The Net Monkey

Work has been a ball buster this week! We had a big outage that affected a lot of customers. Fortunately, I wasn’t much involved in the restoration of services (until I did some work to clean up the aftermath the next day), but I sure felt the stress of it all.

As for my weekend, Lisa, Jim, and some other folks are coming in to Indianapolis tomorrow to attend the Fringe Festival. No idea what we’ll see, but the beauty of the Fringe is that you can figure out when you’re there and be spontaneous.

Daniel is coming into town this weekend. I’ll be seeing twice, actually: tonight and Sunday. I haven’t seen him since June, so I’m very excited to spend some time with him.

Preparations are underway for the upcoming concert on Thursday, to kickoff the 2007 NFL season. The show will feature Faith Hill and Kelly Clarkson, and will be free to the public.

It’s going to be right on the south side of the monument, and it starts right at 5:00 PM, so I haven’t decided if I’m going to work from home and avoid everything, or if I’ll go to the office and watch the festivities from above.

The open house was today, but no one came.

(( frown ))

I went and saw a few shows at the Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival last night with Tony. We managed to catch three shows: Almost Walking a Straight Line, Franka Potente is the Hammer, and Married 2 Magic.

Tony and I really enjoyed Almost Walking a Straight Line, which is a personal, solo performance put on by Greg Haskins from California. The story is about Greg’s coming out, and struggles to find balance between his sexuality and his deeply religious Midwestern upbringing. Definitely check it out!

Afterwards, we met up with Adam to see Frank Potente is the Hammer. I didn’t get the point of it, and I don’t think any of us really enjoyed it. There was a lot of German and some very good ballet dancing (to German pop music) between each scene, but we just didn’t find it entertaining or all that provocative.

Married 2 Magic was a lot of fun. It was a husband and wife duo performing magic tricks. We managed to sit close to the stage and got to participate in a bit of the fun.

The festival continues through the end of next weekend, so check it out if you have some time this coming week. I hope to catch a few more shows myself.

Lots of little things to update here.

After having spent the last two years on the 7th floor at work, we’ve moved up to the 9th floor of the building in to some newly renovated space. Our team went into a room that we’ve now dubbed The Cave since we like to keep the lights off. I like it a lot more than before now that I don’t have to worry about people creeping up behind and scaring the crap out of me when they need to talk. It’s also a lot quieter.

The condo is still on the market. I had a chat with my agent this past week, and we decided to have an open house tomorrow (Sunday) between 2:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon. I hope she got some agents and brokers to come see it.

My listing contract ends in a month. I’m concerned with things, but I know that the market is bad. There’s a girth of listings here in Indianapolis and it’s not as easy to secure financing, but I’ve been told that condos sell in the winter, so I might extend, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.

My friend Tony is finally putting on a production of his one-man show entitled Lies My Parents Told Me. It starts September 7 at The Alley Theatre here in Indianapolis. I’ll post some more details in the next week or so.

That’s about it for now. I’ve got to work on cleaning up the house so that it looks perfect for tomorrow’s open house.

Here I am again with posting late. Oh well!

Last week I made it to Cedar Point.

I met up with my friend Steve who came from San Francisco for the weekend. He’s originally from Ohio, actually, so this was his opportunity to spend time with friends he still has back here in the Midwest.

I had a really good time the entire weekend, but I’m finding that it is rough riding roller coasters these days. I already have neck and upper back problems (muscle pain probably due to stress), so riding the coasters, while lots of fun, results in some bad headaches.

We rode the Top Thrill Dragster which is this coaster that shoots you off at 120 MPH, sends you leaping up a hill completely vertical, over the hump, and then back down vertically before coming to a rough stop — all in 13 seconds. It was amazing! But I closed my eyes and screamed, “Oh my God!” for most of the ride. None-the-less, I would still do it again now that I know what to expect.

On a positive note, the weather the entire day was fantastic. It was overcast and mild, which meant we didn’t have to worry a lot about dehydration or anything heat related.

In conclusion, it was really great spending time with Steve. I look forward to seeing him again when I’m in San Francisco next month for vacation.

Photo Set: Cedar Point - 2007

I traveled to Akron, Ohio, tonight and am staying with friends, for tomorrow we trek over to Cedar Point for some hot roller coaster action tomorrow. Afterwards, we’re back in Akron for a night on the town.

Something funny for your Saturday afternoon.

I love the English.

Saw this on the way to lunch yesterday (Friday) with friends from work.

It seems that whenever the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra does a free lunchtime concern, they have a drum circle on the sidewalk in front of the Circle Theatre. I’ve never participated, but it sure seemed like fun to me.

Title: hey paula………day 212

Uploaded By: Atila

This one is for Daniel.

I managed to keep myself pretty busy this weekend.

Friday night, I went with Tony and Jason to see Dos Fallopia: Desperate Spuddwives at the Phoenix Theatre. It was put on by Lisa Koch and Peggy Platt, a local comedy duo, and made up almost entirely of several clever parodies, including a performance by Heartwood Mac — a combination of Heart and Fleetwood Mac. The entire second act was a reprise of their roles as a Judds-like country music duo called The Spudds.

Afterwards, the three of us made our way to the 501 for drinks, but the crowd was terrible (terribly old, actually) and I decided to go home after about an hour.

On Saturday, I went to a going away party for Andy and Lou. This was my last chance to see them before they departed for Southern California. I got to the party and there really wasn’t much happening — mostly just a bunch of big gay guys sitting around talking — but pizza arrived and that was good, and stuff.

After the party, I met up with Aaron and Doug for dinner. We had the usual meal at Thai Cafe, which was fabulous. I always love eating there. I had yum tofu, spring rolls, and panang curry. Mmm! I feel your jealousy all the way over here.

After dinner, we went back to Aaron and Doug’s and watched Hot Fuzz. This is the movie put out recently by the guys who did Shaun of the Dead. It’s very funny and clever, and dark in many silly ways.

Today was a bit more chill, comprising primarily of brunch, laundry, cleaning around the house, and taking my nephew Jake to see The Simpsons Movie. I’ve already seen it, but Jake wanted someone to take him, so I went ahead and did that. I’m such a good uncle.

One of the reasons I love working on Monument Circle is that there’s always something interesting happening during the Summer. Yesterday, was no exception.

The Jagauar Association of Greater Indiana hosted the Jaguar Clubs of North America’s annual Challenge Championship and they had their cars on display all around the Circle.

They’re all very pretty, and VERY expensive.

Did some side work for a friend and his business partner, and used the proceeds to replace my seven year old ViewSonic E771 17 inch CRT monitor.

The new model is a Chimei CMV 221D 22 inch Widescreen LCD that I purchased from Newegg.com. I bought it because it rated very well with customers and was priced very well. I highly recommend it!