Maybe pluming is not my forte

This morning I drove to the fairgrounds for an "Energy Extravaganza", only to find that said event was taking place at the Armory (who even knew we had an armory).

Here is a sign I found at the Armory about joining the National Guard. It says I can get $780 a month, tax free, and you only have to work one weekend a month. I think I've found myself a second job

Proud of my decision to join the armed forces, I decided to take a picture of my dashboard.

At the energy thing I was given various energy saving devices, one of which, was a new aerator for my sink. I removed the old aerator and then managed to drop it down the drain. I got it out of the catchy-trap-thing under the sink, but when I tried to re-attach the catch, the rusted out threads fell off.

This is my new shower head. One of the settings on it is Very Un-pleasant Massager.

Another exciting item I received; was this switch plate with a built in thermometer. I think it's broken though, it keeps saying that the temperature is in the 60's. like hell I say!

Dreams of snow

Oh shizzle, it snows here.

I saw some people walking down the street with umbrellas, I wanted to go up to them and say that you don't use an umbrella in the snow and your from Oregon; you don't use umbrellas, period.

There was a lot of snow.

It didn't really last though.

I tried to have a snow day party. It ended up being me and VISTA Steve playing cards and drinking beer.

This is a belt buckle with a bike safety theme.

We decided to go to Little Murphy's (previously: Little Brothers, presently: Murphys Tavern). However, beecause of the snow; all of Roseburg had shut down.

We ended up at McMinnimans. Once there; we tried to avoid eye contact with the members of the wait staff that didn't like us.

Homeless bowling

David and I left our warm homes at 8:45 this morning to pick up this barbecue trailer. Of course, when we reached our destination, no one was there to greet us.

We were participating in the Douglas County Homeless Count 2008. The event was pretty much what the name suggests; we counted homeless people, gave them hot dogs (at one point the health inspector came through and tried to shut us down, one of the homeless people yelled at the inspector; "whats your problem? Their just trying to feed us!"). We also passed out things like socks, toothbrushes and "Disaster Blankets". Disaster Blankets are made through a process similar to the process of making particle board. Because of the way in which they are made, you can't wash, dry clean or get the blankets wet (I guess that makes them not dissimilar to a Gremlin) it just seems that such a blanket may be a less than optimal choice for the homeless community.

I'm totally going to get one of these steering wheels for my futuristic station wagon. Maybe I can also get fuzzy upholstery and some of those little balls that hang down.

This summer they tore down the old bowling alley.

In it's place; they built a new bowling alley. The amazing thing, to me, is that nothing from the original bowling alley was retained, I think that everything that couldn't be sold to other bowling alleys was burned.

The new bowling alley was filled with teenagers. Here are said teenagers playing Dance Dance Revolution.

Megan was so excited about the new bowling alley that she dressed up as The Dude.

Matt (who took bowling in college) and I lamented the fact that; while they had done a complete remodel of the entire bowling alley, destroying any referent to the old bowling alley and sparing no expense, they still did NOT have Budweiser in bowling pin shaped bottles.

They gave us one of those pager things like you would get at a chain restaurant e.g. Red Robin. While we waited we drank beer that did NOT come in festively shaped bottles.

At the ends of the lanes, which have little blinking tracer lights running their lengths, they have giant TV screens playing an eclectic mix of music videos. while we were there they played AC/DC, Boy2Men and Counting Crows, just to name a few.

We didn't see John (or the creepy bowling guy, as he's sometimes known), wondering if he had been scared off by pastiche and postmodern-warfare, I inquired as to his whereabouts; apparently he was fired for hitting on teenage girls.

Here is a pack of angry teenagers. The one to the far right is Janis's daughter, her fashion involved muddy pants, falling off shoes and an ironic/vintage/I don't know anymore, Bob Marley t-shirt.

Our game ended with a few frames to go. We weren't too sad. I guess we'd all had our fill of postmodernism and angry teenagers.

Drinking, dancing and fighting

I appear to be, almost, ready for the jam-packed evening of excitement ahead of me.

This was a party held for the Americorpses who would be leaving.

There were like three different kinds of cake.

Lindsey and Lee Ann had made a slide show with pictures of all of us. I think most of the pictures were acquired through various facebook accounts, thus everyone appeared to be drunk in the pictures.

Whenever the slide show came to a picture of Ben, me and David would say "hey, who's that guy?"

After the "party" I was supposed to have dinner at Red Robin.

Unfortunately, due to time restraints, Red Robins delicious burgers and "fry sauce" were out of the question.

After dinner of NOT Red Robin; I picked up Megan and we went to the symphony.

They were doing An American in Paris, Valentino Dances by Dominick Argento, Samuel Barber's Concerto for Violin and maybe something by Aaron Copeland.

The concert featured the virtuoso accordion player William Schimmel, who Tom Waits was quoted as saying; "William Schimmel doesn't play the accordion, he is the accordion."

But seriously, he was a pretty amazing accordion, player.

These are cookies shaped like Violins.

They were actually pretty gross.

After the show we tried to meet up with the gang. Not having any luck, I took Megan home.

Shortly after, I found Lee Ann, Lindsey, Maggie, Gardener and Ellis at Dino's, complaining about strange desert items and traditional gender roles.

We all went to Tavern, where Gardener and Ellis made inappropriate comments about the patrons. It's funny how intolerant the un-tolerated can be, not ha ha funny.

We played an un-enthusiastic game of shuffle board and then headed to the Sugar Pine.

The Sugar Pine no longer does karaoke after 11:00.

I don't think we have ever been to the Sugar Pine before 11:00.

We danced to the powerful DJ stylings.

David and I sat out the songs that were just too irritating to tolerate, e.g. Boy2Men and anything that referd to line dancing.

Lindsey got some guys number. I hope they have a very happy life together.

I walked home around 1:30 as I had to help count homeless people the next day.

The rest of the motley gang continued dancing until the wee hours of the morning.