Daily Posting

Ever since I got out of the habit of posting daily, I feel like I’ve hardly posted at all. I totally need to rectify that, so perhaps I will go back to posting daily. I’m doing pretty well right now, not looking forward to leaving town again this weekend, would really like some time at home! But all next week I’m working in the Fairfax center which is like 10 minutes from my house, so at least I will get some more sleep, if nothing else. I am having a hard time finding anybody else’s NAD pictures, surely some people took pictures during the College Bowl match? But the nice part is that I have added several people to various friends lists as a result of the conference, so that is fun.

I am considering having a hand grenade party for my birthday, or something. You can get a gallon of mix for $40 and that makes 5 gallons of drinks! (A quart of mix is only $10 and makes 1.25 gallons of drinks.) Plus the plastic yard glasses are $2.50 each and the little baby grenades they use as decoration are 10 cents each. So I could conceivably pull it off, right? Or I could just use one of the online recipes…apparently Midori is the main trick.

NAD: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Morning

So I have to catch you up on what’s been happening since Monday. Tuesday was pretty uneventful most of the day. Okay, I’ll be honest…I don’t remember what I did. Definitely looked around the exhibit hall a lot, signed up with HOVRS to get their new MVP device and a Purple Number, chatted with former co-workers, etc.

Tuesday night I was getting a serious case of nerves. So I decided to defy the coach’s order about no alcohol - 1 or 2 drinks would calm me down significantly without messing me up. Unless, that is, we’re talking Hand Grenades. They are a Bourbon Street drink reportedly designed for all the young people who come. Two of those will make me drunk. I woke up fine the next morning though, which was Wednesday.

Wednesday was Game Day, of course. We had an orientation and ice breaker. Both went fine. I was indeed the oldest contestant there…in fact I found out that the program listed me as 28! I’m not THAT old. Afterward, I did some geocaching. I had been having trouble with the software before (turned out to be user error) but I was good to go on Wednesday. I did the View Carré cache, which affords one an absolutely wonderful view of the city. I had the 9th ward pointed out to me, and even from 480ft up and a few miles away, you can really tell the difference between that and other areas. There just wasn’t anything identifiable as a building in the 9th ward. Unfortunately I was foolish enough to not wear sunblock at all (dammit) and I have a rather nasty sunburn as a result.

At 1pm we all went to the ballroom for the dry run. The first 2 hours we sat on our butts and didn’t do anything, because they were still messing with the A/V equipment, etc. Over the next 30 mins, we did about 10 mins worth of actual dry run stuff. Let me tell you, nobody was happy about that whole situation. After that we went to dinner, where the eggplant po’boy was much better than I expected. Then I took a shower, and then…it was time for the game. I’m going to write about that in another entry!

Afterward, there was a doofy reception that I didn’t enjoy at all. It was too crowded and hectic, though I did have a great conversation with some members of the Board of Trustees. I also made Bernard Bragg wait for the punch ladle…I was there before him, and I knew someone was waiting next to me, but I didn’t realize who it was! Oh well.

Next we went to Bourbon St for a party hosted by HOVRS. For safety reasons, admission was limited to 400, but with free food and open bar everybody wanted in - you had to have a wristband to enter. I went in, got a couple of drinks and some food, and decided it wasn’t my kind of party, so I left and gave my wristband to someone else. I’d rather party with friends.

So that’s what I did till about 4am. I only had a few drinks all night (including one Hand Grenade) so I didn’t get more than buzzed, really. I was happy though. Maybe I’ll drink more tonight just to be WOO WOO!! and stuff on Bourbon St.

This morning we had a 10am wrap-up meeting where we expressed our feedback on the game and production. It has been decided that math will come back in 2010, but it will focus on concepts rather than calculations.

This morning I ate breakfast with a couple of members of the RIT team, and it was great. Apparently the Gallaudet team wasn’t very sociable last time, and one of the guys I had breakfast with said he was really glad I’d asked to join them, because it made him feel better about Gallaudet. Score one for inter-team relations! After all, we’re all the same…big nerds who thrive on academic competition.

Afterwards I did some walking around, and spotted a shop cat in a window. I went in and asked to pet him, and he was friendly. His brother came over too, but he was more of a scaredy cat…stayed close to me but shied away when I reached out for him. I find kitties everywhere I go, I swear. Turkey, St. Maarten, Bermuda, Disneyland…I think the only place I have traveled without seeing a cat was Alaska.

Tonight is the Miss Deaf America pageant and I think we have a fancy dinner beforehand. Right now I will take a nap, but I will definitely post about the game itself a little later on. Oh, also, my stupid Blackberry camera is on the fritz again (same problem as before) so I have no pictures of kitties or anything else from today. Time to start carrying my regular camera.

My Funny Wine Story

Today I went to Disneyland by myself. I was going to take today off and go tomorrow, but I read that MLK Day is coming up and it will be getting busy, so I figured I’d go sooner rather than later. It was fun, and I will write more about it tomorrow. Right now I am just writing to share a funny thing that just happened to me.

I decided I wanted to have a drink, so I went over to the 7-11 two doors down and bought a bottle of wine. I checked to make sure it had the twist-off top. I paid for it and brought it back to the room. After peeling back the outer wrapping, I discovered…it was not a twist-off top after all, but a regular cork, buried in the bottle! Remember, I’m on vacation…of course I have corkscrews at home but nothing here. I tried feebly poking at it a little bit but of course the cork didn’t budge. My wife suggested I take it down to the restaurant in the lobby, which has a poorly-stocked bar but was sure to at least have a corkscrew. So I took off my pajamas, got dressed again, and brought down the bottle; there was a corkscrew right there on the bar but I didn’t want to use it without permission. The host asked from halfway across the room if he could help me, and I beckoned him over. “I bought this at the store, and I thought it had a twist-off top, but it doesn’t! Can I borrow your corkscrew?” He handed it to me, and I proceeded to fumble with it…because I don’t actually know how to use one! He saw the trouble I was having and kindly did it for me, even removing the cork from the screw and giving it back to me.

So I now have 1.5L of 18 proof wine from some local winery…hey, I said I bought it at 7-11, right? It was only $7.50! Now I can actually enjoy it, because it’s OPEN. Thank goodness.

Blackout

Wow. I managed not to drunk blog last night, but I did drunk text. Or is that drunk Twitter? Here’s the updates I sent last night:

Totally drunk at my in laws house before they come over. Whee! I’m soooo drunk. about 9 hours ago from txt

I have off tomorrow, so pretty much anything is good for me! about 9 hours ago from txt - this was actually meant for neuro42, but I sent it to Twitter

I am SO drunk. Like seriously. I love you all.nj okay noiw I am dru nk on the pbatheoprom. Wow. about 9 hours ago from txt

As near as I can figure out, that last one meant “bathroom.” See, kawaiibishounen, it’s entirely possible to know your limits and still drink too much. I don’t think I’ve ever actually blacked out before, but I woke up about an hour ago in my own bed, with virtually no memory of having left my in-laws’ house. The only memory I might have is maybe being bundled into the car to come home, but then vomiting outside it. This is backed up by the fact that there was a trash can next to the bed when I woke up, raised up on an empty box so it would be at bed height rather than on the floor. Now I see why “…had sex with someone whose name you did not know?” is a common question on purity tests…you really can forget an entire night and everything you did, and wake up next to a stranger. Fortunately I woke up next to my wife, but damn…that could be scary.

Added: Oh dear, it’s worse than I thought. I went to let the cat out and I saw my coat was outside, covered with a towel, and there was a washcloth there too. And the side of my wife’s car is not pretty. What’s funny is that I can usually hold my liquor much better than that - I didn’t have much more than I normally do. Maybe it was on an empty stomach because of the diet? Good grief, how embarrassing.

Holiday Party

We went to a holiday party tonight. I had a lot of rum and coke - we brought our own dark Bacardi and used diet coke - and a glass of white wine from the My Dog Blue winery. I did karaoke, and got the highest score of the night on Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Subsequent attempts at singing were tainted by a worn-out head voice and perhaps too much alcohol. The host, my wife’s co-worker, has a freaking awesome basement with a real jukebox, a real pinball machine, real Pac-Man arcade cabinet, foosball, magnetic darts, billiards, and more. I had a great time, though I fell twice trying to get into the car. It was more because it was dark and rainy and slippery than because I was drunk, because although I am still fuzzy, I haven’t been falling-down drunk at all tonight. So I fell once in the wet grass (I’m wearing heels) and then fell again while trying to get up from the first fall. Anyway, I had a good night, just what a holiday party should be.

Intervention Episode

I just saw the most heartwrenching episode of Intervention that I have EVER seen. I don’t watch the show regularly but I like to catch it when I can - a combination of car-wreck factor and some personal issues. This episode featured Leslie, an alcoholic, and her husband Craig, and their three kids. I was stunned by the depths of Leslie’s alcoholism. She basically has to be treated like a 6-year-old at all times, that’s how bad she is. She habitually drinks mouthwash whenever she can’t get alcohol. She has to be physically separated from the mouthwash or the alcohol, and her plaintive pleas of “just one swig? please?” were just appalling. Needless to say, this has utterly ruined her family’s life. Her intervention was actually postponed three weeks because she had to go to court for DUI charges, and wasn’t released on bail, so she had to serve the three weeks. She was sober when she came out, of course, and she was whisked straight to her intervention where her kids told her how awful she has made their lives. The kids and husband went to the Betty Ford Children’s and Family programs, and Leslie had to serve in a county program before going to her own treatment. It looked like it was going to be a great ending…but then they did the followup captions, and they said that she was sober for seven months before relapsing. She now lives with her mother and drinks every day…apparently the mother should have gone to treatment, too, because now she’s just enabling her. What a horrible story…I feel so bad for the family.

A Glorious Day

Yesterday, Saturday, was such a wonderful day. It started out when I overslept by an hour, but I hit the road and drove into the city to meet eyes_of_cyrene at her hotel. I got there at about 11:30, valet-parked the car, and spent the next 16 hours with one of my best friends, who I don’t get to see very often because she lives in Iowa! First we got something to eat, and went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and did some shopping at Filene’s Basement, where I got a new purse. We went back to her hotel and chatted for a while, and then we went to dinner in Chinatown. She taught me about beer! I have no idea what all I had - this was at RFD and we got lots of samples - but the one I liked the best basically tasted like raspberry juice. (She said - “yeah, except this will get you drunk!”)

We had leftovers when we were done with dinner, so we were going to take them up to the room and then go back down to the hotel bar for another drink. But she realized she’d forgotten her hat at the restaurant, so we went back and picked it up, and then went to the hotel bar. I ordered a “chocolate covered cherries” drink, and I remember it had Godiva liqueur and Smirnoff Black Cherry Twist in it, but there was something else that I don’t remember. Oh, and at no time during the night did I get carded - Gretchen said it was because we were signing, and they assumed I was deaf, and they didn’t want to deal with asking for my ID. (Or hey, I didn’t get carded Friday night either, maybe I finally look old enough to not get carded?) Anyway, we also got shots of the new Bailey’s Flavors…the caramel was very good but the mint chocolate was nothing to write home about.

When the hotel bar closed, we went back to her room and chatted for another couple of hours, and then we took a three-hour nap before it was time to get up so I could take her to the airport! Oh my god, I had such a fabulous time. I seriously did not want to take her to the airport…I wanted to keep her here! I don’t have a huge number of people that I am really close to, and virtually none of them live in the DC area. I had so much fun.

Last Day in Vegas

On my last day in Las Vegas, I once again walked a lot - about four or five miles. I thought of something I should have bought at the Star Trek place, so I caught the monorail from Harrah’s to the Hilton. I spent forever in the gift shops again, and got what I needed.

My next stop was to be Luv-It Frozen Custard, which I’d read about somewhere or other. I had only had a muffin for breakfast and the custard shop didn’t open until 1pm, so I figured I’d get lunch on the way. It was a little confusing as I made my way back to the Strip on foot; I had figured I’d be able to get there if I just headed for the big buildings. It was extremely windy, and all day as I walked along I got dust, sand, and grit in my teeth and eyes. It wasn’t pleasant but there also wasn’t anything I could really do about it.

The only place I stopped along the way was a head shop to take a picture of the funny sign they had on display, so I ended up getting to the custard place about 40 minutes before it opened. I wasn’t the only person to arrive early - at about 5 minutes to 1:00 a guy pulled up and sat in his car waiting. Once the place opened I had to wait a bit more for the flavor of the day, but then I got my treat and headed back to the Strip.

I passed the Stratosphere but decided the rides at the top probably weren’t operating due to the high winds, so I didn’t go up. I kept walking, and I suddenly noticed that the NASCAR Café had a roller coaster in front of it - and it was operating! I had thought I’d already hit all the coasters on the Strip, but since I hadn’t been on this one I went in and paid $10 to ride. When I was done I headed right back out to the Strip and kept walking south.

I was heading for the Mirage, because I wanted to see the white tigers and the dolphin habitat. We had passed the tiger display the night before going to the Love shop, but the big cats had already been put to bed for the night. I cut through Treasure Island to get to the Mirage, and headed for the dolphin area first. Let me tell you: that is the biggest ripoff on the Strip. They had three dolphins doing tricks in a main pool for just a few minutes, and then they were put back into a small, featureless pool with underwater viewing windows. If you’re not familiar with dolphins, you might not know this, but they are extremely intelligent and require play and ways to entertain themselves. Their holding pool was 100% empty, but the permanent “smiles” on their faces fooled most visitors into thinking they were happy anyway. There were two more dolphins in a huge research pool elsewhere, but those two were just hanging out by the gate, hoping to get let through. I was so disappointed at the situation these dolphins were in that I couldn’t even look at the garden included in the $15 admission price. If you have ever seen a dolphin elsewhere, then you already know what they look like, so don’t waste your money visiting these. I’d love to do the Mirage’s $500 “trainer for a day” program and find out more about their facilities, and why they treat them the way they appear to be treating them. On my way out, I went by the tiger display, where there was a single bored-looking white tiger pacing and occasionally catching a drink.

I got back to the hotel and I was ready to relax for a couple of hours, but A’s training let out early and she came in 45 minutes after I did. We decided to have dinner at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba, a tapas place that was recommended to me. The wait for an inside table was 30 minutes, but they had those patio warmers around the outdoor seating, so that’s where we sat, and we were plenty warm! Their specialty seems to be sangria, so we ordered half a pitcher of passionfruit sangria and some tapas. We finished the sangria pretty quickly and the waiter offered to bring us some more, so we ended up having a merry time during dinner. I took A into the Wynn on the way back so she could see their lovely bright mosaic floors. Once we were back in the hotel room, she started to pack and I started on my solemn duty of drinking up all the leftover soda and vodka - so I had a very fun last few hours in Vegas.

Our trip home today was entirely uneventful. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, waited in the long security line, and headed for the gate. The flight itself was long with lots of turbulence, but otherwise fine.

Star Trek Experience

We had a great time last night at the Star Trek Experience! I was practically skipping through the casino of the Las Vegas Hilton, following the signs to the attraction. We bought our tickets first, and then went downstairs to Quark’s Bar to get dinner. We decided to be brave and order a full-size Warp Core Breach, which is $25 and has 10 ounces of liquor. It comes in a giant fishbowl with dry ice coming off the top! Believe it or not, we managed to finish it all by ourselves, which is more than the next table did, and they had three people working on it! Of course, I was more than a little loopy by the time we finished dinner, but it was fun. The giant drink, plus two entrees and a dessert, only came to $60 - and our table was visited by a Ferengi, a Klingon, and an Andorian. How cool is that?! I would seriously not mind going there all the time.

After dinner, we looked around in the gift shop; to my dismay I didn’t find anything there to get. So we got in line for the ride, starting with Klingon Encounter because that’s the one you’re usually told to start with. Unfortunately something went wrong with that one, so we ended up seeing Borg Invasion 4D first. It was rather disappointing - you’re given 3D glasses to wear, but they didn’t work very well for me, because I kept seeing double anyway. It was also kind of annoying that Robert Picardo was obviously reading cue cards the entire time. Once we finally made it onto Klingon Encounter, that one was much better - it’s a full-motion simulator, for one thing, and the “interaction” with the characters (Riker and Geordi, mostly) was much better.

I would be totally thrilled to have a job at the Star Trek Experience. To work in that environment every day must be awesome. I only wish I could have found a decent souvenir to take home!

Barfo

Well, last night I threw up from alcohol for the first time ever - I didn’t have a drink until I was 21, so it took 5 years. I am kind of surprised at what did it - I had a very weak screwdriver, a stronger screwdriver, and then I think I started to make a third one, but I don’t remember past that. Apparently for some reason I felt the bathtub was a better receptacle than the toilet. And then I passed out on the bathroom floor for three hours - sigh. When I woke up, I cleaned up the mess I had made, and I was okay. I woke up this morning with a hangover, but liquid Advil and an hour or two of additional sleep fixed it.

I think something must have been unsettled to start with, because I’ve never had such a bad reaction before. Maybe I hadn’t eaten enough? Anyway, that’s the first time I’ve thrown up in 7 or 8 years, so it was a funny feeling.