That's a Wrap

The weekend is over. I went with Jen to a delicious birthday party for one of her friends on Friday. On Saturday we walked along the river through Boulder and stopped for more of that incredible chai at the Boulder Tea House. Then came chores and Bleach and Mass Effect. This was my first foray back into solo video gaming since before Mardi Gras, and I played until 2 in the morning.

Sunday brought church and more Mass Effect with a break for lunch with Isaac and Elsa. Isaac grilled some steaks and potatoes and I brought in the salad and brought in the funk. We played some Rock Band and played my first Hard song on bass. (Today I made it through Say It Ain't So on Expert on the vocals at work.)
So that's the end of the weekend, but here's the end of something else: my collecting of MARS-1 Invisible Plan. I nabbed the last two I needed off of eBay. I know it's cheating, since they're still available in stores, but I'm tired of getting duplicates. Also, I set out to only get the green set, but have ended up with the rust set as well.

That's more or less the last collecting I'll do for a while. There are still a few elusive Dunnies I'd like to get, but I need to stay off eBay, since I find too many things I figure I could get because they're a deal and I like them a little.

The MARS-1 collection is nice because there's a little more art to it than with the Dunnies. There are interesting forms and beautiful designs. The colors are very cool and the figures are an interesting mixture of geometric and very organic shapes. They are all based on the designs of MARS-1, an artist from California. But now I'm done ... unless somehow I find the very rare gray set. Oh, heaven help me.

Hackles

I finally decided to get a new bike. Seeing people gliding around in the warm weather is making me quite envious. Also I have some financial discounts from REI right now that make buying a third bike a little easier. I wandered in after work, already knowing what I wanted. I was just going to get the same bike I had before. Unfortunately, the only one they had of that model and size was unbuilt, and it won't be done until the 3rd. I wasn't happy with that, but with sickness creeping into my body, I figure I can wait a week.

Unfortunately, on the way home, I was just filled with such anger and sadness. It boiled around into a fist in my stomach and I felt the rage of this last theft all over again. I even passed someone with the same model of bike, and I wanted to demand to see the serial number on the bike and deliver a sound beating if it matched. I've gotten a bit paranoid and suspicious, evidently.

Mildly related is something I've observed recently about personal style. I've been working on an article for work, and I was doing the initial writing on most of it. I fancy myself to be a better than average writer, and I had constructed a nice article with a good motif running through it. Then other people got their hands on it, and the client put their two cents in and the article become unrecognizable. Even the underlying structure was switched around. And my hackles went up. Personal style is so subjective. I can't directly point some objective standard that demonstrates my superior style, but when someone starts hacking apart and rearranging something I'm pretty pleased with, it feels like a personal affront. I'm not supposed to be the primary author of this article, but still...

All in all, I've been pretty happy recently. Perhaps that makes these moments of discontent more prominent.

Up

All right. I got the issues sorted out and the pictures from Tirzah and Mike's wedding are up in my gallery. Why don't you take a look?

Close. Very Close.

I almost have the pictures from Tirzah's wedding up. My ISP is having security issues and my FTP has been locked down. Phooey. Well, anyway here are a few sample pictures to tide you over.

Easter

Whew. What a weekend! I am wiped, and I feel the start of something in the base of my throat. I just cannot get sick again. I cannot stand it. Hrrmph. However, it was an awesome weekend. Jen came down on Saturday and we went to a birthday party for a friend of hers. There was a copious amount of delectable food, including, but not limited to, a chocolate fountain, homemade wings, peanut butter Rice Crispie treats and M&Ms by the handful. The host's house also was outfitted with a dance hall in the basement, complete with Asteroids arcade machine, a big screen TV showing music videos from the 80's (Buster Poindexter will give me nightmares), and a slick tile floor. I also got to tour one of the more awesome pads around, a pink school bus outfitted with a toilet, kitchen, and more tchochkes and cool crap than you can shake a 2 foot tall ET statue at. There, uh, was a 2 foot tall ET statue cradling a miniature cross. AWESOME.

Also, on Easter morning we went to Aspen Grove's Easter service, which was preceded by fantastic cinnamon rolls topped with almond-flavored icing. Almond flavoring is an Achilles heel for me. If Kristina Kringle was any easier to make, I would weigh 500 pounds and sweat butter. The service was very good and it was awesome to have Jen there worshiping with me.

We returned back to La Casa Del Nils and cooked up a storm, first popping the ham in the oven, then making freaking amazing sweet and sour mustard, tasty Easter cups (made with melted M&Ms), delicious green beans, and passable potato pancakes.
Laura came by and brought some brie, grapes, and crackers, all of which was fantastic. Then we ate, and ate, and ate. Everything was fantastic, and I love how easy ham is to cook, unlike those freaking turkeys. We also had peanut butter ice cream (to break my Lenten fast) and oodles of candy. Laura and Jen patiently watched the Clone Wars animated miniseries and then we played Trivial Pursuit, which Laura came from behind to win. Did I mention that I am exhausted today? I almost broke my one cup of coffee limit.

Art by the Handful

I've mentioned recently my little binge on Dunnies. I've recently got some ones that delight me with their cleverness. Above you'll see the King Kong Dunny by Sket One and the Ribeye Dunny by Planet Propaganda, both of which I think are hilarious. I mean, the Ribeye one has a little meat cleaver!

Also there is a possibility for people to create their own Dunnies. You can get blanks and then paint and glue your way to a custom piece of art. Some people sell their creations on eBay. I found this gorgeous creation from machinarex.
I think that this is a gorgeous creation, and it also eerily echoes my own cyclopean creations. Regardless, I am grateful to be able to get such cool and clever pieces of art for a small cost. And some of them will even have high resale value. The King Kong Dunny with his tiny Fay Wray regularly goes from more than $10 more than what I got it for, and will probably only increase in value.

Anyway, show-and-tell is over for today.

There Must be 50 Reasons to Leave My Tower

This morning I was in the gym on the 15th floor. While I was lifting, I heard a loud pop, and since it didn't seem to have come from my body, I paid it little mind. However, once I got out to the elevators, I discovered there was no power, so I made the trip down many flights of stairs down to my apartment. Interestingly, power was on in places and off in others. I had no power in my living room or kitchen, but I did in my bathroom. The lack of water pressure, however, mainly rendered that benefit moot. I had to shower at work. I am ready to leave, oh so ready.

However, I'm starting to think that I will wait to buy a house until I have more money saved up and other things are more settled. This means I can pay off my car and do some serious saving, which I am all for.

In completely unrelated news, I saw a trailer for The Forbidden Kingdom. It sounds like martial arts ecstasy: Jet Li and Jackie Chan in the same movie. However, the trailer quickly sours when they introduce a doofy white guy (huh?) and a bounty hunter who takes her style notes from Sephiroth aaaaaaaand also looks white. I'm sorry, is this ancient China or a suburb of San Francisco? Ugh. I am ashamed to say that I will still probably see it. I mean, Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the same movie!

UPDATE: Got a note from the landlords. They want to up my rent by $50 at the end of my lease. :(

Lazy and Brilliant

Someone get this man (or woman) a Nobel Prize ... in Lazy Brilliance.

Via Cute Overload.

Package Fiend

Hi. My name's Nils ... and I'm a parcel addict. I admit that I just really love receiving packages in the mail. This recent spate of Dunny purchases has given me a steady stream of packages in my mailbox, and since different sellers mail at different speeds, I never know which one I'm getting. Now that I've reduced my eBay activities, I'm starting to go through withdrawal. When I open the mailbox and there's no package, I feel this great letdown. I still have 3 Dunnies yet to be delivered though. I can quit whenever I want!

One nice little package I did pick up today was a bag of ground mustard. I'm going to make sweet and sour mustard to go with the ham I picked up for Easter. This mustard is the bomb-diggity when it comes to ham, but it requires a third cup of ground mustard, which is a lot to buy in those dinky containers at the store. I didn't want to make the special trip to Whole Foods to see if they had bulk ground mustard. So instead, I walked across the pedestrian bridge from work to the Savory Spice Shop near Paris on the Platte. I had noticed the shop before when walking by. Its aromas turn my head whenever I pass. I figured it would be an expensive spice boutique, but it would have the bulk ground mustard I needed. Much to my surprise, the mustard there was considerably cheaper than in the typical grocery store and they have an awesome selection and helpful staff. About a half cup (2 oz.) of ground mustard ran me a mere $1.25. They even have ground anise, which I can tell you from experience is difficult to procure. Oh, and their real cinnamon smelled amazing. Most cinnamon you buy in stores isn't cinnamon at all, but rather ground cassia. This stuff is different and I really should have bought some, but I hadn't realized how cheap it would be. This may be the start of a whole new addiction.

Different Address

As I came down from the gym this morning, the elevator doors opened and I got off as another person got on. I wandered down to my door and was irritated to see that not only did I have 3 fliers on my door, but there was even one that I had removed the night before. I couldn't believe that the handbill monkeys had been out so early and that 3 had come all at once while I was at the gym. I even noticed a big new white scratch on my door. Stupid solicitors! I put my key in the lock and ... it wouldn't turn. That's when I noticed that I was on the wrong floor, this was not my apartment, and I really needed to pay more attention to what I was doing. Thank goodness my key didn't work. When I was staying with some friends in Highlands Ranch, I accidentally went to the wrong house and was able to open the door with my key ... while the real resident was inside. That was awkward.

But yeah, I'm ready for a different address anyway. I've selected a realtor and put in a call to a mortgage dude, but I'm wondering if this is really the time for me to buy. I could wait until I've saved more money for a down payment and see if things continue to go as fantastically with Jen
as they have been. I need to determine where is best for me to buy as well. It's a very big decision and I appreciate prayer on the matter. I don't want to have to sell and rebuy in the near future, especially because I'd lose a lot of the tax benefits of being a first time home buyer. So many things to take into consideration. But it really feels, between the bike theft, smells, boiling plumbing, club jerks, and fire alarms that God is pushing me out of this building. What to do? What to do?

Pray.

Nuptials

Well, the evidence was undeniable. Small puddles were nestled into the crevices where sidewalk ramps met the road and drops were sprinkled over the hoods or cars. I had recently stated that I'd believe the forecasts for rains I'd been hearing when I got wet, but I guess this evidence will do as well.

When I pulled into the seminary this morning for church, there were a couple of Canadian geese on the roof of the library warily eyeing the fake coyotes deployed on the lawn. These faux predators swivel in the wind and balefully glare with livid yellow eyes, but they're mainly hilarious. Evidently, they're also pretty effective. The throngs of geese have taken themselves and their droppings elsewhere and the two geese scouts on the library roof left in short order.

I was at the seminary yesterday too. Tirzah and Mike were getting married and I got to be the candid photographer. I was glad that they had someone else in charge of the really important photographs. On the other hand, as someone just doing candids, you never know when you've taken enough pictures. So I took more than 730, including the rehearsal dinner on Friday. Thank goodness for digital.

I am not quite as grateful for my flash though. It washes things out so much, and if you're repeatedly taking pictures of people using a flash, they're going to get even more irritated than normal. So I try to take pictures without flash as much as I can. Too bad that means that about half the pictures I took are blurry. Oh well, I got some nice ones, and some that I'll save in my rainy day extortion fund file. Hehehehe.

The wedding was pretty nice. I'm so happy for Tirzah and Mike. The ceremony was in the chapel at the seminary with its fantastic art deco cross. They then had the reception at Hudson Gardens just down the street. It was quite a nice venue and it was great to catch up with my group of friends all together, at least when I wasn't taking pictures. Unfortunately Jen couldn't make it down, as she was hosting a birthday party for a friend, but she was in my mind constantly.

We ate, we danced, we blew bubbles as Tirzah and Mike left, and then I was free to come home and review some of the pictures I took. My camera's batteries died while I was transferring the pictures to my laptop, so that was some good timing. I'll have some pictures up here in a while, but I think I'll relax a bit today before I go up to Boulder to see Jen. More rain and snow is predicted for tonight.

It's Tuesday

Yep. Another day at work. I got to change gears and work on a timeline-based AS2 project in Flash, which was novel. It was refreshing to work on something where it doesn't take any real thought to figure out how it has to work in a framework of code or be ultra slim in file size. Just put the pictures on the stage, work in some tweens, throw a little ActionScript on a frame, maybe add a custom class or two for street cred, and there you go.

After work, it was time for the big RMAUG AIR/Flex 3 launch party. We gathered at an interesting place called The Hive and had a great crowd and some real good presentations. There was also some destructively good cake. I got to see some classmates I hadn't seen in a while, too. However, now I am tired and must go to bed. Getting up for the gym in the dark this morning was not easy.

Life Update

So, Furchtbar Friday gave way into Stupendous Saturday. I started off with some successful errands and then Jen came down and helped me cook up a storm for the party that evening. We made some broccoli salad, pear pie, and pozole. It was awesome cooking and spending time with her. Then people started showing up for the potluck. We had a good crowd here, and everyone brought some good food. We wished Jason and Dean happy birthdays and had pie and soft serve ice cream. Isaac and Elsa brought Rock Band and we initiated some new players into the game. It has a bit of a learning curve, but I think it is a great party game.

Sunday was church followed by work. This is not my preferred method of operation, but I needed to clean up the mess of Friday. Thankfully, buoyed by prayer, I was able to figure out most of the sticky problems that had sent me into such a rage on Friday. Today I was able to finish it up and leave work before 6. It's nice to come home to a fridge full of leftovers, especially when they are as tasty as mine are.

I've also been catching up on Bleach (I finished the first major story arc) and hemorrhaging money on eBay in pursuit of Dunnies. I really do like the concept of Dunnies. You give a set of artists a blank figure and let them create designs for it. Then you sell them in blind boxes, so it gives the thrill of collection. Subsequently, there is a huge after market for them on eBay as series are discontinued. It's art that is affordable, though if you want to get serious, some of these guys are selling for more than $300.

It's art in the age of mass production, and I'll take it.

How Much Will You Sacrifice?

Shamus Young, over at Twenty Sided has an excellent post on why you can't compete with the Internet. However, dedicated you are, there is someone with more spare time, more OCD, and more discipline to create pointless things. These things are so pointless that they transcend their lack of meaning and become something more. Art? A testament to human creativity? A YouTube video?

See what obsessives are doing with Line Rider.

Malheur

It's a county in Oregon, and it's French. Look it up.

The day started with me discovering that my bike, my brand new bike, had been stolen. This is despite me locking it with both a Kryptonite U lock and a Kryptonite cable lock. Gone. And the day went downhill from there. It's been one of those days that leaves me feeling defeated and frothing at the mouth.

There were two bright spots, though. I got a nice e-mail from Jen, and I found I had some good leftovers in the fridge for dinner. Oh, make that three. My opening word in the 3rd Scrabble game against Amanda was a 72 point bingo word.

And now it's time for laundry and trying to get done the many, many things I need to before tomorrow.

Definitely Colorado

This weekend left no doubt about the state I am in. I took Friday off and got a ton of things done and got to have Indian food with Laura. Then came Saturday. The weather was amazing, passing the 70 degree mark during the course of a beautiful sunny day. So, of course I spent the morning in a home buyers' workshop. It was pretty educational and I'm ready to start the process of finding a home. In fact, I should have started yesterday. I need to get pre-approved for a loan, and quick. Then Jen came down and we had a wonderful afternoon together before heading down to a game night and potluck put on by Aspen Grove. We talked for a good long while after that, too.

Then came Sunday. I awoke to 3 or so inches of snow and howling winds blowing the snow up the sides of the Lincoln Street canyon of buildings to heights of at least 5 stories. It looked rather dicey out there, but it cleared up for me to go down to church. Then it started blowing again, and the ride back was a bit obscured, but otherwise fine. With the fierce weather outside, it seemed like a fine day to call people and finish watching Firefly and its movie: Serenity. It certainly is a shame that series got canceled (sorry Elsa!). It was just hitting its stride at the end of the first season.

So a 70 degree day followed by 4 inches of snow. That's Colorado. This morning I took to the trails to ride in, and for the most part the paths were clear. Even the normally treacherous Broadway ramp had a clear swath. However, and that's a big however, about 30% of the ride in was sheets of very hard, very bumpy ice. My bike was doing a little dance beneath me while I went over those churned up patches. Even more unusual was the fact that the ramp out of the parking garage of my building was literally a sheet of ice. I started riding up it, and the bike was spinning out. I got off, and even on my feet I started slipping around. I decided to walk the bike up, especially since I had my work laptop on my back. I don't mind riding on snow, but this ice was super nasty. Thankfully most of it had melted off today. Unfortunately, what remains tonight will probably be here for a while, as snow is predicted for tomorrow night and Wednesday. Welcome to Colorado.

Not Amused

So, back on Tuesday night a little after 1 in the morning, the fire alarm for the building went off. It took me quite a while to wake up and start wondering what that horrible, horrible noise was. I crawled out of bed and peeked out the door and saw all the flashing. Grumbling I went back and slowly, groggily started getting dressed to go outside. About the time I was ready to grab the work laptop and head outside, the alarms stopped. I again peeked outside and saw firemen in the hallway standing around unconcerned. I gave a long look and then crawled back into bed.

Later that night there were some very loud jerks getting in a fight outside my window. What is it about Tuesday nights at DC-10 that brings out the loud people? But that's not the point of this post.

Last night, shortly after 2, the fire alarm went off again. I was quicker getting dressed, since my wallet and keys were still in my pants and I didn't have to hunt them down. I slung the laptop over my back and went out in front. I was expecting a crowd of fellow residents to be out there. There were two other people out front that weren't firemen. Later I saw there were about 4 more people out on the patio. So out of 15 floors of residents, only around 10 people came out of the building. Good thing it wasn't on fire. Still, this sort of monkey business strengthens my resolve to get out of the Tower of Odd Smells.