Here and There Blog

Here and There Blog The world of eBay is meant for those with patience. After 24 hours of waiting for Spamalot tickets to post on my date, I gave up and went and bought tickets from another source. They're way, way in the back of the theater but I have them and they didn't cost a small fortune. It all worked out! And as I told Mondo, when you're in the last row, no one can talk behind you or kick your seat! Now I just have to wait for 2 months to get there!

Resistance is Futile. I should have accepted that fact years ago but no, I thought I was strong enough to stay away. I was wrong. eBay has added me to their ranks. Really, in the years since eBay came to be, I've only looked once and that was to check on the price for animated stills from The Tick. (There were none) I briefly browsed over to the Trek category and realized that was way to deep for me. I then exited the browser and never returned. Until now. What made me do it? The overwhelming desire to see "Spamalot" on Memorial Day Weekend. Yes, Mondo and I are headed back for NYC - The Sequel. Of course the show is sold out and there are plenty of really expensive tickets out there but eBay offers hope. eBay offers solutions. eBay has got me now. It would have been easy had 2 tickets on our preferred date been available but they're not. Now I have to check back every hour and see if someone has posted. I have to be on the "I want it" list. The ...

With Other Brother and Lorie off to Munich, it was up to Homer and I to entertain ourselves on Easter. We had various ideas of brunch but it seemed like more of a hassle than it was worth to fight for food in crowded restauarnts. After a series of turning down options we ended up at the Princess Pub & Grille in Little Italy. This was perfect! It wasn't crowded, the food was British fare, and they had once received the Perfect Pint award from Guiness. Easter it was. This was the most non-traditional holiday meal ever. Salmon quesadilla and fish & chips with Guiness. It was just right!  

Happy Easter! 

Every once in a while, all SF fans need to get together and have a geek fest before returning to work on Monday. It usually takes place in the form of a science fiction convention and Con-Dor has been running in San Diego all weekend. While it's a small con, it provides the fan activities needed to keep your geekcard. This year though, Con-Dor was unable to provide the film room where I generally hang out, so Robot Builder decided to have the film party at his house. There were 6 of us gathered for a day of film and geek talk. We could each find a reason in our minds why each one of us either was or was not the biggest geek there. We all had our claim to fame. I think that even though I've been on 6 Star Trek cruises (#7 is this year) and I was on a Star Trek cruise Canadian special, I am not the biggest geek. After all, Mrs. Robot Builder is a Master Costumer and her husband a Robot Builder. "Who has more than one robot in there house?" was the qualifying q...

Banks, Trusts, DMV.... Today was my get organized day! I had the good fortune to have today off work as a Spring Break holiday. It can't be called Easter or Good Friday but a day off by any other name is still fine by me. After being gone most of the week a small mountain of mail awaited me today. I thought I might as well start on it and get organized at the same time. First up - 3 different checks for very small amounts from Farmers Insurance. It seems I overpaid $7 for my truck insurance and for some reason I had a rebate on my condo insurance and there was another refund from my father's truck insurance. Okay, this would all be cashed. Next - an insurance check for a larger amount that I decided to put in a 7 month CD at a different bank and let it gain some interest and add a few dollars. As long as I was going to my bank and opening an account at another, I figured this was the perfect time to put them in the name of my trust. After all, I went to all the trouble a...

This one just didn't turn out and certainly won't do anything for the sales of cell phone cameras. But this beer in disguise is a most excellent Latter Day Stout brewed by the Desert Edge Brewery in Salt Lake City. It is one of the top 5 stouts that I have ever tasted! Yum! It might even be third behind Guiness and Karl Strauss Oatmeal Stout! 

DSL has arrived in the Utah canyons! Oh Happy Day! I escaped the weekend snowstorm and cold temps so it has been a bonus trip so far! One more day of work to go. Tonight we're off to go beer tasting at a local brewpub. I also have decided that my own DSL cable is having the problem, not my computer. I spent 30-45 minutes on the phone with SBC technical support last Sunday and no one could figure out why I was having connection problems. I didn't have trouble in Yuma or here in Utah, so it's the SBC phone/DSL line as usual. Now it just getting them to respond and fix the line that will take endless hours of patience!

Monday, Monday! The weekend was way too short as usual! Once again, I missed out on movies but seeing as the choices were limited, I'm okay with that. This week will be a busy one for me. I'll be in Utah Mon-Wed and when I get back, I drive to the Santa Barbara area for Thursday. Friday is a holiday for me but it looks like that's the day to pack up the rest of the remaining furniture at my Dad's house. Then we're taking a 10 day break from the house unless a emergency comes up with the water or the weeds. My blogging will be limited until Thursday when I return to a "wired" state.

Once again the rain has struck Carlsbad and all outdoor activities are mud related. What to do? Get friends together to hang out, watch movies, scrapbook, and beer! 

What do you do when you're in Yuma on St. Patricks Day and there's not an Irish pub in town? Hang out with an Australian and have Aussie wine, cheese and crackers of course! 

It's time to rant again about The Amazing Race. In last night's episode, Rob & Amber managed to convince other teams to take a penalty during the eat the side of beef challenge. It's a four hour penalty and if Rob couldn't handle the food, then the other teams could have eaten their meal in 3 hours and still been a hour ahead without taking the penalty. I really don't want "Romber" to win but if the other teams don't wake up, then they deserve last place. It is an unfair advantage that with one highly recognizable team, people throughout the world are more willing to help them win over the other teams. And if Mondo and I had been on this TAR, Mondo could have powered down that side of beef in no time. This would have been a good challenge.

What a day! 

Tamarack Surf Beach. Lunchtime. 

The Oggi's Sampler! The Black Magic Stout is on the far right. I enjoyed the Scottish Ale that's empty in the far center. The back left was the Hefeweizen and to me it tasted like Bubblegum. Yuck! The front left was a tasty IPA and the center was generic beer, while the far right was a mild IPA. Other Brother and Lorie look on. 

7:13 pm on Sunday night and I am wiped out! It was another long day cleaning, sorting, and carting stuff out of the house. Two dump runs and one Salvation Army run later and we're finally seeing empty space again! The cleaning goals were met and we found a great home for most of the remaining furniture. On top of it all, we accepted a bid for the house and if all goes well, we'll be in escrow this week. It even looks like the buyers are just the right family for the house! Instead of starving ourselves today, we took a real food break and went to Oggi's for pizza and beer. Yes, we've branched out from Karl Strauss but that was due to geography. Oggi's has excellent pizza and beer so I'm going to give them a thumbs-up today!

"Today is a very strange day." Those were the words uttered by Other Brother somewhere around 1:00 pm and we all had to agree with him. The plan of the day was simple: finish packing up the kitchen, clean out the desk, and do a couple of Salvation Army runs. The goal would be to have all the items that we wanted out of the house by the end of tomorrow and then next week we could donate the larger furniture items. In the meantime, our opening sentence for the past couple of weeks has been: "How're you doing? Would you like a sofa-fridge-desk?" And a few of our friends responded with a "Maybe. Let me check it out." Well today was that day. It seems we had barely started with the cleaning when people started dropping by. Eleven invited came by and a random person stoppeb by thinking we were a garage sale. The "For Sale" sign went up to generate interest and that happened pretty darn quickly as word spread about the neighborhood. J...

As any dutiful Star Wars fan must do, I marched off to the secret theater tonight to watch the full lenghth trailer for "Revenge of the Sith." Technically I paid to see and watch "Robots" but that was just an afterthought to the all important Star Wars trailer. I have to give it up for Lucas because no matter how the movie turns out, the man can create the best 2 minute movie trailer in the world. If only the other 133 minutes of the film are as great, then Star Wars fans can finally set the series to rest with a sigh of relief. Senator Palpatine revealing himself to Mace Windu! Yoda realizing that it's Anakin! Padme's grief! Bail Organa fighting! Obi-Wan's look of betrayal! May 19th! And now, on to "Robots." It stars the voice of Ewan McGregor, non other that Obi-Wan himself. The animation is flawless and the movie combines a creative use of music both with songs and the score to keep it entertaining. The plot is simple, good Robo...

Now that some time has passed, I might as well blog about the A&E show "Family Plots." If you ever lived or currently live in the Poway/Rancho Bernardo area, you will find yourself at some point at the Poway-Bernardo Mortuary. For people new to the show, it's a reality show about the daily business at a mortuary and the people who work there. How they ended up in Poway I'll never know but it's a good as place as any for this type of show. I can say I was going there before they were famous but that's only because it's the only mortuary in town. What you see behind the scenes is far different from the way customers are treated. When you go there, you would never know about all the behind the scenes relationships, daily drama, and crisis managment that takes place. In other aspects, "Family Plots" does show the exact process that you go through as you plan for someone's funeral service. All the people and all those rooms are really t...

Yes, the movie blog is back and for the return I've chosen "Paper Clips" as the first movie of March. Now I'm aware that most of you have never heard of this movie and will never see it until it arrives at Blockbuster. So while you wait for the rental, please keep it on your list of upcoming movies to see because it is a treat. Let's start with the official synopsis: Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six-million Holocaust victims, the students decide to collect six-million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. The film details how the students met Holocaust survivors from around the world and how the experience transformed them and their community. What I found in the 82 minute documentary was a story of hope as I watched the 8th graders for four years participate in this project. It not ...

It's Saturday afternoon and I think this is as good of a time as any for a "catch-up" blog. This past week I was in Las Vegas for work and work it was! I put an entire 50 cents into the slot machine and the ROI was $0! Having learned my lesson, I gave up on the slots for this trip. So the basics of the past week was work and then more work. We did go see Mystere at Treasure Island on Thursday night. Mystere is one of the original Cirque d' Soleil shows in Las Vegas and it was a fast paced 90 minute version of their shows. It's full of the usual comedic routine, this time with a fat baby pulling the pranks, colorful sets, acrobats, and displays of strength that would make any Olympic gymnatics competitor weep with envy. Today was the day to focus on my Dad's house. Homer, Other, Lorie, and I all met up and came up with the plan. Step One - get all the sentimental stuff out of the house. After 6 hours, we accomplished most of that today. We will fini...