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On Saturday, I set it up at home to make sure all the parts were there before I trecked off into the wild. One of the poles was broken so yesterday I took it back to the store. I asked them if I could just exchange the pole because I didn't want to try to cram that whole tent back into the box it came in. Apparently the guy decided it was too much work to undo the bag that the poles came in so he just gave me the whole bag. They didn't take my name. They didn't look at my receipt. They just gave me a complete new set of poles when I showed them one broken pole. I don't know how these people stay in business, but if you ever need any sporting equipment, their prices are hard to beat. And if you just stand there long enough, they'll probably just start handing you free stuff to take from the store. |
There's rumor going around about a camping trip for the weekend of October 8 so I figured I should buy a tent. I did some shopping around and found one I liked at LLBean but it wasn't cheap. I decided to head over to SportsAuthority to see what they had and boy was I surprised. They had a Coleman 12'x7' tent for $50. This was normally a $100 tent (I have seen it listed online for as much as $200.) I decided to go ahead and buy it. When I got up to the register, I found out they were having a 30% off sale on most of their tents so the final price was $35. Not too shabby considering I had been looking at a $160 tent from LLBean. New Project
Yesterday I set foot in a foreign world. The natives call it “Jo-Ann Fabrics.” Being the only male in the store, I proceeded to immediately ask for assistance. “What can I do for you today?” “I'm building a poker table.” That's right fair reader, I have embarked on a new project. I will be constructing my very own poker table. It won't be anything fancy at first but I'm leaving room for improvement later. The basics are a suede surface, a padded rail, and folding table legs for easy storage. I don't know how many times this thing will actually get used, but I found some extra wood in the garage so this seemed like a good way to use it up. Plus it was an excuse to go to Home Depot and buy some toys. I picked up a power sander and an electric staple gun. I'll be taking pictures of the whole thing and writing up a project guide just like I have done for my other projects. I don't see this project taking more than a couple weeks to finish, but then again who knows what I'll run into. Theoretically this will all culminate in poker night at my house so every can take revenge on me for my win a couple weeks ago.
Saturday Morning
Whatever happened to the days when I didn't wake up until 1 or 2pm on Saturday? It's 8am and I'm wide awake. On the positive side, it really is nice to get up early on the weekend because it makes your weekend feel so much longer.
Today I'm heading out on another ride with the Lockheed motorcycle gang. We're a fearsome bunch. I'm not sure where we're going but it will be somewhere up towards New Hope and the Delaware water gap. For anyone who has a motorcycle and is looking for a good place to ride, I stumbled across this site last week: http://www.motorcycleroads.us/
Hope you all enjoy your Labor Day Weekend!
Arcade Machine For Sale
I've decided to put the arcade machine up for sale. I'd prefer to sell it to someone locally, but if you really want it and you're not around here we could work out some sort of shipping arrangement. Please spread the word to anyone you think might be interested. It's still in great condition and functions perfectly. In fact it was just being used by some people tonight. I'm only selling it because I don't use it much anymore and I could use the extra cash. I'm asking $575 OBO. If you take a look on eBay you'll find that most arcade machines start around $1000 and go upwards quickly from there.
Rainy Day
It's a pretty gloomy day here in Jersey, but that's ok since I haven't had much time to look out the window. I've been too busy answering my phone and email. Apparently there was a patch applied to a bunch of servers and it simultaneously destroyed every one of the applications I support. Yada yada yada…
But on to more serious issues. I find myself bored at home. This is the first time in quite a while that I haven't had a project. Going back to the spring of 2004, here are the projects I can work on (the big ones that I remember anyway): the arcade machine, moving to the new house, the home theater, [break for a couple months for skiing], car iPod setup, motorcycle license, and the Ticawa shirts. I've been thinking for the past couple weeks and I just can't come up with a new project that really grabs me. I have a couple programming ideas but nothing that has really grabbed my attention yet. Poker has been a good diversion but I only play that for an hour or so every night. (I started with $50 and I have about $62. Not bad.) What I really want is some snow. I want to ski! Last year the first day we skied was December 18. Assuming a similar start date that means I have 4 months to wait.
Anyone have an idea for me?
Puts My Theater To Shame
This is just incredible. I used to frequent the AVS Forum when I was building my theater, but somehow I missed this post. This guy makes my home theater look like a ViewMaster. I'm speechless. Go to the original post for more pictures. [via Digg]
Sauron’s Helmet
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http://www.hotmovieprops.com/product_info.php?cPath=2_84_163&products_id=556 |
Yesterday, Aubry, his friend and I rode up to New Hope. It was a nice little ride to the motorcycle mecca. We stopped for lunch and some Rita's and walked in a few shops up there. One of the shops we stopped in was a medieval shop with armor and clothing from that time period. They had a case full of Lord of the Rings props. One that caught my eye was Sauron's helmet. Can you imagine buying this thing and wearing it down the road as your motorcycle helmet? It's probably not a good way to pick up women, but I don't think anyone would try to headbutt you.A Glimpse Behind The Curtain
Some people are impressed when I tell them I work for Lockheed Martin. I have a security clearance and write code that protects the country and brings peace to the world (by bombing the snot out of the bad guys.) I'm like a geeky James Bond. Maybe. I thought I'd give you a little glimpse into what happens behind the scenes in this high intensity work environment. The scene takes place five minutes ago in my cubicle.
I said, “I wonder what people would do if I started wearing my motorcycle helmet around the office.” I put on my helmet and went back to work. Pretty soon Rick had stolen the baseball that I keep on my desk and was throwing it at my head to see how well my helmet worked. So there we were… I'm wearing a helmet and typing at my computer while my cubemate is throwing baseballs at my head.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to saving the world.
Random Thoughts
This morning I went out for a long ride on my motorcycle. Aside from the usual thoughts of “Does that car see me?”, “What if a duck waddles out in front of me?”, and “Do I look like a dweeb on this thing?”, I was pondering something else. They say that there is one guy for every girl and vice versa. That's always bugged me. First of all, there are 6 billion people in the world. If there's only one girl out there for me then we're talking about a search of needle-in-the-haystack proportions. Even if I know 10,000 people, I've only met 0.00014% of the 6,000,000,000 on this planet. Of course only approximately half are women so that gets me up to 0.00028%. But let's forget about that part because obviously it's not quite that bad. Look at all the married people. If those odds were really correct, then this planet is on an incredibly lucky streak. Ok, so “the one” is out there. What if I had been born five miles away from where I was born? What if I had been born 3 years later than I was? Would “the one” still be the “the one” or would there be a different “the one?”
I guess you probably think I'm stressed out about this, but I'm not. I'm enjoying life and looking forward to whatever is coming down the road. That whole saying is just an odd phrase when you really start to think about it. And when I am left to think alone, I think about odd things. I'd probably scare/bore you if I blogged all my random thought topics. There's one good example of this. I was driving along on a cross-country trip with my girlfriend. We'd been talking for hours and ran out of things to talk about for a while so we were enjoying a nice period of silence. After about half an hour she utters those words that every guy hates, “Penny for your thoughts.” I was scrambling for something deep to say because my current train of thoughts was not worth sharing. “Ummm…..” “Just tell me what you were thinking right when I said that.” “Ok, well… if you're taking care of your car and you have the money you'll buy the expensive gas. The rest of us buy the cheap stuff. Why do they make mid grade gas and who buys it?”
Back to Work
All in all I have to say it was a pretty good three day weekend. I actually stretched it into a three and a half day weekend by leaving at noon on Friday. I'm still happy about pulling out a win in that poker tourney on Saturday night. Hopefully they'll invite me back for another one. My lack of projects from a couple weeks ago has completely gone away. I now have plenty of stuff to keep me busy and good ideas for future projects. Right now I'm mainly focused on getting my site completely operational on GoDaddy and getting Jay moved over as well. That's getting pretty close to completion. I'm also reading again. This weekend I made it about 70% of the way through the second Harry Potter book. We had such perfect weather this weekend that I spent some time reading outside on the back deck and put about 250 miles on my motorcycle. It's good to be busy with fun stuff again.
And finally I'll leave you with my thought of the day: "Mondays aren't so bad when they're Tuesdays."