I gave Kelly her Valentine's gift yesterday, since we had a busy day today, and she gave me not one but two cards this morning, which made me realize that I hadn't gotten her any cards.  Nevertheless, we had a very nice Valentine's day--our first as a married couple.  I was up at 6 AM to feed the cats, came back upstairs and told Kelly that I was probably just going to get up, since I was already awake.  I then promptly fell back asleep for another hour or so, which she found very amusing.

We flew out of Reagan/National and once again, it's great living so close to that airport.  The flight to Albany was less than 1/4 full.  In fact, there were 19 people on a plane that holds 80.  It was quite possibly the emptiest flight I've ever been on.  We left the gate 10 minutes early and arrived in Albany nearly half an hour early.  strausmouse  was there to meet us, and we piled into his car and headed to a nearby mall where we met rmstraus  and their little dude for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.  Then it was back to their house to hang out, and where lots of talk about babies took place.

Eric made an excellent dinner that consisted of pasta with sweet potatoes, to say nothing of a side salad with some homemade dressing.  And there was some pumpkin ale to go along with it.  Yum!  For dessert, there were chocolate-filled strawberries and ice cream.  We ate dessert while playing a few games of Apples to Apples.  Ryane won the first game and Eric somehow managed to win the second game.  It's hilarious to watch those two play any game together.  Around 10 PM, Kelly and I called it a night.

First, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout out to strausmouse .  For your birthday, I give you warmer weather than you've been having lately. You can thank me later.

Etc.:

I know, it's been a few days.  I've had intermittent wireless access and limited time.  Nevertheless, I've got the backdated posts  mostly written and should get them posted shortly.  Just a few quick items of business.  Doug has a blog!  (And kruppenheimer  will be happy to see just how much the content of Doug's blog entries take after his big brother's.)  I have passed the halfway mark in The Hard SF Renaissance.  More on that shortly.  No writing today, but some notes and ideas down on paper and maybe I'll squeeze in a little bit of writing sometime tomorrow.  Along with the aforementioned backdated blog posts.

G'night, all!

Since I almost always mention my evening calls and who I talked to during the day, and knowing how sensitive a certain someone can be, I would be remiss in my journaling duties if I failed to mention the fact that I spoke to strausmouse on the phone this evening. (I also called vickyandnorm but, alas, only got to speak to their answering machine.)

Saturday began early for I was anxious to see everyone and wanted to get an early start. Kelly and I had gone to bed around midnight and I was up at 6:40 AM. I showered and then headed downstairs to sit on the couch and read until everyone else woke up. Kelly was up early too, and so we waited for vickyandnorm (Norm and Vicky) and kruppenheimer (Lisa) to awaken and get ready. It didn't take too long but it seemed as though it took forever. However, we were ready to go by 9 AM, which is what I was hoping for, and at that point, we hit the road.

( How's this for a great day... )

To be continued...

Yes, that's right, at long last it is strausmouse's birthday. Gee, I wonder if Eric will be the first to wish himself a

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Hope you have a great day, bud.

[Written on November 12, 2007]

Kelly and I hit the road at 7 AM. The GPS predicted a 11:12 AM arrival in Stony Point at vickyandnorm's house. We were there at almost exactly 11 AM. Boy, making that drive with someone to talk to in the car makes a huge difference. The time flew by and what was ultimately 4 hours seemed like a mere 60 minutes. Kelly is an awesome driving companion!

( Come join the adventure )

I had a terrific day, Norm and Vicky are the consummate hosts. It was great to be able to hang out with everyone. I was lulled to sleep by the sound of Eric's snoring coming from the room next door.

I was up at about 7:15 AM this morning, in time to see strausmouse head off to work for a little while. I hung around the house with rmstraus and little Damian until Eric got back. We went for lunch along the Hudson River at a nice riverside cafe. There was a great breeze blowing and it was not too humid out either. After lunch, we headed back to Eric and Ryane's house and I got my picture taken with Damian. Then it was time for Damian to head to the doctor's office and time for me to make the drive down to Stony Point.

It took a little under 2 hours to make the drive and toward the end, I was going against traffic, which was kind of nice. vickyandnorm live on the edge of Harriman State Park, and the drive down Palisades Parkway was a nice one. I arrived at their house just before 5 PM to find their cars parked on the street--apparently, there was some work that still needed to be done to all of the curbs in the neighborhood, and their driveway still requires it's final surfacing as well.

And their street doesn't exist yet. At least, as they explained to me, they have to go to the post office to pick up their mail. Until their street shows up on some map, I guess it simply doesn't exist. I wonder if they could get away with temporarily being their own country?

It was nice to see the house completely finished and furnished and it looked great. In fact, I was jealous and I decided at once that I'd never be able to buy a house because I'd take one look at the places that I would be willing to pay for and picture Norm and Vicky's little kingdom and be disappointed with what I had. I got the full tour, of course, including the long awaited "Jamie Rubin Memorial Bedroom", which was done up in a beach motif, like the other "beach room" in the house.

At 6 PM, we headed out to the Palisades Mall in order to go to Tu Tu Tango for dinner, which is a kind of tapas joint. Very, very good, especially thanks to the spring roll recommendation by strausmouse. Vicky had gotten us tickets for the 9:30 PM showing of The Simpson's Movie. We finished our dinner with plenty of time to spare and so we wandered over to Coldstone for some ice cream. By the time we got in line for the movie, it was just being let into the theater.

The movie itself was hilarious and I really enjoyed it. I've only ever seen a handful of episodes of the cartoon, but I could imagine myself seeing more. It's the kind of movie which, when released on DVD, could be watched over and over again, with something new being discovered each time.

Tomorrow, we pick up Norm and Vicky's new kitten.

Yesterday, after dropping Zeke off at the vet, I got on the road to head up to Albany to visit strausmouse and rmstraus. I was on the road by 8:20 AM and made surprisingly good time. In fact, I'd covered the entire 360 mile drive in under 6 hours and arrived at Eric and Ryane's at about 2:15 PM. The new GPS worked great. I didn't use Eric's directions, and instead, followed what the nav unit told me and it got me to their house without trouble. There was no traffic at all, which helped.

Once there, I met little Damian for the first time, and what a cutie he is! He is energetic, but quiet. He smiles and laughs. All told, he is very much the way Eric describes him. I got to see Cali, too, who was her usual calm self. Ryane and Damian and Cali and I hung out until Eric got home from work. Once Eric was home, I helped him out with some computer-related stuff (like setting up his webcam) and then we headed out for dinner. We went to a Vietnamese place that they like and it was terrific. I don't remember the name of what I ordered, but it was the same thing that Eric had and it was great! Especially the spring rolls and the sauce that they use. It was also way more than I could eat so there were plenty of left-overs.

We have about half the day to hang out today and then I head down to Stony Point, New York, to spent some time with vickyandnorm.

I was going to wait until strausmouse posted something on his blog announcing the birth of their son, back on April Fools Day, but it occurred to me that Eric may never post another entry again, now that he has been promoted to the ranks of parenthood. Or at least, he may not post again for the next 18 years. My understanding of parenthood is that would-be parents can't wait for the baby to be born and, once born, can't wait until the kid is 18 and has moved out of the house.

Congratulations Eric and Ryane

I spoke with Eric about 3 hours after the baby was born and he sounded more or less in shock, although in good spirits. For a while, I thought that Eric and Ryane might be the mysterious couple attempting to name their baby Metallica. But when I spoke to him, he said that as much as he would have liked to name the boy Metallica (or even better, Slayer), they decided on Damian Lucas Straus. Damian is, of course, Eric's middle name and comes from the movie The Exorcist (I'm not kidding). Eric is a big George Lucas fan and he explained to me that is where the middle name came from.

Actually, Eric and Ryane will make super parents. Eric, of course, will ensure that Damian has an excellent memory for rock and roll music, to say nothing of volumes of useless information. (Believe it or not, Eric knows far more trivia than I do. I am an amateur by comparison.) Ryane will see to it that Damian has common sense, to say nothing of a deathly fear of ever using Wikipedia for his homework. Damian's big (and rather hisute) sister, Cali, will have him talking before he's six month old. Of course, he'll be barking...

It will be interesting to see if Damian turns out to be a Cardinals fan or an Angels fan. Of course, the Cardinals have lost every game they have played since Damian was born, so he might want to look closely at the Angels...

Seriously, though, congratulations to both you guys. I can't wait to come and visit, knowing full well that I will be able to go home afterward... ;-)

I just finished watching the first inning of the Mets/Cardinals game, which is the first official baseball game of the 2007 baseball season. My TiVo is set to record the opening day Yankees game tomorrow so I can skim through it when I get home from work.

I celebrated some good news this evening by having four (4) Reeses Peanut Butter Cups^TM. strausmouse and I used to eat Reeses and a Coke (or Pepsi) during lunch in high school. It really is a great combination, but I had to forgo the Coke (or Pepsi) tonight because I was out of the caffeine-free stuff. I had grape soda instead.

Locus has finally posted it's annual April Fools Day articles which are amusing as always.

I got my hair cut this evening. I was the last person they took and I felt like they were rushing, but it still came out alright in the end so no big deal. I spoke briefly on the phone with jen_ashlock who for reasons of National Security has changed her name tohe11o_sunshine. I also spoke on the phone with strausmouse.

I was lazy again this afternoon, dozing for a few hours on the couch. I don't know why.

I'm off to bed now. I'm 365 pages through I. Asimov and plan to get a little more reading done before lights out. Nice spring weather the next couple days, windy, but highs in the upper 70s. And I have to work...

It's unusual for it to be 1:25 PM on a Friday and to not have heard a peep out of strausmouse by now. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, the baby is on it's way...?

Okay, I simply cannot resist posting here what strausmouse wrote in my year book because when I read it just now for the first time in 17 years, it had me laughing so hard I was nearly in tears. So, without further preface or delay, here's what Eric had to say:

There once was this guy
Jamie was his name
He met some dude named Eric
And never was the same.
They were too busy writing stories
To pay attention in class
So when they got "C"'s
Their parents kicked their ass
But that was only part of the fun
That those two guys shared
Like on the beach basking in the sun
Or making Rhonda scared
Heavy metal became the best music
But no one else liked it
So in that respect they were normal
(That is, the two guys who liked it)
The Aerosmith concert was pretty awesome
Um, remember when you brush your teeth
Afterwards, floss 'em
Uh, er, Ms. Cohen was a drag
That we all know
But the little kid in me
Thinks the taste steals the show
Uh, oh boy (I'm reaching here)
Well, it's been a great year
Full of laughter and even some fear (?)
(Help) Uh, er, well Metallica is cool
Don't fall in a pool
You bloody fool
Get Tawnya in the sack, er, man
Always remember *

So the last words of the last line are written in a language that Eric and I learned playing Ultima and used it for writing in code. When I read this today, it took me only five seconds to recall how to read it and it is very funny, but I'll leave it to Eric to decide if he wants to reveal what it says.

I came across my high school year book while doing my spring cleaning. It's one of the things that I decided not to get rid of and, in fact, I got side-tracked skimming through it, reading what people wrote and looking at pictures. Hilarious pictures. Riotous pictures. Keep in mind, this was nearly 17 years ago. The great thing is that I am still very good friends with most of the people that I was friends with back then. And because I fear you won't believe just how funny some of the pictures are, I've arranged for you to see a Then and Now of the Cleveland crew. Keep in mind that I photographed these from my yearbook and some of the pictures are fuzzy. And to be fair, I'll start with myself.

Then	Now

( See the rest of the crew )

In going through the yearbook, I was reminded that Doug was a sophomore at Cleveland while I was a senior. I had forgotten about that. But this picture reminded me:



(Who is that second from the right?)

Okay, I suppose I should get back to my spring cleaning. I need to get something done before I head off to the gym in a few hours.

I didn't go the gym on Saturday, but it wouldn't have worked out, given the time constraints that I had. Instead, I went out to get some wrapping paper for Norm and Vicky's gifts and then jen_ashlock was kind enough to help wrap the gifts, as I am a terrible wrapper. Now that Norm and Vicky have their gifts, I can tell you all that one of them was a set of note cards with their names on them, and matching envelopes with their new address. The cards were designed and created by Jen and Jenn and their company, Buttercream Cards and I thought they came out really well.

At noon on Saturday, I headed over to DTUT, which is just around the corner from where Jen and Jason live. That's where Norm and Vicky's "Jack and Jill" wedding shower took place. strausmouse and Ryane were already there, as were Norm and Vicky and many of their friends. We had the back room to ourselves and the whole event was really well done. I met Vicky's mother for the first time. There were some games that were played, food and drinks that were served, and Norm and Vicky opened their gifts. Vicky deputized me as official photographer, apparently unaware of my total lack of talent when it comes to the taking of photos.

When the event wrapped up, we headed downtown. Ryane had a maternity massage treatment that Eric gave her for her birthday, so we dropped her off at the massage place, and then we parked the car and headed to Mickey Mantle's, where we met Jen and Jason. We spent a few hours at Mickey Mantle's (where Eric made fun of the guacamole) and where we had a few drinks. Then we went for a walk in the park while we waited for Ryane to finish up. Eric had to browbeat his way into a hotel bathroom, but other than that, it was a fun walk. The weather has been unusually warm, although it has also been overcast.

We picked up Ryane and then drove up to Norm and Vicky's in Nanuet. We went to Martio's for dinner. Afterward, we spent the evening playing games. I got my butt kicked in Apples to Apples (where the Albany contingent dominated), but I got my revenge when we played Phase 10. I won by 4 whole phases and more than 100 points less than the second place person. Shortly after that game, we all retired for the evening.

---

I was up at about 8 AM this morning, Sunday, my "free" day. Norm made us all breakfast: scrambled eggs and bacon. This seemed to mystify Eric because Norm hates eggs and claims to never have tried them in his life, and Eric couldn't understand how Norm could know the eggs were any good while he was cooking them. But the eggs turned out just fine and I wolfed them down.

Later in the morning, we headed up to Stony Point to walk through Norm and Vicky's new house, which is getting ever closer to completion. Then we had to go to White Castle so that Eric could get his fix of mini burgers for the next several months. After lunch, Eric and Ryane headed back home, but not before we all got a chance to see Ryane's new car. Meanwhile, Norm, Vicky and I headed back to their place and they proceeded to bombard me with questions from some trivia game. I actually did pretty well.

Sadly, I left Norm and Vicky's place at about 3:30 and caught the 3:45 bus back to the city. It was actually an interesting trip because it took backroads through New Jersey. I fell asleep at one point, however, and when I woke up, we were at Port Authority and everyone was already getting off the bus.

I'm now back at Jen and Jason's. As a thank you for their hospitality in letting me stay at their place this weekend (and three weeks ago), I am taking them to Ruth's Chris for dinner this evening. We have an 8 PM appointment. Which means I need to get changed as we will have to leave in a little while. More later...

Today is strausmouse's birthday. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say how old he is, because he is really quite ancient. This is hard for many people to believe because he acts much younger--say mid-40s, give or take a few years. But he doesn't fool me for a second. In any event:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ERIC!

"Happy happy birthday, it happens every year. We eat a lot of brocolli¹ and drink a lot of beer..."

---

¹ This word was spelled intentionally wrong so that Eric had something to complain about regarding this post. It is my gift to you on this special day.

I am a firm believer in the Golden Rule, which when properly stated, is roughly: "Treat other people the way you would want to be treated" (but is often misstated as: "Treat other people the way that they treat you.")

It is because of my firm belief in the Golden Rule that I did not call up strausmouse on Saturday evening and gloat over UCLA's victory over UCS. I'm not a big football fan, but I caught some of the game while having dinner at the Outback. I don't know much about the college rankings, but it seems to me that this loss messed up USC's ranking somewhat. Well, in any event, knowing that I would not want people to call me and gloat after a rare Yankee loss, I did not call Eric after UCS lost on Saturday.

One last thing: while the title of this post is "The Golden Rule", I was strongly tempted to call it, "The Gold 'n' Blue" but I was afraid it would sound spiteful. See what a nice guy I am?

Eric requested that I post some pictures from this weekend, so here are some pictures from this weekend. Most of the pictures are from "game night" Saturday night, but there are a few others. All pictures are courtesy of Norm (of vickyandnorm fame). To be honest, I stole them from his Kodak Gallery. There are some more pictures there if you are really that interested.

The web provides a convenient means for posting and publishing all kinds of nonsense and I figure I might as well take advantage of some of that capability. I have had, collecting dust since high school, a series of stories that some readers of this blog will be familiar with. The Something Dumb^TM series of stories were written by me and strausmouse between the years 1988 and 1990 at Cleveland High School in Reseda, California.

It is my idea to make these stories available online and to have Eric and I comment on them to explain some of the references and other interesting items about these stories.

These stories were never intended for submission to magazines, real publication, or anything more than entertaining a handful of our friends and ourselves. Many of the stories, including the first one we right, "Something Dumb", we written in very small print on a brown paper bag book cover during various classes, when we should have been paying attention to the teachers. The stories are highly influenced by Douglas Adams, but also have elements of existentialism to them that were not obvious or intentional when we wrote them. Furthermore, you can tell by reading them that they are dated. There are humorous references to blowing up classrooms, which would probably have gotten us expelled today, but which were taken as mere metaphor eighteen years ago.

We would trade off, writing several paragraphs each, and then handing it off to one another to do more. In reading through these again, I can sometimes identify what I wrote and what Eric wrote, but not always.

The stories in the series are:

1. "Something Dumb"


2. "Um...


3. "We Haven't Thought of a Title for It Yet"


4. "When You Need To Clean Up, Hire a Maid"


5. "Something Dumb II: Something Dumber"


6. "Everything You Wanted To Know (And Less)"


7. "Not So Popular Entertainment"

I should point out that the humor style in these stories, while often derivative, also anticipates The Simpsons, South Park, Dumb and Dumber and many other similar comedies. Why we never decided to become writers in Hollywood is beyond me.

Anyway, look for more information, coming soon, about where you can go to read these masterpieces of high school comedic literature.

I was up at 7 AM and everyone else was up shortly after 8 AM. After various showers, we decided to head over to Friendly's for breakfast. Eric and Ryane headed home around 11 AM. I debated when I was going to leave and finally decided that I would wait until Vicky got back from her work meeting she had Sunday afternoon. Norm, Vicky and I lazed around until Vicky headed into work, and then Norm and I headed over to Dave and Busters. I'd never been to a Dave and Busters before, and so I really didn't know what to expect. It is a kind of Chuck-e-Cheese for grown-ups. One of the games I played three times was Sega's Airline Pilot Simulator, which allowed you to fly an airliner. It was a pretty good simulation. I played all three levels, beginner, intermediate, and advanced, and I managed to successfully takeoff and land the airplane each time. Norm played Police 9-1-1- and was frustrated because the game did not seem properly calibrated.

I had a snack at the mall and then we headed back to Norm and Vicky's place and waited for Vicky to get home. She got home at about 4 PM and I got on the road at about 4:15 PM.

It was absolutely miserable driving home. It rained most of the way, and at times the visibility was down to almost nothing. I was tired. Also, there was once again about an hour's worth of traffic in Delaware so that while I left Norm and Vicky's at 4:15 PM, I didn't get home until about 9:40 PM. All-in-all, however, it was a fun weekend and as always, I had a really good visit.

---

I received the December/January 2007 issue of ANALOG in the mail this weekend. It had the conclusion (part 4) of Robert J. Sawyer's serialized novel, Rollback and I am anxious to read it in the next day or so. Also in the mail was the latest issue of F&SF.

I'm getting ready for bed now. Working from home tomorrow...

I was up at about 7 AM and sat around for about an hour and a half until Norm and Vicky finally got up. Norm made breakfast for all of us, ham, eggs, and toast. The early part of the day was pretty lazy. We did take a ride up to Stony Point to check out the hole in the ground that is Norm and Vicky's new house. As it turned out, the basement had been poured, something that Norm and Vicky were very excited about. We spend a few minutes wandering around the basement, admiring the handiwork, and taking pictures. It was a little bit muddy, but Norm and Vicky seemed very excited by the whole thing.

Eric and Ryane arrived around 4 PM and a little while later, we all headed out to the Cheesecake Factory at the Palisades Mall for dinner. There, we met some of Norm and Vicky's friends, Annie and Tom and the seven of us had dinner together. Then it was back to Norm and Vicky's for game night.

We played three different games at "game night" and Eric bartended (with Norm acting as a backup bartender). First, we played and amusing game called "Apples to Apples". After several rounds of that game, we played a few hands of "Phase 10". Finally, after Annie and Tom left, we played "Scattergories". All three were fun and by the time we were finished playing, both Eric and Norm were pretty drunk. In fact, Norm called Andy and left a hilarious message. He then immediately called Lisa and left a different, but still hilarious, message.

It was after 1 AM when we all finally headed off to bed.

[Posted on 11/13/2006]