For Reference:
Mindless Update
As I have moved into the world of these social networks I heard about things such as the Child’s Play Charity Dinner. This year when it came up I decided I had to go. Several of my co-workers had gone in past years and they said it was a good time. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I haven’t gone to any auctions before and I haven’t gone to any conventions (PAX or Comic Con) either. But getting dressed up for charity sounded like fun.
At the beginning they just have a silent auction. They had a lot of interesting things. The Guild Jones soda, jewelry made with dice, quilts, large bundles of Xbox 1 stuff, etc. I went in with the idea that I wasn’t going to bid on anything, but there was so much cool stuff. It was a little hard to say no to some of it, but knowing that I would never use it or have a good place to display it.
Beth ended up bidding on The Guild Jones’ Soda pack. As we were walking back to see if she was out bid, there was Sandeep, i.e. Zaboo, looking at the auction! It was just kind of crazy to have had the chance to be right there and talk with him.
As we were wandering around I heard what sounded like a familiar voice. Turning around I saw that it was THE Wil Wheaton! Pointing out Wil and Anne to Beth got her all excited and then she tried to hide behind me. After talking Beth into it being ok to say hi to Anne and try to get a picture we went up to say hi. I was nervous as well, not really sure what to say. I also didn’t want to ruin either of their nights. I wasn’t sure if this was one of those places where you are just supposed to “merge” in and not really call out the other people. I believe that I said hi, and then Anne started to ask who I was, paused, and then asked if I was Derek… Wait, did she just recognize me? She just recognized me from the 1 or 2 twitter conversations that we had!
The dinner started and the food was good, maybe not $70 a plate awesome, but still good. It was enjoyable to see them auction off the other crazy things. The dynamic of how the prices increased and how much people ultimately ended up spending on things was unbelievable. But, that is the whole point of a charity auction right?
The guys at our table ended up joining forces to try to get a tour of 343 and a voice mail by Jen Taylor. They ended up biding the item up to $5100! At another point in the night, Jerry and Mike were trying to waste some time until the next couple items were ready. To be funny some people in the audience raised their card to indicate that they were bidding. Mike responded with “What are you doing? There isn’t anything up here but us.” I am not sure if he did that on purpose because, well that just made EVERYONE start to bid. Then the Idea hit him and he started auctioning off for Jerry to take off his jacket. Quickly the biding got up to $1000! And yes, he did take is jacket off.
After dinner was over, I went over to talk with Wil and see if I couldn’t get a picture with him. It was interesting getting to talk with him and him recognizing when I mentioned I was the one behind Bob the replica detent ping pong ball.
It also made me realize, getting to read his words every day on Twitter, kind of breaks the barrier between fan and star a little. Talking with him, it sounded very much like he was performing. Well not that he wasn’t genuine, but that he was separated. Thinking about it, I don’t blame him. I mean I am sure everywhere he goes, he has fans coming up to him and talking with him, wanting pictures, and wanting something from him. Sure, there has to be the thrill and joy of having people that admire you and want to talk with you. But I can see that easily wearing on anyone.
So Wil, if you ever read this. I really hope I was not too much of a burden and I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and letting me get a picture with you. And then I over think this… Have I mentioned I over think things? I really don’t want Wil to think that I am ungrateful, or for him to feel like he gave an air of not wanting to be there talking with me… I just… Well I am digging this hole deeper. I’ll stop here. Thanks Wil!
I have had long hair for about 8 years. Why I have long hair is a different story. I tend to just not want to deal with getting haircuts. So back in college I just stopped getting haircuts altogether. Then it got really long and I realized that I needed to do something with it. At the time I asked my Mom if there was anywhere I could sell my hair. Her response, Locks of Love.
So that year I donated to Locks of Love, then grew it out and donated again… Well on the 3rd of this month I donated again, my 5th time donating.
It is always a little weird going from having that much hair back to having a little stub of hair. Mostly from my habits I develop to keep my hair out of my way, when I automatically start doing them and then realize that there is no hair there to move.
For some reason I got signed up for another half marathon. Well, I guess it all happened after a bunch of our friends wanted to do another half marathon. So we settled on the Seattle Marathon, which was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Beth of course had to do the full marathon, but I only signed up to do the half.
It dawned on me as we were getting closer to the date, that this was going to be one of my first runs where Beth would NOT be at the finish line waiting for me. She being a much faster runner that me normally finishes first. But with the half marathon starting an hour-ish before the marathon, there is no good way that she should have finished before me.
The day of the big race was upon on, and we had to get up insanely early so that we could get to the start line before 7:30am! When we got to the start line the weather was, well cold, grey, and foggy. As the race started off, we were running down the streets of Seattle. At one point we were towards the top of a hill and I could see many blocks ahead and the road was just packed with runners! It was impressive to see that that many people were running.
The whole race stayed fairly cold and grey, but at least it didn’t rain. Towards the last 3rd of the race, I started getting blisters and losing steam. All in all my time was 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 21 seconds. Not beating my previous race, but still not a bad time.
It all started back on September 9th. Beth was out running and I was at home and decided to play some video games. I setup my laptop and was watching Twitter and Facebook as I was playing. Apparently Wil Wheaton was relegated to clean out the garage. He found a bunch of things and some junk that I am sure we all have. Wil decided that he was going to auction off a movie that he had to help benefit the Pasadena Humane Society.
But that “junk” he found wasn’t ordinary junk. After being pestered by his followers he put the ping pong ball up on eBay as well. But it is a ping pong ball, who cares… right? Apparently a lot of people care. In about 5 minutes the auction had 24 bids and was going for $100! But I think Wil explained what he was thinking about better in his Blog. He took the time to write a hilarious backstory for the ping pong ball, Silas.
This beautiful ping pong ball is almost completely caved in on one side, providing an exquisite, built-in stand to properly display the smaller dent that runs across the other side.
This particular ping pong ball, named Silas, was used in many games of ping pong. It also delighted no less than two cats when dropped on a hardwood floor. Silas was the one ping pong ball in the box that all the other balls made fun of, because he had a name they didn’t understand and he liked to read books instead of going to parties — what the hell is wrong with those other balls? Not everybody likes to go to parties, okay, mom? Maybe I just want to sit in my room and read the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy and maybe look at some dirty pictures on the internet when I’m done. GOSH!
But now the joke is on the other balls in the box, because nobody remembers them or even cares where they are, and now Silas is Internet Famous for, like, maybe two whole days.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS: THIS PING PONG BALL WILL NOT OPERATE IN A GAME OF PING PONG. THIS BALL WILL NOT BOUNCE OR RESPOND TO A PADDLE IN THE USUAL MANNER.
This ping pong ball is probably worth less than the cost of shipping. You will probably laugh a gerat deal when you place your bid, but will likely have the worst case of buyer’s remorse since that one celebrity wedding. Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about. You’re probably going to feel like that, without all the attention and free drinks that come between the closing of the deal, and the overwhelming regret.
HOWEVER. This ping pong ball will be placed into a lovely padded envelope, perfectly suitable for opening, and it will be shipped to the buyer’s address with my compliments. You will open it, and you will probably say to yourself, “Well, crap. Now I have this stupid ping pong ball that I have to deal with. I suppose I’ll build an expensive display case to show it off at dinner parties.” And then you’ll invest lots of time and money to get that display case, money which could have been spent on whisky or many yards of colorful ribbons to braid together into a whimsical belt. Also, you need to learn to juggle, because it’s a useful skill that doesn’t impress many people, but WOAH is it satisfying when you throw torches around and don’t catch yourself on fire.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO JUGGLE TORCHES UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY A PROFESSIONAL JUGGLER. A PROFESSIONAL JUGGLER CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY THE FOLLOWING:
- Is wearing a jaunty hat, of many colors.
- Asks you for money.
- Arrives and departs on a unicycle.
- Is profoundly offended by this list.
ALL OTHER SO-CALLED JUGGLERS ARE MERELY ENTHUSIASTS, NOT PROFESSIONALS. DO NOT TRUST THEIR TRAINING
That night Beth and I were laughing over the fact that the ping pong ball had reached over $1000! At one point Beth pointed at the dented ping pong ball we had for our cat to play with and said “I wonder what we can get for that.” A light bulb went on… If Wil Wheaton can sell a ping pong ball for $1000, how much would a “replica” go for? I quickly checked to ensure that no one else had done it yet.
The next morning I took pictures and put together a backstory for my ping pong ball, Bob. I checked again to make sure that no one had beaten me to listing a replica, because a replica is only funny for the first one. And so it was listed.
A long long time ago in a factory far, far away….
Ok, it wasn’t that far away, it was still on earth. Some ping pong balls were formed. One of the ping pong balls would grow up to be Silas. At first Silas’ life seemed normal, he played ping pong and was batted around by two adorable cats. As always happens with ping pong balls, he got dented and relegated to the back corners of the garage.
The one day he was found and his pictures was Tweeted by none other than Wil Wheaton. This made him famous. Again people wanted Silas, he was listed as an auction on eBay to find a new family. People really wanted Silas and soon it became apparent that not everyone had a shot at owning Silas.
Silas’s half-brother, Bob, heard about this and wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to own a dented ping pong ball. Since they are half-brothers they look rather similar. And so Bob is being placed on eBay to help ensure that one more family might get to enjoy owning a crappy dented ping pong ball.
Like Silas, Bob was a little different. He never got a chance to play ping pong. He just enjoyed the fact that he brought happiness to the kitty of the house. He spent most of his free time under the couch watching SciFi movies like Star Trek and Firefly.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMERS: THIS PING PONG BALL WILL NOT OPERATE IN A GAME OF PING PONG. THIS BALL WILL NOT BOUNCE OR RESPOND TO A PADDLE IN THE USUAL MANNER. THIS BALL HAS NOT BEEN SEEN OR TOUCHED OR OWNED BY WIL WHEATON.
This ping pong ball is probably worth less than the cost of shipping. You will probably laugh a great deal when you place your bid, but this auction is mainly for those who wish to own a dented ping pong ball but can’t afford the Twitter famous Silas.
Just with the real Silas this ping pong ball will be placed into a cozy padded envelope, perfectly suitable for opening, and it will be shipped to the buyer’s address. You will open it, and you will probably say to yourself, “Well, crap. Now I have this crappy replica of a crappy ping pong ball that I can’t even at least say Wil Wheaton touched in.”
At first nothing happened, but It was a Monday. I was hoping someone would eventually see it or one of my Tweets about it. Maybe I could at least get a retweet. And then I saw a tweet from Wil. Someone found Bob and Wil even saw that it was going on! Even better is he was actually the first to bid! I am sure that helped get people to start bidding.
Then I started to realize that if my ping pong ball was going to sell I needed to do something more. A certificate of authenticity or something. But this isn’t something that is authentic. Well it is a ping pong ball, but there isn’t anything special about it. Then I took a shot in the dark and asked Wil if he could write a certificate of inauthenticity. He actually responded!
So my ping pong ball didn’t pull in any huge amount like Silas, but it did end up going for $46! I printed out a bunch of pieces of the story, a certificate of authenticity, as well as the certificate of inauthenticity. I hope the new owner appreciates it. And of course all $46 went to Pasadena Humane Society’s Wiggle Waggle Walk (Team Wheaton of course.)
So this is kind of early… but I don’t care. About a year ago I heard about this weird thing call JoCo Cruise Crazy or JCCC. It sounded awesome; a bunch of geeks hanging out on a boat, playing games, signing crazy songs, and Wil Wheaton.
I didn’t really care about this Jonathan Crouton guy or whatever his name was. Seeing picture of him he just seemed weird and I had assumed that I wasn’t going to like his music. So I never really bothered to listen to it or trying to figure out what he was all about.
Then for some reason a while back I went to his website and figured I should at least take a listen before judging his music. I mean after all I was going on a cruise that he had setup. Thankfully he had a bunch of songs which were free to play off of his site. I hit play and started listening along. Next thing I knew I had listened to all of the songs he had on that page and was wondering what other songs he had. Darn it, he didn’t suck, he was awesome.
This past weekend was PAX. To my luck, they decided to stream stuff on Twitch TV allowing me to watch even though I didn’t get tickets. So I watched a hand full of things, one of which was the concerts. Jonathan Coulton was the second or third act to play. I was enjoying his songs and laughing at the chat feed of people whining about how horrible the music was while others were trying to defend JoCo. I mean really if you are going to watch something streaming on the internet and you think it is horrible just stop watching. JoCo started playing a song that sounded kind of familiar… Where had I heard those notes before? “This was a triumph. I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS” It was Still Alive! Apparently he wrote the song. How did I not know that he was the one that wrote still alive? This just makes me like him even more. While I may have originally been trying to get on JCCC to meet Wil and Anne Wheaton, Marian Call, Randall Munroe, etc.. I now have to add JoCo to that list as well.
If you are going, I’ll see you there!
EDIT: As some may notice, this wasn’t actually posted back in September… Apparently I uploaded the draft and then never made it public.
It all started a long, long time ago. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that long ago, but back in May I got roped into a half marathon on Labor Day. By “roped in” I mean my wife was getting people to run it with her from our running group and I said that if everyone else was going to do the half marathon that I probably should to. It turns out that said Labor Day half marathon was on September 3rd, my birthday. So it was a “birthday gift” to make me run it. We started lengthening our weekly runs and eventually started adding on an extra day to get up to the mileage.
As we got closer to the date Beth started to talk about having a BBQ after the run. Originally Beth was thinking of just the people that ran the race with us. Beth tends to get nervous around events or planning, and this was a little bit of both. Slowly we started talking about adding other people, and despite reservations about planning for a bunch of people we decided that we just needed to invite all of our friends.
I am sure that I have the best wife ever, and the days/week before she proved it. Despite having anxieties about the event and the planning she did both! But she didn’t just plan a small little BBQ, she ended up going the full distance. She spent the whole weekend before picking up the house, finishing putting down the rest of the mulch, and cooked a bazillion things! She made home-made hot-dog buns, hamburger buns, veggie burgers, cupcakes, and frosting! It was all awesome and very delicious! She spent so much time prepping and making everything. Thank you so much Bethie!
All throughout Labor Day weekend the Penny Arcade Expo was going on. We didn’t end up getting tickets but there were a handful of events going on. So on Sunday before the half marathon we trekked downtown and went to an event called “Cards Against Beermanity.” The event was at a bar downtown called The Pine Box. We got there very early and had dinner. I had an amazing Buffalo Chicken Sandwich and Beth got a very tasty BLT sandwich. Slowly more and more people showed up. Then we were told that that we had to be friendly, so we started talking with the people that sat down near us. They had gone to PAX and saw all the things and it was cool to hear them recount stories of panels and events that they went to. Eventually we noticed that everyone else had gotten Cards Against Humanity decks, so one of the more adventurous people in our group got up and asked about getting a deck. We ended up only get the two expansion sets, but it was enough for us to a play. That was awesome and a lot of fun even though (probably because) many of those card combinations were rather horrible.
Getting up to go running is always the hardest part. As I was making breakfast I noticed that Beth has put out a present for me. But we were running later than we had planned (ok I was the one running late). So Beth said that it was motivation for finishing the race.
The race went off fairly well. I was able to start out slow enough that I didn’t burn out too much. I did however start to burn out around the 10 mile mark, I was having trouble to keep up my run/walk cadence that I was hoping for. But I ended up pulling off a 2 hour, 14 minute and 47 second race! Yay!
When we got back I of course had to open my present. It was Cards Against Humanity! Thank you Beth!
Then everyone started to show up for the BBQ. I had let our cat, K.C., outside because I assume that she would escape anyway. At some point when I stepped outside I heard our cat meowing. I was looking around trying to find her. Somehow she ended up on the roof of our house! We were trying to figure out how to get her down. I was trying to cox her over to me so that I could pull her off the roof (it is only 1 story there). For whatever crazy reason, she started edging towards the far edge of the roof, which didn’t really have much nearby. We all realize then that she is going to try to jump down to the railing that is over 6 feet away! She jumped, landing with only her front paws on the railing and half of her body dangling down. She started flailing trying to get up onto the railing. She pulled herself up onto the trailing, jumped down, and then went running under the deck to hide. We were all glad that she made it safely, but she is one crazy dare devil cat.
All in all the BBQ was awesome and having our friends out to visit was wonderful. We played Frisbee, talked, played Castle Crashers, ate, etc, just awesome.
Thanks you to everyone that helped make my Birthday awesome!
On her birthday, Anne Wheaton requested that everyone donate blood. I always have been wary of donating blood and such. I am not sure why, but I have been. And well, I know Beth has bugged me a little that I should donate blood. But now Anne Wheaton was asking me (indirectly) to donate, so naturally I had to think about it. After talking with Beth some I figured I would give it a go. The next convenient appointment I could make was two weeks away.
I get there and they have a bunch of cots setup. I read through their little pamphlet and answered all of their questions. Many of the questions seemed fairly similar and a lot of them were weird. I know it is to try to weed out high risk factor people, but still, they seemed weird.
They got me all hooked up and started drawing the blood. For some reason I was expecting it to be more, but it wasn’t really any worse than them taking blood for tests. The time went by slowly. And then I was all done. I felt fine, so I got up and went over to their “cantina” and selected the chocolate chunk cookie and some apple juice.
Things were good, I was debating about seeing if I could leave early since I felt fine. But figured, “whatever, I am going to eat my cookie and drink my juice.” I finished off the cookie and was part of the way through my juice. At this point it had been maybe 10-ish minutes since they stopped pulling blood. I started to get a little tunnel vision/light headed. I get that a lot and normally can just push through it. So I close up my juice and set it on the table and start thinking about if I should move to a specific position or just sit in the chair and fight.
Then I kind of start to get my vision back and have their weird feeling that I was finishing a dream or something. You know how your mind wanders a little when you are really tired and just waking up, like that. But no I was on the floor with two of the volunteers hovering over me asking questions and calling my name. I came to quickly and they continued to ask questions to make sure I was conscious. I knew I was fine at that point. As normal with nearly passing out and recovering, I could feel the change in my blood pressure and got VERY warm. They made me lie on the floor for a while long while they called for 911 and to have them check me out because I bumped my head. I could feel that I had bumped my head and knee a little but it really didn’t feel that bad.
After the paramedics had a chance to check me out and get me back into the chair I just fell out of, they left. When I got a chance to look at the bruise, um yeah, it was a little more than I was expecting but all is good. They were naturally very paranoid about me doing anything so they gave me more juice and another cookie! But not only that, Anne and I got to have a little mini twittersation over the fact that I passed out. I hope that she didn’t worry too much.
My friends and I have been doing weekly runs and several of us have been training for a Half Marathon on Labor Day. Friday was our last big run, 2 hours, and Beth was very worried about me because of my passing out and warned me that I would be slow due to giving blood only 2 days prior. So I started out slower than normal and then started with my walk/run pattern I normally do, except I bumped my run up to 4 mins of running instead of 2 or 3. As I got to 1 hour out I noted that I had actually gone 5.5 miles, which was a little further than I was expecting since I was supposed to be sluggish. As I got back to my surprise I was actually a little under 2 hours, my first negative split in forever! All in all I ended up going 12 miles in 2:08 (10:42/mile), which is longer and faster than my previous run, 10.1 miles in 1:50 (10:56/mile)! So much for being slow.
So it is a little late. I have no idea how those crazy people can daily write huge longs blog articles. So my wife’s birthday is tomorrow. This past Sunday was “MOLLY LEWIS’S BIG MUSICAL GRADUATION PARTY!” Which was awesome because it had Molly Lewis, Marian Call, and StepTo; so we bought tickets. We were a little surprised that Marian was going to be back in Seattle since we thought that she was done in Seattle for a while.
At some point after we got tickets I was thinking about what I could/should do for my Beth’s birthday. I then realized that the concert/party itself would have been a great gift, but that was too late we already got tickets and she knew about it, so I couldn’t really after the fact go “oh and that is your birthday gift.” It then hit me, I should get Marian to do something for Beth’s birthday. So I started writing an e-mail. It ended up being rather long, but I sent it anyway. I didn’t hear anything back.
The day of the concert we were getting ready and we were about to leave the house. I realized that I wanted to make sure that I had a copy of the receipt from the tickets to make sure that I would have all of the info in case they needed more than my name. So I logged back onto my computer and started digging through my e-mail to find the receipt. Wait, that e-mail said from Marian! She said that she would be up for meeting us before or after the concert and singing happy birthday to Beth. Yay!! I quickly replied to the mail and then we headed out. When we got there we were seated and started to look at the menu. However, I wasn’t sure how everything would really go down, so I was compulsively checking my e-mail to see if there was any update. I ended up sending some more info to Marian to let her know where we were and what to look for. I was then basically looking around and trying to find Marian to make sure that we didn’t miss her. Eventually I saw her starting to talk over, so I said to be “Hey look, there’s Marian.” Marian then walked over and up to Beth and said “Happy Birthday Beth.” It was awesome just to see Beth with her look of shock and awe. Then Marian and Sunnie (I believe) sang Happy Birthday to Beth. It was awesome and I think Beth enjoyed it too.
To quote Beth: “I was just personally serenaded by @mariancall. The show hasn’t started yet and is already awesome! #FreeMolly”
So Marian if you happen to find/read this, thank you SOOO much for helping me make sure my wife’s birthday was awesome!
Work has been keeping me nice and busy, so I haven’t really had a chance to work on my little project at all yet. Well I mean I had read up an Azure a little, but I am not sure I am really any closer to having anything working or knowing what I want to use.
Today was the Flying Wheels bike ride, route map. I only did the 65 mile ride, but it was still hard. I could not believe the number of people that were biking. I have done rides with my parents before, but nothing ever seems quite that packed. I am really curious how many people were out on the ride, but I can’t find any stats. My prayers go out to the two people that I saw that were severely injured. Overall it was a very enjoyable ride and wonderful scenery. The weather was a little cold and cloudy, but it held out and didn’t rain, so I guess that makes the weather awesome.
Speaking of stats, well the whole reason why I am writing this post is for the stats. The following data is from my Garmin, which I didn’t stop at all during the ride, so it includes all of the stops and walking around at the stops.
- Total Distance: 65.44 Miles
- Total Time: 5:35:35
- Average Speed: 11.7 MPH
- Max Speed: 33.5 MPH
- Total Calories: 6653 Cal (This is what my Garmin says, and as my wife keeps pointing out, could and probably is very wrong.)
- Average Heart Rate: 137 BPM
- Max Heart Rate: 172 BPM
- Total Ascent: 5446 ft
- Total Descent: 5572 ft
I like how somehow it I went down and extra 130 ft or so yet I started and stopped in the same spot. I also had my Bike Computer running too, but it auto stops, so the following stats are closer to what I was doing when biking.
- Total Distance: 65.59 Miles
- Total Time: 4:47:16
- Max Speed: 29.9 MPH
- Average Speed: 13.6 MPH
Randomstance 