I find myself . . . humbled.

Much of this will not be news to many of you (since we did not exactly hide what was going on when it happened), but last week our youngest, Georgia, got sick.

Quite sick.

We were on our way back from Kendra’s Birthday Extravaganza in Barcelona, Spain, when we got a call from my mom and dad, who had been babysitting the kids. She wanted us to know that little Jordi was running a fever. It wasn’t too bad, but she felt we should know. “No big deal,” we said . . . we were on hour 31 or so of a 39 hour trip home, and so our give-a-fuck about anything was pretty low. “Just keep an eye on her and if it gets BAD let us know.”

Flip a coin, what shall we talk about?

Last night Kendra and I kicked off her Amazing Birthday Adventure (she will be turning *ahem* years old next week, and we’re going on a trip to celebrate . . . in fact I’m writing this post from the airport. Look! The future!) with a concert.

My longest-standing favourite band ever ever is Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers (previously known as The Refreshments of “Banditos” fame). They’re a band local to Arizona and despite getting brief national/international fame, they’ve stayed true to their Southwestern roots. I’ve seen them in concert more times than I could possibly count.

Agincourt600 – The Trip!

Back in September I subjected regaled you all with a short history lesson about the Battle of Agincourt and why I thought it was awesome (hint for those who didn’t read it don’t remember: A) because it was historically important [duh], B) because I studied it in grad school, and C) because I was going to the battle site for it’s 600th anniversary!).

Well it’s now been a couple of months since that 600th anniversary trip and I have finally taken the time to process and upload the photos from that trip, so I thought I would tell you all about it . . .

WordCamp US, 2015

This past weekend I had the opportunity to participate and volunteer at the Inaugural WordCamp US in Philadelphia, which is a nation-wide conference for developers of, professionals who work with, and major fans of the software which runs 25% of the Internet . . . WordPress.

It was by no means my first WordCamp, which are held regularly all over the world, but it was my first national-level WC. Before WCUS, the main national WordCamp in the United States has been held in San Francisco each of the previous 9 years and I had never managed to make it, much to my regret. I was so excited to finally get to attend this gathering of people who make WordPress such a huge part of their lives . . . and it didn’t disappoint in the slightest!

A story about The Scottish Play.

Almost a year and a half ago I was sweating myself to death in London, just two months in to the epic Project Wanderlust. Kendra, Mal, and I were living in a fairly small one-room studio for the month, and we were about to be joined by our friend Kylie who would be staying for a fortnight (I know, what were we thinking? Things got . . . cozy. Not like that, pervs).

Agincourt600

As you may or may not know, I have not always been the captain of industry and king of all things technological that you see before you. In fact, once upon a time, I was a fish in an entirely different pond . . . the vast ocean of academia.

Whilst I was such a gill-bearing aquatic creature, I had vague visions of some day being a college professor in my own right; so the fact that I specialized in Medieval and Renaissance Warfare was . . . well, it wasn’t quite as ridiculous at the time as it sounds now.

OK, yes it was. But there were knights and they hit each other with swords!! That shit is just cool.

For my Master’s thesis (yes, you may call me The Master . . . no relation) I wrote fairly extensively on the topic of propaganda. Specifically, I compared two incredibly bloody battles and how they were perceived not just at the time but since then.

The definition of “frustration”

I have been borderline obsessed with a specific work of art for almost half my life. It’s a French piece from the end of the 19th century by William-Adolphe Bouguereau called “Young girl defending herself against Eros.”

If you’ve been in my home, you know I have a framed print of it, but the print (or any print of an oil) just doesn’t do it justice.

What an adventurous year!

Google Plus has done its magic and created a “year in review” out of the photos and videos which I uploaded to their service. Since I have my phone set to backup to G+, that means pretty much every photo I took with my phone (it’s too bad I don’t back up my nice camera to the service, the video would be pretty epic!). As you’ll soon see, I take a ridiculous number of photos of my kid. 😉

What this really does is drive home just how great an adventure my family and I had this year . . . and how much I hope to be able to continue having them in the years to come!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO1lJTtjOVA]

Thanks for putting this together for me, folks at Google!

Rain in the desert

There’s something so special about it. When I was growing up in Arizona I would go out in our annual monsoons every chance I got, and apparently that hasn’t changed much.

Let’s chat.

Let’s talk about Vegas, shall we?

So I had to work Friday night. It sucked all around. It was a REALLY bad night money-wise and I was not happy. But I headed home asap and of course could not sleep (which is pretty normal for me the night before a trip). We got up and the airport was its normal awful self. The flight was more-or-less uneventful and I didn’t freak out too much — which is ALWAYS welcome, especially to those who I am travelling with.

We hit Vegas and immediately made our way to Caesar’s where we managed to get into our rooms despite it being only about 9:30 am. We then discovered that not even Margaritaville was open for lunch that early so started losing money at some crappy fake-Irish bar/casino across the street.

You know what? This is gonna take forever. Let me just break down the highlights: Vegas ROCKS. I saw all sorts of beautiful sights in those casinos. Their attention to detail is nothing short of amazing. That first day we walked a lot and ducked into places like Bellagio, MGM-Grand, NYNY, etc. We then managed to meet up with Carrie and Ruth who were in town because Ruth is shipping out soon to Italy where she’ll be stationed for who-knows-how-long. To be perfectly honest, they made the trip. They allowed me to get all drunk and stupid, and they allowed my parents to let me get drunk and stupid because it’s all a lot more OK when you’re accompanied by two beautiful women. The highlight of Saturday came at the end when the two girls and I went down to Freemont Street and BOTH of them won pretty big on nickle slots. Ruth won a total of about $180 and Carrie won $40 or so, both on a Monopoly themed slot.

The next day the girls had to leave for home, so it was just Mom, Dad, and me. We walked some more and went to Wynn, where I actually decided to play the same Monopoly-themed game the girls did. I sat down, fed the machine a 20, and promptly got to play the video-monopoly part. And play I did. For a while. A LONG while. I didn’t even occur to me that I was doing particularly well until a woman started staring at me.

So turns out I ended up winning a bit. Like $450. On a nickle slot machine. It was awesome.

Over the rest of the day I actually hit it semi-big twice more. Once for $250 and a final one for $50. In all I pulled about $750, not counting the many times that I came out even or a few bucks ahead. It was, in short, a VERY lucky time for me in that ol’ City of Sin.

That’s about it as far as adventure goes. We went and saw a VERY abbreviated (and thus very disappointing) performance of Phantom of the Opera. The casting was great and the effects were wonderful, but a 3 hour play simply CANNOT be performed in 1:45. It just can’t.

So, to see all the pics, you just need to go to wsfits.com/vegas06.html to see the whole grand adventure in picture form.  Not really of course, because unlike Ruth, I didn’t bring my nice camera, so was stuck with my uber-crappy old cybershot which just isn’t as much fun!  Nonetheless, there are a few nice snaps so enjoy.

Take care everyone.  It’s now just after midnight on what is now Christmas Day.  It’s not really my thing, but I still feel like I should be in bed by now!

Hasta,

~Ash.