I hope everyone is having a great fourth of july.. Happy Independance Day!!!
The DragonStorm BBQ and Game was a LOT of fun, though I think I undercooked the ribs a bit. I'm told they were rather pink in the middle. We put them in the oven for another half hour today and now ShadowCatt-X says they are perfect.
Right now, fireworks are bursting in the night sky, showering the air with sparklies! And here I thought Fireworks were against the law in California! I guess a lot of people celebrate regardless of the law.
For dinner tonight I had some of the Peppercorn Pork Loin I did in the smoker. Safeway was selling premarinaded Pork Loin "Buy one get one free." I bought two of them and smoked them at the same time as the ribs. They came premarinaded in a nice Peppercorn sauce. Smoked in my smoker for 8 hours it came out wonderfully tender, smokey, and a bit spicey from the peppercorns.
Hey Vargr, if you REALLY want to hurt your brain.. CoH Double XP weekend is happening July 31-August 2. We are talking about getting together and having a Lan party at my house.. and doing the whole BBQ/Smoker thing again! If you want to come out for it, your welcome! You could fly out friday, fly back sunday, and play CoH with us all on Saturday! :D
As for your beef rub, here is what you gave me:
1/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Hungarian Paprica
1/4 cup Kosher Salt
1/4 cup Ground Cumin
1/4 cup Chili Powder
1/4 cup Ground Black Pepper
1/8 cup Garlic Powder
1/8 cup Onion Powder
1 teaspoon Cayenne Red Pepper
1 tablespoon Ground Chipolte
Boojum the brown bunny
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YAY!!! The first DragonStorm Cookout is happenning Friday! I've got 3 racks of Beef Ribs rubbed in Ernies Beef Rub, ShadowCatt-X has 1 rack rubbed in her own special (and unreproducable because she doesn't remember what went into it) blend. Then we also have two Peppercorn Pork Loins. Tomorrow morning at 8am I will be firing up the smoker and by around 2pm we will have Smoked Ribs ready! ShadowCatt-X has also just finished making a nice bowl of Potato Salad, which is in the fridge.
Tomorrow, DragonStorm players will begin arriving, bringing with them other noshies for us to eat! There will be hamburgers and hotdogs and chips and all SORTS of wonderfull things! I'll be running our DragonStorm game, with the possability of a second game run by ShadowCatt-X afterwards!
Boojum the brown bunny
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Ok, I still don't have a job, though I had some recent nibbles. The job market for QA in the valley is still very slim. On the up side, today was Cooking Day! YAY!
ShadowCatt-X, my beloved, will be off working all weekend long.. so I decided to make a crock pot meal that I knew she really wouldn't care for. That way I have some nice meals this weekend and she doesn't have to worry about it!
First I dredged 3lb of cubed Beef in a mix of flour, salt, and pepper. Then I fried up 6 slices of coarsly chopped bacon (in two frying pans since I knew my main pan wouldn't hold all 3lb of beef.) Next I browned the dredged beef in with the bacon (and boy did it smell good!) Finally I dropped in a coarsly chopped white onion, stirred and let cook for a little bit.
That entire mixture went into the 5 quart Crock Pot that Vrghr bought for me, along with 2 cups of Beef Broth, Dash of Ground Cloves, Dash of Nutmeg, a Tablespoon of Dried Oregano, and a Tablespoon of Dried Thyme (with thanks to Melchar and Gilrander for the spices, 'cause I was out of Oregano and used some from the spice pack they gave me.)
Finally, I added about a pound of baby carrots (prepeeled, 'cause I'm lazy) and added enough water to cover. Now it's in the kitchen cooking and in about 10 hours it will be done! Actually, after about 5 hours I'm going to turn down the heat to low and leave it cooking until lunch on Saturday. :D WHEEEEEE!!!!
Boojum the brown bunny
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Wow, it's been such a long time since I updated my livejournal page! So much has happenned since then...
Ok, first I still don't have a new job. I had some nibbles but interview arrangements kept falling through as the holidays passed. Now it is a new year and I expect people are working out who they need to hire.
On the fun side of things, we had Further Confusion! I finally got to wear my costume, such as it is. It is a fleece bunny suit and I had hands and feed made up. There were long leg ruffs, but I lost my arm ruffs someplace. The only thing left I need is a good bunny head, which I still haven't found yet.
I also got to play GOBS of DragonStorm! That was so cool, to have a bunch of GM's to play under for a weekend. I started a new character named Damon (yes, after ShadowCatt-X's dog) who is a Das Karr Werewolf Wizard. He's a gangly teen and Susan has agreed to draw a couple of character drawings of him! YAY!
I also bought Susan's new print of a pegasus morph against a sky background. He's so handsome! Flare evidently commissioned it from her (yay Flare!)
And now? Now I'm in Kentucky. I got about 2 hours of sleep on Sunday Night, then flew out at 6:30am for Kentucky. It then took us a little over 12 hours to arrive. ShadowCatt-X slept most of the flight over. Then last night I got about 7 hours of sleep. ShadowCatt-X has been desperately checking out her house and re-arranging her horses and her furnature. I hesitate to suggest that it's like the rat girls re-arranging their cage after ShadowCatt-X cleans it... but *giggle* That IS what it reminded me of!
Today the plan is to do some shopping and talk with various people about getting work done on ShadowCatt-X's house. In addition, it looks like I will be running CAT5e cable from her new upstairs addition down to her basement while the walls are open. That way she can add high speed internet later on.
Well, thats it for now! Happy New Year everyone! Hopefully my voice will come back soon so I can talk properly again!
Boojum the brown bunny
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I survived 3 rounds of layoffs at my work, but the fourth round got me. I now go to join the ranks of the unemployed. Technically, my last day of work is November 30th. My work DID hire an outplacement service to help us find work, those of us in this spate of layoffs.
Ah well, today was my exit interview. I've been keeping my resume fairly up to date, to it only needs minor tweaking and a new cover letter for each company I'll be sending it to. I'll just have to see how things work out.
Boojum the brown bunny
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| Date: | 2008-09-22 15:51 |
| Subject: | Thug-bird |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  relaxed | | Music: | Badonkydonk |
I would like you to all meet Thug-bird...
Thug-bird, meet people. *giggle*
I had a wonderfull time on Sunday. ShadowCatt-X and I went to Zmudowski beach and spent the day getting to much sun and relaxing. While we were there, I hired Thug-bird to keep away the other seagulls. I paid him with trail mix I had purchased at a chevron station (yes, he worked for peanuts.) So he spent his time hanging out with us and scaring away the other Seagulls who all wanted to nibble on ShadowCatt-Xs toes (and what a lovely prospect that is.)
For those of you who don't know, birds in general don't like ShadowCatt-X, probably because she has a lot of feline in her. In fact, two seagulls spent their time trying to sneak up on her while she was relaxing until I hired Thug-bird.
Once I didn't have to keep an eye on her anymore, I could take pictures of all the Pelicans that were flying about! I could also take a shot of the Sea Otter who watched me take pictures!
So it was a rather wonderfull way to spend my weekend! :)
Boojum the brown bunny
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| Date: | 2008-09-17 11:00 |
| Subject: | So much done! |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | happy | | Music: | Skin by Rascal Flatts |
*happysigh* Last weekend was WONDERFUL! So MUCH stuff got done at my home! Last weekend was my smoking day, where I smoke meat and do yard work. The back yard is mowed, trees are pruned, the hot tub is cleaned out, a load of rubbish was taken to the dump, a new arbor is in the front yard (thank you Shadowcat for putting it together for me), a drip watering system is now watering the bushes automatically, and new rope lights light the path to the hot tub from the patio.
So here is a picture of my back yard for everyone to enjoy! :)
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You know, life is sort of funny. In our modern world we try to compartmentalize our emotions, keeping emotions for one thing seperate from another. Of course, this is not really how it works even though we like to pretend.
At work things are very busy right now getting ready for the next release and I have been trying to work hard to meet my goals.. to have the things ready that I have to have ready on time for internal (and external) review. The difficulty has been all the things happenning at work distracting me from getting this done. Please don't get me wrong, normally the things people come to me with are part of my job and something that needs doing.. but every time someone pulls me away from what I'm working on it takes about 20 minutes to get back into it.. and then someone else is pulling me away.
So thats the situation at work... now at the game this weekend I found myself being unreasonably irritated by distractions from the game. Again, there was a deadline because the game was ending early and I was wanting to do the gaming part.. but when someone stopped the game for out of character jokes, or a question was asked of the GM and that other people insisted on answering in such a way that prevented the GM's answer, all that frustration at work with distractions started building up at the game. The end result was me starting to start snapping at people by the end of the game.
Obviously I need to begin decompressing more from work so that I don't irritate my friends to much. For me, that means things like bicycle riding and photography. I'll talk with ShadowCatt-X about it tonight to see if she'd like to come along or would rather stay at home. I suspect she'll rather stay at home since she's in the middle of levelling up her new Villain character in City of Heroes.
On the flip side, ShadowCatt-X and I went to see Kung Fu Panda with Melchar and Gilrandir! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! It's definitely a movie thats going on my must buy list! I'll not go into details, however, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has yet to see it! Still, I HIGHLY reccomend this movie!
Boojum the brown bunny
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Hokay, so I'm down 3 lbs in the last week. I bought myself a new (second) bicycle. One bicycle stays at home for riding with ShadowCatt-X, the other I took to work for riding during lunch. I've also signed up with CalorieKing.com, and bought their tracking software, to track my calories and excercise... so far it's working well enough that I'm down 3lbs! YAY!!! Now to just keep it going!
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| Date: | 2008-05-12 12:51 |
| Subject: | Waking up! |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | awake | | Music: | Stand By Me |
Well, I've been having a lot of trouble getting to the Gym after work.. there are so many other things to do. So I bought a new bike (sized to fit me this time) and took my old bike into work.
Today I went for a 6 mile bike ride for lunch. Thats 432 calories burned and I'm feeling pretty good. Much more awake than I normally am at this time of day.
So now I'm going to try and keep up the bike riding for lunch. I think it will do me a world of good.
Boojum the brown bunny
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| Date: | 2008-05-03 20:36 |
| Subject: | Aniversery |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | happy | | Music: | Midnight Hour |
As some of you might know, ShadowCatt-X and I are celebrating our 5th aniversery together. We each put to gether a celebration for the other, and ShadowCatt-X got hers together first this year.
We are at Casa Madrone in Saucelito, Ca. It is a hotel/spa that has these cute little cabins. Here is the view outside of the dutch doors leading out onto the itty bitty balcony. I took it with my cell phone, so the quality isn't very good.
As I sit here in the tiny cottage we have together, I can hear the gentle strains of soft jazz.. live music from a nearby pub/restraunt. The sun has set now, and I can see the lights across the bay. A cool night breeze wafts through the dutch door, the top door open to catch the night air. The fireplace isn't lit.. I think how nice the warm fire will be in the morning when the mists fill the bay and the hardwood floors are cold underfoot.
ShadowCatt-X is in the bathroom, in the giant shower, getting ready for our dinner tonight. We will be going to Casa Madrones restraunt, our reservation for 9pm. I'm a little tired from our bicycle ride today, we rode up and down the bay, looking at all the little stores and simple enjoying being outside. My mind wanders back to laying beside the bay with my head in my loves lap, her hand scritching my scalp as I look out over the water at the sailboats.. the power boats... and speak of nothing of great import.
I'll close my journal post on that happy memory, the time for our dinner drawing close, and I wish you all a good night.
Boojum the brown bunny
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| Date: | 2008-04-28 09:48 |
| Subject: | Sick again |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  crappy |
Boojum the brown bunny sighs softly. "I REALLY hate being sick." He says in a gravelly voice, then pauses as coughs rack his small frame. "I had a relapse last week, on Thursday. It pretty much put me on sitting up Bedrest until Sunday. Unable to focus, couldn't drive, and that horrible.. horrible cough."
"I feel bad for work because we are coming up on the close of a project. As QA, I'm one of the gates to product release and I was so sick I couldn't even work from home." Boojum runs a hand through his hair.
He perks his long ears forward. "On the good side, ShadowCatt-X and I are celebrating our aniversery next weekend. She hasn't told me where we are going, but she says to bring some nice clothes and to also bring our Bicycles. I'm bringing a swimsuit as well, 'cause I know she loves to swim and wherever we go will likely have a pool."
Boojum the brown bunny
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Well, well, well, I'm certainly have a busy time of late. Since I'm sort of the last person at work working on Netconsul QA it's keeping me very busy. I'm really looking forward to things backing off for a bit after it finally gets out the door... however then I probably will be swinging straight into a new project.
In the meanwhile, ShadowCatt-X and I have been getting the front yard all fixed up. We have planted a bunch of Hedges around the front yard, laid down some lengths of wood (spiked into the ground) and started putting in a new lawn. It's going to look nice when its done!
ShadowCatt-X bought me a bunny for the front planter. It's a bunny sitting upright behind a small pot of Petunias. It's right near the front yard now.
She has come up with her plans for our Aniversery celebration... it looks like we are going to go someplace decadant where we will be waiting on hand and foot! I'm looking forward to it! In the meanwhile, I need to come up with how to celebrate my half or the aniversery.. I've come up with some idea's, but I need to put them into practice. I also need to get her Aniversery Present! After all, presents must be shared!
So, on the fun side of things, the bunny hands and bunny feet for my bunny costume have arrived. They are adorable! They will go with my brown bunny fleece costume from Rabbit Warez. I still need to find a face mask I like, however. I'm worried I may have to build something myself.. which I really don't want to do because I'm not very good at crafts like that.
Boojum the brown bunny
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Well, I'm feeling MUCH better today. Good enough that I'm at work. Wow, I haven't felt that sick in a LONG time! Monday I went home early (about 1pm) and went to bed early. I then spent much of the next 30 hours sleeping.
So, now I'm feeling better and need to get busy! We did the Penglai release at Further Confusion. I've updated the Forums to have a new GM's section where StormWardens can post private questions to ShadowCatt-X and myself. I'm also at work and have a LOT of catching up to do!
Boojum the brown bunny
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ERRrrrrggggg.. now I'm sick.
The convention was great. Thursday I ran DragonStorm for the West Coast Dragonstorm group. We had Susan VanCamp as a sit in player! YAY! ShadowCatt-X ran all the Friday Tournament games (for which I was very greatfull. It meant I could scamper about and visit the con itself.) Then on Saturday I ran the noon game, while Djagr ran the 6pm game! All in all, a very good weekend for gaming.
But then disaster struck. By the end of the day on Saturday, ShadowCatt-X realized she was coming down sick. She decided to spend all day Sunday playing video games and sleeping. I went back to the con for a little bit more fun and ended up staying all day. I arranged for 2 new Peng Lai cards with Susan.. comissioned a drawing of my new DragonStorm Character..
And I bought a fleecey bunny jumpsuit! It's so CUTE! Whats more, it Fits! I bought it at the Bunny Warez table. It is a new product line for them.. and they happenned to have a brown bunny costume! *giggle*
But then, by the end of the day, my throat was scratchy and I started feeling funky. Yes, I to have fallen prey to the dreaded Con Crud. I'm at work now.. hoping I don't start feeling worse.
Boojum the brown bunny
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The wind is howling outside the building, loud enough for me to hear the howl at my cubical. This morning, when I looked out the back window, I couldn't help but notice the ghostly shards of cloth atop my Gazebo. Thats all thats left of the cloth top now that the wind has gotten ahold of it. Luckily, we have a backup top just waiting to be put up.
The christmas holiday was wonderfull this year! I got to spend a lot of time with my family, with most of us pulling out musical intruments. I think the most we had going at once was a keyboardist, 2 cello's, 1 violin, 1 mandolin, 2 guitars, and 2 singers. It was a LOT of fun!
Boojum the brown bunny
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| Date: | 2007-11-07 10:09 |
| Subject: | Shifting hours |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  ditzy |
Ok! I'm shifting my hours to go into work a bit later and, consequently, get off work a bit later. I think I'll take advantage of this time shift to begin going to the Gym before work. For some reason I've always found it easier to go to the gym first thing in the morning instead of after work or in the afternoon.
I've started collecting some more items for Further Confusion! It is a beautifull robe! A han dynasty autumn festival robe! It's so PRETTY!
HMmmm.. Now I need to think of what other acouterments I want to go with it!
In the meanwhile, we lost a WHOLE bunch of people at work, so I'm feeling a bit depressed about that. Work is keeping me very busy at the moment. *sigh*
Still, this Friday is another DragonStorm game (the next installment in the Peng-Lai adventure.. afterwhich I might be able to play a Bunnymorph character (Ren-Shu)! Then on Saturday is Melchars AD&D II game! Sunday is going to be cheat day!
Boojum the brown bunny
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Wow! Another Halloween come and gone. This year, ShadowCatt-X and I went to her works Halloween party. There was much goings on and the music was VERY loud!
ShadowCatt-X dressed up as an Asian kitty. This is a sneak peek at the costume she'll be wearing to Further Confusion in 2008! She borrowed my white Zentai suit and used black shoe polish to put the spots on (and, let me tell you, the black shoe polish marks through the zentai. I know because I was wearing it at the time! *giggle*)
Now me, I was still fighting off the cold (or whatever) that I picked up in Reno. That meant I couldn't wear my facial appliance (I wasn't about to blow my nose while wearing a bunny mask.) Instead I picked up an inexpensive wizard costume to wear.
Sadly, last night was rough. I only got about 4 hours of sleep so I'm feeling sort of punch drunk. I still have a bad cough from the cold. Today on my way home I'll pick up some of that 12 hour cough suppressent, take it, then go to bed.
Boojum the brown bunny
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You know, computers are funny beasts sometimes. They have so many possabilities and so many things can go wrong with them. ShadowCatt-X's computer died over the weekend. From the looks of things, her CPU baked itself. A sad death for a valient warrior.
So its' a trip to Fry's Electronics to buy their $140 Dual Core CPU and motherboard combination. I install the new motherboard (using some of my own RAM because hers won't fit in the new motherboard) and Windows XP won't start up.. the system just reboots over and over again. This meant I needed to repair the install of WindowsXP on her computer. The end of the story is that I finished updating everything at 3am.. so thats when I get to bed. *giggle*
You know, boyfriends are funny beasts sometimes. I spent all day working on her computer, getting it going.. Now I get my reward in head scritchies! I hope, I hope, I hope.. *laugh* Maybe I can convince her to stay up until 3am scritching my head!
Ok, now I'm just being silly, but I'm glad that her computer is working. The RenTau Bunny card she had made for my birthday is about to become a real, guild legal card. Susan needs a write up on the island the bunnies come from. ShadowCatt-X says this is not a problem since she already has pages of info on it all. She's going to winnow it down and send it in! That way we can hand out the cards at Further confusion next year! It should work out perfectly with the Asian Theme!
Boojum the brown bunny
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| Date: | 2007-09-27 08:17 |
| Subject: | Zoom ZOOM zoom! |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: | busy | | Music: | TICKS |
Welcome to another lovely day here in sunny california! So MANY things going on! WHEEEEEE!!!
ShadowCatt-X and I went to saw some movies this week. We went to DragonWars and Resident Evil: Apocalypse! I'll review the best of the two first!
Resident Evil: Apocalypse was a fun movie with lots of explosions, martial arts, and zombies... which are all good things.. however I never felt that Alice was in any real danger (unlike the first two movies.) Also, it sort of felt like a movie built to show how characters you liked would die if they had to die and most of the plot was to show why they died they way they did.
Still, lots of zombies! MMmmmmmm.. ZOOmmmmbbiieeess... *giggle*
Now, on to DragonWars! This is the worse of the two films. Visually, the movie is stunning! The dragons are BEAUTIFULL and the action is mixed with CGI with a masters touch! However, it is a movie better read than listenned to! *giggle* Of course, if you have a girlfriend on your arm whispering snarky comments in your ear about the acting and writing then it makes the movie MUCH better.. trust me! This is a movie best enjoyed at home with friends so everyone can pay as much (or as little) attention as they want while making silly comments. The whole movie became worth it when you get to see a full Eastern dragon! OOooo! It is SO pretty!!!
So, those were the fun things that we were up to this week.. or WAS it? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
My Car got fixed on Friday, so on Sunday it was time for a ROAD TRIP!!! We drove over to Fresno, a nice little 2.5 hour drive, to test things out. There we visitted their underground gardens. It seems that, just after the depression, a man decided it was cooler under ground than above ground in Fresno... so he dug a cellar to stay cool in. Then he dug a second chamber. Then he made another chamber and tried growing a tree in it. Then if one tree would grow, maybe a dozen would grow. Eventually he had an underground garden! Admission is $12 for adults and they don't take plastic. For your money you get a nice tour of the remaining chambers. Sadly, much of the gardens were destroyed by developpers who wanted the land it was on. They had some ins with the city and managed to go to court and get much of the 70 acres of land.
The underground gardens website is at http://www.undergroundgardens.com/ , but is under construction.
Boojum the brown bunny
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