Ants on the Melon
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Today turned out to be a pretty good day. First, Will brought in his new Great Dane puppy, Titan. It reminded me how much I love dogs; that little thing is so cute. I got a lot of work completed today at the office, and that always makes me feel good. Brett, Sameer, Todd and I went to lunch today at Jason’s Deli, and afterwards Brett and I had a chance to talk for the first time in a while. In the afternoon Will and I worked on a new procedure for rolling out code to the production systems before heading down to the rec room to win a doubles match of ping pong. On my way home from work I stopped by ThunderCloud Subs and picked up two smoked chicken sandwiches for dinner, mmmmm good! After filling my belly I played my fiddle and mandolin for an hour or so, and then decided to come hang out on the front porch with a candle, my PowerBook and a nice Punch cigar. Nothing particularly exciting today, but a good day nonetheless. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

So I came across this site that attempts to measure the type of American English that a person speaks. I took the test expecting it to return with a message along the lines of “I don’t know what you just said, but it sure wasn’t English”. To my surprise it came back with this instead:

I’m pretty sure that I know where that 10% Yankee came from. But then again, I ain’t never been learned to talk good.

So, what kind of American English do you speak?

David Lister just pointed out this version of Unix, implemented in JavaScript. No, it is not a JavaScript interface to a terminal. Yes, it is a Unix OS running entirely in your web browser. This is probably the most insane thing I have ever seen implemented in JavaScript, and it’s up there in the most insane things I have ever seen. It even has a mini version of the vi editor, and all of this runs in the browser. Wow.

A few days ago I stopped at a nearby Shell station to get some gas. Gas prices are pretty high here too (around $2.05), although no way near as bad as what I saw in D.C. and Maryland last weekend (around $2.50). So anyway, as I hop out of my truck and reach for my wallet, I noticed this wonderfully succinct Neanderthal-esque message on the pump (click on the image for the full picture):

Apparently one of the local cavemen is mad that it costs almost 40,000 clams to gas up the Pachyderm.

WINDOWS TOO BAD STOP IT.

I finally have something that can be considered an addiction. It is an addiction to a food, to some people’s delight. I am obsessed with Thundercloud Subs!

ThunderCloud Subs is a small chain out of Austin, with three locations in San Antonio. I first ate at one of their restaurants almost a year ago, and I remember it being quite tasty. But when our office moved out to the new building, several of us started going to the nearby ThunderCloud for lunch. One bite of that delicious hogie and I was hooked!

Recently I have been eating two subs at lunch, and today the guy who was preparing my sandwich (he recognizes us as “regulars” now) asked me if I only wanted one today. I said “yup, only one right now”, and he asked me several times if I was sure. I assured him that I only wanted one today, and he said ok. Less than 5 minutes later I was back in line for my second sandwich.

I almost always order the same thing, a mesquite smoked chicken on white bread, with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, thundersauce, pepper, and swiss cheese. What more could you want?

They are celebrating their 30th birthday this month, and as a promotion they have had special prices on a different sandwich every day this month, some for less than a dollar. Here’s the schedule. Go get a ThunderCloud Sub!

The last two shows of Cornyation were performed tonight, and once again it was a lot of fun. Alana’s family came to see the first show last night, and they had an extra ticket so Todd came along and sat with them. Dave and his friend Kay came to see the second show tonight, which was probably the best show. Dave was wearing his kilt, of course. Even more strange was that he wasn’t the only person there wearing a kilt, but then again, it is Cornyation.

Since Alana was performing in the act with Johnny and Jesse, they invited me to be a part of their group. The theme of the group’s skit was “Labor’s Love Lost”, which involved Willy Wonka and his Umpa Lumpas battling Walmart. My role was to help move the large prop centerpiece onto and off the stage, and to help with whatever else was needed backstage. I had a blast working with everyone in the group, they were all a lot of fun. Between the first and second shows our group was told to stay in our dressing room. We were not sure what was going on, but we all went back and waited. Before long a large group of people appeared and presented our group with this year’s Spirit Award, and a huge trophy. Apparently the Spirit Award is chosen by the winner of the award from the previous year, and it goes to the group that is having the most fun and who puts on the best show. It was an honor to be a part of the group and to see everyone do so well. Johnny and Jesse deserved to win, they put together a great act.

Cornyation is held at the Empire Theater in downtown San Antonio. The Empire Theater shares a common underground dressing area with The Majestic Theater, which is around the corner on Houston Street. The walls of this underground area are filled with paintings of the different acts that have performed at the Majestic and Empire theaters. The paintings are signed by the actors and actresses who performed in the shows, and some are really impressive. I took some pictures of these walls so that everyone else could see what is down there. Some of the works of art are really creative, and my favorite has to be the one for Seussical the Musical. Notice how the cat’s hat is actually painted around a duct that is coming out of the wall, it really catches your eye when you walk by it.

I got home around 11:30 tonight and decided to restring my new mandolin. I’ve become a big fan of Elixir strings, both for my guitars and mandolins, so I bought a pack with my new mandolin last week. I’ve been playing along to Garcia and Grisman this evening, their music is so sweet.

Tonight was the first night of Cornyation, a popular show that is performed during three nights of San Antonio’s Fiesta. Alana and I attended Cornyation last year and had a great time, it’s really something to see. Cornyation is a satire/mockery of the traditional Fiesta Coronation of the Queen of the Order of the Alamo. The show is performed by a dozen or so groups of individuals who create and organize 3 minute satiral skits of headlines from the past year. Most of the skits are extremely entertaining, but if you are not pleased with anything you can always throw tortillas! This year Alana is performing in one of the skits, and I am helping out backstage for her crew. It’s pretty neat to see how the show comes together behind the scenes. At the end of the show I came on stage with everyone to throw beads into the crowd, and my name is even in the show’s program that is handed out. I feel like such a star! Anyway, tonight was just the first night and is actually considered a dress rehearsal. We have 2 shows tomorrow and 2 shows on Thursday, both of which have been sold out for months.

I took the pre-assessment tests today for the Red Hat Certified Engineer exam, and I did pretty well. Some of the questions were surprisingly hard and obscure, but it was fun to actually take a test, something I haven’t done in a while.

So Alana and I flew to Maryland on Friday with her parents to attend a wedding of their friend. We are actually staying in Bethesda Maryland, so when we arrived at the hotel on Friday around 5 pm I opened up the laptop and sent an email to my friend Dave who lives somewhere around here. Dave and I had not seen each other in almost 2 years, and the last time we talked was over a year ago, so I thought it would be great to get together and catch up. Well, around 8:30 my phone rang, and the screen told me that it was Dave’s number before I answered the phone. So when I answered I said “Hey Dave! What are you up to tonight?” He sounded a little confused, and said “uhm.. not much, what are you doing?” So I asked him if he wanted to get together and have coffee or something. He asked where I was and I told him and he said that I was literally 2 blocks from his apartment at the time. So he came over to where I was and we were talking about how it was great to get together. I said something like “I’m glad you got the email” and that is when Dave said “what email?” As it turns out, when he called me earlier he was calling to ask me about a problem with his father’s website that I host, Dave had no idea that I was even in town! He never got the email that I sent him, he just happened to call when I was 2 blocks from his apartment, so weird.

Alana wanted to try out for MTV’s The Real World, so we took the Metro downtown and found Lulu’s Mardi Gras Club, where MTV was holding auditions. I dropped her off at 10, and then I started walking around downtown Washington D.C. I found Pennsylvania Avenue and started walking down that. Pretty soon I noticed that I was walking along a nice big mansion, with a pretty yard. Then it occured to me that I was looking at the White House. Next door to the White House is The Department of the Treasury. A few weeks ago I read a story on Yahoo news about a duck with secret service protection, and before I knew it I was looking at the famous Duck!

After seeing the duck I started walking towards the capital. Just as I reached the FTC building, a parade started up right in front of me. It’s been a long time since I have heard a marching band, but I really love hearing that type of music. The Eastern High School marching band was amazing, and I followed them down the street for 4 or 5 sets of music. I followed several other bands down the street too, but none of them had a name as good as the Bowie State University’s Symphony of Soul.

After watching the marching bands for about an hour I decided to head back towards Alana. We had lunch at a restaurant named “Le Bar”, and the crabcake salad was great. When we left the restaurant we met up with Alana’s parents at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where Alana wanted to see the Gem exhibit. Afterwards we walked to the National Museum of American History. Initially I was not excited about going to the History museum because, well, after 4 years of history in college, I have very little interest in history. But I was surprised to find out that the Americian History Musuem has a lot of exhibits on inventors and technology, it was pretty cool! I spent most of my time there at the Lighting a Revolution exhibit, which was all about Edison and the gang, very coool stuff!

I’m exhausted now, so I’m going to bed. Good night!

So at some point on my way home from work today I decided I wanted to buy a new mandolin. A few months ago I had been over to Guitar Tex and played a Kentucky mandolin like the one that my grandfather has. I really liked the action on this mandolin, and told the guys there that I would probably be back for it at some point. So today I quickly ran by and bought it, it was only $195, which is not bad for a pretty decent mandolin.

Chris Blumentritt was in town tonight and a bunch of us got together at Rebar to hang out with him. I miss having Chris around, nobody else really seems to be into good music since he left. I stayed around till about 11:15 until I had to come home to pack for our trip to Maryland tomorrow.

We are flying out at 10:00 tomorrow to go to Maryland for the weekend to see some of Alana’s friends get married. Todd helped me find a sports jacket today at Goodwill that I can wear to the wedding, otherwise I would have been in big trouble.

So it has been a few days since I’ve written, and a bunch of stuff has happened. Here’s the story…

First, when I got in to work on Monday morning I was greated with an alarming email from one of the systems for which I am responsible. A quick look at the server told me that something was seriously bad, and two coworkers and I spent the rest of the day minimizing the damage and repairing the system. There are some really bad people out there.

I spent that night at home washing clothes and cleaning the apartment. About 11:30 I stepped out on the back porch and I heard something quickly moving around down on the ground. Whatever it was, it was bigger than a squirrel and I didn’t really want to step down into the dark without knowing what was down there. So I stopped for a second and looked over the edge of the porch, and that is when I saw two very large Opossum’s running around down below. They kept running into each other and making really awful snarling/squealling sounds. I watched them for a while and called Alana out to see, then they moved on to the neighbors yard. I don’t think I like these creatures.

Today I went to the dentist for the first time in a long time. I’ve been nervous about selecting a dentist, but I finally got a great recommendation from someone that I trust, and the dentist’s office is about a mile from our new office, so I didn’t really have any excuse not to go. Well, let’s just say that I found out that I have an embarrassing number of cavities. I’ve scheduled a couple appointments in the coming weeks, and after the fillings are complete then I have to get my bottom two wisdom teeth removed. That promises to be a bundle of joy.

On a brighter note, Apple’s OS X Tiger will be released on April 29th, and I can’t wait!

Brandon is coming over tonight for cigars, beer and the third and final episode of The Elegant Universe. We have not been able to hang out in several weeks, so I am really looking forward to this.

Happy Anniversary, Pepper and Ethan!