Boy's Birthday Post

As alluded to in the previous post, here's some of the pictures from John's Incredible Pizza!!! As always, the food was, well, incredible, and most of us ate too much.



The present that seemed to be his favorite was this plush weighted companion cube. His face lit up when he saw it.



He was very happy with all his other presents, too.



Tickets!!! Many of the games there distribute tickets, which can be exchanged for prizes. The older boy had something like 600 on his card from last time, and got his balance up over 1,250, the amount required for the small lava lamps (makes a dad proud that his boy would want a lava lamp, it does). Unfortunately, they were sold out of that particular item, so he's saving 'em for next time.



This is the John's Incredible Pizza version of making it rain!!! The bear comes out and dances, and they toss a bunch of tickets in the air. I saw a little kid picking some off my nephew's back.




Now this was pretty funny. When we got home, there was a traffic cone by our driveway from this morning when some workers were clearing brush up our street. The log on screen for Garry's Mod (also mentioned in the previous post) features one of these, and the older and I recreated this scene for a picture!!!

Friday CupDate

It's been a long while since I've actually had a cup to cupdate about!!! It has been quite busy of late at work, which is a great problem to have!!! We're shipping around 10,500 orders a day pretty consistently, and most nights it stays pretty busy right up to the end. Apparently the shift from phone in orders to web orders continues, and I heard something about the form being redesigned so people could build their order all day and complete it at the end of the day. Makes more financial sense than having half a dozen throughout the day. I'm not sure if we're actually that busy, or if they've cut the staffing.




I had the good fortune of working with the same girl who did the hula girl artwork on a previous cup, and she made this one up on my cup between batches. I thought it was pretty cool and clever, as well as apropos of nothing. As a collaborative work, I colored in Pac Man with my highlighter and blacked the eyes of the creature.

The younger boy's birthday was on Thursday, so we're going to Johns Incredible Pizza to celebrate today. His greatest wish was Steam games with Garry's Mod, which he has been playing ever since. One of those things where he sees big brother playing it a lot, so that's what he wants. Actually bought him the Orange Box set, so now he's got Portal, too. I had tried to set up Portal on my laptop to see how well the graphics card in it would do, but since it was already installed on the boy's comp, that did not go well.

Fun with Shirts

Over the past few weeks, we've been having fun with shirts at work!!! I think it was on Thursday that several of the girls spontaneously all wore pink shirts. They decided that the next Thursday they would all purposely wear pink. The word was spread to those who were not in the know, and even the guys were invited to participate. Shockingly, none of the guys actually did participate, but I did wear a shirt that could easily be mistaken for pink. It's a button up of very fine alternating red and white stripes, and it looked close enough. I think I actually spent too much time explaining that to people.

This Wednesday the theme was decided to wear shirts with your hero or superhero on it. I didn't actually have a superhero shirt of any kind, but a week before w00t had a pretty cool shirt that could qualify...


At first glance it looks like some kind of crazy dragon or something, but upon closer inspection, you see it actually has a giant, spiny shelled turtle being attacked by a plumber!!! Doesn't come right out and say it, but it's Mario!!! I ordered it. It came two days too late to use for that day, so I wore my purple shirt with the flaming skull on it, and told people it was Ghost Rider. One of the girls had a Barney Fife shirt, that was pretty cool.

Today was to be sports shirt day. I thought I didn't have a sports shirt. My boy has a Dodgers Gange shirt, I had him pull it out and tried it on last night. It went on, but I'd be showing off my lower belly. I remembered that I'd been given a very cool long sleeve tee shirt with the words "Athletic Dept. RFD" on the front. I didn't want to wear a long sleeve to be working in, but would have. This morning, however, I remembered that I have a Sobe Racing shirt that I won in one of their contests, and I wore that.

Wonder what they'll come up with next??? I'm set if they decide on Aloha shirt day!!!

Happy (belated) VD!!!

Another great shot from the LOLcats!!!

I've always found it amusing that Valentine's Day and venereal disease use the same initials!!!

Hope everyone had the happier of the two!!!

Junkyard Jaunt

Over the weekend it was half price day at the junkyard again. It didn't look like the weather was going to co-operate, but in the end it did, and in a quite nice fashion. It had been pouring buckets of rain since morning Friday, and it continued on into Saturday morning. Oh well, my dad and I headed over anyway, figuring we'd just get wet. As we got to the junkyard, it was just a few big fat drops, and by the time we got in, there was no more to be had!!! Nice.

I scored on many items. The funny thing was, right as I pulled up to my parents house and hit Baby's door lock button, the button failed. Stopped returning to center on its own, and wanted to stay in the lock or unlock position. I'd wanted to get a replacement door panel for that side, it has been worked on by someone who didn't know what they were doing in the past, and is slightly damaged. I only saw one Saturn of the same vintage and model, and it didn't have the door panel, or even the door from that side, for that matter. Note to self: Do NOT run it into an immovable object!!! This one had, and the whole roof had been jaws-of-life'ed off. I did get a couple of missing fasteners off it, but found the lock switch, as well as a door limiter off four door models.

For Janice, I finally found one with the missing vacuum valve for the transmission function. Didn't need it, but bought it anyway. Someday I may even test it, but it only cost a couple bucks. Also found a replacement for a damaged under dash panel, and a receiver for one of the back door latches that hasn't been shutting correctly.

For the Maverick, I bought a couple of seat belts. This was the most expensive items that I purchased. The part that the belts snap into blew up several months ago. I got a couple of heavy duty caribiners to connect the belts to, but they're a pain to use. Also turned out to be the hardest thing to remove. They were out of an LTD. The only Maverick there was an early 70's 2-door with the V-8 engine. Very little body damage, I was actually rather surprised to see it there!!! I got the headlight rings from it, someone had removed them but not taken them, so I did. I considered pulling the tail lights off and getting them, too, but really have no need. Funny thing, when I got home, the Maverick had a tire that's gone flat. I pumped it back up, but it has leaked back down again.



Some of the fun stuff I found were these pins from the back of the Maverick, and the homie that I can't remember exactly where I found.

Weelend CupDate

Over the weekend I had been thinking of taking the family to Six Flags again. However, my wife had neglected to remember that she had a blood donation appointment that day. A couple of weeks ago, I'd donated, and her iron level was too low to give.
Oh well, maybe the older boy and I could go, the younger one can't and doesn't want to go on a lot of the rides there. I woke him up on Saturday morning, and he didn't want to go!!! Man, I've got a family of PUNKS!!! Oh well, I'll get some stuff around the house done. Took the whole family to the red cross instead, and once again, her iron was too low!!! Bought myself a new pair of work shoes, New Balance again. Seems to be the choice of the majority of the fillers. Also cut my hair, it was getting unruly. No one at work noticed either.

Enjoyed what I saw of the Super Bowl. My metaphoric money was on the Steelers, and it was a good game to watch, especially as I almost never watch football. Today at work I inscribed the Steelers logo on the side of my cup, with the 512 reversed out of it. Came out pretty cool. Unfortunately, last time we visited my parents I forgot my camera there. I found my old Vivitar, but not the Compact Flash cards for it!!! Oh well, at least I've still got my webcam, even though the pictures generally don't come out as well.