Booze, Bloggers, and Boots,

My god, you Baltimore Bloggers (and blog readers) are a fun lot to get drunk with!

J-e-s-s-i-c-a, with her blogstars Russell and Rachel, got there before me and started it all off. (And yes, she is as adorable in Real Life as she is on her blog!)

Two new-to-Baltimore bloggers also came in early: Dedalus who promised to write his post on the Happy Hour in both Italian (what is blog is usually written in) AND English (thanks!) and Bonanza Jellybean . Okay, Bonanza Jellybean isn't new to Baltimore, she was gone for a while but happily she's back now. Hopefully she found her missing shoes?

Soon Snay (who indeed did seem quiet to me at first, but I think one of us loosened up after a few drinks...wait, Snay only HAD one drink, huh...)and Broadsheet arrived. It was good to see Ms. B out and about and looking happy and HEALTHY!!!

Next Lost Gal, Seadragon, and the Cheese came in. Then sooo many bloggers! So many wonderful, friendly, funny, generous bloggers. It was enough to make one's head spin (especially after a few drinks).

Really, the group was too big to get to chat it up with everyone. But I got to meet a bunch of bloggers who I've read but hadn't yet met, especially Neckbone and Queenie, and A Side of Gravy and his lovely wife.

Other bloggers were not able to make it, but sent others in their place. Common Wombat was well-represented by his very charming and funny wife, S (who I think is on her way to becoming a blogger herself!). TextureSlut was there, with his excellent friend Mandiferous, but we did miss his partner in crime, Team Moose and Squirrel.

Was it me, or did ACW avoid any crazy topics of discussion? Did ACWF keep him in line? Or his Brother (and now Guest-Blog)Mokie, or K-Mart keeps things on an even keel? Or was I just on the other side of the bar and couldn't hear it all?

We had a good practice session for the massive send-off party that we will *have* to throw for our beloved Fool. Epiphany showed up later on, and kindly put up with me ranting at him. And Jason kept insisting that he could out trash talk me on football. Hah. It is the beginning of a long, long season!

Zenchick kept it all together and passed around the donations bucket. I will get a total of how much was raised, but a LOT of it came from the bucket. Good thinking, Zen!

I am sure I have missed people. Zen and I were trying to figure out how many people turned out. We had some non-bloggers, including the Best Friend and Artist (from my blog), plus the kick-ass Polish hairdresser and her girls from Fells Point, and Fred, and a few others who happened to just wander in. We took our best guess at 40. What do you all think? Just out of curiosity.

Especially want to thank Eric, one of the non-bloggers, who kept me supplied with the evil cigs so that I didn't have to go buy any, (Mandiferous and TextureSlut were generous, too!).

Oh, and I think I need to apologize. I apparently am the only one who thinks that my boots are red. According to everyone else, they are brown. It was the light, people! Seriously!

Okay, that's all I can remember for now (plus, I should try to get some work done today!). I'll find out this afternoon how much we raised, and put a post up.

In the meanwhile, thanks to everyone for such a fun night! Bloggers rock!!!

Catch a Buzz for a Cause

Tonight's the night, Baltimorians! Bloggers, readers, and just regular folks!

And what a night! The weather has turned, the season's changed, it is a little chilly out. It's a perfect day for a tall beer with in a good pub.

You can find us at Slainte, 1702 Thames St
Baltimore, Maryland 21231

We will be on the 2nd floor! This is very important! You will miss all the fun if you stay downstairs! (Plus the upstairs is nicer.)

The Happy Hour officially runs from 5-9 pm. Between that time, 10% of the proceeds from all drinks will be donated to the American Red Cross for their Hurricane relief.

Lots of people need this aid, so lets build it up! So please come to the Happy Hour, and raise a pint and continue the fine human tradition of helping out.

Can't wait to see you there!

Jenn

PS. For those who I've yet to meet, I will be the female in the red boots. I will no doubt look a little silly in them, but this will identify me as a blogger, so you needn't worry about finding us. (I'm thinking Dedalus, John, Cosmic Shambles, and others! Ben? How about you? ) Please come over and say Hi!

Probability

Somewhere along the lines I decided that it was a smart move to start taking biostatistic courses. I thought: Hell, I've been doing stats for a few years now. I'll take a few stat courses, my job will pay for them and they will be easy, and I'll get a degree while I'm working on my two main projects. In two years, I'll have a new degree (earn more $$), have finished my main projects now, and will be set to hop into the PhD.

Right. Like the Ravens football team, it looks good on paper yet is crap in real life.

Today was the Mid-Term. I'd forgotten what it's like to study too long, sleep too little, and still go into a test not quite prepared. "P"= Probability, which I've never been very good at... "|"= Given, such as in the below example:

Please calculate P(Getting a decent grade | Jennetic didn't study enough)

[In English: what is the line on Jenn getting a decent grade, given that she didn't prepare enough?]

HINT: The probability is very, very small.

Thank god it's only TWO MORE DAYS until the Happy Hour! YAY!!

Well, at least it's only a mid-term. I have a whole other half semester to try to make improvements.

NOTE: Updated to attempt to make this sensible. Sort of.

Too Busy to Blog

Stupid work, stupid classes. But never fear, let me shunt you off to two Bust yer Gut posts by two fellow Balto bloggers.

First, a big welcome to Cosmic Shambles. If I had any energy left I'd find something clever to say, but as it is just read up. I hope he's in a public works job, it might be a worthy use of my tax dollars. The mind of males- terrifying (in the best of ways)!

Second, holy christ, it's the Common Wombat and a lesson on why you shouldn't shit the bed. Really.

It's all I can do to read a blog these days, let alone type one out- but only one week to DRINKING TIME! Horray! Potentially more later on.

On My Voicemail [Or Why I'm Single]

Hi Jenn. I'm glad you didn't pick up, I was hoping to leave you a voicemail.

Listen, I'm sorry about the other night. I'd had too much to drink and I shouldn't have come over and bothered you. I don't really remember a lot about it. But I do think we talked about meeting up for coffee or something? [ed note: no, we didn't. It was an unannounced visit, very short, to the Hobbit Hole way too late at night.]

Well, if you do want to meet up for coffee, that would be cool. Just give me a call. Or, if you don't want to meet up, if you just want to leave well enough alone, that's fine too. Whatever.

Bye.


Three minutes later, another voicemail

Hi Jenn. Listen, I want to come clean with you. I didn't want to leave a voicemail. I fucking hate it when you don't pick up the phone, when you ignore me.

I don't really want to meet up with you to have coffree. What I'd really like to do is to have a few beers with you and [expletive] your brains out.

So I lied about the voicemail and the coffee, but I swear that everything else I said is true.

So if that sounds okay to you, give me a call.

But when you do, I won't pick up. Leave a message. I'll ignore your call just as you ignore mine.

Bye.

We're On

Yes! No longer the blurry dream of college-students and weary alcoholics, we now have a Truth: Beer can in fact improve the state of the world. At least here in Baltimore and in the Gulf states of America.

Place: Slainte's in Fells Point, 2nd floor. If you've not been here yet, you're missing out on one of the best Irish bars in town: good beer, authentic decor, and great view.

When: Thurs. Sept 29th, from 5-9 pm (although of course we can all stay later than that!)

How it will work: Come in, bring your friends and family, and order lots and lots of drinks. Part of the proceeds from the evening will go to the Red Cross.

You don't have to add anything more (although we'll have buckets available in case anyone gets very generous as the beer flows)- all you have to do is drink up to be a Good Citizen and Contributor.

You should know that Slainte's also has very tasty Irish and American pub food, to satisfy the munchies. Yum!!!

And, while we want this to be a good Blogger Happy Hour, anyone who shows up contributes. This means YOU, reader, lurker, or blogger who wishes to remain anonymous, are also very welcome. You can come watch those of us who are willing to be identified in public get drunk and silly, heh. Since it's Thurs. night, we can all tell our bosses on Friday that we're tired and not feeling well due to helping to get the Katrina folk back on their feet. How much trouble can you get into over that?

So please, spread the word! Do good by being bad, by drinking up, two weeks from tomorrow!

Blogger Happy Hour Update

While I was away last week, the magnificant Zenchick has been working in the background. We are close to having a place, and we've switched the date to Thursday, Sept 29th. Hopefully this is enough time for some of the bloggers who work nights to get that night off. I think Thursday is generally a good night for a Happy Hour, and it works better for our potential venue, too. More info to come as we get this thing set up.

Perfect Day

That was yesterday: perfect.

First there was football. Hundreds of screaming Steelers fans packed into the Purple Goose Saloon. Thanks to a match date who ended up a friend, the Best Friend and I had seats saved for an afternoon of glory. Big Ben threw a near perfect game, and ended up with a perfect QB rating of 158.3. He made 9/11 passes, which ended up as a nice tribute on 9/11/2005. He was just awesome. Then, Willie Parker! WILLIE PARKER! OMG, that was just amazing! Who knew?

Next, there was a lovely, lovely, lovely date. It's odd, but there may be a chance of having a significant other in the near future. Usually, though, the guys I like don't feel the same, and the guys I don't like tend to want more. Maybe with a change of season, this particular trend will end. One can always hope.

Last, there was the Ravens game. I don't know what the Ravens did to deserve an opening game against the Colts, but it couldn't have been good. The Ravens played very well- too well, for a Steelers fan's comfort- against the Colts early on, but the Colts showed up after the first half. While it's nice that we're one game up over the Ravens, the Ravens defense showed that it's still here, it's still formidible, and given a few more games may once again be deadly. If the Ravens ever get a decent QB, they could regain their dominant stature. I fully expect to see the Ravens trounce the Titans next week.

All I can say is, this for me was the official start of Autumn. Football. Hockey follows shortly. Life is good good GOOD!!!

Location, Location, Location

Stolen shamelessly from Zenchick, please follow the link and vote, or cast your preferences here in the comments or email.


Below is a list of ideas for venues. Please let us know if you have any connection with owner, manager, other staff, and the like.

(an * indicates either a connection has been established, or they are thought of as likely to agree to some form of this.)


*Mount Washington Tavern (Mount Washington, obviously)
*Koopers Tavern (Fells Point)
Red Star (Fells Point)
*Crazy Lil's (Federal Hill)
Red Maple (Mount Vernon)
Hard Rock Cafe (Power Plant-Inner Harbor)
Louisiana (Fells Point-swanky, but the name...)

What do you think? Any of these look good?

Do Good By Drinking Beer! (or Wine, Liquor, and any/all Combinations

One might notice it's been awfully quiet on the topic of the Blogger Happy Hour. It's hard to think of much beyond Katrina, and it's perhaps unseemly to think of fun and entertainment in the midst of such tragedy.

Well, what the heck is Baltimore, if not Unseemly? But with its own charm, ya know, so what better way than to beat back the Katrina blues than by raising a pint (eventually gallons, if all goes well) towards the survivors and those who want to help out? Even in the worst of situations, life goes on, and sometimes life just goes better with beer.

On that note, the fabulous Zenchick and I thought that maybe a Combo Happy Hour/Katrina Buster might be in order. Sooo, we are looking to throw a blogger (and non-bloggers and lurkers, too! We lurve lurkers!) bash to make some $$$$ for charity.

What we need:

1. Feedback. (Stupid idea? [piss off then!]Good idea? How to make this a BETTER idea?)
2. A venue: a local bar/tavern who would help raise funds during this shin-dig.
3. A few brave souls willing to spread the word
4. Many brave souls willing to guzzle 'em down to help out others
5. A few sober people to get us all home safely (well, that will have to be an individual responsibility, I'm afraid).

When: We're thinking around...Tues. Sept 27th.

Come out and contribute to the recovery of the worst disaster in our history- by having a few drinks and a few laughs. Maybe we could even get a band involved, and make it an Old Time New Orleans moment with a Baltimore twist.

Volunteers, anyone?

Spawn of Hell Katrina
Lots of people have already blogged about Katrina. I have family in Mobile, Alabama. Thankfully everyone is okay. My aunt has helped set up tents and a shelter. I can't get down there to help out in the immediate future, but the entire area will need help in the months ahead. Hopefully sometime later on I can do more. At this time, all I've been able to do is donate. If you haven't, please do.

The thing I keep thinking about is disaster preparedness, and we are now confronted with several uncomfortable issues.

It is evident now that disaster planning and response failed in pretty much every area: local, state, and federal. One of classes for my MS degree was in Terrorism, but really the professor was an expert in Disaster Planning and Response. His expertise and skill landed him at the scene of nearly every major successful terrorism event in the 15 years prior, so that he is known as one the big go-to guys in Terror events. However, I have no doubt whatsoever that he is in New Orleans now.

At the local level, the police force was not prepared (for instance, not ensuring that all radios had new batteries, apparently not having a loose response plan set, etc). The Superdome was not adequately staffed with police or medical people, nor was there food/drink prepared for a duration of one week (which is standard).

I've read a lot of discussion about evacuation. One very uncomfortable issue here is dollars and sense: who would accept 100,000 people who were too poor to pay for food/rent, and pre-disaster, how many of them would have agreed to evacuate? In hindsight, I think that shelters could be disbursed across different Southern states, in areas not likely to be hit. But foresight is 20-20; to my (albeit limited) knowledge, it is not standard practice for Tennessee to open shelters before a storm for people from Alabama, but maybe in the future there should be. It will cost a lot of money to do this, particularly since we are not very good at predicting when/where/whether/at what strength a storm will hit. Now that we unfortunately know the cost of inaction, perhaps we will have the political will to bear the cost of pro-action.

I am less surprised at the slow Federal response, but this is because I was "trained" to expect a reaction-time of approximately three days. Since this was an on-going disaster (as opposed to a terrorist attack, in which generally there is one or two events close to each other in time, then it stops and response teams can engage), it is saddening but not particularly shocking that it took several days for a semi-coherent response.

I suspect that a lot will change due to Katrina. FEMA may become first responders, as the local government was overwhelmed from the beginning of this disaster (and I am not sure that even with better preparedness, the NO government could have done much more regarding looting, response, and rescue). I do think localized planning will be different (such as the shelter idea above). Unfortunately we really only learn from experience, and I am not cynical enough to believe that some major lessons won't be garnered from this horrible tragedy.

I Heart My Attitude Problem

So snarled my long-time friend, K, as she twisted her old mini-van around a horse-drawn cart taking up half the rural NY road. She was driving me to her new home from the Rochester airport for a weekend of R and R in the northeastern boonies.

Fun times, really. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, PA, (well, an hour north of Philly, but it was all forests, streams, rocks, fields, cows, and so forth. Suburbia hadn't appeared yet), so I'm comfortable in small towns. K introduced me to everybody- the shop cashiers, the bank teller, the postal woman, because she knows them all. She got married when she was only 17 years old, remarried eight years ago, and now has a house full with four kids, a husband, one cat, two new-born kittens, and a dog. She knows all her neighbors. We went out for one night and she knew most of the people in the bar. Small-town America.

It was a great weekend, one week ago. I have to admit that I kind of have a thing for blue-collar guys in flannel shirts and jeans, especially chivalrous guys who bring blankets to you in the chilly evening and show up at the house early with donuts for the kids and flowers for the house guest.

K's kids are wonderful. It's been a long, long time since I've spent three straight days with a group of little and not-so little kids. One 7 year old daughter wanted to go with us everywhere; the boys, at 12 and 14, hung out nearby but kept themselves busy playing Frisbee and lacrosse. The 16 year old daughter, who has grown into a very smart, beautiful young woman, split her time between her mom and I and her siblings. It was a lovely thing to be part of the family for a weekend, and to spoil the kids a little with books and treats.

On Sunday, I was off to the airport, and somehow managed stupidly to board the wrong plane. I'd had very little sleep due to the early arrival of the cute blue-collar guy, and had my face in the bouquet of flowers walking through the airport, and just walked on to the plane that was at my gate when I got there. I was seated and had pulled out my book when the pilot announced over the loudspeaker that they were being delayed due to strong winds and thunderstorms, and that their arrival time had been pushed back to 6:26. I jerked my head up, startled, because my arrival time had been 6:45. I asked the guy next to me if this plane was going to Baltimore.

No, he said, tipping his Braves baseball hat. Um, we're going to Atlanta.

SHIT! Luckily, due to the delay, I was still able to get off the plane. I stumbled back into the airport, and sat down in an open seat in front of the TV, laughing at myself. CNN was on, and it gave me my first glimpse of the storm, Katrina, as she headed towards the Gulf Shores.