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Quarterly life update
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Feb. 21st, 2008 @ 08:24 pm
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I know I haven't....(I'm not starting this like I have in the past)
Less than 6 months to the wedding and we are freaking out. I know that people put together weddings in shorter time but when you can only plan it on weekends....oh man. We are in good shape though. We have everybody that we need. Except for me, I need people to stand with me. Originally it was going to be Dad, Alisha's Brother, and Darren. I don't really want to have Dad up there, he can sit with Mom. Then Darren enlisted in the Air Force and chances are they are going to ship him to basic before the wedding. We still have to get flowers, music list and some more decor. I'm stressed out too worried that we overbooked the church. I was worried about the cost of it all but I figure that I can skip a few car payments to save up the dough. It isn't like I have to make payments before May 2009 :)
Speaking of car, it rolled 90,181 miles the other week. I have had it less than 3 years and already packed on 70k miles on it. The new tires on it though kick ass in the snow :)
So Alisha and I are doing great. She is assistant manager at the UDF in Oxford. Not the type of job that she went to college for, but at least she is making it in the world.
The other week we went out to Autumn Woods apartments and checked out some units. Since there is still a while before we need to move, We went for the waiting list. These places are pretty decent on the price and they are half a mile down a not so busy street to the office. I'm really half tempted to call them now and tell them to get me what ever they have, but I must show restraint. I need to save some more money first.
For valentines day I was able to put together Alisha and I's Florida photo album. It turned out really great. I ended up wrapping it and surprising her with it. I also got a pair of the 8 bit life shirts from ThinkGeek. These things are cool, but they are going to be a pain to wash. They are a little uncomfortable with the ribbon cable running down the front of it and the battery pack on the side. At least the cable is in it own cloth sleeve. Just got to be careful putting it on or I might hang myself.
I went out last night a shot photos of the eclipse. It was serious 0 degrees or less. I went through 2 batteries and had to dethaw my camera. It had frost on it before my car did last night. I haven't even looked at the photos yet. I almost let my feet get frostbite though. When I came in and after I took my shoes and socks off they was purple and hurt for a half hour after. I have this nasty cough today so it probably wasn't the wisest decision I had.
Alisha is taking me to Blue man group in March for my birthday. I'm looking forward to it.
I figured up my bills the other day. If I keep making payments on my car like I have since I bought it, I can have it paid off in November :)
I don't know what else to say right now though. I want to upgrade my computer so I can play some of the games I got for Christmas but I just can't afford it yet. I might just end up putting it on my credit card though anyways. Perhaps in a month or two there will be a big price drop in something that I want to get.
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More updates with photos
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Oct. 27th, 2007 @ 05:09 pm
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Holy two post Batman. Something must be wrong with me.
Nope, nothing wrong with me. I just been spending the day today printing photos for my mother. Since it takes so much work to watch the printer work I was able to catch up on my flickr account. I still need to back fill it some but at least it has new photos in it. I posted some random photos of the cats, outdoor shots, and the Dayton Air Show.
photos:
2007-06-13 -- Evening Sunset
2007-07-28 -- 2007 Dayton Air Show
2007-07-29 -- Random Outdoor Shots
2007-08-24 -- Heat Lightning
The Air show photos are ok, nothing to brag about really since it was the first time I shot a air show and it was cloudy at that. That yellow bulldog bi-plane in the early shots was the one that crashed at the end of the show. He was doing stunts with the red/black bi-plane at the time. Even in that photo you can see how close they was to the ground.
The new tires on my Monte Carlo are kick ass. It handles so much better now and it wants to turn. I had to be careful not to clip curbs because the car corners so much better now. Now I need to change the oil. I should call the shop about getting it in for a fluids service since I never done it. It needs new spark plugs too. I'm thinking about getting a stock K&N filter since the intake kits are expensive. I'm not drag racing anybody in it so it don't matter, just want a few more ponies.
On the 14th, we had our surprise parents for their birthday and anniversary. Married 30 years with my father turning 49 and my mother at 50. Both birthday and their anniversary is in October. We had a crazy amount of people at our house. We asked on of my cousin's twins if they wanted to be a ring bearer for the wedding. One didn't want to do it while the other did. Many problems solved there. The kids are monsters though. I don't know how many times I had to pull Wendy's toys out of the pool. I would pull them out, tell them to stop it, then take them and the toy out in the yard and play with Wendy some more. Turn around to talk to somebody else for a bit and the damn toy was back in the pool again......grrr. I think I will start stocking up on Valium for my kids.
I was having computer problems 2 weeks ago. Things taking forever to boot and hard drive problems. Upon inspection inside my case I found that my hacked together chipset fan quit working. I got on new egg and found a correct replacement. I didn't order it until the other day though since my computer started working fine after I unplugged that fan. I also bought me a NEC SATA DVD-DL burner. I hoping to replace my current DVD drive and my CD burner. I will also remove the triple fan array since it is noisy and not needed. Both the fans and the CD-RW are beige in a black case. I'm worried that my motherboard will not be able to boot from the drive. I'll just have to try it and keep the old one handy.
Monday night after Alisha and I got back from NM, her parents took my parents and us out to dinner. It was pretty nice way to justify driving 3 hours to pick us up at the airport.
I had to buy more printer ink and photo paper this week. I had to print around 40 5x7 black and white prints for my mother. I think I had new carts for my photo blue and red but now the printer is telling me I need to replace them soon. They should be good for another 10 prints or so. While I was at best buy though I picked up a copy of Boston - Third Stage and Boston - Walk On. Both are good albums with a very clear sound, and you can really tell they spent a lot of time (6 years each) on them. Not quite like the first album with had all the hard rocking.
Alisha took me out to Olive Garden for lunch on Tuesday and I meet me again after work last night. She is doing so much better after our mountain climb.
Not much is happening for the next couple of months. Alisha and I are celebrating 2 years together on the 4th and I'm taking her out for dinner. The wedding is still going good. I need to finish my part of the guest list and we will be set there. Still need a pianist, videographer, cake, and flowers.
Sometime in the next week I'm selling my optiquest q95 to a coworker for cheap. Perhaps I will use that money to pick up the Half-Life Orange box. Matt showed me some of portal last weekend while I was in NM and I'm throughly impressed by the game. Gotta run. Need to make sure this monitor works.
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49ers, Photos and Fun
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Oct. 27th, 2007 @ 03:27 pm
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Photos:
2007-10-19 -- 2007 NMT 49ers Random Shots
2007-10-20 -- 2007 NMT 49ers Random Shots
2007-10-20 -- VLA Trip
2007-10-20 -- 2007 NMT 49ers Casino Night
2007-10-21 -- 2007 NMT 49ers M Mountain Run
Last weekend I had a very good trip with Alisha to NM for NMT 49ers. We left the Columbus airport at around 2:30 pm arrived in Albs at around 7:30 local time. The flight wasn't bad at all, except for the 20 minute wait on the tarmac in Houston. I mostly looked out the window the plane while Alisha snuggled up to me and slept. While we was at Houston we had a Priest on our flight with us going to Albs. He sat next to us in the waiting area and I watched a Rabi walk by......don't jokes start this way....nothing happened though....moment lost.
Not an hour of being NM though did we run into somebody from Tech. I don't really remember his name but he was in my photo class and now he was working the car rental lot. It was great, I asked the guy if they had anything good (I already had a econ car booked) and he said that he could get me a Jeep Commander or a Hummer for $80 bucks for the weekend. Alisha's eyes lite up and I was considering until he said that it was 80 bucks more.....naw, I'll pass. I asked about the next step up and he was like....Sebring Convertable.....I'm thinking yeah cool, nice weekend and all......he said the top don't work...damn, I'll pass again. I ended up with a Hyundai Accent 1.6 liter. Power windows, Power locks, no cruise control.....wtf???? Whatever, I just wanted a cheap car for the weekend. The drive down to Socorro was great cause I had to almost floor the car to keep it at 75mph over the little bumps in the road. Hard to say the car got great gas mileage when you spent most of the time around 4k rpm and it only held 10 gallons of gas. Well we did put 10 gallons of gas in it in the end and drove it over 400 miles so I guess that counts. I wanted one of my cars.
Upon arriving in Socorro we grabbed our hotel room at the Motel 6 and ran up to Jarred's apartment. I got to sit in my old couch....it was so comfy. Alisha though it was alright, can't win them all though. After hanging around for a bit Jared took us to the new sub and showed us around some on the inside. It was nice but I can't say I fully backed it. Jared then showed us over to Matt's place. It was pretty nice, I liked the layout of it. All of us then hit up The El. El Camino that is. I got me a big plate of the green chili cheese fries.....aw so good. Even Alisha liked it in small portions (the chili was the good stuff and she don't like hot foods).
Friday we started out by stopping at Smith's to pick up something to drink. Alisha saw first hand that the racial balance in NM is different than OH. She handled very well. Sometimes her family will say things that makes me wonder. We then hip up the campus and spent the morning running around. I showed her in most of the buildings that I had classes in and around the mineral museum. We hit up the sub to look around in it further. Talked to the people in the Advancement office, then hit up Aux services and Admissions to talk to old coworkers. I missed Roz though since she took the day off.
We where getting hungry so we went over to the car show bbq for some food. We called Lewis on the way over and he meet us over there. They had some nice cars there (a really nice 64 Chevelle SS327, but most where the dirty, unwashed rice burners. After a while we got Jared in on it and we all decided to hit up Socorro Springs before the EMTRC tour.
Somethings in Socorro doesn't change. Like how long it takes the Brew pub to get food out to you. Alisha and I ended up missing the tour of EMRTC but we did get to hang out with my friends, drink pumpkin ale and eat pizza. I wish they would open up a shop in the Dayton area. It would really kick ass.
After a quick nap back at the hotel Alisha and I meet up with Frank for supper at El Sombrero. Once again the food was good and I about made Alisha a believer yet in green chili.
Next up was the bonfire. We had a good time hanging out there with Jared, but we still can't talk him into hitting up the Cap. So Alisha and I went to meet Lewis there. The Cap was once again, very crowd, but we got to see a ton of friends I went to school with. We saw Bill and Mikey, Richard, Shawn, Nico, and a few others I didn't talk too.
Saturday started out as a trip to Denny's and a trip out to the VLA. On the way out there I stopped in Box and Water canyons to show Alisha them and she loved them. She thought they was very pretty and they were. I wish we had some landscape like that in Ohio. It would look really good then. I got some really nice photos out at the VLA and Alisha was very impressed. She got a unusual kick out of the cattle guards on public roads, along with the cattle crossing signs. Here in Ohio people's cattle stay on their own land and there isn't any dual use lands. Alisha wanted a tumbleweed though so when I found a good one I hopped the fence and grabbed it for her. I got a picture or two of her holding it and then she let it go so it could do what tumbleweeds to best. On the way back though, Alisha drove. since the road was straight, flat, and empty she wanted to see how fast the car went. She floored it and it took almost 5 minutes for the car to reach 100 mph. It wouldn't get any faster than that.
After we got back from the VLA, we meet up with Matt and went out to lunch at Armijos. It was to be a quick trip but Matt and I got talking about the politics of the school and I came to a realization. All weekend something wasn't quite right but then I realized it....the lack of students. There was no field day or club activities this year. I didn't even see groups of students hanging out in front of the dorms and blasting music. That really depresses me. I know I griped about the lack of social life at Tech, but during 49ers? That was a whole new low.
Alisha and I took a quick nap before going to Casino night. We ended up catching the last hour of it, but that was ok. Alumni can't get the chips to play anyways. I took a few photos of Alisha since she don't dress up that nice normally. I was going to take some photos of the belly dance show and bordello but in the end, I didn't. I just enjoyed the show. Alisha enjoyed it too. After that Alisha and I hit up the El Camino for a light dinner.
Sunday morning, Alisha and I did the M Mountain Run. I was surprised at the turn out. There was a ton of people doing it. We went up at a slow pace since Alisha wasn't used to the thinner air and not in mountain climbing shape (but neither am I). It was a wonderful hike and it didn't really beat me up at all. I took a ton of photos. The wind was crazy though. It was like 40 mph winds on the mountain. I'm surprised that I got as many photos as I did cause my camera kept collecting dust. We did the climb in under 4 hours. Alisha was having a really hard time getting the oxygen in her to keep up a good pace. However, I'm so proud of her because she finished the climb and wasn't the last person to finish. She beat me, but only because I let her. I wanted to take a photo of her getting to the top. There was a couple of people behind us so I didn't feel too bad about our time. I know it isn't a race, but hey, why not. I wolfed down the prize burger though. Best damn burgers in the state I say and they was pretty damn good on top of that. On the way back to the hotel I made some calls and arranged for dinner at the pub with my friends. Then the nap.
We meet Lewis, Jared, and Matt at the pub for dinner. We all sat around with a couple of beers and had a good time. Perhaps a little loud, but I didn't care since the place wouldn't have to deal with me for some time. I went with Jared and Matt back to Matt's place to hang out, watch movies and play video games. Alisha went back to the hotel and started to pack up her stuff and get some sleep. She came back over at midnight to pick me up.
The trip home on Monday was interesting. We got up at like 4:30~5:00 am to catch our 7:50 flight and even then I felt rushed trying to get to the airport. We made the plane though with time to spare. I watched from the plane as we swung south of Mountainair, NM. I tried to watch from the plane to see if I can see Clovis. It would have been the first time in a plane that I knew for sure where I was. However that wasn't the case cause not long after that we started going south more and the hazy in the sky was too much. We had a bumpy ride into Houston though because of the storms going through the area. We had to hang out about 150 miles from there for around 15 minutes before proceeding. It was bumpy all the way to the ground. Alisha was sick and I was just about there. We had to wait for almost 30 minutes on the tarmac to leave Houston though. Alisha's parents meet us at the airport. On the way back she told the whole story. She got to the part about the number of Hispanics out there and how Americans are the minority. I gave he a light slap upside the head and corrected her saying.....white people. At least she got the Hispanic part right.
After the hike though. Alisha as having a hard time breathing. She was taking a lot of short breaths, coughing and weezy. While we was sitting in the airport she called her doc and made an appointment. She has a asthma but never to this degree. It really scared me because her appointment was the next day and I was afraid she wouldn't walk up from sleeping. Alisha's parents and I talked her into going to the hospital after they all got home and they gave her breathing treatments. She is all better now though.
Check out the photos. I post them for your pleasure. If there is a problem with them let me know about it.
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Need more posts
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Oct. 5th, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
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I need to post way more often. Yeah, I know most of my post start that way.
However, update on the wedding plans.
- The preacher gave us the ok to get married. I don't really think he tried that hard to test us. Oh well.
- We booked a DJ for the reception. Still waiting for the contract from him
- We have a photographer. She is only charge us $400. 30 years experience, all the negatives, and names of where to get enlargements. Not a bad deal at all :)
- Dresses are being made.
- Booked a hotel for the weekend of fun :)
- Found a cruise that we want to go on. We might wait until after hurricane season and when the prices drop just a tad. Mostly though because it leaves the next day after we get married.
- We found an escape car. Alisha found somebody that has a 1924 Model T convertable (daily driver to boot). This may be a once in a lifetime shot to ride in one
Last Friday Alisha and I went to see the Reds vs Cubs game in Cinncy. We got free tickets from her church. The game was kinda boring though, no action really. I think the Cubs fans out numbered the Reds fans 3 to 1. We enjoyed it though.
Last saturday though we went to the Brown county fair and watched the tractor pull. We was way closer to the track than what we where at Clark county. A couple of guys had a hard time keeping on the ground though and one guy bounced so much he tore the hell out of his rear-end. Had sparks pouring from it when they shut him down.
This month is going to be insane though, but that is because I'm mostly to blame. Alisha wants to come out to NMT for 49ers weekend. I agreed and booked the trip even though I should be saving as much money as possible. It is still going to be a blast though, only 2 weeks away.
Then there is the issue with the Monte Carlo. I have to get new tires for it. Which is bad timing since today is payday and just about all of it is going for struts and tires. They have 83,000 miles on them so I think I got my money's worth. Autozone had a special where I can buy 3 struts and get a 4th free with a mail in rebate. At $80 bucks apiece, this is a heck of a deal. The tires I'm getting though are Goodyear Assurance Triple Treads size 225/60-16. My parents had them one of their cars and they kick ass. Car goes in on monday for them. Problem is they are going to set me back $650 in the end. Should last until I get rid of the car.
I fixed the problem with the Chevelle's shifter. Come to find out the shifter came loose from the tranny. Then dad and I replaced all the headlights with the new ones I bought before leaving Tech. We also put on the fender extensions that go around the headlights and the headlight bezels. The passenger fender that Darren worked on in his bodyshop class is so FUBAR'd though that we couldn't get anything to line up right. So now there is this huge gap around the passenger side of the hood and the passenger door scrapes. They did something really funky so I might just have to get a new fender to replace it. I plan on borrowing Dad's focus to goto work in on Monday but the thought has crossed my mind in using the Chevelle.
I can still only window shop for my new computer. I do got a solid parts list though I'm tracking.
Working out after work is kicking ass. I don't really think I push my self that hard, but I'm not killing myself either. I'm doing a mile and a half run in less than 15 minutes, then I'm doing 30lb curls and a 100lb bench press. I should be pressing more, but right now I'm really looking better than I did a year ago. First time in my life that I was able to bench that much too.
I have been playing some mad Age of Empires lately. I finished the expansion for AoE III and now I'm working on AoE II. I'm debating whether I should stick it out with AoE II before getting the next Half-Life 2 episode. I'm on the 2nd campaign of AoE II and if I wait, I can get Half-Life cheaper.
I need to come up with a list for Christmas. People has been asking me what I want (ok, people = parents). I'm not really all that interested in it this time since the only thing that I want is video games. I may put some clothes on there for work since mom has a knack for finding good ones. I could put some movies box sets, but I have put them on lists in the pass with no luck. CDs are out right since they can't find them without going to the internet. Everything else is too expensive. Well there is one more item though. I need new speakers for my computer.
My Cambridge SoundWorks FPS1000 I have had since 2000 are really great speakers. However, the plug on the back of the sub woofer for the front input is loose and the plug looses connection. I took it apart to see if I can fix it but the board is glued in there good and with some funky connector. I don't have tools or know where to find the connecter. While they are great speakers, I can probably find some 5.1 or 7.1 that sound better.
Next month I'm taking my parents and Alisha to see Tran-siberia Orchestra again. It is going to be an anniversary presnet to my parents. I got the tickets for the Nutter Center here in Beavercreek. Last time I went to Cincinnati, so I hope to see all the show this time around. I wanted to see ZZ Top at the Nutter this month but I'm saving my money instead.
Well I got a busy day tomorrow. I need to head to bed.
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Wedding News
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Aug. 30th, 2007 @ 08:28 pm
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We have a official date for the wedding. August 16, 2008. Our biggest problem so far has been finding a banquet hall with a good price at the right time. We ended up going with the Lake Lodge at Heuston Woods State Park because it was better shaped room and was $1000 cheaper than the other guy. My problem with it was that if we got it during the none summer months then we would had to reserve 10 hotel rooms at $130 a piece. I'm worried about the heat in late August but everything is indoors so that shouldn't be an issue.
I knew a wedding is expensive, but holy cow, it is crazy expensive. We are looking at $1000 for the banquet hall, $2000~$2500 for catering, and $1000 for a DJ. At least we know people to fill in for the other roles. I haven't done anything for the honeymoon yet but we want to go on a cruise. I wonder how long it is going to take to recover from this.
Here is hoping to a good raise this year. I was looking at my bill plan and I won't have my first school loan paid off till August of next year. It was going to be sooner but I need to save money right now. I'm hoping to have a place of my own by then too though so that when we get married we have a place to live. I'm not sure why I stress about money so much though since I got a good paying job. My parents told me today that I am making more than they did in 1999. Of course prices went up for everything since then.
On a different note though, it has been 2 months since the Monte Carlo has been washed. It is nasty. I also need to change the oil in it. I need to look at the Chevelle too to find out why the shifter has moved over in it.
My computer upgrade has not come down in price over the past month :( And I have yet to add a hard drive to the wish list for it. I want to build Alisha a new computer for video processing. I'm thinking a nice quad core system :) I think I will have more fun picking out parts than I will paying for it. Shame it won't really be used for gaming :) However, I could install a copy of BOINC on it to do work for me. It should be good for 2 or 3 threads of processing :)
I have some photos I need to upload on my Flickr account. I tried taking some of some heat lightning this past weekend. I didn't get anything I really wanted but I do think I have some interesting ones.
Scorpions have a new CD that just came out, I don't know when I will get it.
I tried the Bioshock demo. That game is pretty cool but I don't agree with the SecurRom part of it, ug.
I have the demo for World in Conflict. I have yet to install it though.
The expansion for Age of Empires III is pretty good. It is more balanced and playable than the original. I got the expansion for Age of Empire II. I'll play that next.
I think that is all for right now. I need to get these photos off my camera and get a bag ready for this weekend. We are going to talk to the preacher on Saturday. Then Sunday night is fireworks in Cincinatti.
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Airshow, Wedding Plans, Other
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Aug. 9th, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
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I have been engaged now for a month and a half....wow. We set our date for November 1, 2008. I didn't really want it during the hot summer and she wants it close to when we started dating. However, at her rate will be ready by Christmas. She already has her dress bought, her bride's maids chosen. I haven't done anything yet. I did take the day off from work yesterday so that we could go out and look at reception halls. I believe that we found one that was really nice, good food and good location. Little pricey though but I don't think we can do any better.
We really haven't been up to much the past couple of weeks, just a bunch of family reunions and working. I spent like a week and a half helping dad put in a new roof and front porch on the house. It was fun though because it rained on us July 4th and we didn't have covered up good so there is all these water spots on the ceilings. It was bad in the kitchen though where we had a 4x4 foot hole cave in on us. I watched it happen and it was unreal. Left a royal mess though because of all the blown foam insulation that was absolutely soaked.
I went to the Dayton Air show on July 28. Alisha was working so I went by myself and took lots of photos. It was cloudy but I still got some good photos. I had my shutter speed set way too fast for some of the prop planes though cause you can see the details in the propellers. Yes I was at the show that the stunt plane guy crashed and died. The show they started was amazing. Take off facing each other, come off ground about 2 feet, nose up, roll to the left 90 degrees and pass each other within 3 feet with the tail about a foot off the ground. They was doing a couple of low altitude loops. I waited for the guy to come up above the crowd so I can get some more photos then we realized that he didn't come back up. I couldn't see the crash itself because of the crowd, booths, and news vans. I didn't mind that the Thunderbirds called their show off after that. I saw them before. I will have to get the photos I did take on my flickr account.
I read the last Harry Potter book. I thought it was pretty good. Then I finished Company of Heroes. Gogamer.com had Age of Empires III expansion for 6 bucks in a 48 hour madness sale and I snatched it up. I have yet to play it though cause I'm finishing up the first campaigns. I forgot how boring or frustrating they are. Easy is too easy and medium is too hard for me. Payday is tomorrow and I plan on getting the expansion for Age of Empires II from amazon. It just happens to be 10 dollars for both AoE I with expansion and AoE II with expansion.
I have the parts to my computer upgrade pretty much picked out. I want to go with a pure SATA solution for my drives. I figure that I need 3 drives though for the computer, one for the system, one for my personal data, and a 3rd to beat to death with torrents and video. I may just get me 2 320GB drives and work with that. I'm just having a hard time though finding a motherboard that I really want for it. The price tag is still at $800 dollars.
As it stands now I should have my car and school loans paid off by next December. However it might be much later than that since this wedding is going to be a bit pricey and I want to find a place to live a couple of months before hand. So far so good though.
I have been working out now for a year and I'm not where I want to be at. So far I weigh in at 205, down from 230 when I started. I can do a mile and a half at 3.8 mph and a mile at 6 mph and another half mile at 6.5mph. If I watch my diet a little more I just may get ride of the rest of the fat on my belly. I wish I was a little bit more stronger and with looks to match, but I'm not doing too bad right now.
Well I need to get to bed. I need to update more, both this and flickr.
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I'm Getting Married!
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Jun. 25th, 2007 @ 09:24 pm
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Yes, I proposed to Alisha Clemmons around 6pm on June 23, 2007. And she said yes.
I know I haven't posted anything about this over the past couple of months. Mostly to keep my intentions a secret from my love. On Memorial day I was sitting down in her house with both of her parents. I wanted to talk to both of them and get there permission to marry Alisha. However, her grandmother and her uncle kept hanging around and right before they left, her father went up on the hill and stayed up there for a while. So I had to talk to just her mother, but I think it was better that way.
So on Monday (18th) Alisha meets me after work and we go out to eat at Olive Garden and then run around jewelry stores. She wanted to get an idea of what engagement rings are out there....I wanted to go to find out what one she wants :) We looked in several different stores and she told me what her top 3 choices where. At one store she made a big deal about one ring and then left me with 2 sales people. It was a nice ring but I didn't believe it was the one she wanted. It had too many qualities that she was avoiding. I spent that night and the next thinking about it. I hardly could sleep a all. My mind was wondering on the fact that there was these rings that she really liked but I couldn't pick between them and if I kept waiting then I would miss out on the opportunity.
Come Wednesday I went back over to the one store to try out stones for the ring to see if I can make it affordable for me. I found one and asked them to mount it for me to see since they would do it with no commitment. However I got to thinking about how the stone and the ring where different shades, however, I was hoping that once it was cleaned and mounted it would look really nice.
So I went over at lunch on Thursday to look at the ring. I did that because if the stone didn't match then I could get it changed out and come back after work. I didn't have too. It looked amazing so I went ahead and got it. It is a 1 caret round cut stone mounted on a white gold ring. The ring has shiny diamonds down both sides of the band about half way. Then it has a diamond bezel around the main stone and the stone is held in place with a 6 prong thingy. I got it as a bridal set so it has a matching wedding band with it with diamonds all over it. I think the caret weight of the ring was between a half to a full caret. I need to double check on that. I showed it off at the office and everybody liked it.
Thursday night I decided to wash the Chevelle to drive it over the weekend to Alisha's place. After that I talked to her on the phone. She told me that she was going out for a girls night on Friday and that I need to come over on Saturday (if that was ok with me). Well I still have yet to talk to her father at this point so once again, opportunity was a knocking. We made the arrangement that since I was driving the Chevelle it would be a waste of gas, but I could go over the car with her father while she was out for a good time.
Friday was a long day. It was raining and hard to focus on work. Drive out to her house after work was beautiful though, 'nuff said there.
Friday night we went to a birthday party for some friends of her family. I let her drive my car back to her house and she stopped in a nice place in Houston Woods and we hugged, danced and enjoyed each other. I got photos of her posing on the car :) ....not topless :(
After she left for her night out though I got to talk to her father. It went really well and he is supportive of us. Nothing really to note, but it went a lot easier than I thought it would. He closed it out with a handshake and said "welcome to the family."
Alisha was supposed to be home though by 2am. At 4am I got up to use the bathroom and to see her on the couch (she lets me have her bed) and she wasn't there. I went outside to check my phone when she just turned in the driveway. We stayed up for about an hour listening to her night. I should so ground her but she is way to cute to do that to :)
Saturday was the big day. I didn't know how, when or if I was going to do it. I woke her up in a good mood at around noon and we talked about what we wanted to do that day. We came up with the idea of hiking in Huston Woods, hit up the roller rink at 4:30, have a picnic dinner, and catch a movie at the drive-in. I thought lots of fun stuff and a picnic....perfect :)
Before we started I picked her up and sat her on the counter while made her some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with some extra flirt, to hold us over till the picnic. All day I couldn't keep my arms off her at all. During our hike I asked her about how she wanted to be asked and other things about getting married. It ended up raining lightly for the better part of the day and had the wrong hours for the roller rink but that didn't stop us for our picnic. After getting subs and milk shakes for our picnic, we stopped at her father's place to take my car. We then found a quiet spot at Huston Woods and ate. I wasn't very hunger. I was nervous like mad. I had a hard time sleeping or eating all week.
And for the moment...I waited till she finished her sandwich then I did it. "So is this a good time to ask you......ask you to marry me? .....will you marry me?" She couldn't figure out if I was serious then I said "Wait, I need something first", and I got in the trunk of the car and pulled out the ring. She had tears before I could get back down. She did say yes. She stood up to hug me and I did the whole bent knee thing and asked her properly.
She was in shock for a while and then she went for the phone to call her Mother. I made her promise not to tell her on the phone, but to show in person. She had a hard time keeping that promise but she did pull it off. She then called up her friends and told them, and we finally got over to her Mother's house.
Her mother meet us in the driveway and was just drooling over my car. She was so excited to see it. Well Alisha offered her mother the leftover food that we had, trying to surprise her with the ring. Her mother was like, no thanks, I'm not hungry. I felt really bad, but Alisha tried again and again. Finally Alisha was like "MOM, LOOK!" and her mother freaked out again. Chased me around the car to give me a hug. We did hang out for a while though to talk.
When we got back to her father's place, she showed him the ring and gave him a huge hug. He told her that he was happy for her and everything, then asked here his shotgun was as a joke. After a bit we did goto the roller rink and skated but we just sat down and watched the ring shine more than we skated.
Church on Sunday morning went smoother than I though it would. She told her cousin Sherri about it and later her father got up in front of the church and announced it. Everybody gave their congrats and all and we spent the rest of the day napping and relaxing. I finally got a full night of a good sleep.
We have plans for the ceremony to be next year but we haven't really picked a date. We are still juggling that around, but I will keep people informed about it. And if you want a invite from me I'm going to need some addresses.
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Grandma's Birthday Party and Father's Day
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Jun. 25th, 2007 @ 09:03 pm
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Wow. I can't believe that I have went almost a whole month without posting. Crazy. Where to start.
June 2, I went to a graduation party for one of Alisha's cousins. We had a lot of fun. Food, 4-wheel'n and a bon-fire. After the party Alisha and I sat up at her father's picnic table and shared a 6 pack of Smirnoff Twist and a little fun ;)
June 8, 9, 10 - Alisha came over for the weekend. We went to see Spider Man 3, take a swim in the pool, watched other movies and relaxed.
On the 9th though we went to Indiana for my Grandmother's 70th birthday party. It was great. The family pitched in to rent a 18 passenger stretch Hummer limo. She wanted to ride in a limo for her birthday and she got it. It was funny cause the first place we stopped was some liquor and bait shop for a six pack of Budweiser tall boys, a case of bud light long necks, and some premixed margarita. We ended up going to Red lobster and had to wait in the parking lot for an hour, but we had plenty to drink. The food was good and everybody had a good time. I have some photos I need to post on the internet.
June 16 and 17 - I helped Dad with stuff around the house for fathers day. We took out the short brick wall in front of the house and dug out the flower bed to make room for the new porch he is building on the house this summer.
Sunday I worked on the Chevelle. I found out why it wasn't starting. The bolts for the starter was loose so it wasn't tight against the engine block for a good ground connection. After I got that all tightened down it ran just fine. Ended the day with a trip to Home Depot with Mom and Dad to get lumber for the porch.
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Photos: 2007-05: Alisha's Graduation
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May. 29th, 2007 @ 07:04 pm
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Here is some of the photos I took at Alisha's graduation and following parties. The rest are on the my flickr account.
( Hats off to her )
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Party weekend
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May. 29th, 2007 @ 06:49 pm
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This past weekend, 3 parties. Yeah, I was busy.
Friday night I spent chilling and playing some Dawn of War. Saturday though I went to Best Buy for printer ink. While I was there I picked up 2 new CDs, Ozzy Osbourne - Black Rain, and Rush - Snakes & Arrows. Both are pretty good. I changed my oil in my car and I was going to wash it until I looked at the weather radar and realized that it was going to rain in like 5 minutes. It didn't get washed.
Saturday night I went to Alisha's. When I got there it was around 7pm. She was out on the trampoline. I parked the car next to it, turned up the radio, and joined her on it. We had a lot of fun wrestling on it. He then hitup CiCi's for dinner and caught the Pirates movie. I thought it was pretty good, a little hard to follow all the alliances the main characters do but it was still good.
Sunday Alisha and I went to church only to skip out of it right before the sermon. We drove for an hour south to Ereid's house in Cincinnati for her graduation party. We got there early and could only stay for about an hour and a half. Then we drove 2 hours north to East Germantown IN for my Uncle Bob and Aunt Carol Anne's surprise 60th birthday party. We was late....by an hour....however, they just started eating when I got there and have still yet to do cake and ice-cream. Alisha got to meet my Uncle Alan and my cousin Nathan and his wife Abby. After the party Alisha and I followed Nathan and Abby to their house and I helped her with computer and camera problems.
Sunday night Alisha and I stopped off at Papa Johns and took it back to her farm. We got there to find her cousins there and a huge tree has been cut down.
Monday brought with it Alisha father's birthday. He was having a cookout at his place and all the cousins where there. Myself and 2 others spent a better part of the day splitting the wood from the tree while the others worked on the hydraulic log splitter. It was a shame I had to come home cause Alisha was all soft and cuddly for my sore body.Current Music: Rush - 2112 |
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Alishas Graduation and party
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May. 23rd, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
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Alisha graduated from Wilmington College with a BA in Communications. I'm so proud of her, and very happy.
Graduation was on the 13th and boy, was it a long day though. We had to be in Wilmington by 8:30. My parents got to meet her parents which went really really well. At 9:30 we all made our way over to the gym where they was having the graduation. It was pretty nice, it had AC and stadium seats on the side that we sat on. Out of all of us there, I was the only one with a camera that could take photos from where we was sitting. I did move down closer to the floor though to get some photos. They came out ok, but I think I could use some faster lenses. The ceremony didn't start till 10:30am and was over at 12:30. The speaker though was horribly boring. He talked for like 45 minutes, yet when he was finished everybody cheered because he was finished.
Outside the school had a tent setup with refreshments on it. I got plenty of good photos then since it was a nice day. We spent the next couple of hours helping Alisha and her roommates move out of their apartment. It would have gone faster, but there was just too many people in the way. We didn't leave there till about 3:30pm and we headed to her father's house since she had cold food that needed refrigerated and we had some time to kill.
For dinner we had 6:30 reservations at Primavista in Cincinnati. I was looking at the directions on there website and it really sounded crazy to find the place. Even a trace with google maps made it look harder than it was. We managed to find the place ok....except for her Uncle Fred. That guy could get lost on the way to a light in a empty dark room with a single light in the middle.
The restaurant was really good though. Italian food at around $20 bucks a plate. It was located on the first floor of a luxury high rise that itself was built on top of a tall hill giving a great view of the Cincinnati skyline. While we was there we gave Alisha some graduation gifts. Her parents got her a nice set of ear rings and a charm bracelet, while my parents gave he a regular bracelet. I got her a "journey" necklace. It was a gold figure 8 pendant with 5 emeralds around the bottom of the loop and diamonds on the cross over. It is very pretty. I got it cause it looked good, and green is her school color.
Last Thursday though Alisha came up and meet me at work. We ended up going over to Beavercreek to do some last minute shopping for her party. We also stopped at the Verizon store so that I could get the battery of my phone checked out since I was only able to use it for around an hour at a time. It ended up being bad, and the guy replaced it under warranty. Next we hit up Meijer because I had to get something to take to the company spring picnic. We also raided the movie rack there too. I got the Special Edition of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It has a tone of features on it but it won't be till next week when I get to watch it.
Friday night I went to Alisha's after work. We had dinner with her parents and then I went outside to take some photos of the moon, the stars, and the horizon. I got some good shots that I will have to post on here.
Saturday was her Graduation Party at her house. There was a pretty good turn out and once again, I was photo guy. I was able to get away from that job for a while and regretted it. I was helping take stuff down to the house from the hill and decided to use her father's golf cart. He was cool with the idea but I had to be careful getting it out of the barn since she had the horse out giving rides. The cart beeps when it backs up so I decided to push it out. Well the horse still freaks out and it wasn't anywhere near the cart. Lucky the kid that was on the horse was ok.
I only made one trip with the golf cart though. I got back up and one of the kids there wanted a ride. So I gave her a ride, and then all the kids wanted a ride on it. I was lugging around 7 kids on a 4 seater. I'm surprised that I didn't get yelled out for doing that. I drove that cart around till the batteries gave up on it. The motor on it might have given up too though since it was starting to smell by the time I got finished with it.
Also during the party some kid decided to run away from it. Well his parents had to go somewhere really quick and they left the kids there. He saw them leave and took off chasing after them. Some of us saw him take off heading down the lane but we though he was playing and would stop at the road.....well he turned the corner and down the road. Next thing I know, my parents Envoy goes flying by me and I was like "My parents are leaving and didn't say by...that is odd." Then the truck went in the grass by the lane and I thought it would be odder that they would do that. Come to find out they let Alisha's father borrow the truck to catch the kid.
Sunday I helped Alisha clean her room. We hauled 5 trash bags of junk and stuff out of it. 2 to the garbage and 2 more to her cousins and another to my church for a garage sale.
Monday my friend John from highschool called me. I haven't heard from him in like years and we talked for about a hour and a half. He is in the coast guard as a electronics repair guy, married with 2 kids, and enjoying life. It was good to hear from him again though. He mentioned something about our 10 year reunion for highschool, but I don't know anything about that yet.
Today was a good day at work though. I got quite a bit done. Then while working out I was able to raise my walking incline 1%, run a mile and a half at 6mph (15 minutes) and increase the weight I have been lifting.
I need to get to bed. Have fun.
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Promotion and busy weekend!
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May. 6th, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
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So the past week has been really good to me. I'm getting to work on some new components for our application. I got a promotion on Thursday. They made me a App Engineer level 2 (up from level 1), moved me to salary and a $7800 raise. That was way more than I was hoping for. It even took effect on April 15 so Friday's paycheck was really sweet. This means that I can afford my computer upgrades, get the car started this summer or even move out. If I move out thought the other two things can't happen.
I finished reading the 6th book of Harry Potter on Thursday. I'm looking forward to the next one to come out though. It has been a good story. I felt bad that something seriously bad happens to Harry in every book. I was kinda hoping to see one book without so much drama, but hey, good series anyways.
Mom and Dad when to collect Emily from her college on Friday. They drove straight there and straight back. Left just as I was going to work and didn't get back till 1 am. It was nice but they could have been gone longs.
Alisha went with her roommate to Myrtle Beach over the weekend. Sucks I didn't go, but I did get a lot of stuff done over the weekend. On Friday while the house was quiet I tried to make a DVD for Alisha. She gave me a DVD and a VHS tape of some of the stuff that she did for her projects this year. She wanted me to put them all together on a DVD for her Dad since her class computers don't have a DVD-R drive. Well, I tried to copy the VHS tape with my VCR and my computer, but the VCR is so crappy anymore that didn't work well.
Saturday morning I dragged my computer out to the family room and used the VCR in there. The quality was much better compared to my old one but it was still wasn't great. My TV tuner isn't the greatest thing in the world. After I got that, I tried to create a test ISO and mount it with Daemon Tools. Easy Media 7 kept crashing on me while trying to import a video. Lucky for me I have a copy of Movie Factory 8 which can create DVD videos. I was able to get the 2 things from the VHS in it, but MF8 couldn't handle the Dolby Digital audio from her DVD. So I had to go through the long process of ripping the data to a AVI file. The end result was that I got it all together, but quality is passable. I would rather have the raw files that are on her school computer to create the dvd with though. Perhaps I can talk her into getting them for me.
Saturday afternoon, I took some time to go out shopping for mothers day. I got a necklace for Mom from JC Penny's that she pointed out to me the other day. No clue what I'm getting Alisha's mother though.
Saturday night was a bad night for my desk. Dad's water softener job sprang a leak and got my carpet wet in my room. The water softener is just on the other side of the wall from my desk. Well I knew the carpet was damp from it but I didn't think it was that bad until I barely touched the carpet and my hand came back soaked. Well we got some boards out of the garage to put under the desk since it is too big to move out of the room along with everything else.
While cleaning off the top of the desk though I found a mark. It was a dark mark about the size of a AA battery. I had some batteries out sitting on top of my desk that I used in my RC helicopter but one of the leaked acid. New battery too. What sucked is that I think I was sitting at my desk when it happened. It made a sizzling sound and I though it was the water softener doing something. Pisses me off cause it made quite a mark. I don't know if I will be able to sand down just the spot and re-stain it without making it look worse.
Sunday morning I spent going through a box that had some old college notebooks in it and a small stack of books. I was able to reduce the whole box down to a small stack on the book case. Then I went with my parents to Home Depot to get some wood. Dad is going to build a grape harbor by the garden and I was getting wood to make some bed risers.
The core of the riser is made form a 4x4 cut 4 and a 1/2 inches long, this gives me the 4 and a 1/2 inch rise I need. Then I take some 1x6 and cut it length wise 5 inches. The cuts are made a 45 degree angle to look nice when nailed to the core. So the result is block that is 5x5 inches with almost a 3/4 inch cup. I had to router off 1/8 to 1/4 inch because the head board post are 3 and a 1/2 square and the riser would be too snug on it. For the middle supports of the bed, I was just going to cut some 2x4 into 5 inch strips sections, nail two together and then router out a 1/2 cup.
Took me and dad a while to get the saw and router setup for the task. Much of the time I couldn't decide on but joints or the 45 degree angle. However, I did stick with a 45 degree joint so that it would look nice. Dad ran the table saw while I did the router. After that I would put the block together while dad used some wood filler to fill in the gaps. I think they will look nice when I sand them down tomorrow and stain them.
I need to run off to bed now. My back is hurting from sitting on the floor using this computer. I have been using a de-humidifier under my desk to help dry it out. The thing puts out a lot of hot air. Not sure that it working that well. Gota go, catch you laterz.
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Spring Formal and stuff
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May. 1st, 2007 @ 06:38 pm
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Where to start? How about a little over a week ago. On Saturday, April 21 I was at Alisha's apartment at school. We spent pretty much all day cleaning her apartment. Then we got ready for the 2007 Spring Formal that her school was putting on. I got some photos here:
The dance was pretty good. Like usual, the organizers got a limo to drive everybody to the dance and back. We danced pretty much the whole time we was there. The dance was over at midnight though and we missed the last limo ride back. The organizers once again, only booked the limo till 12....the same time the dance was over. Alisha and I ended up walking back to her apartment. It was about 2 miles to her apartment but we got out of the last quarter mile before somebody from the dance picked us up.
Sunday was her Equine banquet. It was nice but nothing really to note about it.
All I did last week was read more of the Harry Potter series. I'm finding it a pretty good and easy to read series. Last night I started on the 6th book and I plan on having if finished by Friday. I don't know when I will get around to the new one.
This past weekend I spent it with Alisha gain. Friday we worked on her video project and hung around her apartment. Saturday though we just loafed around and hung out with her roommates while they was having a small party. I came home Sunday morning because Alisha and her roommate Ashley went to Kings Island. Their tickets cost only $5 bucks. I though about going, but I wanted to get my car cleaned and I didn't want to be the odd ball there.
I finally got around to cleaning my car really good since I got back from Florida. I was able to wash it and wax it. My orbital buffer that I got for my birthday is great. I never used on before and for putting wax on the car, it kicked ass. Yeah, I used too much wax and I got some splattered on the windows and in the molding. I used so much wax that the bonnet that takes the wax off got clogged before I finished the first quarter panel. I'll learn next time. I had to try Napa, Autozone, and finally Wal-mart before I found a 6 inch bonnet, and then I got the last one. While at Wal-mart I finally got around to buying me some rechargable batteries. It sucks that my helicopter remote has a short in it and keeps draining the batteries.
Well, I'm off to read. I'll catch you laterz
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Florida Trip - Saturday March 17 -- Mexico Beach
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Apr. 25th, 2007 @ 09:38 pm
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Photos:
2007-03-17 -- Mexico Beach
Saturday was our last day in Florida and we still had one thing left on our list to do. Swim in the Gulf. However though a cold front came through and it was really cold out that day. We braved it though and went out to the beach after checkout and some breakfast. It was a very beautiful beach. We spent a little time strolling on it when Alisha noticed some guys setting up hut on the beach. A sign on next to the hut had para sailing rates listed on it. Alisha's eyes got huge and she so wanted to go. We talked to the guy and he said that they wasn't sure that they would do it that day and that we should come back later.
We burned a couple of hours walking up and down the beach collecting shells, taking photos and chasing the birds. We didn't go swimming because it was so cold. We did walk in the water for a little bit though.
We went back to the para sailing hut and gave the guy our money, picked out life vest and waited for the boat to come out. They almost called it off though when tried to get out to the boat on jet skies cause the cold, the wind and the waves. It was rough out on the water. Alisha and I did a tandem ride that lasted about 15 minutes. We probably got about 100~150 feet in the air. We could have gone higher if it wasn't for the wind and the choppiness of the water slowing down the boat.
The ride was great though. Alisha was behind me and it was just herself and I up there. The boat was too far ahead and the wind so loud that they couldn't hear us nor us hear them. A couple of times they guy slowed the boat down and let us comedown and dip in the water. It was cold. What was worse though was that Alisha's knees kept rubbing on my harness and they got really raw.
On the way back though the guy driving the boat still had his hoodie on and gripping about the weather so they decided to not to do any more para sailing for the day and put the boat away. Since Alisha and I was in no big hurry and it was hard to get on the jet skies we rode the boat back to the marina and they drove us back. We had a lot of fun, but at last it was time for us to leave Florida.
I drove north to catch I-10 and take it to Pensacola and go back the way I came south. I should have just gone down highway 98 though cause it took almost 4 hours to get back to Pensacola. Our original plan was to leave Florida from Alisha's Brother's and go through Georgia. I was kinda glad to go the way we went because I didn't want to deal with traffic in Atlanta. It was also longer from where we were at. We made it till about the middle of Alabama when we got a room at around 11pm. The next day we finished the drive to Alisha's farm, showed off the loot to her mother, ate and went home.
The trip was great. I think we tried to do too much but we still had tons of fun. I want to go back down again cause we still didn't see all there was to see considering we didn't go down into southern Florida around the everglades.
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Florida Trip - Friday March 16 -- The Trek For Sandy Beaches
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Apr. 25th, 2007 @ 09:09 pm
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Photos:
2007-03-16 -- Florida Gulf Beaches Revisit
Our plan for Friday was to already be in a town where we can go out and spend the day at one of the gulf side beaches. Instead we decided to stay the extra night in Daytona Beach and then drive to the Gulf of Mexico. We left Daytona beach and headed west and ran into our first rain all week. Wednesday was cloudy and Thursday was partly cloudy, but the rest of the week was awesome weather. Well the rain was quick and it became a very nice day out.
We arrived in Crystal River around noon. We grabbed a bit for lunch and decided to go find the beach. After driving 10 miles through the flat grasslands, we came across the beach. However it was a very small beach, and we wasn't really impressed. The coast in that region was river delta/grassland. We went to go find a place to stay and then head back out for a swim. On the way back to town though we though about it and we decided that we wanted to swim in at a really pretty beach with blue water and we knew where to find them, Mexico Beach. However that was a 6 drive. We went for it.
I took photos of the beautiful coast along highway 98. The photos didn't come out that great since I took them from a moving car. I wouldn't mind having a place there though, but all the houses where on stilts and some even had a deck on the peak of the roof.
We arrived in Mexico beach as it was getting dark. It took us a while to find a hotel. We didn't see any of the chain hotels there so we stayed a small dive. The room was just enough, king size bed, bathroom, and clean sheets; not much else. It did was however right next door to a oyster bar. Alisha and I decided to have dinner there.
The oyster bar was a small place of two rooms. A regular bar with about 4 bar stools and 3 tables in one room and a oyster bar of the same size in the other room. They didn't have any tables so we sat at the bar. They guy working it was pretty cool. We watched him shuck oysters the whole night. We ordered regular food but Alisha got up the nerve to ask him to try one out. He opened up a fresh one and she tried to scoop it up with a cracker. She wasn't have much luck with that so she picked it up with her fingers. She was going to put on the cracker but I told her "hey, you have it now, just do it" and she ate it. She didn't mind it. After a while of Alisha's nagging I decided to try one. He was making up a flavored plate of them and added an extra one for me to try. It was pretty good like that.
Alisha kept bugging me about eating one raw so the guy handed me one and I downed it. I really had to choke it down though. I kept it in my mouth too long trying to chew it. It was cold, slimy and salty. I can't say that I liked it like that. Good thing I had a beer to wash it down with. When was done eating, Alisha and I went back to the hotel and crashed.
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Florida Trip - Thursday March 15 -- Daytona
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Apr. 25th, 2007 @ 07:38 pm
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Photos:
2007-03-15 -- Daytona Beach
2007-03-15 -- Daytona International Speedway
Alisha got me up early to go watch the sun rise over the beach. Although a cloud blocked the view it was still very beautiful to watch it. We walked along the beach for a while watching people jog by and the birds out getting their morning fill. We even took the time to go out into the water to say that we have in the ocean.
After shower and breakfast we went to this beach shop and looked at bathing suits, towels, and trinkets. Alisha and I didn't find anything we wanted there so we headed back to the hotel and passed out for a quick nap.
We didn't head out to the beach to swim till about 2pm. It was a great day and the place was busy. We really stayed about 2 or 3 miles north of Daytona beach itself. It was nice cause it is still the same beach but we didn't deal with the spring break crowd. There was people our jogging, strolling, sun tanning, swimming, and driving on the beach. For about 20 bucks I could have driven down the beach in my car but I figured it wasn't worth it.
Swimming in the ocean was really fun. The water was cold but it wasn't too bad. I was afraid to go out past the waist high water cause the waves was coming in pretty good. Alisha and I would play in the waves jumping up in them and having a blast. The undertow from the waves wasn't bad. It probably moved me a little bit like 3 times. My problem was the sand being swept out from underneath my feet. They wasn't kidding about the water being salty. I really didn't mind it since it tasted so much like table salt. After we got done swimming I sat down in the waves while Alisha was picking out small mollusks.
After a that we decided to get in the car and see what the town had to offer. We stopped off for dinner at a place called Barnacles. Alisha had a huge itch to eat some alligator tail and that was the only place that we heard of that had it. I tried it and it was really good.
For the hell of it we ran out to see the Daytona Speedway. We took a couple photos outside so I can show them off to my father's side of the family and make them jealous. We went inside to check it out but they was closing so we couldn't go through the museum. So we went back down to the beach front, parked the car and did the whole shopping scene.
The beach front was like the state fair down there. A bunch of little shops and things to do. Alisha and I got a couple of t-shirts, post cards, shot glasses, and a really cool photo album. This album is made from leaves and bamboo held together with twine. The front of it has the state a Florida carved in it. We plan on filling it with photos from the trip. We also walked out on the pier and got ice-cream cones while we walked down the beach in the dark.
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Florida Trip - Wednesday March 14 -- Kennedy Space Center
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Apr. 24th, 2007 @ 09:04 pm
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Photos:
2007-03-14 -- Kennedy Space Center
While Alisha and I where in Florida, we wanted to spend a day at Daytona Beach. I got to looking at the map and realized that Kennedy Space Center was not all that far from her brother's house and Daytona Beach. So on Wednesday morning we got our stuff packed. I felt sorry for her brother cause he was excited that we was out there but only really stayed 2 nights. I don't think that he knew we had plans to goto the Space Center and then go to the beach. After we left his place we stopped off at his girlfriend's work and ate breakfast. The way she was talking, she didn't realize that we was leaving either.
The drive out to the Space center was really nice. The roads were very nice, straight, and lined with tall trees forest on either side. The road that leads out to KSC was really cool in of itself. It was a long causeway bridge and the whole time you could see the Vehicle Assembly Building. We got to the visitors center around 11am. Parking wasn't bad and it wasn't crowed either however, we paid 40 bucks apiece to get in, but they were good for two days. We missed out on the buss tours that ran around the space port. The ticket lady said that they were booked up well before we got there. So we was stuck to the visitor center. I took my camera lenses and flash in my pockets and had to dig it all out and show them to the security lady before I could go in. It was almost as bad as the airport.
The visitor center itself was pretty cheesy. The first place that we went was called "Robot Scouts". I thought, cool, we get to see some models and info about the rovers and probes sent out into the solar system. Nope. It was a children's thing that talked about how we sent them out without giving any details. Complete with fake robot actor and cheesy voices for voyager and viking probes. No models or any other pictures or details about the current or future missions.
After that we went to the restaurant and had over priced food while checking out the map. The place didn't really have a whole lot to do. We decided to skip out on the cheesy looking stuff and headed over to the mock up Shuttle. It was ok, but nothing really cool about it. You walked into it, turn one way to see a space suit and some of the flight deck and then the other side was an mostly empty cargo bay.
From the shuttle we stopped off at the space mirror astronaut memorial. the pond that it was built over had a bunch of large turtles and alligators in it. We had fun with the other tourist taking photos of them. The rocket garden was the best part of the center, but it didn't have a whole lot to it. I wish there was some of the larger rockets that went to the moon and such.
We then decided to hit up the IMAX and watched (free of charge) the Tom Hanks movie about going to the moon. No, not Apollo 13 but a documentary. It was done with the IMAX 3D stuff and was very cool. We rounded the visit off with a trip the gift shop. It was awesome some of the stuff they had. More good stuff than cheesy fluff. I picked up some post cards and a cool snow globe that has the shuttle launching in it.
After we left the Visitor center we went to the Astronaut hall of fame since our tickets where good for it too. That was where the cool stuff was. They had equipment and photos and just loads of stuff about the space program. I posted a photo of a camera, but I couldn't find out anything out about it. We also saw the Apollo 14 command capsule, various newspapers, spacesuits, capsules, and info. We did a g-force simulator, about got me sick, mostly dizzy. I had to sit down for a bit.
After the space center we ran up the road to Daytona beach. It took us almost 2 hours to get there and we couldn't find a hotel. It wasn't cause they was booked, there was none on the mainland. Come to find out that we went over to the strip of land that the beach was one and the first place we tried had a king size bed for not a bad price and it was right on the beach. We booked it to nights and relaxed.
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Florida Trip - Tuesday March 13 -- Alisha's Brother's House
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Apr. 24th, 2007 @ 08:34 pm
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2007-03-13 -- Alisha's Brother's House
We spent Tuesday at Alisha's brother's place. It was a rather relaxing day compared to all the hustle and bustle of the past couple of days. We all hung out in his back yard watching his baby chickens. After a while a friend of his called telling him that he was out boating on the river and wanted to know if we would like to come. So we all went out to a small state park out in the middle of the swamp. The river that we went down was in the swamp. I never went on a boat ride through the swamp so it was really cool.
I didn't know what to expect, so I didn't take my camera. I kick myself for that now because I didn't realize where we was going to boat at. In the swamp we got to see a lot of animals. There was many turtles sitting on logs sunning themselves and we even got to see a alligator or two. Alisha got to do a little fishing but didn't catch anything. If I knew that we was going to be on a pontoon boat in a gator filled swamp then I would have brought my camera but I'm afraid that that when Alisha and I go out on a boat that she wants to see me swimming somehow.
After the boat trip we went back to his house and hung out. During the evening several of their friends dropped by. One such group was a couple that brought their 3 kids with them. The dad was a little strange but the kids was alright. The oldest one kept chasing the turkeys and chickens in the pen. I got some photos of him holding the animals.
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Florida Trip - Monday March 9 -- Florida Gulf Beaches
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Apr. 24th, 2007 @ 07:52 pm
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2007-03-09 -- Florida Gulf Beaches
Monday in Florida was another awesome day of many during Alisha and I's trip. We kicked off our journey to Central Florida first thing in the morning. We started out by taking I-110 down through Pensacola to where it turned into Hwy-98. Right before the freeway downgraded we came over a hill on it and had a wonderful view of Pensacola bay. It was awesome. I decided to take Highway 98 because it ran right along the coast so I was expecting some very scenic drive.
98 starts by going across Pensacola Bay. On the other side of the bridge we stopped to take some photos on a small pier. It was very beautiful. I'm glad that I got to take Alisha with me so she could see it all too. We drove for about an hour more before we stopped at a town park that was right on the beach where we got take more photos.
Somewhere between Pensacola and Panama city we found a nice white sands park. Where I got to put my feet into the salt water for the first time. There was several families there swimming but where I was at I didn't want to because there was looked to be jelly fish and quite a bit of them.
For lunch, we stopped into a resort town called Destin. We ate at a seafood and oyster bar called Gilligan's. We ate out on the back deck that had a great view of the harbor. I decided to try something new and ordered a soft shell crab sandwich. It was very good.
The next town that we went through was Panama City Beach. We took the scenic route again that ran down by all the beach front condos. The whole town was a mad house due to spring breakers being in town. It had to take us like an extra hour to get through it all. However I enjoyed it. I never saw a tall beach front condo that had a sky walk to the garage on the other side of the street. For several hours we drove along the coast. After Panama City though the urban landscaped turned into some nice rural area with the highway like 50 feet from shore in some places.
Around 6pm though we came into Perry, FL. We grabbed some dinner and I let Alisha drive at that point while I crashed. We ended up calling her brother for directions to his house. We didn't get there till like 10pm. Her brother has a nice little trailer on a large plot of land. We meet his girlfriend and just stayed up for a couple of hours drinking beer and catching up on stuff.
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Florida Trip - Sunday March 11 - USS Alabama Memorial Park
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Apr. 19th, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
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2007-03-11 -- USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park
2007-03-11 -- USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park - USS Alabama
2007-03-11 -- USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park - USS Drum
Sunday morning came bright and early. I had to pick up Alisha from the Pensacola airport. The day before she was doing her regionals show for her equine team and flew down from Dayton early Sunday. I got to the airport with about 10~15 minutes to spare so I didn't have to wait long. It was a small airport and I could see her come down the concourse from the security section. We came back to the hotel room and just crashed for about an hour or so.
After the nap we got our stuff together and checked out of the hotel. We went to Jim's hotel to see if he wanted to go out for lunch. He wasn't there when we showed up, but did come around a half hour later. He went to church that morning with the guys he was staying with. They had to rush off to the airport though and Jim didn't wasn't leaving till Monday morning. I mentioned to him that I wanted to goto the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial park over next to Mobile, AL. Alisha and I went across the street to a Greek restaurant for lunch while Jim got himself ready to go.
The drive to the park was great. Alisha crashed in the backseat with her DVD player watching a movie while Jim and I caught up on life and checked out his TomTom GPS unit. It was pretty cool and he put the Steve Irwin voice on it which was even better. When I go on another big trip, I am going to seriously consider getting one myself. The drive was nice and it was only a hour long. The memorial was right off the freeway so it wasn't hard to miss. Come on, there was a battleship sitting there off the freeway. How do you not miss it?
The park itself was rather small. They had some old WWII era tanks, artillery and tracked equipment. They also had a small aircraft hanger, but recent hurricanes tore it up pretty good. I guess the roof on it collapsed because the aircraft was sitting out in the parking lot with various chunks taken out of them.
We paid the admission of 12 bucks each to get on the ships. I have never seen a battleship before in person, let alone board one. It was very, very impressive. The thing was huge. Easy to get lost in it too. The battleship has to be my favorite naval unit because of its size, strength and firepower. They had three self guided tours that ran through the whole ship. We started by taking the tour that went through the forward part of the ship below decks. It was great. We got to see rooms where they stored and feed munitions, the engine and generator room, sick bay, various quarters and offices. My favorite room was where they house all the electronics and gyroscopes that helped aim the massive 16 inch guns.
After that tour we went running around the tour that gone through the main deck and the superstructure on the ship. There was various officer quarters and offices to see, great views of the ship, and even the bridge. I wanted to stand on the bridge. I found it, but didn't recognize it. It wasn't like they show in movies where you have a large room with all kinds of stuff. It was made up of several smaller rooms. I got photos of us all checking out the wheel house though :)
On the main deck of the ship we got up close to the 16 inch gun turrets, 5 inch gun turrets, AA batteries I have several photos linked to above of Alisha, Jim and I standing next to the guns to give you an idea how big they are. They even had the 16 inch turrets opened up to the public. Like all the doors on the ship which are small. To get into the turret you had to craw in through the under back side. The gap was only about 3 feet high and the door was just as wide. Really cramped and hot in there. I would have hated to be in it while the guns where going off, but it would give anybody a happy insane look on there face.
In all we ended up spending almost 3 hours aboard the ship. Alisha and I kept pulling ahead of Jim while he was reading the information in the displays. At one point I slowed down to check them and Alisha ran off ahead of me. It took me 15 minutes just to find her.
After that part we walked over to the USS Drum. It is an WWII era submarine. Unlike the Alabama, it was out of the water (though the Alabama was on legs and quite secure). A storm at one time tore it up pretty good. There was only one tour of that ship and you started on the only deck of it at one end of the ship and went to the other end. It was a very, very small ship on the inside. The doors were only about 3~4 feet tall making it a challenge for me to get through them. Even more for Jim cause he is around 6'5". I got what photos I could if it even though it was hard to shoot in it cause it being cramped. Alisha moved fast through it cause it was hot and stuffy. Even I was starting to feel claustrophobias in it.
After hitting up the gift shot (I got a shot glass and some post cards) we went back to Pensacola. By the time we got back though it was around 6pm. So we all hit up Waffle House for dinner. Jim has never been to one so I thought he would enjoy it. It was the best one we have been too though. Alisha and I wanted to drive to her brother's on this day too but we wanted to drive in the daylight so we decided to get a room where Jim was staying and we all went out to see a movie after it got dark.
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