FINALLY...

Have you ever had one of those weekends that was absolutely perfect for absolutely no reason? What a glorious weekend this was!!!

And what did I do to make it so glorious, you ask? NOTHING... absolutely nothing. After all the craziness of late, I finally had a weekend with nothing waiting for me to complete, no real responsibilites, and didn't even have to go in to work. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I didn't!!! Do anything, that is, except sit on my ass or do whatever I felt like doing at the time. I was beat on Friday after work, so I decided not to go out which meant I was up bright and early on Saturday. I lazed around, played with the cat and actually watched a little TV (I wondered what that big glass-fronted thing was for ). Got bored with that, so I headed off to the range to blow things up for a little while. Let's just say that .40 cal is my friend. Headed back home in time to catch a call from a couple of friends I haven't heard from in years, then caught up on some light reading I've been too busy to do. After more cat scratching, it was off to bed for wonderful, much needed, land-of-the-dead, I'm-not-getting-up-for-anything-less-than-a-tornado SLEEP! Got up today, promptly at NOON , lazed around some more, then got a surprise call from a friend who decided she wants to be a SuicideGirl after seeing Amina on TV. Yea , more work for TeamRockstar. Next, I hopped on the bike to meet some friends for a late lunch before riding a bit. Destination: nowhere!

Came home, mowed the yard, started the laundry and got down to the really important stuff... planning the annual trip to Whistler for this year. If you ski or snowboard and haven't been...GO! That nip is back in the air so it's time to start thinking of all things snow. All hail Ullr! And two points to anyone besides Tmronin who knows what that means, cuz I know he knows.

I wouldn't want every weekend to be a slow as this one, but it sure is nice every now and then. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, whatever that means for you!!!

"We can rebuild him...better, Stronger, FASTER!"


I'm baaa'aaack! Apologies to all I haven't responded to in a timely fashion, but my hard drive decided that it had exceeded it's life expectancy. I decided instead of getting a new hard drive to just replace the whole 'puter. That meant ordering a new one and setting it up, which took a while. Ok, so it isn't the six million dollar machine...but it beats the hell out of the dinosaur I had!

Anyway, last weekend was a blast in NYC...even if we all were in somewhat of an exhaustion induced coma. Spent Saturday afternoon with Tmronin and the lovely Maxi for a precarious rooftop photoshoot. Thankfully, no one was injured and, for a change, no equipment was damaged. (Well, maybe an iMac or two, but they were damaged before we started ) Plans to grub Italian were scratched since NBK66 and Girlie were too beat to join us after 5 hours of ink work (each!), so we met up with Tmronin's better half (who was beat from Tae Kwon Do) to get our munch on with some serious sushi. Don't get me started; I can still taste the toro! Afterward, we were joined by the charming miss Jessikaaaa for a relaxed close to the evening and some wonderful conversation. Sunday was spent hanging with Girlie and NBK66 followed by the easiest drive back from NYC...EVER! That was quickly followed by the deepest sleep ever to recover from the two weeks before.

This week has been stupid busy with more chaos at work. Corporate end-of-the-year BS. Self appraisals were due Monday. More effort than expected this time since I'm up for promotion. This would put me into a PhD level position, which is kind of a big deal since that's one degree I DON'T have. My boss has approved it...now if I can just get approval from her boss (Assistant VP) and his boss (VP). Yeah, right...I'm not holding my breath. That wouldn't be a good idea anyway since I won't find out until January.

This weekend? Maybe hanging with some of the PhillySG crew on Friday followed by a Tmronin visit on Saturday to winter his Ducati in my garage...or Monday, who knows? Ain't weather a bitch? Riding down from Brooklyn in the rain would really suck for him. Might catch up with a couple of SG Hopeful friends on Sat. night. I have no idea what's going on when, but I'm used to that.

I'll try my best to respond to everyone in the next few days, but for now I've gotta get some sleep. In the meantime, go check out Twwly's new rockin' website!!! Hope everyone has a kick-ass weekend and stay safe!

"We can rebuild him...better, Stronger, FASTER!"


I'm baaa'aaack! Apologies to all I haven't responded to in a timely fashion, but my hard drive decided that it had exceeded it's life expectancy. I decided instead of getting a new hard drive to just replace the whole 'puter. That meant ordering a new one and setting it up, which took a while. Ok, so it isn't the six million dollar machine...but it beats the hell out of the dinosaur I had!

Anyway, last weekend was a blast in NYC...even if we all were in somewhat of an exhaustion induced coma. Spent Saturday afternoon with Tmronin and the lovely Maxi for a precarious rooftop photoshoot. Thankfully, no one was injured and ,for a change, no equipment was damaged. (Well, maybe and iMac or two, but they were damaged before we started ) Plans to grub Italian were scratched since NBK66 and Girlie were too beat to join us after 5 hours of ink work (each!), so we met up with Tmronin's better half (who was beat from Tae Kwon Do) to get our munch on with some serious sushi. Don't get me started; I can still taste the toro! Afterward, we were joined by the charming miss Jessikaaaa for a relaxed close to the evening and some wonderful conversation. Sunday was spent hanging with Girlie and NBK66 followed by the easiest drive back from NYC...EVER! That was quickly followed by the deepest sleep ever to recover from the two weeks before.

This week has been stupid busy with more chaos at work. Corporate end-of-the-year BS. Self appraisals were due Monday. More effort than expected this time since I'm up for promotion. This would put me into a PhD level position, which is kind of a big deal since that's one degree I DON"T have. My boss has approved it...now if I can just get approval from her boss (Assistant VP) and his boss (VP). Yeah, right...I'm not holding my breath. That wouldn't be a good idea anyway since I won't find out until January anyway.

This weekend? Maybe hanging with some of the PhillySG crew on Friday followed by a Tmronin visit on Saturday to winter his Ducati in my garage...or Monday, who knows? Ain't weather a bitch? Riding down from Brooklyn in the rain would really suck for him. Might catch up with a couple of SG Hopeful friends on Sat. night. I have no idea what's going on when, but I'm used to that.

I'll try my best to respond to everyone in the next few days, but for now I've gotta get some sleep. In the meantime, go check out Twwly's new rockin' website!!! Hope everyone has a kick-ass weekend and stay safe!

"We can rebuild him...better, Stronger, FASTER!"


I'm baaa'aaack! Apologies to all I haven't responded to in a timely fashion, but my hard drive decided that it had exceeded it's life expectancy. I decided instead of getting a new hard drive to just replace the whole 'puter. That meant ordering a new one and setting it up, which took a while. Ok, so it isn't the six million dollar machine...but it beats the hell out of the dinosaur I had!

Anyway, last weekend was a blast in NYC...even if we all were in somewhat of an exhaustion induced coma. Spent Saturday afternoon with Tmronin and the lovely Maxi for a precarious rooftop photoshoot. Thankfully, no one was injured and ,for a change, no equipment was damaged. (Well, maybe and iMac or two, but they were damaged before we started ) Plans to grub Italian were scratched since NBK66 and Girlie were too beat to join us after 5 hours of ink work (each!), so we met up with Tmronin's better half (who was beat from Tae Kwon Do) to get our munch on with some serious sushi. Don't get me started; I can still taste the toro! Afterward, we were joined by the charming miss Jessikaaaa for a relaxed close to the evening and some wonderful conversation. Sunday was spent hanging with Girlie and NBK66 followed by the easiest drive back from NYC...EVER! That was quickly followed by the deepest sleep ever to recover from the two weeks before.

This week has been stupid busy with more chaos at work. Corporate end-of-the-year BS. Self appraisals were due Monday. More effort than expected this time since I'm up for promotion. This would put me into a PhD level position, which is kind of a big deal since that's one degree I DON"T have. My boss has approved it...now if I can just get approval from her boss (Assistant VP) and his boss (VP). Yeah, right...I'm not holding my breath. That wouldn't be a good idea anyway since I won't find out until January anyway.

This weekend? Maybe hanging with some of the PhillySG crew on Friday followed by a Tmronin visit on Saturday to winter his Ducati in my garage...or Monday, who knows? Ain't weather a bitch? Riding down from Brooklyn in the rain would really suck for him. Might catch up with a couple of SG Hopeful friends on Sat. night. I have no idea what's going on when, but I'm used to that.

I'll try my best to respond to everyone in the next few days, but for now I've gotta get some sleep. In the meantime, go check out Twwly's new rockin' website!!! Hope everyone has a kick-ass weekend and stay safe!

Who was I kidding? I actually believed I had caught up and was going to have a relaxing week <insert crazed laugh here>! So much for that idea, but it keeps life interesting to be swamped and nothing bad happened so it's all good.

Last Friday's presentation went surprisingly well, even if it did last 35 minutes. The boss's boss was pleased, which was a good thing since he had no idea what I had been working on. Those few who had a clue were shocked that I managed to finish what was supposed to take 3-6 months in 3 weeks. Now where's that raise?!? Nah. Basically, I got really lucky that all my experiments worked the way they were designed to on the first try. Science is almost never that predictable.

Then it was a mad dash to the airport for a flight out of PHL that was actually on time! Sorry, I missed the memo that hell was going to freeze over that day. Landed in NC and headed over to my sister's to see my new niece, went out Friday night with my brother-in-law and spent all day Saturday playing with my new niece and 2.5yr old nephew. Out with my bro-in-law and some friends of ours from bike week again Sat. night then caught a flight home on Sunday. Let's just say that after a weekend with my niece and nephew and 2 screaming monsters on the plane that I'm totted out for a while. Meant to have pics of the little tykes to post but, of course, forgot to take the damn card they are on to work to resize them...oops.

Then had another week of complete chaos at work with an accomplice announcing that he's accepted another job elsewhere. Oh boy, more work for me.

So, you'd think it would be time for a nice relaxing weekend, yes? NOOO! I wouldn't know what to do with that, so I'm off to NYC to hang with Tmronin and Girlie (the Brooklyn-ite half of TeamRockstar), NBK66 and whoever else they invite along for our Saturday shennanigans! The day begins with that wonderful drive from PA to NYC then gets decidedly better assisting with some portfolio building shots by Tmronin of the illustrious Maxi , whose latest set went live today, so check it out then go tell her how wonderful it looks! After that, the three of us will be joined by the rest of the aforementioned crew and anyone else they invite along for dinner followed by ??? Who knows? It's always an adventure when Tmronin is involved, but I suspect it will be a long night with much bar hopping involved. I'm overdue for that!

I guess then I'll crawl home on Sunday, wondering what happened to the weekend, scratch my cat's fuzzy little head then pass out 'til Monday. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend...I know I will!

Well, I think I may have actually caught up with all the crap I had to do...at least for a day or two. Got a massive presentation at work tomorrow and have no idea how I'm going to cram all that information into the time allotted. Oh well, I hope the audience has their heads screwed on tight 'cuz it's gonna be a whirlwind tour. Just enough time to take a few questions then I'm off like a prom dress to head back home to see my new niece. They say you can never go back, but it's nice to visit occasionally. Hope everyone has a great weekend! Be sure to pick at least one night this weekend to get into your own individual brand of trouble...then tell me about it on Monday so I can live vicariously through you! Family and new babies aren't exactly going to make for a wild weekend for me. Be safe and I'll be back soon!

Big apologies to everyone I haven't responded to in the last week or so. Let's just say that Chaos stopped by for a visit. The good news is, that isn't always a bad thing. Work had me busy for 52 hours in 4 days at some really crazy times (4am is a bizarre time to be in the lab ), but I got a ton accomplished for the big presentation I have to give next Friday, so it wasn't too bad.

To add to the confusion, I'm an uncle again! My sister had a healthy baby girl, who decided to come into this world a little early so I had to scramble to make arrangements for an upcoming visit back home.

On top of that, I kept busy making arrangements for a couple of photoshoots for TeamRockstar. We've got 5 shoots planned for this weekend and, hopefully, 3 of those will be gracing these SG pages in the not too distant future. I just wish we weren't one rockstar short.

NBK66 will be adding to the weekend festivities as he will be joining the two Brooklyn-ite rockstars on this journey so he can add to his growing ink collection, courtesy of Shane Munce at Norristown Tattoo Company.

So, all in all, things are going pretty well here in the middle of nowhere. See you when I see you...

One for the "Let's Not Do That Again" File: Part 2

Thanks for the gentle prodding to update. I have a habit of getting wrapped up in whatever is going on and I forget to make the time to do that. I intended to update last night, but I was a little preoccupied ( see below).

Saturday started off great. I pretty much zonked out Friday night and slept late on Saturday to catch up on some much needed Z's, then got up ready to get shit done. I ate a quick lunch (unusual for me, somehow I usually end up not eating on Saturdays) spent some time cleaning and vacuuming 'Casa de Cockroach', did 3 loads of laundry, made a few calls, ran some errands, went grocery shopping, then came back for 2 hours of intensive lawn mangling. After all of that (and feeling quite proud of myself for getting so much done), I wandered back inside for a bit of toob time which quickly led to a few more Z's stuck in for good measure.

Work is done, it's time for fun! So up I get and haul my carcass away for a shower just in time to head out to the club to hang out with some friends. A lot of laughs, 4 beers and 3.5 hours later it was time to go. Club 1 is done so what to do? I know! I know! We'll hit Club 2! So off we went to continue our revelry at an after hours club. Got there at 2am still having fun. I knew I'd have to drive home around 3:30 (or so I thought ), so I got one more beer to nurse for the rest of the night while we continued cutting up, as usual. Well, at 3am I decided I was done for the night and was saying goodbye to a buddy of mine when the world went black. He told me later that, in mid-sentence, somebody flipped a switch and my lights went dark and I hit the floor. He and another friend (both big guys) picked my rag-doll, corpse-like ass off the floor and tried to stand me up. Not happening, so they lifted and got my legs under me again...still jelly, I'm completely out. They say the third time is the charm and so it was in this case. I stood up and the first thing I remember is thinking they had all lost their collective minds because they kept asking me if I was OK. I had no idea that I had even hit the floor and by the time I was standing was perfectly awake and coherent. Total time out: 1 minute. Now, both these guys are bouncers so they've seen plenty of people pass out, but this had them both spooked because they both knew how much I hadn't had and they both said they had never seen anyone collapse like that. Perfectly coherent one second, out the nest. I just went limp. No warning...nothing.

Well, everyone there was aware of the brain reconstruction I underwent, courtesy of my accident, about a year and a half ago so there was more than a little bit of concern. After talk of an ambulance, we decided that someone would drive me to the emergency room, instead. Once there, and after the staff heard about my prior accident, things got busy. Blood work, CAT scan, head and chest X-ray...and all the while, I feel fine. While the Dr. is telling me that he doesn't see anything wrong in either the CAT scan or X-rays, the nurse comes in with the blood results. Blood alcohol: 0.013 (impaired is 0.08 here in PA)...that certainly wasn't it. 'Hmmm' says the Dr. while looking at my blood results. He then proceeds to give his best Homer Simpson impression (complete with 'Doh!') and says he should have thought of this sooner. "What did you do today?", he asked. So I told him. "Did you drink anything today?" Well, I had 4 and a half beers, but I already told you that. "No, before the bar. Alcoholic or otherwise." Now it's my turn for a 'Hmmm'. No, I don't think I did. "Well, these results show that your electrolytes aren't far off, but you are severely dehydrated. Next time, mow the yard with a Gatorade in your hand. For now, we're going to get some fluids back into you. You aren't leaving here until you have to pee." I swear, he really said that.

After I stopped laughing, got the fluid replacement lecture with special emphasis on 'beer doesn't count', and got pumped full of 2.2 Liters of iv fluids, I finally had to pee and got released. That was it. I got home, at last, around 8am and crashed hard.

Moral of the story: Drink something, stupid!

A big 'hats off' to my buddy Jake and his friend (whose name I didn't catch) for taking me to the hospital and to Sue and the guys for arranging for someone to have my truck waiting for me at the hospital when I got out. It's good to have friends and you guys are the best!!!

I know, I know...slow as hell as usual, that's me. Ten days since the last update makes me a slackass, so shoot me

The car/bike show (weekend before last) went pretty well. It was hot as Hades, but I knew that would be the case. Even so, somewhere near 50,000 people showed up to see what was on display. I had a blast checking out the old rides. We're talking '30's thru early '80's. Couple of Barracudas, couple of DeLoreans and a pair of '32 Chevys...loved seeing those. Anyway, there were about 150 bikes and I was pleased that my scoot took 1st in the Sportster All-Mild to Wild class out of 13 Sportsters in the show. Riding home with the trophy on my back was another matter.

That was followed by another week of work that gave it's best effort to truly try my patience, so I decided to go 'renegade walkabout' this past weekend. That basically means that I pointed the bike into the wind and let her decide where to go. Even though we never touched a single road we had ever been on before, I got a little spooked when things started to look familiar. I got really spooked when I realized where we had ended up. I think she and I need to have a serious heart-to-heart since somehow, between dodging thunderstorms, we ended up in Hagerstown, Maryland. I don't mean to offend anyone, but if you've never been there, let's just say that I somehow failed to notice entering the time portal back to 1980. I got home Sunday night to find that Batty's set, shot at my place, had gone live. Big props to Team Rockstar and, of course, to Batty for making that set as awesome as it is.

Now it's another week of work, but not so bad as last week. One of these days I'll get around to posting some pics of what I actually do for a living...if for no other reason than to scare off anyone who might be considering ruining their life by going into science (j/k ).

If anyone is interested, a bit of my scribbling that was published at PGS
can be found here: The Somber In-Between

On the news front, one friend applied and was accepted to SG and another has applied and is waiting to hear, so there may be some more work in the near future for Team Rockstar!!!

As for the very near future, I'm looking forward to another visit from Tmronin this weekend and the mayhem that will undoubtedly ensue.

'Til next time...

Yeah, I'm a little slow on the update, but I think I jinxed myself. Not too long ago I had a conversation with Tmronin about getting a wireless router to help him out with file transfers, etc. when he's shooting in PA and to use as a hardware firewall. I haven't had any problems in that area, but we decided that it could help us both out. I decided that I would get one whenever I got a 'round tuit'. Dammit, wouldn't you know that as soon as I open my mouth, my 'puter catches a cold (read: virus ) and I have to nurse it back to health. That's where I've been lately, but all is well again, finally. I think we should all contact our congressmen and urge them to introduce legislation to make it legal to shoot spammers and virus coders on sight. Open season on spammers sounds like fun to me. Better yet, let's just lock them in a cell with three things: A large caliber handgun, 1 bullet, and a computer with a dial-up connection. That should save the taxpayers some $$$. They'll off themselves before we even have to feed them.

Anyway, it's hot as hell here. I've got no problem with hot, I just wish it would cool off at night...this muggy shit really sucks. On the other hand, I suppose I could get off my lazy ass and drag the AC up from the basement. Nah, I'd just have to drag it back down there in a month or two. Ok, it's official...I really am a lazy bum.

Started a new SG group for members who have, through accident or illness, almost died. If you know anyone who almost bought the farm, send them to Immortals.

Got a bike show to enter the scoot in on Saturday, provided that the weather cooperates. Nothing sucks quite so bad as riding on wet roads to enter your bike in a show and having to attempt to clean it on-site. That's waaaay more trouble than it is worth and I'm not about to trailer the sucker. This show is a new one on me, so we'll see how it goes.

Ok, kiddies...it's getting late here and they are going to hate me tomorrow at work more than usual 'cuz I'm going to be a grumpy sumbitch. Hope all is well for everyone out there in SGland. Yak at you soon.