Today's LB birthday. We decided to celebrate his birthday yesterday, since that's the day when everyone in the LSS group is here. We got him a cake and a homemade T-shirt (sounded like food -- homemade). I went to Market Street on Wednesday evening to get a chocolate cake. I requested the employee to write on the cake "Happy Birthday L.A.B., Ph.D., UE" in pink. The lady showed a quizzical look when she saw the word UE. So I told her that stands for Umemployed. She was laughing really hard, and I was thinking, "Hey, don't laugh too hard when you are writing, you could mess up the cake." After she was done with the writing, she told her colleague the UE thing, and I can see that her colleague was laughing too. Oh well, LB was the one who came up with the UE acronym.
This is a snapshot of what we had on the T-shirt for him.
It was quite an adventure in getting his gift ready, and hilarous too. I went to the SP Mall on Wednesday to check out the little booth that (used to) provides T-shirt printing services, and found out that they were out of business. I checked the yellow pages for T-shirt printing companies, visited their websites and found out that most of those websites were just a one-page website, i.e. just the main page with their phone, fax number and address. Then I called a number of companies and shops on Thursday morning. They were either too expensive for us, or they plainly (and politely) told me that they don't do screen printing for just one unit. So we resolved to buy some Print 'n Press - Iron On Transfer Paper and DIY on Thursday afternoon.
AG was suggesting a pink shirt, NW was for baby blue, SC was suggesting a purple, PA was for grey. We got an ash grey, cause PA was the one getting the shirt. PA went to HobbyLobby and got the T-shirt and transfer paper, then went home to get her iron. PA and AG will work on the T-shirt. LB had to teach a class from 12:30 ~ 1:50 p.m. After his class, NW went out for lunch with him and J. We told NW to keep him there at the restaurant until we call her. Meanwhile, I went over to SUB to get a birthday card.
When I got back from the SUB, PA and AG were in a 'crisis'. They were ready to iron on, then they figured out that they need to mirror the words, or else it will not show up right. They were trying to figure out how to mirror the words and they were having a hard time getting it right. With a little help here and there, we figured it out. We ironed the correct one on the back of the shirt. Then we thought, since we already printed the other one incorrectly, we might as well just ironed it on the front. And so we did it, right here in our office.
The whole process was hilarious, with Dr JLS sitting there on one of the student's desk, watching the whole 'show' and timing for us when we did the ironing. We were in a hurry to get it done, we were concerned that NW might not be able to retain LB in the restaurant long enough, we were eager to see the result. But, after all, we all had fun, lots of them.
Good thing that LB liked it, well, at least he showed that he liked it. Else, I would have smacked him. HAHA. Anyway, Happy Birthday Dr. LAB.
