Tag Archives: GBM

The reason there's no booze left is because we drank it all.

Travel, , ,

In which I finally tell you all about GBM!

I’m somewhat ashamed that I only blogged twice while I was actually traveling to a blogger meet-up, but there were the issues of laptop shortages, busyness, fatigue, and inebriation and I flickred and twittered like a demon so it’s not like there wasn’t some content.

Let me say first that I love all the bloggers I met. Love them. Didn’t meet a single soul I didn’t like, but fell particularly in love with Vuboq (omg, the unrelenting Southern hospitality and the cheese grits), Hypenated Non-Identity, and I Think I Need A New Heart… though I pretty much expected to love those boys. All sweet, wonderful people.

Secondly, all of Vuboq’s friends are, to a one, lovely people. He’s an incredibly fortunate person. The pre-birthday party on Saturday night was populated by nothing but wonderful people, most of whom were excessively pretty gay men with cute jeans and cute hair and cute shoes… Since I’m essentially style-free I knew I’d be utterly outclassed, and I was. (I mean, it’s not like I don’t know I spent fifteen years in freakin’ Iowa and then moved here to hicksville.)

Thirdly, Vuboq drinks like a fish. He tried to blame it all on us, his guests, but who kept ordering pitchers of margaritas? And sangria, huh? I shall tell you: it was VUBOQ.

On Sunday we went out for Mexican food and then went to a gay bar called Cobalt where we drank cheap cocktails and didn’t dance. Ray told an hysterical story about thinking, when he was eight or so, that his mom – an undercover cop – was actually a hooker. Then Canada disappeared with a pocket gay named Billy and barely returned in time to get a ride home with the rest of us, thoroughly freaking Only Me out. When we got home from that, I poured another round and Vuboq and I sat on his bed and had a twitter war and laughed ourselves silly – I had so much fun I can’t even express it, because WHO KNEW Vuboq could, with sufficient booze in him, start doing a strange and wonderful Cartman-meets-lolcats accent?! Certainly not me. He’s just lucky I didn’t wet his damn bed.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, the actual birthday, Hyphenated left at six to make a business meeting in Pittsburgh. Hours later, Only Me made breakfast in bed for the Birthday Princess… and then we just lounged around until past three because we were all hung over. Eventually we left for DC, and we walked the Mall but didn’t go into any of the museums because we were useless and so we opted instead to go get tapas and sangria at Jaleo. (There really aren’t any words for how amazing the food is there, so I won’t bother. Suffice it to say that you should eat there the next time you’re in DC.)

We took the Metro home. Only Me went to pick up the GBM t-shirts he’d ordered, and Vuboq and I stopped at Whole Paycheck to get a few things. Then we went home and I did the dishes and then made an awesome pot of veggie chili. Tomoko and hubby, as well as SCGB, dropped in to eat with us. We killed two bottles of wine.

Today I got up at ten to six, dressed, and then took a bus, two trains, another bus, three planes, and a car. I was home by 6:35. I’ve blogged and uploaded photos and now I’m going to pass the hell out because I have to work tomorrow.

The Never-ending Birthday Celebration

Travel, ,

In which I can’t believe no one took off their pants.

Vuboq’s birthday party was a resounding success. There were twenty-five in attendance and between us we drank five litres of vodka, a fifth of rum, and half a bottle of tequila.

The most amazing part to me was that no one got loud, no one drove anything with an internal combustion engine or shot off a gun, and no one took off their pants. Vuboq’s friends are all refined, well-traveled, educated, and totally great at totally tanking without getting obnoxious.

I really enjoyed everyone I met – Vuboq is blessed with amazing friends. The conversations were fun and interesting (I even had a great talk with M. about Amma – he’d been to India and had met a hugging sadhu in a temple), the people were all beautiful, and the birthday cake? Was homemade and gorgeous.

I laughed a lot and talked a lot and got hugged a lot. If I’d had time to write about it yesterday I’d now be relating charming anecdotes in detail, but I opted instead for a nap yesterday afternoon and both of the laptops were getting heavy use anyway with five us here all needing to check email, bank accounts, and blogs on the Internet. (I didn’t bother to bring my laptop because I figured there’d be several here, but Jake didn’t bring one and Jay’s grounded Australian plug won’t fit in the adapter so he can’t use his at all so there’s only two.)

…I was about to relate last night’s events, but the Birthday Girl just told me to get a move on. We’re going to the mall to wander, and the weather’s gorgeous.

omg! so fun!

Travel, , ,

In which I’m here, bitches! At GBM! And it’s so totally wonderful omgwtfbbq!!!1!

YouTubeIt took three planes and ONE MILLION HOURS, but I finally made it to Baltimore. Vuboq and Clio Bluestocking picked me up from the airport, and then we came to Vuboq’s for pizza and wine. Yum! Pizza! And wine!

I think we were all pleasantly passed out by eleven. Hypenated said he snores if he’s been drinking, and he might have but I passed out so immediately it didn’t matter.

Right now we’re waiting for the coffee to brew, and then there will be an attempt toward brunch and bloody marys. Then there are no plans until six, when we’re all going out for Burmese fud, but Only Me needs international power adapters because elsewise he’ll be without laptop and cell phone.

This was about an hour ago.

A Totally Shallow Post!

Travel, , , ,

In which I’m ramping up for GBM.

As you know, I’m flying to DC over the weekend of St Pat’s for GBM. I’ve been trying to decide what to wear, which is problematic because all of my clothes are old and worn out and crappy, or they’re hand-me-downs that don’t really fit, or I’m just plain old feeling fat.

Then there’s the seasonal issue. I am always and forever traveling at season change, so I feel like I have to bring clothes for both warm and cold weather and I end up over-packing and still having nothing to wear.

So I’ve decided to give up entirely on the idea of dressing well since it’s so far out of my reach, and have made a hair appointment. Right now I’m growing out the red dye I’d used last year, and have unappealing roots of mousy brown shot with gray (because apparently I’ve become old in the past six months). I’m getting a trim and some foil highlights.

I was thinking about getting a real hair cut – like a new style and everything – but I’ve never been to this particular stylist before and don’t want to end up with something awful 48 hours before leaving for vacation.

I’m gonna be doing laundry and pre-packing this weekend. I’m so excited to be going to DC! It’s almost like having a real life.

In other news, my terrible cold has abated and I feel nearly human again. My room is still a mess and I still have no social life, my dog is still fat, I still have no car, and I’m still in debt up to my eyebrows… but at least I’m not deathly ill. One of these days I might even write an interesting post.

Failure

Blurbs,

In which I do one thing in place of another.

I couldn’t install my new 120Gb hard drive because I need a hard drive caddy because I can’t get the one on my current hard drive OFF because of un-ideal tools and a lack of significant hand/wrist strength. This whole hard drive replacement project is one stupid thing after another. I went to eBay and bought a second caddy and also an Ultrabay caddy so I can have both damn hard drives in the machine at the same time.

Moral being that quite often, throwing money – in this case, about $27 – at something does make it all better.

On the subject of money, only two paydays between me and the Global Blogger Meetup in DC next month. I’m so excited! I’ve already purchased my tickets, and now I really should schedule a hair appointment.

Oh, anyway: yeah, with the hard drive project hung I installed a new WP template here on the ‘box instead. (I even tested it in Internet Exploder! Go me!)

Well, doesn't THIS suck.

Travel, , ,

In which time is not on my side.

When I first decided to go to GBM, I checked kayak.com for flight prices. It was $408 round-trip, including taxes. I didn’t buy because first I had to submit my time off request at work.

At the 6-week pre-travel mark the price for the very same flights went up to $438, and was still there yesterday.

I would have booked my flight yesterday when I got my time-off request approved, but Java had crashed on my machine so I couldn’t navigate the Alaska Airlines site and I was too busy to reboot.

Today I went to book my flight, and in the past 24 hours the very same itinerary has gone up to $602. Crap.

Looks like I’ll be altering my travel dates to March 14-18. Because I ain’t paying no six hundred dollars for airfare.

Organizing Data

Blurbs, , , ,

In which I spend most of the day in front of the computer.

Today I woke up hungry at the ass-crack of dawn, but I stayed in bed until nine or so rockin’ out to tuneage on the beloved iPod. I made eggs and toast and coffee for breakfast when I finally got up. Then I plugged in my external hard drive enclosure, and began the process of putting my iTunes library back together.

I’ve been using SharePod to add content to my iPod since I left Iowa last September, so what’s on my iPod no longer matches the backup I have.

I couldn’t find my old library .xml file, so I had to import all the tracks into iTunes and right now it’s updating album art. When it’s done, I’ll import all the tracks I’ve got on the laptop, then the six gigs of music from Jayrob, and then the video content I have.

Then I’ll spend all evening massaging files, editing tags and shit, and finally I’ll export my playlists off the iPod itself and into iTunes. Once all of THAT is done, I’ll be able to sync my iPod for the first time in over four months… a process that will probably take half the damn night since iTunes will decide the relationship is new and re-write the entire drive.

Long story short? If you’ve got an MP3 library bigger than a few gigs, back it up. Now. Any way you can. Srsly. This is a pain in the arse.

In other news, I’ve decided to attend the first-annual Global Blogger Meetup in DC in March. So far, only three bloggers are actually slated to attend, but that’s all good because it means I get to call dibs on Vuboq’s couch without anyone arguing with me. (I’d prefer the guest room, of course, but Only Me’s already got it, the quasi-Aussie git.)

Vuboq says there will be a chili night on Sunday – I offered to make veggie chili if needed! – and maybe Monday Afternoon Margaritas the next day since I’m dying for the spinach enchiladas and liquid cheese he’s always blogging about. Then on St. Pat’s Day we’ll all go get trashed in honor of Vuboq’s birthday.

Airline tickets are $359 right now, so with vigilant surfing I should be able to find something under $300 and be able to take a reasonable amount of cash along. It’s a lot of damn flying for a 3-day vacation, but what the hell. I do, after all, have both an eBook reader and a kitting bag to stave off boredom, and I’ve already decided 2008 should be a Year Of Travel for me. DC in March, Seattle in June, and NY in September!

Now all I have to do is convince my employer to give me all that time off.