Kind of a boring weekend at Rich O's. There were no LaptopGirl sightings, and most of the other people I know there were also missing.

On Friday I just had a couple of the Upland Winter Warmers. This weird guy kept bugging me with inane questions, plus there was a dead old lady sitting across from me. I left after just the two beers.

On Saturday things started out a little more interesting. MisunderstoodGirl actually sat with me at the bar and actually initiated a conversation. Perhaps I was just being paranoid about her being pissed at me for some unknown reason. A more likely scenario is that TallLady, who I talked with at last weekend's party, relayed to MisunderstoodGirl that I was detecting some animosity from her.

Anyway, I wasn't really in the mood for anything heavy when I first got to Rich O's. I'd been working on my siding all day and my sunburned skin needed something a little less drying.

What I had was one of those Frenchy Two Brothers beers, then another one. I cannot stress enough how much I like this beer.

After my second Frenchy beer I was feeling a little cooler so I tried a Belhaven Scottish Ale. This came in a can (with one of those foaming widget thingies) and I liked it a lot too. It was a lot creamier than the Scotch Ale I'd had in Omaha last month. The beer had a lot of shit floating in it. Shit that, by the time I got down to the last inch or so of the glass, was starting to creep me out. Instead of getting a spoon for that last inch I pushed it aside and had myself a Winter Warmer.

One other item of note was that CreepyGuy was there with some of his CreepyPosse. CreepyGuy had a black eye and a Band-Aid on his face. He must have creeped someone out to the point of violence. Whatever happened, I'm sure he deserved it.

Just a quick image I made using an interesting terrain file that one of the Terragen gurus posted.

This should probably be in the work category but going to Las Vegas, no matter what the context, is definitely more fun than work as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, I get to spend a week in the Jewel of the Desert in June.

Yippee!!

At a meeting today that I didn't attend because I had too much real work to do I won an award for my help in a recent server upgrade project.

While I was quite happy to win the award, I nearly creamed when I learned that with the award came an extra $250 in my next paycheck.

Hooray! Now I can fill my truck up with gas! Maybe.

Just found out that Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game tonight.

I remember when Randy was pitching for the Mariners in the early '90s and he couldn't decide whether he would be a good pitcher or a shitty one.

I guess he's decided.

Been a little busy the last few days. I'll just post one entry instead of the several that I probably should have posted.

I wasted the last two days of my vacation. There was no painting and no siding work done because of the rain.

Friday night I spent most of the night at Rich O's talking with DooRagGirl's husband. Seems like a pretty cool guy when you consider he's married to a supermodel. LaptopGirl was there but she had one of her interesting friends in tow so she didn't see me.

Saturday night I went to a party at TrainGirl and RealTrainGirl's house. I had fun although I didn't know very many people. I got to meet PrettyHairGirl who filled me with hope by having a geek for a boyfriend.

Sunday I ran into LaptopGirl at a lame beer memorabilia sale. I was in a hurry to leave so I didn't get to meet the loser she was with.

Also on Sunday I started my siding project, and fixed my mailbox door that had been broken for over a year. All it took was a cordless drill and some titanium bits.

Monday and Tuesday the painters started applying primer to the house. I think I'll like the color though it's lighter than I was picturing.

On Monday I found out that my old boss is leaving his job. Kind of weird. This, along with the recent terminations, cannot help but remind me of the sinking ship I stayed with in Seattle until it was nearly too late.

Tuesday night I completed more of the siding but had to stop when I realized that (a) I'm a dumbass that forgot to buy the right nails, and (b) I'm a dumbass that nailed the trim up wrong so it has to be redone.

Over the last few days I've spent about a thousand dollars on various power tools to help with the siding replacement. Hopefully I'll be able to make use of these tools for other projects as well.

The cicadas are getting ridiculous.

Spending my vacation day listening to the rain hit my skylights I just couldn't stand it anymore so I decided to kill some time making a new Terragen image.

I also updated an old image, raising the water level to add a little more detail.

Last night I figured that as long as I was using up my vacation days I'd try to make the most of a bad situation and so I went to Rich O's.

Also, LaptopGirl started her new job today and I wanted to see how that went.

Rich O's was fairly crowded - I'd heard that Wednesdays were popular - but I got a seat at the Island with RealTrainGirl and Matt-Josh-Willy Whatever (turns out one of my guesses is right) and ordered an Upland Winter Warmer. I also had an Alaskan Smoked Porter put on ice for later.

The Upland beer is becoming one of my favorites. This of course means that it wil be going away soon.

After a little while LaptopGirl showed up (HOT!) and she was pretty excited about her new job. I'm hopeful that the stress she felt at her old job is a thing of the past.

RealTrainGirl is having a party this weekend, and I may actually go if I don't have to work Sunday morning. They'll have a keg of NABC Solidarity which is really good, but scary because it's so sneakily strong. I may even take a tent.

MisunderstoodGirl joined us for a while. I'm becoming convinced that I've done something to piss her off - or else maybe she'd just been in a bad mood for a couple of months. What used to be pretty interesting conversations have been reduced to grunts and nods.

Anyway, I drank my Upland beer very quickly and since my Smoked Porter hadn't had a chance to chill I ordered a Domaine DuPage French Style Country Ale. I've actually just been calling it "that frenchy beer" rather than butcher the proper pronounciation. I like it, though after the Upland it seemed a little weak.

At one point LaptopGirl noticed her ex at a nearby table so she zipped over there, leaving a little puff of smoke in her wake. I can say that I've come to expect these occurances and I wasn't really bothered.

After RealTrainGirl left Bubbles and MusicalHippyDude joined us at the island. LaptopGirl came back after her ex left and began bad-mouthing him. I can say that I've also come to expect this and I think it's funny.

My Frenchy beer went down pretty quickly and I had the bartender bring out the Alaskan Smoked Porter (Vintage 2003). It hadn't quite cooled down as much as I would have liked but that was my fault for drinking too fast.

The smoked porter is just a very good beer. Like many of my other favorites I wish it had a little less alcohol so I could drink more of it. This ended up being my last beer of the night, though I did have a root beer while LaptopGirl continued to complain about her ex and MusicalHippyDude continued to be more interesting than me.

Had my house pressure-washed today to get it ready for painting.

Unfortunately the pressure proved to be too much for some of my siding.

I have to replace six panels.

This won't be as expensive as I initially feared, but I'm pissed about it anyway. It messes up the painting schedule, and I have to figure out a way to get six panels from the store to my house.

Plus I've got to burn another day of vacation to get this done. If this painting project ends up costing me my vacation for the Derby City Classic next January I will be quite miffed.

I'm pretty sure that I've solved the problem where the font on my 'blog entries would change for no good reason.

It seems to have been the little trademark characters I was putting after some nicknames.

I've removed them all and everything seems okay with the fonts now.

It's too bad. I liked the trademark signs, and now people can freely steal all of my cool nicknames.