dancing

A badly-timed cold, some expensive burgers, dancing, and Six Feet Under…

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I have a dreadful cold. Not good timing for a 13.5-hour plane trip. Grrrrrr!

Robert came to town at about 5:30, and we had dinner at Red Robin, at my insistence, as I’ve been wanting to try their Banzai Burger ever since I ate there a couple of weeks ago with my work crowd.

It was very, very good, but when it was all said and done, we paid $25 for two hamburgers with fries, a soda and a water. Can’t help but think we could’ve had basically the same thing for about $6.00 at one of our favorite places, Chargill!

Dancing was okay tonight. I danced very little, as I didn’t want my knee hurting this close to my trip.

The after-dancing “theme” tonight was “Group Night”—consisting of the Gay Geek Gamers group and the Gay rugby team. Robert and I stayed for just about a half-hour after dancing stopped.

At home, before lights out, we watched the pilot episode of Six Feet Under. I’ve never seen this show, and when I had lunch wit Jay on Wednesday, we were talking about it. He told me that he was going to loan me his DVD collection of the entire run of the show.

He knows how much I like death and dying and said he just knew I’d love this show. The pilot episode was great, and I look forward to slowly watching the entire run of the show when I get back from China.

Work stuff, an affirmation from our P2P leader, and a fun night of dancing…

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I attended the OIT Web Team Meeting today, wrote an e-mail to Marc Hoit, our CIO, about his blog, and I responded to a director who is in a workgroup charged with creating “an ideal information technology or information services department at an Asian women’s university.” He wanted some input on what people thought would contribute to such an environment.

I worked on a bunch of Remedy tickets of folks who are participating in Drupal migration projects. I wrote an OIT News article about my China trip.

I provided Jude (my boss) and Stan (her boss) my China trip itinerary, with which they’ll determine how many, if any, days of my trip I can count as work days.

Over the past two days, I’ve created and managed a table to make sure that each day of our China trip is covered by a volunteer blogger. This resulted in an affirmation from our delegation leader:

Thanks so much, John!  You have truly been such a great support to me…  I am appreciative beyond measure…

Linda

Dancing was pretty fun tonight. A cute, fun guy named Tom was there, who turned out to be the partner of this other guy, whose name I don’t know, but who is there a lot with Joe and Jose.

Joe, Jose, and Rob were not in attendance tonight. Carl, Bill, Geromy, Michael, Rick, Rob, and of course, myself, were.

Carl taught Boot Scootin’ Boogie as Tom wanted to take a lesson, as well as this other guy named Scott, who was sitting talking to him most of the night.

Sympathy cards sent, delighted customers, expo preparations, and dancing…

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On my trek for an $.85 cup of coffee this morning, I swung by the post office, where I mailed two sympathy cards.

Workwise, today I had a flurry of activity regarding last minute updates to three handouts I’d devised for three different groups, all minor changes that I was happy to make to have “delighted customers.”

I also scheduled some time with a benefits expert on Friday, since it’s coming up on my first 30 days of employment, by which time most things have to be decided. I scheduled some time with that guy named Rob Stevenson, who was so excellent at New Employee Orientation.

At about 2:00, I headed over to the Talley Student Center, where our OIT Expo ’08 will be happening all day tomorrow. I helped prepare bags that will be handed out at the registration booth, placing to sheets of paper in about 150 bags.

After that I helped one of my favorite people, Twanda, tape some plastic-type material over a table to act as a table cloth and drapery around the front and sides of the table.

From the bus stop in front of Carmichael, I caught the Wolfline 9 Greek Village bus home.

I took an hour nap before dancing.

Dancing was fun tonight. Bill and Carl were back, and they brought along Sharon (whose name might be Karen), whom we’d met at Carl’s 50th birthday party at their house. It took her way too long to order a drink, and in between her gazillion questions to Kurt, I motioned for him to please pour mine.

She really wanted wine, which they don’t have at Flex—not even that boxed wine that she drinks.

We were not stopped for Sordid Lives tonight, though it was shown. They finally worked out showing it on one side of the bar while letting us to continue dancing on the other side.

Old dogs are the best dogs: slide show. (Note: I had to open this URL in Internet Explorer. It wouldn’t work in Firefox for me.)

A 73% off kind of shopping spree, dinner@Two Guys, and some lame dancing…

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I thought about riding out to the outlet mall in Smithfield today, but decided to hit Kohl’s at Crossroads to see if I could get what I wanted there first, which would also help keep my gas usage down. I’m still above a half tank, and it’s coming up on two weeks, tomorrow, since I’ve filled up.

I only clothes shop a few times a year, and this is probably about the third time that I’ve been to Kohl’s. I love that store. Of course they were having sales, otherwise I wouldn’t be shopping now would I? With that said, it seems there’s always some kind of sale going on there.

 Item
Regular Price 
Sale Price 
 Apt. 9 Dress Shirt $40.00  $12.00
 Chaps Dress Shirt $42.50  $8.50 
 Chaps Dress Shirt $42.50  $8.50 
 Sonoma Dress Shirt $36.00  $3.80 
 Men’s Shorts $28.00  $8.40 
 Dress Shoes $70.00  $39.99 
 Watch $50.00  $35.00 
 Total $309.00 $116.19 


And if those aren’t just about thrift store prices to begin with, I opened a Kohl’s credit card (which I will promptly pay off when the bill for this purchase arrives, and after it sitting in a drawer for a year, I’ll cancel it), and that took another 15% off everything, and then they gave me this scratch card, on which I “won” another 15% discount.

So, in the end, I saved $227.67 on $309 worth of clothes for a grand total of 73% off. My final total, with tax, was $86.82. That’s my kind of shopping.

After that little frenzy, I stopped at Panera Breads, where I had a cinnamon bagel with some lite honey walnut cream cheese (freakin’ delicious!), and a cup of coffee. And, of course, I used their free wi-fi while I was there.

Robert arrived around five, and we went to Two Guys for dinner. I was all set to order their vegetable lasagna, as I was quite sure that that’s where it was catered from for our work picnic a couple of weeks ago. However, the waitress acted like I was speaking Chinese (I wish!) when I asked where it was on their menu.

With no luck I settled on my standard there—their pepperoni stromboli, which comes with a salad. Robert had their mushroom burger, which came with fries. It was all good.

Dancing was kind of lame tonight. We had very few dancers: me, Robert, Ernie, and Rick. And Chris joined us on the few dances that he knows.

It was “blackout night” there tonight, and when we stopped dancing, the lights went (mostly) out, and the glow sticks took over. We stayed for just a little while, during which I mostly spoke to Patrick, whose birthday is Monday, one week before mine. We bought each other a birthday drink.

At home, <TMI>incredible sex ensued</TMI> before eventually reading the backs of our eyelids.

Getting it together, porn moves to 2nd place on the Internet, no Russia for Sarah…

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I managed to bring in a sandwich and some carrots today—slowly getting it all together and formulating a bus “routine.”

I had a meeting in the conference room in which I interviewed for this job on August 15th. Awww.

Blurbs—one funny, the other interesting:

A New York lawyer has failed in his effort to deduct from his taxes the $322,000 he spent on prostitutes, pornography, and sex toys. William Halby, 77, told a state tax court judge that he had used “sex therapy” to help battle depression, osteoarthritis, and erectile dysfunction, and the deductions were therefore legitimate medical expenses.

In his ruling, against Halby, Judge Brian Friedman noted that not only is prostitution in New York not recognized as a medical necessity, it’s a “violation of penal law.”

Halby says he’ll appeal.

“Americans are now more interested in social networks than pornography,” said Robert Cringely in Infoworld. “No, that is not a typo.” For as long as there has been a World Wide Web, eyeballing porn has been far and away the most popular activity on the Internet. No longer.  Read the whole story: Facebook and Twitter: The New Pornography.

—From The Week Magazine 10/03/08—

Speaking of twitter someone pointed to this article yesterday: CNN: Sarah Palin Has Never Seen Russia From Alaska. It seems that there’s only one place in all of Alaska from where you can see Russia, and a man on the 150-people remote island said no governor has ever visted there. LOL!

Dancing pretty much sucked tonight. I’m just going to leave it at that. Neither Carl, Bill, nor Geromy were there. Well, Geromy got there in the middle of Sordid Lives, for which we stopped dancing tonight, and almost everyone left shortly after it was over, at about 10:45.

At the site, Play Palin Bingo, there are some cards to use at your VP Debate Party tomorrow night. I love what they’ve done with the square that would normally be the “Free Space.” LOL!