Category: Adventure

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Adventure

The Art of the Brick

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I can’t begin to count how many people took the time to let me know that The Art of the Brick exhibit was at the nearby Franklin Institute. Apparently my interest in Legos has grown to a near legendary status. So when I heard that NGM was moving out of the area (but not too far away) I knew it was time to check it out.

So I took the voyage to NGM’s house. It wasn’t too bad of a drive, I’ve got it down by now. Didn’t even need to use GPS or look at a map the night before.

Perhaps the most eventful part of the day would be NGM’s road rage (well it wasn’t really that bad). We were cut off my BOBAH, and it enraged him! Then we drove around the parking garage for quite a big. There was no parking and we had no idea that we were driving in a circle for quite a bit. It was funny.

Once we got inside NGM completely BOBAH’d me and cut in front of me to get his bracelet. I was a bit disappointed by the display of aggression.

The exhibit was really cool. There was quite an impressive variety of works. Famous works redone in brick as well as original creations too. All very impressive.

Afterwards we got some good pizza at Bricco’s. It was really good too, they always know fine places to eat.

It was another great NGM trip.

 

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Adventure

High School Reunion

It’s truly hard to believe, but my high school’s 20th reunion was this weekend. So hard to believe how fast 20 years could go by. Pretty much all my friends whom I keep in touch were attending, but I was really looking forward to seeing all the other great people whom I don’t get to see much of any more.

The reunion was held at the Linwood Country Club which is conveniently close to me, so that was pretty great. I think it turned out to be a bit too big for the amount of people, but it was a nice spot overall.

I saw so many old friends, it was great. It’s amazing how easy it was to talk to everyone and at times it felt like no time had passed. We really had a great class, and I’m so glad to see how well everyone is doing. Especially proud of my Linwood classmates, they are still the best!

I did my best not to talk to my friends whom I still keep in touch with, as I already talk to them all the time anyway. I probably should have practiced on what else to say besides, “hi, so how are you?”, but luckily most the the responders had excellent follow up questions.

It turned out to be a pretty great time, and the only drawback is that we only do this every 10 years. I’d be down for a something a bit more frequent. A great time!

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Adventure Development

Drupalcamp NJ 2015

Though I’ve registered for Drupalcamp NJ for 3 years now, this was the first year that I was able to actually attend. The past 2 years were just some unfortunate luck that had me cancel my plans.

Hosted at Princeton, this was my first visit there. The ride there wasn’t too bad and I didn’t get lost. Once I arrived in Princeton it was a bit tricky as it was like a city that was a school. Plus there was snow everywhere, but I eventually found the parking lot and the building.

The keynote speaker did a great job. He talked about ways that you can manage yourself/career. It was very interesting and he was a very great speaker.

I attended the following sessions:

  • Using Media, Picture, and Focal Point modules – this was a pretty bad presentation. It just seemed to rushed and unorganized. I do look forward to checking the mentioned modules and workflow out.
  • 5 Top Drupal Innovations You Can’t Live Without – a solid presentation. Didn’t learn too much new from it, but was enjoyable though.
  • Acquia Workflows for Drupal Developers, Site Builders – I was interested to learn more about Acquia’s offerings. I was impressed by their tools offered and look forward to playing around with them a bit in the future.
  • SEO Awesome for Drupal Sites – good and useful presentation. The speaker was very well organized and pointed out some great tips.
  • View Demystified – a great presenter. While it was a bit more for beginners than I’d of hoped, it was a great presentation.

All in all it turned out to be a pretty great day. Learned a lot and explored a new place. The Drupal community continues to impress me.

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Adventure Sports

3rd Annual Honey Badger Holiday Party

While the official Honey Badger Holiday Party was a bit later this year, it was still quite an amazing bit of fun! Since it fell at the end of January, we worked in a Chinese New Year theme in some bits. The turn out was pretty amazing, with a steady 18-20 Badgers throughout the entire night.

I was a bit worried since I was hosting this year at my home, but all seemed to go well. I wasn’t sure if there’d be enough room, I still hadn’t purchased a couch, and frankly I’m not the most domesticated guy out there. Once again the team stepped up and chipped in just like during a game and brought folding chairs and countless yummy dishes to contribute to the great time.

We had a games challenge similar to last years, with numerous random activities.

  • chopsticks challenge
  • sticker stalker
  • Chinese Zodiac match
  • Mario Kart
  • push ups
  • drawing a picture
  • dart gun (sadly the gun broke?)
  • Wii Fit luge
  • sudoku

All the games with the exception of the dart gun game went extremely well. Sadly the dart gun broke early on, but not before the Shepherd put on a clinic in accuracy. It was kind of frightening to see, but impressive.

The majority of the guests stayed up until the end when Caitlin and Allen/Scott were crowned champions!

My only regret on the night is that I didn’t take photos! I was so busy keeping track of the events and keeping things going that I didn’t take the time to take any photos.

Overall I’d say it was another tremendous Badger success. I had a great deal of fun and will have to have the Badgers over more often!

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Adventure

Influenza

Last weekend I was soundly defeated by the influenza virus. It locked me to my bed for at least 3 days (literally didn’t leave my bed for a 30 hour stretch at one point), and knocked me out for longer than that.

I’m not sure exactly where I’d gotten it, but have narrowed it down to the gym or a wedding I attended on New Year’s Eve. I don’t recall being around anyone with the flu or flu-like symptoms, but given the time I had become ill and the amount of people at each, that’s what makes the most sense to me.

I began feeling ill on Friday. Initially thought I was coming down with a cold, as the early symptoms are similar. Saturday morning I had the body aches. It was a bit funny, I found myself grunting with each and every little movement I would make.

It quickly apparent that I was in store for some type of major illness by morning, and decided to make one last drugstore visit should it continue to escalate (which it certainly did).

I got myself some supplies, notably a thermometer to verify if I had a fever. Turns out I did in fact have a fever. So I assembled all my essentials by my bed, and fell in for what would be an extended stay.

I don’t really recall much of Saturday or Sunday. I was in bed tossing and turning, sweating and freezing, and just riding out the flu and my fever. At some point later in the day on Sunday I realized that well over 24 hours had passed and I had not left my bed and supplies were dwindling.

So I caved and called my Mom in for reinforcements. Good old Mom came through, and it was important to have someone know of my condition at this point as I was in pretty bad shape.

On Monday I had to use my first ever sick day from work. My 15 year streak of never having used a sick day came to a halt. Oh well, it was an impressive streak. I was still running a fever and was much too contagious to be around others even if I thought I could will myself through the day.

Wow, it’s amazing just how much the flu can knock you around. It’s about a week later and while I no longer feel ill, I’m still pretty exhausted and it looks like that’s not going away for at least a few more days.

I’m not a fan of influenza.

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Adventure

A Fish House Wedding

Long time friend Brian (probably my oldest friend, pre-preschool) got married this weekend. There was only a party to attend at Nick’s Fish House in Baltimore, and it was quite a laid back fun time.

Since it’s a fairly decent drive to Baltimore, I decided to ride up with the Shepherd and Scott. Scott was kind enough to drive. We got there in record time, but I must admit my co-passengers did get on my nerves a little bit with their poor habits (e-cigarettes are stupid). Oh well, it was a ride so I can’t complain too much.

We arrived a bit early, and stopped at some random Wal-Mart in the middle of nowhere. It was a bit strange with nothing at all around it, but we figured it was better than nothing. There was a screaming child, who just screamed at a constant amazingly high pitched rate while it’s mom did nothing. The constant sound was both incredible and I tip my hat to this child’s lungs for being able to sustain such a not for such a lengthy amount of time. Truly amazing and remarkable annoying.

After Wal-Mart, we were still very much early. So we drove around Baltimore a few blocks until we found a safe haven. There was a really fancy fenced in apartment area with shops. A pretty cool setup if you were living in the city.

We walked around a bit and noticed a park with some activity going on. Some event was taking place and there were a ton of dogs about. An amazing amount of different dogs. A huge shaved Saint Bernard, a therapy Blood Hound and many more. It was pretty awesome to see.

After that we headed over to Nick’s. It was a pretty cool place on the water. There was a chair for all attendees to sign. I thought that was a pretty nice touch. Apparently the Shepherds sloth knows no bounds, and I noticed that he added onto my signing instead of writing his own. Geez Shepherd!

There was a live reggae band, that while very talented was much too loud for my old man ears. I couldn’t escape it no matter where I wandered, and it eventually escalated a bad headache I had from the crazy card ride there to very bad. I eventually decided to attempt to sleep in a car for a bit, and Scott eventually found some Tylenol for me to take from his endless supply of drugs he carries in a strange bag.

After a pretty long time of laying down in a half sleep state in a comfy car (which I’m sure must’ve been quite the strange sight) I finally emerged to face civilization. My first stop was more water and a delicious cupcake. It was a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing, and I currently would like another one as it was yummy.

It was really great to see so many old friends and am reminded just how many of my childhood friends are still friends to this day. Pretty cool.

The car ride home wasn’t really as bad as the ride there. The Shepherd was too broken and sleepy to smoke his stupid e-cigarette non-stop, and there was much less traffic to Scott to attempt NASCAR moves thru.

Even with the stupid headache it was a pretty great day, and I wish Brian and Shanna much happiness. Great to see everyone and glad it was under such great circumstances!