Tony’s Journal

Hey.

Tomorrow: High of 104, Low 79.

Wednesday: High of 104, Low 79.

Damn.

WRAL.com – 5 Day Forecast

Tags: General Thoughts, Just a link by Tony
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Though the NHL was gone for some time, I am still a fan. I am a Penguins fan first, as I always have been, and the Canes are right behind.

On Friday, the owners ratified the new CBA, and now there will be NHL hockey again. Also on Friday, the NHL had a draft lottery, and the Pens won the first pick. They will use it on Sidney Crosby, who is referred to as “Hockey’s LeBron.” He had 304 points in 121 regular season games. This is the most since Mario had even better stats in the QMJHL. Crosby has a +127! That’s a good plus-minus right there.

And now he will be playig for my team. More accurately, Mario’s team. The Penguins had so little money that they just paid Mario by giving him the team. Now that the CBA is in effect, the Penguins won’t have to do what they have been, which is giving away all their stars in order to pay their young, low-salary players. This means that they can conceivably keep Marc-Andre Fleury, Alexei Morozov, Milan Kraft, and Crosby, without selling these valuables at a severe loss like they’re the crack fiends of the NHL.

I can’t wait for the tickets to go on sale.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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Hey arbauman,

That computer programmer isn’t enjoying swimming behind the post office right at this time

Hmmm, behind the post office. . .

That pretty much means he’s swimming in that pool of El Rodeo-generated cess, so. . .

Yeah, I bet he isn’t enjoying that.

Tags: Nerd Stuff by Tony
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So work is really busy right now, and I am doing many things at once. This is how it is in July and August. I am imaging laptops, working on survey code, conference calls with IBM and/or Lenovo (I can’t tell where one stops and the other begins), doing all kinds of little bits and pieces, emails galore, etc.

But you know how I do. I am best when I am multitasking. I have been fielding complaints that I haven’t updated this jonk in some time. So here goes. What better to do than write a journal entry?

I have a lot to write about. I think I’ll go in reverse chronological order.

Oh, by the way, it’s not very exciting. Sometimes I will write stuff like this so that I can remember it later. My memory is terrible.

The Arboretum
Mandy and I went to the JC Raulston Arboretum last Saturday to go for a walk and look at flowers. It was kind of hot, but I am pleased to report that shedding a lot of fat has made me much more heat tolerant than I used to be. It didn’t really faze Mandy since she is always out in the fields harvesting insects.

I hadn’t been there in a couple years, I guess. I was glad to see that the new building over there is actually uglier than most of main campus — it’s freakin’ concrete! — so we know that the NC State architects are still achieve!ing the ugliness that they strive so damn hard for.

Anyway, there was a lot to see. We saw a hell of a lot of bees, and they all seemed to be interested in flowers. There was a “Blueberry muffin” tree but I didn’t see any muffins. We saw tiger lilies that had an unsettling number of petals, and a frog that wouldn’t stop gomping.

The coolest thing we saw was a cicada killer wasp totally murdering a cicada. These things snag cicadas out of the air, sting them to death, chew on them for a while, and then drag them into their burrows for their young’uns to eat. Yeah, I got a photo. And of course there are other photos as well.

The 4th of July
Mandy and I left the beach and headed back to fabulous Raleigh. Later in the afternoon we (Billy & Mandy, Rob, Chris) went to Baumann Acres. Immediately upon arrival we were caught in the crossfire of a water fight. We joined in, of course. My brother Reid welcomed me by slamming a water balloon in the shoulder.

It was on.

Eventually I think all of us were completely soaked. The neighborhood kids aligned themselves with me for the most part, which was nice. Billy had early luck evading moisture, but this caused us to zero in on him, and like the Frenchman he is, before long he was complaining about being massacred. I spent the rest of the evening with chest hair visible through my soaked shirt like I was some kind of Guido.

Holy crap, there was a lot of food there. I served my country by eating bravely in the face of a withering bombardment of food.

And then came the melon. She was a good, sweet melon, full of dribbly juice. My brother wins the quote of the evening, at my expense: “Guido’s got a built-in napkin.” We all enjoyed the melon very much, though I believe that we were really endangering ourselves by filling our stomachs to 150% capacity. But that’s the American way!

Afterwards, Dan got the arsenal from his house. He had visited Pedro to acquire his firepower. The fireworks display was outstanding. It was just as good as Regency without all the crowds of Caryites and annoying rich people. (Same thing.) We laughed throughout the pyrotechnics, mainly because I think it was our way of distracting ourselves from the underlying throughts of “SWEET JESUS! YOU CAN BUY THIS STUFF IN AMERICA?”

I think we did well. We had friends, family, tons of food, beer, and we lit a lot of things on fire.

Topsail
Best Beach Trip Ever.

No drama, no stress, no sunburn, no annoying people, good food, nice place, nice price. . . just great.

Oh man, that was a while ago. Stream of consciousness time.

We went to Riverview where we ran into Cap and Dave, and Justin had to pre-emptively warm Melissa not to squeal upon seeing them. . . Justin, Mandy and I stood out in the ocean and threw seaweed at each other like our family was too poor to go to Wings for toys. . . Justin was a Grillmaster. . . Somehow, we didn’t make it to Dr. Rootbeer’s House of Terror or whatever it’s called. . . Went to a restuarant at the south end of Topsail the last night and I got a martini glass full of oysters — unsettling to say the least. . . No one got badly sunburned, and as a matter of fact, I think Justin became whiter while we were there.

Best Beach Trip Ever.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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Well, if Cooter says not to see it — and it surely already looked like it will suck — I ain’t seeing it.

‘Dukes’ TV star: Don’t see the movie

Tags: Just a link by Tony
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I hope Bridget and Wei did not go to watch the shuttle launch, because man, it got cancelled.

I bet it’s Stephen Jeffress’s fault.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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I have a lot to write about the past ten days or so. No time now, but maybe later. Short version: Baltimore was good. 4th of July was really good. Topsail was great.

Sure it’s all downhill from here until football season, but I have had a really good past couple of weeks.

And I am a very lucky man.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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It was Steve Jr.’s idea to name his brother after Dr. J, and Julius Hodge followed in Erving’s footsteps when he played his first Rucker League game as a 14-year-old.

I did not know that.
All Smiles Now: Hodge had it tough growing up

Tags: Just a link by Tony
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