so uhhhh.... we're moving

So I have big news. We're moving. I applied for a new job in Colorado Springs last month and found out monday that I got it. The job is with a corporation called URS. The work is similar to what I have been doing, although I'll be doing a lot more travel. Noel and I were casually watching the housing market up there (just in case) and had actually found a house we absolutly loved. After I found out I got the job, we called about the house. Apparently someone else had just made and offer, so long story short - we bought it.



It's been a busy couple of days... I'll post more details soon.

BREAKING NEWS - this was my lame ass attempt at an april fools joke. according to latest polls - 33.3% of people were fooled.

where the wild things are

When I first saw this movie announced I was skeptical as "where the wild things are" was by far my favorite childhood book. The cast and director list grew my interest. I started to think they could pull this off. Now having seen the trailer I am excited.

happy st. patrick's day

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Obamicon

This site's just a little too damn fun.

NU Volleyball

Yesterday we had our work poker night. I don't really follow NU volleyball (apparently they got edged out of the final four last night) but many of my coworkers do. One coworker, who is really into it, decided that he'd rather go home and watch the game than stay and play cards. Long story short - we've been giving him a hard time today, as some of the players stopped by our little party for some cheer and beer after the game.

subscribe to sirjor

Apparently I can hook it up so that you'll recieve an email each time I post something on SIR JUSTIN OF RYONS. Comment to let me know if you are interested.

Wedding Weekend

Man it's tough going back to work on a cold day after a long weekend. Had a good one though - went to 2 weddings. Congrats are in order for Josh / Renae and Emily / Anders. Saw a lot of family and the booze was free, so good times all around. I was DD so it was red wine for me, can't drink it fast so consequently I don't drink much. Both weddings were action packed, mostly in good ways, but in some less good ways as well. I am reminded of an old joke so I will tell tale through it.

A guy moves to a small town with one bar on the corner. He doesn't know anyone there, so bored one night he stops by the bar looking for something to do. After a few drinks he starts chatting with one of the local townies about what there is to do in town. The townies response was: "Well not much, mostly we head down to river and party."
new guy: "Oh yeah, what kind of parties do you throw?"
townie: "The typical - there's some cabins down there and we do a lot of drinkin."
new guy: "yeah..."
townie: "and then there's usually some fightin."
new guy: "huh, that sound's exicting."
townie: "and then eventually there's some fuckin - wanna come?"
new guy: "Sure - who's all gonna be there?"
townie: "Oh, just you and me."

Hallowvideos

Screamin Jay Hawkins - I put a spell on you


Disney Silly Symphony - Skeleton Dance


Bob Prickett and the Crypt Kickers - Monster Mash


Legend of Sleepy Hallow - The Headless Horseman


Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party


Nightmare Before Christmas - This is Halloween

Flatwater

The company I work for is currently undergoing a facelift of sorts. Flatwater recently moved to a bigger / more suitable location. Now we are updating our logo. Flatwater recently hired an advertising company to come up with something. Those of us inclined tried our hands at it as well and my design was selected to be sent back to the advertising company to develop the final product.

My Design



Final Product


I like the final product - definitely more professional looking than my more "natural" looking concept. Plus now I don't have to worry about being self-conscious. The overall concept is the box (engineering) with a meandering stream going through it (natural systems, specifically water), which is what we do.

Brew Crew

Looks like I joined the Brew Crew at the right time. Since joining the Brewers went from a record of 31-28 to 57-43. They are now 1 game behind the cubs and 2 over the cardinals in the NL central and have the 4th best record overall. I don't want to take all the credit, I'm sure the aquisition of C.C. Sabathia had something to do with it, but numbers don't lie.

baseball dilema

I've decided that I should declare support for a Major League Baseball team. I'm still not sure why I've made this decision, and I may not follow through with it, but I am seriously considering three teams to root for. Personally, I'm not a big sports guy and I don't see this changing that. I enjoy going to the random Saltdogs game and may do more of that, but I doubt I'll ever sit down and watch a whole baseball game on TV. Nevertheless, I think my time has come to pick a team.

Why this decision? Well my friend Brian is likely to blame as he just did a similar thing and declared support for the KC Royals. My coworkers and father in-law are all into a bevy of sports, and it's nice to be able to join in conversation. The straw however, is that I do find sports interesting enough to check-in while drinking a beer at a friends or bar, and it always helps to have a team to root for when doing that.

Why baseball and why am I picking teams now? I already have a football team. I grew up a huge Buffalo Bills fan from my father's influence and while I'm no longer a huge NFL fan - the Bills will always have a special place.
I had a short lived Hockey obsession in middle school that led me to purchase a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, and right now I don't really care enough about hockey to change that.
As far as basketball goes, I'm a fan of the NCAA tournament, but the pro's just don't do it for me. I never had an NBA basketball team growing up, so maybe I'll pick one someday, but not today.
Baseball - I like baseball, I enjoy the atmosphere, I played baseball growing up, I never had a team. I dabbled with the Mets, A's and Dodgers, but never really followed any of them. These preferences had no real basis and I was mainly just echoing friends. I think I became an A's fan because I happened to get a Reggie Jackson baseball card and someone told me he was good.
So that's why I've decided to start fresh and pick a new team. Also I'm in the market for a new hat and thought that if I'm going to get a baseball hat, it might as well have a team on it.

THE CONTENDERS:

The Kansas City Royals


Pros:
Undoubtedly the nearest team to Lincoln. Omaha boasts their minor league counterpart. I have family in Kansas City and try to visit as often as possible. Plus I really like the city.
Cons:
Too close for comfort. I've always hated the Chiefs and may find it difficult to root for a different Kansas City team.

The Chicago Cubs


Pros:
Currently my favorite midwestern city that I've visited. My family has some roots in Chicago starting when my grandma got off the boat. Love that Old Style beer. Associated with the best hot dogs in the world, which are inherently tied to baseball.
Cons:
Lots of people are Cubs fans and seeing as how they are doing well this year, I would be branded a Bandwagon Fan for life.

The Milwaukee Brewers


Pros:
I fancy myself a homebrewer so it just fits. Given the city's history and great lake adjacent location - I think it is a town I could support. They play in Miller Stadium and I love my High-Life. They have a sprig of barley on their hats.
Cons:
Don't know much about them. Only time I've spent in Milwaukee is in their airport, which is really nice.

I'm looking for advice - please comment! I'm hoping to make this decision by the 4th of July.

Alternative Fencing Materials

So I've been thinking a lot about putting in a new fence. Currently we have 3 sections of fence that border our backyard. The south border is a hodgepodge of metal chain-link like materials intermingled with trees, shrubs and stumps. It may or may-not be on our property. The west border is our neighbors fence, which consists of the typical rounded-top boards that are weathered and tend to sway considerably in the wind. The north border consists of a short section of rounded boards that conncet the neighbors fence to our house. This section is ours for sure and is completely rotted out and in desparate need of replacing.


So what to do:
The short section in the north needs replacing almost immeadiately and the long section to the south should probably follow soon after.
Do I do both sides at once or just try it out with the north section first?
Do I want match the neighbor's fence or try something different?
If I do something different - do I tie it into the neighbors or do I fence all three sides and have two parallel fences to the west?


So many decisions. I'll keep you posted on the progress. One thing I know for sure is that I am not going to do a fence like the one in the picture below. I saw this on a site visit for work. We did a drainage plan for a city park and this fence belongs to one of neighbors whose lot backs up to the playground.




A big prize goes to the person who can guess what the fence is made out of!

Pranks Gone Awry

So me and a coworker, but mostly me, decided to play a prank on an other coworker - David. Before I go into the prank and the judgement begins I should give a little back story. David is a good guy and is often sending little pranks our way. He usually answers the phone and whenever there is a telemarketer, forwards the call to us. He seems to feed off our retaliation, so we decided to get him back good.

Out of boredom I was watching the TV show Reaper one day and saw a prank I thought it worth pulling. Basically what I did was put a note on David's car that said:

Sorry I hit your car

Amber

474-2244

The phone number was for the plasma donation center, who we share a parking lot with. The hope was that he'd find the note and waste some time not being able to to figure out what was wrong with his car. We figured he'd come back to the office and ask for advice, maybe call the phone number and we'd all have a good laugh.

Well it didn't seem to work out. He left for the day before I realized and consequently I wasn't there when he found the note. Today he's coming in late so he can "run errands". My fear is that he is taking his car in to get it evaluated or fixed or doing something else that will cost him a lot of money. While it will still be funny, it's a little more vindictive than I intended it to be.

Any advice out there for what to do when pranks go awry?

Elepaint

This is one of those videos that pop up and make me question the notion of man's superior intellegence to animals. This elephant employs techniques that I'm guessing I wouldn't have picked up on in art class until late late childhood. Even now I'm thinking I still probably couldn't paint as well.

Spreading the Love

Big news from the rotunda - the state legislature passed a state wide smoking ban (no exceptions), effective June 2009. I for one am extremely excited. After being spoiled here in Lincoln for the past 3 years I really notice it when going to the bars in Omaha - even when there are just a few people smoking. Now if KC would pass a smoking ban too, I'd be set.

The arguments against the smoking ban have really lost all validity to me, despite being enticing on the surface. The "smokers losing their personal freedoms" argument doesn't hold because smoking affects everyone else in the room and those people are losing their personal freedom to breathe clean air. The "go somewhere else if you don't like it" argument doesn't hold because 1) we're talking about public establishments and 2) all businesses are required to have healthy work enviroments for their employees, whether were talking about asbestos removers or bartenders, and there is no feasible way to regulate when a room becomes too smokey.

The only thing I'm torn on are businesses whose primary source of income is through tobacco sales, such as cigar shops or hooka bars. They could have smoking areas that are separate from the main establishment where employees would not have to enter that could be equipt with super duper ventilation systems. All the same, it would be a regulatory nightmare.

Corned Crisis

So I had a startling revelation the other day when I looked at the calendar. St. Patty's day falls on the monday before Easter this year. No, I'm not worried about the Catholic Church trying to reschedule all the Saint Patty's Day Parades - bishop what's-his-name can still eat his corned beef on the 17th of March if he wants to. My concern arose with regard to my lenten based decision to go vegetarian for a bit. I've developed a personal tradition over the years of cooking up some corned beef and making ruebens for St. Patty's day. Maybe it's my bohunk upbringing, but I can't think of a better meal for the holiday. Being faced with a dilemma I thought of a potential solution - tempeh ruebens.

I'd heard of vegetarian restaurants serving ruebens using tempeh as a substitute for corned beef, but had never tried one as I liked the original recipe so much. Well the other day I decided to try it as sort of a test run. After checking a few recipes online I got started. Tempeh comes in blocks, so I sliced it into strips with the same thickness I do for corned beef. Next I brushed it with some soy sauce to give it a brinyish flavor that would compliment the soybeans. After baking for 20min at 350F it was ready to go. I slapped it on some rye bread, added some kraut, swiss cheese, and 1000 island dressing and I was ready to eat. It was great! The tempeh goes great with the other ingredients. The added salty flavor offsets and the sweet of the dressing in much the same way as the corned beef, but in a way that the flavor of the kraut, cheese and rye bread really shine through. The tempeh also gave the sandwich the same hearty feel as corned beef, making for a satisfying meal.

So I've found my savior this year - tempeh. I'm sure I'll have the original recipe again some time, probably for St. Patty's day next year. Otherwise, given how good the tempeh version is and how easy it is to prepare, I can definitely see it becoming a staple in my diet. Good food, good for the environment - why not?

Lent

So lent started the other day. While I'm definitely not a Practicing Catholic and wouldn't call myself a Catholic if someone asked - I will claim the moniker "Raised Catholic". As a Raised Catholic person who is not sure what / if anything he wants to be (religion wise) I do still enjoy the little traditions that go with Christianity / Catholicism. I'll always celebrate the holidays and will sometimes attend mass on said holidays or on vacation with the folks. Despite being bored to death as a child, I enjoy the traditional flow of the mass between the readings and the prayers and the following sunday breakfast. Although, I must say I don't feel right taking the communion any more and I hate that they sing all the prayers now. Generally speaking I still think that religion is a good way to learn and keep one's morals. Now I'm not talking about the "right winged agenda" BS, but rather the "do onto others" stuff.

Anywho - so where am I going with this? Well even though I am not a practicing catholic, I decided to give something up for lent this year. I'm going Vegetarian! No fish on fridays for me - just beans. I wouldn't say I'm doing it for god, but rather I'm doing it to hopefully learn something about myself, which I think is probably the whole point behind lent anyways.

SUPER FAT TUESDAY

You guys doing anything to celebrate? Flashing for Obama?

No plans here - I'd like to go out for a bit, but I haven't heard of any goings on - at least nothing I'd like to attend. Most likely I'll be at home shoveling and looking through wedding pictures.

BTW - I have not idea what this picture is.

Star Wars and those Bar Wars

Everyone at my office has been singing this little ditty today by the incredible Bill Murray.

Milk Crisis!!!

My co-worker sent this out asking if it rang any bells - maybe some of you remember this from long ago. Supposedly it's from sesame street. I personally have no recollection of it as I think it was a little before my time. It's kinda wierd, a little creepy, and sorta makes me want to go pour a glass of nice cold milk.....

After watching the pro-milk video, I saw a link to this anti-milk video and felt compelled to watch. I've never been a fan of the whole growth hormone / faking pregnancy to increase milk production thing. I think this guy is probably full of shit and just trying to sell books. All the same Noel's been buying the organic stuff lately and I think I probably stick with that.