Yep. I did it. I needed a reading chair so I headed off to Ikea tonight to see what they had.

I ended up with this:

Yep. Boxes. Swedish boxes. Some time later and I ended up with this:

It is a Poang chair and ottoman along with a Not floor lamp. Pretty comfy and will work well for my needs.

I’m now officially a yuppie, as if I wasn’t before…

Hat Tip: GIZMODO

It is a bit different for me to write about WAM2 since I can sleep in my own bed rather than push one of the lil’ mooks out of theirs. But I’ll give it a whirl.

I took Friday off from work so I ducked out a bit early on Thursday. I had a little side work that needed doing and so I skipped dinner at Chuy’s and met the crew at the Dell Diamond for an Express game. We all walked up at about the same time and had seats just inside the main gate directly behind home plate. I had just been at the Diamond on Tuesday making this 50% more Express games in one year than I had ever done before. I did try to get one of the suites, but some other lucky bloke beat me to it. The game was a lot of fun and 50% off beers help a lot. Tee-time was early the next morning so we said our goodbyes and I went back to the house.

The next morning I made it to Crystal Falls with plenty of time to warm up. ScottMc and Greg were already there, but everyone else was apparently sleeping in. No bother, hit some balls, get a breakfast taco from the middle aged stoner at the snack shop and get ready for a wonderful way to spend a Friday morning. Scott, Greg and I did get paired up with a random lady who was a pretty solid golfer from El Paso (as an aside, we guessed she shot somewhere just south of 90). She put up with our antics including me running dead-nuts into a 24″ tree with my golf cart (one of *three* total on that hole). Yeah. Me Smart. S-M-R-T. I shot a slightly high 107 for the round. With my handicap I should have been closer to a 102 or 103. We got done and I headed home to clean up, I felt like crap and my head hurt so when it was time to head to the Salt Lick I did bail. I felt I would not have been good company and considering I am not good company when I don’t feel like ass…

Saturday was another early day for me. I totally forgot if we had a 9am or a 10am tee-time and the Lago Vista Golf Club is an easy 45 minutes from my house. Needless to say, it was 10am and I had a lot of time sitting around. The round was a lot of fun. Henry, Mrs. Mook, and I donked it up and shot a reasonable 2 over. I lost probably a dozen golf balls but got closest to the pin on 12. Ship It!

We all headed to the Big O with a minor detour because my cooler tipped over in the bed of the truck and the beer and soda went bouncing around. I lost two good Sam Adam’s summer brews that day because of “accidents”. People started to filter in and the grillables came out. I love those summer grill meals.

Poker started a bit after 7 and I never really got going. I made it to the final 14 or so before I had to push my big blind with A-8 and ran into K-K which then promptly flopped quads. The cash game was not too much later as the tourney got to the final table. I bought in very short- $20 into a 25c/50c NL game and hit Q-Q on the first two hands and got a stack going. CK has a good writeup on the biggest hand of the night which ended up being about $160 or so. I still had more than double my stack and maintained that until 3AM when pretty much everyone hit the wall. I said my “good-bye for nows” and headed to the house where I was wide awake at 8AM.

I was not sure if this year’s could prove better than last year’s but I feel it did. Thanks again to the Mookie Household for hosting and everyone who made it out that made it such a special event.

‘Till next time.

(Oh, and it looks like Astin has a crap load of pics up now, see Mookie’s home page for his flickr sets)

A beloved cardiologist died and was given an elaborate funeral.

A huge heart covered in flowers stood behind the casket during the service. Following the eulogy, the heart opened, and the casket rolled inside.

The heart then closed, sealing the doctor in the beautiful heart forever.

At that point, one of the mourners burst into laughter.

When all eyes stared at him, he said, ‘I’m sorry, I was just thinking of my own funeral………………I’m a gynecologist.’

The proctologist fainted…

So the US Government thinks that sending everyone $600 (or so) as economic stimulus will spin up spending and everyone will have new big screen TVs and expensive watches.

My check was deposited last night and this morning AMEX got a payment. Not exactly what government economists expected.

Apparently I am not the only one thinking this way. A lot of the finance blogs (including $1 Million to My Name) bring up this very point.

Then again, when I get my payout for the company buyout that just happened I am going to pay off a chunk of my truck and dump the rest in my IRA.

I just passed the 1/3 marker on my way to 700 miles. We are just about 1/3 of the way though the year- I’m on track to do this.

April has been tough for me. I laid off a bit after the 10k and got a bit lazy. Then I did things like yard work instead of running. Good for the health, not so much for the distance. Plus it got hot enough not to be able to run at noon or after work, luckily I have been waking up at 5 am for some unknown reason. This has allowed me to run in the coolness of early morning. It is dark and quiet which allows me to think about life, work, friends, and anything else that I happen to be pondering.

Today is Eeyore’s Birthday Party here in Austin. I’m probably going to head down there this afternoon.

I just got my county tax appraisal notice today. I don’t think we are seeing as much a bust here in Austin as elsewhere. My year-to-year appraised house value went up 10%. They even specifically mention that it has gone up 25.56% in the last five years.

I don’t mind too much because my actual taxation did not surge up huge and the appraisal value is often less than fair market value. It generally means my house is worth more.

In other news, my truck apparently cannot handle 2500 pounds of sod. We tried to load it in the bed on a palate today and well, the suspension pretty much bottomed out. I just looked it up, 1800 pounds max. Yep, 2500 would do it…

As of about 8pm last night, my company officially “merged” with Dell. We had our intro meeting this morning and our Day One stuff is this afternoon.

Same. As. It. Ever. Was.

And no, I did not and will no make millions. I don’t know what the final number is but I am hoping for low thousands. It will help pay off my truck. I did get a nice laptop backpack though. Exciting isn’t it?

Off to get the Dell chip implant, hopefully the scar from the IBM chip doesn’t hinder them.

Today is the one year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings.

It is hard to imagine what the families and community has had to deal with. They need our continued support and vigilance.

I just got the email about the 2008 ACL Festival lineup (full list available here).

Things that standout to me:

Big names include: Foo Fighters, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Beck, John Fogerty, and The Raconteurs.

Smaller, but cool names include: The Mars Volta, Gnarles Barkley, Robert Early Keen, Patty Griffin, Iron & Wine, Neko Case, Silversun Pickups, The Black Keys, Against Me, and G. Love.

Pleasant surprises: Jakob Dylan is touring (and I can understand his words); also What Made Milwakee Famous, MGMT, and Joe Bonamassa will all be here.

It all kicks off September 26th.

I have my ticket, but Al’s Bash is that same weekend… Decisions decisions.

Don’t forget Weekend At Mookie’s in just over two weeks. I got Friday off, so I am ready to go. I should have taken Monday off as well…