Some catching up to do.
As is often the case, the two previous weekends were sufficiently eventful that I didn't find the time to write about them.
Two Fridays ago, I found myself wanting to get out and about where people were. I picked up a copy of the Shepherd Express to see what was up and found out that it was Gallery Night. We'd been vaguely meaning to attend a Gallery Night for years, so we pounced on the opportunity.
Basically, downtown art galleries and other businesses (including restaurants and bars) host the work of local artists. It's as much an excuse to get people out and exploring the city as it is an art event.
Well, it worked. We had to get bundled up due to the cold, but we had a great time wandering the city and looking at paintings and such. We hit The Intercontinental, The Public Market (where we hit a taqueria for a quick dinner and I had horchata for the first time), the Blue Ant Gallery (which consisted of, at least in part, paintings hung in the hallways of an apartment-building-turned-office-space), the Italian Community Center, A Woman's Touch, The Tory Folliard Gallery, Artasia, the Rosenblatt Gallery (with its huge, elaborate sculptures of crows scenes), Cuvee (which had the most METAL art, as well as tasty champagne cocktails), a basement with a cafe and a burrito place in it, and Rustico. We were both in a really good mood and enjoyed the opportunity to get out and about together.
The following Saturday we hit the gym and the Sendik's wine tasting, and then went out to our first roller derby to see our friend "Zodiac Thriller" skate. It was a little out of the way and the only proper restaurant nearby was packed, so we ate at Culver's.
We had in no way anticipated the crowds. Holy crap. It took us 40 minutes just to get into the parking lot, where we were told there were no spaces left. However, we did manage to wedge ourselves into a pseudo-spot. Inside, we were told that since it was standing room only, the tickets would only be half price. So that was cool. We ran into Zodiac Thriller on the way in...it turned out she wasn't skating that night as she was chairing the event and basically had to run things. She said it was not always insanely crowded, but derby is catching on and they'll probably need to find a bigger venue soon.
We'd missed the first match, but caught the rest. It was a little hard for me to follow the scoring, but the action was pretty furious at times. Some of the skaters are really hard core, Super Hera stood out as a very focused skater. There was unfortunately one injury and someone had to be helped out of the venue.
There were "Beerleaders" (the drinking team that cheers on the side), an impressive Breaksk8 halftime show and free (albeit virgin) bloody marys. I had expected the crowd to be all tattooed, pierced 20-and-30-somethings drinking Pabst or whatever but it was a actually rather diverse.
We ducked out a few minutes before the end because we didn't want to spend another 40 minutes trying to get out of the parking lot, but it was a lot of fun and we'd go again...but earlier, next time.
That Sunday we had a pleasant afternoon tea at the Anaba Tea Room with fortinbras16 and shandril, and then spent the rest of the day cleaning out our home office, which has become (since the death of my desktop a year and a half ago) a dumping ground for vital documents, quasi-junk mail, and all manner of crap. It was very tedious, and we didn't quite finish, but we made serious progress and managed to get the furniture away from the walls in preparation for...
...the following Friday, when we had our walls insulated. This is tricky because our exterior walls are a mix of stone, horizontal aluminum siding, and weird vertical siding that can't be removed easily. I directed the crew to the best places to come in from the outside, but they did have to drill 2" holes into many of the interior walls. Fortunately, the rooms that needed insulation were the least "social" rooms and the rooms without fancy paint jobs.
Sadly, I don't feel a huge difference in the comfort level of the house, as I had been assured by multiple sources that I would. The furnace does seem to go on much less often, however, so at least we'll save money. I think the furnace itself might actually be our main problem - we recently noticed that there is negligible air flow out of the kitchen duct, for example. The furnace predates the various additions and extensions to the house, and it just might not be powerful enough.
On Saturday, shandril, fortinbras16, romsveld, Decoy and I all piled into a car and headed down to Madison Games Day. It was extremely well-attended and a lot of fun. I got to hang out with cazmonster, flamesrising, darkshiver, and amanofhats, and played Gloom (twice...losing terribly once and crushing my enemies before me the second time), Pandemic, Lunch Money, Savage Worlds, and some German game that has ben yet to be translated into English but is sort of like Tetris with plastic pieces. Then a bunch of us had dinner at a nearby Red Robin.
Anyway, I had further adventures this weekend, but I should start getting ready for bed so it'll have to wait.
Two Fridays ago, I found myself wanting to get out and about where people were. I picked up a copy of the Shepherd Express to see what was up and found out that it was Gallery Night. We'd been vaguely meaning to attend a Gallery Night for years, so we pounced on the opportunity.
Basically, downtown art galleries and other businesses (including restaurants and bars) host the work of local artists. It's as much an excuse to get people out and exploring the city as it is an art event.
Well, it worked. We had to get bundled up due to the cold, but we had a great time wandering the city and looking at paintings and such. We hit The Intercontinental, The Public Market (where we hit a taqueria for a quick dinner and I had horchata for the first time), the Blue Ant Gallery (which consisted of, at least in part, paintings hung in the hallways of an apartment-building-turned-office-space), the Italian Community Center, A Woman's Touch, The Tory Folliard Gallery, Artasia, the Rosenblatt Gallery (with its huge, elaborate sculptures of crows scenes), Cuvee (which had the most METAL art, as well as tasty champagne cocktails), a basement with a cafe and a burrito place in it, and Rustico. We were both in a really good mood and enjoyed the opportunity to get out and about together.
The following Saturday we hit the gym and the Sendik's wine tasting, and then went out to our first roller derby to see our friend "Zodiac Thriller" skate. It was a little out of the way and the only proper restaurant nearby was packed, so we ate at Culver's.
We had in no way anticipated the crowds. Holy crap. It took us 40 minutes just to get into the parking lot, where we were told there were no spaces left. However, we did manage to wedge ourselves into a pseudo-spot. Inside, we were told that since it was standing room only, the tickets would only be half price. So that was cool. We ran into Zodiac Thriller on the way in...it turned out she wasn't skating that night as she was chairing the event and basically had to run things. She said it was not always insanely crowded, but derby is catching on and they'll probably need to find a bigger venue soon.
We'd missed the first match, but caught the rest. It was a little hard for me to follow the scoring, but the action was pretty furious at times. Some of the skaters are really hard core, Super Hera stood out as a very focused skater. There was unfortunately one injury and someone had to be helped out of the venue.
There were "Beerleaders" (the drinking team that cheers on the side), an impressive Breaksk8 halftime show and free (albeit virgin) bloody marys. I had expected the crowd to be all tattooed, pierced 20-and-30-somethings drinking Pabst or whatever but it was a actually rather diverse.
We ducked out a few minutes before the end because we didn't want to spend another 40 minutes trying to get out of the parking lot, but it was a lot of fun and we'd go again...but earlier, next time.
That Sunday we had a pleasant afternoon tea at the Anaba Tea Room with fortinbras16 and shandril, and then spent the rest of the day cleaning out our home office, which has become (since the death of my desktop a year and a half ago) a dumping ground for vital documents, quasi-junk mail, and all manner of crap. It was very tedious, and we didn't quite finish, but we made serious progress and managed to get the furniture away from the walls in preparation for...
...the following Friday, when we had our walls insulated. This is tricky because our exterior walls are a mix of stone, horizontal aluminum siding, and weird vertical siding that can't be removed easily. I directed the crew to the best places to come in from the outside, but they did have to drill 2" holes into many of the interior walls. Fortunately, the rooms that needed insulation were the least "social" rooms and the rooms without fancy paint jobs.
Sadly, I don't feel a huge difference in the comfort level of the house, as I had been assured by multiple sources that I would. The furnace does seem to go on much less often, however, so at least we'll save money. I think the furnace itself might actually be our main problem - we recently noticed that there is negligible air flow out of the kitchen duct, for example. The furnace predates the various additions and extensions to the house, and it just might not be powerful enough.
On Saturday, shandril, fortinbras16, romsveld, Decoy and I all piled into a car and headed down to Madison Games Day. It was extremely well-attended and a lot of fun. I got to hang out with cazmonster, flamesrising, darkshiver, and amanofhats, and played Gloom (twice...losing terribly once and crushing my enemies before me the second time), Pandemic, Lunch Money, Savage Worlds, and some German game that has ben yet to be translated into English but is sort of like Tetris with plastic pieces. Then a bunch of us had dinner at a nearby Red Robin.
Anyway, I had further adventures this weekend, but I should start getting ready for bed so it'll have to wait.