Author: Joe

Categories
Adventure

Christmas 2015

This year was a bit more quiet than past holidays. Spent the day at my parents with my younger brother Frank as well. Ant couldn’t make it up from Florida this year, and there weren’t any guests in attendance either.

I wound up giving out a lot of gift cards this year. Not so much because it’s easier/safer, but mainly to get these guys to get out of the house to use them up. 

To Florida I sent an Amazon gift card, an assortment of board games (notably Monopoly), a solar charging light/phone charger, Richard Scarry books, a beaver dog toy, and a Netflix gift card. Really wanted to get a little something for everyone, as well as things to entertain.

I got Dad a gift card to Bagliani’s and a block of cheese. For Mom a gift card so she can have s shopping day and get away from the guys. Frank got a new tennis racquet and Netflix so he can watch the Marvel shows (almost binged them all already).

I made out quite all right. The first thing I opened were sponges, so I was a bit concerned. However, it picked up after that. Got some much needed towels, a Lowes gift card (used on a mitre saw), a Sports Authority gift card, and my Mom surprised me with a new tennis racquet (I’m so bad, but it’s fun).

Dinner was quite, and I just hung out with the family for the day. We Skyped with Ant s few times, so that was nice too. 

All in all a quiet but nice Christmas.

Categories
Adventure Sports

2015 Honey Badger Holiday Party

Honey Badger Holiday Party 2015Had another fine Honey Badger Holiday Party this season. It was an excellent turnout, and a lot of fun.

It was held at my home for the second year in a row, and I was glad to at least have a couch this time around that they were able to sit on. I suppose I’m getting there slowly but surely.

Many brought amazing treats or beverages. It’s really great to see so many contribute even when we’re not playing a team sport. A pretty great bunch.

We picked teams (my partner was multi-defending champ Cait), and got started on some games.

  • First off was Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa. It’s just a variation on rock, paper, scissors, but oh so much fun.
  • Then we played the Christmas Ornament game, which involves moving an ornament across the house by blowing on it. Again, a fun time to watch others.
  • We then had a round of Honey Badger Trivia.

After all that fun, we had our gift exchange. Jen provided all the rules, and the exchange began. All went well, everyone came away happy and it was a good time. I got some card based games.

In a surprise gesture, the team created an amazing Honey Badger card (it really is awesome), and were incredibly generous in giving me gift certificates to Home Depot, Wawa, and Amazon. I mean they were really generous. So very kind of them, again they are pretty great.

I then coaxed the team into having our photo taken in front of the Christmas tree at the arboretum. It’s a pretty scenic spot, and just a few steps from my home. Everyone was a good sport, and we got a pretty amazing Honey Badger photo.

We then returned to play some Marit Kart 8. People then began to slowly slip out as it was on a weeknight after all.

All in all I’d have to say it was another success!

Categories
Design Development

Front-End Web UI Frameworks and Tools

I just completed and enjoyed the Front-End Web UI Frameworks and Tools on Coursera. It’s part of a Full Stack Framework 6 course specialization.

I’ve taken a couple of courses through Coursera, with some being great and others not so much. This course specialization has been pretty great so far. The courses are very well organized and the instructors do a pretty solid job. They even are very active in the discussions (you’d think it’d be a given, but it’s not).

I’ve been very impressed and am looking forward to the next courses in the specialization. Particularly the angular.js and PhoneGap courses coming up. Good stuff.

Categories
Sports

Amazing Night of Dodgeball Crazyness

I’ve been playing dodgeball for five years now, and this past week had some truly rare moments. Luckily were were able to defeat our opponents, Bad Mother Duckers in a most fun and exciting game.

The first amazing play for me would be when I won a match, knocking over a guy with my peg. Granted, clearly his momentum and lack of balance at the time were what sent him tumbling to the ground. Though the timing of my peg and his fall looked most dramatic. It looked like I literally knocked him back off is feet. My team erupted in excitement and his team laughed. It was pretty amazing to behold.

The second amazing play is when I was involved with the first double peg I had ever seen. Ron and I both squared up and ripped off throws at one another. Ron’s hit me first, but mine got him as well. We were both out, and both amazed at the play. It was pretty awesome, and again a scene out of a movie.

The most exciting play for me though was my game winner with the matches at 8-7. They had a much deeper rotation and we were beginning to tire. We didn’t want this thing to go to overtime.

In what was a pretty exciting match on both sides, eventually it was down to 2 on 2. Jared and I threw everything we had and them, and they were doing the same. It was pretty exciting, and you could feel the entire team reacting to each close call.

With around 10 seconds left in the match Jared got hit. So we were not down 2-1 with only 10 seconds remaining from a loss and going to overtime. I immediately, knew that I would have to somehow get a catch even though they would most likely not give me anything at all to catch. So I saw their guy wind up and I took a step back like I was going to retreat to the back wall, then sprinted forward upon his release.

I gambled that he would throw something short thinking I would be in the back. It played out perfectly and I caught a ball near the front court with just around 5 seconds remaining. My team exploded in excitement and I just waited for time to expire as we were now up 2-1.

An amazing victory and probably the most dramatic play I’ve had to date in the fine sport of dodgeball.

Categories
Adventure

Cornfield of Terror

This installment of the Honey Badger Fun Day took us to R and J Farms for their Cornfield of Terror. We’ve done the corn maze in the past, but decided to be a bit more brave this time and enter the Cornfield of Terror.

We got tickets then waited in line for a little bit. The line wasn’t too bad, however had we arrived a few minutes later it would have been an entirely different story.

A tractor picks up a group and takes them away into a maze of corn. The driver was a good sport, and put on a solid act. While on the ride to the Cornfield of Terror and chainsaw wielding guy and Mike Myers paid us a visit. They both did a really good job. Myers smelled weakness and taunted a poor old lady for most of the ride.

Once we got off the hayride, we could enter the fun. Sadly a poor girl in front of us got a bit too scared and backed out at the last second. We did attempt to cheer her up and encourage her that there was nothing to fear, but alas I don’t think she ever went in.

Walking through the maze was a lot of fun. Again, I though the various actors did a pretty amazing job. My favorite was their taunts. They did a great job of taunting a “blondie” throughout most of the maze. It was quite funny to overhear.

The guys also did a great job of popping up out of nowhere, running by, and a scarecrow come to life was well done too. What really stood out to us was a green fox laser light tunnel thing. It was really awesome looking, wish I had a photo of it.

All in all it was a very fun time, and I was very impressed with the experience. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I got to take it in this year.

Categories
Books

Star Wars Aftermath

Star Wars: AftermathGetting a little excited for the upcoming Star Wars film, I was glad to see that Aftermath was available at the library. I was eager to get caught up with events leading up to the new movie.

The book was well written, but didn’t really touch on any of the big players in the Star Wars universe. I guess this should have been expected, but still I was hoping to read more about some of the big names.

Granted Wedge Antilles was always been a favorite of mine, even his story was all that large in the book. I really thought he was going to have a bigger role when I first started reading. Oh well.

Overall, it was interesting to get an idea of the state of affairs immediately after the Return of the Jedi. Looking forward to the movie in a few weeks.