My "Bachelor Party"

I hinted the other day that I went to my bachelor party on Sunday. Well, that's not exactly right. It was a BBQ at a friend's house. And it was in no way about my bachelorhood. But it's the closest I'm gonna get, and I'm okay with that.

So, Sunday I went over to to a cook out at my buddies, Howard & KC's place. KC's childhood friend, Kelly & her husband, Chuck. (Howard and I used to work together, and now have basically the same job at different companies. KC is the ex-roommate of an ex-co-worker. They met @ my housewarming party.) I've known everybody here for 5 or 6 years.

After a couple strong rum and 7up's the pork burgers hit the grill.

We hung out on the back deck for a while, talking, laughing, and having a good time. And 'Yes', that's a Cabbage Patch doll.

Then, it became time to make for S'mores. They had the largest marshmallows I had ever seen. They were the size of a Kelly's fist!

And not all the marshmallows made it into the S'mores.

After calming down from the sugar rush, we broke out the game of 'Encore'. The basic gist of the game is that you split into teams (girls vs. guys) and then you roll a die and move around a board. Based on the color you land on, you draw a card and get a word off it. Then, the teams take turns going back and forth singing a song with the word in it until one team is stumped.

Eventually, I needed to go home, so we did a "lightening round" and the gals won.

Hanging out with good friends, good laughs, good times. Isn't that what a bachelor party is supposed to be?

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Note: Over the weekend, I will probably be taking SCOPE-TECH private for a day or so. DON'T PANIC! While I am busy getting my physical house ready for my new life, I'm going to take some breaks and redesign the blog, too.

Nothing too radical, but while I'm moving things around, I'd rather not have people see it all messy.

Gotta get the place looking nice for all those wedding pictures I'll be posting soon.

They Must Count Differently In Africa..

I was walking to my "Bachelor Party" Sunday afternoon, and I saw this truck parked on the side of the road.

Upon closer inspection, it was for Grace African, Chicago's only Five Star African Restaurant.

They must count differently in Africa. I only see one star.

Summer's Here

Summer time: 97% more fun than "Hammer time."

[Note 1: Sorry I haven't posted a lot with any real meat recently. That's probably why the followers are dropping like flies around here. There may not be a whole lot of meat in the run up to the wedding, either. It's not a content issue, it's a time issue*. But I promise we won't leave you hanging when it comes to the wedding.

Now get outside and enjoy! It's summer, my beaches!]

[Note 2: Special thanks to Lisa for the graphic font used in the GIF.]

* You ask - "If you're short on time, why did you spend so much of it making that animated GIF up there?" I respond - "Hush!" ;-)

Lego My Ego

As I'm sure you all know, or at least suspected, I loved Lego as a kid. I would sit and rattle those plastic bits around in a giant tub looking for the right one to make whatever object I was attempting to fashion. I even had some of the early motor and geared sets.

But even then, this was beyond my imagination.
And today, it is still beyond my comprehension.

This is cooler than a monkey sword fight.

Watching this, I would love to see them animate a monkey sword fight in Lego.

From my friends @ GIZMODO. They do more than piss off Apple.

Wednesday Morning Latin Lesson

I figure since I'm modeling my whole life after the Great Mr. Jenks (same birthday, marrying a hot red-head, did a post on blowing stuff up, etc.) I might as well continue my S.W.F. string, and give all ya'll a little Latin lesson, too.

The other day at work, I was trying determine the proper physical office to assign people, based on where they lived. I know, terribly exciting, but part of my job is cleaning up other people's garbage. In doing so, I ran across the country abbreviation 'CHE'. "Wow! That's a big honor for that guy from all those T-Shirts, " I thought.

Then I did what we always do when we have a question: Ask the Google gods.

Turns out, 'CHE' is the ISO country code for Switzerland. I know, go figure. And 'no' it doesn't stand for 'CHEese', either. Turns out, their official country name is the Swiss Confederation or Confœderatio Helvetica in Latin. Hence 'CHE'.

And I thought, "Damn, those people are PASSIONATE about their fonts."

Yeah, I'm special that way.

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The type font of this blog post is NOT Helvetica. It is 'Arial', Helvetica's slutty sister. Normally I use 'Trebuchet MS', although in my personal life, I have started using 'Century Gothic' a lot more, because in theory it saves about 30% on ink.

Hey, the blog is called 'SCOPE-TECH' after all.

This Doesn't Look Good

I know I'm not the best proof reader in the world.

I know my blog posts are often rife with typos, and poor grammar.

But then, I'm not getting paid for this. I don't have a copy editor. This isn't my job. There's no money on the line.

Unlike these jokers:

I saw this sign on the L as I was heading to the airport to see Cora last time. And it seriously pissed me off. Sorry it's so grainy. I had to use my CrapBerry camera, so I have reproduced the text below.

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Foreign Currency, Foreign Checks,
Foreign Money Orders, Foreign
Travelers Checks, Foreign
Wire Transfers, etc.

Okay, I get that you want to have the words form a triangle, but Lord Almighty, word wrap properly. Without reordering the lines, or playing with font sizes or letter spacing, you can do this:

Foreign Currency, Foreign Checks,
Foreign Money Orders,
Foreign Travelers Checks,
Foreign Wire Transfers, etc.

I think that is a bit cleaner and clearer.

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Euros, Canadian Dollars, Swiss Francs,
England Pounds, Japanese Yen, Australian
Dollars, Mexican Pesos, Denmark, Norway, &
Swedish Kroners, Hong Kong Dollars,
Chinese Yuan, South Africa Rand & Many More

This one gave me HIVES! Seriously? I'm not going to get into the fact that in Sweden, they are 'kronor' not 'kroner', but we use something close to the proper names, with the country ADVERB in the name? And 'England Pounds'

Euros, Canadian Dollars, Swiss Francs,
British Pounds, Japanese Yen, Australian
Dollars, Mexican Pesos, Danish, Norwegian, &
Swedish Kroners, Hong Kong Dollars,
Chinese Yuan, South African Rand & Many More

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Listen people, when you take your sign to the printers, please have someone with a passing knowledge of the English language proofread your text.

AND THEN LISTEN TO THEIR ADVICE!

My LAST Visit With My Fiancée

"Last" = Most recent.
"Last" = Final.
While not my "last visit to Seattle" nor the "last time my fiancée will pick me up from the airport", this is the last time I will be visiting Cora out in Seattle as "my fiancée."  My next flight out there will not me a visit.  At 2.5 weeks away, it will be for our wedding.
So we had to get some important things done while I was out there. Very near Cora's house, this guy has a little pasture right in the middle of the suburbs.  In the pasture is a mule, a goat, and a horse.  You'll notice that there are no front supports.  That  dude must have a lot of junk in it's trunk.  I've driven by that thing a couple of times EVERY SINGLE TRIP, but this is the first time I've gotten around to stopping for pictures.

Cora and I then did a little shopping…

No, not at the 40 cent store, silly.  Next to it a Vince's Italian Restaurant.
Our "rehearsal dinner" is going to more of a "pre-reception" where everyone attending the wedding is welcome to show up at the breakfast room in the hotel.  And we tried a couple of different pizza places.  Vince's won hands down.  Their "Vince's Special" – Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms & black olives baked in a brick oven.  Yummy.  Kicked the heck out of my childhood pizza joint, that has a store in the area, SHAKEY's.
Later in the weekend, we went over to my future mother-in-law's new place to check it out.
Gwen & Cora tested out the new reclining loveseat.  I helped solve the riddle of the fan, figured out the dishwasher, figured out the gate on the trash can enclosure (and then realized that there was a 4 foot wide opening in the side of the enclosure to just walk thru) and got the sliding closet door back on the track.
Ooops!  Looks like I'm in trouble.  I'm getting "the finger".  No, honestly, Cora & Gwen where tons of help, too.  They just tuckered themselves out, and needed a bit of a site.I was just kidding.  Honest.
And we did manage to play a couple of games of Harry Potter Clue (we each won one) and Mille Bournes (they'd never played before, so it wasn't really fair, but they did start getting the hang of it.)
And then, **POOF**, the next thing I know, I'm back in my condo, talking to Cora on the phone.
I'm going to love being a family.

I Can Hear Fireworks All Around!

Here come the 'hawks, the mighty, Blackhawks…

Let's Burn One & Make It MEMORIAL!

Okay, so I've been a little MIA recently. Been busy living the dream, so I would have something to add to this great internet conversation.

So, before I can get into my last weekend out with Cora, I feel I should catch you up a little on what else is going on.

So, for the Memorial Day weekend, I figured I hadn't done nearly enough traveling, so I got in my car, and headed out on a 300 mile drive to southern Indiana for my cousins' kids' high school graduation. I figure if they are going to travel all the way to Seattle for my wedding, I can drive down for their graduation. Unlike my sister-in-law who doesn't feel like coming to my wedding, I understand the concept of "family obligations". (Just a little hostile 'bout that at the moment.)

I reconfigured my normal route so that I would pass through the home town of one "Ms. Sassy Britches".

Even though she had just gotten home from her own vacation, she donned the pretty little sundress you ever did see and a hot pink sweater, and met me at the local steak house. We talked about the wedding, her trip, her job, her pending trip to Japan, and just life in general. After we overstayed our welcome at the steak joint, we walked over to the bar where she occasionally bartends. Let me tell you, I've been in a number of bars in small towns in Illinois, but this was hands down the nicest.

At the bar, I made sure to tell one of the local barflies that we were talking to that I was just passing thru, and that I was getting married in a few weeks, hoping to help nip questions in the bud later.

Nope.

We sat around in the bar and talked for another good long while, but the clock kept ticking, and I had a long way left to go before I got to where I was going, so Sassy B. & I walked back to our cars and said our goodbyes. I headed off to Princeton, IN, and she went back to the bar. And as I understand it, got some questioning from her future sister-in-law's sister.

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Saturday was the day of the graduation ceremony. It was inside, in the old, un-air conditioned gym. It was hot, and steamy. Good thing I thought to bring a couple of bottles of water. I was real popular.

After the ceremony, there was a reception before the big party. I fielded a ton of questions about the wedding plans, and got everyone's travel plans. Which I promptly forgot.

I love Gregory Lee's expression in that picture as his wife, Tiffany gives his dad a shoulder massage. (You may remember GL & Tiff's wedding from the INCIDENT AT THE BOUQUET TOSS.) Afterwards, we all went back to Mike's, for the REAL party.

It was there that my cousin, Greg, introduced us to his new girlfriend, Felicia. His wife left him about a year and a half ago, and ran off with another guy. As two tall guys dating short hotties later in life, we were talking, and he said, "People come up to me and ask, 'Don't you just want to punch **soon-to-be-ex-wife's-boyfriend** in the mouth?' Hell, I tell 'em I'd like to buy him a present."

Sunday was a whole lot of hanging out with the family, napping, watching the Indy 500, more napping, more hanging. It ended up with me watching / explaining the plot of Avatar to a bunch of drunk college students.

Monday, after taking a shoe of Mike & Ginger, I got on the road.

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This time leg of the journey took me thru Olney, IL. Home of the white squirrels.

You would think that with a $70 fine for running over one of the pale, demon squirrels (Fargin Beastages have the right of way), that the place would be overrun. Not so much. In fact, just like my on childhood visit there: not a one to be seen.

I'm starting to suspect that it's all just a marketing scam, myself.

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All in all, a good weekend with the old family, setting me up nicely for a weekend with the new family the following weekend. But more on that, later.

When "BP" Stands For "Big Problems"

From: Neil Chapman
Office: BP Press office, Houston

To: All BP Employees

Colleagues. As you may have heard by now, BP has had a slight incident in the Gulf of Mexico with one of our wells. The American media has attempted to paint this miscue with such terms as 'disaster', 'crisis', 'catastrophe', or 'OIL-MAGEDDON 2010!'. We think these terms a a tad harsh and unfair.

Admittedly, we didn't have a plan when it started, but the unsung heroes in our marketing department have worked tireless to come up with cool sounding buzz words like "top hat" & "top kill". Unfortunately, our engineers have not been as successful in employing these methods to actually shut off the undersea oil trickle.

So far, despite the EPIC FAIL of our engineers, and the endless waiting for the Obama administration to get off the side lines bail us out, our governing body has decided to finally take swift and decisive action.

We are reorganizing and renaming the company.

"BP" will remain with only the assets of the Deepwater Horizon well, and all the associated liability and bad PR. Everything else will be folded into a new, better company. Taking a queue from "ValueJet", who changed their name to "AirTran Airways" after they had a little bad press, we have come up with a new name:

American Energy Company – AMECO

Gone are any references to 'British' or 'Petroleum'. It also taps into the goodwill and name recognition of 'AMOCO', but changing the middle 'O' to an 'e' signifies our shift from being an 'oil company' to being an 'energy company'. Also, the use of lower case will make us appear hip and modern. Finally, the green flame is symbolizes our environmental steward ship. (Don't think too hard about that bit, and if anybody asks, make a "lighting farts" joke, and run.)

So, in summary:

• Go marketing!
• Our engineers suck!

Sincerely,

Neil Chapman

PS – Since Edmonton finish with the fewest points in the NHL:
GO BLACKHAWKS!

It's All Relative – Please Do Not Be Eating

For those of you who think that your old buddy Scope may be a little odd, and that his family shakes their collective heads at some of the things he does, let me introduce you to my cousin Mike.

And his friend, Ginger.

To answer your questions:

1. Yes. That's a real goat's head.
2. Yes. It's hanging from a tree outside his house. It has been there since last fall.
3. Eventually, once it is defleshed, it will decorate one of his flowerbeds.
4. He's married, and has reproduced.

Comparatively, I'm damn near normal.

Never Forget…

(Note: Pictures taken by me at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington DC in the fall of 2006.)

El mentiroso! El mentiroso! Allí es llamas sobre sus pantalones!

I would like to express my gratitude to JJ of The World According to JJ in LA, who has nominated me for the Creative Writer Blogger Award.  Along with the award comes some rules:

Express gratitude to the blogger who bestowed the award unto you.	☺
Display the picture on your blog proudly.	☺
Be nice and provide a link to the person who gave it to you.	☺
Tell up to 6 outrageous lies about yourself, and at least 1 outrageous truth, or switch it around and tell 6 outrageous truths and 1 outrageous lie.	☺ See below.
Nominate 7 creative writers who might be into doing this.	☺ See below.
Post links to the seven blogs you nominate and let the owners of those blogs know.	☺ See below.

Based on the wording, "Tell up to 6 outrageous lies about yourself, and at least 1 outrageous truth", I can use any combination of truths and lies about myself below, as long as I use one of each.

1. I love finding the loop hole in someone else's rules, and using that to play the game my way.
2. I am not allowed into "Naked Furniture" anymore.  I showed them how I could stain a pair of drawers in no time, and they asked me not to ever come back.
3. I prefer mustard over ketchup on my freedom fries.  I normally prefer salt & pepper to mustard.
4. Whenever I see 12:34 on a clock, I smile.  But 11:11 doesn't have the same effect.
5. I once solved a Rubic's Cube while riding a bike, no handed.
6. Last month, on a crowded "L" train, a firm and perky 23 year old placed the nipple of her firm C cup in my navel, and kept brushing up against me for 3 stops.  As she excited the train, I asked, "So, am I supposed to tip you?"
7. I have absolutely no desire to have an iPad.  "Hey Apple?  Ever heard of 'PRINTING'?  You got an app for that?  No?  So, I'm supposed to lay it down on the photocopier?  Seriously?  And you think it's futuristic if it can't even PRINT?!?"

As to who to tag, well, JJ took a couple that I would have done, so let's dive into the followers list:

Moooooog35 @ Midget Man Of Steel Presents: Mental Poo	Beckeye @ The Pop Eye
Ryan Ashley Scott @ Optimistic Cynicism	Cowguy @ Sawdust and Cowpies
Fancy Schmancy @ Fancy Schmancy	~E @ *E* Deconstructed
Lisa @ The Butterfly Farmer	Oh, and just so you know the distribution of truth to lies, or lies to truth, it's: 1.5 – 5.5

Jonesing For Pain: Part II

As I explained in PART I of this little saga, "Growing up, we had family friends, the Jones. They lived on the other side of the town. Not "the other side of town". "The other side of THE town". We lived about 2.5 miles southwest of town. They lived about the same distance northeast of town. They had 3 kids that lined up in ages & genders with us, and our dad's went to high school together. That said, we didn't really hang as families a whole lot."

Let me stop here and say, that the youngest boy, Kyle, has always bugged me. He is loud. He is unfunny. He is one of those people who know you didn't like him, but will not STFU or go away. Kyle is the only person who I have ever asked if they wanted out of my car. It was moving at the time. I had no real intentions of slowing down. Sure, he was "held back" in kindergarten and ended up going to a special school for a while to deal with his hyper-active disorder. People tell me he's misunderstood.

I understand him just fine.

While I currently wish him no ill will, in fact I see he horse won at Maywood the other night, but I won't mind if our paths never cross again. So of course, he's one of my brother's best friends.

The incident I am about to describe isn't the only reason I dislike Kyle, but it sure doesn't help.

Once again, maybe 6th grade, Kyle, my brother, Geoff, and I were playing cops and robbers or war or something. We all had fake guns, and were hunting each other. I was sneaking down the back stair case in the dark, trying to out maneuver the younger kids when suddenly, Kyle somehow teleported behind me…

>KRAK-A-TAU<

Little eff'r had taken his plastic rifle and swung it with all his might, shattering the plastic rifle butt against the back of my skull, like you see in those cowboy movies.

I'm not sure if I blacked out or not, but the next thing I knew I was at the bottom of the stairs with a huge welt spurting blood.

I'm not sure I've been back inside the Jones' house since.

Jonesing For Pain: Part I

[Editor's Note: If you are a bit, squeamish, brace yourself.]

Growing up, we had family friends, the Jones. They lived on the other side of the town. Not "the other side of town". "The other side of THE town". We lived about 2.5 miles southwest of town. They lived about the same distance northeast of town. They had 3 kids that lined up in ages & genders with us, and our dad's went to high school together. That said, we didn't really hang as families a whole lot.

One time, we were over there, I'm guessing I was somewhere around 6th or 7th grade, this happened.

I was walking through the living room, on their nice, brown shag carpeting when I sudden felt a stabbing pain; like a needle had had just lanced the little toe on my right foot.

That was because the eldest daughter had been doing some sewing in the living room earlier, and must have lost a straight pin.

FOUND IT!

And, to be helpful, the head must have caught in the shag carpet because it snapped off.

Just so we are all clear, there is now a straight pin, broken off in my little toe. Needless to say, I screamed. A lot.

They laid me down on the couch, and the dad, Jim, found a pair of pliers for my dad to use to try to pull it out. I thought I was in pain before, but the muscles in my little toe must have been enjoying the pain, because they clamped around that needle and wouldn't let got. I fully expected to see my little toe come off as my father tugged and pulled and twisted and yanked on the pin to no avail.

And to this day, it's still in there…

Nah, they rushed me up to the hospital ER (my only trip that I recall), and the vet doctor on call said that there were two options to relax the muscles so that the pin could be extracted, spray or a shot. I begged for the spray, considering that there was already one too many needles in my big toe as was, and didn't really need to have any more in there. The doctor said that the spray rarely worked, so he was going to go with the shot, anyway. (Then why give me the option, you fargin bastage!)

The doctor then pulled out a 37" long hypodermic needle that they must use to inject things into the heart of bull elephants or something. "Hold still, " he says. RIIIIGHT! It took 3 people to hold me down. Right up to the point that that harpoon was an inch from my toe.

I froze. Petrified.

Bang-boom-zip - Shot goes in. Muscles relax. Pin pulls out easy-as-you-please.

Should have had the stupid thing mounted.

And guess what happened the VERY NEXT TIME I WAS OVER THERE…