I’ve done some house cleaning regarding my online calendars. Following my graduation this summer, the CSGSO and School calendars were no longer relevant. My web calendar viewer has been updated, but anyone subscribing to my iCal files directly may encounter some errors as I’ve remove the appropriate files. My current ics files are as follows:
Trip and I were taking a break from work last night, and spent a few minutes enjoying Shanley’s famous (or infamous) quote book and we got to thinking that it’s high time a post-college edition was started. Everyone one who’s with us on this idea, harass Shanley. Together, we can make this happen.
Katy and I were back in Minnesota again this last weekend, a bit unexpectantly. Katy’s dad had a an accident involving gasoline + fire and suffered some second degree burns on his arms. Thanksfully, he’s OK and will make a full recovery, he’ll just have to stay off work for a couple weeks.
What happened was he was draining the gas from the tank of a truck (he’s an automechanic) into some holding containers so he could do some work on the gas lines. He was working on another car while he waited for the tank to drain, and was using a torch to heat a bolt to try to get it to come off. While he was working he noticed the tank had gotten too full, and he went to go change it to another tank. He accidently took the hot bolt with him (the torch was off) and it must have been hot enough to spark a flame from the gas that had spilled on the floor.
The flames rose to about 4 feet, and Mike quickly moved to get the gas tanks on the floor out of the shop before they went up. While this move saved the building, it forced him to be in the fire for a few seconds longer, and he burned his arms and hands. After he had moved the tanks to safey he went back and put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. Nothing was damaged in the shop, but Mike suffered 2nd degree burns on his arms and hands, and some 3rd degree burns on his face. I’ve posted some pictures with his approval (or at least Katy and Twila’s, and hey, that’s all that matters ;-)). Don’t look at them if big blisters bother you, those are biggest I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, despite the fact that Mike had hurt himself pretty bad, he felt well enough to go to Ahlmand’s Shooters Roundup, a shooting tournament in souther Minnesota. Katy and I went with him, and we all competed. I did pretty well, scoring 11 out of 15. Katy got a 10/15, which led the women’s division after the first day, and Mike ended up getting a 15/15 and winning the whole tournament. Yes, wearing gloves and having his hands burned, he still could outshoot everyone else there. Pretty impressive. Pictures are available here.
Well, with much resignation, I’m finally going to post this photo tribute. I’ve been holding on to it for a long time, but I think Steve has finally earned it.
Initially this post was going to be another one to rial up Steve: dead dogs receiving a photo tribute before him. As I thought about more, I thought it was a nice idea on its own. My dog Minnie has been gone a year and a half now, and Ben’s dog Chaucer died a few years ago when we were in College. It’s good to remember them.
After working with Dusty today to try to get his comments to be allowed without moderation, I just broke down and installed a new plugin to handle spam filtering. Before a comment is accepted, everyone is now required to fill out a field that asks a simple math question, such as “Please add 7 and 6″. In order to make the system accessible to all my readers, I’ve signed Steve up with a tutor to help him with his addition skills.
There’s been quite a lot going on with the Morloks the last few weeks, which I’ll try to cover in one massive update.
First, Dusty actually posted two blog entries recently. Ending his many-month long drought.
Katy I and were back in Minnesota the weekend of August 4th for KTJ (now KTP) and Mike Parish’s wedding. As always, it was great to see everyone. Pictures are available here. I actually took the pictures using Brogan’s camera. That digital SLR is pretty sweet. The wedding was fun but kinda weird. Weird because there were many teachers from my high school there, and it’s a little unnerving to be sitting around with your high school teachers and drinking. What was even more funny was Mrs. Schuweiler going around encouraging us to drink more (because the Parishes were paying).
Following the weekend in Minnesota, we celebrated Dusty’s birthday. Sadly, no pictures were taken, but they wouldn’t have been that good anyway, because one of the prerequisites to his agreement to go out was that we not tell anyone it was his birthday. No embarrassing happy birthday song at the restaurant.
The weekend of the 11th was spent in Michigan at Ben (Hilldore’s) parents house. Totally amazing trip, I’ve never been on a boat that awesome. I broke out my old water skiing skillz. Not bad for not having skiied for a few years (and probably only about 10 times lifetime total). I paid the price early last week as my back muscles were incredibly sore. Guess I don’t use those groups enough.
Following the weekend in Michigan, I took a last minute trip back to Minnesota for some meetings. Learned some good stuff related to the technology we’re looking at for Morlok Technologies, and I got to see everyone as well.
Finally, last night we celebrated Amanda’s birthday. Embarrassed her at Dos Reales by making her wear the sombrero grande and have happy birthday sung to her in spanish. The evening was quite creative, we went out looking to feed some ducks (sadly, it was too late and we didn’t find any) and then went to Laura’s school. We played on the playground and in the gym, which was quite entertaining. I won at PIG. Pictures available here.
… another great Samuel L. Jackson moment.