See! Proof I went to Washington DC and met Wendy!

Unfortunately, Wendy was eaten by a shark while we were in the Museum of Natural History. Sorry Dr. Phil.

Some pics from Denver Trollopolloza 2009

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So I have to say that I had a fabulous time in Denver hanging out with Anne and Janiece and Jeri. What I enjoyed the most was the opportunity to talk and laugh and relax and be silly. It allowed me to come back to work today feeling far more capable and personable than I have in weeks.

The only down side was we had issues with out flights coming and going, both of which had us spending more time in Charlotte NC than we had any desire to do so. I mean, it’s a nice enough airport and all, but not where we wanted to be.

OK, also Michael’s phone seems to have broken himself. So now he has to decide what he wants to do. I’m recommending sending the thing back (it’s still under warranty) and getting a new phone, and selling whatever they send him as a replacement. Personally, I may try and talk him into a Blackberry, since I think it’s the best phone for what he does.

But we’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I’m still getting my photos from the Denver trip together–probably finish sorting through them this weekend, since I’m still a little sleepy from the flight back on Tuesday/Wednesday.

So thank you again to Janiece and Anne for hosting us. Can’t wait till we can all get together again!

Well, we’re back at the Charlotte airport, waiting to go on to Denver. Flight is booked, near us are two children running around very loudly.

Wish us luck!

I got company on Sunday! Specifically, neurondoc, her spouse and offspring!

I made pizza, and received assistance in decorating the pizza; then we had oreos for dessert. Mmmm! (Yes, you should be jealous.)

Also, neurondoc’s daughter is apparently part bumblebee, and is very fond of pollen.

My assistant and I made pizza.

Me and neurondoc.

AND I even got LOOT! Yummy chocolate LOOT!

And just for Nathan…

Yup. She got me bacon chocolate! Now I shan’t be eating this as bacon isn’t in my dietary repertoire, but I am very tempted to save it just for Nathan!

I woke up this morning to discover that the UCF has been outed. I expect the phone to start ringing off the hook any minute; perhaps I can get Valerie Plame to give me some advice on dealing with all the press now that my life of secrecy is over.

So what is this secret organization I have been involved in?

We are a government funded organization created to promote the anti-anti-LHC agenda. Or so say the insane psychopaths at the LHC “facts” website. Unfortunately, I only recently discovered that we’re government funded, and am going to have to talk to Nathan (our fearless leader) about back pay. (You hear that Nathan? Gimme my money or I’m coming after your toaster!)

You see, all that stuff about Sophie from Shinola, Not-Sophie, International Hijack Day, Charlotte Misner, and even Tasty Tuesday are just a front.

So how did the UCF start? It was a dark and stormy night…

I was sitting at Starbucks minding my own business when he sat down across from me. Despite the dark glasses and cheap suit, the mustache was a give away.

“You?!” I gasped in surprise, “What are you doing here? Isn’t this a little bit off the beaten path for you?” I closed my laptop before he could get a good look a the screen.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t have much time, but I want you back in the game. No recriminations, no second guessing, the past is the past.”

“Right,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “I saw what you had done to Eric after the ‘toaster incident.’ I’m not foolish enough to fall for your bullshit again.”

“No, really. We’re on the up and up this time!” He lowered his voice and looked around guiltily. “The incident with Eric was a terrible accident–Jim was taken care of for taking matters into his own hands.”

I leaned forward, “and what price did you pay for your part in this? I know what happened to Jim. But I never heard anything about you paying your due.”

He lowered his glasses, and I was shocked by the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. “I paid. Trust me. I paid.” He slid the glasses back up his nose. “And we’ve brought Eric back from the dead. It took some doing, as we had to regenerate his fingertips and all, but we did it. And Jim is back into fighting trim as well. The bionic parts we got him have made him twice the man he was before.”

I looked down at my laptop, and shifted it to be squared with the edge of the table. “And what do I get out of this? I told you when I left I didn’t want any part of your schemes.” I stared into his lenses. “And more importantly, who else do you have and how’d you get ’em? If you brought back Eric and upgraded Jim I can see the hold you’d have on them. But that’s only a small part of the team.”

He laughed, “Oh I’ve got ’em all. I’m still in negotiations with MWT and Anne, and I’ve got some people I think we can bring in later, but I’ve mostly got the group back together.”

“Even Janiece?” I asked incredulously.

“Janiece, Kim, Jeri, Vince, Tania, Shawn, Tania, John and Matt. We’ve even got an international division.”

“So Janiece is in. How’d you convince her?”

“That’s between me and Janiece,” he said, sitting up a little more straight. I could see I wasn’t going to get anything else out of him.

“Lemme think about it. Call Janiece myself and see what she has to say. Then I’ll get back to you. You still using the same drops?”

“Yeah. We’re on the cheap this time.”

“Shit,” I said slouching down in my chair, “you want me to do this for free? I’ve got expenses y’know.”

“We’ve got fringe bennies,” he said. “I can get you and Shawn some extra money from the tech budget. We’ve got a slew of new toys.”

“Really?” That piqued my interest. “How can you afford the new toys?”

“Beta testing for the military. We try ’em out, and if they work for us, they get moved into production.”

“Nice,” I said. “Anything good?”

“I’ll tell you if you’re in.”

“Hell,” I said, “for new toys, I’m in.”

If you wanna know why it’s for the UCF, click through and read the alt/title text on the image.

Loot for ME! Loot for ME! Loot for Me!

Yes, my prize for winning the Jim Wright is an Asshole contest has finally arrived!

And it’s actually a real prize this time!

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I got expected loot, and totally unexpected loot!

What more could I want?
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While we were gone, apple butter from Janiece arrived.

Being a good granddaughter, I opened the box to make sure nothing had broken, and then closed the box back up for my grandmother.

Since we did the Grandmom exchange with my aunt today, Grandmom finally opened the apple butter.

The jar is now sitting by her chair–presumably so no one else will open it first. :)

If you are confused, see here and here.

So we were in the midwest for Kim & Mike’s wedding, and as usual, I managed to amuse myself.

We found an “Alaskan Fur Store” in Jackson, which may or may not explain Alaskans.

Sorry. None of you were worth $34.99 (or even $24.99 without tail) for a highly disturbing joke. However, you may be pleased to note that I included the phone number, on the off chance you wanted to order one for yourself.

If anyone orders this, let me state upfront that I do NOT want pictures of anyone I know modeling these things.

I also relaxed.

Here you can see me relaxing at Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton National Park.

No, they are not boots, but they were sneakers with laces. And it’s not like I was hiking. We were just walking around the lake.

After the wedding and national park visiting, we took a detour to visit Janiece and Anne.

The fabulous Janiece and her Smart Man allowed us to stay out their house, despite not having anyone to vouch for the fact that we were not deranged killers. I felt very lucky she trusted us so.

We went to the Coors Brewery for the tour, and Michael was pleased to discover that one of the beers he could “taste test” was Blue Moon.

This made up for the fact that he was initially disturbed to discover that Coors made Blue Moon and Killians, two of his favorite beers. (I do have pictures with Janiece at the Brewery, but they weren’t nearly silly enough for this post.)

We then met up with Anne, and wandered around the Denver Museum of Science.

INVISIBLE COCONUTS!

(Confused? See here.)

The museum had many interactive exhibits. Here I am modeling the mule deer ears.

They really didn’t make me hear any better. Or perhaps this was one just more exhibit I went to use that was not working at the time. Apparently it’s not safe to go anywhere with me.

After the museum we went out to dinner, where Janiece was surprised with brownies.

As you can see, Janiece thought they were icky, and said she was going to give them to her Smart Man to eat.

And here we were after dinner.

You’ll notice there is only ONE glass per person visible on the table. You’ll also notice that Anne is the only one who looks consistently sane in these pictures.

That’s all I’m going to say about that.

I’m so glad we were able to take some extra time on our trip to go by Denver and finally meet Janiece and Anne in person! As you can see, we did have some small amount of fun.

I actually got two postcards today. One from my cousin Ben who is in grad school in California, and the other from Nathan.

Nathan’s postcard is a lovely shot of the mountains across the lake, and although my backyard doesn’t quite look like that, the postcard is quite lovely.

However.

82 cents in postage? Really?

Nathan, you do realize that West Virginia is not, in fact, a foreign country, right? And it only costs 26 cents to mail a postcard?

Just checking.

As you may remember, I won Jim’s contest.

Today, my loot arrived!

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