Tag: norm

Late night

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It went like this: I had TiVo’d the movie Prime on HBO several days ago and sat down to watch it this evening. That ended just in time for me to watch Heroes. A few minutes into the show, however, Norm called to talk about plans for this weekend. Fortunately, the show is on a “Season Pass” and was recording anyway. Nevertheless, I paused it. After talking to Norm, I had to call AJ, and once that was done, I had to call Norm back again. So when I finally got back to Heroes, 40 minutes had passed. I caught up as best as I could by skipping commercials. I then went on to watch Studio 60 which had its best episode so far. But even racing through the commercials, it was well after 11 and now its about midnight!

I am debating whether to vote in the morning or the evening tomorrow. If I vote in the evening, it will have to be after the gym, but the polls don’t close until 8 PM and I’ll have plenty of time. If I vote in the morning, I’ll be a little late into work and I’m on good work groove right now so I don’t know if I want to go in later.

I guess I’ll see in the morning.

To Nanuet!

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On Friday I was wondering what to do with my long Veteran’s Day weekend. It looks as though I will be heading up to Nanuet to visit Norm and Vicky for the weekend. Our agents have met and various contract issues have been hammered out, and that cleared the way for a weekend visit. It also looks as though AJ will be heading up to Nanuet along with me. The plan right now is to head up mid-afternoon on Friday, November 10 and then head back sometime the afternoon of Sunday, November 12.

Happy Birthday, Norm!

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Today is Norm’s (of vickyandnorm fame) birthday and I just wanted to be one of the first to say “Happy Birthday” (Vicky has pointed out that she will probably be the first.) I hope you have a great day, buddy.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Norm and he mentioned that Lisa called him last night to wish him a happy birthday (at 12:15 AM) because she didn’t want either me or strausmouse to beat her to it this time. So clearly, I’m like the 15th person to wish Norm a happy birthday and it’s only 8 AM!

Monday night phonecall

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(That’s a pun on Monday night football, get it?) I received exactly 1 call while at work today. At home this evening, I received three. First there was the call from jen_ashlock who told me all about her trip to Hawaii. Next was a call from vickyandnorm who told me how they have become stalkers. Finally, there was the call from strausmouse where we negotiated various deals and decided how best to acheive world domination. By the time all of the calls were done, it was already 9:30 and I have to be up at 4:30 AM to head to the gym!

On the bright side, my lunch is packed, I’ve got my “arms and shoulders” workout index card and my new iPod is charging on it’s new dock. (I’m sending my old iPod to Eric so that he too can join the world of geeks everywhere walking around with white earplugs dripping from their ears.)

I’m 180 pages through Lunar Prospector and probably going to read a bit more before I go to sleep. No Studio 60 tonight; it’s just on too late for me.

Passages

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It was approximately 16 years ago today that I first met Dan and Shannon and Rich and Tricia, when I moved into the D1-East hall of the Aberdeen-Inverness dorm at U. C. Riverside. If I was a newborn on the day that we all met, I would be about to get my drivers license today!

In a similar note, it was approximately 19 years ago today that I first met strausmouse and Andy at Former President Grover Cleveland Humanities “School Without Walls” Magnet High School. (I think I met Norm and Lisa a little later, and I first met AJ more than a year later). Who would have thought that 19 years later, both Eric and I would be living on the East coast, and that Norm would be living in Nanuet, right around the corner from where my Grandparents lived for 30 years?

Wrapup

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Some miscellaneous items from today, before I head off to bed:

  • I finally got around to looking through the Rome and Florance pictures from vickyandnorm‘s trip to Italy. Some of that art looked awfully familiar. I felt as though I was having flashbacks to 11th grade art history. “The Rape of the Sabine Women”…? And as usual, some entertaining captions.
  • Received and paid my enormous $20 gas bill this month.
  • Did my afternoon workout with Bernard, but I’m too tired to record it now, so I’ll get it posted tomorrow.

I’m 38 pages through Brainiac and loving it! I think strausmouse would like it too. Just as I feel like a mental midget when standing next to Norm, I also feel like a trivia toad beside the likes of Eric, who conjures up from his memory more obscurely random facts than I could ever dream to. And that’s saying something!

Rockland Reunion

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Once again, the day was supposed to start out with Jason and I running in the Park and once again, we failed miserably. Instead, we went to a corner diner and had breakfast. (I saw someone there reading a copy of the Jeppeson Private Pilot Manual–the same edition I went through back in 1999/2000.)

I had rented a car today because we were going to head up to Nanuet in Rockland County and see Norm and Vicky (vickyandnorm) who had just returned from a 2 week vacation in Italy. Eric and Ryane were going to meet us there later in the day. Jason and I walked over to Hertz and picked up the car, a nice Pontiac of some kind with leather seats and a sun roof, and headed up to Rockland. I had told Norm and Vicky that we’d be there at about noon. We pulled into their place as the clock struck noon, although according to Vicky, it was 3 minutes after by the time we actually walked into their place.

We got to hear all about their trip to Italy, which was fascinating, especially the part about the cat colony. We also go to hear about their baggage woes. It made me decide that I definitely want to arrive in Venice 24 hours before I actually have to be there for the cruise next year. Vicky insists she hates U.S. Airways and I figured I’d include that here as a caution to anyone else considering flying them to Italy.

We also got to hear more about the upcoming wedding.

Jason, Norm, Vicky and I headed to the Palisades Mall for lunch at a place where you design your own stir fry. It was pretty good. Norm, as it his wont, drove around the parking lot for a year or so looking for a close up spot, before deciding to give up and park at the North Pole.

Eric and Ryane arrived a little later in the afternoon and we sat around chatting, and seeing pictures of the spectacular house that Norm and Vicky are having built up in Stony Point. We also got a call from Andy, who had attended the Playboy Mansion party last night. (He was the grand prize winner on a local L.A. ESPN radio contest.) He was deceptively vague in the details he gave over the phone, but I see he’s sent us some pictures today, which I have yet to look at.

Around 4:30, Jason and I headed back into the city, returned the rental car, and then, at my request, stopped at a bookstore. We probably spent an hour browsing around. I had gone there with the intention of getting some light reading, perhaps a Heinlein book that I haven’t yet read. I came away with Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Executioner’s Song. At 442,900 words, it’s one of the longer books I’ve ever attempted. I started reading it late in the evening and it’s the kind of book you just can’t put down.

We ordered pizza for dinner, watched Vanilla Sky (which Jason had never seen before) and I was finally ready to go to sleep around 11:30 PM/

Yanks are winning, so off to bed

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I watched the Yankee game through 4-1/2 innings and now that they are winning 6-2, I think it’s safe for me to head off to bed. I have to be up at 4:30 AM for a 6 AM session with Bernard so I need to get some sleep tonight. Hopefully the Yanks can maintain their lead.

I spoke with vickyandnorm and found out that they set a date for their wedding (a location, too) and I am looking forward to it this coming spring. They have got a lot going on in this next half year, but they are also about to head off to Italy for a vacation. Have you guys brushed up on your Roman history?

I’ve got a softball game after work tomorrow and that means tomorrow is going to be a long day. I’m still not convinced I’ve got my revised eating habits down yet. I’m supposed to be eating 5-6 meals a day, but I find that I’m not hungry 5-6 times a day. I’ll talk to Bernard about that tomorrow. In addition, I’ve got a fair amount of programming to do, I need to find time to cut the grass, clean the house, get a haircut and do some grocery shopping. I wouldn’t mind sneaking off to Italy right about now.

Congratulations Norm and Vicky!

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Just a word of congratulations to Norm and Vicky (a.k.a. vickyandnorm)on their very recent engagement this past weekend. Norm proposed to Vicky at the end of the grand finale of a fireworks display they’d gone to watch in Connecticut. Talk about seeing stars! I talked to both of them shortly thereafter and they both sounded very excited and very happy. A more perfectly suited couple I’m not sure I’ve ever met.

So, guys, this is great news! I’m thrilled to hear it. Congratulations! We need to celebrate!

Nanuet, Day 3, weekend wrapup

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Norm and I had breakfast this morning while Vicky was out bringing home the bacon. In the early afternoon, we decided to head down to Nyack for the street fair they were holding. I’d been to the Nyack street fair at least once before but it had been a really long time ago. Almost immediately, I located the funnel cake (which Vicky found to be very amusing). After the funnel cake, I naturally needed some cotton candy and so I had some of that too.

We wandered down the streets looking here and there, and I went into the Pickwick Bookshop and browsed the books for a few minutes, coming up with one small gem: The Three Investigators: The Mystery of the Green Ghost, a book I remember reading in third grade after purchasing it from The Weekly Reader.

Norm and Vicky did some shopping of their own and to prove it, here is a picture of them waiting in line to purchase some preserved produce:

We left the fair and headed back Norm and Vicky’s as it started to rain, and a short while later, I got in the car for the four hour and thirty minute drive home.

All-in-all, it was a fun weekend, as is usually the case with Norm and Vicky. Below are a few more pictures from our trip, and I apologize in advance for the graininess, but they were taken from my camera phone.


Norm and Vicky at Turtle Lake (where we located the geocache for which we’d been searching)


Norm and Jamie at Turtle Lake (just to prove I was really there)


House-hunting with Norm and Vicky

Nanuet, Day 2: Geocaching and a Concert

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Try as I might to sleep in late this morning, I was up by 8 AM. Norm, Vicky and I spend the morning chatting and making fun of some of the items in the Rockland County Journal News until Vicky had to go off to her tutoring session. Vicky has taken on this second job so that she and Norm avoid impoverishment.

When Vicky got back, feeling quite impoverished, we all headed over to the Rockland Bakery where we got some fresh bagels and other assorted goodies. Vicky nearly got into a fight with the cashier, who was apparently offended that Vicky was telling her what, exactly, it was she wanted to order. But we managed to make it out unscathed and with breakfast in hand.

We headed up toward Bear Mountain in order to do some Geocaching, but took a detour along the way to view some of the houses in which Norm and Vicky have been interested. They were impressive and I took some pictures on my camera phone, but will have to wait until I get home to post them. And the houses were impressive too.

Upon arriving at Bear Mountain, we parked and had our breakfasts, and then headed out on geocaching adventure, getting lost only once, briefly, because we were so ingrossed in conversation that I missed the trail turnoff. Norm, nice guy that he is, made sure this didn’t happen to anyone else who might follow by building a wall of logs across the trail at a point just after the trails intersected. It took only a few hours for him to do this and Vicky and I watched in admiration.

We did end up locating the geocache and took from it a game called “tangle”. In return, we left a toy pickup truck. We then went down to the lakeside where I demonstrated skipping rocks and injured my arm in the process. (Actually, I hurt my arm on a cutoff thrown in the softball game on Tuesday, but re-aggrevated it today when I tried to “skip” a boulder.)

On the way back to Nanuet, we stopped at 7 Lunney Court and Sleepy Hollow Gardens and I walked past Grandma and Grandpa’s old apartment and parking spaces for the first time in nearly 6 years. I took a few pictures there as well.

We got back to Norm and Vicky’s with just enough time to see the Yankees beat the Mets in extra innings, and then headed out to the Dog House–a hot dog place nearby–and I had for the first time in my life, sauerkraut on a hot dog. It was pretty good. We topped that off with Dairy Queen, and then headed to Norm and Vicky’s church to see a concert. (Actually, we headed to the church before Dairy Queen but Vicky realized that the reason no one was there yet was because the concert didn’t start until 7:30 and we were way too early.

The concert was actually really good, although it was a little difficult to hear the singing because we sat right next to the band and the trumpet and sax washed out a lot of the other sounds when they played. The first half of the concert was religious songs and the second half was secular and there were some impressive singers. We gave pseudonyms to some of them based on various characteristics they displayed. Two examples: Ally Sheedy and Jack Black. I think my favorite moment was when a high school junior did a solo version of the jazz standard “Summertime” and was very impressive.

All-in-all, a very fun day. Thanks Norm and Vicky!

In Nanuet

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I arrived in Nanuet half an hour later than predicted, mainly because there was a massive amount of traffic in Newark. The song playing at the time I pulled into Norm & Vicky’s place was #73 “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins.

We went to Martio’s for pizza for dinner and then came back to Norm and Vicky’s and watched the Mets beat the Yanks in the bottom of the 9th with a walk-off hit. Very depressing.

I was then introduced to a new game, called Phase 10. It’s kind of like Uno, in principle, but the rules are different. It was fun to play, and as usual, Vicky won the game. We didn’t finish until after midnight, and I am now getting ready to go to bed. It was a fun evening (except the part about the Mets winning).