Been busy lately, and free evenings have primarily been spent just chilling out with Michael and a movie or two.
Thursday evening was spent at a PLUG West meeting, where Amul Shah did a presentation on HD and Linux. He’s obviously done TONS of research on the subject, as his slides were packed with links to a variety of valuable websites on the subject and HD in general. Both Michael and I enjoyed the presentation and soon afterward were plotting the purchase of all this equipment for the move to HD. It also made it painfully obvious that the final switch from analog to digital that is scheduled for 2009 is far too close, and I expect it’ll be pushed back again. If techie people like myself are still so uninformed about the switch that does not bode well for the rest of the public, comments were made at the meeting about mobs with pitchforks. After the meeting we headed over to Flanigan’s Boathouse with about half the crowd of the meeting for a couple beers, we met a couple new people and got to catch up with some other friends and learned that a good friend of ours is moving to San Francisco in October. The second friend this year to leave for SF! Sigh. Happy he’s gotten the opportunity though, it should be pretty awesome for him.
Friday, System Administrator Appreciation Day, Michael and I celebrated by taking each other out to Greater India. The dinner was amazing as usual and highlighted nicely by a nice bottle of Italian white that we discovered a few weeks ago. I love that place. After dinner we headed home to watch some Rifftrax. Michael made a list of all the ones we’ve seen so far, and after this weekend Casino Royale and The Wickerman can be added to that list.
Saturday morning I skipped out to the gym in the morning, spent most of my afternoon reading (I’m now about 100 pages away from the end of Cryptonomicon). Around 4PM Bob dropped by and shortly afterwards we headed out for the Brew at the Zoo, a brewfest at the Norristown Zoo. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The $35 ticket included admission to the zoo, all the beer tasting you wanted and food provided by several local shops, which is pretty great for a beer festival. We met up with several friends and after monopolizing a table for about an hour with food and runs to beer tables, got to explore the zoo. The format was great, the entire zoo was set up with tables for the 20-30 breweries they had there, tables for tasting spread throughout the facility. The weather was warm, enough that we were sweating, but not intolerable once the sun started setting and the breeze picked up. As far as beer went I was unadventurous and stuck primarily to breweries I knew about, the glorious exception being the Keystone Homebrew table, where winners of a recent homebrew contest each had 5 gallons of their brews. A fellow named George Wyatt made an IPA that was quite hoppy and enjoyable, but in my opinion the gem of the contest was Wardell Massey’s Raspberry Tripel, which identifies me as totally giving in to my girly love for fruity beer. I also got to try Weyerbacher’s Imperial Pumpkin Ale, which was an extraordinary brew, Weyerbacher just keeps impressing me. In all, it was a fantastic time, and we’re definitely going back next year. After the brewfest Bob, Nita and mct came back to our house to hang out. We had a few more beers, watched some movies and spent until 3:30AM just hanging out and talking. It was a great evening.
Sunday morning I woke up far too early for the 4AM bedtime. As I was rubbing the sleep out of my eyes Michael was saying good morning to Caligula and noticed he was acting a little odd. He was flopped down on the floor and very cranky about moving. When we did get him to walk he seemed off-balance, and his tail was all floppy and off to one side. Oh no! Michael felt around the base and felt a bit of a lump that when touched made Caligula get quite upset. The verdict was pretty much that he’d injured in somehow Saturday when Michael was giving both cats a bath. Caligula’s been in a lousy mood all week (heat probably) so I didn’t think much of it when he was acting miserable right after the bath, but looking back he was unusually reluctant to clean himself off and seemed more uncomfortable than usual following bath time. Naturally I called the vet as soon as we determined there was a real problem, and got an appointment for 11:15 that morning. I was pretty worried. The wait at the vet was pretty long, the vet we go to doesn’t have regular visits scheduled on Sundays, so their limited hours are only for injuries and other timely care and one of the critters that came in before Caligula was pretty sick. When Caligula was finally seen he was very very upset. Hissing, growling, and the doctor actually asked if he would bite (!) and called in a tech to help hold him while he did the examination. The verdict? Probably a bad bruising or sprain, the base of his tail is quite swollen but probably wasn’t broken. Phew! He was put on some pain medication and we were sent home with instructions to keep an eye on him and contact the vet if his condition doesn’t improve within the next 3-4 days.
We arrived home from the vet around 12:30 and I called Michael, who was on his way to a sweat lodge, to let him know the status. That’s when he convinced me that I had time to hop in my truck and head down to the sweat as well, so I did. The sweat was at the Birdsong Peace Chamber, and the first one at that location that I’ve attended. It was almost identical to the Malvern Sweat Lodge, as the owners both had the same teacher and are close friends themselves. It was a hot day for it though, I wore my usual sweat lodge getup of a bathing suit and cotton shorts, and was sweating before the lodge even started! Of the four rounds of the lodge, I ended up making it through three of them, which was pretty good for me. Michael stuck it out for the whole thing, as is usual for him, but it was universally agreed that it was a pretty intense lodge. I have to say that I handle the wintertime lodges much better. After the sweat we got to take a dip in the pool and then enjoyed a community meal where I met a few people Michael knew from the Sun Moon dance he worked with a couple weeks ago.
When I got home after the sweat I took a shower and noticed I’d managed to get a pretty nice sunburn on my shoulders. Ouch. I hadn’t really thought about it while at the lodge, and in retrospect I’m not sure there would have been a good time to apply suntan lotion anyway. I would have sweat it all off in the lodge, it would have been washed off by the pool… and so I am in a bit of sunburn pain now, ouch again. After the shower I promptly went upstairs with the air-conditioning and took a much needed two hour nap. When I finally woke up Michael and I watched movies for a couple hours.
And now it’s Monday morning. I’m still a bit tired and ran out for a cup of coffee this morning, will no doubt turn in pretty early this evening.