Fire drill

So this morning at about 1 am the fire alarm in my apartment went off. Now we are all taught in school to calmly leave the building when the alarm goes off. However, other than waking me up it didn't really respond. I walked around the apartment a bit pondering what to do. I just didn't get the feeling that there was anything going on. I didn't smell smoke and it didn't seem unusually hot. Besides my apartment building has a sprinkler system and it hadn't gone off. I figured things were fine and it was a false alarm. I told myself that if I heard sirens, I'd head outside. Well the fire fighters showed up about 10 minutes later and checked it out. Turns out it was a false alarm and a sensor in the garage has sensed smoke and set it off. I was told that this had happened once before. Regardless, I probably should have left the building and will probably do so in a more timely manner next time. The whole thing has made me consider renter's insurance much more seriously though, I'll probably get some within the next couple weeks.

My rant for this blog entry is: What's up with this sick facination of combining movie star names when they are dating or married? It started out with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck (Bennifer) and I just saw a headline today with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (Tomkat?!?!?!). Other entries include Bennifer 2 (Jennifer Garner & Affleck), I know that there are others (i.e. Brad Pitt & Angelina), but I can seem to find them; feel free to post any that come up.

Tark!

I went to see Batman Begins tonight with Pilger, Erin and some other band friends. BTW, the movie was really good. If you like the Batman comics, I think you'll enjoy how true it stays to the character in the comics.

Anyhow, Pilger and I swore we saw Trent Tarkenton there with a bunch of his friends. We called his name but he didn't respond. If you happen to have his digits here in CO, please drop me a line and let me know what it is. It'd be cool to get back in touch with him.

Coffee and Red Sox

So the job has continued to go very well. It's keeping me pretty busy. Sure there are lulls here and there, but I spend the free time reading the immigration law regulations and world news in general (especially news from Africa since a lot of our asylum clients come from that continent).

Anyhow, one of the best perks so far has got to be the coffee machine in the office. Instead of having the standard 2-3 pot machine, the firm has device that makes individual cups and they have a selection of about 15 different types of coffee. What makes it so cool is that you put your mug under the spout, pop in a pre-packaged container, hit start and in about a minute you have a steaming cup of coffee and the little package disappears. Pretty nifty.

Now I've never been a huge coffee drinker (every once in a while a mocha or capucchino from Starbucks, Peaberry, etc.), but since encountering this machine I have consistently had 2-3 cups a week. It may not seem like a lot to some of you, but it's a lot for me.

As for the Red Sox, this past weekend was the first time the Sox have played the Cubs since the 1918 World Series (for those that don't know it was the last time the Sox won the WS before last year). One of my co-workers is from Chicago and a big Cubbies fan (and White Sox fan). As such, I recommended that we wager on the Friday game (it would have made more sense to wager on the series, but that didn't occur to me until after I got home on Friday afternoon). Well the Sox got beat down in game 1 of the series so I owe him lunch at Bull & Bush. No worries, I've already talked to Burrus about getting some sort of discount, LOL. It's too bad the Sox haven't been able to stay consistent, but fortunately neither have the Yankees. The Sox really have to get their pitching back and find their bats (wait, I sound like a sports commentator stating the obvious).

I've added a link on the right to my best friends in LA, Rick & Becky and their kids Logan and Callie. For those that may be curious about the people I hung around during my time there, take a look. BTW, Becky is a graphic and web designer and she programmed the entire site. It's very well done.

I leave you with two t-shirts that I saw in Ithaca when I was there for Tracy's wedding.

T-shirt 1: "Ithaca is Gorges"; who knew that the area is known for their gorges, me apparently.

T-shirt 2: "Vaginas are Gorges"; now it wouldn't surprise me to see that on a dude, but a girl was wearing the shirt, which made it that much more interesting. Before you think too much about it, she was a little, um, big.

Here's to Mr. & Mrs. Keeney

I left my apartment on Wednesday afternoon with a nice brand new suitcase full of my clothes and I returned to my apartment Sunday evening with the clothes on my back, my fleece, an airplane pillow, two magazines and three bottles of wine. Somehow, Nate, Leanne and I lost our luggage somewhere between Philly and Denver.

The 3 of us bought our tickets from USAir for Tracy's wedding. Our first three legs (to and from Syracuse) were via USAir. We found out the hard way that our final leg was via United (which is in an alliance with USAir).

On Sunday morning we landed in Philly on our way back to CO; since we had a 3 hour layover, Nate and I decided to watch the Bourne Supremacy on Leanne's laptop. We thought we were seated near the right gate to catch the flight. However, when the flight boarded and we got past the ticket taker, we were called back while on the gang-plank and told that there was another flight (the United one) leaving at about the same time and that our tickets were for that one. So, we hauled ass to the other gate and made it just in time. Although we were the last ones to board the plane, there were two other people who had run to the gate that had made the same error. It was weird that neither Nate, Leanne, nor I caught the fact that we were on United instead of USAir (printed clearly on the ticket); I guess that we just assumed that since we had flown USAir on the other legs, the last one would be no different.

Anyhow, we think that because we changed carriers, our luggage was somehow lost in the shuffle. The United agent in Denver admitted that sometimes the luggage personnel get lazy and neglect to get the luggage on the flight because it was from one carrier to another. Well Nate and I filled out lost luggage claim tickets and I finally got mine back last night after fretting the whole day that they lost my nice new upright roller. Mind you I'm not totally pissed, but I am dissatisfied with USAir and the way things were handled.

Besides that glitch though, the weekend was great (ref. Gampp.com for Josh's take). The wine tour was very cool and as Josh said, just when we thought it was going to be boring, things picked up right after lunch. I think for me it was because Coulter and Erin shared their bottle of wine with me (thanks guys!). But I'm sure that the guy at the Knapp Winery had a hand in it with his willingness to give us a taste of any of the wines, all for a dollar! I'm sure those last few wineries were both annoyed and happy with us because we were obnoxious on the one hand, but also was willing to spend more because we were drunk. BTW, Doobie Blues= good stuff.

The rest of the evenings in the condos pretty much included booze, so fun was definitely had by all; and certainly by me.

It was really great to see some old friends (shout out to the brothers and their significant others if applicable, Dehner/Jocelyn, Goodman/Cathy, Budzy, Fouters, Donnelly/Julie, Kendall/Allena, Swank/Kristin, Reagob, Gampp/Deanna, Vielehr/Leanne, Burrus, Youngman, Hoffman, King, Shopenn); new old friends (shout out to Schiff, Coulter, Rut, Davis, Buer, Shamus); and new friends (shout out to Kelly, Erin, Becky, Jim, John, Cassie, JJ). I hope everyone made it back home safely and without incident.

Congratulations to Tracy and Abbey and thank you for hosting a great party. You two sure know how to throw a mean bash. Abbey looked beautiful in her wedding dress and Tracy looked pretty sharp with a good looking sports coat, slacks, tie and shirt. I don't think I can remember the last time I saw him dressed up. The locale of the ceremony was awesome; by the lake, on the beach and with the rolling green hills of upstate New York as the backdrop. The food at the reception was some of the best I've ever had and it was just a really good time over all. Lots of great memories... and now on to Lee's wedding in ~2 months.

Well, trip gave me a little time to reconsider taking the test I've been studying for for the past month. After speaking to a class counselor last week, I decided that if I wanted to take this test seriously I was going to have to postpone it until October. My biggest concern is getting the motivation to study again, hopefully that won't be a problem because not only can I take the course again for free, the counselor said that he would assist me in setting up a study schedule, which I will no doubt need. This was honestly a tough call because I would like to get it over with, but I came to the conclusion that it was better to maximize my score than sputter out of the gate on Monday and forced to work that much harder to take it again in October. I'll probably take the next month plus off from studying, but will be back at it in about July or so.

I've rambled long enough, so last thing. Congratulations to Craig and his fiancee Jocelyn and also to Rob and his fiancee Reagan. You guys did good!