100% organic, shade-grown, fair-trade, and anti-biotic free.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
lake george
yes, we made matching t shirts (thanks to great work by dr. w)
just got back from a great vacation. family get together in plattsburgh, and then a week with the enemy of my enemy crew at lake george. to refresh your memories, this consists of 8 people with whom i've been friends since freshman year of college, plus three spouses who married into the group (dr. wintermute, grassomama, and j-watt's dude). we get together every year, and this was our eighth and longest gathering. if it weren't for j-watt and her dude not being able to join us, i would say that it was our best.
six days of grilling out, hanging on the dock, having campfires at night, cold beer, playing games (including a showdown with mcgruber and bloodninja over who had the highest midichlorian count, i.e., playing star wars trivial pursuit), and just plain relaxing.
couple of weekends ago dr. w and i hit atl. dr. w had planned to go there for j-watt's bachelorette party, and i figured i'd stay with mcgruber and have a boys weekend.
i'll leave j-watt's bachelorette party to everyone's imagination, as should be done for these kinds of weekends. suffice to say, it was a blast by all accounts.
on the boys' front, we had a hell of a weekend. friday night, we hit decatur for some grub, then met up with stinky, his lady, and a big crew from mcgruber's office for metalsome. in a first, i actually got up on stage. fun, only minor embarrassment to myself. thankfully, it was a slow night, so not too many (ok, virtually none of) the regulars were there, i.e., the bar was set considerably lower than normal nights. we closed down 10 high, then a final-final at hand in hand, which ended with a cop making us leave (no kidding). at this point, mcgruber was stumbling ass crunked. he couldn't even finish his sentences, which made being his wing man a bit challenging. we were hanging with mr. two degrees and a chick that hunter knew from around the block. well, we stumbled out of there and got a cab back to mcgruber's place. he swears he doesn't remember from hand in hand onwards.
the next morning, i actually woke up feeling good, and went out on the patio. when mcgruber woke up, he notice that i was not on the air mattress, couldn't remember what had happened, and thought that i had never made it home.
the rest of the day included hanging at the pool with ten chicks from hunter's office. nothing too scandalous--a farewell party for one of his co-workers. then hit downtown decatur, including eddie's attic, a decatur icon.
on sunday, we reunited dr. w, j-watt, her dude, and mamma cass at the flying biscuit. then dr. w and i embarked on the grand tour of munchkins.
we met up first with kafowpow, her dude, and their twins. we then headed north to see dr. w's ex-boyfriend and his family. actually, a sad story--the doggie that he and dr. w got together way back when was diagnosed with cushing's disease, and dr. w wanted to see her. then we hit gasparyan's. dinner and play time with his four and six year old left us exhausted.
and we were not done, oh no.
monday included alon's for breakfast, and then a second round of metalsome.
every now and then, i get mistaken for a valet, because apparently people of color can't actually own the car they drive, they must be driving the car for a white person.
tonight, as i drove up to the parking deck at my nashville place, there were a bunch of people standing on the corner. i pulled into the ramp from the street, and an old white (60s, looked like thurston howell from gilligan's island) guy knocked on the window. i figured he was lost, so i stopped and rolled down my window. he tried to hand me something and asks if he can give me his valet ticket. the look on my face says it all. his wife looks mortified and says, "oh, he's not the valet." the guy looks confused. i know, it can be confusing when minorities are not there just to fetch things.
the funny thing is that gasparayan, my (nashville) room mate, was driving his car right in front of me, and the dude didn't stop him. so it's not like thurston stopped every driver. there was something that made him pick me out.
dr. wintermute (i happened to be on the phone with her the whole time, so she caught everything in real time) asked me, "so, do you still want to move to nashville?"
me: "well, this happened to me in atlanta awhile back."
in nashville, am really pumped for this weekend. am driving down to atlanta on wednesday, and picking up dr. wintermute, who is flying down from dc. dr. w is there for j-watt's bachelorette party, and i'm using it as an excuse to hang with the boys. am staying with grubes. the plan includes mi barrio, metalsome friday, pool party at grubes' bachelor party, taquieria del sol, and music at eddie's attic.
google wave could transform web-based communication. it integrates email, chat, pictures, file sharing, and search into one real-time, many-to-many place in browser. it is open source, which means the best innovations are yet to come.
here's is google's page on it. it will win, because it is designed for how people will use the web, rather than how they use it today. working in real-time, being plugged-in all times is foreign to most folks over the age of 30. i consider myself relatively plugged in, but i can't relate to how kids in junior high do it, and they are the future users of google wave.
meanwhile, microsoft just dropped a ga-gillion bucks on...a slightly better organized search engine (sorry, 'decision engine'), called bing. this will be the zune of search. and then someday someone will similarly call a non-innovation the bing of whatever. for example, someday i will tell my kids about the ford edsel, and tell them that it was like the bing of cars. it is classic microsoft: the main claim is pronouncing the end of search overload. i have to admit, until i saw the bing add, those two words, 'search' and 'overload' had never came to mind. it is a solution in search of a problem. it will get zero buzz. yahoo ceo carl bartz said as much here.
am watching the probably the only event on ESPN where indians are an over-represented minority: the national spelling bee.
go siddarth chand, 7th grader from michigan!
quick trip to nashville. we'll have ck and her dude (very close friends from emory) visiting us this weekend; wolverine and the cheese may be joining us, too.
last night dr. wintermute and i strolled into mcginty's trivia night and swaggered out with 2nd place. not bad for a team of two people against 16 other teams, many of which had 4-6 people. at this point, i think if we brought other teammates it would simply be unfair to the other teams. i thought we had one of the better team names, too: the loophole. one harvard mba + one doctorate = $25 in house cash. that's right kids, you too should reach for the sky.
some of my favorate questions from last night:
what was malcom x's last night name at birth? (little)
name the tune, including band name, album, year, and other umlut bands (godzilla, blue oyster cult, spectres, 1977, queensryche, motorhead, motley crue, husker du)
name the tune, including band name, album, year, and where the band members met (peace frog, the doors, morrison hotel, 1973, ucla film school)
who was the only player to play in an nfl game and a mlb game in the same day? (deion sanders)
yes, we made matching t shirts (thanks to great work by dr. w)
all in, including the kiddos
wintermute doing some tubing. yes, i put my face in the water. no, i didn't wear floaties.
the chief goes all out on the rope swing
bloodninja using the force to move the die as two younglings watch in awe
mgruber and bloodninja getting our nightly campfire going. thursday night included a boys night of cigars and bourbon around the fire...
...which resulted in grassomama being out cold the next day
mama cass loves romance novels and is proud of it
dinner on the deck every night
this ladies' man will be trouble, someday...
...i reminded him that this woman is taken
bloodninja takes care of grilling...and draws upon the power of grayskull
