Rescued and back home...

Hey Peeps,

Just an update since I got back from the great Midwest.

That Thursday, the Geeks went to the HQ office for a couple of meetings and a Wisconsin flavored lunch which was great, I am told. You see I cannot tell you from first beak experience, because they left me @ the hotel where I ended up staying overnight... While THEYwent out!!





I think BonJovi was playing @ this point, ROCK ON!!!



Once the morning rolled around I was kidnapped!!!

I was kept bound and gag-- well bound anway



They left 2 ransom notes

Luckily Lee was able to rescue me from the captors w/o incident!

We flew back Friday morning. I was stuffed in the Laptop bag and made my presence known for the entire trip to the Airport squawking all the way!

We had a good flight and, as always, made the days of every security guard we met.

I also learned (thanks Robin) of a fellow chicken who had a much worse day than mine. Check it out here.

-Chester Out!

Making Friends in Wisconsin

Well I am having a quite a time out here in the great Mid West. Madison is a great town and the group of people and the locals are as good as advertised! This has been a fun and productive Coop as usual!

Yesterday we had tech sessions all day and last night we hit a few establishments around Madison. This is a great town with fantastic people.

Here we are in the conference



They had a roof top concert with a local bluegrass/folk/fusion/punk/deathmetal/disco band.



Fill in your own jokes about Larry's grip on me here



For those of you that know the story, THIS picture is hilarious!



Jay keeping my hydrated


Walking downtown to the Great Dane Restaurant




Inside of Great Danes






Chicks just plain dig me!




Chicken toss




Some of the following pictures disturb me a bit...














15 BEER SAMPLER!! Including a Jalapeno Beer!! WOW!


Then we hit the road to some of the other bars...

We went to Paul's, which had a tree in it an of course the ladies loved me




Jeff and I compared profiles



Then the City Bar turned out to be a gay bar that Jeff took us to, not that there is anything wrong with that!





We finally ended up @ State Street Brats where we watched the Sox/Rays game and Timlin managed to give up 3 runs in the 14th inning to lose the game, after that I needed a drink!



All in all a great day and night!

Here is a slide show for my Peeps!

Chicken @ the COOP

Our trip started Tuesday morning @ 3 AM to make it down to the Portland Jetport for a 6:20 flight.

The drive down was fine, but we had little trouble before we left. You see Lawrence left his truck @ our house to sell it. Someone bought it and was supposed to pick it up mid morning on Tuesday and Lee managed to lose the fricken' keys! We looked high and low to no avail. Tam had to call Boy Locksmith (great and talented guy, call him if you need help with anything key or lock related in Central Maine). He came over and made a couple of keys. Tammy then found the original keys in her car where Lee left them!!! Way too much stress early in the morning. Just one more time Tammy saved the day for something Lee did! She is great (as most of you know already).

Once we arrived @ the Jetport, we had a hard time finding a parking place because of the construction, then it took about 35 minutes to get through security. I was the talk of morning for many people, but especially the two security guards discussing if I actually was a Rubber Chicken in a Laptop bag...duh! After we went through the line a 3rd security person came up and asked Lee if he actually had a rubber chicken in there as if it was the first time she had ever heard of such a thing! Imagine!!

We made it through OK and were ready for our flight to NY.

Here I am napping in Portland while waiting for our flight.



I lucked out on the flight out as I scored my own seat and had a great view!



Well @ least for some of the trip




Once we landed in NY we had a 'lovely' 3 hour layover that turned into 4 hours due to the weather. The worst thing about Laguardia is that it seems like every time you have a connecting flight, you have to change terminals, which means you have go outside of security and back through, which is one more time for me to be the highlight of someones day.

Just to keep the mojo going I had to offset New York with a little New England/Boston goodness while we waited for the flight.



The flight out was fine and uneventful but Lee's phone battery doesn't last long on the high speed networks and then his email syncing program became corrupt. The problem there is that all of the hotel information was in there and inaccessible. He has since fixed it.


In the room






At the conference







More when I can...

On The Road Again!

Just a quick note to let all my peeps know I am flying to Madison WI for a Geek Getogether.

I'll post as I can, but I have heard these people are nuts!!

Woman Down

Hey Flock Members,

Well we had a bad weekend.



Tammy was out with Shae for a 'Girl's Night Out' on Friday. They were out on the dancefloor at Champions when a couple druken idiots fighting threw a bottle down on the floor and hit Tammy's leg causing a trip to the Emergency Room and 9 stiches!

Shae called Lee and we flew over in the PT to transport Tam to the Emergency Room. They went into the hospital while I stayed outside nervously pacing.

Lee said that he was trying to keep Tammy calm, but that when the nurse came in, looked at the cut and said, 'Wow' it was more difficult. But in True Tammy form, she was just fine.

Here I am with the two girls at around 2:30 Saturday morning.



Shae was a true friend and stayed from beginning to end and we would like to again say THANK YOU to her!