andyrut.com

Chicago 2008b

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:00 CDT

Went to Chicago this weekend. Had a fun time with everyone, the Cubs won, and I got to sample a nice cross section of Chicago bars restaurants.

Five of us met at Wrigley Field for the Cubs game on Saturday. The first two of us were only able to start looking for seats in the (general admission) bleachers about ten minutes before game time. Guh. How were we supposed to find a row with five empty seats?, I said rhetorically. We looked through the bleachers and miraculously found an empty spot - in the second row of the right field bleachers!

As it turned out, these seats saw some action. The Cubs right fielder, Kosuke Fukudome, lofted a ball into the stands towards us between innings. The guy in the row behind us reached for it... and dumped his beer on us, most of it drenching Annie. [frowny face]

Later on, Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez hit a ball that sliced towards us and was caught by someone two rows right behind us! If it's any consolation, Annie, you may recall that the beer-spilling gentleman behind us was bitching about how his hand hurt trying to catch the ball. It's fan karma.

I took some photos, they're here:

Photo Album: Chicago 2008b

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Kim's Wedding

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:02 CDT

My sister Kim got married this weekend! In a ceremony at St. Paul's church in downtown Lincoln, Kim and Justin Mahrt were wed.

I'm still having trouble whenever I have to type "Kim Mahrt". :)

I was fortunate to have had a hand in many aspects of the wedding day. I was a groomsman, did a reading during the ceremony, played guitar accompaniment for the singer, and put together a slideshow presentation that was played at the reception.

If you were at the reception and would like to see the slideshow again, I can give you a copy. If you weren't there and would like to see it, I can give you a copy. Just e-mail me.

I took a few photos throughout the day:

Photo Album: Little Sister's Wedding

let's try that again: kim ru^H^Hmahrt

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Paychecks

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 18:41 CDT

The Cubs traded one of their pitchers away. Scott Eyre, who was pretty good for the Cubs the last two years, hasn't had such a great year and was traded to Philadelphia. The blurb on Cubs.com by Carrie Muskrat had this to say:

The Cubs had designated Eyre for assignment on Tuesday, giving the team seven days to trade him before he became a free agent. On Wednesday, he packed up his family in his RV and headed to his home in Bradenton, Fla.

...

He'll need the paycheck. The RV gets eight miles to the gallon, and he's spent nearly $800 filling it up for the drive from Chicago to Florida.

Oh. Boo. Hoo, Muskrat.

The guy will make $3.8 million this year. He pulls in $800 every couple of hours.

at least he doesn't have to feed latrell sprewell's family

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The Dairy Queen Cake Challenge

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:16 CDT

There's a Dairy Queen across the street from our office. My colleagues and I visit it often during the summer. They have ads for their ice cream cakes sprawled all over their windows, and I've always joked that someone should try to eat an entire ice cream cake on their own, in a single sitting.

Today, two of my colleagues took the challenge. Matt and Andy B each were given their own 10" Blizzard Ice Cream Cakes. Andy B (below) opted for a banana split blizzard, Matt (below-er) went with the classic Oreo.

If the pictures don't give you an idea of what an undertaking this really is, take a look at the nutrition facts for an entire Oreo Blizzard Ice Cream Cake:

Calories: 7600
Calories from Fat: 3000
Daily Total Fat: 510%
Daily Total Saturated Fat: 1050%
Daily Cholesterol: 130%
Daily Sodium: 350%
...and so on...

But hey! It's 350% of your daily calcium!

So... the challenge: eat the entire ice cream cake. These two gladiators fought valiantly, eating forkful after forkful of ice cream and cookie crust.

In the end, they were each able to eat "only" half of their respective cakes, partly because our participants thought better of the whole thing, and partly because the cakes were beginning to turn into large gooey messes.

Here are some photographs of the contest:

Photo Album: The Dairy Queen Cake Challenge

Some thoughts:

* It took the cakes about 30-45 minutes to soften up enough to cut. Those first few minutes take a lot of brawn to even get a chunk of cake.

* They start to melt after a couple of hours. We only had one small fridge and a cooler of ice to try to keep the cakes cool, which really aren't enough to keep ice cream frozen. A proper freezer is a necessity.

* It's a really bad idea to eat an entire ice cream cake on your own.

[ hey, read the original post at andyrut.com! ]

Relieved

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 05:17 CDT

In baseball, when a pitcher is relieved by another pitcher, the manager goes out to the mound and takes the ball from the pitcher already on the mound. You can usually tell when the manager isn't happy with the pitcher's performance when he doesn't give the pitcher a butt pat on his way out.

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CD Spinning

Tue, 8 Jul 2008 01:23 CDT

When I put a DVD or CD into my laptop's CD tray, I always start the disc spinning by hand and then close the tray. Gives me the illusion that I'm cutting down on some of the load time once the disc is in.

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