Tall Corn...

On a drive along the Connecticut River, which runs down the New Hampshire/Vermont border, we came across some of the tallest corn I have ever seen in my entire life. The stalks had to be at least 12-15 feet tall. I jumped out of the car so I could get a picture next to it. It's crazy... It's twice my height! I don't know if it is just really fertile ground or if it is a different kind of corn from what we have here in TX, but I thought it was interesting...

It's time to vacate again...

Vacate meaning vacation!!!

I leave in the morning for a week of relaxation and family fun up in the Appalachian mountains. New Hampshire to be specific.
...see my Aug. 15th 2006 entry to see a picture and be oh so jealous :)
I hope to come back relaxed and full of all types of new pictures to play with...

Till next time...

New routines...

So I'm finishing my last week as a full-time assistant this week. (by my choice) It's funny, I sustained myself as a freelance assistant for two years, yet it still makes me nervous. I have plenty faith in God's provision and my abilities, but it's still scary. Why is that? (rhetorical) God has shown me time and time again the he will take care of me, yet my flesh still doubts and I am scared sometimes. Anyway, I just thought I'd share that...

Lately I've been trying to get out of a routine that I've grown accustomed to. I'm trying to read as I go to bed instead of letting the TV "entertain" me as I drift off to sleep. When, I let the TV put me to sleep, I've found that I'll stay up later than I should and I don't sleep as well as when I read. Not to mention, that when I read I generally wake up with a better attitude about my day. Another part of my routine that is changing a little is my morning commute. I used to listen to my music or sometimes talk radio (I must admit that sometimes I can be a talk radio junkie, but the people I really like to listen to are either on in the middle of the day or after I get home from work), but lately I downloaded a bunch of podcasts of the church I attended in Colorado and have been trying to enrich my mind a little before I start my work day. Yet another thing that has helped my attitude throughout the day.

I've been reading "Searching for God Knows What" by Donald Miller, I enjoyed "Blue Like Jazz" so I figured I'd give his newer one a try. It's pretty good so far, a fairly easy read. I'm not sure what I should tackle next. Maybe some John Piper. We'll see...

Five good things:
1. My new MacBook Pro.
2. Going back to freelance.
3. New friends from Pennsylvania.
4. I heard from an old friend today.
5. Dinner at Pei Wei.

Man Chow and The Poconos

Okay, so I'm a little late on posting about my trip from two weeks ago but I still wanted to share a little. It was a great weekend! A much needed break from the crazy schedule I had been running. (Not that it slowed down any when I got back)

My weekend worked like clockwork without a hitch, that is until the flight home (I'll get to that later). I flew in to Philly on Thursday night and met the Bride-to-be and her family. Then I hung out till the wee hours of the night with Alex's (the groom) family. Friday we took care of a little business for the wedding before we met up with all the guys to spend the day in the Poconos.

Here is where my photos begin for you:


We arrived at the lake about 2:00 in the afternoon and made ourselves familiar with the place a little before we started to collect our firewood. A much needed part of a guys weekend. FIRE!

After building the fire pit, cutting logs and making a quick run to the local store everyone was very ready to hit the lake. This is where I learned a new game. I don't know the name of it, but basically you get a watermelon, coat it in Crisco and throw it in the lake. Everyone lines up on the shore and races after the watermelon. The first man back to the shore with the watermelon is the winner...

The race...

The struggle...

There were several games played with the watermelon...that is until it broke. We then hung out in the lake a little more playing some games made up on the spot with a tennis ball. Quite fun actually...

Now it was time to clean up and start the fire so we could start preparing what was so aptly named "Man Chow". During the clean up a request was made by the groom that I cook us some queso . I happily obliged.

Now, back to the Man Chow. This was a new venture for me, but it sounded pretty good. Man chow could be adapted to suit your tastes, but ours consisted of: potatoes, bell peppers, onions, carrots, ground beef, and seasonings. You layer everything and put the ground beef on top, season it as you wish, wrap it up in foil at least twice and throw it directly on the coals of your campfire for about 45 minutes or so. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance...

The guys devour my queso as the man chow cooks.

The groom with queso residue on his shirt.

Me watching the Man Chow cook.

Man Chow ready for consumption. MMMM

One of my favorite pics from the weekend. Alex finished his Man Chow.

The rest of the night we hung out by the fire, talked, made smores, all the usual campfire stuff. The next morning we packed up and headed back to Allentown. We had a great time at the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. After the rehearsal dinner we all went out for a little laser tag. Not something I normally think of doing, but it was a blast. Sunday we woke up, went to church, and ventured on over to the church where the wedding was. It was a great ceremony and the dinner reception was a lot of fun too. I even broke out of my shell and got on the dance floor for a little bit. I think it was the Chicken Dance that brought it out of me. After the reception, me and some of my new friends from the weekend had a nice time at a little diner till about 1:30am or so. It was a late night but it was worth it.

Monday I boarded my plane back to Dallas. After an extra five hours in the plane and an unplanned landing in Oklahoma City to refuel, I finally made it back to Dallas.

Overall it was a great weekend!

Update...

Sorry it's been so long. I could always give you excuses like work has been crazy lately (which it has) and when I get home at night the last thing I think of is updating my blog (also true), but I won't give you these excuses....oops, I guess I already did.

But I know it's time for me to update when within one day I recieved two different emails telling me that I need to update. To the two of you (you know who you are), thanks for the prodding. Sometimes I need it. And seeing as how it's been almost two months since my last update, I definitely needed a little poke in the side.

So what's going on with me these days? Well, I finally got my passport! I paid for expedited services and was told it would take 2-4 weeks. I was getting a little worried after six weeks had passed. I had one day where I freaked out a little, thinking that it had been lost in the mail, but the next day it showed up at home. It's now official, I can now legally travel the world!

And speaking of traveling, I'm headed to Pennsylvania tomorrow. I'm taking a long weekend and heading north for an old friend's wedding. It should be lot's of fun. Not to mention I"m excited to get out of Texas for a brief period of time. Over the weekend the guys are headed to a cabin up in the Poconos. I've always heard of people vacationing in the Poconos, but I've never been there, nor do I know what to expect. But I'm looking forward to it...

More updates coming soon....

Fun with passport photos...

I applied for my passport today! I've been meaning to do it for years, but today I finally did it. Soon I will have the freedom to be a world traveler. We shot my photos at work the other day when we had some down time and I had a little fun with them today so I thought I'd share...

That's all.

Have a great day!

Take a swim...

The guys at Google have a pretty good sense of humor. I caught wind of this and I wanted to see if it was real or not...and sure enough, here it is...

If you go to Google and get directions from anywhere in the US to anywhere in Europe (my test trip was from Dallas to Scotland), Google will give you directions that seem pretty normal until you get to the ocean. That's where Google tells you to take a swim. It just struck me as funny. Maybe Google thinks we are out of shape and need our exercise. But really....3,462 miles? Last time I went swimming at the gym I was out of breath after about 6 laps. I guess I should start training now.

click here to see it with your own eyes

check out step 26

It reminds me of a time a couple of years ago when I was going to play at a camp with an old friend. When I talked to his wife, who was giving me directions, we were dumbfounded when the directions told me to drive through a river. Seriously. The actual directions were:
-turn into the campground
-don't take any turns off the main road
-go straight until you see the river
-drive into the river and take a right...
...really! That's what the directions were, and so that's what I did. I was a little nervous, but it worked.

My current weakness...

I can't help myself sometimes. I probably drive past 15 Starbucks on my way in to work every morning and at least twice a week I end up stopping to grab a drink. My drinks of choice currently are: Caramel Macchiato, Cinnamon Dolce Latte, or a Mocha Latte with a shot of vanilla. Something about a nice warm drink in my hand when I walk into work just tends to put me in a really laid back mood. Don't ask me why. Maybe a warm drink in my hand makes me think it's colder outside than it actually is and maybe that comes from my short stint of living in colder climates and I'm just trying to prolong the winter and spring. I'm not really ready for the crazy Texas summer. I don't know...

You never know...

You never know when your midget (or to be politically correct "little person") is going to be just a little too big...

..another thing I can gather from the info on this box is: The smaller the midget, the better the radio.

OK, so I've been doing a BUNCH of spring cleaning at the studio lately. I found this box in the mix and I couldn't pass up taking a shot of it and sharing it. It still makes me chuckle a little.

On a side note, I've been back from my Colorado trip for just a little over two weeks now and if the opportunity arose it's little head, I'd go back tomorrow. For some reason the itch to be in the mountains just never seems to go away.

Post vacation life clarity

Do you ever have one of those mornings where you have such clarity of thought that it makes you think "What would my life be like if I thought this clearly all day, everyday?" Well, that was my state of mind this morning. I don't know if it was the vacation that did it for me or if God just wanted to show me a little extra favor today, but I wish I could live life with that kind of clarity of thought.

I had a great time in Colorado this past week if you were wondering about my vacation...

Maybe you'll hear more later...

Happy Valentines day...

Today made me think of a photo a friend of mine took last year and posted on his blog, so I figured I'd share it...

Genius in your midst...

That's right folks....
I took a classic IQ test on the internet today and my score came out to 140. Since I am so very smart, I know that a score that high is above average. The good old World Wide Web tells me that I am right at the cusp of the "genius to near genius" category.

120-140: Very superior intelligence
140 and above: Genius or near genius

Trust everything you read and do on the internet. Never question it...
I have, at the very least, "very superior intelligence" so you know you can trust my judgments.

:)

Congratulations are in order...

Well, The Rives have officially become parents. Kris and Jamie Rives gave birth to their son Asher Rives on Wednesday, February 7th. Little Asher must have been very anxious to see his parents since he came 6 weeks early. Pray that he continues to develop well. Kris told me that if all goes well, they should be able to take him home in a couple of weeks.

Miss me?

I'm so bad at this blog thing....

Five good things:
1. A good day at work
2. Pigs in a blanket (I had one this morning)
3. Dark Chocolate M&M's
4. Getting closer to my Colorado trip for the year
5. I get Friday off this week!

Happy new year?

click here for link to article

...ok...I know this is from a news source in the UK, but still.....

Here is my interpretation of this article:
"Happy new year...too bad you're going to hate it. Oh, and by the way.....you helped cause it."

Why do people have such a grim outlook on life? Why do we all have to expect the worst? Can't we all just say "Hey! It's a new year! It's time to put our past mistakes behind us and start fresh." I won't even get into the whole issue of global warming, but I don't have much faith in the scientists that predict the global weather and stuff. Wasn't 2006 supposed to be one of the worst hurricane seasons in US history? ....hmmm....let's see.... if I remember right, I don't think ONE major hurricane hit US soil this last season.

...and the media tries to claim that they are not guilty of fear mongering...

In this new year, let's all learn to think critically for ourselves, and not become the little "sheeple" that the media wants us to be.

Hope you have a great start to your new year!

Sorry for my slack...

I know it can always be an excuse, but I've been slammed. I haven't even thought too much about this blog in the past month so. Almost two months...

So, once again, to the few of you out there who check this. Sorry.

I've been in a transition time lately. At the beginning of the year I officially begin working with a new photographer here in town. He does some different stuff so that's cool. A little less fashion and a little more advertising. I should be able to learn a lot in this new studio. And I will get to travel some too. However, I will miss the life of being freelance. Being bound to no one but myself and God is fun and scary at the same time. One thing I won't miss about being freelance is wondering how my next month will work out financially. Living off the busy months during a slow one.

There is a lot more I could say here, but it is time for me to leave work. So, if I have time, I will continue my thoughts later...

Change is good.

A chasing after the wind...

"The sleep of the laborer is sweet,
whether he eats little or much,
but the abundance of a rich man
permits him no sleep."
--Ecclesiasties 5:12


Five good things:
1. Candy corn
2. Catching up with, and playing music with some old friends this weekend
3. An extra hour of sleep due to time change
4. Hang time with friends and family last Friday (my birthday)
5. A good meeting last Thursday

Reminder...

Only 10 shopping days left till I enter the third decade of my life.
:)

-correction-
I will be completing my third decade and entering the fourth. For those of you that are a little slow on the math, this means I'm turning 30.

Great customer service...

I must first tell you the back story before I get to what happened today.

Here is the quick version of the back story: Four or five months ago I was talking with my boss about random stuff and I happened to ask her about her "old" iPod. (it had died on her and instead of getting it fixed she just bought a new one) She told me that she never got around to getting it fixed and it was just sitting on a shelf in her house. Then she said that I could have it if I wanted. Thinking that it might (if I was lucky) still be under warranty, I took it home. When I charged it up, IT WORKED! I was pretty excited to say the least. The only down side was that she doesn't take very good care of her stuff so it was very scratched and had been dropped several times, so there was no promise as to how long this thing would last. Until recently it worked without a hitch. Lately it had been freezing up on me and doing a few other weird things. So I tried to reset it on my computer last weekend and it did something very odd. When I cleared it off, it told me that I basically had a 23 gig iPod , when in fact it was a 60 gig. I tried to restore it several times but to no avail...

Today, on my way home from work, I stopped by the trusty old Apple store. Since it was way out of warranty I thought there was nothing they could do, but I figured I might as well give it a shot. I walked right up to the help desk and was asked what kind of issues I was having. I told the guy, and he seemed perplexed. He took my iPod to the back to plug it in and see if there was anything he could do. About 10 minutes later he came back out. He told me that he had never seen this problem before and that he was going to replace my iPod for free. Yep, you read that right, FREE! I must remind you that it was at least 6 months out of warranty. I guess he was just having a good day, but in about 10 more minutes, he re-emerged from the back with a "new" (actually it was refurbished, but you would never know it wasn't new) iPod for me. No questions asked. All in all, I spent about 30 minutes in the Apple store, and all I did was tell them my problem and they fixed it without a single question.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to get my new, scratch free, iPod. Just another reason I really like Mac, great customer service...

Palms and five...

Palms of Santa Monica Beach, CA...

Five good things:
1. Purchased lift tickets for a snowboarding trip this season.
2. Migrating birds - another sign of the changing of the seasons.
3. Friends finding out they are having a baby boy in March.
4. Velveeta & Rotel
5. A much needed rain...