I went from a boring two week spell to a really friggin exciting two week spell!  That means I have interesting stuff to talk about.  How exciting is that?!  (suddenly erupts a smattering of golf claps)  Yes, yes, I’m sure you were all depressed after my last post and were hoping for a bounce back.  And you got it!

So, where to begin… On October 3rd, I went to a party.  I really wasn’t sure how it was going to go.  I had a feeling I wouldn’t know many of the people there. The party was for a friend of mine, Brian Hogan (@bphogan / @ecruby).  He apparently has a party every year like this for his birthday.  Sure enough, when I got there, he was really the only person I knew.  I felt really awkward and uncomfortable.  After about an hour, suddenly that all changed.  I was playing with my phone (like I usually do ’cause I’m an addict), and I hear this “Hey stranger, fancy seeing you here.”  I turn and it’s an old friend of mine, Jon, that I worked with at the help desk back at UWEC when I was a student.  I hadn’t seen him in almost four years.  At that point, the party became awesometastic.  Jon and I caught up for a while.  He even told me that I was his favorite person at the help desk (likewise, Jon).  We always had good times.

After that I came out of my shell and had a lot of fun.  I played Rock Band, chatted it up with people I didn’t know, and ended up staying until 3:00 in the morning.  I didn’t get to bed until about 4:00 am.  Not bad at all considering I wasn’t sure what to expect.  As it turns out (and I shouldn’t be surprised), I mix in well with Brian’s friends.  In fact, there was an interesting dichotomy going on.  There were the geeky programmers, and there were the people the geeky programmers brought with.  I mix well with both.  I spent about half the time chatting with the geeks and the other half chatting with the non-geeks.  I think it was a perfect blend.  I’ve been added to the official invite list for the coming holiday party too.  I look forward to it.

I did some shopping that weekend and finally found a copy of Dragonball season 1.  It was recently released on DVD as a digital remaster and uncut version.  I was a big fan of Dragonball Z maybe 9 years ago.  I never saw Dragonball, and after seeing the live action movie, even though it wasn’t great, I just had a sense of nostalgia.  Combine that with Josh, my sort of second roommate, also being into the show, I decided to get DB on DVD when it was released.  Josh and I have been watching it together ever since.  Wow…I never knew Dragonball was such a sexual / potty humor show.  Goku has never met or seen a girl when the series begins.  There’s a whole bunch of scenes where Goku is patting people on the crotch going “You’re a girl too!” or “Yup, you’re a boy!”.  I thought that was incredibly interesting.  The show is progressing very slowly, but that’s no surprise considering the series runs some 150 episodes long, and that’s just Dragonball…then comes Dragonball Z which is 250 some more episodes.  It’s been fun to bond with Josh with the show.  I’ll post more thoughts as the show progresses.

As I mentioned in the last post, Chris’s 30th was coming up, and I made sure to buy awesome gifts.  I went online to wbshop.com and looked through the Harry Potter selection.  I got him the Monster book of Monsters plush, “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good / Mischief Managed” transforming coffee mug, and the Dumbledore’s Army messenger bag.  Admittedly I spent too much because after that, I went out and bought party favors.  I probably dropped 125 dollars on his birthday, but I wanted it to be a good one.  It was, but I did put myself at a bit of a financial risk in doing so. Whatever, it was worth it.  For Chris’ birthday, we went to Manny’s Mexican seafood restaurant, which is Chris’ favorite.  It’s pricey at about $18 a plate average.  Still, it’s very good food.

I actually didn’t get to enjoy the food because for some reason service was a little slow that night.  Also that night were the board elections at the LGBT community center of the Chippewa Valley.  Since I was running, I had to be there in order to get elected.  I didn’t want to lose out on an opportunity to make a difference in the community, and Chris knew how important it was to me.  So he was ok with me disappearing for an hour or so to go to elections.  Unfortunately, despite our 6:00 pm reservations at the restaurant, the food wasn’t placed in front of us until 7:25.  I needed to leave around 7:30.  I ended up scarfing down a few bites, having it boxed up, paying and leaving.  I got to enjoy the company of Chris and friends, but not the food.  Oh well.

I got to elections, and started chatting with some people before the annual meeting started.  The program started, and the three of us that were running were given two minutes to give a presentation about who we were and what we wanted to do.  We all gave our 2 minutes and then came voting time.  It went pretty quickly.  At the end, announcements were made that I was one of the two elected to the board!  Hooray!  We then had a quick meeting of the board members to discuss some logistics, like when we’d have board meetings and who wants to be what on the board.  I ended up getting nominated and elected the Vice President.  That was unexpected to be sure!  I’m pretty thrilled though.  It feels good to be involved again.  Plus, it’s good experience for when I get my non-profit up and running too.

Back to the party, we had a great time.  We played a bunch of games, like Pit, the game of Pride, and an inflatable Penis battle game called “Cock Fight”.  Chris loved the gifts, and in fact, he’s said several times since the party that it was the best Birthday he’s ever had.  The group of us were up playing games and chatting until past 2:00 am, which is quite late for Chris.  What was shocking is that it felt like it was maybe 10:30 pm when we saw what time it actually was.  Once we noticed that, it was like we were all collectively hit by bricks.  Everyone was just exhausted.  What a great night though!

Sunday, we followed up our great party with a great Pumpkin carving night.  We had four pumpkins to carve, and they turned out fantastic.  I’ll post a bunch of pictures of the events along with this post so you can see them.  We ended up with six cups of pumpkin seeds to roast.  I took care of that and made some wonderful seeds that all of us are trying to moderate our intake of lest we gorge ourselves with them.  I used sea salts, butter, olive oil, and a spice called “Butt Rub”, which I got at a place called “Elegant Farmer” in Mukwonago, Wisconsin.  It was a great mix.  I highly suggest it.

Monday was another rush of a day.  Monday evening was my first trip back to Womens studies 301 with Professor Audrey Fessler, who is a very good friend of mine.  When I was in college, I used to lecture her Monday night class every semester.  Since I moved home, that opportunity all but disappeared.  Now that I’m back in town, she asked me to return, and I was excited to do so.  It was a 2 hour lecture to about 30 students.  It was a great group! They were a little timid with questions, and sometimes that happens.  I did a few things I don’t normally do with my presentations, like group activities.  I could definitely tell I was a little rusty, but overall it was a success.  I still have students’ questions to respond to via email.  I really want to make sure I address them all.

To add to all of those goings on, I also got hit with freelance work last week.  So the stress has been on me.  I still have one video to complete, which should happen tomorrow night.  I’m looking forward to next Tuesday evening, when all the stress is gone.  Speaking of Tuesday, I have another UWEC appearance coming up next week.  As mentioned a few posts back, I’ll be giving a forum on Tuesday, October 20th at 7:00 in the Arrowhead room of the Davies Center.  If you’re going to be in the area, stop on in and have a listen.  It should be fun.

This weekend will be a nice oasis in the middle of the sea of stress I’ve had lately.  A bunch of my lady friends from Milwaukee were a little disappointed that I couldn’t make it to Barcamp Milwaukee back on the first weekend in October.  So I suggested that I come down and visit sometime soon.  We could throw a little shindig.  So we are.  This weekend is geeky lady shindig.  I’ll be heading out Friday for some exciting geek fun with the girls.  So I guess you can look forward to my next post talking about that excitement.

So, question of the blog:  Are you a fall person?  What’s your favorite thing about fall?