Picnic Turns Into Disaster

My girlfriend and I have started up a new tradition. Each year, we try to determine the best date to go out for a Fall picnic. This is no ordinary picnic. This particular one included steak, home made pumpkin pie, cheesy scallop potatoes and Hawaiian rolls. The weather forecast for Monday was perfect. A high temperature near 75 degrees with a calm wind, mostly sunny with increasing clouds during the day.

After working my usual 9PM-5AM shift, I hit the sack at about 6 AM. Woke up at noon, prepared the materials we needed and headed out the door at 1. Picked up the girl at a quarter after 1 then proceeded to stop at BP to gas up, buy a 20oz of Mountain Dew and clean the windshield. That is pretty much my routine anytime I take a decent road trip. We were on the road by 1:30PM but our plans had changed.

I received a phone call from a buddy of mine who spent the night at Salt Fork State Park. He told me about all of the muzzle loaded hunters that were in the area. After checking the park map, sure enough, just about the entire park was considered public hunting land. Because I didn’t want it to be my last day alive as I know someone out their would probably mistake us for deer, I decided to take the girl to Wayne National Forest which is where I do my Bigfoot related research, hike and occasionally camp.

It took us three hours to finally arrive at the location. As soon as we unpacked the car, I poured a quarter bag of charcoal onto the grill. Because the bag became empty, I threw the empty bag on top of the charcoal to help get the fire going. This was my first mistake. My girlfriend and I decided to do a bit of hiking as it was getting a bit late in the afternoon and the charcoal needed to burn through it’s surface layer before it would be ready to cook anything.

We went off on our hike and took some wonderful photos which I’ll link to in a little bit. After about a half hour of hiking, we decided to head back to camp. As we were retreating back to the car, it started to rain. The rain was not expected to be in the area until late evening, so it was rather disappointing that we traveled over 150 miles just to be in the rain.

When we returned to the grill, I noticed that my first mistake of putting the empty charcoal bag on top of the charcoal had diminished the effects of the charcoal. As it the rain started to come down a bit more heavily, I decided to throw the steaks on the grill anyway as I didn’t think they would take that long to cook. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough heat to properly cook the steaks and the rain just kept coming down. Thinking how much of a drag this entire situation had become, my girlfriend and I finally decided to leave the steaks on the grill and ditch them. She ended up tossing out the scallop potatoes she made and all that was left were 4 rolls and a pumpkin pie.

We decided to head to a McDonalds that I swear has the best food out of any of the establishments I’ve been to. If your ever in Woodsfield Ohio, stop by their McDonalds. Every time I’ve gone into that particular restaurant, they have made the food fresh, as you order it. I think thats the difference. At any rate, on the way home, the rain continued to come down. I almost hit 5 different deer and some idiot household let their dog loose which decided to run at and chase my car, forcing me to slam on my brakes because I thought I was going to hit him. I’m glad I didn’t.

Over 350 miles were driven for a hike of about 45 minutes, a ruined picnic, and unexpected, wrongfully predicted rain. Not all was lost. I managed to grab two videos. One of me driving down Interstate 77 South and the other from within Wayne National Forest. I also managed to grab quite a few foliage photographs from the area. That was one of the major reasons of driving this far down south as the trees are plentiful, filled with a variety of colors. My girlfriend and I had a chance to spend some quality time together, although most of it was within the confines of a car. My car was washed and I nabbed some good photos. Things turned out alright in the end!

Click any of the images to see a larger size.

Click here to see a slide show of this particular photo set.

55 Seconds From Within Wayne National Forest

10 Bucks To The First Person Who

Tells me which magazine, Jeffro2pt0.com was sort of but not quite featured. The article in question was highlighting a particular web site/service. To compliment the text, there was a small screenshot of the front page of this particular web site. That website actually had a banner that displayed JEFFRO2pt0 on their front page. So in essence, I was sort of but not really featured in a magazine.

The first person who tells me, which magazine along with the site they wrote about in the article will receive $10.00 via PayPal. If you are the first one to provide a photograph or screenshot depicting the article and associated screenshot, I will send $15.00 your way via PayPal.

Let the games begin!

If you have any questions regarding this little contest, leave them in the commenting area.

Where The Hell Have I Been?

I’ll tell you where I’ve been, enjoying my vacation, that’s where. This was my final week of vacation this year from my normal 40 hour a week job and because the weather was as perfect as can be, I decided to spend a couple of days away from the computer to get some things cleaned, as well as to spend a day or two out in the wilderness.

If you combine a 40 hour work week, with the normalcies of life, then throw on a few hours each day of browsing through RSS feeds and blogging, sometimes you can get into a creative rut. It’s during those times when one has to take a step back, get away from the routine and reorganize. That’s what I did and now I have a ton of stuff to blog about. Before I begin writing my other posts, I wanted to share a couple of photos from my trip with you. Let me know what you think.

Click on any of the images to see a larger version.

What Is Your Blogging WorkSpace?

One thing I find interesting is that every bloggers workspace is different. Each blogger has his or her own method to their madness. The color of the room they blog in, the room asthetics, room lighting all seem to play a major role in a bloggers workspace. Using Probloggers, workspace post as evidence, sometimes, a house doesn’t make for the best environment for blogging. The first user on Darren’s post uses a boat for their blogging HQ.

So, I ask those of you who blog, to please leave a comment on this blog post with a link to a photo that shows off your blogging headquarters. To start things off, I’ll show you my own Blogging HQ.

Click on the photos to see a larger version.

Relax For 50 Seconds

Sometimes, the best thing you can do when blogging is to get out of the house and go somewhere peaceful to take in the sights and sounds. Thats exactly what I did Monday evening at the beach. Take 50 seconds out of your day, your evening, wherever you are, site back and enjoy this moment of tranquility.

Video taken with my Kodak Easyshare camera at Lakeview beach in Lorain County Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie.

CrazyBall – My Favorite Fair Game

I may run this blog, but I am human and occasionally I venture out into the sunlight to perform in social activities. I know it’s hard to believe but honestly, its true. Friday evening, the lady friend and I took a trip to Strongsville Ohio, to check out the Strongsville Home Days carnival. The fair occurs at the same time each year and is used primarily as a way to celebrate the cities history as well as it’s culture. Where I reside, there are a number of cities which have a similar festival, but its generally referred to as Home Days. The fair consists of rides, carny food, and my personal favorite, games.

This year, I discovered my favorite carnival game was back and this time, I was ready. My favorite game, Crazy Ball is addicting, just like gambling. The game board looks sort of like a wrestling ring but instead of using a mat in the middle, there is a game board which has 30 circular indentations. Each indentation is a specific gamepiece which is either a solid color or a striped color. There are 15 different colors/striped colors to bet on and each one appears twice on the game board.

This particular game only costs a quarter to play but you can bet on as many colors as you want each round or you can place multiple bets on the same color. The game owner then hands a ball to one of the participants of the game which is usually a child. Once everyone has placed their bets, the ball thrower tosses the ball into the ring. The ball rolls around until it reaches a dead stop onto one of the indentations. Once the square that the ball landed on has been confirmed, the game owners go around the table to collect the bets as well as to see if anyone placed a bet on the winning color. Winners get to choose from any prize hanging from the top of tent.

After witnessing the way I played this game, my girlfriend has told me that she is going to make sure that I stay far away from casinos. I must of spent a total of $11-15 on this game, which adds up to a lot of quarters. Once I was on my last $5.00 bill, my girfriend picked the color orange, and we FINALLY ended up winning. She chose a stuffed animal and in the end was quite happy to not be spending any more money on the game. Last year, I spent so much money on this particular carny game and lossed so many times that the owner finally told me to pick a prize as I bascially spent more than enough money over what the damn prizes cost.

At any rate, I just wanted to share this experience with you. I know this blog generally centers around topics dealing with the web, and web 2.0 and all of that jazz, but I’m a real person doing real things. With that being said, I wanted to know if anyone else has seen a game like this pop up at their local carnival?

Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff

The Musings Of Jeff Chandler

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