(no subject)

While I in the lobby working on our receptionist's CD auto-printer, this amazingly cute guy showed up for a meeting with someone who hadn't arrived yet, so he ended up sitting and waiting for her.

Not quite as tall as me and looking a little out of place in a business suit, he had this gorgeous auburn-metallic ponytail whose straight, even strands fanned out across the middle of his shoulder blades when he turned around to walk to a chair. Murrr.

I can't tell anybody here (well, except serinthia), but I had to express my admiration somewhere....

(no subject)

What I did on my summer October vacation:

Moira and I had originally planned to strike out eastward early-early on Saturday morning to take full advantage of both Stronghold faire and the harvest festival in the nearby town of Oregon. But we were presented with an even better option: 'Would we like to come out on Friday night instead?' asked samiitiger. I did some hurried consultation by way of email and Livejournal with my traveling companions, posicat and the lovely wooisme, and returned a definite affirmative.

So serinthia dropped me off at home after work and my mate and I hastily assembled the necessities of two and a half days of travel. After stuffing everything into the trunk, along with three boxes of leftover books from helping crimferett and wyldkyttin the previous weekend, we were off to Grayslake to pick up a certain geek-cat.

Somehow we managed to get his belongings loaded in too (it involved artfully piling his sleeping bags on top of everything else in such a way that they wouldn't be compressed on top of the trunk latch) and, after saying good-bye to cats, were on our way.

Posicat is a lot like me. Since I was riding in back, he had shotgun, and he reacted in precisely the same way I did the first few times I rode in the passenger seat of the Mercury. That reaction involved a chorus of 'what does this button do's. After thoroughly investigating all the other dashboard controls, much to Moira's amusement, we settled on playing with the sunroof.

Now, the rocker switch that controls the sunroof's travel has come loose from its housing, so of course I'd thought about either fixing it or wiring new switches (I figured on replacing it with two DPST momentaries to replace the DPDT momentary rocker), so he investigated the plastic housing that the switch mounted to to figure out how to remove it from the car. That done, he opened up the sunroof by supporting the back of the switch with one finger while operating the rocker with another, thus nominating himself as the trip's official sunroof operator. This of course lead to an entirely spurious discussion of flying a kite out the sunroof (a natural progression of things if you know us) on a string made from magnetic tape, with possibly an auxiliary motor to pay out and reel in the line with controls mounted alongside the sunroof controls.

We arrived late in the evening, but not so late that we didn't all decide to drive out to Wal-mart looking for dinner supplies. This lead to all sorts of group fun with cheap Halloween props. The group consensus on food items resulted in Samii cooking a wonderful dinner of curried meat, wave-cut fries, and a dessert that I can't pronounce or remember the name of without looking at it. Yummy!

Our plans to get up and moving early Saturday were thwarted by having stayed up more than a bit late then night before, but that's ok. The three of us got moving around eleven I think (Samii and Tybis had other plans for the day) and got to Oregon about noon. We found pretty-smelling soap (The same scruffy-bearded guy with very nice arrow-straight auburn chest-length hair as last year was selling it; yum!), and had a great time looking at the other locally produced arts and crafts.

I had a great time pointing out little bits and pieces to my sweetie and, big smile on my face, asking things like "do you remember taking a picture here last year?" We didn't spend quite as much time there as I would have l‪iked since we had to run off to faire. I did get to see the really great drinking fountain that I remembered from last year though. It's right on the side of a road and it has a bowl at the bottom for dogs which is fed by overflow from a bowl set about three feet up on the street side which appears to be for horses. Both of those are fed by a spraying nozzle set at a height for humans. I think Andrea will vouch for my having bounced up and down the first time I saw it. It's just so uniquely nifty!

In the early afternoon, the three of piled into the car to head out to Stronghold, picking up some treats from a drive in restaurant (that we actually walked into) on the way. Posi declared his to be the finest carmel apple shake he'd ever had. I let him be the judge of that.

Once there, we wandered past evilviolist (I figured we'd catch him later between sets, but we missed him. Sorry!) and toward the interior where we connected with vurtsnake and sanjikrhys. We chatted with them for a bit until Posi and I decided to wander back castleward for the tour and to see if a certain musician happened to be around. Without luck on the second count, we proceeded into the Stronghold.

The tour was even more disorganized than last year, which I thought was a fairly impressive achievement. Getting to see the vintage architecture and furnishings was as much a treat as ever though. I daydream from time to time about growing up in a building like that. About pretending the circular room atop the fifth-floor tower was the crow's nest of a sailing ship, or that the endless hallways were corridors of a vessel that was carrying me between the stars, or about wandering endlessly through the wooded grounds in the mental guise of a traveling wizard. Perhaps the reality of it was not so magical, but the idea is beautiful none the less.

On the stairs up the tower toward the children's rooms, we were passed on the way down by someone wearing a shirt that grabbed my attention. "Jesus loves me!" it said. On top of the 's' in Jesus sat a brown, wide-brimmed hat, much like the one often seen on Harrison Ford's brow in a certain series of movies.

"Jesus loves me Indiana Jones style," I remarked to Posi, "and that means whips."

"But no snakes" he responded, to which I retorted,

"I've had it with these motherf---ing snakes on my motherf---ing savior!"

"You're going to hell."

I couldn't argue, so instead we merely proceeded through the rest of the tour and out the kitchen door where we found the rest of our party. We all chatted for a time that I interspersed with bouts of playing with props from the nearby juggling store, but finally we all began moving for the exit. We had to get back to Dekalb. I do have one more happening to relate though.

I was heading toward what I thought was the public entrance to one of the buildings by the parking lot when I heard someone behind me calling out for the group ahead of me to hold the door. Since they didn't seem to take heed, I did, and ran up to the entrance to keep the door propped open. The group behind me caught up, thanked me while making disparaging comments about the auditory acuity of the people ahead and continued in. Shortly after following, I realized that, the other people having vanished down some corridor or other, that I was in a building I wasn't supposed to be in, and entirely alone. I love when that happens! I didn't stay there long, but I did explore long enough to find the bathroom before taking my leave.

So, back on the road for more playing with the sunroof, and soon enough we were back at Samii and Tybis' place. Happily, Chinese buffet was unanimously decided on for dinner, because I found myself at what might just be the best one I've ever eaten at. Yumm!!

A trip to the local 'toy' store followed, just because we could. Among a couple other things that may be mentioned elsewhere, Andrea found a lighted base for the translucent green glass neko figurine that she'd bought from the buffet, and I bought a very pretty green and blue dichroic glass incense holder with a pewter dragonfly medallion: exactly Meghan's taste. Of course, I managed to step on it later and break it. I was more than a bit upset, but I suppose that transience is one of the qualities of most items of beauty; that's one of the things that makes them so beautiful.

Sunday morning, or rather mid-morning-- alright, noon, we slowly awoke and formed a consensus on breakfast. Chinese buffet! Well, why not? It had worked out well last time!

I once again indulged in some very fine Chinese fare, but not before stopping in briefly at the Spirit store to see what kind of Halloween decor the market is bearing this year. The thing that most stands out is a giant inflatable pumpkin that has air jets at the bottom for blowing hundreds of tiny paper bats in a circle around the hemisphere of the thing. In the middle was a castle scene, and on the back half of the inside of the pumpkin was a sp00ky night-time scene. Posi and I were impressed simply from an engineering point of view. Very original!

We'd all talked about hitting a local computer store after that, but Samii and her mate had plans for the evening and we went back to their apartment to pack up for our trip home. We packed up what books were coming back with us and collected our assorted belongings into bags to go into the trunk. There was a little more room this time; I think about a box worth of book stayed in Illinois.

I should note at this point that the apartment is on the first floor of the building and is slightly below ground level. There was a railing around the depressed walkway. So of course, whenever I was free of burdens on my way in or out, I climbed the railing and jumped down to ground level. As we finished up packing, I noticed that the next floor was not all that far up from the top of the first floor railing. In fact, if I stood on the railing, I could probably climb to the second floor on the outside of the railings. So I did. I then moved up to the third floor, which featured a slightly larger gap, but not an unmanageable one. I had to stop there and take the stairs back down because I was out of floors; I'm honestly not sure if I'd have kept going if I had the chance. As I keep telling people, I have to keep doing these things now; otherwise I won't be able to when I'm sixty and I can use being a charming and eccentric old man as an excuse.

And then, we were on our way home. More fun with sunroof occurred, including speculation by Posi and I on the best design for a system of transparent PVC tubing that we could fill with hundreds of tiny paper bats and attach to ramscoops protruding from the roof that would create a circular current to blow the bats around in a circle. Our longsuffering raccoon-girl traveling companion was, I think, amused.

We dropped Posicat off around eight I think, and got home about nine, at which point we got to bed. After a time, we even got to sleep.