PERSONAL: JOURNAL: Great weekend, had people over, went camping

Friday We had at least 10 people over here, and it was some chaotic fun for many hours….

Saturday We had 8 people camping, IT WAS NOT COLD, I only wore 3 layers, half of what I wore during my July camping.

Some camping stuff I remember:

* full moon, but later cloud cover made the light very diffuse – could walk around without a flashlight

* first time we ever saw a vehicle past the 2nd gate – an ambulance skulked around for hours, occasionally siren’ing or making 10-point U-turns – someone had been rescued

* Gary/TwoBean’s first time there

* the 2nd gate was completely open! Never seen that, ever.

* ran late, making Evan the first person there. He couldn’t find the site without people already in it, and ended up walking around for miles over an hour.

* ate late at sheets, making Clint too full to really eat anything significant until the next day

* Evan brought no stuff because he thought he’d go back to the cabin, but other people had enough stuff to cover him when he realized that wasn’t happening

* paranoia: Evan mistakes the moon as a spotlight

* NOT cold – only wore 3 layers at night, didn’t even zip up my sleeping bag completely

* vertical log to make the fire go out = neat

* creek not running

* only saw one set of people riding horses

* 5 out of 8 of us went on a night walk down to Evan‘s car

Kick-ass weekend overall.

 

JOURNAL: CAMPING: 20080927

So we went camping one last time :)

Carolyn really wanted to go camping at least one more time this season so that she can take the kitties while they are still young. After being rained out a few weeks ago, Carolyn was determined to go no matter what. The forecast called for rain — but only 0.1 inch during the day (60% chance, and it didn’t happen).  But there was a 70% chance of rain during the night — half an inch; significantly more (and that did happen). Carolyn was pissed.

After much convincing, we ended up below our six-person quorum, but still had a good crowd, with Tabbitha, Eli, Carolyn, Clint, and even a surprise Evan! Good times.

Unfortunately, it did rain on us. Eli set up Carolyn’s small tarp with some help from Evan and Carolyn, and we spent a good amount of time huddled underneath it. But this was only at night time. And it didn’t rain hard — you could go potty without an umbrella and stay relatively dry.

Eventually we all realized we couldn’t keep our eyes open. We made a pact to take a 1-hour nap, and we all went to our separate tents. When Carolyn woke up several hours later, she heard the rain was still at it, and decided not to try to wake anyone up.

Tabbitha apparently got up really early and somehow got really soaked. She was mostly dry by the time everyone else woke up. She hung out in the path, with no trees overhead — apparently a lot of the water falling was from the trees, and it wasn’t *really* raining so much if you stood in a path with no trees over you.

Because of the rain, most of our pictures are from the next day.

The next day was dry, beautiful, and we spent quite some time (8:30AM-2PMish) there. In the end, we were there for 27 hours, and only awake and being rained on for about 4 of them. Sleep was 8 more hours, and the other 15 hours were awesome! We ate like kings and had more fun than if we’d stayed in!

Oranjello, Lemonjello – in the car
Driving on the way up, the kitties found a nice place to nap. Nice, but not necessarily safe. With their help, Clint did manage to flip the car into neutral once.

martian pineapple – delapidated
Upon arriving, Carolyn sought out the fungus thing Gene had discovered last trip, which Clint christened Martian Pineapples. The stuff had turned black! What’s up with that?

Oranjello, Lemonjello – in the firepit
The kitties explored the fire pit for the first time together. So far, they’re batting 0 for 2 (car gear shifter, firepit) with finding safe places to hang out. We were glad there wasn’t a fire made already. Fortunately they’re not so stupid as to walk into an open flame.

Oranjello, Lemonjello – by the firepit – Oranjello de-tangling
One thing we learned camping: Lemonjello is the smartest kitty when it comes to his leash getting untangled. He will actually try to untangle himself by walking different directions — sometimes systematically (for a few seconds anyway, which is as long as cats’ attention spans last). This includes walking backwards. He would do this until he either untangled himself, pulled hard enough to knock over what he was tangled on, or discovered that he was truly trapped with no hope for escape — at which point, he’d start meowing at the top of his lungs. But he never complained right away; he always tried to work it out on his own.

Carolyn, Oranjello, Lemonjello – tying rope around tree
Oranjello is a big kitty now, and he has no fear. He was started to wander too far, and further tests indicated he would have definitely wandered completely out our eyesite if left unchecked. So Carolyn decided to tie him up so she wouldn’t have to worry about him getting lost.Meanwhile, Clint‘s solution to deal with tethering Oranjello down temporarily while Carolyn ties the rope to the tree? Tie Oranjello’s leash to little Lemonjello’s leash. This did indeed slow Oranjello down, keeping him from wandering off (even slowly)… But this solution would work much better with two equal-sized cats. Lemonjello was being pulled all over the place, and was quite miserable due to being dragged around by Oranjello. But it only lasted a couple minutes, and Lemonjello got to wander free all night, while Oranjello got to be tied down — tangling himself over and over and over again all night long. Who really won?

Chill kitty face:

camping – 169-691Lemonjello, Oranjello – on lap
These cats like to stay on your lap at times. Here they are chilling on Carolyn’s lap.Oranjello has the most relaxed cat expression ever! “Whateva’, man!”

Carolyn, Oranjello, Lemonjello – sitting

And Carolyn’s favorite picture is this one, due to how funny I look:

Clint, Eli – give me trailmix
Carolyn thinks this picture is hilarious. Clint‘s reaching out like, “Gimme trailmix NOW!”, and Eli is looking very sly.

Now, Oranjello gets the full-cat leash, and Lemonjello gets the kitten leash:

Clint demonstrating how Lemonjello can just hang from his leash without being choked — something essential for cat leashes. His tail looks sooo pathetic.

Of course, cats were still a bit freaked out at times. But nobody was as scared as Misfit was when he went:

Oranjello – hanging out in tent
Oranjello took shelter in the kitty tent. Look how alarmed he is !There was also a really funny moment when he was behind the tent, and tried to jump through the rear screen ‘window’ of our tent. Twice. That was LOL-inducing.

Eli coming meant the quality of our food was better than if we went to a restaurant…

camping – 169-692breakfast cooking
Eli‘s cooking FTW! We also ate excellent pig butt (which really means pig shoulder) the night before. Excellent.
Meat to KILL for. (Somebody killed that pig!)

Lemonjello – leash ears = murderous intentions
Clint gave Lemonjello leash ears. He did NOT like that. Notice how he looks like he is plotting Clint’s imminent murder.

I can be cheezburger?

We had some leftover buns that we decided to throw into the woods for the birds. When Clint got his, he got a great idea to make Lemonjello into a cheezburger.

And of course, this disgusting but very neat and interesting thing came by:

One of those evil-looking caterpillers came around. Oranjello was very interested. The caterpiller had some nasty spikes that he would curl up and point at Oranjello, and Oranjello did get poked a couple of times by getting his nose to close to it.

The group picture this trip came out rather weirdly. Parts of 3 different pictures were incorporated:

Look! Carolyn has a trash bag on her head!

Good times.

 

BLOGS: Introducing Evan’s Blog

My good friend Evan has started a blog, called “Rerun’s Runons”. The address is: http://rerunsrunons.wordpress.com/.
(It’s a wordpress blog, so there’s a comment feed too!)

 

JOURNAL: Birthday, Rio Grande restaurant, Boredom, Blah.

So, Saturday night at midnight I began my birthday celebrations. I’m 34 now.

 

JOURNAL: Happy New Year’s! / Thanks for coming out / post-parties report

I’ve wanted to blog about a lot of crap, but I always have crap to do. Even with no job. So anyway, this is my new year’s catchup post. LOTS OF PARTY PICTURES INCLUDED!

Thanks to everyone who came out: AE, Ben, Bunnelanie & her horny-for-Mark sister, Carrie & husband, Chris Y, Christian & Shannon, Dan & Erin, Darren & Debbie, Eli, Evan, Gene & Heather, Greg & Nicole, Jason, Jason & Anna, Jay, Jeremy, Joe, John The Canadien, Jon B, Justin, Mandy M, Mark, Melanie S and her couple-friend, Parthena & Peter, Sammy, and Tabbitha, and a couple random people who’s names I don’t remember (that’s about 41 people, counting Carolyn & I).

 

JOURNAL: 20070616-17 camping write-up!

Camping was a resounding success in terms of numbers, with one of our larger camping parties — fourteen people: Clint, Carolyn, Casey D, Christian D, Dan C, Evan G, Gene G, Heather K, Jesse B, Kipp E, Mark I, Melanie B, Nathan G, and Shannon D.

 

JOURNAL: HOUSE: By the way, did I ever mention that staining wood sucks? Also: Weekend Party Update.

Because it does. A lot.

 

JOURNAL: CAMPING: First camping trip of the year was a success!

Well, we all went camping this weekend, and it was nice to know we actually succeeded. Last April we tried to set up camping trip “2006 #1” and it became canceled three times due to people backing out (almost always unnecessarily) due to the weather. It was nice that this camping trip worked out in a single try!

 

JOURNAL: My 33rd Birthday [Party]

Well, my 33rd birthday proved to be quite exciting, and the party (fight included) was one of the larger ones that we’ve thrown.

Special thanks to Eli for loaning us his jello syringes.

Link to 6+ flickr pages of pictures is HERE.

UPDATE: 2/4/2007: Now with video of “The Rappening”.

PLEASE COMMENT PUBLICY!!

 

A lot of people came to my place Friday… And Saturday…

I mean, it was a surprise. John The Canadien was planning on coming over, and I expected Kipp and perhaps Mark. We were there to potentially celebrate Tabbitha’s birthday. I didn’t expect Jesse & Melanie to come over, or Bunnelanie (Melanie B). Then Glen C called, and pretended to be Jesse, and severely messed with my head to the point that I felt threatened. He’d never come over before, and brought his friend Jess, and they both chilled at our place for awhile, and it had been quite awhile since we’d given a “house tour”. Tabbitha and Laszlo came over once they were done with their movie (but not before Glen & Jess had left). Mark, Jesse, & Melanie left shortly thereafter. We had 10 people at once, 12 total.

We played a few games of Werewolf, among other things. The 10-player games were definitely a lot more interesting than a minimum 8-player game. It was a bit strange springing the game on Glen & Jess who not only had never played, but had never been to our place or met any of our friends.

Carolyn got REALLY DRUNK and somehow decided that we had to talk about and listen to Sabbat’s 3rd album, which I have labelled as “crap” on the local harddrive. I sold the CD to her, I think, because it sucked so much. John The Canadien felt compelled to blog about this, and his headline is hilarious:

Local Man Disapproves As Wife Plays Shitty Sabbat Album

We finished the evening up with 5 episodes of Metalocalypse. A few people slept over, and Kipp & I played a 2-player game of Culdcept (Carolyn was still hung over) the next afternoon. Then we proceeded to the Saturday stage of Tabbitha’s birthday festivities, which included Eli & Evan & Kristin S coming over, and lots of Guitar Hero 2 by Laszlo. And I mean lots. They even unlocked the Metalocalypse (Dethklok) song that is in Guitar Hero 2!

 

CAMPING: Assateague Island Beach Camping

We had our 2nd annual Assateague Island beach camping trip earlier this month. Although I was recovering from illness and could not drink due to liver testing situation (since resolved fine), I still had a blast!

Pictures of this event are HERE.
Carolyn’s blog post about the trip. The longest and most thorough account:
Carolyn.wordpress.com (her post is both about Bethany and Assateague).

Vicky’s blog post about the trip:
http://tgaw.wordpress.com/2006/08/12/assateague-2006/

Angel’s blog post about the trip:
http://ansaphone4.livejournal.com/265913.html

 

Stephen Colbert vs the traitor who wants to put the 10 Commandments in public

Stephen Colbert interviews the weirdo who wants to display the 10 commandments in public:

http://gorillamask.net/colbert10c.shtml

(watch it, but the best part is, the idiot can't even name them!)

My friend Evan had a great spiel about this:

I havent watched that video, but that debate cracks me up.  Among the funniest things I've heard:

1) our society/system of laws/etc is based on the bible/10 commandments anyway, so they should be displayed publically

(Only two of the ten commandments are illegal, killing and stealing, and call me crazy, but I think that's just common sense that any society would make those activities illegal, regardless of whether a burning bush told them to do it, etc)

Honor thy father and mother?  Not a law.  Honor the sabbath?  Not a law.  Don't covet your neighbors wife?  Are you kidding me?  America was built on coveting what your neighbor has (yeah, I stole that idea from George Carlin.  Sue me).   Don't take the lord's name in vain?  That one is directly negated by one of the key bedrock principles of western democracy: free speech.  I could go on and on…but, clearly, our society is NOT based on the ten commandments (notwithstanding the fundamentalists who want all of us to live based on their peculiar religious principles…how are they any different from the mullahs in Iran, again?)

The other important point that is largely forgotten about is that each version of the bible (king james, etc) has a distinct variation of the ten commandments: thou shalt not kill vs thou shalt not murder, etc.  There are a few other differences I can't recall off the top of my head.  They're relatively minor, but they are significant, because they change the meaning of the commandments.  Under a "thou shalt not murder" version, any lawfully sanctioned killing is OK (so war, state sponsored executions are ok) but under the "thou shalt not kill" version, that is not the case. 

The important point is that by putting any one particular version of the commandments up on the wall, the government is *necessarily* endorsing a particular religious doctrine/viewpoint, which is expressly forbidden by the establishment clause of the first amendment.  Fundamentalists try to talk their way around this one by claiming that the commandments are general principles only, but, they're only present in Christianity and Judaism, which leaves out a lot of people. 

(end quote)

Thanks Evan!

 

Camping, a Traffic Ticket, and a corpse smell that is now gone.

So, camping went well this weekend.  We actually had 9 people, maybe a bit more than average.  There were 11 total, but Jesselanie (Jesse + Melanie) did not stay for the night.  Pictures of the trip are HERE. 

 

Crazy Weekend… 4 parties…broke up a fight at my own party in my bedroom…. Oh, the drama.

What a crazy weekend full of parties.  Friday night was chill, but Saturday we went to Jason & Anna’s 2nd Annual Memorial Weekend bash.  It was pretty fun, and Jason didn’t quite make it through the night unscathed :)  We crashed there, and awoke to the loud clanging of cleaning. 

Then after a couple hours we headed on over to Eli’s place for his “recovery BBQ”.  That was cool too, and we got to play guitar hero and eat bacon-wrapped shrimp!!  We couldn’t stay the full party because we had a party of our own to host.  So we left and got home around 6PM.

 I was exhausted, and just laid down for a few minutes, but could only afford to do so for about 15 minutes.  We had to rush to prepare for our party, with the first guest arriving before 8PM.  Hardly anyone came until 9:30PM or so anyway, at which point the party became decently packed.  We didn’t invite as huge of a list as normal, a lot of guys were too wasted to show up, a few unexpected girls showed up, and I daresay it was a 50%-or-better ratio.  Best…Ratio…Evar.

Pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/.  Specifically, Jason & Anna’s party is HERE, and our party is HERE.

Saturday night ended with a couple people getting in a fight, and I had the brand-new experience of breaking up a fight, something I’ve never done before.  Let alone at my own party.  Let alone in my own bedroom. 

 Some people just don’t respect the sanctity of people’s bedrooms.  Given that this same person went out and pissed in my yard — NOT during a party — rather than use the bathroom like a proper civilized individual, I somehow suspect that I should have realized something was wrong with said person earlier.  I had also previously asked that he not be brought over.

Oh, the drama!

But there were other really fun things happening during the party.  Cool things.  Hot things.  Stuff that doesn’t suck.  Yes.

Finally, I crashed — last of everyone who was still there — after watching the episode of American Dad that I fell asleep during.  Around 4:30AM.  Got up the next morning and we headed to Shannon & Christian’s BBQ.  It was pretty chill, and I saw everyone who didn’t bother to show up at my party the day before.  And they heard about it ;)

We left early around 6:15PM, because we had to go home and clean our house some for the county inspection we had tuesday.

Ever since the party, our place has been plagued with the smell of death.  If anyone knows what it could be, please let us know.  It’s smelled like a rotting dead corpse ever since the party.  Sick.

UPDATE: 1/24/2007: Another party with another fight. Read about it here: 

https://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/journal-my-33rd-birthday-party/

 

JOURNAL: Carolyn’s birthday night out, Clint’s 2nd-worst hangover ever

My worst hangover ever was an Easter in 1996 (I think) where I was unable to even crawl out of the bed until 8PM the next day.  This was my 2nd worst.  I also somehow managed to get kicked out of Nation, though I’m not sure why.  Read on for the only photographic evidence to exist that shows Clint dancing.

 

Another Haiku, this time not so offensive

“Put seeds in the ground….
Wait for the flowers to grow….
You suck at growing.” 

-By Clint, Carolyn, and Evan

This was the by-product of a brainstorming session.

Sad. :)

 

Do Liberals Really Hate State Rights?

I read an article called “The New Blue Federalists“.

It implied liberals do not like state rights, and that they should.
(Yes, everybody should.)   

Is this really true?

Are there really liberals against state rights out there?!?   

My friend Evan Goldstein says:

It started during the depression/new deal when the courts started
interpreting the commerce clause so expansively that today it has no meaning (the commerce clause gives the fed govt the right to regulate commerce between the states – it is the clause by which 99% of fed power flows from today – because today, all the govt has to do is claim their policy is related to interstate commerce – no matter how hypothetical, tangential, or epherial the relationship really is. ) Then, the death knell for federalism came when the south asserted states rights as a means to continue to enforce segregation/jim crow. Thanks to the red states, the govt had to become the goliath it is today in order to preserve basic human rights throughout the nation. Fuck the south – they ruined it for everyone.