Tag Archives: postaday

Another Convention, Another Series of Quests

September 23, 2016 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

cce2016!

It’s convention time yet again! This weekend my wife Anne and I have driven two hours southeast of Indianapolis to attend a show we’ve never done before, the seventh annual Cincinnati Comic Expo. In the past she and I have talked about trying cons in other Midwest cities, but the Expo is our first time venturing out to Ohio for one. In addition to proximity and complete lack of schedule conflict with anything else we had going on, CCE’s guest list includes a pair of actors we missed at previous cons who represented glaring holes in one of her themed autograph collections. With her birthday coming up in a few weeks, which usually means a one-day road trip somewhere, we agreed this would count as her early celebration.

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Edginess at the Edge of the Woods

September 13, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

Turkey Run State Park!

Another year, another family reunion, another long walk through the lush, jagged wilderness. Edges above us, edges below us, depending on which trail you’re negotiating with their intermittent, frequently incorrect trail markers and/or with their handy brochure map if you didn’t forget it in the car.

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A Frame of Reference for Effervescent Irreverence

August 26, 2016 By in Conventions & Events, Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Us+MeTV!

The week of recovery after our three-day Wizard World Chicago experience has been filled with work stress, illness, and the usual post-convention depression that strikes so many geeks once we’ve disconnected from our peers and returned to the mundane world where fewer people get us. I’ve been dedicating little spare time to rest and recuperation, and more time to uploading photos and sharing anecdotes and memories from the experience so I can prolong the magic for as long as possible, but here at the new weekend it’s left me drained and inattentive and sloppy. I’ve made stupid miscalculations, I spilled drinks twice today, and I’ve used up all the really good non-drowsy sinus medicine in the house. At this point, if I could get Calgon to take me away and get Ronald McDonald to affirm I deserve a break today, their combined corporate forgiveness might just be enough to make me feel well again.

In reviewing my files the other night, I realized I overlooked a photo that belonged in our shiny happy Wizard World Chicago jazz hands assortment that kicked off the current MCC miniseries. I’m still working on the concluding chapter, the extra-length wrap-up with notes from the panels we attended, name-checks for the comic book creators we met, and various notes about the pros and cons, and about the pros at the con. It won’t be done tonight for excuses stated above, but the least I can do is share our accidental outtake.

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Fabulous Frothy Fatty Frolicky Friday Fun with a Fondue Fountain

August 12, 2016 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

Fondue!

Pictured above is the star attraction from our most recent pitch-in at work: a fondue fountain filled with rich, creamy, sinful chocolate. This enchanting appliance belongs to a kindly grandmother on my team who decided to spoil us with its presence, which made for a celebratory change of pace from the doldrums of day-old grocery donuts, lookalike veggie trays, and a thousand bags of unopened chips. Not one person was the kind of killjoy to complain that this setup had virtually no connection to the “Mexican” theme we’d voted on for the pitch-in.

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Partners! The Musical!

June 24, 2016 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Goldens!

Maybe not really. Anne and I do have our sing-a-long moments, whether we’re busting out hymns in the same church service or indulging secret nostalgia on road trips passing through towns where ’80s Top-40 still lives, which describes nearly every small town today outside Footlooseburg. I’m not convinced we could carry our own Broadway show, off-Broadway vanity production, or community performance-art stunt, but if we tried, it would look like this except you could see our jazz hands better on stage. Also, it might be nice if we found a talented stylist to hide all that stately gray that’s overtaking my beard. Nagging aging defects like that can lead to bouts of vain grumpiness and haunting incidents like the time we went to a Red Lobster and the waitress asked me non-jokingly if my daughter would like a children’s menu. True, unfair story.

Right this way for a quick note on another MCC blogging milestone!

2016 Ain’t Nothing But a Number

June 4, 2016 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

2016!

Muhammad Ali. Prince. David Bowie. Alan Rickman. Patty Duke. Garry Shandling. Nancy Reagan. Abe Vigoda. Raymond’s mom. Frank Drebin’s boss. Grizzly Adams. TV’s Schneider. The Phantasm guy.

For these names and others you’d recognize, 2016 has been a bad year. Whenever three or more well-regarded famous people die within the same year, that year’s name is mud. Everyone curses its name and declares it Worst Year Ever. Add in one or more horrifying wide-scale tragedies, and that year will never be allowed a moment of recognition for all the good it hosted. 2016 isn’t halfway over, but if it were an internet user, it would already be receiving daily death threats and getting trolled into oblivion by millions of typists blinded by fury at all the implied promises broken by that stupid backstabbing jerk Baby New Year 2016. Remember in January when Ryan Seacrest invited us all to welcome that baby with open arms and hearts and hopes? Now WE HATE THAT BABY SO MUCH. THANKS, SEACREST.

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Spare the Cupcakes, Spoil the Student

May 27, 2016 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Mini-Cupcakes!

My mom’s final day of employment is May 31st, but her retirement party was this afternoon, because who wants to party the day after Memorial Day? Granted, several coworkers took today off to lengthen their three-day weekend and technically voted against partying in a sense — or at least partying with us — but we could only push the date back so far. Preceding the party was a prodigious lunch pitch-in with a spread that included spaghetti, chicken fingers, BBQ meatballs, two pasta salads, one actual salad, macaroni ‘n’ cheese, scalloped potatoes, one hundred bags of potato chips, an assortment of grocery bakery department desserts, and my own acclaimed, freshly baked brownies. The interdepartmental team effort treated Mom like a queen.

Unfortunately that noontime feast left most of the retirement party guests with no appetite later. We expected a certain catering surplus, but still overestimated our needs. Our simple refreshments comprised one bowl of mandatory weird fruit soda hybrid punch and four dozen mini-cupcakes. By the end of the shindig the punch was gone, but we had three dozen mini-cupcakes to spare.

Right this way for just two more paragraphs!

Mother vs. Mother Earth

May 6, 2016 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

Mom's Patio.

A lot of things in my life wouldn’t be possible without my mom. She raised me as a single mom, with extensive assistance from my grandma. She worked her way up from waitressing on roller skates as a teen to our lean food-stamp years of my infancy, from her first office job to her return to college, earning her Finance degree at age 50. She’s now three weeks away from retirement and looking forward to beginning the next chapter in her life, wherever it may lead her.

But some things are not her strong suit. Lawn care is one of them.

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Dinnertime Down the Street at Lola’s

April 15, 2016 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Turon!

When restaurateurs want to make their mark on Indianapolis, they rarely glance in the direction of the west side. They flock to the upper-class north suburbs and their adjacent cities, they swarm around downtown’s millennial-professional boom, they move to the increasingly trendy near-southside neighborhoods of Fountain Square and Fletcher Place, or they take their chances in old-school-hipster Broad Ripple. We west-siders notice articles in the Indianapolis Star or in Indianapolis Monthly boasting about new restaurants and talented chefs, cross our fingers hoping someone will give us a chance, and find ourselves let down every time, feeling neglected and déclassé while they brag about marching in lockstep toward the only compass directions that matter to the Hoosier jet set.

When I read that a new place called Lola’s Bowl and Bistro opened suspiciously close to our house, serving fine Filipino cuisine, I wondered if it was a hoax, a dream, or an imaginary story. Or, y’know, journalism made of LIES. But no, Lola’s is real and they’re on our side of the Circle City, next to the one stoplight in Clermont.

I’m already talking too much. I’ll pause here so you can stare at our dessert for a few minutes. It’s also my desktop wallpaper at work.

Right this way for details about that dessert and also our entrees, I guess…

The Springs in Fall — 2015 Photos #21: Lithic Landscape Lollygagging

April 1, 2016 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Palmer Park!

Day Five was the last full day of our week in Colorado Springs. I had a late-morning appointment that left me with an hour or so to waste after hotel breakfast #4. I scoped out my options on the east side of town and decided to hang out at Palmer Park, nothing I’d heard of before my vacation research. It’s a plot of land slightly smaller than Central Park, but encapsulating all the Rocky Mountain scenery I’d been exploring and driving around all week. The best part was, the petite peaks of Palmer Park were a picnic to perambulate.

Right this way for nature and scenery and panoramas and such!