What's a Canadian doing in North Carolina?
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Poor George
Last week or so, George hurt her toe and ripped off the nail. Again. She was due for a visit to the vet for a booster shot anyway, so James took her over there and had them look at her foot. They ended up keeping her to do a wee surgery on the toe to fix the nail because it was broken so far down that it was still bleeding and had got infected. She is now effectively de-clawed on that one toe.
She had to stay at the vet overnight, because they over-anesthetised her >:-| and she came home the next morning with a bucket on her head. Poor thing...
You can see in this one above that the bucket is right to the end of her nose, so it was really difficult for her to eat and drink. Especially cookies, because she couldn't get her paws around the cookie to hold it. I had to hold the cookie for her so she could bite it.
She just more and more pathetic...
She finally gave up and decided she'd have to live with the bucket on her head.
Bruno just thought it was the funniest thing ever! heh heh heh... ¶ 10:52 AM 1 Comments
She had to stay at the vet overnight, because they over-anesthetised her >:-| and she came home the next morning with a bucket on her head. Poor thing...
You can see in this one above that the bucket is right to the end of her nose, so it was really difficult for her to eat and drink. Especially cookies, because she couldn't get her paws around the cookie to hold it. I had to hold the cookie for her so she could bite it.
She just more and more pathetic...
She finally gave up and decided she'd have to live with the bucket on her head.
Bruno just thought it was the funniest thing ever! heh heh heh... ¶ 10:52 AM 1 Comments
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Finally! Rain!
We here in North Carolina are suffering a terrible drought. But finally yesterday, it rained! And for more than just a few minutes. It started sometime in the wee smalls, and kept up til well after lunch time. Still, we're not caught up to normal precipitation levels for this time of year (last I read, we're about 17 inches less than usual for the year), but at least it was something.
About 3 weeks ago we had a wicked storm, knocked down trees and power lines, thunder lightning, I was driving down precarious mountain roads in the dark etc etc etc...but it didn't rain for long, so it did more damage than good. Luckily, we didn't lose any trees at our house (I had visions of coming home to find the big maple tree in our front yard moved to our front room, but it stayed where it should!) I had to drive around more than one rather large tree branch in the middle of roads. And Hwy 321 is hazardous at the best of times, I seriously thought I was going to blow out my brakes that night! I couldn't see a dang thing other than lightning, it was very scary!
Anyhoo...the lake about 20 minutes from here, Lake James is about 8 feet below normal levels, and receding about an inch more every day. Yesterday's rain may have slowed that some, but likely not much. Local farmers are really hurting, and the State Governor has asked the Feds for assistance for them. That's how bad it is here.
The Catawba river that runs right through Morganton has been so low all summer that you could pretty much walk across it and not get your feet wet. All the debris that was washed downstream from the flood 3 years ago is now visible. It used to barely break the surface, now its just junk lodged in dirt.
And yet, in Texas, Kansas and other Mid-West states, they're floating away! Flooding has been getting worse all summer long. While we're parched, they're water logged. Its just crazy!
Hopefully yesterday's rain is a sign of more to come. Probably not though. Today is bright and sunny, although not as hot as it has been. Its a nice "pretty day" as they say around here.
***
In other goings on, we've been crazy busy around here, what with Dragon*Con, then last weekend friends' Beth & JD & David's bar The Underground closed its doors, so we were down there on Saturday night to support them. I did my liver some damage, and couldn't move most of Sunday at all! Its been a long time since I had a hangover, hopefully it'll be a long time til I have another! OUCHIE!
Next weekend is Mabon already, where has the year gone?
Weekend after that we're having a yard sale to try and raise some money for PPD to pay for the park rental and the event insurance. Its going to be in the parking lot of The Underground (which next weekend is re-opening their doors with a new name and new format..."alternative lifestyle"...well...gay bar) and they'll be "renting" tables for $25. I've got several boxes full of crap...erm...stuff to go through to sell. Hopefully I'll make my $25 back plus some.
The weekend after that Jeff Dunham is playing at the Lenoir Broyhill Center. Yes, he of the many puppets, Peanut, Walter, Jose Jalapeno on a steeeek, and I think a couple new ones. We still need to book our tickets for the show, so hopefully its not sold out yet. We tried to buy them from their on-line boxoffice, but kept getting error messages. Its broken :-( I may have to drive to Lenoir :-p
Then the weekend after that is Pagan Pride Day. Check out our website http://www.cvhcppd.com It is still a work in progress but there's some info there. If you're in the area, you're more than welcome to join us! Bring a donation for the Humane Society or the Hunger Coalition. Stay til after dark and bring a drum or noisemaker and something for the feast table! We'll be there til about 11pm! Its going to be a long long long day! oi!
I'm tired just thinking about it. I think I'll go have a snooze. ¶ 4:57 PM 0 Comments
About 3 weeks ago we had a wicked storm, knocked down trees and power lines, thunder lightning, I was driving down precarious mountain roads in the dark etc etc etc...but it didn't rain for long, so it did more damage than good. Luckily, we didn't lose any trees at our house (I had visions of coming home to find the big maple tree in our front yard moved to our front room, but it stayed where it should!) I had to drive around more than one rather large tree branch in the middle of roads. And Hwy 321 is hazardous at the best of times, I seriously thought I was going to blow out my brakes that night! I couldn't see a dang thing other than lightning, it was very scary!
Anyhoo...the lake about 20 minutes from here, Lake James is about 8 feet below normal levels, and receding about an inch more every day. Yesterday's rain may have slowed that some, but likely not much. Local farmers are really hurting, and the State Governor has asked the Feds for assistance for them. That's how bad it is here.
The Catawba river that runs right through Morganton has been so low all summer that you could pretty much walk across it and not get your feet wet. All the debris that was washed downstream from the flood 3 years ago is now visible. It used to barely break the surface, now its just junk lodged in dirt.
And yet, in Texas, Kansas and other Mid-West states, they're floating away! Flooding has been getting worse all summer long. While we're parched, they're water logged. Its just crazy!
Hopefully yesterday's rain is a sign of more to come. Probably not though. Today is bright and sunny, although not as hot as it has been. Its a nice "pretty day" as they say around here.
***
In other goings on, we've been crazy busy around here, what with Dragon*Con, then last weekend friends' Beth & JD & David's bar The Underground closed its doors, so we were down there on Saturday night to support them. I did my liver some damage, and couldn't move most of Sunday at all! Its been a long time since I had a hangover, hopefully it'll be a long time til I have another! OUCHIE!
Next weekend is Mabon already, where has the year gone?
Weekend after that we're having a yard sale to try and raise some money for PPD to pay for the park rental and the event insurance. Its going to be in the parking lot of The Underground (which next weekend is re-opening their doors with a new name and new format..."alternative lifestyle"...well...gay bar) and they'll be "renting" tables for $25. I've got several boxes full of crap...erm...stuff to go through to sell. Hopefully I'll make my $25 back plus some.
The weekend after that Jeff Dunham is playing at the Lenoir Broyhill Center. Yes, he of the many puppets, Peanut, Walter, Jose Jalapeno on a steeeek, and I think a couple new ones. We still need to book our tickets for the show, so hopefully its not sold out yet. We tried to buy them from their on-line boxoffice, but kept getting error messages. Its broken :-( I may have to drive to Lenoir :-p
Then the weekend after that is Pagan Pride Day. Check out our website http://www.cvhcppd.com It is still a work in progress but there's some info there. If you're in the area, you're more than welcome to join us! Bring a donation for the Humane Society or the Hunger Coalition. Stay til after dark and bring a drum or noisemaker and something for the feast table! We'll be there til about 11pm! Its going to be a long long long day! oi!
I'm tired just thinking about it. I think I'll go have a snooze. ¶ 4:57 PM 0 Comments
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Dragon*Con Atlanta, GA. August 30 - September 3
Wow, what a weekend! I'm still recovering and trying to catch up! Here's a quick run-down of our weekend, with lots of pics and links!
We left Thursday morning, dropped the dogs off at K9 Cabins (the best dang doggie resort in Western NC!) George & Bruno just love it there, and always have so much fun! From there we made our way to Hotlanta! The car was loaded up with suitcases full of costumes and coolers and boxes full of food (we can't afford an entire weekend of hotel food so we loaded up on quick snackie foods and brought our own drinks).
As soon as we hit the Atlanta city limits, traffic stopped DEAD and we nearly crashed the Escape into the back end of a pick-up truck who slammed on his breaks suddenly. After our hearts re-started, it wasn't long til we found our hotel, the Hyatt Regency . We pulled up in front for the valet and he poked his head in the window and said "you're going to be a problem". Gee...thanks! You hardly know us! ;-) The problem of course was we're in an SUV with a luggage carrier on top, too tall to fit in the cars underground, so we had to drive around the hotel to their SUV underground. Which was also too low in the ceiling with our luggage carrier on top. So, we had to wait around for a trolley with me in the garage waiting, and James up street-side waiting with the truck parked illegally. I got my first con-hug down here :-)
Finally we got the truck un-loaded and the carrier off the top (after backing up Atlanta downtown rush hour traffic for a while, y'see James parked the truck in front of the receiving/delivery entrance of the hotel!) and headed to check into the hotel. So far, not so bad...not dead yet anyway...
We checked in, took our gear up to the room, tipped the bell-hop (nice guy, all the hotel staff are wonderfully friendly, considering the madhouse that is Dragon*Con!) and headed down to Registration, where we met our First Long Line-Up.
This line only took us not quite an hour, but it was a taste for what the weekend was to be like! We spent the greater part of the weekend standing and waiting for stuff to happen! If you ever go, wear comfy shoes!
After registration we headed back to our room to map out our plan for the weekend and highlighting things in our Pocket Guide. Then we wandered around for a while before the big party started with a few bands playing in one of the rooms. We met Hagrid
umbrella and all
The bands playing on Thursday night included Emerald Rose, who finished up the evening, but we didn't quite stay up to see the end of it. We did meet up with some fellow Charlotte Browncoats, Danny, Scott and Cole. It had been a very long day so we were all out of there by midnight I think, and in bed to get ready for the next big day of standing in line for stuff! ;-)
Friday, what did we do? Dangit, I wish we'd had internet at the hotel so I could have posted a daily run down, but the Hyatt charges $10 per 24 hours of internet service, and I refuse to pay that much for it! I refuse to pay for it at all frankly, I'm already paying them more than $150 per night for the room!
Anyhoo...
So much to do, so little time! Each guest panel is about an hour long, and there's a 30 minute break between schedules, and hour long line ups for just about everything. Which means of course, if you go to see one panel, and want to see one in the next time slot, you'll end up at the back of the line. Which happened quite often. Which means you're sitting at the back of the room, and too far away to get any decent photos with a crappy idiot box digital camera. So I didn't get many from the panels at all unfortunately.
On Friday we tried to see the Ghost Hunters, but apparently their flight was delayed by weather so we weren't told until everyone was in the room and sitting down that the panel was cancelled. Would have been nice if they'd told us that while we were standing in line >:-p but nooooooooo! So instead we headed to the bowels of the hotel to the Stargate Fandom Track opening. We got SG Atlantis posters and A Dog's Breakfast posters (they're double-sided, but we got 2, so one of each, if you follow). We didn't get to meet (m)any people really, everything is just so rushed! Which is a shame, its always nice to share time with folks who share an obession ;-)
I think (memory is fading! GAH!) we went from there to the first Stargate Panel of the weekend, with Paul McGillion, (Dr. Carson Becket - Atlantis) Alexis Cruz, (Skaara - The Movie & SG1) Corin Nemic, (Jonas Quinn SG1) and John de Lancie (Frank Simmons - SG1). These guys are funny! Especially Paul and John! We were very happy to find out that Dr. Becket will be returning to Atlantis, despite his rather untimely death last season! Yay! He couldn't tell us how of course, but still, its SciFi, nobody stays dead for long. Right Daniel Jackson? ;-)
From there I headed right on over to spend an hour with Ron Glass and Mark Sheppard of Firefly/Serenity. These two are REALLY funny together. And no, Mark Sheppard is *not* the voice of the Geiko gekko, quit asking him that! James headed in another direction to see something else, but didn't make it, so ended up coming back and couldn't find me in the huge huge room full of people. We met up again later in the room for something to eat.
Friday night was Apophis' Birthday Bash with the Stargate fans, where we all got branded with Apophis' hyroglyph
And after that, An Evening at Bree with the Tolkienites, with the Brobdingnagian Bards and Emerald Rose playing. We were lined up down the hall, and outside the hotel and around the corner to get in!
I recognized quite a few people from The Tolkien Gathering I had attended last year in Toronto with Mum. Some of them in the same costumes even to make it easier ;-). We met Lucius Malfoy there, looking quite spiffy as usual.
Saturday was a big day, we planned to see the Harry Potter stars Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) and James and Oliver Phelps (George & Fred Weasley), so we dressed up in our Hogwarts costumes. James was Dumbledore, and I was just a Weasley witch (what with my red hair, what else would I be?). We got SWARMED in the hotel lobby and couldn't move for about 20 minutes with people taking photos of us with Gandalf, who we'd just happened to meet up with that morning.
And, strangely enough for some reason my most fave costume of the entire weekend was this guy...
The whole time he was in costume, he never said a word!
We did get to see Matthew, James and Oliver, but I didn't get any photos of them, as previously mentioned because we had been swarmed, we were late for the event and got sat too far away. I did however get some nice shots of others in the room in costume.
Here's another of my fave costumes, it takes 3 to do it right, and these folks even won an award at Masquerade.
We also saw the Stargate Mega Panel on Saturday, with ooooooo, whole bunches of people from both shows. By this time we were crazy tired and worn out from standing in lines all day, and our costumes were getting way too hot. Velvet cloak in Atlanta in August? We stood at the top of the stairs and saw the line go on and on and on and on and said fuck it, we'll wait til the end of it passes us then join in...lucily our good friend and fellow Browncoat Danny was smart enough to have skipped the event prior to this one, and he "saved" us a spot. ;-) Thanks again Dan! You're the bestest!
The Stargate mega panel included Corin Nemic, Vanessa Angel, Pierre (sorry can't remember his name...he's on the Conan O'Brien show), Chris Judge, Jason Momoa, Paul McGillion, Michael Shanks, Lexa Doig, Alexis Cruz, gods I hope I didn't forget anybody!...and may I just say that Chris Judge has a potty mouth! And some strange fascination with poo! These guys are hillarious!
Saturday was also time spent in the Buffy-verse with James Marsters, Juliet Landau, Elisabeth Rohm and Ken Feinburg (who blew off a panel he was supposed to do with the Trek Track!). I got a couple of shots at this one, I just had to scrunch down and make my way to the front of the room!
Ken & Elisabeth
James & Juliet
And all 4
They're dark because as mentioned, my camera is not the greatest, and the room is dark!
Gosh...what else did we do...oh yeah, stood in line for I dunno how long for the Whedon Shindig that night and still didn't get in because the room is too gorram small and they were turning people away. So, like any good Browncoat who aims to misbehave, we snuck in the back door! From the Charlotte browncoats there was me and Danny Andy and Kathy. Already inside were a few others. The Bedlam Bards played for our enjoyment (I'll post the video I got later maybe)
whew...on to Sunday...this is getting long so I'll just post some more pics and maybe run down later its getting late and the day is getting away from me and we have things to do...
We saw one last panel on Sunday with Ron Glass. By this time we had given up on line ups, and started to take full advantage of James' disability (having previously spoken with disability services and learned that we were allowed to take the service elevator) and were able to get to the front of the line. I saw a bunch of friends furhter down a bit, and promised to keep some seats for them. We managed to get front row.
He was always always laughing!
And, I don't remember exactly when we saw this costume, but I just had to get a pic! Brilliant!
And then Dorothy happened by...
I do have a few other shots and links, but I'll put them up later. Gotta go for now!
Oh, and sorry I missed it but if you're reading this, Happy Birthday Layne! Hope yours was as much fun as mine was! And maybe sometime we can celebrate together at Dragon*Con, cuz that would be really cool! :-) And if you tag along with your celebrity girlfriend, perhaps you can get the con to pay for your room and stuff ;-) ¶ 11:32 AM 2 Comments
We left Thursday morning, dropped the dogs off at K9 Cabins (the best dang doggie resort in Western NC!) George & Bruno just love it there, and always have so much fun! From there we made our way to Hotlanta! The car was loaded up with suitcases full of costumes and coolers and boxes full of food (we can't afford an entire weekend of hotel food so we loaded up on quick snackie foods and brought our own drinks).
As soon as we hit the Atlanta city limits, traffic stopped DEAD and we nearly crashed the Escape into the back end of a pick-up truck who slammed on his breaks suddenly. After our hearts re-started, it wasn't long til we found our hotel, the Hyatt Regency . We pulled up in front for the valet and he poked his head in the window and said "you're going to be a problem". Gee...thanks! You hardly know us! ;-) The problem of course was we're in an SUV with a luggage carrier on top, too tall to fit in the cars underground, so we had to drive around the hotel to their SUV underground. Which was also too low in the ceiling with our luggage carrier on top. So, we had to wait around for a trolley with me in the garage waiting, and James up street-side waiting with the truck parked illegally. I got my first con-hug down here :-)
Finally we got the truck un-loaded and the carrier off the top (after backing up Atlanta downtown rush hour traffic for a while, y'see James parked the truck in front of the receiving/delivery entrance of the hotel!) and headed to check into the hotel. So far, not so bad...not dead yet anyway...
We checked in, took our gear up to the room, tipped the bell-hop (nice guy, all the hotel staff are wonderfully friendly, considering the madhouse that is Dragon*Con!) and headed down to Registration, where we met our First Long Line-Up.
This line only took us not quite an hour, but it was a taste for what the weekend was to be like! We spent the greater part of the weekend standing and waiting for stuff to happen! If you ever go, wear comfy shoes!
After registration we headed back to our room to map out our plan for the weekend and highlighting things in our Pocket Guide. Then we wandered around for a while before the big party started with a few bands playing in one of the rooms. We met Hagrid
umbrella and all
The bands playing on Thursday night included Emerald Rose, who finished up the evening, but we didn't quite stay up to see the end of it. We did meet up with some fellow Charlotte Browncoats, Danny, Scott and Cole. It had been a very long day so we were all out of there by midnight I think, and in bed to get ready for the next big day of standing in line for stuff! ;-)
Friday, what did we do? Dangit, I wish we'd had internet at the hotel so I could have posted a daily run down, but the Hyatt charges $10 per 24 hours of internet service, and I refuse to pay that much for it! I refuse to pay for it at all frankly, I'm already paying them more than $150 per night for the room!
Anyhoo...
So much to do, so little time! Each guest panel is about an hour long, and there's a 30 minute break between schedules, and hour long line ups for just about everything. Which means of course, if you go to see one panel, and want to see one in the next time slot, you'll end up at the back of the line. Which happened quite often. Which means you're sitting at the back of the room, and too far away to get any decent photos with a crappy idiot box digital camera. So I didn't get many from the panels at all unfortunately.
On Friday we tried to see the Ghost Hunters, but apparently their flight was delayed by weather so we weren't told until everyone was in the room and sitting down that the panel was cancelled. Would have been nice if they'd told us that while we were standing in line >:-p but nooooooooo! So instead we headed to the bowels of the hotel to the Stargate Fandom Track opening. We got SG Atlantis posters and A Dog's Breakfast posters (they're double-sided, but we got 2, so one of each, if you follow). We didn't get to meet (m)any people really, everything is just so rushed! Which is a shame, its always nice to share time with folks who share an obession ;-)
I think (memory is fading! GAH!) we went from there to the first Stargate Panel of the weekend, with Paul McGillion, (Dr. Carson Becket - Atlantis) Alexis Cruz, (Skaara - The Movie & SG1) Corin Nemic, (Jonas Quinn SG1) and John de Lancie (Frank Simmons - SG1). These guys are funny! Especially Paul and John! We were very happy to find out that Dr. Becket will be returning to Atlantis, despite his rather untimely death last season! Yay! He couldn't tell us how of course, but still, its SciFi, nobody stays dead for long. Right Daniel Jackson? ;-)
From there I headed right on over to spend an hour with Ron Glass and Mark Sheppard of Firefly/Serenity. These two are REALLY funny together. And no, Mark Sheppard is *not* the voice of the Geiko gekko, quit asking him that! James headed in another direction to see something else, but didn't make it, so ended up coming back and couldn't find me in the huge huge room full of people. We met up again later in the room for something to eat.
Friday night was Apophis' Birthday Bash with the Stargate fans, where we all got branded with Apophis' hyroglyph
And after that, An Evening at Bree with the Tolkienites, with the Brobdingnagian Bards and Emerald Rose playing. We were lined up down the hall, and outside the hotel and around the corner to get in!
I recognized quite a few people from The Tolkien Gathering I had attended last year in Toronto with Mum. Some of them in the same costumes even to make it easier ;-). We met Lucius Malfoy there, looking quite spiffy as usual.
Saturday was a big day, we planned to see the Harry Potter stars Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) and James and Oliver Phelps (George & Fred Weasley), so we dressed up in our Hogwarts costumes. James was Dumbledore, and I was just a Weasley witch (what with my red hair, what else would I be?). We got SWARMED in the hotel lobby and couldn't move for about 20 minutes with people taking photos of us with Gandalf, who we'd just happened to meet up with that morning.
And, strangely enough for some reason my most fave costume of the entire weekend was this guy...
The whole time he was in costume, he never said a word!
We did get to see Matthew, James and Oliver, but I didn't get any photos of them, as previously mentioned because we had been swarmed, we were late for the event and got sat too far away. I did however get some nice shots of others in the room in costume.
Here's another of my fave costumes, it takes 3 to do it right, and these folks even won an award at Masquerade.
We also saw the Stargate Mega Panel on Saturday, with ooooooo, whole bunches of people from both shows. By this time we were crazy tired and worn out from standing in lines all day, and our costumes were getting way too hot. Velvet cloak in Atlanta in August? We stood at the top of the stairs and saw the line go on and on and on and on and said fuck it, we'll wait til the end of it passes us then join in...lucily our good friend and fellow Browncoat Danny was smart enough to have skipped the event prior to this one, and he "saved" us a spot. ;-) Thanks again Dan! You're the bestest!
The Stargate mega panel included Corin Nemic, Vanessa Angel, Pierre (sorry can't remember his name...he's on the Conan O'Brien show), Chris Judge, Jason Momoa, Paul McGillion, Michael Shanks, Lexa Doig, Alexis Cruz, gods I hope I didn't forget anybody!...and may I just say that Chris Judge has a potty mouth! And some strange fascination with poo! These guys are hillarious!
Saturday was also time spent in the Buffy-verse with James Marsters, Juliet Landau, Elisabeth Rohm and Ken Feinburg (who blew off a panel he was supposed to do with the Trek Track!). I got a couple of shots at this one, I just had to scrunch down and make my way to the front of the room!
Ken & Elisabeth
James & Juliet
And all 4
They're dark because as mentioned, my camera is not the greatest, and the room is dark!
Gosh...what else did we do...oh yeah, stood in line for I dunno how long for the Whedon Shindig that night and still didn't get in because the room is too gorram small and they were turning people away. So, like any good Browncoat who aims to misbehave, we snuck in the back door! From the Charlotte browncoats there was me and Danny Andy and Kathy. Already inside were a few others. The Bedlam Bards played for our enjoyment (I'll post the video I got later maybe)
whew...on to Sunday...this is getting long so I'll just post some more pics and maybe run down later its getting late and the day is getting away from me and we have things to do...
We saw one last panel on Sunday with Ron Glass. By this time we had given up on line ups, and started to take full advantage of James' disability (having previously spoken with disability services and learned that we were allowed to take the service elevator) and were able to get to the front of the line. I saw a bunch of friends furhter down a bit, and promised to keep some seats for them. We managed to get front row.
He was always always laughing!
And, I don't remember exactly when we saw this costume, but I just had to get a pic! Brilliant!
And then Dorothy happened by...
I do have a few other shots and links, but I'll put them up later. Gotta go for now!
Oh, and sorry I missed it but if you're reading this, Happy Birthday Layne! Hope yours was as much fun as mine was! And maybe sometime we can celebrate together at Dragon*Con, cuz that would be really cool! :-) And if you tag along with your celebrity girlfriend, perhaps you can get the con to pay for your room and stuff ;-) ¶ 11:32 AM 2 Comments
