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So the Baltimore Inner Harbor was fun…

May 27, 2012, 10:44 PM

I went up to Baltimore with a friend on Friday evening, where we explored the Inner Harbor for a while. That was kind of fun. The Inner Harbor is a very fun area, though it seems a bit overcommercialized. But such is what happens, I suppose. I loved the smell of the sea air, everyone was having so much fun out and about, and there were all kinds of fun ships sailing around.

The first ship we saw was The Black-Eyed Susan, a paddlewheeler:

The Black-Eyed Susan

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I still don’t consider myself much of an artist, but I guess I can let you decide…

May 24, 2012, 12:07 AM

So I was doing some scanning work for Falcon this evening, and decided to finally scan some drawings that I did in high school. I’m believe that these are from the fall of 1996. And so away we go…

Lord Zedd in his chamber of command

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is. You are looking at Lord Zedd from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, standing in his throne room. It’s true. I was a nerd even back then. And I was pretty detailed. I got the pedestal, I got Zedd, I got the throne, I got the fan behind the throne, and I put a couple of putties in there.

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Making chili!

April 8, 2012, 7:58 PM

I was cooking today, making a pot of vegetarian chili:

I had a blast, too. Anyone who can go on like this for just over 45 minutes had better be having a blast, I’d say. But what can I say? I love performing for the camera. I do, however, need to be mindful about how long I run the faucet. In reviewing the footage afterwards, noticed that at times I left the water running for a lot longer than I needed to (so don’t write to tell me this – I recognize that I was wasting water).

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A new geeky shirt and a 30-minute Metro ride inspire me to have some fun…

March 16, 2012, 10:02 PM

Today, I wore my new Power Rangers shirt out for the first time:

Power Rangers!
Photo: Mykia Mahan

This is similar to the Power Rangers shirt that I owned before, except that this new one is a smaller size, and has slightly different styling. I am quite proud to place the old Power Rangers shirt in with my “second tier” clothes. It’s too big for me, which is just as well, because I am getting smaller, after all. Then on different styling, this shirt, unlike the first one, falls victim to an error that many Power Rangers toys and such had: emblems on the center diamond.

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First it was cold, and then it was colder…

January 21, 2012, 7:49 PM

I think that about describes today. Upper forties, my foot. It was bloody cold today. And of course, today would be the day that the Chesapeake Climate Action Network would have its seventh annual “Keep Winter Cold” polar bear plunge, which, you may have heard, more than once, that I signed up to participate in over at National Harbor. I had a lot fun, though I was certainly excited about things.

Going down to the event, I decided to do a Video Journal to talk about it, since I was a little nervous and needed to distract myself:

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But does Verizon provide the dancing speaker?

January 3, 2012, 11:30 PM

So while I was out on New Year’s Eve, I saw a commercial on TV for Verizon Home Monitoring and Control, which apparently controls door locks, turns the lights on and off, monitors energy systems, allows one to adjust the thermostat, and allows one to monitor activity in the house via cameras. All of this can be done remotely online. I saw this, and I was like, “They’ve created TXL!”

Yes, that TXL:

TXL Series 4, from "Babies"

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Categories: Products, Today's Special

John Hancock Center, Schumy Lunch, and Lake Michigan!

August 14, 2011, 10:25 PM

Okay, so I’m late in posting this, but I think most would agree that it’s better to have worn myself out so completely at the pool (and giving myself swimmer’s ear in the process – yay me) and being so tired from it that I go right to sleep when I get home is preferable to not getting my exercise in and writing Journal entries on time.

So aside from the previously-discussed argument with the unprofessional CTA employee, the rest of that day went very well, though the argument did leave me a bit shaken for a while. But when that discussion happened, we were on our way back down to the Magnificent Mile, since Mom and I were going to visit the John Hancock Center observation deck.

We quickly found the Hancock Center, and found the ticket counter for the observation deck. Interestingly enough, the ticket counter is actually one level below street level. I find that kind of ironic when you consider that you have to go down to go up to the 94th floor where the observation deck is. Meanwhile, the lady at the counter, who looked like she was my age, asked where Camp Rainbow was. I told her that it was from Today’s Special, and was created for the show. It clicked with her, and she immediately recognized the shirt. SCORE! Let’s admit it – “Camp Rainbow” is a really obscure reference in Today’s Special, considering it was one episode (“Summer Camp”), though Jeff’s shirt made a cameo appearance later in “Storms”. But the lady at the counter was on her game! I was impressed.

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I believe I just tweeted five seasons’ worth of Power Rangers history…

July 29, 2011, 10:27 PM

My, the things that one will do when one has (A) a Metro ride to the suburbs and (B) a few drinks. I was tweeting about whatever this evening, and then broke into a thirty-minute Twitter stream talking about what I thought about various seasons of Power Rangers.

First of all, realize that this evening was pretty interesting. I went out with a few of the guys from work after work, and we had a few beers together. Then after we all parted company for the evening, I caught the Metro for home from Shaw, with a transfer from Green to Red at Fort Totten.

While I was riding on the Green Line and then waiting on the upper level at Fort Totten, my tweets were pretty typical of me:

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Categories: Power Rangers

“I am not a boy. I am a TXL Series 4 computer.”

June 27, 2011, 11:34 PM

Today, I received a second retro t-shirt that I designed for myself. Check it out:

Holding up my "TXL SERIES 4" shirt

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Categories: Swimming, Today's Special

So this is where “It’s Friday, ya bastards!” comes from…

September 17, 2010, 10:30 PM

Another Video Journal entry, this time discussing the “It’s Friday, ya bastards!” bit:

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“If only we can get Muffy to notice what is behind her wall! And now for Part Two.”

September 11, 2010, 11:45 PM

I decided to do another edition of the Video Journal this evening. The topic? “Our Story Part 2” from Today’s Special:

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As days go by… it’s the bigger love of the family…

July 21, 2010, 11:27 PM

So today, while still in Chicago, we visited the Family Matters house. I have never gone out and photographed a famous TV house before, and so this was a new experience. We did the research ahead of time, and determined that the house was at 1516 W. Wrightwood Avenue in Chicago. I found the address and verified it as the correct location on Google Earth, and then Sis determined how we were going to get there.

From our hotel near Jarvis station, we took the Red Line to Fullerton station. Then we took the 77 bus to Greenview Street. Then we just walked up to Wrightwood Avenue, and there it was:

The Family Matters house

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Categories: Chicago, Family, Television

So I decided to talk and drive again…

July 8, 2010, 2:19 PM

So on Wednesday evening, I decided to talk and drive again. I set the cell phone in the GPS holder once again, and started talking. I started at approximately 16th and T Streets NW, heading north on 16th Street:

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“We’ve got a store that I explore when the customers aren’t here anymore…”

June 27, 2010, 12:14 AM

Tonight I learned some very disturbing news. G20 protesters in Toronto broke windows at The Bay’s Queen Street store on Saturday. Fans of Today’s Special will know this place best as simply “the store”. I was shocked, and it actually briefly brought tears to my eyes. But they did:

Broken windows at the store  Broken windows at the store
Photos: Karen Liu/Toronto Life

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“Whammies, you can drop dead… STOP!”

December 16, 2009, 10:15 PM

I do a trivia contest at work every year to divvy up some freebie items that we get from our office supply company. The past two years, I’ve done a shout-it-out format, where I come up with some questions, and then the first person to shout the answer wins a pick at a prize.

However, a few of my coworkers have been saying that they would like to see me juice up the format a little. They suggested teams, but I couldn’t come up with anything that would achieve the desired result (getting rid of all the prizes), and still not make it too overly complicated, and still get a lot of gameplay and participation. I’d thought about pricing games or something for it, but couldn’t come up with something that we could fit into an hour and get rid of the prizes (we usually have around ten or so).

But then it hit me. I came up with an idea of how to spice it up. I determined how to work in the trivia bit, and get some action. Each correct answer will earn spins. Then they take those spins and win points. And the spins, when taken, will look like this:

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Categories: Television, Work