Ok, so here's something I wouldn't have figured I'd have done. Not that I didn't enjoy my time at Milligan immensely, but I'm usually not such a huge fan of 'organized' social activities and most of the people that I spent my time with during those years either still live near me, or weren't coming out for the 'homecoming' thing anyway. Still, there was one notable exception.

Our friend Amber told us last week that she would, in fact, be coming down from Iowa for the event, and that she would be bringing here two munchkins (Seth and Charlie) as well as her mom and grandma. Despite the fact that this was my 5th year class reunion, I think the fact that she was coming and that Sheri and I hadn't seen her in about 3 years were really the reasons we attended.

And actually, it was pretty cool. Even though (like i mentioned before) most of my *best* friends were either local or absent, it was quite enjoyable to get to talk to a wide variety of people I knew at school, even if they weren't the ones I hung out with often. Despite the wide variances in our lives, there was some small sense of common heritage with these people (which is of course the draw to these sorts of events) and, despite its somewhat contrived nature, I'll admit that it was a nice feeling and an enjoyable time to get to socialize with those present once again - even if that interaction was mostly superficial. My description here may seem overly cynical, but it's not intended to be. I really found it interesting to get to meet again for the first time people you once knew.

So we spent saturday walking around campus with Amber and her entourage, talking to familiar people (some of whose names I remembered, others not so much), and generally hanging out on campus - something I hadn't done in a while.
We saw the parade, which was somewhat amusing. We got to see the progress that's been made on the inside of the new arts building on campus, which looks pretty cool. We also had lots of fun with Seth and Charlie, who were very cute. In addition to the Milligan festivities, we spent some time just hanging out with Amber - which was really cool. We all miss having her around.

I will put some pictures up in the gallery soon. (EDIT: pictures are up!)

On a somewhat sadder note, I also went by Robb's house for a while on saturday evening for Ken, Teri and Erica's going away party. They're moving up to Columbus, IN (of all places!) and we'll miss having them in the area as well. I'm going to try to make it a point to get together with them when I go up there to visit my parents.

~PS

A forum friend of ours has been sent over to Iraq with the military. A few of us got together to make a package for him. We decided as part of that, we'd bake some cookies for him, take some pictures of the escapade, and send both the pics and the cookies out to him.

I've put up about 12 pictures in the gallery. If you're at all interested in chronology, I suggest starting here and working forward/left to the newer pics.

~PS

Last night Sheri and I went to Rucht & Mckenna's place for the evening. Specifically, we went there because they invited us for Thai food, along with several other people including the Helms and some people Sheri and Mckenna knew from the Chorale.

Rucht made some awesome cashew chicken along with some other stuff that I can't pronounce, but that was very tasty. Another guy who comes from Korea by way of Germany made some Korean beef stuff that was also really good and went very well with Rucht's Thai food. For desert, we had some German Chocolate candies.


In unrelated news, Rucht & Mckenna also gave us a pet crate that had as an extra. It's currently outside with Ally's bed (and Ally herself) in it. We're trying to get her used to it because we're wanting to try to crate and house train her so that she can be in here with us instead of outside by herself.

~PS

Yesterday evening we had some people over for a game. As we also have a game tonight (busy gaming weekend), I thought I should go to the grocery and get some extra soda and snacks. Our gaming sessions are very social events, and I was looking forward to spending some time with some friends - goofing off and playing through a story.

Oh, and enjoying some soda, of course.

As I was driving home, something sort of occurred to me, and I thought it was a little sad: I'd managed to drive to the store, get my stuff, check out, and drive home without so much as saying 'hi' to another human being.

I usually don't use the self-checkouts, but it was particularly crowded, i needed to get back before game time, and there was no one (as usual) at the self-checkout lanes - so I yielded to the lure of the cold technology.

I often wonder if the lack of human interaction (or the various degrees of separation thereof) that seems to come from increases in technology is merely a byproduct of such 'progress', or if it is actually a motivation of our collective subconscious not to be 'bothered' by others if we don't wish to be - stemming from our own insecurities...

~PS

Sheri needs a blog. Really. But since she doesn't have one, i'm going to write this one up.

We just got a phone call, which she answered. It went something like this.

Sheri: Hello?

Woman: Ms Shoemaker?

Sheri: Yes?

Woman: I'm [name] from the Johnson City Police Lodge. How are you today?

Sheri: ...I'm fine...

Woman: Well good... Are your parents home?

Sheri: ...uhm I'm sorry, no they're not...

Woman: Oh, ok. Thanks. Bye. [hangs up]

Now, at this point, sheri starts laughing hysterically.

So she wants to know: is she evil?

~PS

(Please note: that most everything in this post is extremely biased. Extremely. But hey - it's my blog, and if I can't be biased here, where can I?)

In hindsight, this whole thing would be a lot cooler if it involved a lot more gadgetry and geekdom and a lot less produce and arts & crafts. My 2c anyway.

So yeah, yesterday and friday were the days of the Apple Festival here in Erwin (where I happen to be whilst writing this). I may have been over this before, but basically Erwin's annual Apple Festival it's a lot of arts & crafts, locally grown/made apples/jam/honey/the like, and what I would personally classify as annoying quasi-professional southern gospel groups being blasted from a stage that is constructed to resemble the front porch of a log cabin (I just want to make sure you appreciate the level of 'country/redneckdom' we're dealing with here). Oh, and they have pretty much the exact same stuff there every year - so if you've been there once, there's not much of a reason to return. Please.

There is one upside to all of this however. Our church is located very near the festivities and we get to charge $5 for festival-goers to park. This is one of the best fund-raisers we have for our youth group's mission trips, etc.

So yesterday Sheri and I helped direct the parking traffic for about 4 hours. We're both somewhat sunburned to show for it, too. It really wasn't that difficult though - it was a bit slower than we might have expected. We still managed to raise a considerable amount of money, however. We speculate that if the church were on the other side of town (where most people come from) or if we at least had signs over there, we'd do much better.

~PS

I've had quite a bit of fun the last few days.

On friday I built the framework for a sort of work side-project. I'm pretty excited about this one - it'll be really cool, I think. Yes, this counts as "fun". I'm a geek like that.

On friday night we went to the coffeehouse at Ginger's church. Not much was going on, but it was cool just to hang out and talk to people. I watched some friends play Go. Interesting little board game. Some of them were also talking about the world traveling they'd done. I kinda wish I had been / could go to some cool places like that...

On saturday our dog Ally got the bath she needed. She wasn't such a fan, but she's a good little beagle and so it wasn't a terribly difficult task - even by myself. After that Sheri and I walked her around the backyard for a bit and sat in the shade (of our neighbor's tree) for a while. It was a beautiful afternoon.

On saturday night we continued and wrapped up a d&d game I'd been running for a few sessions. I think it went pretty well. I've now started some work on the two new games I'm starting. With the Liimar game and Robb's Exalted (see below), this makes 4 rpg's I'm in or running. I think I'm insane. It's a fun insane, but still...

On sunday, we went to church in Erwin as usual. I'm very glad that we have a wireless net connection at the church now - since we're kinda stuck there all day. I spent most of sunday afternoon working on putting the finishing touches on the project I mentioned working on on friday. Very excited about that. Sheri was working on choir stuff. We did go outside and play a couple of games of Kubb (which happened to be in the jeep), however.

Sunday night was also the 'all-sing' - where the area churches get together and sing together and for each other. It's not my favorite thing in the world, but Sheri's choir sounded pretty good. Plus we got to hang out with people and have snacks after.

On sunday night my mom came back through from visiting my sister in SC. I'm always glad to see family. Don't see them much since they're all quite far away.

On monday morning, mom and I went out and played 9 holes at Pine Oaks Golf Course. That was lots of fun. Beautiful morning. I played better than I think I ever have - which was pretty impressive considering it had been almost exactly 4 months since I'd played - and I played terribly that day. As it turns out, I think my grip was most of the problem. A simple tip that mom happened to mention that she saw on her video completely transformed my game. I've never had a piece of technique make such a difference. I birdied a hole for the first time ever, and I par'd the 8th and 9th. Total score for the round was 48. I could have dropped a couple strokes if i hadn't made a few chipping/putting mistakes. More than that though, my shots just felt better - more solid. Of course now I'm setting myself up to do terribly next time, since I'll be expecting much more than I was yesterday...

I also thought about how lucky I was that I have a job where I can just kinda take time off to hang out with my family if they happen to come through.

On monday (last) night, we finally got to play Robb's Exalted game. I had a lot of fun. It's a pretty interesting premise and system. Plus I get to play a shapeshifter. I have a soft spot for shapeshifters. Also, there are some people in that group that I haven't gamed with in years. I'm looking forward to continuing this one.

So yeah... ...the rest of my week looks pretty boring compared to the last several days...

~PS