wacky1980

err....i kinda hate the dentist. anything where someone else has to touch me on/around my face, i'm pretty much not ok with it. i'm sure if they knocked my ass out with the gas, i'd manage. but i'm just not really interested in letting someone else put their fingers in my mouth. god damn. kinda makes me gag to think about it.

little, as in 10k+ people in its first week and counting. wiu alumni from approx 1995-2005 are putting together a reunion party for fall 2020. the school is losing students badly (enrollment was 13k when i was there in the late 90's, and it's down to around 7k now), and there's fear that the school may eventually close down entirely if the trend continues. that would also deal a big blow to the town, which relies heavily on the school. so the big reunion is intended to kinda breathe some new life into the school and the town, hopefully bring down a bunch of charitable contributions to benefit them, and remind people how great the school once was (and hopefully will be again). any wiu leathernecks on the boards? i kinda doubt it, but it's worth a shot. show yourselves!

foreal, light sensitivity is super sucky. i don't go outside during the daytime without wearing sunglasses, because i'd have to squint so hard that i may as well have my eyes closed. driving is the same way. it's well after sunset before i even think to take them off. people give me a hard time about it but whatever. i'd probably wear sunglasses inside too, if it was more acceptable. must be one of the fun qualities of all these irish genes.

eventually, maybe.

god damn, that whole thing sounds kinda nice. our honeymoon was a 10-day road trip through some national parks and the rockies. visiting monuments and historic sites, hiking and camping, sleeping under the stars with wolves howling in the distance. it was perfect. these days, "vacation" usually only consists of driving a few hours north to visit family for the weekend. wow-wee. been thinking of taking the wife/kids up the east coast sometime. the boys have never been anywhere farther than a few hours from home, and the wife's never seen the atlantic ocean or any of new england. we'd bunk up in coastal villages, eat fresh crabs and lobsters, and maybe pop into nyc to watch the boys lose their minds with the tall buildings and mass of people. we contemplated going this fall, but i have a co-worker who plans to take 12 weeks of maternity leave starting in sep/oct. and since she's the only other person at the bank who knows how to do my job, i'm forbidden from taking extended time off from 9/1 until after she's back. so we shall wait til 2020+.

what's a real vacation look like? not sure i've had one of those since the honeymoon...8 years ago. ~~~ so i spent around $14,000 on new plumbing/water systems in the hop garden. all brand new, from the sewer main and water meter, all the way up. seven sinks of various type and location, water heater, manifold with cleanout...and two toilets. two toilets, and only one of them will flush. today was supposed to be a good day.

root beer is caffeine free. the sugar will wear off after about an hour. so let them share a can about an hour before bed, and they'll crash out like clockwork.

pizza/movie projector is always a hit. add popcorn/soda and an inflatable mattress/tent and maybe some youtube on a tablet for after the movie, and you're all set. they require occasional pee breaks and a change into pajamas at about dark. and then maybe some mini donuts and oj in the morning. you'll be the favorite aunt/uncle destination in no time.

i gave up smoking entirely a little over a year ago. woke up one day with bronchitis and just didn't feel like smoking anymore, and that was that. after almost 25 years of being a smoker, and never had withdrawals or urges or anything. weird shit.

vaping only made me crave an actual cigarette that much more. i gave it up and went back to regular smokes after about a month because i couldn't hack it.

the talkbox is massive on that song. i think i like rocky mountain way a bit better, but this is a close 2nd in that regard.

i have frampton comes alive on vinyl somewhere. since i can't load yt videos on this computer, i have to assume the song you're talking about is "do you feel". it's one of my favorites from that album.

never even seen one afaik.

thanks this is a small town. like, really small. i don't know of any actual, self-described artists in this town beyond the retired lady across the alley who makes pottery. and her husband is the cocksucker who gave us hell over the fence and parking, so she's right out. but i'm not opposed to the idea of letting someone else ... um ... well, typing this out is a little harder than i expected it to be. ok ... with a little coaxing, i would probably be willing to let someone take a swing at painting my property ... ugh, i dunno. i'm apparently a little protective of my new baby.

after i get the necessities finished up, i'm going to probably paint the upstage walls something neutral, or panel them and paint the paneling. wife picked out a good color somewhere in between brown and tan. i have an idea that i'd like to paint hop bines on several walls, because that's kinda the theme we'll have rolling out there with all the live hop plants. it would have to be nice art though. no cheesy kindergarten-quality vine drawings. don't know if i'll commission that stuff or try to do it myself. do you have suggestions?

it's cancer. it's probably cancer.

also, a picture for @scoobdog. not mine; one of the band girlfriends took this. shitty filter aside, i kinda like it. i'll be using this angle a bunch in the future.

first weekend is in the book. the heat kicked our asses, but we had a good turnout on friday for the band. it's gonna take a couple weeks for word to get out, because we've only done a minimal amount of marketing due to not knowing for sure when we'd be open and not having any images to use for promo. but we got some good stuff over the weekend that we'll use this week to start pumping out the promo. this weekend is gonna be on the quiet side, and then next weekend is county fair weekend so we'll probably lay kinda low then as well so as to not directly compete with their timeline. but we're setting ourselves up to fill the rest of the season with music and events and whatnot, starting on like the 2nd or 3rd week of august. heading back in tonight to work on hard surfaces. gotta paint and poly bartops, and tear down the frozen machine for maintenance. easy stuff in comparison to the last few weeks of evening workloads.

so you paid $5 for the cocktail and an additional $5 for the atmosphere/location, would be my guess.

well...was it any good?

yesterday was a rough one. i took the day off from the bank and we started work at 6am. finished all the wiring, hung the garage door, set up the last 4 draft lines, finished out the restrooms, got some plumbing stuff buttoned up, organized the bar and cooler, and got the doors open by 4pm. then we had a band last night and closed it down at midnight. this morning i'm working at the bank, then back outside to open the garden at noon in another hot-assed 95F day. a methamphetamine bump would be pretty nice right now. anyways, we're open.

THAT'S WHAT I SAID

passed our final health inspection -- tentatively. i still have a few things to get right, but they're going to let us open anyway. they're coming back in a month for a follow-up. THANK THE GODS. deliveries are all in. i still have to go after the garage door tonight, and then get up early tomorrow to install it before the heat gets too crazy again. beer cooler arrived this afternoon. they lost it on a dock at the warehouse two hours away from here. it took them a week to find it, but they did yesterday and got it here today. got some more painting and decorating to get done, and a little electrical work on the stage. gotta seal some surfaces in the bar, but that will have to wait until next week. and finally, i still have 3 tables to put together, but i might mess with them tonight after i get back from picking up the garage door. we're running with five tables tonight. oh, yeah. we're officially opening tonight (!). at this point, we're about as ready as we can hope to be. holy fucking cow, we made it...

down to the last few bits now. i still have 4 taps to install (the other 6 have performed spectacularly since i got them installed saturday), plus the tv and internet. also a little painting here and there, building the last couple tables, and adding some paper dispensers in restrooms, and we're just about all the way there. final health inspection is tomorrow afternoon. barring any complications from that, we should be up and running at capacity this weekend. very first pour off one of my favorites from the new draft system. this pint of TG pseudo sue tasted better than any beer has ever tasted.

i'm so close. kinda losing my mind at this point. been keeping loose track of the hours i've spent working in there, and i'm at about 75 hours in the last 7 days. and that's after working around the day job, 8-4 M-F. i'm taking today off while the plumber and carpenter finish up their lists. we "opened" for a few hours last night with a very limited capability. only one bathroom was functional, and none of my bar sinks. the draft system is still in boxes. frozen cocktails are up. soda gun/mixed cocktails is up. under-bar beer cooler still hasn't arrived, so i was retrieving beers one-at-a-time from the walk-in for customers, ugh. tv/internet isn't installed yet either, but i got a sound system wired up so we at least had music. and with no internet, the point-of-sale is functioning in cash-only status. i got three tables built for seating...five more to go. and i pulled a couple barstools from the other place until that order arrives. even with all the unfinished work, about 20 people wandered through and had a fucking blast until i kicked them out at 1am. it's still way too early to make any assumptions, but i feel like we've built something pretty awesome here. gonna hit things hard tomorrow and sunday, and hopefully i'm at about 90% capability after that. then i get a few evenings next week to finish up some storage and electrical stuff that's not necessary to function, but will make life a lot easier. and we open hard next thursday.