Beachfront!

Well la-dee-da! We're on the beach!
We've switched hotels and now have a beach-front spot. Our balcony is facing the ocean, and I just watched a beautiful sunset. Sadly I was alone - Gussies still out there working.
I expect she'll be starving when she gets back - to alleviate that I have located a restaurant which I believe will be good to eat at. I want to eat out tonight because;

A: I like eating out, except for the paying part.
B: We don't have a lot of groceries - we really need to go. Will we go tonight? Maybe.

We head back to Illinois on Saturday. Yeah! Then Christmas. Yeah!

Gloating just aint my style (He LIES!)

Now I aint gonna lie; if I had a choice between an ice-storm in Illinois and 80 degree weather on Florida's beautiful Gulf side, I would have to choose the Gulf. That's just how I feel about it.
And as it so happens, the Gulf of Mexico is exactly where I'm at. Gussie and myself have been here for about 5 days, and until today it's been beautiful and gorgeous and all that. Today was stormy, which was neat in its own right, but prevented us from canoing, as we had so desired.
Christmas is approaching fast, which is exciting and terrifying. It's funny to be down here enjoying Christmas lights and music while heading for the beach. It doesn't feel right...

Well we entirely skipped posting for the month of November. Turkey was at the core of that decision, I believe.
We now (all of us, everywhere) find ourselves in December. I'm in a coffee shop called Cafe Kopi in Champaign, IL. It's fantastically cold here, and as I type I'm wearing knit gloves. This makes typing a slight pain in the ass, but my computer was in the trunk of our rented Ford Focus for about 3 hours, and is now as cold as a block of frozen ice. Maybe colder.
I'm taking a short break from my game-making work to report exciting news. Gussie and I got word today that we're off to Fort Myers Florida from now until sometime around Christmas. This is fantastic news for us, as we both would pick warm weather over cold, thunderstorms over ice storms, sandals over snowshoes, ect ect. We like warm, and if the weather channel isn't lying, that's exactly what we're going to get.
In cataclysmic camera failure news, our most recent replacement camera has gotten sick and been dropped off at Best Buys, so we havn't taken photo's in awhile. Soon though, we may have another faulty camera to use for a few weeks before it mysteriously breaks (or gets dropped off a cliff).
Next updates should be from the Gulf of Mexico. Cheers!

Hallowhaat?

It's Halloween, which is just about my favorite holiday. Here's why; I like scary movies, scary comic books and scary costumes. When October rolls around everything gets a spooktacular makeover, and I get to watch horror movies with all of my spare time. Then there's the drinking, which doesn't come up as much on other holidays, like Easter.
Right now I'm watching Halloween 2 and making a burrito in the oven. For those of you not familiar with the Halloween series I'll sum it up with as few words as possible; walking. Yup, walking, which is a pretty laid-back action word. Why does walking make for a scary movie? Well it's the guy whose walking; Michael Myers. He looks ridiculous in a white-painted Captain Kirk mask, but remains very scary for his ability to pick himself up off the floor (after being shot, stabbed, burned, cursed at ect.) and keep walking. Not in a big hurry to kill anybody, just determined. Determined like a fox.
We've made it to Portland, which is the first place that has thoroughly confused my cell phone. Beyond that it's a very pretty city on a river, and I'm looking forward to getting out and seeing some of the town. The weather is beautiful for fall; nice and overcast with very high humidity. Good Halloween weather.
Just a thought - I don't have any idea where the hell I'm going to get any candy tonight. Bars don't usually serve candy, and if they did I don't think I would trust much of it. Ruffies and chocolate make my teeth hurt.

Ruh-Roh

It's gettin' cold here in Central Illinois, and I've got the travel itch. I'll be heading for Portland on Monday, were Gussers has already setup our next base of operations. It's a secret location, but just between you, me and the crickets, it's in a hotel.
Watched a great movie yesterday called Wolfen, which was released in 1981. There seemed to be a rash of werewolf films released that year, including the popular American Werewolf in London. I enjoyed Wolfen for the following reasons;
- gritty wolf vision
- Gregory Hines (RIP)
- Albert Finney (who recently kicked ass in The Bourne Ultimatum)
- Edward James Olmos playing an Indian
- you can see the twin towers several times throughout the movie, which is neat
There was other good stuff to, but the ending was kind of lame.
On a related note I also watched part of James Belushi's K-9,P.I. which wins the award for the best use of punctuation in a film title. Despite everything society teaches me, I am a big fan of James Belushi. Also being a fan of K-9's, I enjoyed K-9,P.I. a bunch. At the time I didn't realize it was a sequel, so I get a bonus movie to watch sometime down the line. That's going to drive Gussie nuts...

Okay, Okay. It's been over two months since either Gussers or myself have updated this thing. Which some might say is our fault, and that's fine. We know that's just the withdrawl talking.
Where have you two been? you might ask. What amazing things have you seen? might also pop to mind. Well, everywhere for one, and everything for the other. Really, we've gotten around in the past 84 days. We're used. Put away wet and all that.
We've passed through California not once but twice! Seen Las Vegas and it's myriad of smells! Gotten stuck in New Mexico sand! Bottomed-out about 40,000 times in our Dodge Charger! We even stopped to take few photos along the way.

Busted!

Dang! Previously on "Dangerous Duo's" our camera was dropped onto sharp rocks. This time 'round I slipped off a very very smooth rock, scraping the right-hand side of my body and submerging both myself and the camera in river-water. And this time, it's thoroughly busted (like that Myth about the magical properties of pyramids).
Along with that tragedy, our computer curled up and died, whithering under Gussies venomous gaze...
On that note (venomous that is), I'm visiting home this week, and did some work from the University of Illinois Digital Computer Lab (the nerve-center for all CITES related activities). It was there that I received news so shocking I had to race to the internet and let everyone know; Illinois is the home of the terrifying Brown Recluse Spider...
I know! What the hell? I thought those things only lived in crappy places, like Kentucky! A co-worker was actually bitten by one of these things in his bed! And his bed is in the same state I grew up in!
So that was a shock. Time to go - it's quitting time, and around here that's at 5pm, not 7:30.

On this Rock I will found my Office

Michael's Action Packed Update: The term "office" has for me become somewhat of a hysterical joke. Since I am telecommuting these days, I can work from all sorts of places, except outer-space (they have no wi-fi in outer space yet). Below is a picture of me working in the back of Gussie's rental-car. I was back there for oh, about 5 hours on Friday. Luckily I had room to spread out, and Gussie left some of the windows down for me (awesome!). Some dang neighborhood kids started jumping on the back bumper of my "office", and I had to be all like "hey ya kids!", and they were all like "whatever".
Aside from yelling at children, I got a lot done back there, including this drawing on the right. It's for a training game I'm developing for the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. Since I'm all-about blogging these days, you can catch updates on that project here. It's been called "engaging" and "magical". Aside from that I'm doing some writing and getting re-acquainted with cable television, which I haven't had readily available for a couple of years. Cartoons remain at the top of my "most enjoyed watching" list, which goes like this;
1. Cartoons
2. Nature / Science Shows
3. Star Trek Next Generation re-runs
4. 'Head On' (apply directly to the forehead) commercials

Dang-ers!

Ah heck! The strap on our camera broke, sending it plummeting to the wicked-hard rocks of a Santa Cruz county coastal tide-pool. I would characterize it as "broken" and "screwed up".
That' wasn't the only crappy thing that happened on our Saturday trip down California's historic Highway 1.
While on that particular adventure we also encountered a terrifying sea-creature we will refer to as the 'Sea Anus' (horrifying photo included). It was about the size of a small dog, and lazily attempted to digest my flip-flop. A shocking encounter to be sure, with one of nature's most revolting creatures. Alright, that was a bold-faced lie. This thing was small, like a disgusting little donut-hole. I shudder to think what would have happened to the human race if these things were indeed the size of small dogs. It's unlikely that we, as a species, would have put up with that for very long, choosing instead to leap to our collective deaths, our bodies smashed against the very rocks that these vile creates thrive on. Luckily enough, mother nature kept these baby's small.
Actually we had an excellent time on Saturday. I'll end with a beautiful image of Gussie facing the ocean and not backing down. Not even for a second.