One of the downsides of working in a college are semester start dates. Depending on the program the dates change. One of the degrees starts on Monday which means I’m working on final touchups and mini-emergency solving over the weekend. I’m exhausted and have to do it all again as the next program launches in 2 weeks. We’re all beginning to suffer a bit of chicken little syndrome. I am planning a HUGE vacation once the courses are finished and students are back in school. I’m pretty sure I need to sleep for a week.

Yesterday I got tickets to a show at the Edmonton Fringe Festival and, based on local rumour mills, just could not pass up the chance to see the show.  Besides, the tickets were a birthday present. Who am I to say no to presents? Especially presents with exciting Browncoat related rumours attached. And presents that straddle multiple days. The show started on the evening of the 19th and ended in the wee hours of the morning on the 20th. I started my birthday with a bang this year.

We’d originally had plans to go out for wings and beer on Tuesday with P, W, & A – it was a weekly tradition that seemed to fall by the wayside over the summer – but hadn’t actually managed to determine the time and place to meet.  As I was walking in the door from work yesterday, Drew was on the phone.  Drew explained the Fringe situation and apparently the decision was made to put wings and beer night off for a week.

Drew continued to struggle with the garage door opener situation.  Today’s door opener turned out to be a model from another part of the globe.  Rather than using standard North American power plugs the power cord on this machine was a round two-pronged plug similar to those I used in India and the Philippines.  Guess that one will be boxed up and sent back as well.

After some veggin’ in the basement – ’twas stinkin’ hot again today – we headed to the Fringe to take in the sights.  We were lucky and easily found parking across from Drew’s Lodge.  I’m told that week nights just aren’t as busy as the weekends.  Worked out well for me since I’m not a huge fan of crowds and was pretty much all crowded out on Sunday.

Drew immediately found his way to a green onion cake vendor and I wandered aimlessly checking out the various artists. I did end up purchasing a print while I was there and may go back to check out the work of the spray paint artist before the end of the festival. Time sufficiently wasted, we entered the line up for the show. You know you’re dedicated when you enter the line-up over an hour before the show is scheduled to begin. While in line we met a local Browncoat, Bev, who is also a volunteer at the Fringe.

The show was awesome.  I love improv and some of the actors were just amazing at thinking on their feet.  I didn’t catch the names of most of them; you’ll have to forgive me for using descriptions of their characters instead.  The men who played Anderson Cooper and Juggling Castro were hilarious and the man (woman?) who was Mrs. Steele – a wheelchair bound antiquity with a mind as sharp as a bat – was just splendid.  Special mention goes out to the woman spoofing Nancy Grace and her continual bursts of song.  Of course we can’t forget the special guest star Captain Tightpants himself.  He’s got a wonderfully expressive face but, despite the shiny glow, was upstaged a number of times.  It definitely looked like he was having a ball – both on and off stage.

At the end of the evening we managed to catch Nathan on his way out the door and get out photo taken.  He’s quite the pro at holding the camera up and taking group portraits!

I’m old today but what a great way to start my birthday!

Apparently Alan T was there for the Monday night show.  I wish I’d known as I’d have loved to me him.  I just know in my bones he’d have been awesome to watch in an improv situation.

Spent the day at a trade show.  I’ve learned a few things during my wanders through the aisles of displays.

• I’m not a big fan of aimless shopping. I prefer the figure out what you want, go in and get it method of shopping.
• There’s never enough places to sit in a trade show but A and Loxley can find all of them.
• After 5 hours of aimless wandering through aisles ankles and feet begin to hurt.
• If you stop walking or slow down after walking for many hours, you really begin to notice that your feet have started to hurt.
• There’s never enough bathrooms in the trade show venues.

Thank goodness we had wonderful people to spend the day with.

I didn’t manage to take pictures of the guys putting the garage door on.  What I thought was frantic installation mode late yesterday afternoon turned out to be let’s laze around the garage drinking beer and talking about the installation mode.  I really should bring my laptop outside one of these days so I can blog as work is happening instead of relying on Drew telling me what he’s planning on doing.  I’d have far more accurate reports that way.

Last night we held a pre-birthday BBQ for T (L’s son) and I.  T’s b-day is one day before mine and since he’s always been ready to help out whenever we need it, it was just natural to ensure that he was included in all the festivities.  Loxley took pictures so if/when she sends them to me, I’ll post the Queen of the Hill photos.  Just remember that I take a horrible picture, was well into my cups, and spent half the night wearing silly hats (thanks to Loxley, P, W and A).

Best thing about BBQs in our backyard is the food.  Salads, s’mores, fruit, and chips & dip were provided by the guests.  Drew put on a multi-course meal including homemade corn dogs.  Me, I’m not a fan of corn dogs but everyone else seemed to really enjoy them.  E’s not a big fan of steak, so we usually cook up some chicken breasts when he’s around.  Last night Drew went to town and BBQ’d (or violated, depending on who you ask) an entire chicken over a beer can.  The chicken was coated in Corky’s BBQ rub.  Can’t give away any more of the cooking/spicing secrets than that or Drew would lock me up and hide the laptop.  The resulting chicken was fabulous.  E got the bulk of it since it was intended for him but the rest of us at the kiddies table scrapped over the scraps. There wasn’t enough room on the upper deck for everyone to sit and eat around our table so R, our fabulous contractor neighbour, brought over a small table and some chairs to put on our lower deck.  Oddly enough, both birthday guests ended up at the kiddies table.  The chicken never made it up to the adults table.  Then again, they made us go up to the adult table to get salads and chips/salsa… For those not fortunate enough to get a piece of the chicken, Drew grilled steaks.  Big, giant, tender, juicy, triangular steaks.  I have no idea what he’d marinated them in but they were melt-in-your mouth fantastic.  And since we’re getting better at having guests over, he’d even managed to cook them to difference ranges of “doneness”.  Apparently not everyone likes a rare steak like we do.  So, R, L & J, and Loxley had theirs well done.  Others had medium.  And the best rest of us had nice rare steaks to chew on. For dessert, Drew made baked Alaska in the BBQ.  He did insist in an all BBQ meal.  I’d never had baked Alaska before and discovered it really wasn’t to my liking which left Drew a little disappointed.  I did eat my portion.  If you don’t try something you’ll never know if you’re going to like it or not.  Everyone else really enjoyed theirs.  That should make up for my odd taste buds.

Birthday presents are the second best thing about last night.  P, W and A provided comic relief with silly hats and talking b-day cards. There’s always a need for Scottish silly hats.  Man is it hot under that thing though.  I’m sure the weather had something do to with it but I nearly roasted when wearing it earlier in the evening. L&J’s card came with a promise that I’d be getting an L special – which translates to a hand crafted item (furniture, planter, etc.) – on my actual birthday.  I can’t wait to find out what it is.  S made Drew happy by presenting me with Oscar perfume, soaps and bath chips.  I love Oscar but Drew’s allergies act up whenever I spray it on.  This little bottle isn’t meant to be sprayed; just a little dab will do.  Loxley worked her fingers to the bone making a scrapbook picture of our trip to the LIVE concert.  Unfortunately Drew put our tickets away for safekeeping so I could scrapbook them and forgot where he’d stored them.  Loxley wasn’t able to include the tickets in her work of art.  She’s mightily talented though.  I just wish I didn’t look like some cross-eyed freak in the picture.  Then again, she did warn me that the other picture was much worse!  Loxley also made me an amazing CD of music to listen to in my truck.  She always finds the most interesting cover versions of my favourite songs.  To top it all off, she gifted me with a new storage bin for my scrap-booking goodies.  I never have enough places to put all my brads and embellishments… R fulfilled the immediate need by presenting me with new knives (and wineglasses).  The dogs chewed the handles on our previous steak knives and we’d thrown most of them out years ago.  People in our neighbourhood have gotten used to my inviting them to dinner only to tell them that if they wanted to eat they had to bring their own steak knives.  This should no longer be a problem as I am now the proud owner of 8 shiny new steak knives.  Well, they will be shiny once they’re out of the dish washer.  The rest of the knife set is pretty spiffy too.  I think I’ll leave the handling of the heavy butcher knife to Drew though.  I’m likely to hurt myself with it.

I wasn’t the only one to be showered with pressies.  T’s haul included a new creeper (some sort of mechanic’s wheeled thingy), Stargate SG1 DVD sets, and a new circular saw.

Like a little princess I ended up heading to bed just before midnight.  I’d been up since 6:30 am and just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. On the bright side, I wasn’t the first to leave.  M and T headed home about 45 minutes before I toddled off to bed.  Of course, M is 9 month preggers and ready to pop at anytime, so she probably really needed to head home hours earlier!  E also headed home shortly after T and M.  So I wasn’t the first b-day person or guest to leave.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

As for my “present” from Drew – the completion of my Honey Do list – he’s about 50% done.  He claims that he wasn’t supposed to finish before the BBQ because my birthday isn’t until mid-next week.  So, when it comes around and the hedge is still re-growing in my front yard and the other items aren’t checked off, just ignore the screaming you can hear.  That’ll be me just before my head explodes.

Next year I’m skipping the honey do list and asking for diamonds.

Exams are finally over for another semester. I’m glad I spent all that time playing around with online practice tests yesterday since 25% of the exam questions were taken directly from the quizzes.  The other 75% was mostly stuff that we had covered off in past papers and such.  Despite writing like there was no tomorrow and suffering claw inducing hand cramps I managed to finish my exam in just over 2 hours.  *woot*  Of course, the other guy writing with me finished his 2 hour exam in less than an hour and a half AND got to bring his textbooks and notes to his exam *sigh*  I just don’t get why instructors insist on closed book exams.  It’s not like we’re always going to remember everything we’ve crammed into our heads in a mass panic to regurgitate it all out for an exam.  I’ve always thought it best to teach people where to find information rather than forcing them to memorize.  Information and knowledge is fluid.  What I memorize today could be outdated within months.  Far better to learn where to always find the updated information than to wander around spewing out incorrect information as gospel.

In a few hours the hoards will decend and there will be people all over my backyard – well, neighbours mostly – and Drew will be BBQ’ing up a storm. We’re pretending to celebrate my birthday.  It’s not until next week but no one wants a mid-week party.  Saturday night wasn’t available as it’s our favourite bar wench, A’s, last night at the Fort.  Much celebrating and bad singing is planned for tomorrow evening.  I think we’ll have to find a new karaoke spot once A is gone.  There’s one within stumbling distance of the house that has a full restaurant kitchen open until 10pm.  Very good idea to feed the boys when you’re dragging them to karaoke.

The garage door finally arrived (after 3 this afternoon) and everyone of the male persuasion is frantacally trying to get it installed before the few non-neighbourhood based guests arrive.  I’m betting that they’ll gerry-rig something together and skip the actual installation until tomorrow.

I’ll need to take lots of pictures tonight in case we don’t manage to move all the stuff stored on our deck out into the new garage.  It could be mighty interesting if the guys decide to try (again) to lift weights after a few wobbly pops.

Speaking of pictures, Joy has a great picture of Drew posted on her site in her Blogger’s Supper post.  Just don’t look at the ones she has in her photo album.  Very scary!

I also promise to finally post the pictures of the garage construction this weekend.  I’ve had them on my computer for a few weeks now and just need time to get them online (with witty commentary of course).  What do you mean I’m not supposed to cross my fingers and toes when I promise something?

Have a great weekend all.