updates

February 26th Kurt said:

I just left Real Artways in Hartford. I was hired for my third annual Oscar statue performance to benefit Connecticut Aids Resource Center. It went well and the women who runs the gallery was VERY impressed with me and would like to work with me again.
 Yesterday I was ALSO an award statue for Ten31 at a casino. It was a fun performance because I was on stage for a part of it and I "came to life" to introduce a FLASH MOB
I've been packing and moving stuff to Carrie's basement.   Its really nice of her to let me use up her space. More than nice actually.   Tomorrow I get the uhaul to bring MORE stuff.  As of right now I don't even have a place to live. It's actually exciting to have anything be possible.
 I guess a goal is to take charge of my destiny and if human statuing is gonna be my thing I need to book myself gigs

February 27th Rob wrote:

So... it's been a bit since I last updated people on the goings on
here in Millbury.  Fortunately, not all that much really happens here,
so it makes it pretty easy to get lax about these things.
I had every intention of writing to everyone on Feb 12th, but I got a
tad distracted.  We had moved the table out of the dining room for
some reason that currently escapes me, so I wanted to use the
opportunity to (finally) remove the air conditioner from the window.
This is the day we remind everyone that having a messy house has some
nasty side-effects.  You know, when you have stuff laying around all
the time, it gets to be somewhat invisible.  This can be an issue when
you ask a teenager to clear a path to the garage, so that when
carrying a bulky metal box you can walk without having to worry about
not seeing where you are going.  McGuire did an admirable job clearing
a path, even spreading his arms to make sure the path was wide enough;
but there was this little box sitting on the stairs that had been
there for a few weeks, right on the 4th step from the bottom.  I was
reminded of this box when my foot landed on it, and my ankle twisted
somewhat painfully - which also let me fall down the last 4 stairs
right along with the air conditioner.  I didn't break any bones, or
floor tiles, and the frame of the air conditioner is only a little
bent, so maybe it will still work, too.  The poor kids, though!
McGuire was ready to call 911 - he stayed remarkably calm at first.  I
could almost see the adrenaline wear off on him, as he started to feel
like it was all his fault.  Archer's first instinct was  to call
Allison, and he was near panic the whole time I was on the floor in
pain.  It only took me about 3 minutes for the initial blast of pain
to wear off, and I just had a handful of scrapes and bruises, plus one
good gash on my ankle.
There wasn't too much of interest after that, until maybe Wednesday.
We had our usual D&D at the store, and since it was Catherine's
birthday on Thursday, her parents let her family join us for dinner,
so we went to the 99.  While we were there, I mentioned that McGuire
and I were going to see Chronicle that weekend, so I suggested that
McGuire invite Catherine as a birthday present.  Ellie was thrilled to
have Archer over for the night, so the three of us were headed out,
and Jim (Ellie and Catherine's brother) asked if he could come with
us. which I didn't mind.  We wound up hitting a later show than
planned, missing the 4:20 showing, so we went out to Papa Ginos before
the movie, and caught the 7:10.  It was a pretty good movie, much
better than I was expecting.  Allison was a little horrified to think
of her son out on a date, but I told her that until she said that to
McGuire, he probably had not thought of it as a date.  It was pretty
funny.
The following week was pretty standard, I had some friends over Friday
night for D&D -  I'm getting geekier by the week!  McGuire actually
managed to charm his way into the group, so he gets to hang out with
his Dad and some mid-20s guys.  I am so lucky to have such a mature
teenager, I swear he was the most mature one in the room.
The kids had the next week off from school, and they were thrilled to
be able to just hang out.  I took Monday off to be with them one more
day - I don't think we did anything actually productive, but we had
some fun, watched the Neverending Story with Archer, who wanted to
start reading the novel that very night!  The week ended with a
massive flurry of late-night D&D games and then a trip to the local
gaming convention on Saturday.  McGuire and I have D&D characters that
we have played together since level 1, and most of our friends have
gotten their characters to level 11, where they get extra powers.
Ours were only level 9 at the start of the week, but we were able to
find a game on-line Monday morning, making it possible, but unlikely,
to be at the same level as the other players by the second game on
Saturday.  We were able to scare up a game on both Thursday and Friday
night (until 2am or later both nights!), reaching level 10 on
Thursday.  If we had managed to score one additional game Tuesday or
Wednesday, we could have gotten to level 11 if everything went
perfectly.  It turns out that it didn't matter: we couldn't get enough
XP on Saturday morning to have reached level 11 for the big 9-hour
adventure anyway.  It was a good thing anyway, since it kept our
characters at a level where we could play at the table with Catherine
and one of the other kids from our regular Sunday games, so that was
good.  I took the Sweeny's out to Friday's after the 13 hour D&D
marathon, which wound up being an hour-long meal at 11:30pm!  We
figured 1am would be a good guess to get them home, so 1:30 isn't too
bad.  McGuire and I were home at 2am, and probably asleep by 2:05, it
was a long couple of days.  What made it even better was that I got
stuck at work late on Friday - somebody installed a trojan on my work
computer (that would be me....) so I had to work on cleaning things up
before I could leave.  To top off the geekdom weekend, I  had
volunteered to run  game on Sunday, so I had to get up at 10am to get
ready for an adventure that I hadn't even looked at before Sunday!  It
went well, but I was sooooo tired by Sunday evening (last night).

March 4th Rob wrote:

Hi everybody!
Pretty tame week here in MA, which is usually the way I like it.  Last Sunday I ran the weekly D&D game at the Whiz, getting home around 7 pm.  Spent the next 4 hours failing to get Archer into bed, and I think we managed to be on time to school some of the week.
It was a crazy busy work week, with meetings and lots of coordination all the time. It was for the good, because at the end of the week, I made really great progress: alwáys a nice way to end a week.  Probably the high point of the week for me was meeting up with my friend Jen, who was in town for work. We met up at a Japanese place, and I had sushi for the first time (I don't count the one try at a buffet), maybe not surprisingly, I actually liked it, once I got past the odd texture.
Wednesday night we started getting some fluffy snow, nothing terrible, but it was supposed to continue all night, and through Thursday.  For a change, Millbury cancelled school when it was a good idea, even though they waited until 5am to do so. Archer woke up in time to make the bud, but guessed right away that school was off due to the fact that our road was unplowed at 8am. McGuire made no effort to wake up, and I was happy to let him sleep in.  I did get him pretty good, when he got out of the shower at 9:45, and I told him that he was late for school, even with the 2 hour delay. I told him the truth before he started really panicking, and even he admitted it was funny.  I had already planned on going into work late on Thursday, since I had set up the house closing for that day.  Allison came by around 9, expecting the lawyer for 10; he actually showed up  at 9:40, which worked well.  After signing and or initialing about 75 pages of mortgage crap, I am the sole owner of the house, with a much lower interest rate. Eight years of payments are essentially gone, but I will be able to claim more of what I am paying as a tax deduction, and I will have more money in my pocket every month, so I am pretty pleased.
Friday I had some friends over for a D&D game, now McGuire gets to play with us, so that is cool.  Archer gets to hang out downstairs, doing whatever he likes, which isn't all that different from normal, but apparently he feels ignored; so I probably can't keep playing in that game.  The guys I am playing with there can't seem to avoid swearing every other sentence, so it does make the choice of backing out easier. 
That was my week - nothing of interest happened on Saturday, and today was just another game at the store.  Until next week!



Carrie and I didn't have much to say I suppose.  I sort of fell of the face of the earth when it comes to everything but I'm hoping to re-start with the sibling updates...it makes me happy to know what you guys are doing.