Fraize Dotcom

If you know where that quote came from, you win +1 Rob Reiner points.

Hai, Intarwebs! It’s me, Fraize – though you may hardly recognize me since I’ve been so absent from the blogosphere. I blame Twitter. No, really – I do! I’ve found I get my blogging yayas out by hitting my Twitter page and microblogging there, so I don’t visit the old Fraize Dotcom very often at all.

I could write several incredibly long posts about the recent goings on, but instead, I’ll just keep to a modified Twitter theme, and post some bullet-point versions of my last few weeks.

• After Sarah’s wedding, Heather and I decided to use the same place, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Centreville, as the backdrop for our wedding and reception. It’s pretty, close by everybody, and very easy going and nice people there.
• I headed up to New York City for a few days for the New York Gift Fair – a convention of people showing off their stuff in hopes the mighty ThinkGeek will buy some of it.
• While I was there, I met with the supercool and hipster-thick Buglabs. Their outreach manager took me on a tour and showed me where the magic happens.
• After that meet and greet, I headed off to NYC Resistor, a colony of hackers, and got introduced into a fascinating world of art hacks and fun mechanical and electronic projects. It was inspirational! Now I want to join the DC area version, HacDC, and make my own Reprap!
• I was supposed to stay until Wednesday, but crappy weather forced me to sneak home a day early. I avoided the ice storm with about a half hour to spare.
• I’ve been playing with Windows 7 lately, and I really really like it.
• Our gas furnace, which had been leaking gas lately, got a brand new solenoid valve. Of course, being brand new didn’t make it free from defects, so that unit also leaks gas. No heat in the house but that which glows from our collection of electronics. Ambient house temp: 69 degrees.

Sue Palka, our local Fox affiliate weatherperson, insisted that we’d get no more than an inch-and-a-half of snow by 8pm Wednesday night, none of which would stick to the roads. Imagine my shock when there was already that much before 8am.

What’s more, the plows and salt trucks weren’t prepared for the initial dump, so the roads are slick.

Now they’re talking about upwards of 3 inches.

Now, some of you, particularly those of you in the Pacific Northwest, may laugh at us Washingtonians who panic at the snow. You have to understand, I don’t doubt my own ability to maneuver in slick streets. My car is unusually heavy for its size, and has anti-lock / anti-slip technology, and I drive relatively slowly, don’t change lanes often, and maintain a pretty safe distance. There are those, however, that insist they can drive like they always do, in their SUVs, getting frustrated by us driving carefully, and weave and speed through the roads, eventually causing accidents.

It is those people that frighten me.

So, the Heather-fiance and I are staying home, at least until the salt and sand trucks get their butts in gear.

This weekend, we’ve been blessed with absolute weather perfection. Breezy and sunny, with low humidity, high of about 71 degrees. SUCK IT, SAN DIEGO!

So, it’s Ren Fest again on Sunday, but today is Open-The-House-And-Get-All-The-Chores-Done day. I swear, sitting in my living room, and smelling the sweet smell of the pre-Fall air is just this side of heaven.

Today I hope to get the lawn mowed, do some laundry, maybe clean and organize my office a little bit better. I’d really like to fire up the grill and cook up something nice for dinner. I could really go for some Krampe-style fajitas right about now. That and a nice crisp Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc… mmmmm. Why is it that nice weather always gets me thinking about food?

This time of year, the XBox goes dark, I put my laptop down, and the iPod lies dormant. I eschew technology for at least one day every weekend, for the Maryland Renaissance Festival is upon us!

This past weekend was opening weekend, and Mother Nature decided that the East Coast had it easy, and dropped a big steaming high pressure system onto the Atlantic. You know the type – big red animated “H” on the weathermap with wavy red lines spinning clockwise and seemingly turning Washington D.C. into the Bahamas. Not in the cool-ocean-breezes and white sands kinda way. More like the deep in the jungle in long pants kinda way.

It was hotter than should be natural, but the Ren Fest opened anyway, much to the delight of Emergency Medical Technicians on site. I hear they had to revive several folks suffering from heat stroke. Heather and I, however, opted out of opening-day and went, instead, for the second day. We got up as early as our insomnia would let us, and tried to get in quickly, but last-minute errands ended up dogging us, and we were much later than we hoped. Still, it wasn’t too bad once we arrived. The sun hid behind clouds, and a nice cool breeze greeted us as we retrieved our season passes and made our way in to Revel Grove.

There were a couple of new vendors, but it was still the same old Ren Fest. What struck us as interesting was how much grass there was. A coworker reminded me that the grass gets destroyed in the first few weekends, and that we should enjoy it while we can.

I posted a few pictures on the Gallery. You should go check ‘em out.

Sometimes, there are those mornings when you take a deep breath and exclaim to the heavens, “Goddamn, it’s great to be alive!”

I wake up at quarter-to-eleven, which is a totally ridiculous hour for me. I hobble down the stairs, and quickly do the dishes from a yummy homemade chicken tikka masala dinner from last night while Heather makes the coffee.

“Put some pajama pants on, babe,” she says, “I’m going to open the windows. It’s very nice out.”

I do, she does, and it is. We sit on the floor looking outside, drinking our coffee and feeling the cool morning breeze on our faces. Cicadas and birds are chirping on the magnolia tree outside. We talk about being cats sitting on the window sill watching the world go by with huge impassive eyes. I make a big giant bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and contemplate doing mostly nothing all day. Maybe I’ll mow the lawn.

Right after I play some Bioshock.

Our weekend vacation might be marred by weather. A classic “Noreaster” storm is slowly forming over the Tennessee valley, and is expected to park itself in the Atlantic just east of Georgia. That coupled with a high-pressure system over the great lakes acts as a pump that drives cold weather from the north directly into the path of moisture from the ocean. That drives winds and rain directly into the coast. Saturday is expected to be alright, but Sunday through Monday is expected to be, in a word, shit.

In Williamsburg, they’re expecting cold weather and thunderstorms. As the storm moves north, the DC area is expecting the same. Now, the temperature Sunday night is expected to drop giving us a chance of – wait for it – a little bit of snow!

Actually, we had snow last week, but Leesburg got flurries while Alexandria actually got an inch or so. I didn’t bother to blog about it because, well, that’s all I seem to blog about now. At least now, I’m relating it to vacation.

Still, we get an almost full day in Williamsburg, enjoying the sights and history. Plus, we like to drive. I’ll try to shoot some pictures.