JoeDag32

I just got back from the car wash, I had to clean off some shaving cream and vomit from exterior of my car. The Shepherd almost made it home before throwing up, so very close. Good job Shepherd, you almost made it.

While the vomit was much thicker and abundant along my passenger door when I awoke that I had been expected to find, it did come off easily with the high pressure of the car wash. The shaving cream along the side was just from some completely coincidental child pranks. Stupid rich kids apparently have nothing better to do in Linwood.

The bachelor party itself was great time, nothing too crazy like in the movies. I think everyone is a bit too old for such shenanigans at this point, well almost all of us I suppose. Just a good time hanging out with some old friends who which is something that doesn’t happen as often as I’m sure we’d all like.

To start things off we met up pretty early at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in PA for some pre Phillies game tailgating. I must tip my hat to the planners, as this was a great location and the weather was nearly perfect for the occasion. There were many ducks, pigeons and even a stray cat wandering about the park as well. And poorly overthrown footballs nearly attacking us at times.

The food was amazing. Hats of and a full standing ovation to Conner and Ryan for their grillmanship. I couldn’t help but completely overeat. Sausage from brooklyn, beef tenderloin with some special sauce who’s contents couldn’t be shared, scallops, shrimp and clams, philly pretzels in varieties I never heard of and enough beverages to satisfy all those on hand. My belly is truly larger today as I type this.

We then walked to the game. Kevin’s extremely generous uncle treated us all to a luxury box, with food! As if I hadn’t eaten enough already on this day, free food awaited me in the luxury box over the first based side. Italian pork sandwiches, chicken tenders, hot dogs, cheesesteaks, italian chips, water ice, cookies, candy, more unlimited beverages, this was truly a glutenous day that future tales would forever speak of!

The game itself wasn’t too bad either. The box was a really great spot to watch a game, even though the A’s did beat the Phils. I was indifferent but we did have some bummed guys in the box due to the outcome. Leaving the game which was done in a brisk 2 hours and 33 minutes, we then realized that our ride home wouldn’t be here in another 2 1/2 hours or so.

Skip, the blazingly fast limo driver was apparently held up and we weren’t expecting the game to end so soon. We hung out in the parking lot for a bit before venturing over to the nearby Holiday Inn where some of the guys had gotten a room to stay. Due to a crazy man freaking out in the lobby, the guys room was upgraded to a suite so we went up there and just waited for Skip’s arrival.

Skip arrived, we said our goodbyes and the ride home was mostly silent as everyone around me was asleep for a good deal of the ride. A great time with some good guys.

I attended the Wizard’s wedding on Sunday. It was all the way up in Douglastown NY at the Douglastown Manor. Since the Wizard was pretty much our honorary 4th brother growing up our entire family got the invite to attend. My older brother who was also the best man, my mom and myself were able to attend.

The car ride there wasn’t too bad. We were able to navigate with the assistance of GPS without a wrong turn. Traffic wasn’t too terrible either, especially considering that this was Memorial Day weekend.

Once we arrived it was great to get out of the car and walk around. I did get a quick bite to eat at a Subway across from where we had arrived. I did assist the store keeper with removing an older advertisement cling on from their window. Stuff like that is fun to me.

We then headed over to the church. Besides the lack of air conditioning the church wasn’t too bad. The ceremony went by rather quickly. Outside I got a chance to say hello to a few of the other guys who were invited and were in my older brother’s grade growing up. All older now, but still just as goofy as I remembered them all.

We then went over to the reception. Driving to that wasn’t too bad either. It just just 3 or 4 miles from the church. It was very nice inside the Douglaston Manor and the hors d’œuvre were excellent. In fact I found that as long as you were eating that random people would spend less time talking to you. Needless to say, I really did overeat at this time. But at least it was yummy stuff.

The rest of the night went smoothly. The band played a greatest hits of the 80′s set. So there was anything from The Police, to Judas Priest going on. I thought that they really sounded great and did a good job. People were dancing the entire time. I never realized that the Wizard’s family was such dancers, but I guess they were always into music so it does make sense. Especially keyboards.

Oh and for my embarrassing moment of the day. I had to use the restroom and on my way to locate them followed a guy who was walking a few feet in front of me into the restroom. Well upon my exit, I literally bumped into two girls who were entering the restroom. All three of us froze in confusion as to why each of us were in the wrong spot. Well apparently I had entered the women’s restroom by accident thinking it was the men’s (thanks a lot guy for going in the wrong one). I’m pretty sure some guys followed in after seeing me enter similar to what had happened to me. Oh well, I pretty much felt dumb at that point and just vanished. At least the people whom I encountered all seemed to be with a different party and I didn’t have to continually see them the rest of the night.

The drive home went by much more quickly than the ride there. It was very late and even though we took a wrong turn that took us through Manhattan, it didn’t set us back too much. All in all it was a fun though exhausting day.

Somebody at work asked me if I knew how to clean a Mighty Mouse, and by chance this is something that I’ve been doing every few months for my Mighty Mouse scrollball. I’ve found that by folding a piece of paper several times then wedging it into the scrollball seems to do a good job. I’m always amazed out how much stuff can build up inside of a mouse (honestly I’m not a very dirty person).

While on lunch break, I noticed a little something going on in the now closed KFC parking lot next to IHOP. There were some chefs from Reddings in Atlantic City cooking up some free chicken and waffles outside. Free food, especially from Reddings is something that only the dumberest of the dumb would pass up so I stopped my car to check things out.

There were several reporters there from numerous local publications covering the challenge that apparently Reddings had issued against the chicken and waffles that IHOP had apparently just recently added to their menu. They were out to prove that the IHOP chicken and waffles was inferior to their dish.

After waiting a minute or so for my waffle to finish, I was very politely handed a big plate and could hear the cameras all going off. Apparently me being handed a plate of chicken and waffles is quite the event these days. I then found a nice curb to sit on and digged in.

It was excellent, the fried chicken was especially good. Several reports continued to ask me questions while their photographers continued to take photos of me eating on the curb. I’m sure there are now several photos of me looking like quite the slob (chicken and waffles can do that to you).

It was nice to have a random bizarre lunch occurrence, seems like I had only had one so far this week. By the way Reddings does make some good food from what I sampled and will have to make a stop over there to try more of their menu.

Yesterday I had to do my civic duty and participate in jury duty. This time it was in sketchy Atlantic City not the fairly new building in Mays Landing. I had to park in a parking garage a few blocks from the courthouse.

The parking garage was pretty gross. The walk from the garage wasn’t too pleasant either. I don’t know how they have jurors make that walk. I honestly wouldn’t want my mom to be walking in that part of town.

When I arrived at the courthouse I had to go through a metal detector. I made it through on my first attempt, I felt so proud. Then I had to wait in a line with some fairly miserable people (it is jury duty after all) to get registered, etc. Many people were talking about how fed up they were with living in New Jersey and how they were hoping to move someplace else. I’m pretty sure it’s the cost of living and taxes that primarily had them up in arms.

Then I took a seat and waited and waited some more. Luckily one of the cases had settled early that morning, so they would only need our group for one potential trial. The woman next to me turns out is the sister-in-law of someone I grew up with. She was really cool, and destroyed me in two games of checkers on her iPad. Apparently I’m pretty bad at checkers. I did defeat her in a game of air hockey however. I was surprised at how many iPads people had brought there.

As we were being led to the courtroom like cattle a former co-worker’s husband recognized me and we chatted a bit. Mr. Battistelli shared my views on Atlantic City (or at least the part where we were situated) and it was cool to see a familiar face.

As we got to the courtroom for jury selection, I stood hoping not to get called. This just wouldn’t of been a good week had I been selected. It was most entertaining listening to some of the excuses that people had once they were called up. After about an hour and a half, the jury was selected and we were sent home.

They really need to come up with a way to make the process a bit more bearable. iPad checkers and air hockey are my suggestions.

Day 3 was pretty cool. I walked over to the West Egg Cafe for an early breakfast. Got blueberry and granola pancakes which they called crunchberry pancakes. They were massive and very good.

The Keynote Speaker was very entertaining. It was usability expert Jared Spool. He gave a good presentation, and had much of the room laughing at times.

Workbench: Managing Content Management

About the Workbench module. This modules seems great and will be a perfect fit for atlantic.edu to manage users and the content publishing process. This is a very exciting module and I look forward to using it.

Drupal Commerce: Setting up Shop on Drupal 7

This was an excellent presentation. It’s great to see just how much hard work goes into module development. I’m going to have to seriously consider whether or not to go with this one right away or not. Great job.

Drupal 7 Theming Basics

Wasn’t a big fan of this one. There were a lot of errors on the slides, it seemed a bit hurried.

Building awesome user interfaces with Drupal 7′s Form, AJAX, and Theme systems

I was just plain old burned out at this point. There was some cool stuff demonstrated, but I thought it was a bit too much for me to follow at times.

Night Exploration

I walked over to the massive Apple Store then stopped by Giordano’s to get some dinner. I went with the Italian beef sandwich not the deep dish pizza. I then walked in some other random stores for warmth, stopping in the Giaradelli store for a yummy peanut butter something sundae. It was great.

I then stopped in the Disney store to see if they had Thanos. They didn’t, but oh well I continued to explore more of Michigan Ave. The shopping is really weird to me, Floors are kinda small, but many many stories tall. I know it makes sense given the buildings here, but it still seemed rather strange to me.

On my way back to the hotel I let some bum sucker me into a shoe shine. Yep, that’s right I got my sneakers which should of been thrown out 4 months ago shined. I feel so dirty and scammed right now, but just didn’t have it in me to say no. I’m really getting exhausted from this whole adventure.