Catch-up post
A lot of the random noise from Livejournal over the previous few months had caused various forms of exoduses. Many went over to Dreamwidth. Like a lot of others, I added a facebook account and have been a lot chattier over there. I've been busy enough to not have a lot of time to write the more substantial journal-style entries I like LJ for.
Random snippets from the last month in reverse chronological order. :-)
Labor day was great. We had 10 people over from our expanded group of friends. Party prep included a porch purge that got us a front porch that is almost civilized again. Other random purges happened inside and let us get back more random space. We had a ton of food and the only minus was that the new orientation of our older grill caused some of the burgers to be undercooked. Unfortunately people who had those burgers didn't tell us that.
But we have a new grill on order. Our sixth anniversary was a few weeks ago. Things were busy enough that we didn't manage to get out and do anything particularly special. Matter of fact, the dinner which was planned for a quiet weekend managed to turn into a flurry of activity with other people. We passed on getting each other random anniversary stuff and decided that we were going to update the grill instead. We had bought the grill on Saturday and gotten it assembled. Pity that it didn't fit into our car! It'll probably be delivered tomorrow.
In other upgrades, Chris also decided that enough was enough with our old TV and we got a new flat screen. Of course, they decided to deliver it from a warehouse in Texas rather than ship one over from the store in Toledo. You have to love dealing with the Internet. That should also be here tomorrow.
Sunday we went out to Ann Arbor to see Carriers. I was one of the lucky few who hadn't actually seen the trailer. Per Chris's description, the movie appears to be a zombie flick. Instead, it's a reasonably well put together low-budget pandemic apocalypse movie. As long as that's what you expect, it was okay. If you were expecting a zombie flick, stay home and save your nickels.
Afterward we went out and had sushi with Simon and Jason, new friends from Peter's housewarming. We then adjourned to Peter's apartment to play Guitar Hero and hang out for a while.
Saturday we skipped SEMGS (sorry about that) to accept a last-minute invitation to a birthday party for Rich G. We met Rich and his partner Michael at Shawn and Doug's birthday party some weeks earlier and we'd had to blow off multiple previous invitations to come down and hang out with them in Toledo. It was a good evening out and we got to see some of the guys we'd met previously from Liam and Dave who are Toledo locals there as well.
The weekend of August 29 we attended Peter's housewarming party and hosted Dave davebear-in and Sean redbeardsean. Several of our WoW guild folk were there along with many of the other people we'd met recently via Shawn and Doug - including Kevin tooling who had attended the St. Andrew's Games with us earlier in the month.
Sean, Dave, Chris and I took the opportunity that Saturday to all head to the gym together. Sean had recently started a workout program and I've been trying to coach him a bit remotely. This gave us a bit of time to go over some of the things that I had to learn with a lot more error than strictly necessary - especially squats.
The weekend of August 22 we were in Saugatuck to hang out with Liam, Dave and several of their friends from Trident Toledo (a local leather group) for their annual camping event. This year the majority of the group decided to rent the "bed and breakfast" building of the campground rather than camping. I had wanted to skip doing that and just use our existing camping stuff on the grounds that the price of the B&B was about the same as a night staying at Mackinac Island and that seemed excessive for camping.
While we had a good time, the weekend got rained out. We spent the majority of our time hanging with them inside the building and ended up just falling asleep on the couch in there anyway. So, the "camping" aspect of it turned into what Chris considers the worst possible reason to do anything "camping" related: We went to a lot of effort to set up a tent, brought in food and didn't even bother to get much use out of either.
Fun aside, the question really becomes either skipping the event altogether next year from a cost perspective (we didn't really intend to mooch off the rest of the group), paying the money to stay with the rest of the group or find an alternative set of people to share the camping portion of the experience with us. It'll be an interesting discussion.
The weekend of August 15 was Chris and my sixth anniversary. We ended up spending it mostly with friends and also with Chris's mother and his sister, Angie, who was in town unexpectedly. We were planning on one meal out that weekend - just something quiet together. Instead it turned into almost 4 with family and friends. We'll still make it up at some point.
August 1, we had our annual trip to the St. Andrew's games in Livonia. Unlike previous years, I didn't get any pictures of the games and at some point need to bother Chris and Peter and Doug for their sets. I had put out an invite to some of the folk on facebook to get a group for the games (which always conflict with SEMGS) and to end the evening at Gaucho, a brazilian steakhouse not that far. Kevin tooling responded somewhat unexpectedly to the broad invitation and we were happy to meet him at the games. Nate King, also someone we met from Doug's birthday party joined us.
On top of the usual hanging around watching large men throw heavy stuff events, my usual "participation" for the farmer's walk this year was preempted by somewhat unusual circumstances. A random guy I had been ogling of the bodybuilder variety not ten minutes before strode up to our group and asked if we'd be interested in helping the Wayne County Sheriff's department with their tug-o-war group which was short a few bodies. I'm pretty sure he was after Nate, who's 6'2 and in the 270+ range and Doug and I served pretty much as just extra bodies.
We ended up competing against the Army team and a local biker team and came in second place.
Of course, the majority of the enjoyment from the event was hanging around the guys from the Sheriff's department, the majority of whom were also powerlifters. I have to wonder a bit how they would have felt to know that their extra recruits were all gay. :-)
That weekend was also busy on another front: Peter texaspenguin had taken possession of his apartment in Ann Arbor and we spent some time over the preceding few days helping him to move in. Chez Penguin is probably twice as big as both of the actual apartment's I've stayed in over the previous 10 years. I think he and Kodi will be comfy there.
The weekend of July 25 we passed on our annual Michigan Beer Fest weekend so that we could join the folks of the Motor City Bears for their canoe trip. The river wasn't all that deep nor that swift in spite of rain the previous couple of days. We waffled on bringing Noodle with us that day and probably could have, but I was concerned about the river potentially being too fast after all of the rain.
(Incidentally, we've just hit the time of year where the River Raisin a few blocks from our house has slowed down to the point where there is heavy grass growing in it. It's odd to see a river that needs to be mowed.)
We hung out with the MCB folk later that evening at Scott W's house. It was a good overall relaxing time.
The previous weekend of the 18th Peter, Chris and I accepted another long-standing invite that we'd had to skip out on the past several years: Adam alcadd and his partner Tim were having a joint birthday party at their house in Pontiac. I'd had to pass on most of their previous invitations for activities over the years because they typically had happened during the weekday. Their schedule usually precluded the events from happening on the weekends and making the trek from Monroe or Ann Arbor to Pontiac and then home made from a very long day. It was a good chance to see them and hang out for a bit and also to see Walt from MCB which I hadn't seen for a while. The only big minus was a few days later their house was broken into. :-/
The weekend of July 11th was more watching large men throwing heavy stuff. Shawn and Doug joined us in our trip to Saline where we hung around the Saline Celtic festival. Again I wasn't good at taking pictures and while we managed to avoid outright sunburn, we finally had to leave so as to avoid extra-crispy Chris and Shawn.
Shawn and Doug seem to have gotten the Celtic games bug though. :-)
This takes us all the way back to the last big entry. I really need to get into the habit of shorter entries, but the speed of FB has certainly put a bit more of a crimp into that.
I've been mostly off WoW the last month or so trying to finish up my IETF MIB project but even the coding on that has been interrupted the last week by some work bleeding through into my personal time. It's also been put off as part of rebalancing necessary house project time into our updated schedule. I expect to finish it very soon though.
The True Blood Mondays that we were doing with Shawn and Doug and Peter have expended a bit and we've had a few extra bodies over. Given that the season finale is about to show, we're planning on moving on to starting Lost instead. We'll be starting from season 1 there and working our way back up. We've been enjoying our Monday nights a lot and they have the comfy feeling of a lot of the events that used to be done while I was living in Westland.
We've been very happy that courtesy of a chance meeting that we've had our regular local circle of friends grow substantially.
In final news, we've finally decided that we should start looking around for a house in the Ann Arbor area. Chris has lived in Monroe his entire life and it's now time to consider moving elsewhere. We'll be starting the joy that is looking at selling the current house and shopping for a new one soon. The tipping point is that a lot of the houses that were far out of reach recently have crossed into what should be an affordable range.
Random snippets from the last month in reverse chronological order. :-)
Labor day was great. We had 10 people over from our expanded group of friends. Party prep included a porch purge that got us a front porch that is almost civilized again. Other random purges happened inside and let us get back more random space. We had a ton of food and the only minus was that the new orientation of our older grill caused some of the burgers to be undercooked. Unfortunately people who had those burgers didn't tell us that.
But we have a new grill on order. Our sixth anniversary was a few weeks ago. Things were busy enough that we didn't manage to get out and do anything particularly special. Matter of fact, the dinner which was planned for a quiet weekend managed to turn into a flurry of activity with other people. We passed on getting each other random anniversary stuff and decided that we were going to update the grill instead. We had bought the grill on Saturday and gotten it assembled. Pity that it didn't fit into our car! It'll probably be delivered tomorrow.
In other upgrades, Chris also decided that enough was enough with our old TV and we got a new flat screen. Of course, they decided to deliver it from a warehouse in Texas rather than ship one over from the store in Toledo. You have to love dealing with the Internet. That should also be here tomorrow.
Sunday we went out to Ann Arbor to see Carriers. I was one of the lucky few who hadn't actually seen the trailer. Per Chris's description, the movie appears to be a zombie flick. Instead, it's a reasonably well put together low-budget pandemic apocalypse movie. As long as that's what you expect, it was okay. If you were expecting a zombie flick, stay home and save your nickels.
Afterward we went out and had sushi with Simon and Jason, new friends from Peter's housewarming. We then adjourned to Peter's apartment to play Guitar Hero and hang out for a while.
Saturday we skipped SEMGS (sorry about that) to accept a last-minute invitation to a birthday party for Rich G. We met Rich and his partner Michael at Shawn and Doug's birthday party some weeks earlier and we'd had to blow off multiple previous invitations to come down and hang out with them in Toledo. It was a good evening out and we got to see some of the guys we'd met previously from Liam and Dave who are Toledo locals there as well.
The weekend of August 29 we attended Peter's housewarming party and hosted Dave davebear-in and Sean redbeardsean. Several of our WoW guild folk were there along with many of the other people we'd met recently via Shawn and Doug - including Kevin tooling who had attended the St. Andrew's Games with us earlier in the month.
Sean, Dave, Chris and I took the opportunity that Saturday to all head to the gym together. Sean had recently started a workout program and I've been trying to coach him a bit remotely. This gave us a bit of time to go over some of the things that I had to learn with a lot more error than strictly necessary - especially squats.
The weekend of August 22 we were in Saugatuck to hang out with Liam, Dave and several of their friends from Trident Toledo (a local leather group) for their annual camping event. This year the majority of the group decided to rent the "bed and breakfast" building of the campground rather than camping. I had wanted to skip doing that and just use our existing camping stuff on the grounds that the price of the B&B was about the same as a night staying at Mackinac Island and that seemed excessive for camping.
While we had a good time, the weekend got rained out. We spent the majority of our time hanging with them inside the building and ended up just falling asleep on the couch in there anyway. So, the "camping" aspect of it turned into what Chris considers the worst possible reason to do anything "camping" related: We went to a lot of effort to set up a tent, brought in food and didn't even bother to get much use out of either.
Fun aside, the question really becomes either skipping the event altogether next year from a cost perspective (we didn't really intend to mooch off the rest of the group), paying the money to stay with the rest of the group or find an alternative set of people to share the camping portion of the experience with us. It'll be an interesting discussion.
The weekend of August 15 was Chris and my sixth anniversary. We ended up spending it mostly with friends and also with Chris's mother and his sister, Angie, who was in town unexpectedly. We were planning on one meal out that weekend - just something quiet together. Instead it turned into almost 4 with family and friends. We'll still make it up at some point.
August 1, we had our annual trip to the St. Andrew's games in Livonia. Unlike previous years, I didn't get any pictures of the games and at some point need to bother Chris and Peter and Doug for their sets. I had put out an invite to some of the folk on facebook to get a group for the games (which always conflict with SEMGS) and to end the evening at Gaucho, a brazilian steakhouse not that far. Kevin tooling responded somewhat unexpectedly to the broad invitation and we were happy to meet him at the games. Nate King, also someone we met from Doug's birthday party joined us.
On top of the usual hanging around watching large men throw heavy stuff events, my usual "participation" for the farmer's walk this year was preempted by somewhat unusual circumstances. A random guy I had been ogling of the bodybuilder variety not ten minutes before strode up to our group and asked if we'd be interested in helping the Wayne County Sheriff's department with their tug-o-war group which was short a few bodies. I'm pretty sure he was after Nate, who's 6'2 and in the 270+ range and Doug and I served pretty much as just extra bodies.
We ended up competing against the Army team and a local biker team and came in second place.
Of course, the majority of the enjoyment from the event was hanging around the guys from the Sheriff's department, the majority of whom were also powerlifters. I have to wonder a bit how they would have felt to know that their extra recruits were all gay. :-)
That weekend was also busy on another front: Peter texaspenguin had taken possession of his apartment in Ann Arbor and we spent some time over the preceding few days helping him to move in. Chez Penguin is probably twice as big as both of the actual apartment's I've stayed in over the previous 10 years. I think he and Kodi will be comfy there.
The weekend of July 25 we passed on our annual Michigan Beer Fest weekend so that we could join the folks of the Motor City Bears for their canoe trip. The river wasn't all that deep nor that swift in spite of rain the previous couple of days. We waffled on bringing Noodle with us that day and probably could have, but I was concerned about the river potentially being too fast after all of the rain.
(Incidentally, we've just hit the time of year where the River Raisin a few blocks from our house has slowed down to the point where there is heavy grass growing in it. It's odd to see a river that needs to be mowed.)
We hung out with the MCB folk later that evening at Scott W's house. It was a good overall relaxing time.
The previous weekend of the 18th Peter, Chris and I accepted another long-standing invite that we'd had to skip out on the past several years: Adam alcadd and his partner Tim were having a joint birthday party at their house in Pontiac. I'd had to pass on most of their previous invitations for activities over the years because they typically had happened during the weekday. Their schedule usually precluded the events from happening on the weekends and making the trek from Monroe or Ann Arbor to Pontiac and then home made from a very long day. It was a good chance to see them and hang out for a bit and also to see Walt from MCB which I hadn't seen for a while. The only big minus was a few days later their house was broken into. :-/
The weekend of July 11th was more watching large men throwing heavy stuff. Shawn and Doug joined us in our trip to Saline where we hung around the Saline Celtic festival. Again I wasn't good at taking pictures and while we managed to avoid outright sunburn, we finally had to leave so as to avoid extra-crispy Chris and Shawn.
Shawn and Doug seem to have gotten the Celtic games bug though. :-)
This takes us all the way back to the last big entry. I really need to get into the habit of shorter entries, but the speed of FB has certainly put a bit more of a crimp into that.
I've been mostly off WoW the last month or so trying to finish up my IETF MIB project but even the coding on that has been interrupted the last week by some work bleeding through into my personal time. It's also been put off as part of rebalancing necessary house project time into our updated schedule. I expect to finish it very soon though.
The True Blood Mondays that we were doing with Shawn and Doug and Peter have expended a bit and we've had a few extra bodies over. Given that the season finale is about to show, we're planning on moving on to starting Lost instead. We'll be starting from season 1 there and working our way back up. We've been enjoying our Monday nights a lot and they have the comfy feeling of a lot of the events that used to be done while I was living in Westland.
We've been very happy that courtesy of a chance meeting that we've had our regular local circle of friends grow substantially.
In final news, we've finally decided that we should start looking around for a house in the Ann Arbor area. Chris has lived in Monroe his entire life and it's now time to consider moving elsewhere. We'll be starting the joy that is looking at selling the current house and shopping for a new one soon. The tipping point is that a lot of the houses that were far out of reach recently have crossed into what should be an affordable range.