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5:46 PM, Apr 1, 2006 toot this
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Tohato!
From a bit of random stumbling about on wikipedia I learned two things. The first is that the letter, "n" in "habanero," isn't pronounced the fun "nya" way. It's just ha-ba-ne-ro. How boring. The other thing I learned was that the fiercest of fruit is being poured into an exceptionally popular japanese snack, and distributed by a company called Tohato. The snack sounds very intriguing, and I wonder if it's available in the states. Their website, while a little useless if you can't read Japanese, has a very entertaining game, reminiscent of Space Invaders, Galaga, or Tyrian.

8:03 AM, Apr 2, 2006 toot this
Cleveland to Boston
I celebrated the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, my favorite kind of time, by staying in, last night. I have taken care of all the business I need to do in the next couple of days, while I'll be helping Julia run her car to her new home in Massachusetts. Surprisingly, there's a lot that was going on. I will be missing opening day for the Royals tomorrow, and the election to vote down corporate welfare and extortion the day after. Luckily, I've already voted absentee. I had a project for work that I needed to get ready, and while it's not quite ready yet, it's waiting for the response of some people in Orlando.

Also, rent is due, at the very latest, by the 4th, so I just walked over to the bank and deposited my roommate's check.

I am leaving Kansas City in what appears to be pretty much the prime of spring, to go to the northeastern United States, where it isn't expected to get any nicer than 50 and rainy, this week. Even so, I'm very much looking forward to this trip. It's my first flight anywhere since I went to Orlando for work in early October. I'm traveling light too, which always makes airline travel more pleasant.

Don't expect much from me until I get back.

3:05 PM, Apr 7, 2006 toot this
Clevestonwark Wrapup
The Cleveland/Boston trip was fun, if short. I drove for a little more than half the trip, and Julia and I took it in turns reading A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, to each other. It was very nice. I wish I had some sort of interesting thing to tell you about the trip, but it actually went about as perfectly as we could have hoped, and that is without incident of any kind. Except for a wreck-induced tie-up in Cleveland, at the beginning of our trip, we never even hit any traffic, not even in Boston. We were able to maintain a speed over 70 miles per hour for the whole trip.

Carl met us at Anam Cara in Brookline, where I enjoyed a Stone Smoked Porter and a Smuttynose IPA, and some food of some sort.

The next day, Julia and I waited for the moving van to arrive and start unloading. Shortly after they finished, Julia dropped me off at the airport to go home. The trip home was uneventful as well, except for the realization that Newark has one of the wost airports in human reckoning.

It was cold and rainy, the whole time I was in Boston, and snowed just after I left. Since getting back, it's been over 70 every day, including one day over 80.

This morning, fresh from getting paid, I went down to the Jackson County Courthouse, and forked over a check for $1200, for the property tax on my car for 2004 and 2005. It was brutal. Next paycheck, I will knock out two of the three credit cards for while I carry a balance. After that, the significant amount I owe to the IRS for 2005 will be addressed. After that, I will be able to start saving money again. Can I make it? Tune in next week!

First Friday is tonight, but we might be rained out. It is April, after all.

9:54 AM, Apr 8, 2006 toot this
KC Vista
I arranged to meet Jeff at Jilly's for a drink, prior to heading down to First Friday. While there we managed to buy some photographic art from some guy who described himself as "bipolar, and looking to get out of the business." Casey behind the bar was happy to hold on to them for us whil we went galavanting about the Crossroads. We ran into Heidi and Marisa at Town Topic, and headed over to Grinders for some really crowded drinks.

We were interested in getting away from the crowds, and we had never seen the city from 600 feet before, so we went over to Skies, a revolving 42nd-floor restaurant sitting atop the Hyatt on McGee, for overpriced drinks and appetizers, and a breathtaking view of the city.

After that, we hobbled down to the Brick for a couple more drinks, and to watch the New Tragedies play their instruments, with some friends I had also arranged to meet that night.

But, uh, yeah, $80 later...

9:08 PM, Apr 8, 2006 toot this
KCATA Pubcrawl
This has taken me far too long. I have been shuffling my feet, trying to figure out a way to arrange the website for an event I'm planning, which is now only two weeks away. So, here, on my little website, I cordially invite you to attend the first, possibly annual, KCATA Pubcrawl in Kansas City, on April 22nd. For more details, signup, and my witty insipid crap, follow the link. It doesn't bite, I promise.

6:29 PM, Apr 9, 2006 toot this
2 comments »»
Royals Thwart Sox
I went to see the Royals win game two of their series against the White Sox yesterday. They blew the sweep today. I hope they can keep the losses under 100 this year, but perhaps it's a fool's hope. We just handed them a zillion dollars to "renovate the stadium," but I have a feeling the money will slip into a wormhole and never be seen or heard from again in Kansas City.

Anyway, five of us all met by the George Brett statue, after taking three different buses to get there. It was cold out, but still sunny enough that I have my first sunburn of the year. Perhaps I can get my next one when I'm not shivering.

10:39 PM, Apr 12, 2006 toot this
tagged with lard
2 comments »»
A Warm Run
I went for a run today, and at Carl's request, I'm writing about it. It still sucks, but it still feels good to be exercised afterward, especially in the shower, which I will use momentarily. It's going to be in the eighties today, and it was already well over seventy when I went out, but while running today, I got hot. I was able to run for more time than on previous runs, and I didn't feel at all like coughing when I got out of breath. I guess I must be getting into better shape.

3:07 PM, Apr 13, 2006 toot this
Flea Market Trivia
I have been, and will be in the future, going to the office a lot more. Perhaps as many as three days a week, especially as our big gigantic exercise will be going on in July, I will be in the office, training some of the higher-ups on how to use the simulation software we use.

Yesterday, Nathan tipped me off about a new trivia game at the Flea Market, and we agreed to go. I met Josh at John's Deck for a happy hour drink, ran over to the bank, and caught the 51 to Westport, where we(Josh, Callie, Nathan, Jeff, and myself) pulled out a win by identifying a New Order cover song from the early 90s. We divvied up our winnings, amounting to about $9 apiece, and went our separate ways. Jeff and I went over to McCoy's for a microbrew Pale Ale on KC's best patio, in absolutely sublime weather. Jeff had to move, to catch the last bus of the night down to Waldo, and I relaxed and finished my beer.

I wandered over to 39th and Main, and saw that the next bus to downtown wouldn't come until midnight, a half hour away. So, I started walking north, and on the way, decided that I had time for a quick beer while I waited. I came very close to going into Sidekicks Saloon, a well-known gay bar, and was actually in the lobby when I noticed that it's not so much a gay bar as it is a gay dance club. I stepped back outside, and walked up to Davey's, and asked Chris the bartender for a Sierra Nevada. Good old Davey's.

I hurried my beer down, but it turned out there was no need, as I still had just under ten minutes left to wait when I got to the bus stop at Linwood and Main. When the bus did come, though, I was ecstatic to find out that the late buses go all the way downtown now, and not just to 18th and Walnut, where they turn off to go to the bus barn. Feeling like Christmas came early, I thanked the driver a little too enthusiastically as I stepped off at 13th and Wyandotte. I think my voice cracked.

Anyway, I got home, ate some toast, and went to bed.

I went into the office today, and did something I had never done. I walked to lunch. It was already in the upper eighties at 11:30am, but the walk to Sonic is only about 300 yards. Yet for years I have always driven it, and it doesn't make any sense. It is currently 92 degrees outside, and we're expecting more of the same, tomorrow and all weekend. I just hope the AC starts working.

12:34 PM, Apr 14, 2006 toot this
Air Conditioning
It's April 14th, and my forecastfox reports that it's 86 degrees outside, and will get to 90 before the sun goes down. Naturally, the air conditioner, being a complete piece of garbage, needs to be repaired at the onset of this year's summer heat. The leasing agents sent a maintenance guy over and he's outside working on it now. I predict that somehow, it's covered with ice, or we did something to set off its delicate temperament. It isn't sweltering in here, but it definitely isn't comfortable. It's sticky, close, and humid.

I woke up this morning with hangover breath, just finishing a dream about getting a drink of water, stuck to my sheets. It was the exact scenario that makes me willing to pay ridiculous electric bills to air condition my home. I personally think that in the world of human luxury, man has achieved nothing greater than the wonder of central air conditioning, and I'm big on keeping up the appreciation of that feat.

12:41 PM, Apr 16, 2006 toot this
Holy Saturday
I didn't go out on Friday night. I sat at home, played video games, and watched Flight of the Navigator while the rest of Kansas City debauched.

Our little heat wave has almost abated, and the air conditioning finally works. I suppose that's the way it usually works.

I was startled awake by the buzz of my phone against my desk, vibrating with a text message from Jeff, instructing me to get moving, and come down to Westport and join him on his cross-city walk. I got up, showered, hopped on the 51, and found Jeff enjoying a beer on the patio at McCoy's on what was a stunningly beautiful day. He had already walked thus far from the Plaza, and had planned to walk all the way to the River Market, like a certain someone, but had to break up the trip with beer and pizza, both of which we consumed with relish at McCoy's.

Midtown Walk I plotted out the route we took using a handy google-powered mapping tool over at MapMyRun, which informed me that the route was just under 4.5 miles. We stopped at Ace's Gems on Westport and gawked at amethysts, geodes, and felspar fragments for a few minutes, before continuing our trip. Jeff got a lot of pictures, too.

We wandered through Hyde Park, which Jeff had never seen, and remarked at the design and craftsmanship of most of the houses in that well-kept island of a beautiful neighborhood.

Near Union Hill, we stopped at Sol, a brand new Mexican trendy bar with no beer on tap, and were halfway through our crappy Mexican beers before we realized that we should have just gotten Margaritas. They would really have been nice, in the hot weather.

We continued north through Union Hill, which Jeff also had never seen, and continued down the hill toward Crown Center, where it started to rain. We went inside, and climbed up the stairs to the well-placed LINK, a small network of skywalks that connect Crown Center with surrounding attractions, originally designed to keep fragile visitors away from the big, bad, mean streets, but that also served very well to keep the rain off our shoulders as we wandered over to Union Station.

The crowds thickened as we walked the LINK between the Westin and Union Station. Lots of families and children were clumsily bumping into each other and us. It felt nice to see people spending a day in the city. We went inside, and as always, were blown away by the turn-of-the-century grandeur of Union Station's massive hall. We took a seat at the second-floor cafe, and enjoyed a lemonade and a Bully Porter.

After some quick checking of routes, we determined that we needed to run outside with all speed in order to catch a bus that'd give us enough time to buy some beer. We settled the tab and hastened outside in time to catch the next southbound MAX bus, which in turn deposited us at the corner of 39th and Main. We walked over to Gomer's, where we took our time, as we still had over twenty minutes before the 5:57 bus would be along, to take us farther south.

It turns out that Oberon, Bell's summer seasonal, is out now, so we grabbed a six of that, along with another of Anchor Steam. After that, we waited outside in the shade for the bus to arrive, which it did, amazingly spot-on-time. A few minutes later, we hopped off at 48th and Belleview, and walked over to Heidi's, where we spent the remainder of the day hanging out and enjoying an Easter weekend barbecue.

At about 10pm, the guests departed, and I took my leave as well. I got to the bus stop on the east side of the Plaza, to find that it would be about 25 minutes before the next bus departed. I passed the time by going over to Fred P Ott's for a quick beer.

It was a very nice Saturday, but I now have blisters on my heels.

10:23 AM, Apr 21, 2006 toot this
Kickball Returns!
I jumped on the 6:14 bus by the Marriott, and jumped off in front of Union Station, about ten minutes later. I walked up Kessler, and was already sweating through my clothes from the climb by the time I reached the softball fields. Erik was waiting for me alone on the bleachers, surrounded by a crowd of kickballers that had already acquired their $65 t-shirts. The incredibly well-run Kansas City parks department had double-booked the field, forcing us to have a regrettably sober delay in playing. But, it did ensure that everyone on the team convened in time to play.

The Misfortunate Stain won its first game of the year, 4-3. With a 13-player lineup, I was only able to step up to the plate once, but I got on base, and scored! Geoff advanced me, and Terra drove us both in. I'm not a particularly talented kickball player, and I'm indisputably out of condition, but if I can keep the ball on the ground, I almost always get on base, and tonight I think I was able to attribute it to something: I run really really hard, and if I may say so, I think I can run pretty fast. Being a large person, I was still slowing myself down in right field, after sprinting to first base on my piddly kick.

But as long as I can run, I think I will be an asset to my team. Anyway, eight of us adjourned to Grinders after the game, and I repeated a statement I made when I was there on Tuesday: "The more I come here, the more I hate other bars." Grinders really has me pegged: good beer on tap, friendly service, live music that doesn't suck, and walking distance from my house.

Here are some choice shots from tonight. You can click them all to get to bigger pictures, descriptions, and links to even bigger pictures.

099erp_hummus.jpg 100brooksgeoff.jpg 101erpjohn.jpg 102terra.jpg 103kellybrooks.jpg 104terraliz.jpg 105maudite.jpg 106erik.jpg

9:31 PM, Apr 23, 2006 toot this
4 comments »»
The Crawl Weekend
Curtis arrived at KCI a couple minutes early, and had to wait outside in the glorious upper-seventies weather for a few minutes, as I made my way to his terminal. We dropped off his stuff at home, and went for a bite and a nip at Harry's Country Club where, pleasantly, Rose waited on us again. After a nice sit at Harry's, we walked over to 5th and Grand where we caught the bus to Union Station. We walked up to the Liberty Memorial, but were disappointed to find that it had just closed for the day. So, we just took in the view, and walked down to Crown Center.

Steve and Renae pulled up, soon after Curtis and I had arrived back at home and had a water. At Steve's urging, we had a beer, and hurried over to Barney Allis Plaza, where we caught the Royals Express in the nick of time. The Royals lost, but our bus vouchers reduced the ticket price to $7 apiece, so nobody complained. It was a fun game, and the weather was perfect. Just so I don't have to say again, the weather was perfect, all weekend, except late Saturday night, when it rained like an Indonesian Monsoon.

We watched the post-loss fireworks, took the bus back to the city, and got off at 19th and McGee, which is close enough to Grinders for me. After two rousing games of euchre, we legged it right quick over to Town Topic, where we waited forty-five minutes for our order to be filled. We got a cab back to my house, and everybody was in bed by about 2:30 AM.

We got up and got showered and whatnot, Saturday morning, and once again, just barely made the bus. At the bus stop, we encountered Ryan, Andi, Cole, and Kristin, who were also crawling. When we got on the bus, we met Matt and Ryan, and we all rode down to Waldo together. Jeff met us as we got off the bus, and Josh joined us soon afterward.

Nine bars and ten hours later, everyone's energy was spent, and to make the walk home more pleasurable from Grinders, the last bar, it started raining in a continued heavy torrent, only broken up by spits of marble-sized hail. We were alternately drenched and pelted, and Renae fell down and audibly hit her head. We got home, cleaned up, and went to bed.

This morning, I woke up at ten 'til eight, took Curtis to KCI, came home, slept for two hours, accompanied Steve and Renae in their stirrings, said good bye, ate, and slept for two more hours. I spent a good deal of my waking hours today writing a web interface for writing captions for my picture pages. The first product of this easy new process is here.

Enjoy.

8:42 AM, Apr 25, 2006 toot this
1 comment »»
The Legends
Last night, Jeff and I took a break from working late at his office, and sweating in my apartment, respectively, and made the trip out to the commercial development on the edge of forever: The Legends at Village West. It's a beautiful new outdoor mall sitting on the western edge of the KC area, surrounded by wheat fields and paint-by-number houses. I live downtown, in what is ideally the center of the metropolitan area, and it still took 25 minutes to get there.

The Legends suffers from very unfortunate timing. For it to have been truly successful, it would have to have been built twnety years ago. But then again, if it had been built twenty years ago, it would be falling into decay by now, as is the way with suburban America. The reason the timing is bad is because it was completed and opened about one year into the steady increase of gas prices into oblivion, and a retail center, which is all it is, requires cheap unskilled labor. With very few residents nearby, the Legends looks to places well over "just a couple miles" away for its workforce.

So, they need people to drive 10+ miles each way, to get to a job that pays under $10 an hour, and pay, right now, $2.85 a gallon for gasoline. It doesn't balance out, and hence, it won't last, I deem.

But, the viability of the leagues-distant Legends was not the purpose for our call. We were going to the Yard House, which is located in the very last part of the complex that we checked. That is, we checked every other part first, and began to doubt that the Yard House exists. Indeed it does, however. We walked in, and found that they store the active kegs pell-mell behind windows through which visitors are encouraged to gaze. The kegs are connected to lines that join together in ten-inch tubes that wend their way toward the bar, situated in the center of the large, modern, attractive room, and feed beer into their 130 taps, 110 of which are distinct.

I had a Rogue Juniper Pale Ale and a Bridgeport IPA, and Jeff had a Red Hook ESB and a Lost Coast Great White. The beers were $4.75 apiece, far more expensive than such a far-flung location was justified to charge, in my opinion, but we paid up, had some preprocessed chicken nachos, and walked over to the new nearby Granite City location, and enjoyed some in-house beer, and conversation with Megan behind the bar, and several Yard House employees.

I wore my sandals for all this- rather, I took my sandals, as they are so old(13+ years) that wearing them for a prolonged period is exceedingly painful, and very blister-happy on my feet. So, for most of the walking, I carried my sandals, and walked barefoot. While this didn't promote blisters on my feet, it did bring about a steady pain from walking on all the pavement. The Legends, for a suburban development, is surprisingly bereft of grass. Anyway, after getting a couple drinks at Granite City, I stepped outside, and stepped into the fountain, to give my feet a bit of relief.

Jeff walked outside and laughed copiously.

We took State Avenue all the way through KCK to get home, and confirmed that yes, it is that far.

9:43 AM, Apr 29, 2006 toot this
Wet Blanket
We lost our kickball game, because of a ridiculously well-hit three-run homer. We moved on, however, as a team, to Grinders. It was great to see everyone that played(and then some) make it for drink after the game.

I stayed in last night, and played the Secret of Mana for hours and hours. In doing so, I not only confirmed my status as a ridiculous nerd, but I also saved several dozen dollars, not going out. I'm going to the Royals game today, with a couple of friends, and then going on some kind of pubcrawl afterward. If it's anything like any of the other pubcrawls I've done in KC, besides the one I organized, it will probably seem less like a pubcrawl and more like a normal night out.

The big July work exercise is looming in the future, and ultra-preliminary proceedings just keep going. That's fine, but I really don't care how many engineers the OPFOR support battallion gets, or how true to life my partner's mockup of a fictitious space of land is. I don't care about who's coming, who's sitting behind the computers when we press start, or the authority and agreement that everything needs to go through prior to acceptance of the point of order to the terms of the proceedings. All of this information has absolutely nothing to do with my job, and frankly, I just don't care. Why should I?

Nevertheless, I need to be at arm's length, to I can be available to sit through mind-numbingly boring meetings, and ask people about things that will make my job less interesting, and reduce the skill required for it to the level of cognition displayed in small primates. I want to challenge myself, and it isn't possible with step-by-step guides on how to use a windows installer. I want to program. I love programming. I love coming up with solutions to problems midway through a visit to the bathroom. I want to ease the stupid inane crap-administrative work we have to do, as defense contractors.

I definitely don't enjoy stringing cable, setting up networks, showing people how to use the our terrible 1981-era software over and over again, or sitting through rah-rah sessions about how wonderful the National Guard is. I don't mind working for them- someone has to -but I see no point in pretending I'm excited while a room full of fifty-somethings yell "Hooah!" when they see a country music video about how freedom isn't free.

We have an army, and we need it. The Army needs training, and simulations are a great way to train. But, facilitating that training is so mindless and boring, it's like torture. I love computers, and I love linux. I love it. I love programming. I love seeing a problem, knowing I can fix it. I love seeing people complain about a process that doesn't make any sense, and knowing that I can ease their trouble with programming. I just hope that my company can find a way for me to feed my love of programming, because the rest of this job is getting really tedious and depressing.

Not to mention the 350 miles a week, behind the wheel.

9:01 PM, Apr 30, 2006 toot this
2 comments »»
Long Walks and Whirlyball
I got up at about nine on Saturday, feeling healthy and happy from no chemical intervention, the night before. I sat around, played some more nintendo, sent some emails, listened to some music, and had an altogether pleasant morning and early afternoon. My new mp3 player is pretty sluggish with loading new files onboard, taking full minutes to copy just a couple albums to it, and of course, I used the time just before my bus was expected to do this. As such, I had to run to the bus stop, only to find that it was about ten minutes late, and I had time after all.

I rode the bus all the way down to Waldo, and got off at about 3:10. I was meeting a large group at 3:30, in the parking lot at Lew's. We had a party bus that was taking us to the K for the Oakland game, but I had some time before this, and I didn't see anyone there yet, so I went inside and got a beer. As the bartender poured me a pale ale, I couldn't help noticing over the flashy clamor of the NFL draft on the bar's many televisions, and the babel of voices around me, that she had really, really nice breasts.

They weren't particularly big. They were just very well-shaped, and prominent in her low-cut shirt. Also, there's something you must understand about men and breasts. Air raid sirens could be going off, and an earthquake could be reducing the buildings to dust. It doesn't matter what's happening- a man's gaze will be irresistibly drawn to a wonderful pair of breasts, at least once, just to confirm to himself that, yes, those are awesome breasts.

Because of this attractive bartender and her intoxicating breasts, I actually had to make an effort not to look at them, and sort of leaned my head back when I talked with her, making it unmistakable that I was looking at her eyes. Even so, I still unconsciously stole glances, and was picked off a couple times. I was glad when my beer was done, so I could go outside and wait for the group in peace.

3:30 rolled by, and nobody came. 3:40 rolled by, and I had by that time made several phone calls, to no avail, or even any answer. Finally, at about a quarter to four, I got a call from Geoff, who said he was making calls too, but wasn't any luckier than I was. Despondent, I gave up, and started walking back to the bus stop at 74th and Broadway. When I was about two hundred yards away, I had a clear line of sight to the stop, and the bus I would be boarding momentarily. Unfortunately, it lurched into gear just then, and started rolling away, about five minutes early. I was upset. I got to the stop a bit later, and looked at the schedule. The next bus wouldn't depart for another half hour.

Feeling depressed and blown off, both by my friends and by the area transit authority, I just started walking. 75th Street is a long way from 11th Street, but I wasn't concerned with distance at that particular moment. What else did I have going on? So I walked. I walked to Brookside, to UMKC, and to the Plaza. Just near the Plaza, I got a call from Geoff. He said he had gotten the full scoop on what had happened. Apparently, I left Waldo in the bare nick of time to miss the bus-to-Kauffman crowd. He said he was going to the game independently, with Katie, and offered me a ride to said game. I accepted, and he eventually caught up with me when I had walked as far as Lost Sock just south of Armour. We spoke, however, when I was walking north on the east side of the Plaza, where I was about to cross Volker, the street that turns into Ward Parkway or 50th or something, when it crosses Main.

I suppose I had grown complacent, giving the ground the benefit of the doubt. About six inches before the south curb of Volker, I stepped unwittingly, with my left foot, into a ten-inch-deep hole in the ground. I toppled forward, while on the phone, and came to a harsh impact with my knees and palms, on the right lane of a street that commonly plays host to impromptu teenager car races. It hurt a lot. Luckily, the traffic that would have been happy to run me over was angrily occupied with a red light, so I picked myself up, surveyed my pinked palms, and noticed an acute pain in my right knee. I retied my shoes, and resumed my walk with a stinkily muddied left shoe.

After Geoff picked me up, we went back to his temporary housing, while his condo is being prepared, near the Moose, in Prairie Village, where he got dressed. I examined my knee, and saw that a small strawberry had been inflicted in my spill, through my jeans. Even so, I was fine, and just my pride was hurt. I shall learn to tread more carefully.

We drove over to Katie's place to pick her up, and I remarked at how nice it was. It was! Soon after arriving, however, Katie received word from Emily that because of the impending rain, which most assuredly came, the group at the Truman Complex would be heading back into town to pick us up, and head back out of town in the other direction, to go to Powerplay out in Shawnee for beer, billiards, and whirlyball.

However, that was going to be about an hour, as Emily still had to rally the troops, and get everyone back on the party bus. With a happy window of time, Geoff, Katie, and I went over to the Peanut at 76th and Metcalf, where Katie and I enjoyed some messy BLT sandwiches. I feel compelled to announce here that they're just as tasty in the spirit-crushing suburbs as they are at my local Peanut location, at 9th and Washington. We finished our beers and sandwiches, saw Reggie Sanders smash out a rare Royals homer, and got moving in time for the rain to start. This was about 6:30 PM, and the rain continued for perhaps fourteen hours.

We got back to Katie's place, where I tried out her bathroom(thumbs up!), and had just finished washing my hands when the party bus pulled up just outside her place. We jumped on, and managed to drink two beers on the way to Powerplay, perhaps fifteen minutes away. People were using the celebrated "beer bong" technology on the bus, and spirits were high.

I had never played whirlyball before, but I had heard it was fun. Geoff, Katie, Greg, Maggie, and I formed a team, and rocked the house. After now having played a couple of games, I can without hesitation say that it's the greatest game of all time. It's vicious, competitive, easy, rewarding, and a great game to follow with copious drinking. We whirlyballed into the night, and when the lights started to be turned off, we took our leave. We piled back on the bus and went to Waldo, where a number of odd but nice things happened.

First of all, I drank another two beers on the way back, and performed my first beer bong drink since I was about 20. Second, a beautiful woman named Kit called me cute, and told me that she'd "totally" date me if she wasn't safely attached. She freely admitted this without me having to make a pass at her, or even compliment her. Third, another beautiful woman, named Alyssa(I never got the spelling for it), approached me and started talking to me. The crutch of it all was that my only ride back home, that night, was onboard one of the buses of the KCATA, which cut short the conversation the lovely Alyssa started with me to about five minutes, which, as I remarked to Geoff later, is too short a time to acquire a phone number in an unweird fashion.

I got home at about 12:30, watched the newest episode of "The Office," and went to bed.

Jeff IMed me this morning, asking if I wanted to go and get some Qdoba with him, for lunch. I accepted, and he came to pick me up. After lunch, we went over to some mini-storage place to have a look at a storage unit we plan on splitting once he moves in. We wandered around Johnson County, getting relatively lost several times in the process. We arrived at the mini-storage place ten minutes before closing, and the tubercular-voiced attendant reluctantly showed us a unit once we had trespassed our way in, at my urging. The unit was satisfactory.

From there, we figured we were far enough out that going to Barley's in Shawnee wasn't that much more. Actually, it turns out, it is. Nevertheless, we dug the tap selection, and helped ourselves to second and third rounds. The third round was complimentary for me. I guess the bartender thought I was cute, too.

After that, we went to Tanner's in Waldo, and had, like, four more beers. It was ridiculous. I caught my bus back downtown at 8:20, and here I am. I guess I'm going to work tomorrow.

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