Christmas: T Minus Twelve Days

Today is the “Three Kings” issue.

I Am The King Of Sleep
Not through the entire night mind you…

On three occasions this holiday season I’ve attempted to watch Rankin/Bass Christmas specials. My favorites!

Friday night I fell asleep while watching A Year Without A Santa Claus.

Saturday night I fell asleep while watching Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Last night it was Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town.

Each time I slept for about 20 minutes, somewhere in the middle of the show. Perhaps I should be the King of Naps!

ITP Flickr Pic From The Archives
2008: “All I Want For Christmas Is For Santa To Give Me Back To Mommy” (Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
All I Want For Christmas Is For Santa To Give Me Back To Mommy
When all was right in the world the Atlanta Hash used to hold its annual Christmas Pub Crawl in East Atlanta. This year it was held in the Decatur area. Fuck you, 2016!

ITP Flickr Pic
“Strange Days Have Found Us” (Decaturish, Georgia, United States)
Strange Days Have Found Us
I went to a strange place yesterday. I understand that in some languages it’s called a “gym”; this one was called “LA Fitness”.

I Am (Not) The King Of Cycling
While I spent my hour pedaling the stationary cycle depicted above I listened to a highly-entertaining “The Forward” Podcast with Lance Armstrong in which Lance interviewed Bo Jackson. I know many people really dislike Lance for various reasons, but I don’t count myself as one of them.

Toward the end of the interview the two discussed Bo’s now-annual bike ride in Alabama called Bo Bikes Bama, which I was surprised to hear was a five-day ride back in 2012 (!). Bo Bikes Bama is now a one-day ride in Auburn (yuck! but makes sense) and next year will be held on Saturday, April 29th, 2017.

According to Jackson the money raised, after expenses, goes toward building community tornado shelters in Alabama.

My first thought was “Oh great, that’s the same weekend as the BRAG Spring TuneUp ride. Figures!” But I was glad to see that I was wrong when I looked at my calendar to find the Spring TuneUp ride is to be held the prior weekend.

Guess who has already secured a hotel room in Auburn for the nights of April 28th and 29th. Moi! I’d also be registered for the ride if registration had been open yesterday; I’ve given them an email address to notify me when registration opens.

I Am The King Of Bingo
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go to Lucky’s Burger & Brew in Emory Village last night. There were two other options that sounded good — a German mixer at some German Society of which I had never heard, and a special evening of beer at The Midway Pub. However, repetition is king in my life and I’ve already spent the money for gift cards at Lucky’s (and gotten a 20% return on my investment!) so Lucky’s it was.

I didn’t even expect there to be Bar Bingo last night, but the guy said that their hiatus starts after next Monday’s show; I guess the beer drinking affects my memory?

Hank and I sat at the bar, as we do, and bantered with the bartenders, as we do, waiting for our number to be called, as we do. After stating how he never wins, Hank won the penultimate game last night and in the process picked up $10 gift card. I was going to be stymied again?!?! It all came down to the final “cover all” game… I sat waiting on one number, B-4, for at least five balls — and then it was called! Triumphantly I walked to the caller, only to be followed by two stragglers who finally realized that they too had BINGO. Ba! Humbug! However, all was once again right in the world when my 33% chance of winning came true when the tie-breaker ball was an “N”, as I claimed it would be. For my efforts I won another $20 gift card, and if I understand their system correctly I am now qualified for the Spring Bingo Big Game.

Christmas Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

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20 Responses to Christmas: T Minus Twelve Days

  1. Barb says:

    We have seriously thought about Bo Bikes Bama – I have a FB friend that does it every year (she did go to Auburn) & has told me we should come check it out.
    If Allan’s schedule doesn’t change with this new LT stuff (he doesn’t know if he will have to move stations yet, or to a new shift) then he has Friday 4/28 & Sat 4/29 off.

    is that Miguel (aka PWD)?

    Congrats on Bingo.

  2. That would be cool, Barb. Yesterday was the first I heard of that ride.

    It is PWD!

    Thanks, I apparently inherited my bingo skills from my mother. 😉 Speaking of my mom, she is back at her house. She has a walker to get around. I talked to her on Saturday and will be giving her a shout today.

  3. bob says:

    Damn! I have wanted to do Bo Bikes Bama for a while now, he gets some sort of celebrity participants too. A couple years ago Brian Bosworth rode and last year Brett Favre rode. This year it conflicts with the Roswell mayor’s ride and crit AND cub scout spring campout.

  4. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    Yeah they mentioned some of the sports celebrities who have ridden, including Favre and Bosworth. They said that there were about 1500 riders last year. I kinda wish I had heard of this a few years ago, not that I was riding a whole lot then…

  5. Barb says:

    Interesting Bob – the Mayor’s ride used to always be in May. Everyone is just messing with dates anymore. And- isn’t the Mayor’s ride on Sunday? did that change too?

  6. Steve says:

    I’m pretty sure that’s the weekend for Rolex in Kentucky, so I know we’ve already made plans for that.

    And you passed up a German mixer to go play bingo with Hank? Du bis verruckt!
    (something I’ll never have to ask the translator about!)

    45 minutes of Suffering last night and watching a little Jay Leno’s Garage. He was riding in a wheel standing dragster with it’s 80 year old driver. The wheelstand went well and they turned to repeat and rolled the car multiple times. Nice footage of them getting knocked about in the car!! Ouch.

    I have too much PTO so have to take the rest of the week off… boo hoo.

    -FP

  7. Stacy says:

    Whose kid is that?

  8. Barb says:

    too much PTO – what a problem………..
    I feel so sad for you Steve.

  9. Barb says:

    hey Steve – don’t get your hopes up- but I might finally upload all the pictures off my camera tonight. Its only been about 2 years since I’ve done it……….. maybe we can finally see what pictures Allan took at the Masters.

  10. Hmmm, blog comment emails are dirt slow today so I am now seeing all of the comments that happened after 10am.

    Even after 19 years at Echostar my PTO amount sucked — three weeks vacation, one week sick time.

    I didn’t go to play bingo with Hank, I went to drink beer with Hank. I didn’t RSVP for the mixer in time nor did I acquire the necessary unwrapped toy needed to go, so that’s why I didn’t attend the mixer. And besides, my German is still terrible…

    The baby belonged to a woman named Kay, who has since moved back to England. I don’t recall what Kay’s hash name was. If Martha still read this blog she’d be able to help out because she was friends with Kay.

    Okay, back to my German homework so that I am not completely lost tonight, at our final class of this session. Geez, where does the time go!?!

  11. Steve says:

    And your German will not get any better without practicing!! And it was a mixer, mit dem possible frauleins, ja?

    I took a couple of days for Rolex, some time to go to Colorado for the RTC meeting, a bunch (7 or 8) days for the Games, and carried over 53 hours from last year. Trying not to carry more than 80, else I get a spanking.

  12. Steve says:

    And there might be pictures? NFW! I’m wearing my Masters shirt today!!

  13. I don’t know who would have been at this sort of mixer. Anyway, what’s done is done.

  14. Jenka says:

    Heh re: Steve’s PTO. I am currently sitting on 197 hours of vacation and 867 hours of sick time. Our vacation gets capped at 320 hours, otherwise they don’t care if we use it or not.

    I remember Kay, she was on the Buzz.

    Just catching up on the last week. Sometime I’d really love to do Thursday trivia, both because I love trivia and the location is 3 blocks from my house.

  15. Steve says:

    Now I feel like a piker!

    This Thursday? Anyone, anyone, Bueller?

  16. Barb says:

    I can carry up to 30 days (don’t make me do math , but its 240 hours) and then we are capped. They start bothering us if we get more than 20 days on the books. I think I get 24 days vacation a year – plus 5 days sick time. Since I hit the 10 years, its 4 weeks plus 4 days of “floating” holidays because Matson has offices in Hawaii, Guam & otheer countries. I’m pretty good at using up most of those days each year, but I like to have approx. 10 in the bank, just in case.

    Thursday – Allan isn’t working, Trivia somewhere – maybe? Where are you thinking? If Stacy & Aron are there on a separate team, we can only get 2nd place.
    And – I’d also need to talk him out of painting…….. but I could try.

  17. For years Echostar’s vacation was “use it or lose it” every year. Therefore I never could build up much in reserve. In my latter years I did all of my traveling so I effectively used up every hour allotted to me.

    This Thursday I will be going to the Alliance Theatre (Hertz Stage) to see “Courtney’s Cabernet” so you should all tell me how you did in Friday’s blog. 🙂

  18. bob says:

    I may be wrong about the mayor’s ride date, not sure it has been finalized for 2017 yet.

    Our vacation is use it or lose it so getting anything done between Thanksgiving and the end of the year is just about impossible. I have been here forever so I get 5 weeks of vacation, really hard to burn that much.

  19. Jenka says:

    Which is why I said “sometime I’d like to do Thursday trivia” because we’re going to the Messiah this Thursday, and next Thursday I’ll be in Macon, and the following Thursday I’ll be in Ellijay. Soooo, yeah. Sometime.

    You would think that those companies with “move it or use it” policies would realize that productivity stops during the last two months of the year?

  20. Paulie [eatl/ga] says:

    I could plan five weeks of vacation for 2017 by tomorrow. Hell, I have three weeks of travel on my schedule already!

    I heard you Jenka. Sometime we shall play trivia. 🙂

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