Love It

If you've seen more than 50% of the original youtube stuff in this video consider yourself a huge dork (like me... I think this video is hawt)

Won't Allow Embedding.... GRRR....

One Of My Favorites

I Love me some of this. I haven't had any for 4 days...might... have... to... pick... some... up...

Coffee doesn't do anything for me in the morning.. but give me a 16oz Red Bull on an empty stomach and I'll show you what it's all about!



















And on another note, Holden got a bitchin' new waterpark from his Grandad for his birfday coming up in July. The kids love it. I'm not sure where Larry is in this pic, didn't want anyone to think we didn't let him play in it too. ;)

Don't Be Such A Winery

I got to go to a winery today that we did the architectural design for.. but the contractor (and the owner) decided to change things on the fly and built a lot of thing differently than the county had approved. So I had to go down there today and measure, take pictures and just look around to see what didn't match up.

It's quite a nice little place.. already open for business and the fancy interior and whatnot will be completed before the fall. And his house on the other side of the property is amazing, might be one of the most beautiful houses I've seen in person (yes, it is that nice). I think I see a fun little Saturday excursion for Maria and I to taste some wine in our future.

I was hoping to get a bottle of wine to try out (my boss said he gives them away all the time to spread the word), but I guess he just figured I wasn't a "wine man" (if there is such a thing... well, I guess he is..so..yeah)

Owned

Calling All NFL Fans

I just created a Fantasy Football league in Yahoo! for the upcoming Football Season. I had a great time last year being Commish and if you would like to be a part of my league this year reply to this post and if I like you I will send you the info to join. The winner of my league recieves (1) new in the original packaging Chia Pet

These Would Be Pictures From the Missouri

Smokeyness

So Maria and I woke up to some funky smoke smell in our bathroom on Saturday. We looked around and didn't think much of it, as the bathroom window was open. Must just be a fire nearby or something. Then later that day I went outside and there was a definate haze in the air and a pretty strong burning smell. Turns out there is this big wildfire down in North Carolina and it is smoke from that... I had no idea.

(another listing under the "smokeyness" category... just for you baby)

No Father's Day Would Be Complete

Without beer. Maria got me 12 pack of a new beer I've never had for Father's Day (Getting me beer is the equivalent of me getting her flowers).. and the kids made me a hand flower which I love and will go up on my wall at work, and the cards we great too.

Tomorrow we are doing nothing but going to Church, then we are off to The Beach for the rest of the day. Today I spent most of the day finishing our privacy fence in the backyard.. and it turned out really good! Only got one more side to do then the kids kennel is complete! I like th!s type of punctuat!on!

Happy Father's Day to all those Dads that read this... you rock harder than Zeppelin in their prime.

And The Reviews Are In

I work for a company that is very good to it's employees. This is the first job I've had where they actually give you a performance review every year, then a subsequent raise depending on how the board votes (without having to ask... how refreshing!).

Well I had my 2 year review today and it went fairly amazing. You sometimes don't know how these will go, and this one was basically 100% positive.. a bit of a surprise. I was floored by the scores I got in a lot of areas, not that I didn't think I made some good progress this year and that I didn't work my tail off.. I was just surprised by how high some of my review scores were.

Part of the fun (if you can call it that) of our reviews is the fact that we have to critique ourselves, tell the reviewer what we feel we deserve, then he/she tells us what the average of our 3 reviews was. On a scale of 4 (1 being "you're fired", to 4 being "you're the new president of the company"). My overall average is just short of "exceptional".. a 2.79... my average last year was a 2.38. So this is a very nice bump up and I am waiting patiently to see what happens to my next paycheck.

Is This Even Possible

John McCain said he is going to veto every beer that comes his way. Can he actually do that? I like to have a beer every once and a while, so no way in hell he's getting my vote. And I bet his wife is pissed off too... owning a beer distributorship and all.

Now: Sunny, 97 Degrees F

LOVE THE HEAT OF IT ALL. IT'S HOTTER THAN A SACK OUT THERE RIGHT NOW, AND WHEN I GET HOME THE HOUSE WILL LIKEWISE. I'M WAITING FOR BOB VILA TO SHOW UP AND PUT IN CENTRAL AIR AT MY HOUSE, I WOULD THEN LIKE HIM MORE THAN NORM ABRAM. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THOSE PEOPLE ARE THEN YOU SHOULD JUST LEAVE NOW AND TURN ON PBS.. I'M SURE ONE OF THE TWO WILL BE ON THERE BUILDING SOMETHING, OR AT LEAST THEY'LL AT LEAST BE WEARING PLAID. SORRY FOR THE YELLING IN CAPS, BUT IT'S SO HOT I HAVE TO STRAIN TO MAKE MYSELF AUDIBLE OVER THE DRONE OF AIR CONDITIONERS. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR

Something I Need To Fix

I procrastinate... a lot. I used to do it even worse than I do now, but I have several things on my plate that I have either wanted or needed to do for a while now and I just always find a way to put it off till next week, or next month, or next year.

I thought adulthood would fix all of this... but too often I take the easy excuse of being "tired" to make me feel better about my lack of focus and fear of change.

The Great Adventure

We are back.. back home from our cross country (half of it at least) to Missouri. We went, we saw, we got stressed, we relaxed, we took pictures, we visited, we laughed, we drove, we walked, and we walked and we walked.

Visited the Zoo (and yes, we saw the baby zebra), Powell Gardens, Crown Center, Union Station, Holden, and a few other spots I can't think of at the moment.

We took a ton of pictures with the Xti (over 800) so we will have much to discuss and look at in the near future. Let me just say, that traveling through Chicago O'Hare with 4 kids, 3 car seats, 1 stroller, and 4 carry-on bags was quite a debacle at first. On the return trip (through O'Hare again) we had quite a system figured out and could could board a plane pretty easily. One thing that blew our minds was the fact that United DOES NOT PRE-BOARD FOR PEOPLE WITH CHILDREN AND THE ELDERLY ANYMORE! We couldn't belive it, so we just waited until the very end and got on the plane last... we got the hurry up treatment from one flight attendant and we shut her down with the fact that if they still did pre-boarding it wouldn't be such an ordeal for us to board.

The weather was pretty wacky in Chicago on our way back. Our flight out of KC was delayed by about 30 mins, then as we approached Chicago we had to circle the city for about 45 minutes until the tornado warning was ended. We were a bit freaked because we only had a 45 minute layover and we were still in the air by the time our plane was supposed to leave! But luckily when we landed we found out that our other flight was delayed and our great flight attendant called ahead to the next gate to have them hold the flight for us. The flight from KC to Chicago was great, it was probably a 150-200 seat plane with no more than 15-20 people on it.. it was so empty it was scary. We got great service from our flight attendants, they all fawned over our kids and played with them and took Lila around the plane to meet everyone. It's funny cause the Flight Attendant made a comment that Maria found to be very rude (I thought it was funny), but it was funny that she ended up being really great and made the flight fly by (sorry for that bad pun).

The flight from Chicago to Baltimore was kinda bad.. at least at first. We were stuck on the runway for 30 mins in a hot plane.. and Lila would not stop crying.. I mean like the really bad crying.. arching her back and screaming louder than she ever had before. We couldn't get her to stop, we tried everything... people kept looking at us and you knew we were the talk of the plane. We were those parents with that baby that cried for 30 minutes. But as soon as we put her in Larry's car seat and the plane started moving she finally fell asleep and stayed that way until we landed.. then she picked right back up where we left off.

I have tons more stories and funny/exciting stuff that happened that I will expound on, but for now I must get back to work.