We had a wide variety of pumpkin designs. Some were scary, some were cute, some were basic (mine), and another one ended up puking up all of its insides. Only one finger was cut off the whole night!

At the end of the night the pumpkins were voted on and Jessa and Brad won first and second. The prizes included a pumpkin pie and Buffalo Bill’s Brewery Pumpkin Ale. I must say I was not impressed with Buffalo Bill’s Brewery Pumpkin Ale. I forgot to do my research before picking it up for the party.

See the pictures here.

On a side note, Whitsitt.org was in the spotlight again for the implementation of my lifestream. See the post here.

So there I was out getting my truck’s oil changed when the guy asks me if I want to refresh the gear box fluid or something like that. He said that is usually done every 30,000 miles and it was only 9,000 miles ago that I had it serviced by the dealership. Before I agreed to the extra, I said hold up, and went rummaging through my glove compartment looking for previous service records.

There deep in the back was what I thought I had lost earlier this summer. My USB drive.

A backup of all backups, I entrusted this device with all of my important documents as I thought for sure my Mac’s hard drive was about to call it quits. Yeah, sure, I was smart and prepared for a dead hard drive, but what wasn’t so smart was the fact that I was keeping it all on my key-chain, hanging dangerously from a weak and snag-prone key ring.

Apparently the chemical reactions in my brain completely let me down when I was trying to figure out what happened to my USB drive. The anxiety of the situation probably didn’t help one bit. All I could remember was that it was on my keyring earlier in the week and that later there was nothing but the key ring.

After giving up hope, I imagined it crushed by some-one’s foot, weathered by rain, and hidden in the midst of the disc golf course. If I couldn’t have it back, I wanted to believe nobody would have it.

Now after finding it, my memory is starting to piece things back together.

As we pulled up to the disc golf course, we were thinking it might rain. I thought not to put my USB drive in jeopardy since it was housing all of my important files and took it off the keyring and put it into the glove compartment so it wouldn’t get wet. Well, it did rain, but after a full course of disc golf, I had forgotten about the USB drive and didn’t notice it until much later.

Anyway, long story short, I lost it, feared the worse, lost hope, moved on, and found it. Oh and in case you were curious, I didn’t pay for the extra at the auto shop.

Read about the latest plane crash here.

Cute… another reason to stay here in Iowa.

Here are some other things that happened since I last posted:

I lost my 4GB USB drive while disc golfing a few weeks ago. I thought that my hard drive was dying on my MacBook Pro and decided to put all my files elsewhere. Almost all my non-media files made it on to my USB drive including my senior thesis and all of my other academic work, all of my web development work not currently on a web server, and some personal creations over the years like Photoshop and Flash files to musical recordings. Pretty much all of my digital accomplishments are now gone, either picked up by someone, stepped on, or weathered. I have moved on but I still get a sick feeling when I think about it.

A few friends and I organized a tailgate for the Iowa Vs. Iowa State football game. I volunteered my truck and it was a muddy good time until I had to get my truck out. Since my truck lacks weight and four-wheel drive, I had to be towed out. I am still cleaning the mud off and out of my truck. Good people, good times and a win for the hawkeyes. I can’t complain too much.

My iPhone has been fun. I haven’t had any problems with it since the original replacement. I am addicted to Sol Free the solitaire game and Tris which is no longer available due to ripping off Tetris. I hope to take more photos with it and post them to my Flickr.

I had jury duty and made it to the last selection round before I was dismissed. I wonder why most of the young folks were dismissed from a marijuana possession case?

For about a week I was looking at buying a house in Iowa City. The places I want are still too expensive, and the places I can possibly afford aren’t really catching my eye.

Finally I am preparing to head back to Washington, DC for a few days. There are some end of fiscal year reports that I should be at work for.

 RAGBRAI

Let’s jump back to RAGBRAI. Good times! We had a pretty full bus this year. At least full in terms of getting everyone out to Missouri Valley. It was standing room only once we passed by Des Monies. There were a lot of returning folks from years previous, but some new folks as well. This year we had our own bus driver/message therapist. A lot of people got up on her table and were happier throughout the week because of it.

The weather didn’t cooperate this year. It must have rained at least four times with at least two tornado warnings. In Harlan, we were told to move inside an elementary school because of a possible tornado. Luckily it didn’t hit us and all we lost was a few hours of sleep. Every morning it seemed there was some kind of rain or heavy dew on the tent that would have to be dried before bed time again. This is hard to do when you pack everything up and ride during the day. This year however, my tent stayed relatively dry on the inside. This made me a much happier camper than last year when I forgot to put my rain-fly on before a storm and wasn’t able to get back in time to put it on, leaving a pool of water in my tent. On our ride into Jefferson, Iowa, lighting was striking the road. Many people said they could feel the electricity flow through their bodies. Mike James and I did not have such a feeling and figured we were too dehydrated from all the beer. On the ride out of Tama, we woke up to rain. Most of the team decided to make use of the bus instead of riding.

Non-weather related, I had quite a few beers. Actually, I think the entire RAGBRAI, I was either drunk, buzzed, or hungover. Good times. A lot of quotes came up this year and landed in to the bus historical records (the bus ceiling).

Several folks were already talking next year. Thoughts about sponsorships, the team name, jerseys, bus modifications/additions, or the possibility of a new bus came up all the time. I know that I am already looking forward to next year.

iPhone 3G

Oh boy I was excited when I got my hands on the new iPhone 3G and walked out of the store. All of a sudden, my girlfriend was jealous of the iPhone because I spent so much time playing around with it. Eventually, I got my email setup, my calendars, a few games downloaded, and was surfing the web using the EDGE network because our apartment is currently without Internet.

All was going good until I brought it back from sleep two days ago to find the white screen of death and a psychadelic effect of vertical and horizontal lines of different colors move rapidly over my screen. Eventually it booted up but, I realized this would only get worse. Today I haven’t been able to start it up at all and have contacted Apple to repair it. They are sending me a box to ship it in and hopefully all will be fine.

In the meantime, I have purchased a $15 dollar cellphone with absolutely no bells or whistles and put my SIM card in. This experience has got me thinking about my future with AT&T. Should I stay or should I go now? There are a few options out there as I am still within the 30 day period of my contract. I will let you know what I ultimately decide.

The New Apartment

If you didn’t already know, I have moved back from Washington, DC, and have been living at my parents houses in Iowa City and Okoboji.

Anyway, the thought of living with my parents for a long period time did not sit well and a friend and I are living near downtown Iowa City next to College Green Park. It is a charming place, but has little quarks. The wood floors are incredibly creeky, and the doors don’t close very well. We also don’t have any air conditioning setup (window units), and have slept through this summer’s worst hot and muggy nights.

I am almost completely moved out of my parents house and pretty much have my new room the way I want it. I had to buy a new futon and frame, desk, and desk chair just so I could sleep there and work from home. Internet should be hooked up next week. I have still yet to have time to go get groceries or put much additional thought into our large empty living room and dinning room. I have been thinking about buying a TV. One that is big enough to help fill space in our living room and give people a reason to sit down and stay a while.

I will post pictures on Flickr sooner than later, but first, I am headed up to Okoboji for the weekend with Abby our friend Holly. My friends Dan and Shelby might also be in the area.

Mike says the bus is still running and ready to go. We have some new faces, but some good old ones as well. Hopefully Jace will find out if he can go or not ASAP. Marc did a great job on the Fat Tire Army website and put it up just in time.

Later today, I am picking up the beer for the week that New Belgium Brewery (brewers of Fat Tire) has set aside for us. This is the 3rd consecutive year that they have sponsored us. We don’t appear to be their special pet anymore as they are sponsoring a few other teams this year, but we still appreciate their support. If you haven’t tried their fine brew, stop by our bus during RAGBRAI for a sampling. Note: It goes fast. We also have all kinds of swag again this year, from stickers and tattoos to bottle openers and bike bells.

I am doing things a bit differently for RAGBRAI 2008. For one, I am in even less shape than last year. I will be strutting KEEN SPD Sandals instead of my Speedplay Zero shoes. I have put in a few miles with the sandals so far and realize how much of a difference the stiffness of the shoe can make. There is no upstroke with the sandals. I will mostly likely be huffing and puffing up the hills this year because of them, but walking more comfortably around town.

Thus far, I am not planning on packing underwear and just going commando after each ride. We will see if I manage to keep them out of the final pack.

I have borrowed a North Face Roadrunner 33 tent from my friend Lee that is a bit bigger than my North Face Tadpole 23. I am older, not carrying on my bike, thus I want to be able to sit up in my tent.

While I am gone on the ride, I hope to send some twitter updates from on location. This is all assuming the cell phone towers aren’t overwhelmed by all the people making calls. My twitter is setup to also display the latest update on the header of my website and my facebook profile.

So there it is, over the next few days I will be packing up, riding a bit more, and then heading off for RAGBRAI. In the meantime, you can check out pictures from previous years by click here: 2005, 2006, 2007, Fat Tire Army Pool, or by going to my Flickr account.

May 30th - Move from Washington, DC to Iowa City, IA - I was able to get all of my belongings into one checked, one carry-on, and one 20×20x20 box via FedEx. I was glad to be home, but work started that Monday.
June 5-10th - Okoboji, IA - Abby and I escaped Iowa City for a few days to visit my Dad up in Okoboji. Water was still cold but we had a pretty good time. Worked the week days.
June 30th-July 3rd - Washington, DC (Work) - Dinners with family and former roommate, lunch and beers with co-workers. Got a lot of work done. Snuck away to the movie WALL-E. Good, but wished the robots could speak and not just make sounds.
July 4th-July9th - Okoboji, IA - Bikini contest at the Ritz, fireworks on the lake, boating, skiing, off the dock swimming, and worked the week days.
July 11-13th - Ames, IA - Usher in my former roommate’s wedding. It was huge and even had a proclamation from the governor of Iowa. Met some good folks, and had a good time. Tuxedo was hot in both ways.

In between of course I have been in Iowa City getting reaquainted with the town. I have been able to drink a few beers, see a few people, put a few miles in on the bike, survive the flood of 2008, and work during the day.

Next Stop - July 19-26th - RAGBRAI (Across Iowa) - See future post(s).

This is the part where I brag about being a fan before it was ‘cool.’ Originally a mountain biker, Evans has become a very good cyclist. This is his fourth Tour de France, he placed eighth in 2005, fourth in 2006, and seconded in 2007. He should be interesting to watch in the mountains and the time trial. One of people’s main criticisms of Evans is that he doesn’t know when to attack. I will agree with this but believe he has grown better at this year after year as you can see by his year by year results.