Art Car Parade Prep – Allen OldiesMobile

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Whew! I’m still breathing hard. Just got back from the beer run for Saturday morning.

I usually have regular thursday night and friday night plans. I bailed on both of them. No thursday games with friends. No friday running sound for the Ringwalds.

I helped out Allen Hill in preparing the OldiesMobile for the Art Car Parade on saturday. Lot’s of starts and stops, and success and failure, as art cars are want to be. But I think we’re ready for the morning.

I borrowed a generator from our service department. It is built to support an ambulance, so it’s totally over engineered for running a band. Loading into my car with a fork lift was the first warning – this things gonna be heavy.

Thursday, Allen and I moved it from my car, tested it, it worked great. We moved it into the Mobile. Friday I get home, he’s in my driveway, we move it from the Mobile, it’s a no-go. We call Sir Henkel and with three, we 1) pick it off the ground to a table, 2) off the table to the hood, 3) off the hood to the roof. Job performed, Sir Henkel retreats.

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We Want to Help You Stimulate US

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“Enclosed is an important message from the IRS on the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. Do Not Throw Away!” That’s a quote from the back of the envelope from the United States Treasury. A paraphrase of the inside text: we consider you below the poverty line, you have zero adjusted income last year, and still … Read more

Art Car Season

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This motley group can only mean one thing. Okay, it can mean many, many things. And most of them are dubious. But not this one. It means it’s time for the Art Car Parade. (This photo is from the parade 2007 – photo by Virginia) I’ll be driving the Allen Oldies Mobile this year.

Themes in the Ether

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This weekend I spent the weekend in Wimberley, Texas. One of the boardgames someone wanted to play was Goa – a trading game themed on the historically important region of India. But it’s a four-player game and we had five people, so it never got played. Perikles.jpgAnother that was high on the list and did get played was Perikles – by well-know boardgame designer (yes, there are a few), Martin Wallace.

On the return trip I listened to the NPR Puzzle podcast from the previous weekend. Will Shortz had just returned from some sort of puzzle tournament in Goa. The on-air puzzle was categories in C-H-A-M-P, and plays by Shakespeare was one of them. Can you name a P- play by Shakespeare?

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iPod Number 4

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I bought another iPod recently. An 8GB iPod Touch. It’s my fourth. Here’s the rundown of the iPods: 20GB 4th Generation Classic iPod Color (model# PA079LL, serial# JQ5263A7TDU) – I lost it at some point several years ago and was so jonesing to have an iPod I bought on eBay a…. 2GB 1st Generation iPod … Read more