Raleigh Rodeo

March 16, 2023March 16, 2023 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Ken decided he was coming to Raleigh, yay! Then he talked Matt into joining. And I convinced Erik to come. So local friends and I gathered here and there all over town to pack in quite a fun-filled weekend.

Friday: Regina left a huge bag of St. Paddy gear on my doorstep! “Hide it until tomorrow” ok! ❤️ Young Hearts Distillery then Raleigh Times for plates and drinks; Slims for loud noise and bad beer.

Saturday: Slept through St. Paddy’s parade, met at 444 for breakfast coffee chat, headed to St. Paddy’s street party at Hibernian; met Kelly and Shannen, drank much Guinness, Erik fell in love with the young singer; went to Morgan St. Food Hall and grabbed pizza etc, had our epic Epic Axe battle, Matt wins $5 off us all by ONE POINT; Watts and Ward Old Fashioned Raleigh tradition, chilled and chatted; Regina met us for amazing Brewery Bhavana dinner, she and I shared small plates, everyone enjoyed such such good good beer… we were all pretty crispy by the end!

Sunday: up, breakfast, coffee, chill… toured ArtSpace’s gallery and studios; epic ART LESSON from Matt! He was in town all day, awesome; Regina called us to The Davie to meet up with Bob and LeeAnn and her sister Lisa, such a great mashup of great people; next we planned exits, how sad… Erik ran everyone to the airport.

Can’t wait for the next one!

Raleigh is ours

January 28, 2023 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Regina and I walked from her old place to her new apartment at Peace that she will be in soon. It’s perfect. A 30 minute walk through the heart of Raleigh got us there. Raleigh was hopping today, with full parks, a set of Raleigh Astronomy Club telescopes beautifully filtering the sun (one showed dark spots, another had a hydrogen alpha filter that let us see solar prominences – unreal), live bands, noisy crowds, and sadly, lots of police (ahead of Tyre Nichols protests, Regina pointed out – a sad shameful ending to the walk).

The apartment is insane, right outside the door is the glorious pool, grills, a bar, the lounge with a theater, pool table and so much more. It’s basically the world’s biggest living room. Wow.

Avon and the art of motorcycle repair

September 6, 2022 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Real sports for kiteboard watching and a wrap

Aussie food truck free.coffee

Donna yoga on the beach sunrise

Nice good old boy pulled us from sand trap bought him beer

Walked a mile to beach, nailed the Nemo, extra poles

Sat at edge of tide, let it wash into us on the top of a steeeeeep bank.

Jamaica convenience cafe man scared us when I changed my order. Saw pinball and video games and poptart slippers and beers and…

Saw the sand motel

Swam and body surfed in huge waves, dragging feet to keep from getting rolled, or floating on back, so fun

Cooked tofu and veggies, pancakes and sausage, made so much coffee

Bluetooth speaker jams

So many sand crabs on the beaches! Sand pipers, gulls, a pack of crows… On sup, saw sting ray, crabs, seaweed beds, pelicans. So many dogs too! And cat alley.

On drive and hike into triangle of state Park land, saw beautiful green snake yay! And spiders. No beach in site, lol

Got extra Nemo poles for Anderson’s

Pelican limerick, kucuberaa sits on the electric wire, tears in his eyes cause his pants are on fire.. laugh kb laugh kb, gay your life must be

Kayaking the Roanoke River at Jamesville

June 1, 2021June 2, 2021 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Stephen and I drove out to his home town of Jamesville to check on his family’s properties there. It’s about 3/4 of the way from Raleigh to OBX. Classic old town America.

After we visited his parcels, we hit the Roanoke, and saw fish jumping, a great blue heron, a kingfisher, turtles among the natural lily pads (beautiful), what looked to be a copperhead fall from a tree and take a gentle upstream swim, and a pack of turkey vultures enjoying a catfish head on the shore, ha. A beautiful natural river.

Spy Games Season 1 contest

November 26, 2020January 15, 2021 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Dan and I have the Covid Blues so we are scraping for any reality races on which we can bet. Any show where each episode has a winner and a loser. Here’s our next train wreck! Call your bookie, slap down those bets!

New improved rules, now with more action!

Pick the player you think will win, pick the two players you think will be chosen to defend themselves, and pick the player you think will be actually eliminated.
For winners, start with 10 points. If your winner is eliminated, you lose a point, and you have to pick another. If your winner wins, you score a point, and they remain your pick.
For losers, start with 0 points. Score a point for each defender you got right. If your loser is eliminated, you score a point, and get to pick another.
Contest winner is the one with the most points after the final episode!
Also, we are playing with DAN’S BASTARDIZATION OF THE PICK RULES: you can change any pick you want in between episodes. WHAT? LAME, Mike does not approve… but he’s very accommodating, so here we go…

	STILL BREATHING
Chelsey Mori Raffle	Brock Thompson Clone	Christina Randall Cheek
	FUCKING OUT
Saif Kareem Iran	Dr. Mitch Abrams Shots	Jessica Studd Emo
Charnel Wright Buff	Nika Nour Plank	Colin Hutzler In-And-Out
George Jackson Loser

RESULTS

	Winner	(the rest)	Defender + Loser
Ep01
Ep02
Ep03
Ep04
Ep05
Ep06	N/A
Ep07	N/A
Ep08

WIN PICKS

	Ep01	Ep02	Ep03	Ep04	Ep05	Ep06	Ep07	Ep08
Dan
Mike
Winner						N/A	N/A

DEFENDER PICKS

	Ep01	Ep02	Ep03	Ep04	Ep05	Ep06	Ep07	Ep08
Dan								N/A
Mike								N/A
Defenders								N/A

LOSE PICKS

	Ep01	Ep02	Ep03	Ep04	Ep05	Ep06	Ep07	Ep08
Dan								N/A
Mike								N/A
Loser								N/A

SCORE

	Ep01	Ep02	Ep03	Ep04	Ep05	Ep06	Ep07	Ep08
Dan	14 PERFECT!	14	13	17 PERFECT!	19	18	19
Mike	12	12	12	13	13	13	14

The Future (thank you Elon)

November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Global fleet of autonomous-driving taxis (no more parking lots, traffic, pollution, car payments, crashes… you won’t grok this for a while, but Now You Know was there to warn you…)
Global near-instantaneous internet (Starlink internet-via-vacuum is 40% faster than fiber; again, you’ve been warned…); this alone will be lucrative enough to fund all Elon’s plans
Utopian Mars with a self-governed, self-sustaining, and industrious population, nonstop direct (rocket) flights, and fast-as-light communications network
Coming much sooner than you think to a planet near you…

Amazing Race 32 contest

October 19, 2020November 26, 2020 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Yes it’s still going strong! Dan pointed out that season 32 was coming up, and we are all in on another round of betting! How old is Phil now, anyway? He looks exactly the same.

Pick the team you think will win, and pick the team you think will be eliminated next.
For winners, start with 11 points. If your winning team is eliminated, you lose a point, and you have to pick another.
For losers, start with 0 points. If your losing team is eliminated, you score a point, and get to pick another.
Contest winner is the one with the most points after the final episode!

Winner gets a prize! TBD, ha. Also:
If Dan wins, Mike hauls his shit to the dumpster.
If Mike wins, he gets a TOP SHELF VO from Danno.

RESULTS

WIN PICKS

LOSE PICKS

SCORE

	Ep01	Ep02	Ep03	Ep04	Ep05	Ep06	Ep07	Ep08	Ep09	Ep10
Dan	11	11	11	11	11	11	11
Mike	11	12	13	13	13	13	13
Larry	–	11	11	11	11	11	11
Jane	–	11	11	11	11	11	12

Never heed the forecast

October 10, 2020October 10, 2020 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

I almost bailed on a bike ride to get Indian takeout on the other side of town, because the forecast was for rain. They oversell it! I’m so glad I went, the ride was gorgeous, the food delicious, and I continued to blast away at my DVT. :-)

Yes I carried all this on the back of my bike… With lots of rope!

Kayaking on the Neuse is a go

September 29, 2019January 28, 2023 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

Stephen agreed to try kayaking the Neuse with me! It’s only

Pelican Kayak ceiling hang stress test

September 27, 2019September 29, 2019 ~ m ~ Leave a comment

I have mountain climbing gear mounted from my ceiling! I haven’t tried rappelling yet but I have hung my first kayak. Hasn’t given out yet, hopeful…

Update: I got my living room back!

Coach & Son Jerry & Frank	Glasses Leo & Alana	Purple Will & James
Orphans Kaylynn and Haley	Olympians Kellie & LaVonne	Fucking Smart Eswar & Aparna
Parents Hung & Chee	Volleyballers Riley & Maddison	Footballers DeAngelo & Gary
Cajun Asians Michelle & Victoria	Catfishers Nathan & Cody