Where do Ravens go for a beer? Crow Bars!

One of the personal Halloween traditions I have held over the years is a reading of Poe's 'The Raven'. This was always one of my favorite narrative poem that told of the narrators increasingly terrorous night. While I will not quote the whole poem here, I'll end with the opening lines.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;

Only this, and nothing more."

Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs you have just kicked.

On Friday night I went to the 13 Ugly Men costume party at 'The Underground' in downtown Tampa. This group does a decent sized party every few months and usually has a good turn out of all ages with proceeds going to charity. For Halloween, I was going to dress up at the creepy Burger King guy since I had found a source for the masks used in the commercial, but last weekend I decided to change my costume. Instead, I went at the late Steve Irwin, complete with the khaki pants and short, boots, and stingray. I didn't think it would be completely original, but I did think of it and plan it out before the South Park episode aired on Wednesday. I went to the Fl Aquarium gift shop and picked up the plush stingray toy and sewed it into the shirt and added some theatrical blood. I got a lot of different comments at the parties, but pretty much everyone saw the humor. With his personality, I don't doubt that Irwin would be chuckling about the good natured rub.

The party itself was pretty enjoyable and even though there was a little rain, it really wasn't too cold. I went with a couple of hash friends and had a good time chatting with various people and taking in all of the good costume ideas. We were out until about 3AM or so and were pretty tired, but overall it was good. I had to get up relatively early to go to Lettuce Lake Park for a friend's going away party. Monica got a great job in Atlanta, so will be leaving the Busch Gardens marketing department. She was the one that was nice enough to get me invited on the photo shoot for the Sheikra ride before it opened last year, with one of the pictures even showing up in a brochure. It'll be sad to see her leave, but now at least I might have an extra place to crash next time I head to the mountains for a hiking or whitewater trip. :)

I got a sweater for Christmas. I wanted a screamer or a moaner.

Last night was a fun little get together for a few friends for the Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream event. My friend Michelle had some family coming up from Sarasota as well as one of her buddies Chelsea. A couple of my hash friends, Kiddie and VC, decided to come after I made an announcement a couple weeks ago about going. I figured Thursday would be the best night to go since the crowds would be low. Most of us met at my house after work since I had the kegerator tapped, hot tub filled, and grill cooking up some ribs and such.

The weather was gorgeous and the crowd was indeed quite light. We had to wait in line for only one of the haunted houses. The shows were pretty nice. I would have some photos to post, but when I took my camera out for the first shot I saw the dreaded 'no memory card' message. Doh! So instead, I'll just throw up a photo I took 3 years ago when I worked at Busch Gardens for the Halloween event one season in early college. We were there until closing around 1 o'clock and everyone had to turn in soon because of work the next day. If you do HOS, definitely try to hit it on a weekday. Though you may be dragging Friday, it works out better in that you can actually get a chance to experience everything. I cannot imagine having to wait in line 1-2 hours for a house and really missing out on everything else.