Some people live in the spotlight. Some people spend their lives trying to be in the spotlight. Some, resist the light all together. Then there are those unique few whom carry their spotlight with them choosing when to turn it on and off; its because of that, those spotlights outshine the rest that dull and fade from overuse.
I went to Sonic 1070 Huntington Dr Duarte, CA 91010-2475 today. My advice to you, DON’T go there! I love sonic, don’t get me wrong, I don’t love this place. My co-workers and I were very very excited when we found out that a sonic and opened within driving distance of our work. Our first few visits were riddled with issues haunting a newly opened fast food place. I don’t think we have had a visit to this sonic yet without at least one of us getting our order wrong as well as the name we give with the order. Today however, was the worst yet. After ordering most of us waited 30 minutes before our food was brought out. I had to wait an additional 5 minutes more for my drink. We had it easy compared to one of our party members, she waited 45 minutes. After 45 minutes she walked into the Sonic employee area to see what was going on. She was told there were 5 people in front of her. 10 minutes later we were done. We got up to leave; on the way out our food-less party member made one more visit to the employee area and said to forget the food that she was leaving. This was a horrid visit and sadly not out of the norm for this place. I doubt we will be back to it any time soon.
When people find out you are blogging they inevitable question always comes up, “What do you blog about?” typical answer, “Stuff” for some however a blog is a window into the passion their world exists for. For me, its mostly “stuff,” however from time to time I do get a incredible itch for board and card games. These types of games are what comprises the passion of my world. I belong to a group of people that unite under a small business name called LGM Gamers. We are friends from some very unique areas of life, a Chemist, a University Professor, an Engineer, a Computer Technician, a Leader & Manager of College students in the IT field. Occasionally we are joined by an English professor, a Writer, Students, Theater professors, even a one year old who is still learning that putting game pieces in the mouth isn’t such a great idea for the longevity of the game; regardless of the field or walk of life these people come from we have one thing in common, and passion and desire for friendship, fellowship, and great games!
One of the game publishers who’s games we frequently play is Fantasy Flight Games. These people are amazing, the games that continue to come out of here are always entertaining, challenging, and above all, unique. From creation to publication, this Roseville, Minnesota based company has an endless supply of creativity. Maybe its the location, after all Roseville is the hometown to Richard Dean Anderson, but I think it is hard work and brilliant employees.
Recently we gathered to play Arkham Horror, a board game by Fantasy Flight Games. As a collective, our thoughts will be posted on LGMGamers.com but here are my thoughts. We played the base game with no expansions, though Im not sure I would want to play with the expansions, this games has so many little things to keep track of its nuts. Even with a base group of 4 players and each keeping track of things going on in the game you are bound to miss something. Typically 1 player always has his/her nose stuck in the rule books regardless of the game. Other players typically keep track of the rules they see as week and easy to bend, break, or “forget” about. Beyond the enormous amount of little things to keep track of, the game play is a bit tricky at the start, but after a few times of playing through the game it you get the hang of it. One thing the game does have thats enjoyable is it captures the attention of even the most ADD player. lots of things to do, choices to make, and places to go. Im sure the expansions fix some of the little things that are annoying, but regardless its still a complex game not to be taken lightly. Make sure you have lots of time, some good food, great friends, and a passion for games and I am sure overall you will enjoy this game!
Look for the LGM Gamers review of this game on their website at LGMGamers.com.
Once again we prepare to visit Mt. Hermon. Though this year I will not forget my camera, I am already tripping over it at the door as we pack and prep everything to pile into the Van and make the 6 hour drive up north. This year I have something else at my disposal, my iPad. Easier to move around and hold, my iPad will be with me to capture ideas and scrawl noted for future posts.
I am looking forward to the speaker(s) this year, hoping they will give me some good ideas to further challenge the thinking of my student managers. Between speaking sessions we will be enjoying the comfort and quiet of our own cabin this year. No more hotel like room surrounded by many teenagers that make noise throughout the night. No more noisy upstairs neighbors with small children who think its fun to jump up and down at random intervals. Just the peace and quite of our own cabin surrounded by nothing but Redwood trees. At least this it what I hope!
Each week tat Mt. Hermon hosts it vast hordes of vacationeers, different activities are available on a volunteer bases to anyone interested in signing up for them. One of these is a fantastic steam locomotive ride from the conference center to the Santa Cruse Pier. We did this last year and it is always a fun mixture of beautiful trees, landscape, and the thrill of a train ride. The train stops about half way though its journey to allow for some individuals to get off and either mountain bike the rest of the way for begin a 4 mile hike.
This year armed with a blog and a camera I hope to be abel to share my amazing vacation with those of you stuck in your office. :p
Chris Welker of www.chriswelker.net and I decided to revamp the rarely used LGM Gamers website. Currently the main page in the form of a blog was in need of a major facelift. Currently using WordPress, we decided to change the template, and adjust the content. The idea of adding a wiki has also come to the table.
The blog will be used to review any game other than video games. The wiki will be used to post our variations and rule interpretations of the different games. The website also includes a store section where anyone can order board and card games!
Check it out let us know what you think!
Recently my employer, Azusa Pacific University, made some decisions to be more fiscally responsible, in other words, lets save more money! We had a great number of options of things we could do so save money, a few were chosen by our fearless leaders to go into affect campus wide. Where I agree with all the decisions made and think they are all very good things we can do, I have problems with the one involving temperature. We were told that all rooms on campus would go up a degree. Now this doesn’t seem like much on its own but if you add it up across all of the main Azusa campus, its a huge savings! Apparently someone didn’t get the 1 degree increase memo. I’ve been told that all rooms on campus would be set a bit higher than just the 1 degree stated in the memo.
I agree with some that a higher temperature in most offices is fine. Most office type people are in their office all day with minimal coming and going and opening of outside doors and there isn’t a great deal of work that creates heat. Our office is not this type of office. We have servers, many computers being worked on generating heat, and lots of bodies coming and going all the time. The servers alone require a lower room temperature so that they can run within their optimal and required internal temperature. I have really encouraged in my interactions with the Universities AC control guy. He has been very polite and helpful, providing a way to petition, so to speak, that our office be granted an exception to the higher temperature rule due to the servers. We shall see how things go!
Today, something unexpected happened. It was about 7pm and one of our Lab Technicians was checking in before heading home, I was finishing up some documentation and about to head home myself when I started to smell something burning, similar to the smell of charred plastic or that “first run of the heater” smell. I went into the main tech are where our Technician space is to look at the AC control panel. It was normal just as it has looked for several days. I wandered around the office and found a liquid soaked carpet under the servers in my back room. Things were getting stranger by the moment. I went back into the main room and noticed that even with the AC running it was getting hotter. I stuck my hand in the vent and cool air was coming out but it definitely was not as cold as is normal with our sorry little over worked AC unit. I didn’t think much of it. Our office was now at 79 degrees, this is not good for our servers. It was time to call in Facilities. One problem, it was after hours and we had no way to contact them directly, so a call to Campus safety it was! They responded fairly quickly, Im not sure if it was the mention of the smell of smoke that did it or if we just got lucky that some of them were in the area. The other problem we normally have is that no one on campus has any idea what to call our building. Where is Student Services? thats the most common response I get when talked to Campus Safety or Facilities.
Campus Safety confirmed that yes something was not right in our office. We opened the custodial closet where the heater for our building was housed and it was a layer of water covering the floor. This was the source of the liquid in my server room. We also noticed that the heater was on. This was strange because the AC unit on the roof was also on! Due to technology we were locked out of making any changes to our AC controls, this included turning it off. So we were stuck waiting for the on-call Facilities people to show up as our office temperature proceeded further past 80 degrees. At this point, it was time to shut down the servers and due to the water in the room we moved them. Facilities arrived and confirmed that the AC and the heater were running at the same time. Not being properly equipped to fix the problem they opted for just shutting it all down and having some pro’s fix it in the morning. After thanks were exchanged, my student worker and I shut everything in the office down and left for the day.
I will let you all know how things work out!!
Memorial Day, traditionally spent with loved ones honoring those who have given the greatest sacrifice, their lives. Regardless of those lives ending or continuing on, they were given for our enjoyment of life. I think it would be interesting to see a map of the USA on this day and note all the points on the map where BBQ’s were in use.Normally my wife and I have a friend or two over for a small BBQ, not this year. I spent the day home alone with a short visit from my sister as she passed though on her way from one activity to another. My wife spent the day striking the set for the Shakespeare plays at the Redlands Bowl and rehearsals for some musical thing in Riverside. Im happy to report that I did not let the stereotype down, I used my BBQ! I had two pieces of Chicken and a Hamburger.My Day ended in a random and sudden urge to bake something. After a quick trip to Vons, I had loaded up on everything I needed to make a Ginger Pear & Raspberry Pandowdy. The recipe had called for Candied Ginger, so I scoured Vons for such a thing. After 15 minutes of looking down the same isles over and over again I gave into the thing men statistically never do, I asked for help. I was told no, they didn’t carry that. It was then I had the bright idea to just make my own Candied Ginger. I have no idea what I was thinking, I had no idea what I was doing!Now I was set on taking pictures of this adventure at each step in the process, ya. . . that um didn’t happen. I did however get a picture here and there mostly at the very beginning and then at the end once I put it into the oven and thought “CRAP, I forgot to take pictures” oh well hopefully next time I will remember to take some.Step one, Figure out how to candy the ginger. after searching online I found a site that vaguely talked about how to do it, only problem was they had steps for 2lbs of ginger. I needed quite a bit less than that. So, I improvised, and it seemed to turn out alright. I was quite happy with myself. While the ginger cooled on the stove I began to work on preparing the pears and raspberries. I forgot how slimy pears are as I pealed the skins off and chopped them into small squares. then it was time to dome something to fruit that seems almost evil, add them to a bowl with cups of sugar. Really, whats the point of the fruit at this point? Alright, fruit done! Onto the crust thing. Once again I found myself dumping heaps of sugar into a bowl with a little bit of flower, baking power, a dash of salt, and buttermilk. Oh, did I mention the butter? Ever heard the phrase, “there is no such thing as too much butter!”? well I think I found the instance where that statement is false, at least to me as I added all of it in. The next part was fun. Making sure I had nice clean hands I dug into the sugar and flower mixture with the butter chopped into small squares. the goal was to work the butter down to the size of large peas all the while mixing all the ingredients. What a mess!! then I had to take this sticky blob and turn it into a 9” disk. that was the easy part. Once that was done I buttered up the pan, added the fruit and attempted to lay the crust on top of the fruit. This crust was heavy, I mean “heavy”. and getting off the baking mat was a challenge as well as it was so sticky. once I had this accomplished it was into the oven and time to clean up!I never imagined that I would find baking/cooking a form of escape, but it was wonderful. I defiantly will be finding other recipes to try out in the future. Perhaps if you are around you might be lucky enough to enjoy them!
As you may have already guessed, this is a posting where I, a customer for several years now of Charter Communications, needs to vent. With our recent move I was truly hoping to never have to use Charter Communications for internet or cable TV again, sadly i was disappointed. I was stuck with this vile poor excuse for a communications company. At my previous address I was able to lock in a 10Mb internet connection, without cable to because well lets face it Charter is dastardly expensive. When I called them to transfer my service I learn that I am unable to get a 10Mb connection at my new place, but I could however settle for an 8Mb connection. Fine, I went with the 8Mb . . . ITS MORE EXPENSIVE all of a sudden. ”Oh, but you can add a basic ‘HD’ cable package in to ‘bundle’ your service to make it cheaper” says the lemming on the other end of the phone. You guessed it, I’m THRILLED at this point. So I asked him to define “cheaper.” Turns out their definition and my definition of cheaper are drastically different. Last I checked cheaper meant that I would be paying less in the long run, but thats just me looking my bill.
So here I am, basic HD cable TV and an 8Mb internet connection that will never hit 8Mb but whatever, do I have a choice? Sadly I do not. Ive had the service at my new house for 2 weeks now. Guess how ofter the Cable TV has worked Vs. not worked. Less than 50%!! It has taken every fiber of my soul not to rip the Cable box out from my entertainment center and gleefully & vengefully pass over it frequently with my car, THEN take it out to the 210 and chuck it out the window. So I decided to make a phone call to the lovely and oh so incredibly helpful Charter support . After spamming the zero key on my phone, because lets face it, if I have to sit through some automated self help phone crap whoever is the unlucky sap to get my call is going to HATE their life. Some woman answers the phone, I am trying my best to be polite, if I only knew why. She gives me some crap about a communications satellite getting in the way of theirs and it “should” be fixed by June 7. So I’m going to pay for a non working Cable TV service through June 7 because of some Satellite? ya. . . .NO Cancel the Cable TV off my account please! no, she can’t do that either, that department isn’t open.
WORST Cable Company EVER and did I mention their customer service is astoundingly rude and unhelpful? My suggestion, never ever choose these people for your Communications company, very simply they suck!
Have you seen this thing? its horrid! A Woman walking around a Seafood market, stops to take a drink of her Lipton Ice Tea. ALL the seafood in the market starts to sing. Thats it for me, im never touching that stuff as long as I live. Who thinks of these commercials? Whomever it is should be shot and fed to the fish.
Disneyland in a wheelchair. This was a new adventure for me. Did you know that in order to “walk” onto any ride with a group that has a wheelchair in it, the limit is 6 people? Well it’s true. Well our group was 13 at its largest point in the day. With more than 6 people the rules change slightly. 6 of the members in the group, including the person the “chair” are allowed to wait at the exit where the rest of your party must go through the normal line, or fastpass. Once the unlucky part of your group gets through the line, the cast members working the ride do their best to put your entire party on the ride together. Space Mountain falls under an entirely different set of rules all together. They normally have 1 “handicap” car running at a time. This means that they can have 1 “chair” group every 10 minutes. During your wait you get the pleasure of sitting at the exit right next to some the most used restrooms at Disneyland. For the most part all Cast Members at Disneyland are very polite to people in wheelchairs, though there is always that possibility that you may run into 1 or 2 where they are just having a bad day.
The majority of our day was spent in a group of 6 then we added a student just after lunch, followed by 2 more from the Magnuson Household, and finally 4 more lingering students who stayed with us for all of maybe 3 hours. During all this time we decided to take a slight detour from our regular Disney traditions, and indulge ourselves in as many shows as we could. We started our day off with Moments with Mr. Lincoln. From there we headed to the hat shop so one of our crew to adorn his head with the bottom part of a Mickey Mouse hat, minus the ears. Our trails then lead us to DCA (Disney’s California Adventure) and the home of the Muppets. Oddly enough a few participants in our group had never seen this show before. After the Muppets we ventured forth to the Hollywood Tower of Terror to find a Bell Hop hat for the mad hatter in our group, though this side excursion proved to be unsuccessful.
Lunch took us to our normal destination at the pier area of DCA home to the Sourdough and Tortilla Factories. With a new farmers market located a few shops down and the recent addition of an American Chinese food place, this location has become a crowded popular center for more people to sit, relax, and stuff their faces with all the delights of overpriced Disney cuisine. Our lunchtime entertainment consisted of a live all female mariachi band that strolled though and played the same 2 song over and over again, several children admittedly set on catching some of the local birds using leftover breadcrumbs from their lunch, and the occasional appearance of the horrendous High School Musical 3 moving stage.
After Lunch we ventured into my least favorite show in all of Disney “It’s Tough to be a bug.” Why on earth any parent would bring their child to this show is beyond me. I have never been to a showing of it where all the kids in the place weren’t crying or screaming at some point in the show. This show also stabs you in the back, sprays you with water, “stinks” you out, and scares the crap out of you at the end with moving bumps under your “bump.”
From there we headed to “Turtle Talk.” It has been a while since I ventured into this are of DCA, and pleasantly was surprised to recall how entertaining and interesting a lot of the information was that Disney has pushed into this little area. In “Turtle Talk,” you talk to a Turtle, you know, the one from Nemo. The Technology here is quite astounding from a “guests” point of view. Even when you know what they are going, it’s really neat to go and experience.
At last we were finished with DCA for the day and took our party back to Disneyland proper. Once inside our first stop was the Hat shop on main street where the mad hatter in our group decided it was time to add ears to his blue sparkly “magical looking” Mickey Mouse hat base. I waited outside while we scoured the shop for just the right set of ears. Finally he excited the shop and to my surprise, he had adorned his hat with a set of fluffy pink Mickey ears.
At this point in our day, the group had reached its full 13 members, and now at last, we were ready to attempt some rides! First stop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. This ride is not very wheelchair friendly. As with most rides, the wheelchair entrance is through the exit. This ride in particular it means a rather steep downhill, which, lucky me, one of my lovely “pushers” decided to let go and see what would happen. After doing fairly well handling the breaks on the chair I miscalculated and ran my arm into the rail up against the wall. At this point my party decided it would be a good idea to keep a hold of my chair as to not re-enact Mr. Toads Wild Ride. Once inside the main platform it was up one elevator and down another just to get into my car. The ride was bumpy as usual, and not too bad on my knee. Once off the ride, it was back through the elevators and then the long hard push back up the exit ramp.
Next Stop, Thunder Mountain Railroad. This ride was interesting; we had to split the group. 6 of us waited on the exit side of the loading area while the others went through the self proclaimed “20 minutes” standby wait line, which was more like 30+ minutes. I have always had problems with this ride in that I usually with someone larger than myself, so the bar almost never goes down all the way and I end up flying all over the place. This time was no different except in the fact that I had to be careful of my knee.
Onward to the ATM & more shopping. One of our party members found a great shirt that Holly & I just HAD to get, “I’m Grumpy because you are Dopey.” It was also at this point in the day that we also lost 4 of our group for various reasons of which I have no idea; I’m just the guy in the wheelchair. After we all had Cash for Dinner we decided to see another show, Billy Hill & the Hillbillies. I had honestly never been to the Golden Horseshoe that I could remember in my time at Disneyland. The show was fantastic! Bluegrass music from a bunch of real talented hicks, what more could a person want? I will definitely be adding this show to my normal routine of things I do at Disney.
Last activity of the day at Disney was none other than Pirates of the Caribbean. After a short wait at the exit line we were ushered to our boat. Now our group had shrunk back down to 8 people, but we still have all of our “healthy” boys, so when they attempted to shove the 8 of us into 2 rows I very quickly spoke up and said “Uh, excuse me, we won’t fit into 2 rows, we have some rather large guys.” I was met with a very short, “You guys will fit please get in.” We did not fit, and while trying to fit one of our party members was still standing because he couldn’t sit, and they jolted the boat forward. This was very bad timing on many levels. Not only did our party member fall backwards onto others in the row, but I was smashed against the left side of the boat with my head pushed off to the side. The boat quickly stopped less than 1 inch from having a metal handle bar imbedded in the front of my skull. You better believe that the Cast member who had so rudely attempted to cram us into 2 rows was walking away very quickly in shame and upon his glance back I gave him a most evil stare. Finally we were given the ability to use 3 rows and we were on our way. I have grown to enjoy this ride due to all the puns I have been able to come up with. My favorite as of recent is in the area with the 3 musicians alongside the dog and the mule. “So did you guys know there used to be 5 musicians up there?” I would normally say to a few people in the boat, which almost always provokes the response of. “Oh really? What happened to the others?” “Well they were too much of a pain to keep working, one was a real ‘ass’, and the other was a nasty ‘bitch’.”
Our day at Disneyland had come to an end, but we were not finished yet! As has become a tradition with these Disney outings we all headed over to Buca di Beppo for a fantastic dinner and time to relax and enjoy ourselves. For those of you who have the misfortune not being familiar with Buca di Beppo, it is a wonderful family style Italian dining. If you like pasta, THIS is the place to be!! As a group we order about 5 main dishes and some Mozzarella Garlic bread and a Margareta Pizza for an appetizer. Water and Mountain Dews fill the table, interlaced with the rare lemonade or iced tea drink. The plates begin their trip around the table stopping only to the OCD’ness of Tim Magnuson. After the appetizers were demolished the main courses had arrived. A quick swap of plates and the food was being dished out. We got to experience lukewarm Garlic Mashed potatoes, have never had a good experience with these, and no doubt will never order them again. Baked Ravioli, Spaghetti Marinara, Chicken Carbonara, Chicken Parmigiana, & Eggplant Parmigiana made up the evenings courses. When the meal had finally concluded we packed up our leftovers and hit the road. Another day at Disney completed successfully!
In all this was a good day with good friends rounded out with good food. It was a nice change to ignore the rides and ”main” attractions at the park and hit the less frequented shows that Disney has to offer.
Psuchodoters Tweets
