In addition to the faire folks we had dinner with both nights, we were also lucky to have lifeonwry’s brother and his lovely wife join us as well. It was nice to get the opportunity to catch up with her brother, and to actually meet his wife.

As far as CD purchases go, I purchased “Hither Dither and Yon’s album: The Mad But Not Angry Tour”, “Empty Hats: Released”, “Porter & Stout: Three Sheets to the Wind; Live at the Claddagh”, “Porter & Stout: Treasures”, and “Axel the Sot: Songs to Sing When You’re Drunk”

I have returned safely from the TN Renaissance Festival. I can not thank Bob enough for all his efforts in arranging the trip, and for doing all the driving. You rock Bob! I also must thank Jen N. a million times over for putting up with the split guy / girl rooms. Also thank you to Bouncy Jen for having such an upbeat fun attitude all weekend, and not to mention a mind like a steel trap. An extra special thank you to Neisha, for making the trip out, and bringing Dina and Bethany with! It was so great to have you all back at faire.
Pictures are posted at: http://www.wohlershome.net/gallery/v/Renfaire/TNRF/TNRF_2008/
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Jen has arrived to Bob and Jen’s and the three of them will shortly be heading here to pick me up on my way to our great 2008 TNRF adventure. MUAHHAHHA! Look out world, here we come.

This past weekend marked the start of my faire season. What a great start, I have to admit I woke up Saturday and almost went back to bed. I really didn’t think I wanted to bother going. I finally convinced myself it would be worth it, loaded up the garb, a change of clothes, and made the 90 mile drive to Janesville. I am thrilled that I did it. I really needed this weekend, and I didn’t realize how badly. I changed in the parking lot, and stepped onto the site and it felt as if I had lost a years worth of stress in all of 2 minutes time. As I walked through the simple gates I was met by smiling faces of friends who welcomed me with open arms. The weekend was spent playing with patrons, stalking musicians, kindling new friendships / renewing old ones, and helping out friends when they needed it. On Sunday I ran into Ron and Susan Scott-Fry the entertainment directors for Bristol, or rather they ran into me as I was playing with a couple patrons. Ron complemented me on Hawsers voice, as well as my shedding of my glasses… (Something he suggested a couple years back, that I have now been doing for about a year) Sunday also included Bounding Main bringing Robin Hood, Little John, and myself up on stage to join them in closing their show by singing “Health to the Company”, that was really really cool too.
The weekend also found Mr Hawser making his way into photos, and videos. I have to admit to finding that pretty cool also.

MAJOR KUDOS to all the staff, performers, and anyone else that had a hand in putting together the Janesville faire. What a top notch group!

All in all, a fabulous start to the season. This weekend, I’m off to the Tennessee faire with Bob, Jen, and Jen. I can’t wait!

Well, the iPod is fully operational again, and has been for a week or so. I got the new drive in and once I installed it, and reloaded the software everything came up as normal. It took a good 4 hours to load all the music back on, but now that I have it back I’m feeling whole again.

The car window was replaced last Friday, and I’m actually counting this as a blessing. The window had apparently been replaced before I bought the car, and replaced badly. There was rust starting to form under the windshield, which could have seriously jeopardized the safety of the car. The technician, Parish, was extremely knowledgeable and friendly, and explained every step he took during the repair. He requested that I stay during the repairs so that I wouldl be on hand to see any problems, if they cropped up so that I would know he didn’t cause them. He also gave me pointers on what to look at in the future to tell if a window has been replaced poorly.

So, ok gravity itself isn’t really to blame… Gravel trucks suck… Today on my way back from lunch a hunk of gravel bounced up from a truck in front of me and broke my windshield. I’m not happy about that… However, I called the insurance company, and in 20 minutes time, I had an appointment to have my windshield replaced at work tomorrow morning. Not bad at all for turnaround time.

Ok, I am a little slow in hearing about this, but WOW this is freaking cool. Disney / Muppet Labs have an AWESOME mobile anamatronic. “The Muppet Mobile Labs” featuring Dr Bunsen Honeydew, and Beaker!!!! My two favorite Muppets out wandering the park in their version of a segway and they are fully interactive… This whole setup is amazing…

There has to be something I can come up with along these lines (not as cool or as smooth in motion I’m sure) for Halloween though…

More info plus videos are at: http://www.laughingplace.com/Lotion-View-376.asp

Ok, this is probably going to sound bizzare, but I swear when I’m feeling under the weather, or in a weird mental state, technology just goes wonky around me. Yesterday the email sync server at work, that is responsible for syncing my email to my phone, decided to start forwarding my work email to Chris Maka’s phone… It did it again today… I talked to the guys at work, and they couldn’t find anything wrong. Then later this morning, I got a phone call from Christopher in I.T. (what’s with the Chris names…) informing me that my work voice mail is forwarding to him. Now, Friday I had voice mail on my phone, so I know it was working correctly then, but what the heck…

I just happened to glance at my keyboard on my laptop, and noticed that some of the most heavily used keys are starting to have some of the lettering wear off. The funniest one is the right shift key. the final t is completely gone, as is the curl on the top of the “f”, leaving me with a “Shit” key…

Hey who knew it.. there’s a referral program with my hosting company…

Still no iPod… You know it’s funny, I resisted the idea of owning an iPod for so damn long, and now I’m going stir crazy without it… Funny…

A few weeks ago I noticed a pub/restaurant that can be on my way home, that has Open Mic night on Tuesdays. I’ve gone every Tuesday night since. It’s enjoyable, I was hoping there would be some folk music, so far there hasn’t been but it is all acoustic. So far it hasn’t chased me off, and it’s nice to have something to go to that’s close. People have already learned my name, and have been really friendly, and welcoming even though all I do is sit and listen. (ok, yeah I do sing along from my seat)

Wow, its late, I should get to bed…

Tonight is one of those rough nights… I just feel it all so strong again tonight… the questions come with the same old empty answers… I find myself thinking back and just wishing somehow it never happened… Why did there have to be a tree, why? Why no helmet? There’s just no words, tears, plenty of those… I’ll cope… I always do… That’s the way it works…

How fragile life is, cherish every moment of it.

Tonight I grilled asparagus, and bourbon glazed steaks, with a side of wasp nest…
Yes, wasp nest…
I started the grill up, and opened it only ot have a number of wasps fly out at me, but fortunately they seemed a little gassed and were not to interested in stinging me. The little buggers had decided to start building a nest hanging from my top grate in my grill… BAD MOVE on their part.

WOW!
I absolutely loved this movie. Batman Begins was my favorite superhero movie , but now it might have just gotten replaced by Iron Man. WOW WOW WOW WOW… A movie for geeks totally, and I’ll happily admit to I fit that bill!

Oh and, the scene after all the credits… Talk about a setup… DAMN! Although really, I must question the actor choice in that scene… I wasn’t expecting that choice at all, and was having a hard time believing it… I’ll get used to the idea,I’ve accepted Starbuck and Boomer as women, so why not this change as well…

ugh.. my iPod is still dead… I’ve replaced the battery, and that had nothing to do with its problems. While I had the iPod open i did notice a very disturbing dent on the top cover of the hard drive. The dent comes form the inside out, YIKES! I purchased an adapter (two actually) to allow me to install the iPod drive into a regular computer, and run diagnostics on it. The 2 computers I tried couldn’t even see the drive. I then tried the drive installed in a USB enclosure designed for this style of drive, and still the drive remains invisible to the system. It died good… no chance of recovering anything on it. So, whatever I don’t have backed up.. is gone for good.
For those who are curious, I have attached a photo of the drive, with the dent circled in red.