Dinner and a Curling

I feel that when life presents you unique opportunities you should pounce on them, so I went curling* yesterday.

The owner of the company I work for went to an auction for the Adopt America Network. She ended up winning a package offered by the Bowling Green Curling Club (I didn't even know that there were people in BG curling). The Curling Club's offering was for a group to come out and learn how to play and have dinner (which was delicious). Our Owner offered that any managers in the company could come to the event, but I wasn't originally going to go even though I didn't have to work. SH, who is another manager in our company, she worked at our store over the summer, and I were just going to hang out and probably do nothing, so I suggested we go if there were any openings left.

I got a call from the Owner a the day before telling me the time, that we would need rubber soled shoes, and to dress warmly. I had to decide how the "dress warmly" thing applied to me. I mean, c'mon, I'm always warm, but I decided pants instead of shorts were probably a good idea and a hoodie. After we got started playing I, of course, got too warm and had to start shedding layers and everyone thought I was crazy, whatevs.

I'm glad I went though. All of the club members were super nice, and seemed glad to be able to share their little known sport. I think everybody had a really good time. There were the inevitable falls one would expect from a group of people who are unused to walking on ice doing so, but nobody got hurt. The club members were all modest "Oh, I'm not really that good", but they still made us look like retarded monkeys.

Other than the basic rules of the game I learned a few important things about curling: it is a lot harder than it looks, and I have no natural talent for it. Obviously, you'd have to learn the strategies if you're the guy at the end calling the shots to your teammates, and sweeping seems something that would come with practice, but there is a whole knack to doing the actual throwing (you don't actually throw them, you slide them) of the stones. The members were all graceful and their stones would actually go all the way down the ice. This one guy actually would slide about half way down the 100 foot long sheet following his stone, all laid out and insanely graceful. Meanwhile there was our group, our rocks would only go a third of the way, or off to the side, and we're falling all over the place. Personally I think I hit me knee every time I threw.

There were just so many variables that every time I'd get one thing right I'd forget something else. You stand with one foot on the block to push off. Hold your broom in the off hand (you know, for balance...hahahaha!). You hold the handle of the stone in the other hand. Then your other foot is on the ice, but it's not just standing on ice, oh no, you've got this little teflon thingy that you're going to slide on (prob why it's called the "slider"). Teflon. On Ice. Do you see what I'm getting at? No fucking traction, none. Then you push off the block, put your weight on the foot with the slider, the other leg is behind you like you're doing a lunge (hence the knee hitting the ice thing for me), hopefully you remember to throw the rock before you lose all momentum, and finally don't fall on your ass as you stand back up (*hint* don't try to stand up on the slider). Oh, and when you let go you have to remember to give the stone that little twist that will make it curl as it slides.

Still, like I said, lots of fun. And I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime. Sometime after my thigh muscles forgive me that is. And during the next winter Olympics I'm sure I will say at some point, "Curling? Omg, I have totally done that!"

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*You know, it's in the winter Olympics, sometimes they'll stick 5 minutes of coverage somewhere in the broadcast...4 people to a team, sliding rocks around, on ice, there's lots of shouting and brooms...google it if you don't know what I'm talking about.

We danced, we drank, we carried on

I think that nicely sums up the situation with the boy from the wedding, but I know you all have been pestering me for details. We grab a snack and kick back.

So, as I started to say in the last post, my friend Sarah, the bride, sent her friend over to ask me to dance, but she didn't even point me out, just told him my name, so he first asked another of our friends if she was me first. Then had to deal with the DM timebomb, as mentioned. After the slow songs ended the guy, let's call him Sven, Sven and I were standing by the wall talking when Sarah's brand new husband bounded over. He said, quote, "I see you got a new boyfriend, huh? Hur, hur, hur!" Seriously, I almost punched him in the face, I don't care if it was his wedding day. When I was telling Julia about it she said Sarah and Hans were behaving like parents do around your date, you know, embarassing you and inadvertantly ninja-ing any chance you might have.

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Ok, this is as far as I got with the post before I became completely distracted by IRL things. Since it's been, like, two weeks I'll assume that intrest in the subject has waned.

The fact of the matter is that nothing really awesome appeared to have happened. We didn't make out or exchange numbers or go home together. It was one of those "life is a journey" things, I guess you might say. Also, I found myself struggling to turn out a coherent and interesting narrative about the whole thing. The important things that happened were internal. I made myself talk to a guy and not go immediately to the friend zone (do not pass go, do not collect $200). It was nice to talk and flirt with a nice, attractive boy without having anything emotionally invested already. And he told me I was amazing, which was nice, but I have to say there was a bit of a hang up from a very recent breakup. (She told him he was boring. Wtf! What is with women who feel they have to ruin a guy for the next girl to come along?)

So, um, yeah, that's about it.

In which the blogger forgets what she was writing about in the first place

The wedding reception was one of the most fun I've been to. It didn't hurt either that I met a boy. Oh yes, there was a boy. My friend Sarah, the bride, sent him over to ask me to dance (Here single friend, go ask other single friend to dance, ya bunch of losers, lol), but hey, we talked whilst we slow danced, and he was pretty cool (and pretty hot). Then he said that Sarah had told him I was her DM, and he asked if that meant I was her district manager. Oh, lord, I thought. I had to say no, that wasn't exactly it.

You know, you might think that the words "dungeon master" would be the coffin lid slamming shut on this situation, but he was unfazed which earned him super awesome points in my book. I was still slightly aghast at the fact that my friend proudly introduces me to other people as her DM. I don't care if people know, but it's nice to soften the landing a little first. Maybe, you know, use alternate phrasing like "story teller" because I'm not ashamed of my dork-tacular status. Do you even know how much work goes into running a really good role playing game campaign? No, you don't because you think that all of us dice rollers are sad social freaks. Well, I spent quite a lot of effort crafting a proper world as the setting for my campaign. I applied my not unconsiderable knowledge of everything from mythology, language families, world history, meteorology, and geography to plate techtonics, cosmology, technological and social developement, political systems, and D&D 3.5 to create as realistic and textured world as I felt possible with out overburdening the game with the actual complexities and humdrum details of the real world. Then I have to engineer a plot that will entertain the players (and myself) without being a series of tropes strung together and create orignial, three dimensional characters to populate the world and for the players to interact with.

Next comes the actual running of the game. I have to take this world and its characters and events and bring them to life for my players through words alone. (Okay, I usually have a few sketches and maps to throw out.) I have to role play all of the characters they will encounter, and please let me not have forgotten to name someone or some town. I have to get information to the players with out giving too much away. Sometimes gently steering them, othertimes breaking out the plot hammer. All the while I have to be constantly ready for any curve balls the players might throw, like taking off to some distant land and completely ignoring my carefully prepared plans and contingency plans. Or maybe killing off some important character, like a major baddie. So, all in all, a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

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Great, now I've completely wandered away from my original story.

A quick break between chapters

Julia and I watched the vice presidential debate last night. I thought the whole thing was a little on the ridiculous side. Biden could have easily eviscerated Palin in the debates, but if he had there would have been people all over him saying he was picking on her. Oh man, can you imagine if he had made her cry... You could see the points at which he was laughing at her responses. Responses, I might add, which were ludicrous had little to nothing to do with the questions that were being fielded to her. She even had the audacity to say, essentially, that she had no intention of answering the questions or addressing the issues. Pretty much she made it clear that she was there simply to regurgitate all of the bullshit her party had crammed down her throat. If I was the moderator I would have stopped her and asked her why she bothered to agree to come to the debate if she had no intention of, oh I don't know, actually debating.

Speaking of the moderator, I had been hearing in the news for several days that people were saying that she was going to be biased. Actually what I heard was that the moderator was publishing a book, and that somehow made them biased. When we were discussing it last night the fact that it was a book about the history of black politicians came up. I said I didn't see what that had to do with anything as far as the debate was concerned and asked which candidate she was supposedly biased towards, never making the connection that because the moderator was black and writing a book about the history of black politicians that she would be biased towards Obama. Silly me, I guess I was still confused from all these women, especially the ones from the democratic party, who are going on and on about wanting to see Palin do a good job and not make an embarrassment of herself because she is a woman, and apparently that will somehow reflect negatively on all of womankind. Where the hell does this logic come from?

I think saying that you want to see someone not make a fool of themself because they are a woman is sexist. It's the worst kind of sexism to me, the kind espoused by women. If you want equality you have to be willing to fail as big as the guys in the other group. Did anybody say, "gee, I hope Biden does well because he's a man on one of the biggest political stages in the world, and if he does that's good for men everywhere"? No, nobody said that because it's crazy talk. And pulling your punches because of a person's gender is as bad as attacking someone because of their gender. It's patronizing and undermines our equality.

Palin's success, or lack there of, should reflect on herself and her party, and probably her candidate (after all, he picked her out), but it shouldn't reflect on her gender. I don't think we should look at her as a stupid woman, we should look at her as a stupid person. I guess that's my point here: we have to stop lumping people together in these groups and take each person individually. To steal a line from George Carlin, women "...are like any other group of people: few winners, whole lot of losers."

And if I've missed these people's point, and it wasn't about her performance reflecting on all womankind, but rather just female politicians well, that's bullshit on a stick too. Take each person individually. You are going to have great female politicans (there are plenty all over the world) and you are going to have ones that are the laughingstocks, same as every other type of group you can divide people into. That's the reality folks.

We swam, we hiked, we drove

Well, now that I've caught up on my sleep from the last week I have a cold. At least I got the cold after I went away for the weekend. Why is it that any time I have a few days off from work my immune system crashes?

Oh well. I had a fabulous weekend. I picked up my rental car Thursday. They gave me a PT Cruiser which I was less than enthused about. I don't think I've ever seen one driven by someone who wasn't a douchebag. I almost got a Dodge Charger which would have been more fun to drive and may have been better in the hills, but would have used more gas and, let's face it, I would have been concernicus about hurting it all weekend, so I was only mildly disappointed. The drive to Logan went smoothly. When I was checking into the hotel the desk lady gave me the best news ever: that the pool was open 24 hours. That was nice. I was expecting the pool to be close by the time I arrived or soon after. Instead I got to take a nice long swim by myself and soak in the hot tub.

Friday was also a good day. Free hot breakfast at the hotel with a quick stop at the Christmas/Candle shop to pick up some goodies. Then I spent the rest of the day hiking through the woods of the Hocking Hills region, contemplating things, soul searching, hang-up abandoning, taking pictures, finding inner peace and a profound sense of calm, and discovering a well spring of confidence. You know, having a profound, semi-spiritual experience, as corny or cheesy as that may sound to some. Whatevs, I'm cool with it.

That night I drove to Pittsburg. Travel at night on windy, hilly roads that one is unfamiliar with can be quite interesting, especially when you're being tailgated by some teabag who won't pass you in any of the available flats. I checked into the (slightly) scary Motel 6. It wasn't an issue of cleanliness. The neighborhood didn't seem bad, but there were signs on the building instructing patrons to lock their cars and signs in the rooms instructing us to lock and deadbolt the door when in the room.

I also realized upon arriving that I had made sure I had directions for all the legs of my journey except how to get from the motel (which was a paltry 100m from the reception site) to the church. I quickly reverse engineered the directions from the church to the reception which worked fine. However, when I attempted to follow the directions in the correct order to go to the reception I got...well, I don't think the word "lost" applies. I tend to think of being lost as not knowing where you are. I knew exactly where I was and what road I was on and could even see up on the hill where I need to go, but I could not get anywhere. After going in a circle and still not finding the road I needed I decided to get back on the highway and go further down. I had no trouble finding my way from there. It took longer, but I arrived at the same time as the bridal party.

There's more to tell, but frankly I've run out of steam for the evening. I need a warm blanket (stupid cold) and some sleep, but stick around because part two is got some good stuff. Like a rant-tangent and what went on an the reception and a boy.