halloween at the sanctuary

I picked up my friend C on Saturday around 5 PM and we headed out to Serenity Springs for our halloween tour. Neither of us knew what to expect. I had packed a ton of warm clothes but when we got to the sanctuary it was 62 degrees so I left my super warm sweatshirt in the car and decided to just wear my light down jacket.

Mistake. We had to wait until it got dark to start the tour and by the time darkness descended on us it was really fucking cold. But once you go into the sanctuary you have to stay with the tour. By the end of the tour everyone was freezing.

For the first part of the tour we stood at the entrance to the sanctuary. A lion started roaring and then the tigers joined in and then the bears. It was so loud I experienced literally that phrase "so loud I can't hear myself think". It was also as if the sound waves were physically hitting my body. It's hard to explain, perhaps it was some kind of cave man reaction.

Then we started walking through the sanctuary, which they had made into a haunted house of sorts. I was not expecting that. And the volunteers at the sanctuary kept popping out of the dark wearing scary masks. The first few times it scared the shit out of me. But then it was just funny. We all had headlamps because it was pitch black inside the sanctuary and we put them on red because it made the animals' eyes glow red. Pretty cool. As soon as we started walking through the cages the animals got eerily silent.

We would be standing between two cages looking into one cage when suddenly the animal in the cage behind us would jump against the fencing. If you ever want to know what it's like to get attacked by a tiger or lion or what ever in the dark without actually dying I suggest taking a night time sanctuary tour.

I was going to take pictures but it was too dark and my hands were almost frozen by the time the tour ended.

I dropped C off and went back to my hotel. My eyes were yoking me so I decided to read a magazine until I felt sleepy. But it turns out the room I stayed in has 50% non-working light bulbs. So I spent 2 hours re-configuring them for the optimal lighting that didn't hurt my eyes but allowed me to read with sufficient light. I also rearranged the lamps and moved the giant tv cabinet away from the wall and unplugged the tv so I could charge my two laptops and it was fucking hard to move the cabinet back and I almost broke the tv because it fell over while I was moving the cabinet and the wire for the cable box thingy got stuck under the cabinet and I couldn't get it out.

I wonder if they will change their policy so people with asperger's can't stay there.

Next weekend C is coming to Denver to hang out in the city. Should be fun!

more PINSM proliferation

My work boss A was driving to colorado springs to visit his daughter on thursday night. Usually he brings her a funny card but work has been hopping busy lately and he hadn't had time to get her one.

I suggested he make a PINSM for her because when she visited him here at work this summer she liked the PINSMs. He suggested that I make it instead because he said he's worse at drawing than I am (how is that even possible?).

She speaks spanish so I made this for her:

it took me a while playing with the spanish translator to find a spanish phrase that I could make a joke about - the bird is a spanish bird called a hoopoe - I picked it because of the way it looks and also because its call is "poopoopoo"

I wasn't sure what her reaction would be. It turns out not only did she love it, but she also brought it into school to show her fellow students and now her elementary school is doing post it note social media.

:D