Naughty words are a federal offense

The following is a detailed account of how I was almost put into jail for a federal crime. My offense?

Saying "The F Word" in an airport.

After a wonderful week hanging out with all of my friends in Houston for John's wedding, I was pretty tired. Each night, my friends and I would socialize into the wee hours of the morning and each morning, we'd be up before noon to start all over again. It was a great week. Fast forward to Sunday, it was finally time to go back home to Seattle.

We left the hotel and had some breakfast. Although we knew it would be cutting things close, we stopped at an authentic country bar so that Elizabeth could have a drink there before we left for the airport. For some reason, visiting such a bar was a big goal for her while in Texas. I had a Coke while Greg, John and Elizabeth all had more interesting drinks. Ah, the joys of being the one driving the rental car.

Elizabeth's flight was leaving first, followed later by the Continental Airlines flight John and I were sharing. We left the bar with about 45 minutes to spare for our trip to the airport. Seeing as how it hadn't taken us more than 30 minutes to drive there all week, (I'd made three trips out there myself to pick up rental cars and friends), I figured we'd be fine. About a mile from the airport, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge traffic jam. Traffic had slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped.

After being parked on 59 South for awhile, we noticed trucks and SUVs driving off the freeway and across a ditch onto an access road on the side of the freeway. Up ahead, more cars were taking the freeway on-ramps in the wrong direction to reach this same access road. Eventually the cops came and attempted to direct this traffic nightmare. It turns out there was a huge wreck ahead that had stopped all lanes of traffic. A helicopter had landed right in the middle of the freeway, presumably to take people to the hospital. People were standing around outside of their cars watching the whole thing unfold because they couldn't drive anywhere. What a mess.

The 45 minutes we had reserved for the trip had come and gone, Elizabeth's flight was taking off in less than an hour. We somehow got her to the terminal just in time. After that, we were supposed to drop off our rental car...but I missed the rental car return exit. After a full revolution around the airport parkway, we finally found the exit again...and returned the car. It was now time to take the shuttle to my terminal and check in for my Continental Airlines flight.

This was where the real fun began.

The first line I got into turned out to be a line for people with no baggage to check. I had a bag to check, so I traveled to another line. No big deal, I had plenty of time.

I got into another line and stood there for a few moments before a line attendant closed it with a rope saying it was full. She directed me across the terminal to a third line. She pointed to her right...and I walked that way. As it turned out, there was no check in line that way....just a line for security and baggage check.

At this point, I was pretty frustrated. I had walked to three separate places and had been unable to check in at any of them. Several feet away, I see a young woman about my age wearing the Continental Airlines uniform. I walk up to her, still frustrated and say:

"I've just been to three different fucking lines and I can't check in at any of them. I just need to know where to check in. Can you help me?"

She looks at me, irritated and says: "I don't understand the language you're using. I'm not going to help you."

I say: "Seriously?"

She says: "You can go find someone else to ask. I don't understand your language."

I quickly realize I shouldn't have cursed in front of her, but I'm also not going to stand around and go through a big apology just so I can ask her the question. Still irritated, I say: "Well, try learning English. It's a pretty fucking common word." Then I walk away.

I roll my bags on back to the other side of the terminal and talk to the original line attendant who had sent me to the wrong place. I explain to her that I want to check in and mention that I have bags. She directs me to a 4th line, which turns out to be the right one. John shows up a few moments later and we wait.

While we're waiting, we talk about what has just happened. I mention that I know I was a jerk and I probably shouldn't have sworn in front of the lady, but I can't believe she just shut me down like that. She could have helped me, but all she did was make my experience with Continental Airlines just a little bit worse, all because I said a naughty word out of frustration.

We get closer to the front of the line when I see a man walking my way. He's a Continental representative of some sort and right next to him is the offended employee. Apparently, she'd decided that not helping me wasn't good enough and she needed to "tell on me" now. He asks me in an Australian accent if I will step out of line so we can talk. I oblige.

He says "We have a bit of a problem here".

"Yes we do". I say. "Your employee here was very rude to me and refused to help me simply because I used a word she didn't like."

He asks me what my side of the story is. I tell him that I didn't insult her or call her names, I'd just been to three separate lines and I was very frustrated. I explained that I used the "F-word" to describe that frustration. I emphasize that after getting sent to the wrong place three times by three different employees, all I wanted was some help. I emphasize that instead of giving me that help, she sent me away because I used a naughty word when speaking to her.

He informed me that I could be in big trouble here.

I asked why and told him that I wasn't aware it's against the law to use "the F word" in an airport in Texas, but if that's the case....I'll be sure to remember that for future reference. I believe I smiled after making that comment.

The man proceeded to tell me that this was no laughing matter and that I could be refused service or even taken to jail if I don't present myself in an acceptable manner. I said "Who determines what is acceptable?".

He says "I do."

I say: "Fine. How am I doing right now? Have I raised my voice to you? Have I called you names? No. I'm just a frustrated traveler who expressed that frustration to one of your employees and she sent me away because she didn't like my language. That's not good customer service and I'm understandably upset."

He tells me that I can be upset but reminds me again that I have to present myself in an acceptable manner.

I say: "I think I have."

He says: "You cursed at her"

I reply: "I acknowledge that, but I was frustrated. Look, if you have to kick me off the airplane for saying the F word in the terminal, I won't put up a fight. I've got a couple of lawyers on retainer and I'll be happy to sue your airline. I'll win, because last I checked...using the F word is still legal in this country. What I won't do is apologize. I admit I used that word, but I was upset. It's unfortunate that she was offended, but I'm not sorry for what I said. I was a frustrated customer and she should have helped me out. Instead, she sent me away. I'm not going to stand here and apologize because she has a problem with a word I used."

Next, I turned to the lady who has been standing there silent. I told her "If you would have told me you didn't appreciate my language and then helped me, I would have apologized to you and thanked you for your time. I didn't mean to offend you until after you sent me away. At that point, I think you deserved it. You certainly offended me."

She had nothing else to say and she wasn't going to get her apology, so at this point, he sends the offended lady away. Once she's gone, I add one final comment: "Look sir, now that she's gone, I'll tell you one more thing. When I walked up to her, she looked like a peer to me. If she was an older woman, or an older man...I probably wouldn't have used that sort of language. I didn't use that word to be rude to her, I was relating my frustration to her as I would to anyone else my own age. Had I known this lady had issues, I would have used a different word."

He reminds me that we're in the Bible belt. I tell him I understand, but that still doesn't mean I am required to censor myself. If she can't handle hearing naughty words, she certainly shouldn't be working customer service in an aiport. I suggest that perhaps a thicker skin is required for that job. I point out that I have many years of customer service under my belt and when someone is angry, you reply calmly and you help them. That response always calms them down. Refusing them service just escalates things.

Realizing his threats aren't going anywhere with me (and that I'm remaining perfectly calm during the conversation) he finally gives up on the lecture. Without warning, he changes gears and asks how he can help me. I say: "I want to check in".

He walks me to the front of a line, where I finally check in for my flight. He leaves and I turn my attention to the guy behind the counter, who is smirking after watching this whole conversation go down. He's clearly been enjoying watching this whole thing go down. I tell him "I'm having a wonderful gosh darn day.". The counter rep smiles again...and I get a seat in the exit row.

For the next hour, I'm on my best behavior. Despite my frustration with everything that has happened, I feel like they probably have security watching me or something...and I don't want to give them any excuse to think I'm not presenting myself in an acceptable manner.

I left the great state of Texas without further incident. When I arrived to Seattle, my bags weren't there waiting for me (turns out they were on the next flight in).

Well played Continental. Well played.

The bachelor party day

Yesterday morning after checking into my hotel, I had errands to do.

First chore was driving with John, John, Greg and Paul to pick up their tuxes at the Men's Wearhouse. I also bought a dress shirt (I somehow forgot to pack one of mine).

Next, I drove with Andrew, Peter and Justin to get some alcohol for the bachelor party bus. We spent well over 200 bucks between the three of us. After that, we went to the store, where I bought another 80 bucks worth of mixers plus some of those Chaser hangover pills. I figured both would come in handy.

Our next errand was a trip to the Houston airport to pick up Andrew B, then to the Sonic Drive Thru for some lunch. I had a tasty burger and a root beer float. After that it was back to the hotel, where we all changed and got ready for the bachelor party bus to arrive.

The bus arrived around 9pm, picked us up for an evening of great fun. I'd go into that....but what happens on the bus, stays on the bus.

There are pictures though....

The Trip to Texas

Last night just after 5pm, I was still in the Seattle airport. 5 hours earlier, I was in the middle of our yearly team summit at work, watching Power Point presentations. 6 hours ago, I was in a bar in Houston.

This has been a busy 24 hours.

My flight arrived in Houston last night at 11:59pm, Texas time. I called John and John to see where they were. They were in a bar near our hotel, playing pool. I caught a cab with a friendly guy who had 8 children. After he dropped me off, he came in hoping for a game of pool himself. I watched John M, Paul M, John S and Apom play 2 more games before it was time for us to head home. We dropped John off at his house and then drove back to the Best Western where I brought my stuff up to John's room for a night. It was about 230am this morning.

I woke up around 730 this morning to some snoring. I slept for another hour and then got out of bed and onto my computer. I've checked email and surfed the net for a couple of hours, then decided to make an attempt at an early check in.

It was successful and I'm up in my own room now. Room 315.

Blogging isn't easy...

Man, I've just spent the last 3 hours uploading all my posts I composed while down at C4 and editing in all the photos that went along with them.

Finally caught up to today, which was my first day of vacation at home. Didn't leave the house once today, except to water the lawn. Spent the first part of the morning finishing up the new Dean Koontz book I bought for the trip. Watched some shows on the DVR with Heather including Studio 60 (I'm really glad that show is back, at least for a little bit).

Leaving the house will be a bit of a challenge for the next few days, seeing as how my car is in the shop getting its' front bumper repaired. I ran over a log that fell off a logging truck on I-405 a few weeks ago, which broke the bumper and scratched up the under-carriage. The body shop has had my car for the entire week I was gone, but they still aren't done yet.

Here's hoping they finish tomorrow. I've got tomorrow and Friday off, so I plan to hang around the house and enjoy not being at work or on the road. I'll probably work on the Star Wars room, which would be a great reason to update the Star Wars blog.

Last day in LA

I woke up this morning around 7am. Even though I've had less than a good night's sleep every night for the last 6 days, there's just something about being down here that makes me wake up early every day. Most days, it's been the need to stand in a line for something. Today, it was just habit.

Perhaps I'm having line withdrawal. I'm sure the airport will cure me of that.


When I get back home, MANY pictures will be posted.

The Last day of the Con

Monday morning I woke up just before 6am and quickly showered to head down to the con. I stopped once again at Famima for breakfast, where I got an English muffin sandwich, a banana and some “Naked juice”, which has lots of vitamins in it. I’m still fighting a cold.

I ended up being the 4th person in the line, which was good…because today was all about coins. I had it all planned out. I’d go into the con, get a seat at the collector’s panel to get the final handout (the Vader coin), then I’d trade my extra Vader, along with my Luke and Tusken Raider coins for the remaining 3 I needed (Han, Chewie and Death Squad trooper). I ended up finding someone in the line to trade Luke for Chewie, so at that point; I only needed two more besides the Vader.
I played some Game Boy, made some line friends, and scoped the con floor a bit on my way to the bathroom…all of which helped pass the time. Around 9am, I get this call from a 213 number asking for me.

“Is this Josh?” they said.

“Do you have my wife’s cell phone?” I asked.

“How did you know?” the mystery person said.

I explained that we knew it was gone, I figured the number calling might have found it and the only thing I didn’t know is where it was. Oddly enough someone had returned it to the Marriott. It was waiting there at the desk for us. This was really strange, because we never went there, so I can only assume that either it got lost at the con and some con-goer took it back to their hotel.

The other possibilities include the taxi-driver driving it all the way back from Hollywood to one of the convention hotels, or someone from the MR party bringing it back there. Any way you slice it, there was a good Samaritan and I have no idea who they were or how they did it. If by chance somehow you found your way to this page by searching for "Celebration 4, Lost Cell Phone" or something....thank you!

Heather arrived sometime after 9:30, followed by Jim. They joined me in line and agreed to help with my “master plan”. What was this plan? Well, if the Vader coin wasn't handed out at the first panel, I'd have someone already in line for the second one so I'd be guaranteed to get it. Heather and I hit the first panel, Jim got in the line…but luckily, it turned out the first one was the Vader coin panel. I now had 12 coins. Getting them was the hard part and now it was time to trade.






I had to trade a Tusken and a Vader for a Han and a Death Squad Trooper. Not the easiest trade in the world (no one wanted my Tusken at the time)…so I ended up hanging onto them until Noon…when they had a gathering to help collector’s complete sets. They asked everyone who only needed one to complete a set to stand up, so both Heather and I each stood up. They gave each one of us one of the two I needed, and boom…I had a set. This will be my favorite souvenir for the trip by far.

After the last panel, Heather and I hit the exhibit hall, where we made one last pass. I bought some poker chips, then we saw the Vader helmet exhibit with Matt from Jedidefender. After that, we met up with Lisa and walked around the fan hall, which had an incredible Endor diorama I hadn’t even seen yet. I took a ton of pictures, but none that captured it’s amazing scale.







After the exhibition hall, we met up with Adam from the VA boards and said our goodbyes before taking one last picture at the con and leaving for lunch. It was finally over.

The mall food court was closed, so we got some Subway and ate in our room. We packed up the armor, jumped in a cab and delivered it to Lisa who was ready and waiting for us so she could leave. We helped pack her up, said our thank yous and goodbyes…and headed back to the Sheraton.

On the way to the Sheraton, Julie called and said she had already arrived, so we said that we’d be there in another few minutes. Somehow, on the way there we skipped our street and ended up walking a few blocks into one of the less than great neighborhoods. I knew that we were going the wrong way and ended up turning around. Turns out we had walked right past our hotel somehow.

We got into the car with Julie and headed out to see Teresa in Valencia. The drive was quick and we were there in about 30 minutes. Got to see Teresa’s new house, Michael made a really nice dinner and we ate it outside on their patio. Afterwards, we hung out inside talking and everyone took turns holding their new baby. We left around 10 and were home just as quickly as we had arrived.

Packed up everything that wasn’t a Star Wars collectible and by the time I went to sleep last night it was after midnight. I’m typing this one from my hotel room, still not used to not waking up early yet. We leave in a couple of hours. This has been one awesome trip.

Sunday's adventures

Posting this one on Monday, playing a little catch up.


After finishing the last entry, I got up and woke everyone up. Heather, Jason and I went to the IHOP for breakfast where I had some really good French toast with cherries on top to go along with my breakfast.



After we got done with the meal, Jason headed out to take some pictures of the Heroes fountain (located right down the street from our hotel) and we left for the con. As it was after 10:30, we were able to walk right into the convention and into the Collector’s panels, where I had already missed 2 of the day’s coins. We then went to the Clone Wars presentation, where I missed the footage because I was rushing to the next Collector’s panel. This was the first and only time I regretted going to one of these things.

We watched the “Local Collectors Club” panel, where they handed out the Tusken Raider at one around noon. After that panel, we left because I figured there would be a coin later in the afternoon…but instead, they handed out a Stormtrooper right afterwards at the next one. I was able to trade my Leia to get that one, but that left me with only my extra Sand person and a Luke as tasty trade bait. At this point, I had 10 coins and needed to get 4 more to complete my set.

Heather went downstairs to watch the Costume contest while I watched a couple of different panels. There were no coins at any of my panels and we ended up texting each other back and forth during the two separate events we were at. Afterwards, we met up to walk the exhibit hall a bit. We hadn’t really seen much of it during the week, but it turns out there wasn’t a lot that we had missed from Thursday. We did almost the whole hall in less than an hour, and then headed to the front of the con to meet Jim and Tom for the Master Replicas party. Earlier in the day, we had lucked out when we received some passes to this exclusive event at Jim Henson Studios, so we weren’t going to miss this one.

When we arrived at the Buses, Walter, Victoria, Lisa, Shannon, Jim and Tom were already all there. We waited around for almost an hour for the stupid bus to show up, but it never came. We finally took a couple of taxis, which we split 4 ways each. It got us there well ahead of all the people who waited for the bus, and we used that time to get some really good dinner and a table where we sat and talked with other friends from the great Northwest. Got to meet a couple of the celebrities and participate in the raffle. Some MR swordsmen took to the mats to fight with the Force FX lightsabers. All in all, it was a great party, at least until we wanted to leave.

Kermit breaks out of a wall:



Some Jedi battle it out with Force FX Sabers:



Around 10 or so, we decided to go home, but as it turned out, there were once again no buses. We waited for at least 40 minutes before a bus finally arrived, and we didn’t make it onto that one. At that point, we thought about taking a cab….but shortly after that decision had been made, another smaller bus showed up. Unfortunately, that bus decided that only famous people going to the Omni could ride. They had all left via cabs, so this was basically useless. We all got back off and this was when Heather discovered her cell phone was gone.

We knew she had the phone at the con, because we were texting during the last two panels and she had called me to meet up before going to wait for the buses. She went back into the party to look for it, but no one had returned it. I gave her my phone so she could call and have hers deactivated, which took 20 minutes or more. Meanwhile, I’m sitting there talking with people in line about how we may or may not be getting a ride home.

We sat there and waited until around 11:30pm, when finally….another “Omni bus” arrived. He said he wouldn’t take any of us in the line, and I argued a bit with him before going back into the event and finding someone in charge. I asked one of the MR people to get out there and get their private “talent” shuttles to start taking the rest of their guests home. He did so, and we jumped onto that bus that had said they wouldn’t take us. We were dropped off at the Holiday Inn. We got to bed around midnight, which was pretty darn late considering I was planning an early morning for Monday.

Saturday's fun

What a weekend it has been. Before I head down to the con this morning, I thought I'd catch up on yesterday's fun:

Saturday morning, I woke up around 8 or so and decided not to head down to the con until after the line had progressed into the building. I figured Heather and I might have a little breakfast at a sit down place first, then head to the convention after people had entered. We ended up taking our sweet time getting ready, and then ran into Beth in the lobby, so that idea kind of went by the wayside.

IHOP had a long line, so we ended up going to the “Famima” store for breakfast around 9:50am and having some of their breakfast sandwiches again. One of my local collecting friends who has an associate’s badge called me to tell me that she had scored me the Yoda and R2 maquette. She said that even though she got in before the public did, she was still almost denied the opportunity to purchase this maquette because so many exhibitors were already in line and Gentle Giant had turned the line around yet again. I am thrilled to get it, but frankly, I think that’s the only way it was ever going to happen for me. Gentle Giant has no idea how to handle the distribution of exclusives and could really take a cue from Sideshow.

After we got to the con, we jumped into the Robot Chicken panel line with Adam and his friend (also named Heather). It was very sunny and they were lining up people outside, so my black t-shirt wasn’t exactly the best attire for the next 90 minutes we spent out there. It was nice to get some sunshine though. Here's the line:



And here we are:



Eventually, they filed us into the theater and the show started about 30 minutes late. Seth Green, Matt Seinriech (sp?), Breckin Meyer plus many of the writers, producers and other staff were there answering questions and showing clips from the Robot Chicken Star Wars special that’s coming in June. It was really entertaining, but ended far too early.

After that panel was over, Heather and I jumped into a collector’s panel (tail end of the selling tips panel) where we found out they had already given two coins out that morning. C-3PO and the Death Star Trooper. We watched the Large Focus collecting panel which had no coin, but was incredibly informative for me, and then we watched the Cast and Crew items which had a Luke coin.

We left the panels after this to jump into the line for the Robot Chicken Toys and Sets panel, which ended up being really cool. Adam lined up with us, but got to sit in the VIP section thanks to a badge from some of his friends on the Toys and Sets panel. Seth Green sat in front of us with his two body guards, and answered questions from time to time. They showed how they made the toys (which weren’t real Star Wars action figures), how they made sets and answered just a ton of questions. I really enjoyed it. Took some awesome pictures of some of the toys that will be featured in the upcoming episode:





A really cool Chewbacca



Last but not least, the Robot Chicken himself, in his Vader suit:




After this panel, we went back to the collecting room to see the Hilarious Star Wars items panel, which was really funny, then stayed for the trivia contest. It was kind of a cool system. Everyone who was playing stood up, then they asked questions, which you’d raise or lower your hand to answer. If you were wrong, you had to sit down. I made it through all of the True and False questions without getting eliminated, mostly because I was in the back of the room and could follow the consensus of raised hands. The next round was multiple choice and I was eliminated on my first question, which was about trading cards (I don’t collect em). We did get a Jawa coin at this panel though, and because I traded an extra R2 for a 3PO and my extra Luke for an Obi-Wan, I’m building a pretty good set here so far.

As soon as I was knocked out of the collector’s contest, Heather and I walked very briskly back to the Sheraton, where we proceeded to quickly get ready for the 501st group photo at 8pm. Just when we arrived back in the room, Jim called to let me know he had won the collector’s contest! I was thrilled for him and really bummed that we didn’t get to see it, but apparently he won some cool prizes.

It was 7 when we arrived and that was enough time for Heather to iron her officer’s costume, do her make-up and get suited up, while I unpacked my armor, shaved and got dressed in my Biker Scout outfit. We hit the lobby by 7:40 and took a taxi back to the convention to save time.

When we arrived, we hurried into the hall to find that they were already lining people up (15 minutes early), so we split up and joined our respective gatherings of similar costumes. I called everyone and had them spread the word that we wanted to do a big Northwest photo after the Legion photo was done.

Jason called me from the convention lobby to tell me that he and Julie had arrived and that they would meet us after the photo. I decided to give my Carrie Fisher tickets to Adam so I could hang out with all of our friends after the photo shoot instead of being stuck in a panel. Lining up for the photo took forever, but eventually…they got it and we scattered back up to the lobby. I had lost my glove, but one of my fellow scouts brought it to me (gotta love the 501st).

In the lobby we met up with Adam to give him the tickets, and then met Brandon, Walter, Victoria, Misty, Badger, Bethany, B eth, John, Lisa, Montine and her friend Chris. There were a couple of people who were busy elsewhere, but we had a pretty good gathering even if it wasn’t complete. The group of us went out front where we met Jason and Julie, and then we took a few pictures together. Here they are, courtesy of Jason:

Everyone suited up:



The whole crew:




After the pictures, we milled around a bit before heading to the Sheraton to change.
It took at least an hour for everyone to assemble again, but the group of us eventually made it to IHOP (of all places) where we were joined by Steve, Katie, Ryan, Deanna and a few other Seattle area folks. We took up 4 or 5 tables and a booth and somehow they managed to serve all of us in pretty close intervals.

After our late dinner, 5 or 10 of our group decided to call it a night while the rest of us decided to continue on. We walked Lisa home to the Marriott, and then went to a little bar back in our next of the woods, where we stayed until last call. Afterwards, we headed back to the Sheraton where we saw Wyatt standing outside. Turns out he had his helmet and his nose accidentally busted by someone’s tripod that evening, but apparently he was able to fix both of them.

Jason was stranded in downtown LA without a car to get back to his friend’s house, so we let him crash in our room. He’s sleeping in a couple of chairs while I type this. We’ll probably all get up and head out sometime soon. Sunday awaits!

Thursdsay and Friday in retrospect

I’m going to work backwards and start with the 501st party last night.


We headed out for the party last night around 6:40pm. It was a short walk to the Westin, where we immediately saw a couple dozen 501st members trading patches and other merch in the lobby. This is always a great thing about the parties. I got a few patches I’d been wanting and a challenge coin then made my way up to the ballroom.

Heather and I found Steve and Katie inside at a table and joined them. We counted up the number of Garrison Titan members we were expecting and realized it was time to combine some tables. We made a large figure 8 out of two of the tables, which ended up being enough for most of the attending Garrison members to sit at, plus some friends from SoCal Garrison, Seattle and other folks who joined us during the night.

Beth and Brandon



Heather and I



Steve and Katie



Walter, Shannon and Lisa (Victoria was hiding from the camera). Also not pictured were Chris and Kim, plus Kevin Rubio who were all sitting in these seats earlier.



Mark and Carol, sitting next to them was Wyatt...but he took off before I could snap his picture.



John was there, doing some patch trading like the patch guru he is.




There was pasta and lots of appetizers, plus a bar where you could buy drinks. Lots of the Star Wars celebs showed up at our party, as did reps from all the collectible companies, all of whom brought prizes for a raffle. That was pretty cool. Several of the people at our table won something, including Steve, Lisa and Beth…although I don’t think Beth got to pick up her prize because she couldn’t find her ticket.

Steve with his prize:




We followed Lisa to the Marriott afterwards and picked up our armor, then took a cab back to the Sheraton. It took quite a while to get a cab, but it was a short ride back. When we got back to the room…I was so tired, I hit the sack.

This morning around 6:45AM, the phone rang. It was Brandon, reminding me I wanted to be in line for the con at 7. I was sleeping, but got up anyway and headed down there. I arrived by 7:30. Brandon said he and Walter were going to ditch the line because it was far too long, and when I got there I saw what they meant. Luckily, someone I met in line yesterday morning was kind enough to let me into the line with them today. Later in the morning, Jim, Tom, Adam, Chris and Elizabeth joined us (at Celebration, lines grow wider, never longer)…and we headed into the doors at 10am to see what we could get.

I was after the Gentle Giant Animated Yoda and R2 maquette, so I headed right for the exhibition hall. Even though we had been near the front of the line, there were already hundreds and hundreds of people ahead of us. They either came from the fan club breakfast, or possibly they were exhibitors….but either way, they all rushed into the booths ahead of us and by the time I made it to Gentle Giant, the line was already wrapped round it more than once. I knew that I would not get my Maquette. Jim fared better, got his Boba maquette he wanted. Adam got into the Hasbro line and snagged me some Vintage style figures I really wanted.

I decided to walk around and look at the con a bit. I visited Sideshow, Lego, Hasbro….still haven’t spent as much time as I’d like at each booth, but there will be more time to do that during the show. Heather arrived around 10:30 and we walked around a bit before heading to a collector’s panel. We lucked out and received the first medallion they gave away, the R2 coin.

After seeing a few panels, we went to the Hasbro preview. They displayed tons of cool stuff that would be coming out later this year and next, including a 501st droid in Katie Johnson’s honor. It’s pink. That was really nice.

After that panel, we got into the line for the Fanboys premiere. I decided to jump out and grab some pizza and drinks (I hadn’t eaten anything but a muffin around 9am). Afterwards, they let the line in and we met Adam who had saved us some seats. We all agreed it is looking like it will be a great flick.

After fanboys, Adam left to shop; Heather and I tried to go to the costume contest but couldn’t get in, so we hit another collector’s panel…where we got a second coin. The panel wasn’t exciting, but we are now 2 for 4 with the coins. Not bad.

Jim and Tom joined us for the last panel (about EBay) and I stepped out to pick up my Sideshow and Gentle Giant pre-orders. I caught the end of the panel and then we all tried to get into the Opening Ceremonies line with Deanna. We got separated from Deanna (she had decided to turn back because of the line)….but Jim, Tom and I walked the entire length of the line and got into it. This was around 6:15.

I called Adam, who was about to make it inside and Montine (a new GT member hopeful) who had also made it in and was willing to save a couple of seats if we could join her. We never did make it in, and by 8pm, we had barely entered the convention center itself.




Around 8:30, they had us turn around and march out the doors, where they told us the con was over and we needed to go. Cop cars and fire trucks were everywhere, turned out there had been a bomb threat. Cops, fire trucks, ambulances and the bomb squad showed up and shut down all roads leading to the con.



Funniest thing about all this is all of the people who actually made it into the opening ceremonies were never told about this. I guess if the bomb was real, they were considered expendable.

Not knowing what was going on, or why we had waited in that line…..Heather, Jim, Tom and I all headed to dinner at a nice little Italian place nearby. I called Steve, Katie, Beth, Brandon and John…but no one was in a dinner mood I guess. There were only 2 other tables full in there, but they were all con people and the restaurant had Star Wars playing silently on their plasma TV. We watched almost the entire movie while we had dinner and dessert.

As we were leaving, the place started to fill up. Many 501st members including Mark Chu Lin, Kim and Chris all showed up, followed later by Adam and a couple of his friends. They had all made the ceremonies. No one blew up. It was a happy day.
Heather and I walked back to the Sheraton, and now we’re about to crash.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and promises to be even busier than today!

Thursday = Shopping Day

I headed down to the con just after 7:20 this morning. Heather wasn't feeling too well, so she stayed in the room to get a little more rest. I stopped at a little grocery store on the way for a spinach and havarti cheese egg muffin, a banana and some Vitamin water. Sounded healthy enough to make up for all the junk food I'll surely be eating this week.

Arrived at the con just before 8, lined up with Jim, Tom, Bob and some other folks from the Rebelscum contingent. We talked about which exclusives we were after and which ones we'd be trying to get first. The line was probably somewhere between 1-2 thousand when I got into it and by about 10 it had wound around the entire convention center.

The line looking towards the front from our location:



Jim and Tom plan their shopping strategies:




Gen Con, in their infinite wisdom, decided to start another line at the West Hall...so people who were showing up at 11 didn't have to line up behind the pre-existing big line, they got to line up in a new spot and go right in. This was wonderful for everyone who had been waiting already.

Heather showed up, as did Ryan from GT...and we decided to run to the nearest store for a few snacks. I got a roast beef sandwich for us to split, plus a lemonade. It was now around 11:30 and that ended up being my lunch for the day as well. This guy offered me something to eat, but I didn't want it:



Several of the celebrities were arriving trying to go through the doors near where we were waiting. We saw Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Amy Allen and a few others I didn't recognize. Another hour or so later...the doors opened and we made our dash for the exhibit hall.

The StarWarsShop.com booth had already capped their line, so I jumped into the Gentle Giant line. After about 5 or 10 minutes of waiting, they came around and cut us out of that line, saying it too was capped. A picture of the Gentle Giant line chaos:



I decided to hit the Koto booth and after about 10 minutes, I was able to get that exclusive spirit Yoda I had wanted.


Heather and Jim had gotten back into the Gentle Giant line, so I went back there and waited with them. They assured us there were enough of the Yoda and R2 maquettes, but after we waited almost 2 hours in the line, it ended up selling out for the day about 10 people before we got to the front of the line. I picked up my pre-orders and moved on.

The HasbroShop booth was my next stop, but that line was capped. It was around 1:40pm and they suggested we try back at 2:20. We decided to go see some of the convention and walked around the fan hall a little bit. We came back before 2:20 and the Hasbro booth had let another 200 people or so into the line. That was pretty frustrating.

We decided to hit the Lucasfilm archives, which were pretty small. There are about a dozen items in there, but the star was Han Solo's coat from Hoth. Why is this important? For years people have been arguing about whether it's blue or brown. Hasbro even went so far as to do two versions of their toy because some people thought it was brown and some thought it was blue. Well....I have now seen it first hand and it is CLEARLY brown. I once argued on the internet that I thought it was blue, but I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong.




They had a little voting booth and I reluctantly cast my vote for brown. :-)



Then I snuck one in for blue, just for old time's sake. ;-)





Heather and left the archives and hit the C4 store, which surprisingly had no line. Gen Con actually did this really well, because it's HUGE and there are plenty of checkers to cash you out when you've picked what you want. We got everything we wanted and left the Hasbro store within 30 minutes of when we entered it.

Proof:



After that little adventure, we headed back to the Hasbro shop booth, where I was finally able to sneak into the capped line. We bought the McQuarrie Luke figures and then went outside to catch a shuttle back to the hotel.

I sat around with all of the goodies I had purchased during the day.



We waited about 45 minutes, but no shuttle ever came. We finally gave up and decided to lug our 4 bags of action figures, mini busts, souveneir drinking glasses, magnets, t-shirts, posters and other goodies back to the hotel on foot.

On the way home, someone gave us a free t-shirt advertising "The Force Among Us" movie. That was cool.

We took a little rest and then headed to the 501st party. That went until about 40 minutes ago. I'd love to type more, but it's bedtime.

Early Thursday morning

I woke up around 5:30am today, partly because I was thirsty and most likely because I was excited about getting to the convention. Actually, I'm not sure why I'm not down there right now. Part of it is because Heather is still sleeping and I don't want to wake her up too early, but I could always just let her sleep and jump into the line on my own.

Perhaps it's time to grab a shower, some breakfast and go get in line! :-)

The Trip to Star Wars C4!

Got up this morning around 7am to get ready for the flight to LA. I decided to bring my video camera along (just in case I get the urge to take some video of the con), but I didn't have a firewire cable. Even though the cab was due to arrive at 9, I decided to take a trip in rush hour traffic to Target, which opens at 8am. I found the mini firewire cable that I needed right away, grabbed a bottle of multi-vitamins and of course.....checked the Star Wars aisle for new toys.

I was back home by 8:20, which was more than enough time to check email, copy a little music over to my laptop and double check that I packed everything I need for the trip. Taxi arrived 30 minutes later and we were off to the airport.

We arrived at the airport by 9:20am and the lines to check in weren't bad at all. The lady who checked us in moved our seats to an exit row, which I love. We made it through check in and security in less than 20 minutes, so there was time to walk over to the D terminal for some Burger King for breakfast. I had one of those crossaints, Heather maintainted her Burger King boycott and had some Seattle's Best Coffee instead.

We walked back to our terminal, where we saw a couple of girls waiting in the line to board, one of whom had a Rebel Pilot helmet. This was our plane.

Our seats were the aisle and the window with no one in between, so we got to spread out on the plane and enjoy the ride down to LA. I read part of my new Dean Koontz book (The Husband) until we got to the altitude where video games apparently can't crash the plane anymore. Whipped out the Nintendo DS and played Puzzle Quest for most of the rest of the flight.

When we landed, we proceeded to baggage claim to pick up the suitcases. We met up with Tom from Rebelscum on the way there, who was packing pretty light. The three of us made our way to the shuttle pick up area, where we were separated because Tom was going to another hotel.

We proceeded to drive around for about 90 minutes on the Super Shuttle "Express" that Gen Con had provided coupons for. The driver got lost more than once and even though we were the second ones on the van, we were the next to last off. Not what I would call "express" at all. It was 30 bucks for the two of us and I'll definitely take a cab next time.

We arrived at the Sheraton to find that they had no more rooms with King beds left. We begrudgingly took a room on the 17th floor with two twin beds. After dropping the bags, we walked down to the convention center (about 9 blocks). First person we saw that I knew was Ken, the Elvis trooper. Chatted with him a bit about his upcoming Gentle Giant bust and the 501st mixer on Thursday, then headed in to pick up the stuff we had waiting at Will Call. Met Jim and Tom in the will call line, then grabbed our tickets and a fan club lanyard for Heather.

After getting our gear, we went to the 501st booth to see if our volunteer applications were through. I didn't really want to do 20 hours, but I let Mark and Ed know that if they need me, I can work shifts. Decided not to grab a volunteer t-shirt though, as I'm on this one for vacation.

We walked into the screening room for the movies, where Episode 3 was playing. It was a nice screen and all, but we decided we could watch these whenever we wanted to at home and took off for some food. We walked around until we decided on the California Pizza Kitchen at a mall between the con and our hotel. The split pea soup I had was very good and the pizza was as well. We brought the leftovers back to the room for later.

Heather and I stopped at Rite Aid for some supplies (a case of water, some tea, gel insoles, etc) and then settled into our room for the evening. I paid 50 bucks for a week of internet connectivity (what a rip!) and began checking around Rebelscum to see what news there was on the convention.

We watched the season finale of Lost (GREAT!) and hit the sack shortly after it ended at 11pm.

Thursday is opening day!

South Park California Love

For the last week, I have had that silly South Park California Love song stuck in my head. There are videos for it all over youtube, but I wanted an MP3 of the song, so I started scouring around the web and finally found one.

If the South Park guys ask me to remove this from my blog (that no one reads) I'll happily do it, but in the meantime....a little California Love for anyone else who has the song stuck in their head too.

South Park California Love

Cali-forn-nyah-nyah!

P.S. The official site has it here, in WAV format, it sounds SO Much better than the MP3 on my site. It's just a bigger file. Enjoy!

Nice little Monday

Today I got home from work around 730, just in time to eat a shrimp stir fry dinner Heather made. She had all the ingredients separated for some reason, so when she asked me how many shrimp I wanted, I said "All of them". She gave me 9. :-)

Compromise is the secret to a good marriage.

Anyway, we watched Scrubs on the DVR and then 24. After the Jack Bauer Hour, I decided to honor my pledge.

After that was done, I had plenty of time to spend a couple of hours playing a certain Xbox 360 game online until about midnight. I have a meeting at 8am, so I decided to call it quits, but not before updating the blog!

Ciao.

The results show

This weekend was rather relaxing. I spent yesterday hanging around the house, watching TV and enjoying my time off. I left the house only to join Andrew in Seattle for some Northlake Tavern pizza. It was expensive (about 17 bucks each) but very good.

So, how did I do with my weekend goals?

First, this afternoon Heather and I went outside and did yardwork for a couple of hours. We filled up two 90 gallon bins with leaves, lawn and assorted yard trimmings. Didn't mow the backyard yet, and I still have about 5 bins full of leaves to rake up off the side yard, but I think we made some good progress.

I also worked in the Star Wars room tonight. That's documented here. All and all, I'd say this weekend was both productive and relaxing.

Waiting 59 seconds for more sources....

This evening Heather and I watched the Pursuit of Happyness. That is one depressing movie, but I suppose it has an uplifting message at the end of the film. You just have to sit, watching this poor guy suffer for the whole thing to get to it. It's a whole lot of sour to get to the sweet. Afterwards, I sat down to check my email and go to bed, which turned into another night sitting here on the computer.

This week has been a rather long one, I've been working a lot of 10 and 12 hour days and I can't say it's really agreeing with me. This weekend, I should do any number of projects, but I doubt I'll do any of them. They are, in no particular order:

1. Yard work
2. Work on the Star Wars room
3. Purge storage that's in the garage and closet
4. Get clothes I'm not wearing boxed up for donation.

I have 25 cents that says I don't do much of anything on that list, I'll probably be resting and relaxing all weekend. Speaking of that...it's 2am. Time to get started on that.

One of those crazy surveys

Cross posting this from my myspace page.


1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
I need a shave. Coincidentally, it was my shaving mirror in the shower.

2. How much cash do you have on you?
21 dollars and a 5 dollar cash card for Toys R Us that I got free today.


3. What's a word that rhymes with "TEST"?
Chest

4. Favorite planet?
Earth, it's the only one I've been to.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
Angie.

6. What is your favorite ring on your phone?
I am too lame to buy ringtones. I used to love my Super Mario ring on my old phone though. Maybe I need that one again.


7. What shirt are you wearing?
My Project Gotham 3 shirt I got for free at work.

8. Do you "label" yourself?
Only at parties where they have the "hi, my name is" stickers.

9. Name the brand of your shoes you're currently wearing.
GenX, compliments of Big 5 where they were probably less than 30 bucks.

10. Bright or Dark Room?
Depends on which room. Currently, bright flourescent office.

11. What do you think about the last person who took this survey?
She's pretty cool and posts all sorts of interesting time wasters like this.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Playing Texas Hold Em on Xbox Live Arcade with John. I lost 124 virtual dollars.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say?
joshy josh! i got your email. that is the hotel of choice, but, if we can book 10 or more rooms you get a group rate.

15. Where is your nearest 7-11?
That's tough. I'm going to say it's the one in Kirkland on 116th, but it might be the one in Redmond on 156th.

16. What's a saying that you use a lot?
"That's what she said".

17.Who told you they loved you last?
Heather

18. Last furry thing you touched?
The Dog.

19. How Many Drugs Have You Done In The Past three Days?
I had a multivitamin last night. That was it.

20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
I have one waterproof camera that still has 4 or 5 shots left on it (from Mexico), plus 2 or 3 rolls of film from my SLR that are probably left over from 4 or 5 years ago. Oh yeah, and I have this "spy camera" from 8th grade....which someday I will have to get developed. Besides those, I'm 100% digital.

21. Favorite age you have been so far?
That's really tough. 25-27 were probably my most exciting years...but I don't know if I could pick a favorite age. How about lucky 7?

22. Your worst enemy?
The highway patrol.


23. What is your current desktop picture?
Plain blue, in the hopes that my crappy work laptop would speed up a bit.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?
A lot in email, but in person....it was when I told Andrew "Hey look, that truck sells museum quality beards, you should get one because your beard sucks!"

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly, which would you choose?
I'd choose the power of flight, because with it, I could earn a lot more than a million dollars...just in endorsements, TV apperances and piggy back rides alone.

26. Do you like someone?
I like a lot of someones.

27. The last song you listened to?
I can't remember, I had the radio on all afternoon until a conference call earlier. I just turned it back on and it's "Beastie Boys, Sure shot"



1. What ended your last relationship?
Two people with different ideas of what they wanted from it.

2. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Playing a video game, I already said this.

3. What were you doing this morning at 8am?
Lying in bed.

4. First thought after waking up this morning?
I was debating with myself whether or not to get out of bed. 40 minutes later, I finally did.

5. Are you any good at math?
Are you kidding? Does the square root of 293 =12?

6. Prom night?
I spent at home with my 21 year old girlfriend who thought she was far too awesome to go to a high school prom.

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
I'm a descendant of Darth Vader.

8. Have you ever taken out a loan to pay for school?
Nope.

9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile?
I'm not even sure what song is on there right now, but you can bet I know it, or it wouldn't be on there.

10. Last thing received in the mail?
A 12" Clone Trooper from Sideshow.

11. How many different beverages have you drank today?
One. Water. Damn I'm boring. Hey, but it was from one glass and two different bottles.

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machines?
As opposed to breathing heavily and then hanging up? Yes.

13. Ever been in love?
Yes.

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
No, but I pee it into the snow every chance I get.

15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had?
Having all my wisdom teeth and a molar extracted all at the same time.

17. Do you have any plans for tonight?
Going to the gym right after work, then watching Lost because I didn't watch it last night.

18. Do you like the ocean?
Yes...and thanks to this survey, I'm going to write my name there soon.

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different things?
I bought a Darth Vader tin full of 3 kinds of popcorn a few years ago. I threw the popcorn out and currently use it to hold the hot tub chlorine and stuff.

20. Carmex or Chapstick?
Cherry chapstick.

22. Something you are excited about?
Playing poker next week.

23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO?
Cherry

24. Are any of your great grandparents alive?
Nope, nor did I ever meet them.

25. Describe your keys:
A black, beat up key fob that has deep indentations where the "unlock" and "lock" graphics used to be. The letter "p" on the panic button has worn off, so now it's just a red blob that says "anic". Connected to that sorry thing are a half dozen other keys to the assorted locks in my life.

26. Where do you keep your change?
Three places: My office drawer at work for the candy machine, in one of my cupholders for drive thrus, and in a giant Super Size cup at home...which I cash in every few years and take to Vegas. Nobody I know had better use this info to steal any of it.

27. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group?
Not counting meetings and presentations at work, it was probably as the DJ at Craig's wedding last year.

28. What kind of winter coat do you have?
Too many. I have a backpacking coat, a rain coat, some sweaters, 6 or 7 hoodies, some Star Wars letterman jackets and a couple of ski jackets. It's time to downsize.

29. What was the weather like today?
Grey and rainy.

30. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
Always closed, or else the dog comes in

When animals attack

This week, I got a Nintendo Wii. I was very excited about it, as I'd been waiting for it to arrive in the mail.

The dog was apparently excited about it to. He wanted to play, but didn't understand how to work the Wiimote. So...he played the only way he knows how:



I was pretty angry, but at least the dog seemed to feel appropriately guilty about it:



Now, the cats are a different story. Instead of trying to play with the Wii, today, one of my wife's stupid evil cats decided to hack up a hairball on the bed. Maybe they were jealous of all the fun the dog was having with Wii Sports. I don't even think the cat feels guilty about it.

Just look into the evil eyes of Evil Cat.

It's been a bit...

What's new?
Well...let's see. I just got done doing a radio show for almost 2 hours. It was the first one in the month of March (and in the last 30 days), so that felt pretty good.

Oh yeah...I'm trying to start going to the gym again. Someone's been gaining a little weight and would like to lose it. I can't seem to get myself there regularly, so when the mood strikes me (like it did tonight) I try to go no matter what time it is. Unfortunately, that means I went this evening after work at 7:30pm, which is probably why I'm still sitting at my computer wide awake on a work night.

I hate working out this late in the evening because it keeps me up really late afterwards. I am just now starting to be a little tired, but I know if I move from the position I'm sitting in and start walking around, I'm just going to be all energized and hyper again. This is what happens when I can't drag my ass out of bed early enough to go to the gym in the morning.

To kill time, besides doing a radio show, I was also working on putting together some Ebay auctions for a bunch of Xbox games I have sitting around that I never play with anymore. Actually, some of them, I never played with at all. So...I was cleaning out the closet on Sunday afternoon and put them all in a big pile. I swore that by Grabthar's hammer I would put them on Ebay this week. I managed to list one. The other 11 or so I want to sell are not yet listed...but I'll try to do that tomorrow.

At least I took pictures of them all. That's progress.

In other news....I registered a new domain today. I decided that KEEE should not be the center of my web universe anymore, seeing as how it's based around the radio show. I need a site for this blog, for my Star Wars blog...and pictures of my collection and stuff. Using this site for everything is so 1998. :-)

Stay tuned for news on that one.

What in the EFF?

It's almost 3am and I'm sitting here awake. It started with a Radio Show around 11. I finished that a little after midnight and started reading forum posts on the 501st, then it just sort of ended up being this late.

I am going to be hating life at work tomorrow.

Gears of PHreakin War part deux

John and I just beat Gears of War on Hardcore. I was playing as Dom, so I got all the Dom achievements as well.

Next stop: Insane difficulty.


Actually, I should rephrase. Next stop is sleep, followed by work, followed by the gym, THEN...maybe Insane difficulty. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Tonight's secret word is:

Gears of War.

Ok, wait...that's three words. Ah, who cares? It's an awesome game.

That is all.

Snowy Sunrise

Snowy Sunrise
Originally uploaded by JoshEEE.

Woke up this morning to find 2 or 3 inches of fresh snow outside. There was no way I could make it up the hills out of the neighborhood today, so instead....I'm telecommuting.

Snow days are wonderful.

The snow finally arrived

Snowy Traffic Jam
Originally uploaded by JoshEEE.

The weather men have been talking about how today was going to be this huge snow storm. They said that it would start falling between 5-9am this morning and make the commute a real bitch.

I woke up around 8:30, hoping to look out the window and see snow, but there was nothing. It wasn't even raining. I took a shower, headed to work and got there by 9:30. Again...still no rain.

Settled into the day, got some work done, did the usual stuff. Went to lunch around 1pm....it STILL wasn't raining. At 3:30, I see some hail start to come down. By 3:40, it's sticking. I say to myself: "I should probably leave work before everyone starts panicking and backs up the roads". I did a few more emails and headed out.

Unfortunately, by the time I got to my car, 100 other people from our building and the buildings around it had all decided to do the same thing. It took me 70 minutes to get from my parking space to the main road in Kirkland that leads to the freeway (6 blocks from my job).

After that, it took 3 more hours on I-405 before I finally got home. At 4 hours and change, that was the longest commute of my life. The up-side to all of this is I am pretty sure we will have a snow day tomorrow and I'll get to work from home.

Crossing fingers.

The power of Power

On Thursday night last week, a major wind storm rocked most of Western Washington, including our house in Bellevue. We knew it was coming, so I was half-awake listening to things blowing around like crazy. I kept hoping no trees would fall on the house, but every time I heard a crash, I would wake up and look out the window to see what fell.

Turns out, most of the damage done to our house was to the fence. This is after I went outside and propped a few sections back up (with fallen trees or 2*4s), but 3 or 4 sections of the fence came down and took those little Christmas trees with them.



Our power went out and I knew this was going to be serious, so I drove to work, hoping to use the internet there to find a hotel room. As I wound around the corners of our little community, I noticed a lot of downed trees and power lines.



I tried to make a left onto the street to the freeway, but it was blocked by a giant tree too. This picture was taken later in the day when I got home. By that time, there was a flagger from DOT out there trying to direct traffic. The flaggers gave up after the first day and just left stop signs, which people kept moving.



Going to work was tough. Traffic sucked. I got there and the power was out at work, so I drove to some of our other buildings to check those. It seems the power was out there too. I was on empty, but every gas station I passed was out of power too. Heather said there was a gas station open across from her work, so I headed back towards Bellevue, hoping I would make it to the gas station before I ran out. I did, only to be greated by a nice long line of cars.



Nearly two hours later, I finally got gas.



By that point, all the hotels in the area were booked up, so Heather and I knew we'd have to stay at home. I parked at her office and walked back to the grocery store to buy some things we'd need in case the power was out a couple of days. I had left home for work before 8am and it was now after 1. By 230 or so, I had gotten some groceries and walked back to Heather's work where I had some food for the first time that day.

I drove home next. When I got there, I walked around looking for the culprit that had severed the power in our neighborhood. Here it was:



Seeing as how it's in the middle of winter, the temperature indoors had already dipped below 50. We had some flaslights and some candles, but opted to head over to Craig's house as he had just purchased a generator. His power was out too, but thanks to the generator, we watched some movies and had dinner. We headed home after 10pm and bundled up with as many blankets as we could pile on the bed. It was a cold night, but we survived ok.

Saturday, we got up early, broke out the Star Wars costumes and did the annual Garrison Titan Child's Play toy drive. We had 14 shopping carts filled with toys donated to us by friendly shoppers (most of whom were probably without power too). When we got done, Craig called us and told us that his power was back on, so we could borrow his generator. We hooked it up that night, hooked up a space heater to it and slept quite comfortably.

Sunday morning, it was 39 degrees indoors, except in our warm room. We spent Sunday morning searching for breakfast and doing a little Christmas shopping, then I spent the rest of the day helping Mike move. Waited in two more 30 minute gas lines to get gas for the generator that day. All the food in the fridge had spoiled by then, but we hooked it up to the generator anyway.

Monday, still no power. I went back to work where it was warm and there was internet. Heather figured out how to hook the TV up to the generator so we watched a movie that night.

Tuesday we STILL had no power, but we ordered a pizza and stayed in yet again. I figured out that staying at work until 7 or 8 isn't so bad if you don't have a warm home to go back to. Plus....traffic is much better.

Wednesday we were on our 6th day with no power. The generator costs 36 bucks a day to run so it's been an expensive space heater. Still cheaper than a motel though. We had just been discussing what we'd do if it stayed out until Christmas (which Puget Sound Energy said was a possibility) when it finally came back on sometime late Wednesday evening.

Last night, I resisted the urge to turn on every light in the house....but I did turn on the Christmas tree for only the 3rd night since we've had it. It finally felt like Christmas again. I remarked to Heather that I would kind of miss the last few days we'd had, holed up in the one warm room of the house....disconnected from the internet, TV and phones.

It's nice to finally be able to take a shower with the lights on though.

What's been up?

Last night my Dad and Marilyn came to spend the night. We have a guest room in the house, but it was filled with boxes that we had to take downstairs to the TV room. They're coming back next week, or I'd probably put the boxes back in there (I like the TV room to be box-free). I suppose I could also just start unpacking.

Nah!

So this week we had a snow day due to some horrible weather in Seattle. Basically, everyone was ordered to stay home from work if at all possible and telecommute, which I did. There wasn't a lot of work to do that day, because everyone I work with apparently decided to take the entire day off.

So...I made a few pumpkin pies. I didn't have a window sill to set them on, so I tried the deck. Heather thinks this picture looks like a UFO.



There is other news, but it's the kind that involves NDA. Two pieces in fact. One piece has something to do with Star Wars and the other one was something to do with work. One gets you fired from your job if you post it on your blog, the other gets you in trouble with Lucasfilm. All I can say is that the last few weeks have been interseting and tonight has been a really fun night, thanks to my employer. Tada!

Being vague is fun!

Ages have passed...

I haven't done a proper update in a long time.
This isn't going to be that update.

HOWEVER:

I'm in California, where in the last week I've:

Celebrated my nephew's birthday
Stood up for David at his wedding
Celebrated my 1 year anniversary with Heather
Witnessed the aftermath of a terrible car accident
Had a tasty Carl's Jr. lunch
Had a tasty In and Out Burger
Set up the PC I got my sister for her birthday 6 months ago.
Set up a wired and wireless home network for her.
Spent 2 hours on the phone with Linksys tonight trying to get their Router to do WEP and WPA at the same time (which it couldn't).
Driven 400 miles in my sister's Beetle that is just like mine without the "Oomph".
Gone for a walk with my Grandpa
Watched my niece play soccer
Watched Spongebob with my other niece
Played video games with my nephews
Watched my niece follow my wife around wherever she goes.


It's been a good week.

Clerks 2

So, I've seen the movie now, twice.

There will be no spoilers in the first part of this review:

The first time I saw it, I got there 40 minutes early on opening night. Roughly 10 minutes later, a large group of View Askew fans showed up to join the "line" (which consisted of me). They let us in about 20 minutes into it, just as one of my co-workers was getting there. John showed up about 10 minutes later and we split to get some food.

When the movie starts, you're taken right back to Clerks. Instantly, I knew I was going to like this movie. It starts out a bit slow, then has ups and down for the next 90 minutes. It's a funny movie with some really serious parts.

I walked out of that first screening feeling like it wasn't much of a sequel and that I was a bit disappointed. I think this was due to the expectations I had for it and the fact that the original is one of my favorite movies of all time.

A few days have passed and John and I decided to go see it again this evening. Heather has decided she'll wait for the DVD, so it was just the guys solo on this one.

First of all, I have to point out that tonight, I saw it in the worst possible enviornment. I wanted to see the first show after work, so I went to the 6:40pm showing in my town's trendiest mall. Big mistake.

The theater was "filled" with only 8 other people besides my friend and I, none of whom laughed out loud more than once or twice each. There were 10, but 2 walked out somewhere after Dante and Emma on the swings. It was a very depressing crowd compared to the opening night fans.

Despite that, I really liked it this time. Knowing what to expect, the movie was build-up free. I had high expectations and anticipation during the 1st movie and I think I needed that first time just to process a sequel to my beloved Clerks. The second time was a charm.

Clerks 2 now stands on it's own as a great VA movie among the rest. I'm still not ranking it above my favorites, but I felt a lot more "in the spirit" this time than I did during my first viewing. The one plus about being in a totally silent theater was that I could hear EVERY line, right down to the radio station playing in the background while Dante and Becky are talking. That was a funny little throwaway joke.

My only gripe that I have after two viewings is the score. When Dante and Emma are on the swings, the music seems really out of place. It fits at other points in the movie and the soundtrack is great, but that scene with the blaring techno score really bugged me.

Other than that, this is a good movie. Worth the wait.

About to go see Clerks

1 hour and 45 minutes until I see Clerks 2.
The anticipation is building quite a bit, I really hope this movie is as good as I hope it will be.


Tomorrow I'm going to the Gorge to see Pearl Jam. 108 degrees is the forecast and I'm doing this on purpose. Cripes.

Less than 48 hours...

Until I see Clerks 2. I'm super excited about it, even though in the back of my mind, there's this fear that it could somehow be bad. It's a Kevin Smith movie starring my two favorite characters from his movies, so hopefully it will not disappoint.

Either way, the countdown is on as I plan to have already seen it by Friday night at this time. Countdown is on!

In other news, the city came by to cut the blackberries back from my fence, since they were growing onto my property. That was very cool of them and now I just have to continue to trim them from time to time. I'm sure I can do that.

Also...Comic Con is on and I wish I was there. Kevin Smith will be doing Clerks 2 screenings and Q&A after the movie, and it would be really cool to be able to be there on Clerks 2 opening weekend asking questions of the man himself.

I guess I'll settle for an evening show at crossroads.



P.S. More Star Wars Blog updates posted tonight too.

The host with the most

This weekend, we completely put the bottom half of our house out of commission, by tearing up the Star Wars room. Detailed post can be found in my Star Wars Blog, but the basic result is that there are dozens of boxes of toys in every room EXCEPT for that one. The entire room is taped up and being painted, the toys are all over the rec room and basically, you can't walk around down there.

Despite that being the case.....I want to have a housewarming sometime soon. It won't be easy, because this weekend, I'm going to see Pearl Jam at the Gorge. That means most of the work I'll be doing is going to be weeknights.

In other house-maintenance related news, the city is going to come out and chop out the blackberry bushes that are coming into my yard. That will be awesome.

In other non-house related news, life is good. I'm very tired though and should go to bed, but I felt like documenting the hectic state of the house right now so that I can look back and laugh in a few weeks when it's all done and wonderful.


P.S. Clerks 2 comes out in exactly 3 days from right now. That is awesome

Another late night on the 360

Watched "Firewall" with Heather tonight. She had leftover brats from the 4th of July BBQ and I had some of the steak we never broke into. The movie was ok and afterwards, I went upstairs for some Burnout action. I've almost completed the game (3 levels to get Gold medals on as of tonight), but I'm stuck. I started playing some multiplayer with John at about midnight and just now got done.

Man. I have to be up and working in less than 7 hours. Not cool.

July 4th

July 4th 2006 209
Originally uploaded by JoshEEE.

Attended the annual Lake Union party last night. Mark and Jody had already arrived when Heather and I got there around 3pm. We nabbed a good parking spot and were followed shortly after by Andrew, John, Elizabeth, and Angie. We went to the store for awhile and when I came back, I proceeded to drink a bit. Elizabeth made Jello shots for me, plus I had some different flavors of Mike's hard lemonade.

Heather made Jambalaya which everyone seemed to like. Craig and Toma brought steaks that were really tasty. I made brats, but never got a chance to sample my own steaks. I was too full by the time I even thought about cooking them. Elizabeth made some cheesy bean dip which was also really good.

John brought some artillery shells and we launched a few of those before and after the fireworks show. I spent most of the time during the fireworks trying to get some good shots, but I don't really feel like I did too well. Attached is one of my favorites, more can be found on my flickr site.

I'm going to need to take a photography class. I need to learn how to use this camera of mine, before more of life's great moments pass me by.

The sweep

And the Mariner's won all three games. Although I had great seats, saw Barry Bonds hit a homer and got to eat Dixie's, the weekend was fairly a bummer.

At least the weather was really nice.

Giants are coming to town!

Tomorrow (and for the next three days) I'll be attending San Francisco Giants games right here in Seattle. I haven't seen them play for years (since they last time they came to town to beat the Mariners), but it'll be great to cheer the orange and black onto victory once again.

On the other hand, in a few years, I will have lived in Seattle for longer than I lived in the Bay Area. At what point do I stop being from there?

Late Friday

Decided to stay up playing Xbox 360 tonight. Started the night off with RockStar Table Tennis. Everyone at work is addicted to this game. I can't decide if they wanted it because it was only 39.99 or because it's actually fun, but they really seem to like it. I brought it home and started playing exhibition matches tonight. Table Tennis (ping pong) isn't exactly something I'm a huge fan of, but it is kind of a fun game once you get going. Hard as hell and frustrating to play, but I am beginning to get the hang of it. I need one more victory to win my first little 360 Ping Pong tournament tomorrow.

After I lost too many games in a row, I decided to play Uno with John. Another friend joined in later and we played until just now. I won a lot of games, which was much better than the other night. I already have all of my achievements in that game. Getting Gamerscore for Uno isn't hard. The toughest things were the 40 wins total and the 10 online wins, but I polished those off this week.

Tonight, I'm leaving rockstar table tennis on overnight to see if I can rack up one of those time-played achievements. We'll see if it works.

LOL...

Ok, I know I'm supposed to be in bed, but I was just checking my credit card statement and I have a bill for 17 bucks for "Lolita Royale" in Mexico.

I'll let imaginations run wild on that one. I swear though, it was totally innocent. :-)

Boogie Nights

Over the last 2 hours, I just lost 14 straight games of Uno to John Schmidt and an assortment of other clowns on Xbox Live.


I was going to win ONE before I went to bed, but now it's almost one and I just need to sleep.

God damnit.

Late night...

I'm having one of those nights I haven't had in awhile. Stayed up late, doing the first radio show at the new house, then played a bunch of video games afterwards while it was uploading. The show takes longer to upload here, because I have Comcast instead of DSL. I really hate the way they throttle the upload bandwidth....but it's the only service available here right now. When DSL comes, goodbye Comcast.

While I was waiting 16 minutes for a 1 hour (30mb) show to upload, I played Project Gotham Racing 3. I haven't played that game in forever, but I tried to get into the top 100 on the F1 challenge with the Cadillac Sixteen. Some new (free) cars (all Cadillacs) were put online tonight and you have to get into the top 100 to get some gamer picture. I thought trying on the first night might be a good idea, but I couldn't even crack the top 500, so I gave up after awhile and went back to Full Auto. I got a few achievements on that one. Gamerscore as of tonight: 6183

After Full Auto, I played a little Xbox Live Arcade, while listening to music streaming from my computer. Everything from Britney Spears to the Boogie Nights soundtrack played (I was stuck in the B's tonight) while I tried and failed to get a few more points.

It's officially Wednesday now, which means two more days until Friday. Friday, I'm seeing X-Men 3, which will be the third movie in the last 7 days. Heather and I saw Poseidon on Sunday for a matinee. It was alright, but I still like the original better. I'm old.

Anyway, luckily for me, I have no early meetings tomorrow at work, so I'm going to sleep in a little. I'm feeling pretty tired now, bed time.

Cat Scratch Fever

I was playing Xbox 360 yesterday when Heather came into the room with one of the cats. I don't particularly like that cat much, but decided to pick her up anyway. I was lying on the floor and reached over my head to pick up the cat behind me. The stupid cat stuck her back legs, claws out right into my face.

Now I have two big gashes right down the side of my left cheek.

Went out to a birthday party last night and lots of people on the street were looking at me like I had a third eye.This happened yesterday morning and I don't know how to make the healing go faster, so I've decided to let a beard grow out for a few days to try and obscure it. It'll probably be fairly hidden by tomorrow.

In the meantime, anyone know what helps cat scratches heal quicker?

Mission Impossible 3

Last night, Heather, John and I watched Mission Impossible 3 at the new Lincoln Square movie theater in Bellevue. It's the first movie I've seen in a long time (so long in fact, that last night we couldn't remember the last movie we'd seen in the theater). I STILL don't know what the last movie I saw was and I guess I never made a blog entry about it. Sigh. I'll never know.

Oh well, we'll make up for the lack of movies this month, as I want to see the Da Vinci Code, Poseidon, X-Men 3, plus at least a few others. I'm probably most excited about Poseidon, mostly because I love the original and you really can't go wrong with a good sinking boat movie. OK, they did it with Titanic, but this one will hopefully be better.

BTW, Mission Impossible 3 was actually really good. I managed to watch the entire movie without thinking of Tom Cruise jumping around on Oprah's couch.

Several weeks later...

It would seem that the stress of the sale is nearly over. We got our house on the market a couple of weeks ago and had over 40 people come see it in the first several days (even though it was Easter weekend). We found some buyers and it looks like they'll be closing the deal in a couple of weeks. If not, there seem to be lots of backups.

It was a lot of work to get everything out of there (and into the new house) but I'm hoping it'll come to an end soon. Crossing my fingers, but if all goes well, by the end of this month, Heather and I will have sold our old home, moved almost completely into the new one...and even gone on our honeymoon!

It doesn't get much better than that. Unless of course....it doesn't. That's why I'm crossing my fingers.

At the new house, we spent the first few weekends there doing a lot of unpacking. I have my office nearly set up and functional, the bedroom is about 50% unpacked. Heather worked a lot on the kitchen and got that liveable. Our living room has a couch in it and the downstairs room has the TV hooked up. Still to come are the Star Wars room and finishing the garage. Those are going to be the hardest rooms, but I'm confident with some work we can do it in a few more weekends and finally have that housewarming party.

Then....in a month or so, we get to build a fence. Can't wait for that. :-)

45 things you probably don't need to know

45 of the most random things you probably never needed to know about someone:


Whats your name spelt backwards?: Hsoj. I like how it sounds.
What did you do last night?: Came home, played a little Xbox, ate a great dinner, watched South Park, went to bed.
The last thing you downloaded onto your computer?: An iPod software update.
Have you ever licked a 9 volt battery?: Yes, ouch.
Last time you swam in a pool?: I am sad to say that I can't remember. It was probably at the pro-club doing laps. I shall soon remedy this.
What are you wearing?: Jeans and a blue T-shirt.
How many cars have you owned?: 5, but I've driven dozens more.
Type of music you dislike most?: Country
Are you registered to vote?: Yes, although I think I need to change my address.
Do you have cable?: Yes, but I miss my premium "all the channels" package.
What kind of computer do you use?: This aluminum contraption I built with neon in it that I never turn on. At work, a little Tablet.
Ever made a prank phone call?: Yes. Recently even.
You like anyone right now?: I like a lot of people.
Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving?: I would love to bungee. I've already been skydiving.
Furthest place you ever traveled?: London
What's your favorite comic strip?: Penny Arcade
Do u know all the words to the national anthem?: Only as someone else is singing it (like at a game). I can't sing it on my own without forgetting something. And I don't know what a few of the words mean.
Shower, morning or night?: Morning. Sometimes both if I go to the gym or into the hot tub.
Best movie you've seen in the past month?: I haven't seen any new movies this month. I've been too busy. I guess I watched a TV movie here or there.
Favorite pizza toppings?: Pepperoni and lots of extra cheese. Beyond that, any meat works for me.
Chips or popcorn?: CHiPs
What cell phone provider do you have?: Verizon by marriage
Have you ever smoked peanut shells?: No, but sometimes I eat them.
Have you ever been in a beauty pageant?: No, but I've been in a lot of competitions based on ability.
Orange Juice or apple?: Apple if I have to choose, but I like them both. Orange when I'm sick.
Who were the last people you sat at lunch with?: Jay and James today in the cafeteria. favorite chocolate bar?: Either Reeses or the Milky Way
Who is your longest friend and how long?: David is probably the friend I've known the longest, since Jr. High.
Last time you ate a homegrown tomato?: NEVER
Have you ever won a trophy?: I've won a few, but none were those huge two foot tall ones you can drink out of.
Favorite arcade game?: Of all time: Street Fighter 2. Of today: DDR.
Ever ordered from an infomercial?: Yes. The Ronco Electric Food Dehydrator and Angie bought me a Magic Wallet. I bought the Miracle Blade IIIs because I saw them on TV and they are awesome.
Sprite or 7-UP?: Sprite
Have you ever had to wear a uniform to school/work?: I wore several uniforms during my food service days.
Last thing you bought at Walgreens?: Probably earplugs for a concert
Ever thrown up in public?: No.
Would you prefer being a millionaire or finding true love?: I have a true love, so how about a million bucks to go along with her?
Do you believe in love at first sight?: No but I believe in wanting to sleep with someone at first sight.
SPONGEBOB OR JIMMY NEUTRON?: I'll give you a clue. He lives in a Pineapple under the sea.
Did you have long hair as a young kid?: Yes. Unfortunately.
What message is on your voicemail machine?: First of all, what's a "Voicemail machine"? You either have voicemail or an answering machine. What a dumb question. I believe mine currently says that I am unpacking and to leave a message..
Where would you like to go right now?: Las Vegas.
Whats the name of your pet?: I don't have any pets that are exclusively mine. My wife has a few I live with. They are named "The dog" and "The stupid cats".
What kind of back pack do you have, and what's in it?: I own SO many backpacks from different trade shows that it's not even funny. The one I carry to work every day has papers and my laptop in it. Plus a toothbrush, some pens that light up, mints and some rubber bands. I think there's a thumb drive in there too.
What do you think about most?: I am a guy, science already knows what I think about most.

1 week later

On Sunday we moved everything out of the old house. A bunch of friends came by around noon and we filled the biggest moving truck I've ever used (24 feet) up twice. We started loading the truck around 11:30am and weren't done completely with the unloading until 9pm Sunday night. I've got some great pictures I'll have to post here. Aside from the truck, we also filled up the cars of John, Angie, Carol, Mike, Heather, Jean and Craig with stuff that I didn't want to put into the truck. Two trips each. Plus Heather and I were taking a few trips after the move.

I think it proved once and for all that we have too much crap and I really need to start selling or giving away some stuff. I sold two of our Halo TVs right before we left, so that counts for something. One of my desks is going to be sold soon, along with a few other pieces of furniture we will probably sell or give away.

Stuff is all still sitting in boxes at the new place, because we've spent just about every night this week working at the old house making it all nice so we can sell it quickly. Some highlights of the project:

One of Craig's friends is painting all the bedrooms and bathrooms for us.
We had landscapers out last weekend.
I ripped out the shelves in the Star Wars room, as well as one of the closets that I had "altered" to fit larger things like the shuttle. That put two holes in the wall, which had to be fixed.
Tomorrow we're putting new carpet in the Star Wars room (it needed it).
Heather and I have been doing basic cleaning and yard work.
Craig took a truckload of stuff to the dump yesterday.

Still to do:
More cleaning
More yard work
Paint or stain the front door.
Windows
Cleaning the outside of the house
Back Yard (clean up the basketball backboard)
Mow

SELL!


I hope by Wednesday of next week, the house will be on the market. That's my goal.

View

I'm hanging at the new house today, while cable and a new water heater come in. I've been here since 10am, mostly hanging around because there's not a lot I can do in this empty place all alone. I should be at the old place packing, but I've got wireless internet now and just had a pizza delivered, so I don't really know what else I need.

Check out the view from the deck!

Moving Day

For the last two years I've been hoping to move.

I knew it was a bad sign when we were buying the house we're in now, because I was already having buyer's remorse when we were in escrow. I couldn't back out of the deal, because I had written a big earnest money check and I didn't really hate the place. I probably should have gone with my gut feeling, but we closed and only a few months after moving in, I was already ready to move out.

The house itself is great, but the location was not my favorite and in 2 years, I think we've really only used the downstairs for a handful of parties and some video gaming. It's too much house for us, in the wrong place. Moving was always something I hoped to do and last year we started seriously looking for not just our next home, but one we could stay in for a long time.

Well, we finally found the place and now we're packing. I spent all weekend working on the Star Wars Room (discussed in my Star Wars Blog) and pressure washing both the driveway, the backyard walkway and patio. That's all I've done so far and we're moving in 2 weeks.

I still have to pack the entire downstairs, my office, plus the rest of our mutual stuff. Between then and now we also have to clean, paint, sell excess stuff and get our current house ready for a sale. I don't think I'm going to have a lot of time to do this stuff, but I'll make time somehow.

Just wanted to document this time, because I'm feeling overly stressed and I'm going to love to look back on this entry 3 months from now when everything is hopefully going much better.

One of those lists

Saw this in my friend Jason's blog and decided to do one too.

TEN BANDS THAT YOU HAVE SEEN LIVE (in no order)
10. Pearl Jam
09. Presidents of the USA
08. Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5
09. Super Deluxe
07. Weezer
06. No Doubt
05. Blink 182
04. Beastie Boys
03. Madonna
02. Mad Season
01. Weird Al Yankovic

NINE THINGS THAT YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO (in no order)
09. Moving to a new house
08. Dinner with Heather tonight
07. Comic-Con
06. Having a completed Star Wars room
05. Burnout Revenge on the Xbox 360 tomorrow
04. Owning a Viper someday
03. CDJ 800s
02. My next trip to Vegas
01. Our Honeymoon

EIGHT THINGS THAT YOU WEAR/CARRY DAILY (in no order)
08. Cell Phone
07. Wallet
06. Car Keys
05. Xbox 360 Memory Unit with my profile
04. Tennis shoes
03. Braces
02. T-shirt
01. Memory Stick


SEVEN THINGS THAT ANNOY YOU (in no order)
07. Slow computers
06. People who don't pay their share at a group dinner
05. Dishonesty, disrespect.
04. All forms of Traffic, including Slow drivers, SUVs, Cell phone moms, etc.
03. People who embody the things I hate about corporate life.
02. Insincerity
01. Kids on Xbox Live

SIX THINGS THAT YOU TOUCH EVERYDAY (in no order)
06. Heather
05. A computer
04. The remote
03. My cell phone
02. Money or a credit card
01. The lives of everyone I interact with. :-)

FIVE MOVIES THAT YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER (in no order)
05. Clerks or any of the View Askewniverse films
04. The Empire Strikes Back or any Star Wars movie
03. UHF
02. Swingers
01. The Breakfast Club

FOUR PEOPLE WHO YOU'D WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH (in no order)
04. My Dad
03. My sisters and nephews
02. My friends
01. Heather

THREE CDs THAT YOU LISTENED TO LAST
03. Offspring, Americana
02. Weezer, Make Believe
01. Weird AL Yankovic, Running with Scissors

TWO OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS EVER
02. Albuquerque - Weird Al Yankovic
01. Famous - Super Deluxe

ONE PERSON THAT YOU WOULD SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITH
01. Heather