Now Is The Time For Pants

Seamus & I are working on a date for YCDM2005. Possibilities so far:

Saturday, June 18th
Saturday, June 25th

We're open to suggestions, depending on everyone's availability.

I'm in Seattle on the 25th.

& I just realized Father's Day is the 19th, so I'll probably be upstate that whole weekend. Going forward, the 2nd is July4th/IndependenceDay/etc. weekend, so that's probably out for most of y'all.

July 9th? Any takers?

My only request is that we try to make it A LOT more awkward. Last year was way too comfortable for everyone.

Oh, don't worry -- awkwardity can certainly be arranged. I think I've pretty much got that singlehandedly covered this year.

What are you talking about, Bess?! Will you be bringing along the friendly dragon?

Basically, no matter who I bring will create at least a -bit- of awkwardity, since everybody I know is crazy, not to mention old enough to be y'all's parentals. Maybe I'll bring the boy. Or maybe I'll just bring some random hoodlum I've picked up off the avenue. Either way, I'll vouch for the awkwardity this year. Here's what everybody can be in charge of:

Matt - make-yr-own-taco fixin's (yes, that apostrophe belongs there, thanks)

Lara - YCDM decorative garb (preferably deedly-boppers)

Dowdell - Jayko

Seamus - keg and/or cases of beer

Saint - creating some sort of scene at like 5am

Furstie - himself

Bess - margaritas & awkwardity

Since you haven't invited ae and i to YOUR cdm2005, i've decided to do the right thing here: In the theme of the "Summer of Enjoyment" i have decided not to bitch about it. Instead, I will cash in some of my airmiles to go visit ae in Nex Mexico or wherever she is and hunt down the spammers from getting her website comment section.

ONWARDS! To The Summer of Enjoyment!

On a side note, I'm going to Europe in fall 2006 for a wedding that is taking place in or around a castle (no joke) and will get quotes for you on a castle for summer of 2007.

Of course you and AE are invited. The original You're Cinco de Mayo was where Bess and I met in person and where a few other things began, as well.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that I'm invited. Heres my thing for the summer... I put in for a week of leave that I will be spending in Goshen from 11 July - 18 July. The only thing that I already have planned during that week is a family party on 16 July for my fathers 60th bday (which youre all invited to). I'm also planning on making a trip for 1-2 nights into the city to see all of you guys, and hopefully catch a Yankee game if theyre home. I was informed last week to have my bags packed and to not expect to be around this summer, so everything is up in the air right now. If it works out, I'll be home that week and look forward to hanging out with you guys. If I'm gone, I should be back in the fall and will take a week off then. Either way, I'll be there.

PS - Seamus drank one beer out of a pitcher last night, poured himself a second beer, looked at it for a while, poured it back into the pitcher, then went home. He then text messaged with the message "The back door is unlocked." I think that was code ifyouknowwhatimsayingandithinkyoudo.

Either Seamus had the craps, or he was propositioning you to come sleep with him, as a man would sleep with a woman, only replacing the woman with another man and swapping intercourse out with buttsex. Could you be more specific?

So, Bess, am I gunna come up for Cinco De Mayo and you not show up because of a date with the boy? That could provide a bit of typical Bess-esque-awkwardness...

Oh, ye of little fayth-ko, Young Jayko.

Weissiecakes, why don't you come up on the 9th, so we can have it then?

I didn't mention AE because the true spirit of YCDM is centered around the idea that AE will be secretly flying in to make a cameo appearance. That's what we all thought last year, and hopefully it will actually happen this year, but if not, it's the possibility alone that drives the event.

Tony, you're obviously invited, if you don't mind a bunch of us trying to zip ourselves up into your carry-on luggage on your flight back.

By the way, Bess, what ARE deedly-boppers?

Deedly-boppers are those plastic headbands with springs shooting out from them, at the ends of which are affixed glittery stars or hearts or shamrocks or what-have-you. They're surprisingly hard to come by outside of the Saint Patrick's Day Parade, at least in my experience.

My feeling is that the tequila drives the event as much as or slightly more than the possiblity that AE might show up. No offense to AE, I just think that you're not giving the tequila it's share of the credit.

So do we have a firm date for this endevour whence Bess doesn't show, again?

We never have firm dates for this kinda thing, Young Jayko, because Furstie is fickler than J. Lo and can't commit himself definitively to any given weekend for more than about .5 seconds. It depends largely on the out-of-towners (including you), and I'm still waiting for Weissiecakes to confirm whether the 9th works for him.

Bess, Don't even include me in your planning for this thing. If I'm around, I'll try to make it up. More than likely I'll be away, so I'll make it up there at some point after I get back. I'll give you guys a few days heads up and then I'm moving in with the guys for a few days and going on a bender.

This "Summer of Enjoyment" thing sucks.

It might, but you can still enjoy it.

Trent, the whole point of the Summer of Enjoyment, if i've understood correctly, is to enjoy regardless of whether it sucks in comparison to others' SoE.

For me, this is not the Summer of Enjoyment necessarily. Technically speaking, it is the Summer of Employment, i.e., I'm working my ass off as much as possible so that I can enjoy the post-summer months as much as possible. However, I think I could be cajoled into any sort of "enjoyment" opportunity that harbors tequila and several people I don't 1) have never met 2) have only met once or see very infrequently or 3) haven't seen in a long time.

Would this extravaganza be held in the much maligned, but curiously resilient Goshen? or elsewhere?

I think people might be reading too much into my instructions here. The Summer Of Enjoyment dictates that would enjoy the working your ass off process itself. You'd be free to also enjoy the post-summer non-ass-work time, but required to enjoy the summer time specifically, as per SOE rules.

Secondly, the YCDM2005 event is only related to the SOE in the sense that it will most likely occur within the span of time that the SOE encompasses. The YCDM actually doesn't benefit very much from this relationship, because it was probably going to be enjoyable anyway, so you don't even really need to think too much in the SOE mindset during the event to get the desired result.

Say you can't be at the YCDM though -- that's when taking part in the SOE becomes valuable. You're sitting at home, and usually you'd be thinking "holy shit, everything sucks when I'm not with Matt Jankowski, especially today when he's preparing delicious tequila-based drinks in the comfort of his apartment for a loosely-knit group of friends and acquaintances." Of course, you're still free to think that if you can't be here (and really, no one would blame you, I am AWESOME) -- but if you ARE participating in the SOE, you could like - I don't know - go buy an ice cream cone or something, and just enjoy that instead.

Or maybe you don't have any ice cream cones nearby, because it's too warm or the power is out and you have no refrigeration and all the ice cream has already melted. In that case, you could go take in a nice game of girl's softball at your local park.

Unless of course your local park has been overrun with zombies, in which case there's probably not much softball to catch -- but you could remnisce about the days when there was ice cream and softball, and that would probably be enjoyable in some way for you.

Quick survey...
If zombies attacked, would you:
1. Fight them until they captured you
2. Embrace the inevitable and join their forces immediately

Then this whole thing may as well be called the Optionally and Otherwise Vicariously Enjoyable Summer. Though my initial impression was more of Adequate Summer. It's like a sucky, watered down beverage.

Prediction: If YCDM occurs in June I will come. I can be *very* awkward.

When zombies attack I always just run and hide in terror until they find me and pound down the door as I'm powerless to stop them, and then I wake up from my dream. I think I'd do the same in "real life".

Got confirmation this morning that I'll be leaving in late June and will be gone for "quite a while" so I'll be unable to attend YCDM2005 and I will certainly be putting this Summer of Enjoyment theory to the ultimate test. I still plan on coming to visit when I get back, but rather than drinking for YCDM, we may have to drink for the Yankees playing in the World Series.

I've thought about the Zombie thing before. I think I'd have to go down shooting, with a cigar in my mouth, laughing, and probably at least MOSTLY naked.

Fun disgusts me. What do the great political minds for privatizing services (Jankowski) have to say about the following information: http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/deadinthewater/america.html

I think the article raises some interesting points about the government being beholden to the people, and companies being beholden to money...

I think the article raises jack squat. The only things I got out of it are that Atlanta is female, and private companies will be private companies. It doesn't say what went wrong in Atlanta, and it doesn't say what went right in Canardia or wherever. All it says is that the privatization worked in one example and not in another, and that if you don't leave the field open for multiple bidders, a single company's probably gonna screw you over because they CAN.

I agree with Bess -- way to pick a crap article. If you had done your job well, you would have either forced me to defend private work in the face of private failure, or everyone else would have to defend some non-private thing in the face of private success.

Today's lesson: everything in the private sector is voluntary! (to be used when someone suggests that private company employees don't volunteer enough)

Trent, I don't think that guys who live in Hawaii are allowed to comment about vicarious enjoyment. You're in HAWAII, dude. What sucks?? You've got kissing chick pics, for cry-eye.

I will be checking the New York Legal Calendar in search of some Justification for a mid-July journey. I could bring more coasters, which would be awkward, but I believe just intimating that I'll show up at all provides the greatest quotient of awkwardity.

Now, Tony could come down here, as Canardians are wont to do, and we could just tele-conference from YCDM South. Konichiwa!

For the record, the kissing chicks occurred in Texas, not here. I was not present for said activity. Plus the kissing chicks are just not some random occurrence either. Each "chick" involved holds a significant place in my history, and anyway I'm not one for chicks kissing either.

That being said, there's not too much bad about being here in Hawaii except like 50% of everything that's important. That 50% does kind of suck, in fact.

I could use some solid, cork coasters. I have a large amount of access to polycom units (we are after all an inter-island institute) if tele-conferencing is ever offered.

If you send me a mailing address, I will send you cork coasters. I abound in coasters. I am the coaster-rama. Coasters-R-AE. Etc.