Popcorn Trials

Jim and Judith got us this old fashioned popcorn maker for Christmas. It's a smaller version of what they use in movie theatres. It's counter-top size; although a little too large for our counter. I thought it was kind of a cool thing and have been a little anxious to try it out. I came up with the idea of inviting some friends over on Saturday night for a movie and popcorn evening. Karen thought we should give this thing a test drive before we had to use it for real so last night we did a trial run with it.

In general the machine did an okay job. It's got a gear that extends down from the top of the machine and meshes with a gear that extends up from the top of the popcorn drum. That gear turns a stirring wire inside the popcorn drum. In the first run we did the motor kept getting bogged down and stopping. We were using vegetable oil and some "gourmet" popcorn that Karen had. My thought is that something in that combo didn't move around as easily as it should have and blocked the stirring arm from turning. It wasn't working well at all and I was fast moving into this-is-a-piece-of-junk mode.

For the second run we used stuff from a little kit that Karen had. It had real popcorn oil (butter flavored!) and normal popcorn kernels with some butter flavoring mixed in. This trial ran much better. The motor only got bogged down once at the very end of the cycle when the drum was full of popcorn. Plus the popcorn was much tastier. I'm certain that was because of the pre-added flavoring but it still tasted better coming out of the machine.

In general the machine redeemed itself as being able to pop decent popcorn if the right materials are used a little care taken. Now we're ready for Saturday night's party.

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Computer Finally Fixed... Mostly

I've been working on a friend's computer for almost a month. The reality is that I spent about three solid days on it and the rest of the time it sat in my office untouched, a victim of my procrastination. It had same weird OS problem that caused it to reboot 60 seconds after Vista launched. I beat my head against the problem but couldn't find out what it was. So I decided it was going to have to be rebuilt.

I went over to the friend's house last night to rebuild it with her present so that she could make certain we didn't forget to save any of her data. It took me six hours to do the rebuild. And at the very end just as I was finishing up the last thing it started throwing a weird error complaining about the battery. ?!?!?! In the end it turned out to be a Sony Vaio component that I installed while waiting for the last thing to finish. It included the VAIO Power Management app and that seemed to be having problems. It was like it couldn't properly interface the battery (probably because I hadn't installed some other VAIO garbage) and was screaming because of it. I promptly uninstalled the last VAIO garbage I installed and it went away. Unfortunately that took an extra half hour to fix. Very frustrating. The computer works completely now with the exception of installing iTunes. I told her I would come back another evening and get that set up for her. It's nice to have the computer out of my office and no longer hanging over my head, however. YAY!!!

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Crazy New Year's Eve Night

Okay, we had a truly bizarre night. I stayed up late playing on the computer and came into bed around 2:30 AM. I did my nightly ablutions (sp?) and laid down to read a little. Around 3:00 AM I heard a pounding from downstairs. It was somebody pounding on our door. I hopped up with a "What the heck is that?!?!?!" and threw on some pants and headed downstairs.

The pounding kept getting more and more insistent as I approached the door. I flipped on the porch light and tried to look through the peephole. All I could see was the top of someone's head. I was pretty certain it was a woman, though. I guessed that it must be a friend of our's from around the corner coming because she needed help. I threw open the door and some girl I had never seen before came stumbling in. I assumed it was a drunk girl wandering into the wrong house by mistake and told her that she had the wrong house and I didn't know who she was. She started going into some drunk explanation about how she came from next door and was related to our neighbor. A woman followed almost immediately behind saying that she was our neighbor and that this was her sister who had had too much to drink. Now, I've never met our neighbors. Their daughter has come over to borrow things a couple of times but I have never met the parents. I keep trying to do the friendly-wave thing but it never seems to work out. So when this woman said that she was our neighbor I just had to accept that that was the truth and move on. She said that her sister was really drunk and acting crazy and violent. She said that her parents were on their way to pick the sister up and was it alright if she just stayed here for the moment. We agreed and she said that they were going to be standing out front if we needed something. Karen and I hung out with the drunk girl for a few minutes but she started saying that somebody next door had beat her up. That made me take a step back. If somebody was beating her up then I wasn't going to just let it slide. I immediately moved into I-think-we-should-call-the-police mode. Karen and I did a quiet debate about it with me thinking we should and Karen not certain. I decided that I would step outside and talk to the rest of the family to see if I could get a better handle on what was going on. So I threw on some shoes and a jacket and headed outside. The neighbor lady and her brother (in-law?) and another woman were in front talking. I started talking to them and brought up that the violence claims. They kind of shook their heads and said that nobody had been hitting her. They said that she probably did get banged up as they were trying to restrain her and forcibly remove her from the house, though. They said that the girl had gone bonkers and was yelling and hitting everybody and that they had been trying to calm her down and, when that failed, get her out of there so that they could take her home. That's when she broke free and came running over to our place. I expressed my concerns and we talked it out. In the end I decided (and I hope I was right) that the three calm, lucid people outside were telling me a more reasonable story and that the raving, drunk girl inside was out of her head. They said that she was just really drunk but I think that she was on something else, too. I can't say that I've ever seen a drunk person talking quite that crazy. Whatever the real deal was I don't know. I waited out front with them until the parents arrived. The dad came in to get her but she still wouldn't come. The dad went to get the mom and she came in to talk sense to the girl. They got her to move a little but she had an iron-hold on Karen's shirt and had her head buried in it. As the parents were trying to forcibly drag her away she pulling Karen along with. I got in the middle and got Karen's shirt out of her hands so that at least Karen was free of the mess. In the end they got the girl calmed down enough to get her to walk out under her own power relatively calmly. We closed the door and shared a oh-my-dear-heavens moment as we went back up to bed. We talked for a little bit and everything seemed to be calmed down. So I curled up and started to go to sleep.

I had been asleep for about 30-45 minutes when I heard this terrible banging coming from outside my window. I hopped up with another "what the heck?!?!?!" and immediately thought that the girl was back and had taken to banging on our bedroom window. I was obviously very incoherent and disoriented for a moment because I soon realized that was quite impossible because our bedroom is on the second floor. Unless the chick learned how to fly she wasn't banging on my window. Then I realized that the sound had been more a metal clanging rather than the sound of someone banging on a window. In the end I decided that it must have been somebody letting off firecrackers in a metal pan. That would definitely account for the type of sound I heard. The fact that it was 4:30 in the morning was a bit much, though.

The whole thing had me pretty freaked out, though. I was truly scared to go back to sleep for fear of what might happen to wake me up the next time. I fell asleep pretty quickly, though, and nothing else happened for the rest of the night. It was a very nerve-wracking night, however. I hope this doesn't set the tone for the rest of the year. I don't know that I can handle more of this nonsense.

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Three Cheers for the Finished Blanket

It may sound lame, but I'm cheering big time for finally finishing the baby blanket for Nadine. It feels like I've been working on this blanket for !@#$-ing ever. Karen and I guess it took something like seven months. Seven Months?!?!?! Sheesh! I have no real clue why it took so long, either. I actually picked the pattern because I didn't think it would take too long. Boy was I wrong. I'm so totally sick of making baby blankets. I've only got one more on my list to do right now and I've already gotten a good start on it. We've decided that there is one particular pattern I'm going to use from now on because Karen thinks it went really fast the last time. I don't really recall, but I will say that it seems to be going much faster. I've only been working for a few days and I'm already almost half done with the body. I don't want to give the same pattern to a family twice, but I will definitely use this pattern as a first blanket wherever possible. Or maybe save it for when I'm in a time crunch. The baby this blanket is for was born a couple days ago so I'm a little under the gun. My goal is to always have it done before the baby is blessed. I totally failed on this last one, but I hope she understands. I was going to have yet another blanket to do after this one, but it appears like that one might have been taken off my list this weekend. No complaints here....

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Computer Repairman - Will Work for Free

I've been playing computer repairman for the last couple of days. One of my friends was complaining that his computer was running really slow and had a bunch of garbage popping up all of the time. I suggested that a full rebuild might improve things and he decided it was a good idea. So, I've spent the last two evenings helping him back-up and rebuild his machine. For the most part it went okay. We got the OS back up and running with all of the appropriate drivers. One of the ancillary things he wanted fixed (playing DVDs) got fixed and I have loaned him a boat-load of software/games to play with. I wasn't using them so I figured, "what the hey?" The only thing we didn't get setup was his wireless network. He's got a wireless router already setup that he's hard-wired into but he wanted to get the wireless portion working so that he could use his laptop with it. For some reason the computer won't see the router to configure it even though it appears to be running through it. I traced the cables through his rat's nest tangle as best I could and it seems like the computer is physically connected through it. But the computer has an IP address that makes it look like it's not using the router at all. Most home routers are configured to use similar subnets and this one is not using any IP subnet that looks familiar. Plus, when I run the router setup software (which we shouldn't really need) it fails on the detecting-the-router step. But the computer connects to the internet just fine. It's very bizarre. I told the guy that we needed to verify the physical connections beyond a doubt. The two options were to bypass his rat's nest tangle with new wires (which he didn't have) or de-tangle the cable mess. He kind of opted for the second option and I left him for the night to de-tangle on his own. I kind of draw the line at figuring out someone's cabling issues. I have my own rat's nest at home to deal with and I don't want to deal with someone else's. I haven't heard back from him yet, but I also haven't seen him since then. I'll follow-up with him at church on Sunday and make certain he knows I'm still willing to help him once the cabling mess is sorted out. Fun, fun, fun!

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DragonBlade Wars

I went off to Nevada this weekend with some friends to attend an Amtgard event called DragonBlade Wars. Hank invited me at the last minute and I decided to go ahead and give it a try. It was only the second event I had ever been to. It was just four guys going up in a van together and I had a lot of fun. It was great just doing guy stuff. We left here Friday evening a little later than planned due to schedules. My job was to stay awake and keep the driver company and be ready to spell him in case he got tired. So I blathered away about nonsense for hours on end. A little bit before Salt Lake, about 4:00 AM, we had a flat tire. Fortunately the spare wasn't underneath all of the junk we had packed in the back. That would have been really annoying. We were just finishing up when a cop stopped to check on us. After seeing that we were almost finished his first question was, "Are you guys on your way to a rave?" We just stared at him. We didn't quite know how to answer. The first thought was "do we look like the type of people who go to raves?" The answer for me is... maybe? I don't really know what the "rave" type would be. I'm guessing it wouldn't be the mid to late thirties crowd, though. My second thought was, "do I really want to get into an explanation about what Amtgard is to a cop in the middle of the night on the side of the road?" That was a definite "not really." In the end one of the other guys said something that satisfied him and we moved on. He gave us the number of an all night tire shop and we said good-bye. Unfortunately the tire shop wasn't open and we couldn't find any other place open. We ate a little breakfast in a diner across the street from the first tire shop while we looked for another. We finally decided to just get a room for a few hours and sleep until places were open. This started a whole line of thinking about the weird look we would get when four guys asked for a room for "just a few hours." Apparently one of the other guys had actually been refused a room when he was in a similar situation before. In the end a casual explanation during the purchase of the room answered any concerns that may have existed. The fact that the guy on duty was younger probably helped out as well. After a few hours sleep Hank took the van over and got them started on it. He came back and got us after a short while and we walked over to see how it was going. The tire was done but the guy came out and told us that the other rear tire was just about to blow in the same way. His exact words then were, "Given the size of your friends it might be a good idea to replace it as well." Again we just stared at each other. Fortunately we're all pretty good-natured so we didn't get upset. We joked that Hank should have said, "Given the size of my friends you should really re-think that statement." We let them go ahead and change the other tire while we waited for a few minutes. After that we were on our way again. We went the rest of the way without incident and arrived at the site around 10:00 or so. They were in the middle of doing battle games and I took that opportunity to get my tent setup. I'm not really into battle games so it was good timing. We had lunch and some ditches before court that evening. After court people basically sat around talking. I chatted a little bit and then headed off to bed. After taking out my contacts and calling Karen I went out to use the bathroom one more time. On the way back I saw a group of people I knew sitting in a group talking. I thought about just heading back to my tent but then decided I should try to be more social. I was very proud of myself for going over there. It is the type of thing where I normally would have been too shy to join the group and would have went off feeling kind of sad. Instead I overcame those shy tendancies and went over. I know it wouldn't seem like a big deal to most, but it was a huge deal for me. All went well and I had a good time chatting with people. We broke up a while later and I went off to bed.

The next morning Hank invited me to go to the Lion's breakfast with him. Hank and Marleah belong to a company called "The Golden Lions". Every time they are together at an event they go out for breakfast together. I understood that and was surprised that he invited me to go with him. This again butted up against my "don't want to impose" instincts. He assured me that it was fine so I went ahead and joined him. I was a little nervous because it was a group of people that I didn't know and didn't really have anything to chat about with. In the end I just stayed quiet and listened to everyone. I had a good time, though. Marleah would like me to petition to join the Lions but I have always been a little hesitant. I don't really know any of them except for her and Hank. I wouldn't want them to feel like I was "friend-stalking" them by joining even though they are the primary reasons why I would join. I could appreciate them thinking, "Must you do everything we do just because we're friends? Go out and do something for yourself!" Going to the breakfast gave me a chance to get to know other Lions a little bit. They were all nice people. It turns out that one of them is moving to our area so I will probably get to see him a lot more. Hank and Marleah would still be the reason why I petitioned the Lions, but at least I would know some of the other people. Also, they would know me. I'll need to give the whole thing more thought.

We got back from breakfast just in time for the tournament to start. I almost wasn't going to get to participate because they were already full for a 32-man bracket. Fortunately several other people wanted in so they opened it up further. I did better in this tournament than I ever have before. I've only been in two other tourneys before so I suppose it's not really saying much. In my previous tourneys I only won one match all day. This time I won three or four matches in one event. I did a fairly decent showing in the other events as well. I was quite pleased with myself. After the tourney we did a single-sword circle and later single-sword ditches. I did quite well (for me) in both. Up to now my fighting has been very random. I throw random shots and get lucky if something hits. I still did that a lot this time but I also had occasions where I saw and made targeted shots. I got a couple of compliments on my fighting from Hank and Jody. That made me really happy. I know I still have a long way to go but it felt good not to be stinking up the joint. As I told a few people, it really sucks sucking all the time. This event was a chance for me to not suck as much. It was quite a confidence builder.

We originally had planned on leaving Monday morning but everyone decided that we wanted to take off early so we packed up and left right after court Sunday night. We were all pretty beat when we got in the van and I could tell it was going to be a long night. We stopped at a McDonald's on the way out and discovered that it was the worst McDonald's ever. We had to wait at least 15 minutes to get our food to go. They were out of apple pies and were substituting with ice cream. When I picked up my food I swear I heard them say in the back that they were out of meat. Out of meat?! How do you get to be out of meat?! It was pretty sad but we had a good laugh over it. Hank started out driving but only got an hour or so down the road before he needed me to take over. Like I said, we were all pretty wiped. Right after I took over it started raining like crazy. I drove through the rain all the way through Utah and part of the way through Wyoming. It was poor visibility, twisting mountain roads, standing water and a heavy downpour. I was not at my happiest. I have decided that I really don't like driving through bad weather at night. I'll do it when I have to, but it is not tops on my list. I have also become a really cautious driver. More so than I ever was before. That has really surprised me. Anyway, I drove for a few hours and then Hank woke up and took over. It was good timing because I was starting to drift off. My co-pilot had already fallen asleep and had done a poor job before that of chatting me up to keep me awake. All in all I was quite happy to turn the wheel back over to Hank. I still stayed up to keep him awake, but I didn't have to drive through the bad weather and that made it better for me. We had bad weather the bulk of the way through Wyoming. After that we made it back home without many problems. I started to drift off between Cheyenne and Denver but the sun was coming up and Hank was fine by then. When we got into Denver and started heading toward Jody's house I really hit the wall. I was pretty done. After we dropped Jody off I was fine again, but it was a moot point because the trip was basically over. Hank dropped me off around 6:30 AM or so. I unpacked my junk while telling Karen all about the trip. It didn't take long before I was passed out on the bed snoozing away. I pretty much slept the whole day away.

It was a long weekend, but I had a ton of fun. It definitely made me interested in going to another event in the future. It also renewed my flagging interest in Amtgard. I can't wait to go out to the park this Saturday and play again. So, in the final assessment, it was a great weekend for me and I'm really glad I went.

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