• Intense filing & sorting and house-related phone calls at work until about 4 PM, even though summer hours meant most people were gone before 1.
  
• Don my lucky Twins visor and head over to the Booty Barn for some pre-game libations with Derek and Vogtman.
  
• Muck shows up, all of a sudden I am getting my ass handed to me in quarters.
  
• Call 333-3333, the only phone number you can remember after a couple hours of binge drinking.
  
• While waiting for the cab to show up, squeeze in a few more drinking games and fill a borrowed flask with Grey Goose le Citron
  
• Hop a ride to the Metrodome on the Blue & White Taxi express to watch the Brewers take on the Twins
  
• Pass out during the 7th and 8th innings, waking up in time to see the Twins win and pretend as if I hadn't missed a thing.
  
• Shuffle over to Bullwinkle's, grab some pitchers and a deck of cards to play "Ride the Bus," en route to an encounter with the bouncer who was clearly not having as much fun as we were.
  
• Hop a ride on the Haysmobile back to the Booty Barn, and crawl behind the wheel of my car knowing I'm in no shape to drive.
  
• Wake up at 5:30 am, cold and somewhat confused, and still behind the wheel of a parked car
  
• Join 2 other cars on the road on the way home and crawl back into bed to sleep off a ridiculous hangover.
  
• Susan calls around 7, which wakes me up and makes me realize that the time to vomit has arrived.
  
• Sleep until noon, getting up just in time for some galf...
  

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Friday, June 25

Looooong

I knew if I didn't write every few hours at home this weekend, far too much stuff would pile up for a posting of any reasonable length. So I'll apologize in advance, but that's enough build up - I can't stand it when people spend an inordinate amount of time informing the audience about how long it was going to take to deliver their message...

I went to visit Johnny on Saturday afternoon, with whom Michael and I spent a combined 11 years and probably several thousand dollars taking private lessons from. It was the first time I'd seen him since high school, and needless to say we had both changed quite a bit and had lots of catching up to do. He is now 85, and still teaching 50 students a week (his peak was 100). I lost count of how many times he told me about "A former student of mine..."

• The trumpet player from the Tonight Show band
  
• Most of Racine Unified's music teachers
  
• Veterans of the 1 o'clock Lab Band at North Texas State
  
• Me ;)
  

Since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped by Barnes & Noble to say hello to Nikki, who got me started with all this weblog business a few months ago. She happened to be hiding from a 14 year old stalker when I showed up, so the nice man in the music department told her there was a tall, slender guy was looking for her. It's been a long time since I lost all that weight, but it's still kind of weird to hear a complete stranger choose the word "slender" to describe me. It was good to see her, and I even learned that she was born in the same area of California that Susan and I are moving to!

Karen & John's engagement party was a good time, with friends & family coming from all over the country to celebrate. We played bocce ball until it was too dark to see anything but the yellow ones - which is probably why Catherine took us all to the cleaners with her home back yard advantage. We spent the end of the evening at Harbor Fest 2K4, which was some damn good people watching. Everclear was off stage before 11 (wusses), but Pat McCurdy was nice enough to serenade us with a few of his wildly irreverent songs until the wee hours.

Sunday morning brought Fathers' Day - and the obligatory golf that accompanied it. I shot 53 on the front and back at Johnson Park, which could have been a lot less painful if I knew how to use a putter. I can't complain too much though - I played 36 holes of golf in 3 days - it was like Myrtle Beach all over again. Just 2 more parties to crash before leaving town - my grandparents' 60th anniversary celebration, and dinner with the Helding family. I didn't leave Racine until after 8, and made it bed a little before 3 AM. I spent the bulk of the ride listening my new audio book...

Now Playing: David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

posted by Brad at 6/25/2004 03:32:00 PM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

• I downloaded Denim & Corduroy and just began listening. Thanks for the fun weekend although I hope it's not your final visit to cheese country! Taking granddma, grandpa and Cathy to the Strawberry festival in Cedarburg tomorrow for a pancake breakfast. Yesterday was Terese's 25th bd! We saw Harry Potter yesterday (as well as Terminal) Love ya bunches! Mom

  By  Anonymous, at 6/26/2004 7:17 AM 

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Thursday, June 24

Sorry So Sorry

I can't believe it has been 5 days with no updates. I wrote a looong one at the hospital on Monday night, but it's trapped on my work laptop which is a lot of work to boot up at 12:22 AM. Why was I at the hospital you ask? That would be due to Rich's recent open heart surgery, which I can now report has been going well. I believe they are moving him out of Intensive Care, which is obviously a good sign. He recently "passed up" the guy who had surgery the same morning as he did, which means he is making good progress. Obviously, I hope that things work out well for both of them as recovering from this procedure isn't exactly a contest.

myPod arrived today, it was 2nd generation-tastic and scratch-o-riffic. Surprisingly, these things haven't bothered me so far since the big unit seems to be humming along nicely. I am a bit concerned about my SoundFeeder's ability to consistently feed a quality FM signal to my car stereo - when are they going to start making cars with 3.5 mm adapters in them for stuff like this? Or better yet, all cars could follow BMW's footsteps and integrate the iPod into the steering wheel controls. Ich liebe Deutschland...

A big thanks to Michael for "inviting" me to join the GMail beta party, my latest and greatest e-mail address is bradleypjohnson at gmail.com. If you've never seen anyone post their e-mail address online this way before, be advised that it is done to prevent spambots from trolling the internet and picking up their actual e-mail address for a little spamtastic fun. So far I mostly like GMail, but there are plenty of others out there who have been using it much longer and more vigorously than I.

I'll post more details from this past weekend tomorrow, as I'm sure you're dying to find out how it all went down.

Now Playing: Dave Brubeck - Jazz at the College of the Pacific

posted by Brad at 6/24/2004 12:18:00 AM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

• I can confirm that Dad Larson is doing well. When we left him last night he was just getting comfortable in his spacious private room that has not one but two windows from which he can spy the planes flying by, the cars in the parking ramp and even the birds nestling into the side of the building. We left him in the hands of his nurse Pam whom he seemed to warm up to immediately and besides a little pain in his shoulders and nausea he is doing well! Thank God!

  By  Anonymous, at 6/24/2004 7:32 AM 

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Saturday, June 19

Fiddy

2 rounds of golf in as many days - I'm lovin' it. Michael, Dad and I played Shoop again today, carding a 66, 59 and 50 respectively. For those of you keeping track, that's a paltry 1 stroke improvement for me - compared to MRJ's 6 stroke rally. I had a chance to break 50, but missed an 8 footer on the 9th green. Not bad, considering I started the round with a triple double, which is by the way NOT golfers should be proud of.

The 10 mile Lighthouse Run went right through the middle of the course we were playing, and I narrowly missed killing several of the runners after an errant shot (as many of mine are) bounced off the road, over their heads, and onto the 5th teebox. The most important thing I learned so far today is that, at timesh, I can actually throw my 7 iron farther than I can hit it. I'm pretty sure that's gonna come in handy at some point.

Now Playing: 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin'

posted by Brad at 6/19/2004 10:59:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Mient'wicz

I'm never going to a Brewers/Twins game at Miller Park again. For the 2nd time in a row, our beloved Twinks failed to defeat the Brew Crew in Milwaukee while I was one of the onlookers. Speaking of which, about 13,000 too many people showed up for us to get the nifty "retro" hats, but they turned out to be only marginally cool, so I'm not too broken up about missing out.

After the game, mom and pops napped in the car since the parking lot was - well, a parking lot. Cars were going nowhere, so MRJ and I played some catch and tried not to bust out anyone's windshield. That turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the evening, since I finally got to use the Easton Black Magic glove I bought several weeks ago. I should probably also mention that I titled this post due to being amused at the fact that Doug Mientkiewicz's entire last name was too much for the scoreboard to handle - what a nice way to wish Dougie a happy birthday.

Before the game, Michael and I took in a round at Shoop Park Golf Course. I shot a 51, which is not too terrible considering the course was like playing on a big wet sponge. We had so much fun, in fact, that we're going to wake up in 5 hours to join David for another go at it. I should probably stop typing now, I hope my shoes dry out overnight...

Now Playing: Stone Temple Pilots - Purple

posted by Brad at 6/19/2004 12:48:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Friday, June 18

myPod

I just won an eBay auction for my very own iPod. I should be stoked, as I got a 20 GB model for under $200 - a 50% discount from the current $399 retail. The problem is, I didn't realize until after placing my bid that it was a 2nd generation model - and not the new fangled 3G one.

I learned firsthand what an OHNOSECOND feels like, and then bartergalore added insult to injury by bidding me up to just below my max. The funniest thing about all this is that blogging ab00t it has been quite theraputic, and now I'm really quite excited to get the little bugger and play around with it. Michael has also been a tremendous help throughout this entire process, by looking at auctions with me as well as consoling me after "the purchase." He also showed me andale.com, which is a must-stop if you're going to sell anyting on eBay.

Oh and by the way I am now in the great state of Wisconsin for one last Racine "hurrah" before the move out to Cali. The drive last night was all too uneventful, and gave me a 350 mile glimpse of what driving 2,000+ miles by myself would be like - now I'm even gladder that I bought the iPod :) I feel like there were several blog-worthy things that popped into my head during the 6 hour journey last night, but of course I wrote none of them down and am now therefore drawing one huge blank. This should be an action-packed weekend, and there will be much to share so buckle up and hold on to yer britches!

Now Playing: Evanescence - Fallen

posted by Brad at 6/18/2004 11:55:00 AM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

• First off, gladder is not a word, at least not until they add it to the dictionary as they did ohnosecond. Second of all, mom and pop Larson took a little look see into the distance between Eagan and 6694 Allegheny Place on the Pacifica's GPS and they have reported back that it is a mere 1,180 miles there. We double checked it on mapquest and it confirmed your estimation is correct. Technology! Can't agree on anything. We're excited to have you back here in MN but we hope you enjoy your final visit to cheese country. Rebecca

  By  Anonymous, at 6/19/2004 11:28 AM 

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Wednesday, June 16

Black & Tan

I wasn't sure what to title today's post - until I opened my mail. I signed up for it ages ago, and my very own Guinness bar towel arrived today - get your own at guinnessoffer.com. It's a shame that I don't have a bar, but maybe we can get that on the list of "home improvements to do." While on the topic of alcohol, the 1/2 bottle of wine I drank yesterday while watching the Pistons pwnz0r the Lakers made me a bit sluggish today. Since I was raised to not be wasteful, I'm going to have to subject myself to some more abuse tonight...

Another "I'm subscribed to a shitload of magazines" gem is the descending wine course at GQ.com. I must really love beverages in general, since I partook in some Amy's Blend at Boo Bou today. I've also been drinking quite a bit of H₂0 lately, thanks in no small part to my somewhat new Eddie Bauer Lexan bottle. I'll never forget the saying from Philmont - that you should always pee "clear and copious." Was that really 6 years ago? Or was it 7? Did I ever tell you about the green poop caused by eating all natural food, and how we ate greasy Pizza Hut right after coming off the trail? It wasn't a pretty sight.

Billy Bob Thornton's body double apparently works at the "local" Caribou, and he stumped me with today's trivia question:

Q: What "icon" appears in every episode of Seinfeld?
A: Superman (apparently Jerry is a fan, remember the AMEX commercials?)

Damn - no 10¢ discount for me today...

Now Playing: The White Stripes - Elephant

posted by Brad at 6/16/2004 06:13:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Tuesday, June 15

Stalling

Wines are supposed to be served within a certain temperature range, and the bottle of Cabarnet Franc in the fridge is no exception, well on its way into the 64.4° - 68° F recommendation made by... Hormel? I ALWAYS misspell reccomendation < see?

Commence stalling...

Apparently, the Lakers are going to win tonight. I hope that happens about as much as I believe that Bill Clinton suddenly started blogging.

I got outbid on an iPod today, but that's okay because I'm still not 100% sure that I want/need one. Speaking of Apple, a coworker shared a somewhat amusing commercial with me today. I figured I'd upLOTR it, but you modem people beware that it is about 50 MB. She also recently shared a list of New Words for 2004 that you may or may not enjoy.

Now Playing: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

posted by Brad at 6/15/2004 07:17:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Sunday, June 13

AFBT June 2004

Arthur
Frommer's
Budget
Travel

I could probably base an entire blog on the interesting tidbits that I read in magazines...

• cheapflights.com seems to be worth checking out - it used to be exclusive to the UK but has jumped across the pond. It goes a step above engines like Orbitz and Travelocity by including consolidators and low-cost carriers (think Southwest).
  
• Book Crossing is an interesting concept, I just "released" the Insiders' Guide to Myrtle Beach
  
• Budget Travel jumped on the blog bandwagon with the Savings Sleuth.
  

I'm in a really good mood right now. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm not going to spend too much time trying to figure it out for fear of losing my current good mood status. Just got to the starbucks@50th&france.com, enjoying a little T-Mobile HotSpot action while waiting for Susan to get done babysitting for two naughty little boys. Need some free coffee? Between the Coffee & Chicory from Cafe du Monde, a "gifted" foil bag from the Olive Garden, and some stuff Jeff brought back from the Dominican Republic, I would benefit more from a hole in my head.

This just in: Stockton, CA was just named one of ten All-American cities for 2004. They can put the trophy next to the one they won in 1999, and chalk it all up to the fact that Eddie Guardado was born & raised up in therre.

I should also mention that I'm thrilled to see the Lakers down 3-1 to Detroit. Although I haven't paid much attention to the games thus far, things seem to be working themselves out just fine. After watching the Twins beat Philadelphia 6-1 the other night, I'm very much looking forward to the Brewers/Twins game on Friday evening, and the super hot retro cap I plan to acquire.

Now Playing: Pure Funk, Vol. 1

posted by Brad at 6/13/2004 09:56:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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BlogThis! - eBay

Need some flatware?

posted by Brad at 6/13/2004 07:31:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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BlogThis! - Jason Mraz @ First Ave

As I was reading a story about the girl who got Chris Rock's old cell phone number from Verizon, I "discovered" that I had a recording of the Jason Mraz concert that Susan and I went to back on October 20th, 2003.

I don't think I've actually listened to it since using Loop Recorder to capture a Cities 97 rebroadcast a few days after the show, but it's pretty good so far and (obviously) quite different from his debut CD. Hopefully, the fact that it is in ASF format doesn't stop you from checking it out.

I'm looking forward to seeing him open for the Dave Matthews Band at Sleep Train Ampitheatre on August 31st - maybe Susan will get to meet him this time around. After a failed attempt to catch a Mraz show in Madison back in April of 2003, Nick and I saw him the next night at the Eagles Club in Milwaukee, and were fortunate enough to meet the band and collect a few autographs to keep and give away.

posted by Brad at 6/13/2004 02:08:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Saturday, June 12

Pepin Tom

I admit it - the novelty of blogging has waned slightly over the past several days, as can be ascertained by the decreased frequency of my posts. I suppose it could be attributed to the minor distraction that is purchasing a home for the first time and moving across the country, but I don't want to make excuses. At any rate, I'm writing against the clock as I'm due to be sitting in Section 127, Row 13, Seat 16 at the Metrodome in precisely 34 minutes.

Has it really been since Wednesday? Gosh - let's get up to speed, shall we? After another enthralling day of work on Thursday, I met up with post-playdate Susan and joined some Target folk at the TGI Friday's in Woodbury - which, like everything else I've ever heard of in Woodbury, is on Radio Drive. We had some good eats and drinks, then bailed out to catch the unfortunate finale of NBA Finals Game 3.

After a half day turned almost full day at work on Friday, I visited my new friends at Back in Shape Chiropractic, where they took a fancy picture of my back called an sEMG. If I wasn't speedblogging, I'd totally upload the picture for all to enjoy. After loading the car chock full o' camping gear in an absolute downpour, we made the risky decision to head to Hok Si La Park for some camping with friends on Lake Pepin. I took a screenshot of weather.com prior to leaving, but the power must have gone out and all was for not. It ended up being a great (almost rain free) time, and we even got in some water skiing and tubing prior to the early departure that was necessitated by stupid retail hours.

I'm off to the game, but not before a message from our sponsors:

• My mom once knew a student named Shithead (pronounced shih-thee-add), but this is worse.
  
• If you don't know why this is cool, go here.
  

Now Playing: Maynard Ferguson - One More Trip to Birdland

posted by Brad at 6/12/2004 06:01:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Wednesday, June 9

Ooh, Fajitas

Prior to looking in the mirror a few minutes ago, I had never met anyone who had eaten fajitas for three meals in a row. How did such shenanigans go down? I'm glad you asked. First, Dawn & I caught up over lunch at Chili's, then I was (as usual) late meeting up with Susan, Becca and Dan on their anniversary. They were kind enough to order for me, and just happened to pick the combo fajitas at Doolittle's. Due to the ginormous-ness of the Mushroom Jack fajita from Chili's, leftovers were on tap for dinner tonight.

With a full stomach, I'm proud to announce that the sellers accepted our counteroffer today, so we are about to become the proud new owners of a mortgage. Our new address will be:

        6944 Allegheny Place
        Stockton, CA 95219 (map)

For your viewing pleasure, I've also uploaded some pictures from our trip to Stockton and of the new place. I'll spare you the 175 other pictures of random houses in the Stockton/Lodi area that didn't make the cut.

Have you ever heard of Petals Around the Rose? Until yesterday, neither had I. It's a puzzle/brain tease/thingy, and it apparently stumped Bill Gates for over an hour and a half. Dmitry told me about it at work yesteday, but since I am such a focused worker lately, I saved the link to try at home. I recenly gave it a whirl, and was shocked by the fact that it took me about 30 seconds to conquer. There are a few simple rules on the page with the game, just keep in mind that the name of the game is significant.

That nifty "saving the link to try at home" business mentioned above was brought to you by the letter D and Pluck. I recently downloaded Pluck in a desparate attempt to keep track of the growing number of blogs I find myself unexplicably drawn to. After reading PC World's roundup of RSS readers, I settled on the Official RSS Reader of Fark, whose price can't be beat. We'll see how I feel after spending some time with the 'ol IE sidebar, but first impressions are sehr güt.

Now Playing: Disturbed - The Sickness

posted by Brad at 6/09/2004 08:22:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Monday, June 7

Counter Offers

Aah, back in (humid) Minnesota. After a 2 1/2 hour nap this morning, I spent a glorious 45 minutes in traffic attempting to travel 15 miles - and managed to turn over 15,000 miles on my Mazda 6 in the process. At this clip (300 mi/week), my warranty will expire in September 2006 - 39 months into the 48 month coverage period. Never mind that someone is going to drive it 2,000 miles in a few weeks - Bueller? Anyone?

Rolled into work about 10 (the California lifestyle is rubbing off already), and started to wait. And wait. FINALLY, our realtor called and said that she heard back from both the sellers on our two offers. The sellers on Porter had a bunch of wacky requests (including more money, what up with that?), so we told them to go shove their contingencies up their asses. 6944 Allegnhy was all ab00t our offer, but wanted to clarify the pest inspection details and close 30 days after the purchase agreement was signed. This changes closing by a few measly days, but otherwise it looks like we're good to go (crossing fingers).

Tonight was thoroughly action-packed, including renting Miracle (but not actually watching it) and doing some much-needed laundry. Becca & Dan's 2 year anniversary is tomorrow, which brings me back to the rehearsal dinner when I had to cut the prime rib into pencil eraser-sized bites as my upper jaw wasn't capable of chewing. Aah, memories.

Speaking of memories, it was one year ago that I took the wonderful GMAT. Quick shout out to Will Hsu and The Princeton Review for helping me get a respectable score...

Noteworthy:

• Stockton-Lodi, CA area tops the list of fastest growing home apprecaition rates in the country
  
• Nick got a job at Spee Dee Delivery
  
• J-Lo got married... again.
  
• Jason Mraz is singing the national anthem at the Lakers/Pistons game tomorrow night (Jun 8th @ 8PM CST)
  

Now Playing: Rent - Official Soundtrack

posted by Brad at 6/07/2004 05:44:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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San Francisco Treat

11:30 PM, sitting in the airport waiting to board the red eye that will get us into Minneapolis at the lovely hour of 5:15 AM. Derek loves us so much, he was willing to pull an all-nighter and pick us up - thanks to Rebecca, that won't be necessary. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a T-Mobile HotSpot here at Terminal 1/Gate 33, so here we blog...

For our last day in Cali (this month), we headed towards Stockton to look at a few more houses and "get to know" the town a bit better. We started at the neighborhood McDonalds, where they rung up a strawberry sundae as "1 FUDSUN W/TOMATO PLAIN" and then proceeded to wait 5 minutes before delivering it. While waiting for our tomato sundae, I noticed a sign on the wall which enouraged "Crew Alumni" to join a mailing list by sending current information to mcopportunities@mcd.com - how can I resist?

We met up with our realtor and looked at several houses, just in case one of our two offers don't work out. Does it alarm anyone besides me that we use the phrase "pee carpet" to describe the #3 house on our list? The urine smell whet our appetite for beef, queue up a trip to IN-N-OUT Burger, where Susan fell in love but doesn't want to know that our lunch was 1550 calories.

Thanks to a brilliant suggestion from Cathy, we headed towards Berkley and found Jim Stanek waiting to drive a converted cable car around the "Taste of Albany." Susan and I ended up buying a $25 ticket from the Chamber of Commerce and sampling the fare at 12 out of the 15 restaurants on the list (it got chilly when the sun went down!). It turned out to be a fantastic time, except I'm now afraid that Susan would rather live in Albany.

Per my previous comment about Noah's Ark being the bomb diggity of waterparks, Jim informed me that it is apparently only the 10th best in the country. I must refrain from endorsing this list until I have partaken in the watery goodness of each park myself, so don't hold your breath. Haha!

Now Playing: Breathe - A Bluegrass Tribute to Dave Matthews Band

posted by Brad at 6/07/2004 01:25:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Saturday, June 5

Waterlogged

Fresh out of the shower after a few hours with Susan at Waterworld USA, I've had my fill of H₂0 for the day. Except I think I'm dehydrated, so I'm going to have to feign interest for a bit longer to get rid of this damn headache. Here are a few lowlights from today's adventure:

• Wasting 45 minutes on multiple computers trying to Print 'N Go and save $8
  
• Spending $7 on parking when we could have walked from our hotel
  
• $10 for tubes to use in the lazy river, which was therefore full of running children
  
• A wave pool barely half the size of Big Kahuna, featuring whistle-happy lifeguards who cleared the pool every 45 minutes and made an obnoxious safety announcement every 15.
  
• Cold imitation cheese sauce on the nachos.
  

Apparently, I have been spoiled by all the trips to Noah's Ark as a kid - thanks Mom & Dad.

Fast-forward to Sunday morning - STILL no word on either of our offers, which is frustrating but also to be expected. It's going to be hella weird to get on the plane tonight with NO idea if we have a house to move into a month from now. We're going to head back down to Stockton today and look at another house or two, just in case our current offers fall through.

We traveled to Raley Field last night to catch some AAA (much more wholesome than XXX) action between the Sacramento River Cats and Edmonton Trappers. The home team won 4-3, which is apparently no surprise to the defending PCL champions and owners of the best record (and best player?) in all of the minors.

Today's sign that Susan's world (TV) and my world (computer) are colliding - She was just watching "Best Week Ever" on VH1, and they encouraged viewers to visit their blog.

Now Playing: Outkast - The Love Below

posted by Brad at 6/05/2004 05:37:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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BlogThis! - Blue Devils & DCI Stuff

Susan and I are trying to decide what to do tomorrow, and were thinking about going to the Sacramento Waterworld USA. I was looking at other Six Flags parks nearby, and noticed there is one in Concord, CA. That reminded me of the Blue Devils, so I headed to bluedevils.org and found some audio clips of the 2004 show that were just uploaded after the Memorial Day band camp 2 days ago.

What is "BlogThis!", you query? It's part of the Google Toolbar, which has become an integral part of how I get around the Intarweb. (In case you weren't aware, Google owns Blogger.) It allows you to click a button whenever you discover a blog-worthy page, and it pops up a handy little window to add comments, links, etc.

• Check out the Santa Clara Vanguard for a sweet park & blow of the 1st movement of their 2004 program (recorded 5/30/04).
  
• The Cavaliers are doing 007 this year, according to this story & video clip from their March Camp.
  
• Is Katie Kraus trying out for Drum Major of the Kilties?
  
• I still get goosebumps every time I hear The Mission...
  

Now Playing: Josh Groban - In Concert

posted by Brad at 6/05/2004 12:22:00 AM | permalink | 1 comments

1 Comments:

• 2 ? ...why the bottle caps? ...Is ist rue that General Mills has been purchased by Nestle? mom

  By  Anonymous, at 6/05/2004 6:26 AM 

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Friday, June 4

A feeling of calm

has descended over me. This afternoon, Susan and I made purchase offers on two properties:

• 6944 Alleghny Pl, 95219
  
• 1604 Porter Pl, 95207

They both evoked pretty strong emotional reactions in each of us, and we're really anxious to hear back from the sellers. Hopefully, this piece of the ever-changing moving puzzle will soon be squared away.

To celebrate, we sought out some muy guapo Mexican food at El Torito, where the Corona Light apprently sucks. The waiter man was kind enough to hook me up with a bag of 150 bottle caps, which contained:

• 60 Corona
  
• 21 Bud Light
  
• 20 Coors Light
  
• 10 Pacifico
  
• 10 Budweiser
  
• 7 Miller Lite
  
• 6 mysterious foil-covered ones
  
• 4 MGD & Heineken
  
• 3 Sol (which is what I had, num num)
  
• 2 Sharp's & Dos Equis XX
  
• 1 Corona Light (must have been Susan's)

I think Nick has had quite a few himself, as he just called...

Q: Why does Michael Jackson like twenty eight year olds?

A: Because there are 20 of them :)

Now Playing: Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

posted by Brad at 6/04/2004 10:32:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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Et Cetera...

Once we survived the bumpy landing at SFO, we found our way to the Embarcadero and met up with Missy and Tim for dinner at Gordon Biercsh - mmm mmm good. During the 90 mile trek into Suckramento, we discovered out that Greg & Natalie sold their house, at a price just slightly out of our range. We checked into the Vagabond, and were disappointed by the lack of "dirty homeless people" in our room :(

Currently, Susan is doing an "interview" at the Stockton Target. I'm 500 yards away at Kinko's, trying to connect for the first time to a T-Mobile HotSpot on a free trial I just signed up for. It worked at first, but then pooped out and doesn't seem to want to re-connect. I swear there is something wrong with the drivers on this WiFi card, because I usually have to reb00t my home router to get the 'ol NC6000 connected. Good thing I'm not wasting my time doing something silly like actually trying to find houses in the Stockton area.

We have now entered "learn as much as you can about Stockton as quickly as possible" mode, and were fortunate to find an agent who had more than 4 hours on Saturday available to spend with us. While we waited for her to finish up other appointments, we dined at Moo Moo's Burger Barn, where they don't have much more than the red barn painted on the wall going for them. A couple women at the Parks & Recreation Dept were rather helpful, offering up tidbits like "Don't live south of Harding."

We looked at 4 townhouses this evening, ranging in price from $185K to $250K, including:

• 1604 Porter
  
• 999 Porter Ave

The plan is to go through a whole bunch more tomorrow afternoon & evening, so there will be much more to share. I must admit, there seems to be an ENDLESS list of things on my mind as we are going through this process. The hot tub was a much needed mental and physical break, but now it's time to tuck myself in. As I reread this, I feel compelled to apologize for my exhaustion taking toll on the "wittiness factor" lately.

Guten Abend.

Now Playing: Dave Matthews Band - Under the Table and Dreaming

posted by Brad at 6/04/2004 01:47:00 AM | permalink | 3 comments

3 Comments:

• Brad, It sounds like you are stressed out! Try to clear you head with a bud light...and a nap? I'm kind of worried about you not because your productivity has dropped but I fear you are headed for a crash!!!!
  
  Love ya, Mom

  By  Anonymous, at 6/04/2004 3:52 PM 

• Brad, It sounds like you are stressed out! Try to clear you head with a bud light...and a nap? I'm kind of worried about you not because your productivity has dropped but I fear you are headed for a crash!!!!
  
  Love ya, Mom

  By  Anonymous, at 6/04/2004 3:53 PM 

• Update - I think I found a workaround to the mysterious XP WiFi problem on Wired News, but haven't actually tried it personally.

  By  Anonymous, at 6/05/2004 12:49 AM 

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Thursday, June 3

Let us Jet Set, be like the Jetsons

I find myself at the HHH Metrodo, er - Terminal, surrounded by, as Susan puts it, "weird f*ing people." We are waiting to board the Boeing 737-800 that will transport us to far away lands, but not before we run into Susan's college roommate Kelly. As we sat in the toenail-painting section of gate H3, Susan leaned over my shoulder and wondered aloud what the HTML tag I had just typed meant. I was more than happy to explain that it's deceptively easy to create one of my world-famous blog links:

<a href="http://www.somewebpage.com">The Underlined part</a>

Since her reaction to the lesson was nothing short of unbridled enthusiasm, I offered up another snippet for her to ponder:

<img src="">

Susan: "An image?"
Brad: "Yep."
Susan: "Of a scrotum?"
Brad: "You always say such blog-worthy things."

On the plane now, the girl in front of me is writing poetry on the back of the barf bag - how poetic. I've been plowing through the June 2004 issue of Men's Health, and had to pull out the laptop to jot down some of the gems I've come across.

• A new book called Window Seat, which contains a foldout map of North American flight paths, aerial photographs, and detailed descriptions of the tiny specks we're flying over.
  
• 60% of cohabitating couples get married within 10 years of moving in together. During the same period, 38% break up. Apparently the other 2% are still dating.
  
• For a mere $300 and 6 months of your time, you could change your name to Billy Bob Barbeque! More realistic examples abound:
  

Did you know that...	...is actually?
Woody Allen	Allan Stewart Konigsberg
Eric Clapton	Eric Clapp
Elvis Costello	Declan Patrick MacManus
Tom Cruise	Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
Vin Diesel	Mark Vincent
Bruce Lee	Lee Jun Fan
Stevie Wonder	Steveland Judkins Hardaway

The coffee on Sun Country isn't bad, but ranks below NWA. Maybe that's why the tickets are cheaper? Susan looks so cute when she's sleeping...

Now Playing: N.E.R.D. - Fly or Die

posted by Brad at 6/03/2004 01:16:00 AM | permalink | 0 comments

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Tuesday, June 1

Welcome Home, OK Bye Now

After 10 long months of volunteering in New Orleans (pronounced oar-linz as opposed to oar-leens), Rebecca has returned to her native habitat with beaucoup stories and a tattoo on the small of her back. I totally just pulled a coup d'etat on the word "beaucoup" from her, since she has been using it quite a bit lately. This reminds me of Boku, the |337 juice box from back in the day - remember? Apparently this outspoken DMB fan and ex-blogger is the only other person on the Intarweb who does...

So here we are, on the eve of what will probably be a very significant trip for Susan and I. Tomorrow, we fly to California in hopes of finding and purchasing our first house. My mental state seems to be an ever-changing emotional clusterfuck, including (but not limited to):

• Excitement
  
• Nausea
  
• Anxiety
  
• Happiness
  
• Anticipation
  
• Confusion

I suppose that nausea really isn't an emotion, is it? At any rate, I'm really looking forward to this weekend being over, hopefully having found a great place to spend the next couple years of my life (and most of the money I make during it!)

For more than one reason, I hope that my superiors at work haven't stumbled across The Myth yet, as I must admit that my motivation & productivity at work have been decreasing at an alarming rate since accepting the offer in CA. I suppose this is at least somewhat normal, but I feel terrible nevertheless. I bet this ex-Microsoft employee wishes that his boss had never come across his blog

Lord I'm tired. Just finished using my Head Wizard, so I'm quite relaxed nowZZzzzz....


Now Playing: Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker

posted by Brad at 6/01/2004 11:56:00 PM | permalink | 0 comments

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