Fear No Evel

Just uncovered some photos from the Halloween party taken with someone else's camera. In the photo to the left you can see the lovely Frida (a.k.a. Alicia plus a unibrow) and my entire Evel Knievel costume.


Now I know that I'm biased (having spent untold hours sewing the costume), but have to say that my Evel costume has a few things on Mr. Colbert's.

Notice the USA #1 arm patch and the EK belt buckle. Plus my belt, unlike Steven's, isn't upside down. I'm sure Mr. Knievel would have appreciated attention to details like those.

Steven's costume did have one thing on mine. He did have the cape. :-)

Sanity versus Fear

I'm pleased by the attendance numbers for yesterday's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. While I fully expect those numbers to be debated, debunked, and denounced in the days to come by the media and pundits, it appears that 100,000 would be a very conservative estimate.

The exact number doesn't matter to me. What matters is the attendance shows that a significant portion of the U.S. is tired of the numerous forces in the country which are using divisive techniques to set us against each other.

I don't have any illusions that the rally will have a significant impact this Tuesday when we go to the polls (or vote by mail), but I do hope that the rally can help to shift the tone of political discourse in this country in the near future. Yes the rally was frequently silly, but I'd like to think that it could make a difference in how we communicate with each other in highly polarized country.

Full disclosure: I have been proudly registered "Decline to State" for the entirety of my two plus decades as a voter.

On a personal note, I was highly amused by the skit when Steven Colbert emerged from his "bunker of fear". I burst into laughter when I saw Steven emerge from the depths.

Sure the juxtaposition of the rally and the Chilean miner crisis was funny, but what made me burst out in laughter was the fact that the patriotic uniform Steven was wearing was a repurposed Evel Knievel costume. Those of you who watched the rally noticed that they removed the "EK" belt buckle, right? I know that the costume was repurposed from recent research that I conducted for the Halloween party I attended recently. I saw Steven's costume available for purchase online, but I opted to make my own.

There, I said it! I made my own costume. While I'm sure my grandmother would be pleased to hear that I applied those sewing skills I picked up during summer visits to Fort Wayne, Indiana (while my brothers were playing baseball), I suspect that when they catch wind of this, my buddies like Blewis, Tee, and Scottie will revoke my "man card".  ;-)

Halloween

Our driver picked us up at 5:30 a.m. for the ride to O'Hare. We didn't get to sleep till 2:30 a.m., so I'm only operating on three hours of sleep. Add an ORD-->SFO flight, plus a drive from SFO-->Aptos, and then a drive from Aptos-->Palo Alto (where I'll be working this week), and you get an inkling of what my day has been like. If you are harboring some hope that this post will be coherent, I suggest you discard that foolish notion.

Why were we up so late? Last night was John & Sharon's annual Halloween party. I don't know what the final count was, but I'd say there were easily two-hundred attendees this year. The party just gets bigger each year.

Each year the theme of the party changes. This year, the theme was "dead celebrities". Some of the costumes were a tad bit more morbid than others (understatement). What I found interesting was the number of times that I heard people fondly reminiscing over celebrities who have passed on.

I lost count of how many guys came up to me during the party and told me that when they were kids they wanted to be the person I dressed as. Several insisted that he lives on. I'm not quite sure how, but they sounded convinced of the veracity of their claims. Who was I? Find me in the photos below and find out.

Mr. Rourke and Tattoo (a.k.a. John and
Sharon) make arrangements for the party
behind the scenes. What, did you think
Fantasy Island just happened by itself?

Brian (a.k.a. "Blewis") and Ivonne were in
Chicago this week, so we scored them an invite.

Frida Kahlo (a.k.a. Alicia) shows off the latest in
fashions at Chalk. Frida and I were at the boutique
to pass out clues in the scavenger hunt.
Alicia was a great sport to wear the unibrow!





Rapunzel (a.k.a. my niece Chloe) Rapunzel,
let down your hair.







The cutest Jessie (a.k.a. my niece
Elodie) ever!



Check out Elodie's moves on the dance floor!

JFK (a.k.a. Fritz from an earlier post) having
a bad day.

My nephew Connor terrorizing Aunt Alicia!

King Tut

Let's liquor up Colonel Sanders
and see if we can get him to
divulge his secret recipe. 

Natasha Richardson shows off her ski wear.

Evel Knievel (Me), Frida Kahlo (Alicia),
Carnac the Magnificent (the other Brian),
and Audry Hepburn (Ivonne)

The curse of King Tut

My nephew Ethan did a superb job of promoting
his candy count guessing game.

The whale trainer who died at SeaWorld.

Michael Hutchence of INXS shows off his neckwear.

The photobooth is fun every year!

Joan of Arc feels the heat
from the costume contest.

The Bahá'í made for an easy landmark
with which to find the party!

Catherine the Great and her... uh... "friend"

JonBenét Ramsey Now that's wrong.
That's just wrong.

Elvis (a.k.a. Burt from this earlier post) and Evel