Put on the Glasses

Brian and I had another fun day at Meta Con. I didn't get too many pictures though. As a result, I am going to show this picture of the program: Brian also bought a print of that cover art from the artist, Pavlet.

Brian and I went to Meta Con today, a convention for nerds. We saw Billy West who does the voices for Philip J. Fry, Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth and a bunch of other voices on Futurama. He also did the voices for Ren & Stimpy, Elmer Fudd (in a Geico commercial), Bugs Bunny (in the movie Space Jam) as well as Doug. Basically, I grew up listening to this guy's voice. The best part was listening to him parse out the elements of the voices he does. For example, Zoidberg is a combination of a vaudville comedian, an actor from the early 1950s and silly noises. Billy West takes all of the things he hears and combines them to create the personalities of animated characters he gives voice to.

Brian and I went to our first in-person, live Vikings game today. It was awesome. Brian snagged some incredible seats for very cheap since it was a preseason game. This was our view: We even got to see Eric Perkins do provide the sports update on NBC: Here's a shot from the game: Here we are with Brian's souvenir football, which he caught when a cheerleader threw it up into the stands: It was a good time and the Vikings won! Best play of the game: a 109-yard break away touchdown by Marcus Sherels from a kickoff punt.

From the second Brian gets home, these two are inseparable.

My current lunch obsession are these GoPicnic boxes. It's like a Lunchable for adults. Yummy food is all divied up into little portions. I make Brian get them for me at Target. It is so much easier to grab one of these things than to actually go to the trouble of assembling a sandwich in the morning.

I picked up a new item for my cabinet of curiosities at the State Fair on Sunday. It's a jelly fish encased in acrylic. The guy who sold it to me said the jelly fish died of natural causes and was grown in a lab. It looks quite nice next to my bugs and skulls.

Brian and I went to the State Fair today. It was blazing hot outside but it totally worth it for the foods and fun you can only get once a year. We started off the day with a grilled donut: We saw some little lambs: We had some delicious onion rings: I got some of the best fries in the universe: Ate an enormous pickle on a stick: Those are just a handful of the things we did and ate. It was a great time.

Do the Copelands need more furniture? No. Did we buy some anyways? Yes. We got a new chair at the Room & Board Outlet today, and the picture does not do it justice. It is super comfortable.

I saw The World's End with Brian tonight. It was pretty darned funny. Brian and I agreed that it was better than Hot Fuzz but not as good as Shaun of the Dead.

This week's cover of vita.mn amused the heck out of me. It's a grumpy cat meme done as crop art, just in time for the state fair. It made me giggle. That cat always just looks so glum.

The question of how to display all of my Lego Minifigs has puzzled me for some time. I debated building something. I tried those plastic display cases they sell at Target. Nothing seemed good enough for my library. Then, a friend of mine suggested an old letterpress drawer. He bought one for his wife on Etsy for jewelry and he thought the size was just right. Man, was he ever right. I bought an antique letterpress drawer from a seller on Etsy and the little slots for letters perfectly fit my Minifigs. I even have plenty of room to expand my collection. It now hangs above my desk as yet another thing to amuse me while I work. Thanks for the idea, Andrew. It worked out perfectly.

She still hates when I take her picture and she won't look at the camera:

I donated a bunch of books to the library today. Of course, that gave me an excuse to go out and buy more books. So, these are the fun ones I picked up: I need to go quickly polish off Starship Troopers so I can get started on these.

Brian likes to drive at night. Brian also happens to like staying up all night. The result: we made it home in time for lunch on Sunday. The one major highlight of our night trek through Illinois and Iowa was the World's largest truck stop: It was massive and had a huge selection of equipment for truckers. I was tempted to buy metal flames for the side of my car. The road trip was seriously fun. Brian and I are considering making it a yearly event. Things we learned on our 1300 mile road trip: There are a lot of casinos in Missouri. And there are lots of fireworks stores with exciting names like Pyro City.  Kansas City looks like a lot of fun and we vowed to return.  We also vowed to return to St. Louis someday if only just to get more food at that restaurant we went to.  Maid-Rites need to be everywhere. That loose meat is delicious. Road construction in Illinois is extremely aggravating and brought back all kinds of bad memories from past trips across Illinois. M

Day two of the road trip started out great. We drank some free coffee at the hotel and started out on the road eating leftover pork tenderloin. We decided to pull into a rest stop to grab maps (turns out our cell phone signal sucks in southern Iowa). That is when the trouble started. Smoke was pouring out from under the hood and liquid was pooling under the car. Every road tripper's worst fear come true.  Luckily, we were at a rest stop/welcome center. They had a card for a tow truck inside and the tow was there in 15 minutes. It drove us to the shop near Lamoni, Iowa.  We proceeded to have the best experience with a mechanic we have ever had. We stayed near the car, they explained everything to us, and they managed to find a spare coolant reservoir in a nearby junk yard for us. A couple of hours spent learning about our car and we were back on the road.  A bonus to our wait: the mechanic's place was right next to an Amish Country Store and Maid-Rite. Sinc

Brian came up with the awesome idea of taking a road trip without a destination. We decided to head generally south just to see how far we could drive in a weekend. We started heading toward Des Moines, Iowa. We reached it in time for dinner at Zombie Burger: The place was packed, and we finally discovered what the big deal was when it came to pork tenderloin in Iowa: That isn't just some small biscuit hanging out on top of a tenderloin. That is a rather large hamburger bun. They pound the meat really thin and bread it. It was as delicious as it sounds and no, we could not finish it. We spent the night at Lakeside Casino, right down near the southern border of Iowa. We didn't win money, but we had a good time.

It was our anniversary today. We have officially been married for 4 years. Two weeks ago, we agreed not to buy each other anything. Of course, that means that Brian comes home with a bunch of beautiful flowers and two of those fancy-looking editions of books from Barnes and Noble: We spent the evening getting terrific Indian food at Gandhi Mahal and shopping at Micro Center (where he picked out a new mouse for his anniversary present). He's the best husband. He knows how to make me happy.

Brian and I bought a new pointless toy today. It's an LCD pad that you can jot notes on with a stylus. It erases with the touch of a button.  No, it doesn't load notes to your computer. It's just like a scrap of paper, except way cooler.  Maybe I'll regret it in a month, but for now I am just going to enjoy how inexplicably cool it is.

Today, I met Brian downtown after work today and he took me to Lyon's Pub, which is right near his office. Best part of that place was the free popcorn:

Summer is for quick, easy-to-read popular fiction. I picked up the book Blood Secrets at a book sale not too long ago and it was perfect for summer reading. It only took me a bit over a day to read and it was compelling enough to keep me turning pages. Published in 1978, the book tells the story of Irene, a college student who meets a strange man and falls in love. This man has lots of secrets that slowly reveal themselves throughout the book as the years pass. It felt like a Lifetime movie in book form. Perfect for a lazy weekend read.

This is the perfect view to wake up to on a weekend: I say weekend because if I saw this during the week, it would be hard to get myself away from the view and to my job.

My co-worker Haley has a great blog of cheap recipes , and one of her posts last week was exceptionally relevant to my weekend. She posted about making a s'more bar with lots of options for toppings for your s'mores. I emulated her awesome idea. Here's my "bar" of s'more toppings: Here's one of my s'mores using a Reese's Peanut Butter cup: Here's one I made using Ghiradelli chocolate: I can confirm: these were delicious. I am never limiting myself to Hershey's ever again. Here's a shot of the "literally epic" campfire that helped make our s'mores (inside joke I am subjecting you to for posterity): Here's Andrew and Nicole enjoying said campfire: It was helpful having Andrew the Eagle Scout there to build our fire. The man certainly earned his Firem'n Chit.

Believe it or not, this was the only picture I snapped all day. Brian and I and went with a couple of friends up to my sister's cabin. On the way, we stopped to check directions to a restaurant and I snapped this picture out the window of lake Mille Lacs and one of those signs you can stick your head through. Looking back, I should have forced Brian out of the car and made him put his head through the sign. You live, you learn.

I went mini-golfing today at the Science Museum of Minnesota for a work event. It was a whole lot of fun, and I actually got a hole in one! This is rare, so you should be proud of me. I also got the best score on my team. I snapped a shot of the start of the 9-hole course: I know it is not the best picture, but I was just too distracted by my own mad golf skills. 

One of my favorite random objects in my library (besides all of the books of course) is this laser-cut piece of plastic that I perched next to my cat: It's a quote from the movie The Sandlot. Somehow, that line has stuck with me and I say it more frequently than I care to admit. I got this piece of plastic at a craft fair last winter and I have not regreted my purchase for one moment.  Here's the clip I always remember from that movie:

I found this old Lego robot in a box today. According the Internet, I got this little guy way back in 1993: That places it around the time where my Grandma would by me Lego sets at the Shopko in Mason City, Iowa. Good memories.

While I read on the chaise lounge, Livia curls up next to my leg like this to sleep: It's almost the cutest thing she does.

Brian went straight across the lake on a paddleboat to visit our pontoon full of fisherman: On a related note, there was a paddling of ducks that kept swimming around our dock. I had to google "collective nouns ducks" to discover that a paddling of ducks is just one of many collective nouns used to describe groups of ducks. Other acceptable descriptions include: Flock - Too boring Badling - Makes no sense Brace - Also makes no sense Bunch - That is just lazy collective nouning Plump - Are ducks really plump?  Raft - I can make a raft with ducks? Awesome! Team - Like the Mighty Ducks? Waddling - That is just adorable Here is a shot I got of the little duck family:

My dad caught a bass and it looks delicious. Nice work, Dad! I can confirm that it was actually delicious.