elyria pride

I was both surprised and heartened to see that Elyria High School's graduation rate was over 90% this year. The year before I graduated, according to the article, it was a mere 63%. Ouch. I'm glad to see they've come so far.

phone rings, door chimes...

...in comes company. I've been cast as Paul in Cassidy Theatre's production of Company! He's the guy who calmly reassures his hysterical fiancee that she is, indeed, "Getting Married Today." He gets a nice tenor solo there too. So that was a nice belated birthday present.

As planned, Stu, Laurie and I took Monday off to go to Cedar Point, and while it was a little chilly in the morning, in the sunny afternoon it was pretty comfortable with a sweatshirt. Maverick wasn't behaving on opening day, so Stu and I wanted to ride that first in case it broke down later. Laurie waited for us outside, but started to feel faint and laid down in the grass. When we got off the ride, Stu had a voicemail saying that she was at First Aid. We're still not sure what caused the dizzy spell; she hadn't even been on any rides yet, and seemed to be fine on the way there.

They suggested I go on a few rides while they figured out what to do. One option would have been for me to ride with them back to our rendezvous point (Midway Mall) to get my car and I'd drive back to the park. Except by then I'd probably just as soon go home, since I have a season pass, rather than spend the rest of my birthday standing in queues by myself.

Or, Stu could take Laurie home and come back. She was well enough to just stay home and rest, so that worked out. It sort of put a damper on the day, and we all felt bad about it for different reasons. I wish she could have been there with us, especially since we were all using vacation days from work to do this, and I felt bad that Stu had to do all that driving to come back and get me.

Nonetheless, I did get on 10 of 17 coasters and generally had a good time. The crowds weren't too bad, but more than one might expect, thanks to buses full of school kids and Senior Skip Day'ers.

In order: Maverick, Skyhawk, Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Gemini, Woodstock Express, Magnum, Corkscrew (which I only ride once every few years), Iron Dragon -- then Stu came back -- Raptor, Blue Streak, Wicked Twister, and Power Tower. I took my digital camera, so the casual pace of my day allowed me to take a lot of pictures, which I'd never done before. We took a train ride back to Frontiertown to see if we could book-end our day with Maverick, but the line was just over an hour so we left.

I was pretty tired by that point anyway, and took a power nap when I got home. Dinner, then cake and ice cream with the family followed that evening. I got a bevy of Target gift cards and a few kitchen utensils to help furnish my upcoming apartment.

Yes, that's right; it's official: I will be moving to Strongsville in one month! It's both exciting and intimidating, as I now need to plan and coordinate things like furniture. I already have a love seat, endtables, a kitchen table, and cooking pans coming my way from friends, but the trick will be storing these things until the moving day. I also need to take some measurements to make sure I can fit the furniture I'm being offered.

And five days after I move, I'm off to New York City for a week, so... there's that.

reminder: cabaret again tonight!

Mike, Kim, and I will again be performing our He Sang/She Sang cabaret tonight (Saturday) at Jim's Coffeehouse, 2 Lake Avenue in Elyria. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show starts at 8:00. This performance will include a special guest as well... A little something for all the baby boomers in the audience. :)

Also, I'll give another plug for tomorrow's Spencer Myer piano concert, sponsored by the Elyria Musical Art Society:

Roller Coaster WITH A BEAR!

I was discussing the use of buzz bar restraints on the Phoenix roller coaster at Knoebels, saying how I didn't particularly enjoy the "airtime" because it constantly thrust my pelvis into said buzz bar, and I spent most of the ride trying to avoid elbowing the person next to me.

(Please excuse our secret Cadre-inspired instant messaging language.)

Me: <CLAKATA CLAKATA>

Justin: mr. if the buzz bar flies up, that's just free excitement
Justin: f, I initially typed "buzz bear"
Justin: lol

Me: fffffffff mmmmmmmmbears.

Justin: a bear will ride along in your car as a safety measure
Justin: lol

Me: gah lol
Me: mr. Rollercoaster With A Bear
Me: the new hit Fox reality show


Not content to leave it at that, I then sketched a splash screen for said new hit Fox reality show:



(Note to coaster enthusiasts: Yes I realize I put a wooden car on a seemingly B&M-esque track. So sue me.)

ugh, brief update

There has been some strange vortex of time since last Wednesday, when I woke up with the beginnings of a cold. I stopped at Rite Aid on the way to work and stocked up on Zicam and Zucol, my secret weapon to decrease the severity and duration of colds.

(Said weapon previously included Airborne, until I realized I was already getting healthy amounts of most of that stuff from my daily multivitamin; plus this lawsuit kinda turned me off of the product. Things like DayQuil that treat symptoms rarely work for me, since they usually just include a painkiller when I have no pain, a cough suppressant when I have no cough, an expectorant that doesn't work, and my favorite placebo, phenylephrine, pseudoephedrine's redheaded stepchild. What I need is something that will stop the flow of snot. After that lovely picture, back to our story.)

Thursday I was pretty tired, but still managed to go to a Cleveland Orchestra concert with Allen. Friday I was dead tired and blowing my nose every two minutes, so I called off work. I thought I might get some work done at home, but I basically drank tea and ate chicken noodle soup whilst piddling around. I still dragged myself to The King and I that night (blowing my nose only during the applause) so I could be prepared to sub on Sunday.

But what annoyed me the most was that I had been waiting for months for Cedar Point to open, and now I might not be able to go. I'm not kidding -- I've been craving coaster since January! We decided to play it by ear, and when I woke up Saturday morning, my voice was still deep but my nose wasn't too stuffy; more importantly, I wasn't overly tired, so I called Stu and we were off to open the season.

We didn't get there quite as early as planned, so we didn't get to avoid the long lines resulting mainly from the number of music students in the park. Top Thrill Dragster was rolling back, Maverick was on the fritz, and after a morning of waiting in lines, we met up with Laurie and Chloe after noon; we'd yet to ride anything. We did get an excellent flight on Millennium Force to kick off the summer, but after that we largely did what Chloe wanted to do. With season passes, we're spoiled and don't enjoy wasting our time with long lines -- particularly when with 2-year-old.

But with the great weather it was nice to just be there and walk around. We left by 4:00, by which point my nose was clogging again and I was getting tired anyway. It was just enough to tide us over until my birthday (one week away!), when Chloe will be in daycare and the three of us are taking a vacation day to visit a virtually empty Cedar Point! Hopefully this will break the tradition of rainfall on May 19th, which it has done ever since 2004, when I started taking a vacation day on my birthday.

I was still a little skittish about The King and I, so I got home, ate a quickie dinner and drove out to Euclid again. I'm glad I did, because I picked up on a few more things. When Sunday came, the show went better than I ever could have imagined, so that was a bit of an ego boost.

The cold is on its way out now, and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be able to function mentally again. I've certainly got plenty going on this week and this weekend that will require some semblance of brainpower.

crayomania

This is one of those things that I can't immediately think of a use for, yet somehow seems like it has to serve some purpose eventually:

All 120 current Crayola colors and their RGB and hexadecimal values

Also, for us Photoshopping types, someone took the values from that list and made a Photoshop palette file for download.

This is kind of crass, but I found this link in one of the comments on that post: Rejected Crayola Names

I guess I don't mail enough letters

Early last year, I was at Target and remembered I needed some stamps. They only sell them in rolls, not sheets, so I had to get 100. I figured that would save me a trip to the post office, where I almost never need to go. (In retrospect, I should have just bought them on usps.com; shipping is only $1.)

A few months later, the rate went up to 41 cents. The post office branches are notorious for running out of small-value stamps whenever the price changes, so I went on usps.com and bought enough 2-cent stamps to finish out my enormous roll of 39's.

Now, a year later -- two days shy of a year actually -- it's going up by 1 cent again. I will now have to put THREE stamps on everything I mail. Ugh! The change goes into effect next Monday, by the way.

It will probably take me even longer to finish up this roll of stamps because I've taken to paying as many things as possible with my credit card (and continuing to pay it off each month), because I like racking up reward points. Last year my flight to Vegas was free using reward points, and soon I will be partially furnishing my kitchen courtesy of Citi Cards. I'm sure Citigroup hates me because, aside from the fee they collect from merchants for each purchase I make, they've yet to earn a cent from me. :)

projects pending

Pending approval of my application, I will be moving to Cherry Tree Village in Strongsville within the next few months. I've got a one-bedroom apartment reserved there which becomes available May 31st, and I can move in after June 15th. My weekends are already filling up (or filled up) this summer, so I'm rather limited as far as move-in dates. More details later once this becomes official.

This is, apparently, the year of new residences. I'm moving out of my parents' house for the first time (before I'm 30, no less!), Bre just bought her first house, and Stu & Laurie are building a new house as well. In addition, my parents picked up a bargain in Elyria: a foreclosed home that had been up for sheriff's sale but was re-purchased by the bank, then put on the market at literally half the price.

And when I say "bargain," I'm referring only to the cost of acquiring said property, not the cost of making it fit for habitation. To call it a "fixer-upper" would do a grave disservice to the English language.

Nonetheless, my parents have always wanted to own a historic home, especially one with a Second Empire mansard roof, so this fits that bill. Mind you, once the house is made livable, they will also need to fix up their current house to make it fit for sale. On the plus side, by the time that happens, hopefully the real estate market will have improved.

What else, what else. Last week my brother and sister-in-law were told they will be having a boy this September. Cedar Point opens this Saturday, and Stu/Laurie/Chloe and I will be going bright 'n' early to try and avoid the crowds of music students who will be occupying the park later in the day. (We're also going to see the beagle.) Sunday, I'm subbing for a performance of The King and I. Before you know it, we'll have Spelling Bee at Playhouse Square, the chicken BBQ at my church, another cabaret at Jim's Coffeehouse, the Spencer Myer concert at LCCC, auditions for Company, and my birthday.

There's one other exciting item pending, but per usual, it's not bloggable material. :)


Edited to add: Happy Star Wars Day. May the Fourth be with you.