a housewarming party sometime in March; we’ll be sure to give plenty of notice once we figure out a date.

Worth a snicker

I was checking the headlines on WBBM-TV’s website, and this bit was in the text traffic synopsis (usually only read by traffic reporters):

“Hot Spots: SOLDIER FIELD SPECIAL PARKING RESTRICTIONS IN FORCE …..THE SOLDIER FIELD SOUTH LOT WILL OPEN SUPER BOWL SUNDAY FOR TAILGATERS AT 8 AM. FANS ARE URGED TO TAKE COLD WEATHER PRECAUTIONS WHILE TAILGATING. (YES, I KNOW THE GAME IS IN MIAMI, AND THAT IT’S 2 DAYS AWAY…BUT PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THIS STUFF!) .”

Thats right, woodchuck-chuckers

Babe…I got you babe…

First D.J.: Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today.
Second D.J.: It’s coooold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?
First D.J.: Not hardly. And you know, you can expect hazardous travel later today with that, you know, that, uh, that blizzard thing.
Second D.J.: [mockingly] That blizzard – thing. That blizzard – thing. Oh, well, here’s the report! The National Weather Service is calling for a “big blizzard thing!”
First D.J.: Yessss, they are. But you know, there’s another reason why today is especially exciting.
Second D.J.: Especially cold!
First D.J.: Especially cold, okay, but the big question on everybody’s lips…
Second D.J.: – On their chapped lips…
First D.J.: – On their chapped lips, right: Do ya think Phil is gonna come out and see his shadow?
Second D.J.: Punxsutawney Phil!
First D.J.: Thats right, woodchuck-chuckers – it’s…
[in unison]: GROUNDHOG DAY!