Miasmatic Review

My weekend.

This last weekend Ktreva and I went to Lafayette Indiana for a Blogmeet. We didn’t bring the boys with as we decided we needed a weekend with out them. The trip started out well enough. We were making great time. I had told Machelle and Oddybobo that we would arrive between 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM. We were going to cut it close, but we’d be on time. Not shortly after we arrived in our Room Oddy called me and says she’s in the hotel. Originally she had said she wouldn’t get there until 7:00 PM. When I asked her how she got there so early, she said she drove really fast from Indianapolis. How fast she was going is beyond me, but it must have been fast enough to bend the space-time continuum. Then it dawned on me, people in Indiana live in a different time zone. They are an hour ahead of us; I was actually late!

Machelle, Oddy, Ktreva and I went to a restaurant next to the hotel to eat, drink and talk. Laughing Wolf showed up to join in the fun. Having never met Machelle or Oddy before, it was nice. Oddy made us jealous describing the palatial house on 476,857 acres of land. While Machelle kept trying to convince Ktreva that one should not buy a foreign car, to which Ktreva stubbornly refused to listen. LW kept teasing me about the fine Scotch Collection of his. Meanwhile, I sat back and just listened to everyone else talk. Machelle and Oddy were just too intimidating for me to break out of my shell.

After dinner we headed to LW’s. Tammi, T1G, Bloodspite and Bloodspouse where supposed to arrive around 9:00PM. LW wanted to make sure he was there for them when they arrived. He invited all of us back to his house. He gave us a crudely drawn map with directions on how to get there. Everyone decided to go, and Machelle offered to drive. We all piled into her vehicle, I had the directions and off we went. Okay, at this point let me warn all of you about a couple of things. Machelle’s maiden name had to be Duke. I swear she is the love child of Bo Duke and Danica Patrick.

We were able to follow the crudely drawn map relatively easily enough until we got to the end. There we were, looking around and none of us had an address. CRAP! Well fortunately I had programmed LW’s phone number into my cell phone. I call him up and say, “Yep, we’re lost!” He asks were we are, and I tell him that we are at the intersection of Oak and Harvard. He tells us that he doesn’t know where that is and to go back to the main highway. The highway is about a block behind us. Machelle’s trying to get us turned around when LW says, “I’m going to go stand on my front porch”. I’m looking out the window of the vehicle and I see a front porch light come on and LW walk out. The intersection we were at was right in front of his house! No joking people, I have three witnesses that will testify to this. The man doesn’t know where he lives!

We received a tour of the lair while waiting for the others. LW has a very nice house, and a very impressive collection of alcohol, which for some reason everyone kept running interference between it and I. Now remember, the others were to arrive around 9. They finally decided to show up around 11:30 local time. Part of it was they also forgot about that stupid time zone thing, the other part was that apparently T1G and Bloodspite had to stop every hour to work out the details of a new photoshop project they are working on.

Saturday it was a balmy 5 degrees when we left the hotel, and the high was around 17 degrees. There was a good wind too; I’d say the wind chill was probably around 2 degrees. The average high for Lafayette for this time of year is 19 degrees. It was cold!

We were all supposed to meet at the Tippecanoe battlefield at 11:00 AM. When Ktreva and I arrived, Machelle and Oddy were waiting. Shortly after Wes and his wife showed up. We started to worry that we were at the wrong place, so I called LW. Nope, they are running late. Apparently the boys got into a heated discussion on their next photoshop project and couldn’t proceed until it was done and Tammi was having trouble getting on her winter survival gear. The rest of us got to stand around for 45 minutes in the cold waiting for them.

The Battleground was neat; Ktreva and I even went through the museum. The museum had some interesting items in it. Even though it was about 55 years after the period we portray, a lot of the items they had where ones we use in our re-enacting. Fashion and technology didn’t change as fast back then. Harvey and TNT caught up with us there as well. TNT apologized for running late, they forgot about the time change as well. Harvey also spent extra time grooming his beard this morning. He wanted to make sure it was just perfect!

After that we headed to the Wolf Park. LW gave us a guided tour of all the wolves and the park. It was interesting to learn about them and to see how they interacted. The wolves didn’t seem to mind the cold unlike the majority of the bloggers. The bloggers, especially those of the farer gender, seemed to be rather painfully cold. I’ll give Tammi credit, she didn’t complain. Then again she looked like an over stuffed tick with all the layers she had on.

Some of the wolves where very curious about us and would come right up to the fence. They wanted to see what kind of hairless idiots would come out on that cold of a day just to look at them. Either that or they where wondering what kind of tasty treat we were. It was really neat to see how they interacted with each other and to hear stories about each wolf. Part of me wished I had the boys with so they could see all of the wolves. I’ll have to head back that way with the boys when it is warmer. Trust me, if you’re in the area it’s worth stopping by to see. At night we saw the Howl Night program. Most of the information that was presented sounded familiar. It was the same information that LW told us while we took the tour earlier. Just for the record, this is not a bad thing. It just impressed me a lot more about LW’s knowledge of the wolves and his work at the park.

After Howl Night we went to the Lafayette Brewing Company. I consumed many of their different beers. Quick review. Oatmeal Stout: Decent, I’ve had much better. Scottish Ale/Pipers Pride: One of the better Scottish Ales I’ve had. Prophet’s Rock Pale Ale: Horrible taste that sticks with you for hours. Doppelbock: Excellent beer, too bad they only sell it in the half-pint.

A lot of time was spent getting to know the various bloggers. I would have liked to talk to Bloodspite more, but he’s even shier then I am. Through out the evening he would just sit there and not say a word. Thankfully T1G and Machelle kept the conversations going. At one point Tammi and Bloodspite got into an argument. I don’t know what started it, but it was so heated that no sounds came out of their mouths. It looked like two beavers fighting trying to gnaw on each other.

Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for, my view of the bloggers: (In the order I encountered them)

Ktreva: I’m married to her. Been there, done that.

Machelle: Intelligent woman that likes to dominate a conversation. She still holds a grudge that I bought a Chevy instead of a Ford. She does heart my meat stick.

Oddybobo: What can I say about a woman that can’t keep her hands off of me? Every time I turned around she was touching me. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing! She even brought me some crack strips. However, she did forget to bring a bottle of Scotch for me. My favorite Scotch too!

Laughing Wolf: If this man gives you directions anywhere, get a second opinion. C’mon he didn’t even know the intersection in front of his house! He also has good taste in Scotch.

T1G: He’s fun to talk to, if you can get a word in edgeways. Saturday night he kept trying to hug me, which really creeped me out. He really needs to learn to hold is alcohol. That and he has some Jebus complex. He has the manners of a 2 year old if you feed him something he doesn’t like.

Tammi: This girl will hug you for any reason. She meets you; she needs a hug. You talk to her; she needs a hug. She successfully put on a coat; she needs a hug. It’s cold out; she needs a hug.

Bloodspite: This boy is just too damn shy for his own good. I thought I was shy; I have nothing on him. I think he said two sentences all weekend. One of them was, “No thank you, I don’t like beer.” The other was, “That’s it, I’m photoshopping your head onto the body of a geriatric pr0n star.”

Bloodspouse: Very nice and sweet. She needs to keep better control over Bloodspite. She also needs to stop letting him get away with stuff and not expecting him to buy her jewelry. She’s going to get his butt kicked by other married men.

Wes: I’ve known him for years. Hell he lives two houses away from me. Every time I turned around he kept trying to pick up round objects and play it like a drum. The boy has issues.

Spouse o’ Wes: I’ve known her for years as well, obviously. She’s way too well behaved for this group.

TNT: Discovered she wants to go camping, unfortunately her husband has a fear of nature. She made a deal with me that she’d let him go out drinking with us one night if I drag him along camping with her one weekend. Forcible kidnapping, consuming alcohol, hearing Harvey scream like a girl… Yea, it’s a deal.

Harvey: Good guy, will take a lot of abuse, but if you question his blogging authority he gets damn huffy. I’ve never seen a grown man cross his arms and pout before this weekend.

I think that’s everyone, if I missed someone I’m sorry, you just weren’t memorable! Kidding, I just have a bad memory. If you missed it, you suck! Next time try getting a life and being a bit more sociable. Everyone seemed to have a great time, I just wish it would have lasted longer, oh and maybe that the temps where a little warmer for those that don’t like the cold.