Signs and Portents

Wow - its been a year since I last posted on my blog. Of course in that year all sorts of things have occurred. I'm at the tail end of a divorce, I've moved into an apartment. I may even have a new girlfriend! Work is going well, we're currently dealing with what passes for a major catastrophe in Arizona - hail in Phoenix. Still 4500 claims for 25 adjusters is rough.

But why Signs and Portents? I've been struggling with getting the cell bill under control and it's been epic. I had to go into the T-Mobile store to discuss this (and thanks Shawn) to get some of it under control. Another guy wandered in and we got to talking. He then gave me a couple of free tickets to the home and garden show! Nice right? Well since I had managed to save $80.00 off my phone bill I decided to grab dinner. I wandered into Trader Joes and then decided I wanted sushi. Unfortunately their Sushi looked awful. So I was wandering back to the car and noticed - a sushi restaurant! So I got fresh sushi! And Miso Soup!

So why Signs and Portents? I think I see Signs and Portents everywhere, much to the ridicule of my friend Matt the Nihilist. Tonight was a sign to me that I am moving myself in the right direction. I don't believe in God (capital G) but I do believe in a being greater than myself. Is he/She/It interested in my individual life? Nope. But I feel that the universe moves and wraps itself around me and I should at least try and listen.

Hopefully I'll be posting more on here. Life moves along and so do I!

My Masquerade Mask - Step by Step

So on Wednesday I learnt I got free tickets to the Boys and Girls Club Formal Masquerade. I immediately decided no store-bought mask would be good enough for me, I would make my own. With two and a half days to figure out, build and hopefully not screw up my mask the quest was on! First of all Denise and I visited the local Halloween store. She bought a cute little cat mask and I bought a V for Vendetta mask to use as the base for my mask. I then purchased some pre-made paper-mache stuff. I already had some wire to work on it with. Here is the setup:

Yes thats right, Winston was supervising. I had originally wanted to make a skull with actual teeth on it, and had I more time I'm sure I could've done that but I went with the old standby - a horny devil!

Ok so what happened was that I originally had two full horns built but while applying the paper-mache the second horn got unstuck and was already covered in paper-mache. By this time this stuff was all over the place so I decided to just toss the second horn and make a 'broken' horn. This was inspired by 'broken tusk' from the Aliens Vs Predator comic. Again time intervened as I would have loved to have made this smoother but had to stick with the lump looks. Friday night came and so I had to paint it!

I went with metallic red with a dry brush of metallic gold. I added some 'mystic' symbols (oooohhhhhhh) and painted the horns ivory. So here is the final product on me:

Vegas - such as it is.

Well I went to Vegas. Had a funnish time. Stayed at the Excalibur. Room was ok, but it was cheap so no complaints really and the bed was ok. In case you haven't been to Vegas here is the outside of Excalibur:

And we had a really nice view from the window too.

Got (nearly) free tickets to 'The Lion King' because I went to a timeshare seminar. Seminar was ok. Denise loved 'The Lion King' I was more lukewarm. There was just something about it that didn't set me on fire. I'm guessing knowing the whole story in advance was something that killed the anticipation for me and while I was impressed with the creativity of the costuming and recreating the scenes from the movie it felt... I dunno, kind of forced? Here is a picture of the costumes as an example (not taken by me of course).

We also ate out at a brazilian restaurant, where the meat is served to you on skewers by wandering servers. Very Very good, but quite pricey. We didn't make any money on the slots of course, and on the way back to Tucson my car broke down between Wikieup(sp?) and Wickenburg in an isolated stretch of roadway. We eventually got towed to Wickenburg, spent the night and then got driven to Tucson by my sister-in-law Lynn today. My car is still there as the parts won't come in to get it repaired until Monday, when we will have to drive back up and pick it up. Yay. On a more light note I took a picture of myself at the most photographed spot in Las Vegas (according to vegas.com).

OMG - A New Post - RINCON BABY

So I spent two days at RINCON and met geek legend Wil Weaton, former ensign Crusher, and now totally recovered. I also played a few new games, some good and some bad. We played an awesome game called Junta on Friday night. We are the seedy leaders of a banana republique. Here are some cellphone pictures from the game:

Matt as the Admiral of the Navy

New Buddy Pi (his nickname) as the Geralissimo of the first Army

New Buddy Erik as the Generalissimo of the second Army

Game runner Bill as the Commander of the Air Force

Me as the Minister of the Secret Police (We're your friends!)
Just FYI - The hats don't normally come with the game, but I can't imagine playing without them!

Unfortunately the picture of JJ as El Presidente didn't turn out. A seemingly meek young guy we used him as a puppet president - until he won the game the end by squirreling away a ton of the foreign aid money in his swiss bank account.
To prove that Wil Weaton was there here is another picture:

He is beardedly watching a nifty new game we later played called Castle Panic, a fun little game that i can highly recommend even for not-so-serious gamers.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/43443

Then Matt and I stayed late Saturday night to play rockband with Wil. Matt didn't get an opportunity to play, but I played an amazing song I'd never heard of called 're:your brains'. Heres the link, be preparted to laugh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOlznuyPOeM

And heres a picture (cellphone pix don't handle the dark too well).

New Zealand Lost

I am in mourning. I just watched New Zealand (deservedly) lose to France. I am increasingly less enamoured of my national rugby team. Its not because they seem to lose more often than I remember them doing, its because they seem to care less. I discussed this with Mark, our wonderful scottish host who agreed that the New Zealand team seemed much more commited and just flat out better when rugby was amateur. I think that the elan and honor of playing for the All Blacks just seems to not be as important to current players as it used to be. They commit less and don't seem as motivated as they used to be. I used to be able to say, even when they lost, that the All Blacks were the best team in the world. When they lost before it wasn't because they gave less than 100% or played poorly, its just that the other team was simply better than them on the day. Todays game was lost because the motivation and urgency just wasn't there and the kicker was simply sub-par. They don't do the fundamentals well and are too obsessed with providing razzle-dazzle, they don't realize that you can do the razzle-dazzle only when you have excelled at the fundamentals. A key thing to me is passing out of the tackle. The All Blacks used to do amazing passes out of the tackle and its something I never see any more. RIP New Zealand rugby? I hope not.

Heres tui the parrot with his reaction Frances defeat of England in the rugby world cup, but I'm sure Tui reacted the same way today;

Poppys Wedding

Its been a little while since my last post, I was meaning to post about my birthday party but I do want to put the pictures up of the awesome cake matt made and everyone who was there when I do that, so the post about Poppys wedding will come first! Denise and I attended Poppys wedding yesterday, Poppy is a sweet girl I work with at Geico. We attended the ceremony at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, which was an interesting ceremony (I have never attended a High Catholic wedding ceremony before) and then we killed time at Sakura before heading to the El Conquistador resort for the reception. Denise and I missed the resort and almost drove off the end of the road before turning around and heading back. The reception was a blast and good fun was had by all. We had a nice dinner and an open bar, which I made liberal use of. Denise got to put faces to all the names of the people I work with and she enjoyed chatting with everyone there. Everyone was very friendly to her, which I appreciated a lot. I got to meet some partners who I didn't know, including Poppys new husband Tom, who is a great guy, as well as Marlenes boyfriend Jerry (I think that was his name) who was hilarious and a ton of fun to be around. Poppys dress was gorgeous, and everyone dressed nice. I did look suave and sophisticated in my suit if I do say so myself and Denise was radiant in the red dress she wore to our rededication ceremony. I'm sure I made a bit of an idiot of myself, but how else would I act? And certainly Cassie aka Grits picked opportune times to declare things loudly that when taken out of context sounded hilarious. All in all it was a ton of fun, and I certainly hope Poppys honeymoon to Disneyworld is as much fun for her. For me, its back to work Monday. Yay.

Home Alone

So I'm taking care of the animals until Wednesday while my wife tours her friend from Australia around the state. Its wierd being by myself, with the ever present Winston farts to keep me company. It gives you time to think about things, whats going on, are robbers that look like Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern going to break in etc. I'm heading back to work tomorrow pretty much over my painful experience Thursday, have to play catchup again as well. Its been nice having Rick with us, I have given him the obligatory amount of crap for being Australian and hes put up with it good-naturedly. Winston loves him and he loves Winston (as do all who meet my idiotic, hyper loving dog). Next month is looking busy with two birthdays (one my own), a wedding to attend and another doctors visit all in the first week. It will be a stressful week for many reasons, but I'm hoping I pull through fine and don't make an idiot of myself.