Just helped an old woman get her luggage up top on the plane n find her seat. Not sure whether that counts for todays or tomorrows good deed of the day.
-eD

Another Reason My Sister is Awesome!

My sister looked through all of my comic-con pictures and found things to get me for my birthday!  A sonic screwdriver from Dr Who which I finally started watching this year, and a Masters of the Universe Stinkor figure.  Of course she remembers how much I loved He Man when I was a kid and she remembered that he was one of my favorites and picked me up the recent figure that came out.  Totally awesome, the thoughtfulness blew me away.  Thanks again turd!
-eD

Busy... B.

Apologies for not posting in a while, I've been busy trying to catch up on things, that and when I came back I had a box of comics waiting for me...
This past weekend was fun, I was still on a rush from vacation and was able to see my buddy Gene, his wife Emily and their daughter Lyla.  Adorable daughter and even though she stared she didn't tug my goatee once.  Sat night we went to the Hollywood Bowl and saw a concert, Rodrigo y Gabriela with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  It was way better then I expected it to be.  They even shot off fireworks right before the encore when it was just the orchestra.
Sunday I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Fantastic movie, reminds me of when I wanted to be in genetics, then reminds me of the amazingness of cg animation at the same time.  Good stuff.  Then I had dinner with Rich, Ruthie, Gene, Emily, & Lyla at Paco's Tacos around the corner.  Then I had to come back to reality to go back to work on Monday.Work has been going fine, I'm caught up to where I should be (at least I believe so).  Which is good considering I am taking off another two days next week.  Heh heh heh.  Keenan's wedding is going to be fun!
On a strange note, I think I accidentally gave myself food poisoning on Tuesday by eating food from my fridge without checking the expiration date.  I threw away a bunch of old food, and food with mold on it, but I found some things that seemed fine.  My stomach was a wreck on Wednesday and still seems to be recovering.  Note to all people pay attention to the food in your fridge...  If it seems like it could possibly be bad, don't question it and just throw it away...
-eD

Clouds & other Aerials!

Woo!  just imagine this isn't even 1/4 of the pics that I have of clouds and ground from the plane...
-eD

Aruba Pics!

 Finally got around to Posting these.  I thought I took more pictures on the Island.

The view from the balcony of my hotel room

a rock walkway we found while walking the beach

palm trees and the ocean...

My co-conspirators of the bar crawl bus 

our hotel at night, taken from the pool area

$1 to play Pac Man?  a bit pricey...

a dock near the submarine tour

the bottom of the ocean near Aruba.  I took tons of video, I may post some of those on here at a later date...

Aruba burns their trash, turning this scenic picture into more than just scenery

Vic after the Sub Tour, she just can't get enough of that sun...

After wondering how one would get a car in Aruba we spotted this car... any takers? it's for sale...

Dunkin Baskin Ceasars pizza!  such an interesting collabo

no idea what this ad is for, but saw it in the storefront and had to take a pic

The cane that I almost purchased.  If only the ones I wanted were not damaged, I would have one of my own...

The totems eat too many lemons...

Sunset on the beach

Another Sunset shot to finish off my Aruba pictures

Turns out I didn't take as many pictures as I previously thought.  But I did takes tons of video of scenery, the underwater tour, and tons of clouds and aerial shots from the plane.  I know for a fact that vix took tons of pictures so I will have to get those from her at some point.  A great time, though now I am peeling all over and my tan has faded or turned into freckles...

-eD

Fri the return trip from Aruba

Got up to have breakfast at 7 am so my mom and sister would have time to catch a few more hours of sun before we had to leave.  I myself took a small nap then showered and finished packing.  Headed to the airport pretty early but it made sense since we had to go through two separate security lines, got stopped at the Aruba security for my iPad stand, guess it looked like a stabbing implement in the scans to them, but it went through fine at the us security going there and back.  Customs wasn't a problem but I didn't have anything to claim besides returning to the states so that was fine.    Had a large stella artuios and a turkey melt at a bar in the airport for bout $20 with tip.  Seemed massively excessive but they were both very good after the balashi beer that was running a monopoly on beer in Aruba.  Got to sit next to a couple that seemed to have had an affair in aruba which was a little awkward but I just tried to keep my headphones in to block their conversation as best as I could.
Got to my layover in ga with time to spare which was nice considering the last time I was in the Georgia airport I had to run to my gate.  While waiting I spotting some money in a plastic bag, I nonchalantly put it in my book to check later.  While on the plane I opened the bag to find $80.  Great way to end the trip.  Even funnier than that was it was in a "bank of Ireland" bag, so sadly someone lost a decent chunk of change, but for the first time in a long time the luck of the Irish shined upon me giving me some free money stabilizing my bringing more money back than I left with.

It was also very comforting to have my own bathroom back, as well as, sleeping in my own bed.  Though it does feel very strange, almost like I never left but I have a large gap of time that is missing.  I will be going through the massive amount of pictures soon and will try to update the blog with some pics that I took.
-eD

Wed/Thurs Aruba

Wed
Spent the majority of the day at the pool listening to podcasts and getting more burnt.  An iguana came by the pool and entertained adults and children alike by eating most if not all the mint leaves that they tried to feed it.  It was pretty cool to see a wild lizard of that size, especially that close to people.  Then went to a steakhouse for dinner.  It was very good even though I normally don't order steak out because I'm too picky after grilling steaks for so many years at T.G.I. Fridays.  After dinner we went to the bar and drank some fruity drinks and played UNO until the showgirls started dancing, then I think everyone was too out of it for more drinking or anything else.

Thurs
Started the day at 6am trying to claim an umbrella area at the beach.  The guys didn't come to unlock the chairs until 7am so it was a lot of waiting around looking for hotel workers.  Then after breakfast I took a 2 hour nap in the room before going down to the beach and hiding from the sun for a few hours.  Then we went back downtown so the ladies could check out another casino and do some more shopping.  I tagged along still not finding anything trinket-wise that piqued my interest.  That's fine though.  Back to the hotel for our final buffet style dinner which I ate as a vegetarian not choosing anything with meat because I was a little tired of their beef, and chicken selection, but it was still pretty good.  Back to the room to start packing a bit then down to the bar for most likely the last time... Also grabbed some snacks from the 24 hr sports bar. Nachos n hot dog good late night snacks...
-eD

Tuesday Aruba

After breakfast we went to take an underwater sub tour of Aruba.  It was very cool.  Saw tons of coral, fish, and two sunken ships.  Took a few photos but they turned out a bit hazy I think, though I did get tons of video footage that should be great reference.  Haven't actually looked through it yet but I'm hopeful I will be able to use it for something at some point.  After that we checked out another casino, where I put a dollar in a video poker machine and came out with 4 bucks, then I took that and played it in some slot machines and left only $1.50 ahead.  Not too bad, gambling makes me feel odd, I don't like it.  So I hardly gamble, if at all.  We also walked around downtown Aruba for a bit checking out little shops and touristy trinkets.  Almost bought a cane with a horn as a handle that had a pretty awesome ceramic face as well, but all the ones I wanted were damaged so I didn't even ask a price.  Kind of hoping I find an undamaged one before I leave, but if I don't no big deal.
For dinner we went to a "Gourmet" restaurant which was actually a "fusion" restaurant. Or a big disappointment for me.  If I would have had to pay for the meal I would have been very angry.  I thought most of the courses had little to no flavor, and my medium rare steak was burnt all over the outside.  The desert was basically a lave crunch cake from dominos pizza  with vanilla ice cream, which was good, but 1 out of 4 courses is still a fail in my book.  The Japanese place is still ichiban in my book...
-eD

Monday Aruba

Started the day off early with a 6 am walk on the beach.  Then buffet style breakfast.  I was tired and a bit more sun burnt than I originally realized, so I went back to room to take a nap that lasted way longer than I expected, guess I'm still on LA time.  Lunch and then some time at the pool.  After that we had dinner at a specialty Italian restaurant that was pretty good, but I liked the Japanese place more to be honest.  We rushed through dinner because we had a schedule to meet, basically waiting for a bar crawl party bus.  The bus seemed tame at first then it kicked into high gear pretty fast.  At the second bar I ended up on the bar with a bunch of dudes because of strong armed peer pressure.  There are pictures somewhere but I will leave those out of this.   Long story short, my shirt came off, and my shorts were dropped. That's all I will say about that.  4 bars later and about 9 or 10 drinks in we made it back to the hotel where I ordered nachos from room service.  Tons of fun, hope those pictures don't haunt me for too long...
-eD

Sunday Aruba

It's hot here, very humid too.  It's so humid that it makes the tile floor slick.  The ac is on in the rooms and if even the door is opened momentarily, boom, everything gets a layer of moisture on it.  Also no Internet cept the 24 hr bar and the lobby, though I can't seem to get the Internet to work in the bar. (Internet works great in the lobby, stinks not having it in the room, but eh whatever)
Today was beach day, aka eD gets sunburnt.  Not as bad as I normally get, but my legs are toasted and the backs of my knees are brutal.  The wind also kicks up every couple second sending sand through the air like tiny razors.  This all sounds negative, but I guess it's the necessary evil of Aruba because it's beautiful here.  Also normally I don't drink, but here it's a whole different story.  eating three meals a day is also new to me.  Got to eat at a fancy Japanese restaurant for dinner too, which was very good. But even though everyone else claimed they wanted sake, they must have lied, because I ended up finishing everyone's drinks.  Not that I'm complaining, I don't normally get the chance to drink sake either.  Another 4 full days, hope I don't get any important email that I need to respond to in the next week, it'll probably take the entire night after I get back to go through all my emails on both accounts. Feels weird to be without Internet.
Almost forgot I shaved my Fu mancho in progress stache again. Feels strange, tried to fix my stache by stroking it away from my mouth a few times, forgetting it was gone. Very odd feeling.
-eD

Woo Aruba!

Was slightly panicked after waiting in line to check in my bag @ LAX and realizing that there was another long line for security.  Finally i made it to the gate surprisingly with plenty of time to spare.  Then the flight was delayed, but they didn't tell us until it was time to board.  By that time a large group of people started waiting near where one would normaly line up for boarding (as the impatient people always do), trying to get to their seats first so they could sit and watch all the other people board the plane.  It was so awful that they caused a major traffic jam when the people on the plane were trying to leave the plane. Tehy didnt even want to step to the side to make room fearing they would lose their spot in the non line they started forming. We finally start boarding at our original departure time, which starts another bout of worry about missing my connecting flight.  Then after flying across the country we had to wait to land.  We circled Atlanta about 3 times.  This was obvious to me because I was flying delta and was able to watch the planes course on the monitor in the back of the seat in front of me.  Finally land and I have about ten minutes before my flight to Aruba departs.  So I end up running to my gate, just making the flight.  Very stressful.
But then I end up in the island paradise of Aruba.  The hotel is amazing, and all inclusive which means as much food and booze as I want, that is already paid for.  There is even a sports bar that is open 24 hours!  Also stopped in to the casino where they gave my ten bucks to play slots with.  The first machine I sit down at (a penny machine) I win $15.  So now I have $20 of basically free money that I can either cash out, or gamble away.  Don't like gambling so I may come out ahead in gambling, like I normally do because as soon as I win I stop.  We'll see, still have about 5 days in Aruba!  Fingers crossed I don't get burned so bad I turn purple.  Tomorrow is a beach day so we shall see...
-eD

Yesterday i grabbed a beer from the fridge and right before i opened it i almost shook it thinking for a second it was a v8. Good thing i took a second.
-eD

My Comic-Con Shwag...

Finally got around to posting this, but here goes...

Limited edition (of 50) wood print from Joe Ledbetter!
Gotta get a frame for it on my "corner wall of awesome."

An overall look at a lot of the smaller items, some free, some not, but all pretty rare.
Andrew Bell Limited Edition Sashimi, Super Dinosaur Frisbee, Joe Ledbetter print, Stuffed octopus monster,  Clown Mask from a game coming out, hellboy paper mask, "LA" cartoon hands vinyl, Cobra Ninja Figure, & Kuta Vinyl from Sean Galloway.

Pins, Patches, & other trinkets... My favorite by far is the "Wayne Casino Poker Chips" I waited in line to get a few of them.  I think each day they had different ones, but I found out too late and only got the $10 & the $25 chips.  Still super awesome to me.

2 shirts, have no idea what the one is for the other one is a Ghost rider shirt promoting the new movie.  Though they only gave out larges, disappointing the majority of the people who go to Comic-Con.

Eventually when I have a nice bright but not too bright day I will take pictures of the Books that I got signed with their signatures.  I think I was able to get 3 quick sketches, 5 signatures.  Good times!
-eD

Seemed like a good idea at the time...

The decision of lunch can totally determine the rest of your day. Especially if you are lactose intolerant or just have a stupid stomach...

I made the mistake of not only going to get lunch from a grilled cheese truck, but then I also got some Mac & cheese as a side. I heard the grilled cheese sandwiches were amazing, which it was, and I heard the Mac & cheese was really good too. Thought id give it a shot. It was decent but not worth all the pain and discomfort that it caused my stomach. Yeesh.

Learned my lesson...

Limit the amount of cheese during lunch or suffer the consequences...
-eD