Author: Joe

Categories
Adventure

2012 Honey Badger Holiday Party

Ugly SweatersThe Honey Badgers franchise had their first every Holiday Party this year. As all things Honey Badger, this would surely have to be a fun event.

First things first, an official committee of planning experts was formed. Ginny, Caitlin and myself answered the call and had several rounds on intense meetings and debates to plan the perfect holiday party. Input from all sides was great, and before we knew it we had a plan in place!

Not only were current Honey Badgers invited, but many past Honey Badgers were invited as well. It was truly an amazing roster.

The group was broken up into teams and we had some intense Honey Badger Trivia. I combed old stats, emails, and blog posts to gather up some amazing Honey Badger history through the years. It was pretty cool, to go back and be reminded of all the fun it’s been the past 2 years. I also printed out big letters for the teams to hold up to show their answers. It was pretty great.

We also had an ugly sweater contest, because that seems to be the thing to do now and who doesn’t like dressing up like a fool from time to time. The participation was pretty solid with Dustin and myself getting the majority of the votes. Dustin edged me out for first with his sweater that had bells on it. The melody of the bells when rung was truly enchanting. We both got some amazing ribbon pins (I think I kinda came out better with the funnier 2nd place ribbon). Turtle necks are not only ugly, but I can now attest they are uncomfortable as well.

A white elephant style gift exchange took place too. Participation was again very solid. Everyone seemed pretty much familiar with the concept and there were some pretty amazing and creative gifts on display. The mini foosball table was highly sought after and swapped several hands throughout the event. I ultimately ended up with some honey and a badge with a taped r on it (get it, honey badger) and a $10 Target gift card. Not too shabby.

All in all a very successful night. Despite having a rather random gathering of teammates over the years, everyone really gets along really well and all events are always a lot of fun. It really amazes me how we end up with such a great bunch. Many of these people were just randomly assigned to our team over the years and I’m very glad that they were.

I would rate this a resounding success and this will truly have to be a tradition for many years to come!

Categories
Books

Red Rain

Red RainLooking through the new arrivals section, I noticed a book by R.L. Stein. I knew his name for the Goosebumps books and show from when I was a younger lad. So why not, let’s give the guy a shot and see how his grown up books might be like.

Turns out it wasn’t too bad. While I can’t say I was too surprised at any point, I did find myself reading through it pretty quickly and that’s always a positive sign.

Evil little kids are always a fine idea for scary stuff. There’s just something eerie about evil kids, especially twins.

I also did like that they had some ridiculous evil powers too. The murders were a bit on the gross side and I did find myself rooting for a few of the victims to get away, but sadly few did.

Rule the school.

 

Categories
Video Games

Halo 4

Halo 4Just finished up Halo 4, and while I’m not sure exactly whom I was shooting since I hadn’t played the previous 3 I do know that I did somehow save humanity. So I feel kinda good about that (in a fake video game way).

The campaign was mighty impressive, and I know I’ve stated this many times but am in awe of the amount of production value that goes into a major video game these days. The sound, story, voice acting, etc. are all as good if  not better then a blockbuster Hollywood film. Very impressive amount of work and polish on display.

I think I was most impressed by the sound and graphics. The music was pretty awesome, and does an amazing job of getting you into the game whether you intended to or not. Some very dramatic stuff.

The pacing of the campaign was really impressive too. I’m not the type to sit down for hours and play in one sitting. The auto-save made it easy to play and little here and a little there and pick right up where I left off.

I also was genuinely bummed at the end when you lose a friend. While it wasn’t quite as sad as Marley and Me, I do tip my hat at a game that could make me care for the characters involved.

This was a pretty amazing game. Well done 343 Studios.

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Season 3 – Playoffs

Historically the dodgeball playoffs haven’t been a moment when the Honey Badgers shine. Sadly, this season would be more of the same. We really pick the wrong time to have the worst game of our season.

It was hard to pinpoint what exactly the problem was, but we were just flat for the majority of the night. I myself, bad elbow or not was pretty horrible. I just didn’t play aggressive enough for some reason. Maybe because I slipped last week, I was being a bit too cautious to not fall and land on my arm again? I don’t know.

However, John B. was throwing like a man possessed last night. Perhaps some of the hardest throws we had seen in all of dodgeball by any player this season. He really brought it last night, but the rest of the crew unfortunately couldn’t provide enough last night to help him out.

It was pretty great to see that when we were down 8 games to 1 we didn’t simply give up. We did manage to finally pull off 3 wins at that point. But again, it was too little too late as we had dug ourselves much too deep of a hole by that point.

Despite our lackluster performance, it was a very fun night! We do have a pretty awesome team and I’m very glad I did get the chance to play with everyone. Can’t wait for next season!

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Season 3 – Week 8

The Honey Badgers concluded the regular season with a 3-6 regular season record. While we did narrowly lose last night’s game to Dodgeasserole 9-7, our guys did have one of our finer moments all season.

Without our best guy, John B. out due to flu like symptoms we knew we’d all have to step up our game. And I was really proud to say we all did pick up our game and play one of our best games all season, without our best player and playing a man down 4 to 5 all night long.

Dustin was great all game. You could see he was letting loose, putting a little bit more on each throw. Same could be said of Kevin as well, who as always finds new ways of staying alive.

Even Jared vowed to play harder that night, and backed up his predictions with some big catches and some throws with bad intent.

And I in my second game back from elbow surgery managed to contribute as well. I made a good amount of catches, and even finished off a game with a big catch. I gotta admit, it felt pretty great to get my teammates excited and be the recipient of high fives! While I’m still not back yet, I am beginning to adjust to the speed of things more each week.

Unfortunately our girls on this night really had a hard time getting a win. It was weird, they weren’t outclassed at all, but our opponent always seemed to find and way to pull out a win against us. They played well, it’s just wasn’t our night I suppose.

Next week is the playoffs, can’t wait!

Categories
Development

Drupal 7 Only Display 1 Image in Teaser

ok, I was working with a content type with an image field that could hold multiple images (0-4 say). Using the Teaser view mode it would display all the images that were associated with that node, which was really cool in the Default view mode, but not so much the Teaser view mode. I only want it to display 1 image there.

So of course, there’s multiple ways to do this, but I found this approach to be the best for me.

I decided to create and edit an template file in this case since there was enough overall customization going on with this node to warrant such changes. So I created a template file name node–myContentType.tpl.php  based on node.tpl.php and stored in in my theme templates directory.

Easy enough. I then threw in there some crazy text just to make sure I was working with the right template file.

Then I just made the following edits to node–myContentType.tpl.php

if ($view_mode == 'teaser') {
  print render($content['myDemoImage'][0]);
} else {
  print render($content['myDemoImage']);
}

The if statement checks what view mode you are in, if it’s teaser which is the one I want to only display 1 image in then it just renders the first photo in myDemoImage field, else display them all.

That’s it, not too bad. Another reason why I do enjoy working with Drupal.