Winter citrus...

tis true...

okay...  :)

It's Winter... Why not?

Random--I know, but if you've got ten minutes to waste, why not learn something.

I ran across this video the other day and thought it was pretty interesting. It was made in 1949 in northern Canada. Watching this feels so much like something that would have been shown to us in elementary school. I can almost feel the rough, itchy, horribly colored, all-weather carpet underneath me as we all settle down on the floor while the teacher rolls the TV in on an unusually tall cart. Then she struggles with the VCR trying to get the video to play. Once the video starts to play we have no sound and after watching the first minute or so she figures that part out, rewinds the tape and finally starts the video from the beginning with everything working. 

OK class, settle down, the video is about to start...

Enjoy.   :)

I'm back...

Okay, once again, no excuses. I know it's been a while but I just haven't felt spurred on to blog lately.  So what have I been up to since you last heard from me?

Well, first of all, I have completed yet another year of my life and moved on to the next one with nothing major to report. My birthday was low key but fun. I worked most of the day and then headed out to play ultimate frisbee with some friends who surprised me with a cookie cake (always a good choice) when we  went out to dinner afterwards. Then a few weeks ago I got into some kind of poison ivy/oak or something of the like that invaded part of my face. It has mostly cleared up but it was pretty nasty at its peak. The worst part of it all was the fact that I had work with two new clients that week. I felt so bad for them having to look at me all day but I couldn't skip out on work and I wasn't contagious, it just didn't look too pretty.  

That's about it. Not too much else has been going on. I've been trying to stay busy with work. Some weeks I've been successful at that. Lets hope for more of the up weeks in the future...

Hopefully you'll hear from me again soon.... (sooner than another month and a half)

Goodbye beard...

Well, the time had to come. Today I said goodbye to the beard. I stopped shaving the first week in August and never really expected to last this long. It's funny how in such a short amount of time you can grow attached to something as simple as a beard.  It was the first time that I ever really tried to grow a beard.  A few years ago I did go for about 4 weeks without shaving but then gave up on it.  I think this venture was much more successful. I had a lot of good feedback, so who knows, maybe my little facial friend will decide to make an appearance sometime again...

--I must say the girl that cut my hair today cut a little more than I initially wanted cut but, as always, I'll grow into it. 

The Return of The Five...

Five good things that is...

It's been about a year since I've posted a random set of "five good things". If this is new to you, here is my explanation of the idea: CLICK HERE.

So here goes...

Five good things:

1. Tuesday night Frisbee games

2. Going to the Ranger's game with my parents for Labor Day

3. Chips and Queso

4. Reconnecting with an old friend tonight

5. A busy week of work.

3 Weeks and counting...

The beard continues to grow. We shall see how long this trend lasts.

Farmer's Market...

You've  got to love the local farmer's market. After church this morning I stopped by the market to pick up some fresh fruit. 

I came home with:

9 plumbs

6 peaches

1 head of lettuce and

1 ear of freshly picked corn (which by no way can compare to the NH corn I had last week).

...all for under $7!

Not too shabby.

Post vacation "wanna-be" beard...

Vacation was nice. There may have been rain almost every day but the weather was still much nicer than the heat in Texas. And as you can see, I didn't shave while on vacation.  I thought about keeping it to see what I could grow but I figured that with this heat that might be something I could do in the winter... we'll see.

Edit- I know I kind of look like a thug in the picture below but I kind of liked the white background, it gave the shot a slightly different feel. That's the only reason I added it. The more I look at it, the more I think about deleting it, but I figured this little note would suffice.

Short Seattle video...

I know It's been a while since I was in Seattle but every time I play this video it makes me smile. This was a quartet that was singing outside of the original Starbucks in Seattle. When I started recording the video I figured just a portion of it would be enough for me to remember it by, but now that I'm back, I wish I had recorded the whole song. The video ends a little abruptly, but even in this short little video you can tell how happy these guys were to be outside singing. 

Hope you enjoy it...

Woo Hoo!!

I reached my goal! But just barely. I scored 99 on the links today. 

Since I generally only play golf about once a year I can't complain about that score. I had some really nice shots, but there was no consistency. One of the friends that I played with had seen my clubs before and took pity on me by bringing me an old driver he had sitting in his closet. Not only did he let me play with it, but he gave it to me! (Thanks Andy) It may not be some big name, expensive driver but it was definitely ten times better than the one in my bag. And I'm happy with it...

monthly update...

I'm so bad at updating my blog...

I just noticed that I've been consistently updating only about once a month. I wish I did it more often, but I'm not going to make any promises that I won't keep. I know myself too well. 

Anyway, I'm playing golf tomorrow! It will be my first round in a year. I'm hoping to stay under 100. We'll just have to see...  It's kind of sad knowing that when I was in high school I could easily shoot about 85 and now I'm just hoping to keep it under 100.

Random thought: 

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups taste better after sitting in the fridge for a little while...

Find a dollar, pick it up...

Well, life without speed bumps has been pretty nice. Not that I've been around too much to enjoy it. Since my last post I have had a couple week long jobs out of town with some down time in between. It's been pretty cool, I was able to visit two places I've never been before; Seattle, Washington and Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

Seattle was cool. We booked an extra day in town after the job was finished so that we could go do a little sightseeing in the city. We had time to go to the Pike Place Market for a few hours, drive around the city and see a few things, then we loaded a ferry to cross Puget Sound for Bainbridge Island. The sun was setting as we rode towards the island and we had a pretty nice view of Mt. Rainier along the way. Once we were on the island we had enough time to drive around a little before we ate dinner at a nice little diner at the marina. Shortly after, we had to jet back over to the ferry so that we weren't stuck on the island for several more hours with nothing else to do. Overall, I enjoyed Seattle.

Next we had a job in Green Bay. I was definitely surprised by this city. It was much smaller than I thought. I was expecting a small city but not this small. It's amazing that they have a NFL team in a town that small. It was nice though. Once you got out of "downtown" there were loads of little individually owned farms and some quaint little houses. I enjoyed my trip to Green Bay but I'm not going to be making any plans to visit again in the near future. 

That's what I've been up to lately. It was nice to go north for a couple of weeks before the summer officially sets in. Tonight the air was pretty nice so I took a long walk to enjoy it before the temps push just shy of 100 next week. And when I was almost home I looked down and found a dollar on the street. It was pretty random, and for some reason I felt guilty picking it up. I don't know why, but it felt like I was stealing. I wouldn't feel funny picking up a quarter but once you start finding actual paper money it feels different for some reason. (even though it was in the street and no one else was around to claim that they dropped it) I don't know why but I just thought I'd share that...

No More Speed Bumps!

One thing I quickly found out about my "new" apartment is that when they built this place someone got really excited about laying down speed bumps. In fact if you want to drive into my parking garage and come visit my apartment you will have to pass over 14 individual speed bumps. And that is only one direction. For a complete round trip in and out of my apartment you have to cross over 28 speed bumps! It's a little insaine, I know...  Not to mention the fact that these are not your little run of the mill average sized speed bumps either. Whoever constructed these suckers was serious about the 5mph speed limit within the parking garage. If you go much faster over these little mountains you are liable to be knocked out of the driver's seat, or at least spill your drink all over your car. 

If you can't tell, it has been a small source of frustration with me since I moved in.  I don't really mind the slow leisurely pace that the speed bumps require you to drive within our parking garage, but it can get quite annoying to be jostled around your car every time you have to enter or exit your apartment building. 

Well, I'm happy to say, relief is on the way!!! 

Last night when I came home from work I noticed that two of the speed bumps were completely gone. I was wondering to myself if they were merely replacing them with some more tame ones or if they were getting rid of them completely. When I left my house today I noticed a couple guys working on them so I decided to stop and ask. They informed me that they were removing all the speed bumps within the parking garage for good! There are a few bumps that are at the entrance of the parking garage that might stay, but I have to admit I'm pretty excited about not being thrown from my car anymore whenever I want to come and go...

Old friends and music...

Last weekend I had the joy of playing music with an old friend. He called me at the very last minute, but luckily enough I was free that night and I was able to make it to Fort Worth just in time for the concert. He has a new album out and I had not yet purchased it, but when I got home from work I had just enough time to download it and burn it to a disk so that I could run through a couple of the songs on the drive over. If you are wondering why the "concert" looks like it is in someones living room, that's because it is. With his new CD he is doing something a little different but its very cool. He is doing "house concerts". He will come to town for the weekend and have several concerts throughout town in different peoples homes that have offered to host a concert. It's a pretty cool idea. It's more laid back but it's also more of an intimate setting. In the end you feel much more connected to Ross and his songs because he explains a little about each song and what the inspiration was behind it when he wrote it.  Check out his website (linked below) for more info if you are interested in attending a house concert in your area. Or look at his blog (which is updated more regularly) linked in the right sidebar of my blog.

www.rosskingmusic.com

It was so good to see Ross and Staci again. It's been a few years since I've seen them but we traveled and played together so much in the past that it pretty easy for me to get back in a little groove with him during the concert. He's a great songwriter and if you've never heard of him or his music this is my little plug for you to check out his music. 

Mmmm....

It's that time of year again! One of my favorite seasonal treats. One year I got so excited I think I bought four boxes. Needless to say, I went a little overboard that year. I had almost forgotten that they were on the way but when I got back form Colorado I ran to the store for a few necessities and there they were.....taunting me...

...of course, I went home with some.

Trip update...

Well after a 13.5 hour drive on Wednesday I made it to Denver safely. Thursday looked pretty bad at the mountain so I decided to wait until Friday for my first day. When I woke up on Friday I checked the road conditions and I-70 was shut down due to poor road conditions and 70-80 mph winds. Needless to say Friday was out of the question. Knowing that it was the weekend, we decided to wake up early (5 am) and beat the traffic. Success! The snow conditions were some of the best I've had in a few years. (8-10 inches of fresh powder!) I took my last two runs with Lanny and Ethan. I was very impressed how well Ethan did. He's not quite 5 years old and he was like a little rocket down the mountain. He went all the way from the top of the mountain to the bottom without stopping. Look for him at the end of this short little video in a full out tuck.

It's been too long...

I know, it's been almost 2 months since I've posted anything and while I could come up with excuses as to why I've been so absent, this time I won't do that. The new apartment is treating me well and any complaints I have are just me being petty. After the first few weeks of living without a couch I was very happy to get that remedied. I never realized how much sitting around I do on my days off until all I had was a folding chair. Luckily I was really busy for the first 3-4 weeks that I lived in my new place.

The end of January and the beginning of February have been a little slower for me, so I decided what better time to go snowboarding than the slow times. (not that I wasn't already planning it anyway) So tomorrow (..er....um....today), early this morning I head off to Colorado for my annual snowboarding trip. While I should have been in bed several hours ago, here I am posting this for you guys. And to make up for all of my absence, I decided to make a short little video. Just a little something fun that I threw together this afternoon while I was prepping for my trip tomorrow.

Enjoy!

...and pray for my safety while I'm gone...