Fathers Day dinner and whatnot. Also, photos!

Despite the utterly gorgeous weather when I left my house around 1600, I took the truck, as plans were set to head out to the Old Dominion Brewpub for Fathers Day. Stopped by Manassas Mall for a couple quick stops, arrived at the parents' around 1710.. and learned that plans had changed at 1700 to Dinner At Home due to unhealth in the Steph. Boo! Missed motorcycling opportunity! Other than that, not a problem. :)

Dinner was thus changed to call-in/pick-up from Logan's Roadhouse. Our large order was called in, and I drove mom and Brendan in "Mommy's Blue Car" (Steph's P.T. Cruiser) to pick it up. Nice car, easy shifts, decent power (though I couldn't play much with mom in the car ;), feels cramped compared to my Bronco II. Waited a bit on the restaurant's deck over the lake, learned that salt from the free peanuts kills the fish (and, apparently, killed all the fish about four years ago), chatted TMBG with a coincidental Cornell '97 grad, learned about an upcoming Violent Femmes concert at the 9:30 club, retrieved the food, returned home..

..and discovered that we were missing a salad, a baked potato, a cobbler, the correct cheesecake topping, and all of the toppings for my burger, though we did get an unordered appetizer of loaded potato skins and mozzarella sticks. A call back to the restaurant and a round-trip by Matt got us the rest of our food, though their method of "stick all the containers in a bag with no labels" leaves something to be desired. (Fortunately, the dining experience -in- the restaurant is always commendable.)

After dinner, I tried out the spray-on "bandage" stuff, which a) stung like a bitch and b) took forever to stop being sticky--I'm not sure it's entirely non-sticky now, hours later, fielded a call from Esther, who was looking for help with MS Word's section breaks and page numbering routines--a pain in the ass every time I've tried, watched the family across the street (ages 5ish through 40ish) and friends (mostly 5ish, some 40ish) tool around the court on pocket bikes, a mini-chopper, two Power Wheels cars, and a gas-powered Model T-style car, then hung out with family for a couple more hours, mostly Shauna, and eventually figured I should head home.

Monday: Job search-y goodness, and hanging out with Laura in DC at some point. :)

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Photos!

Several of pets--Puck the kitten, Lucy the macaw, my unnamed bearded dragon, and Francesca the tarantula, mostly on Pets page 6 but one at the end of page 5.

Also, three of Laura with the Grateful Dead panda in DC in MiscDC. :)

Two bits of news

Keeping name private can be crime, court rules
Divided vote seen as defeat for privacy advocates
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that people do not have a constitutional right to refuse to tell police their names.

michaelduff:

Um, in order to be a prisoner of war, do you actually have to be from a country? Look, I have been ominously silent, negligent perhaps in not discussing the Patriot Act, creeping totalitarianism, or the detention of combatants at Guantanamo Bay. I believe there is a certain amount of hysteria associated with all attacks on the United States, and historically, these abuses are repealed in short order.

But this is really stretching our credibility. We've created a new category for these people so we can torture them without regard for our Constitution or the Geneva Convention. Sorry folks, one of these documents needs to apply when we're holding people.

Household chores and entertainment

Submitted my resume to SAIC and searched their job listings.

Added a "high tech, security clearance" career fair at the Dulles EXPO Center to my calendar for tomorrow.

Put into storage:
- The four rims I got from Uncle Harry that I don't want to sink the money into swapping onto my truck at the moment.
- The luggage I'm not using since I'm not traveling.
- The training materials and uniforms I got from RDR, since I'm "temporarily laid off for six months."
- My bed's comforter, since it's decidedly too warm to need it.

Did two loads of laundry, plus the new maroon Goats Overclocked Lemon shirt by itself.

Threw out a few things, organized a few others, sorted some mail.

Mowed/edged the front lawn.

Swept the kitchen/hall.

And then the day got more entertaining, including a call from Laura (actually, that was early afternoon, mid-productivity), meeting Nathan at Giant and Blockbuster for food/movie goodness, watching the second half of the Salem's Lot miniseries--not as good as I remember the book from 10-15 years ago, of course--and the following tidbit on parsing from jadine:

...there's a Microsoft Exchange website where I look for support info sometimes, and the address never fails to amuse me: http://www.msexchange.org. Rather like when we ate at BD's Monogolian Grill in Cleveland, and I noted the url on their menu as http://www.bdsmongolianbarbeque.com.