Land HO!!!

Its that time again! My jetski and I hit the water at 1:30pm CST today. As usual, Top Jimmy was there to meet me for an afternoon of wave jumping and other high speed aqua antics. This time though I was accompanied by a newbie to the SeaDoo scene, my girlfriend Emily. As we all arrived at Lake Lewisville to drop the watercraft in, we immediatly noticed the 30 plus mph winds which were causing white caps out on the lake. We knew this would make for some rough riding. Sure enough, the waves pounded me as I jumped from one the next. Not to mention to blow back from the splashes from the jetski hitting the waves. The wind carried the displaced water right back into my face! It made it a little tough to see. Thats when Top Jimmy showed me a new pair of jetskiing googles he bought. These things are sweet. They seal water out of the eyes and they are also polarized to help you see clearer. I'll be picking some up soon. The SeaDoo ran great after coming out of its hibernation de-winterizing process. It smoked a little heavy at first, but was revving very responsively minutes later.

A little later in the day our good friends Cheryl and Mike showed up for some lake fun. Neither of them had ever been on a jetski, so I knew they were in for a fun time. They took turns riding on back as I gave them a quick lake tour. They seemed to really be having a blast. I invited everyone back for a day of cooking out and jetskiing in the weeks to come. And hopefully, it wont be so windy.

The B-52's take the stage at The Taste of Addison festival two weeks ago. It was a great time and the band still sounded sharp. They gave a very good live performance. Sorry its so fuzzy. Phone cams just dont have the resolution of a Sony Cybershot.

FINALLY!!!

I have been an active member of Blogger.com for about 2 years now. Anyone who stops by here on occation has noticed my posts go way back, describing many events and situations ive been involved in. The only thing missing was the ability to post small photo's in the blog posts. The day has finally come where that service is available! Blogger.com has teamed up with a company called Picasa, to create a small program called "Hello". It allows you to quickly blog and publish small pictures along with your posts. This is great news! Now i can publish pic's from my phone-cam rather quickly to give a visual to my stories. Stay tuned for the addition of photo's to my stories!

I HAVE THE POWER!!

The power of Direct TV that is! :) After almost 5 years of having nothing but local TV stations, I broke down and got something better... much better. I also went ahead and got it bundled with Tivo. For those that are not familier with Tivo, it allows you to pause, rewind and record live TV. Its really amazing! And I got a really great deal on it too, giving me 130 channels for around $30 a month. I cant complain. The main force in me finally breaking down and getting this was the June start of Euro 2004, soccer championships. This is going to be a great summer!

Saturday Re-Cap

After sleeping off my high octane coffee and waking up refreshed, Saturday was upon me. I was scheduled to make a PC repair run up to my parents house. Complaints of my mom's and brothers PC's running very slowly kept them calling and emailing me all week. I feared it would be the newest Sasser virus. So i came prepared. But what I found was much less serious. Malicious spy-ware was the cluprit. A quick run through with Spybot and Adaware and their systems were clean and running tip top again.

A forty minute drive home later, I was preparing for the real event of the day. A group consisting of Mike, Cheryl, EVP (Eric), Therese and myself were to head down to the Taste of Addison festival going on all weekend. Basically, each year the city of Addison Texas throws a huge outdoor festival where all of the restaraunts in the city can set up boothes for people to hop from one the other tasting the foods for only a couple bucks per stop. They also bring in a big name music act to finish off the evening. Our first stop was the booth of the Macceroni Grill, a tasty Italian eatery. I got a bowl of some type of bow-tie pasta. It was good! But barely put a dent in my starving belly. Next stop, The Magic Time Machine. This fairy tale themed restaraunt has the staff dressing up as various characters from child hood stories and poems. I think some roman gladiator served me my steak and veggie shish kabob. Like most everything, it was awesome. Cooked perfectly. (Sorry Eric) haha Getting a little full, we decided it was time to find dessert. What better than the boothe of the Marble Slab, ice cream shop. I ordered their chocolate ice cream sunday. Covered in chocolate topings and whip cream, it was the perfect dessert. After that, I was about to pop I was so full!

The group had gotten split up after a bit of cell phone tag, we met up again with Craig, Bex and Ken. We worked our way around the park to the main stage area where the music performance of the night was. On stage at the time was the group Blue October. I recognized one song they played but the rest I had no idea of. As it got dark and all the stage lights began to come on, they announced the main act of the night... the B-52's! I have always like the B-52's and have a couple of their CD's. By the time they came on stage, there were probably a few thousand people standing in the lawn seating area. It was a great time! They sounded exactly like they do on CD. Which was good because some groups suck when live. The event ended a little after 11pm and we walked to a near by coffee shop and had some drinks. Everyone headed home finally around 1am, exhausted. It was a really fun evening. I took some pic's with my phone cam, since I didnt have my real digi-cam with me. I'll try to post some of them soon!

Friday Re-Cap

With the end of the week here and an impromptu DC (Dinner Club) planned, the weekend was off to a good start. This time it was a smaller group consisting of only Therese, Craig, Becci, Ken and myself. The restaraunt was choosen by Mr. Craig and this time he reccomended "The Canary", in Addison. This was an interesting place. The sign out front says, "The Canary - Japanese by day, Medeteranian by Night". Odd combo I must say. The place was fairly small and dark, with candle lit tables spread thru the room. There was a 4 piece jazz band playing in the corner, which added a nice atmosphere. Looking at the menu, I noticed a wide variety of sea food and pasta type dishes. Everything sounded great. Prices ranged from $8 to $25, not bad all considering. We placed our orders and snacked on an appetizer while waiting. Thats when things got intersting, and almost disasterous! We had 2 candles burning at our table. But they weren't actually candles, they were small glass jars of, i guess, kerosene with a wick that soaks up the fuel and you light the end. Well Ken first says the one on his end of the table is making him nervous and he fears he will hit the flame with his arm. So he blows it out. No problem. Minutes later, he says his end of the table is too dark now. But rather than asking the guy who runs the place to relight it, he takes the small lantern and tries to tip it over on its side to use the other OPEN FLAME to relight it!!! I stare in disbelief as the fluid from one lantern spills out over the OPEN FLAME of the other one. Lucky for us, rather than a huge fireball like explosion, it just dowsed out the other flame leaving us with no candles. Whew! The owner rushed over and with a nervous smile on his face, told us to ask him to relight them next time. Ha! We agreed.... right Ken? :) A short time later, our food arrived. I can honestly say, this was some of the best restaraunt food I'd had in a long long time. I ordered salmon with some type of glaze and pasta, surrounded by grilled vegetables. Everything was delicious and perfect! I think the rest of the group enjoyed their food equally. After dinner, we ordered Turkish coffee. They brought it to us in a tall, thin, mug like glass. I added my normal amount of creme and sugar (a bunch) and took my first sip. Strong coffee! It reminded me almost of the Cuban coffee my grandpa used to make for my mom, which I used to steal sips from as a kid. I knew after a glass of this, I would be wired the rest of the night. I was. Overall it was a great Dinner Club, that will be remembered!

A Room With a View

I just got home and cleaned up from an awesome road trip to the beaches of Galveston Texas! Good friend Cheryl has been accepted to medical school and needed to find an apartment in the Texas coastal city, four of us (cheryl, mike, emily and myself) loaded up our bags and took the 5 hour drive to help her find a place to live come August. The drive down wasn't too bad at all. I was picked up at my apartment by Mike and Emily, then the three of us proceeded to into Dallas to pick up Cheryl at her work. From there it was onto highway 45 South, bound for Houston. After a couple stops for food and to refuel, we hit Houston around 11pm. The excitement begin to build, knowing Galveston was just under an hour away. Sure enough, just before midnight we rolled up to our hotel, the Victorian, located right across the street from the beach. It was a very cool feeling to step out of the car and smell the ocean and hear the waves crashing on the beach! We took our bags up to the room and got settled. The Victorian was the type of hotel room that has a full kitchen, so we decided we'd better get some food for the next couple days. Lucky for us, Walmart was right next door. So, even though we were tired, we headed out on a short walk to Walmart. Thirty minutes later, we're on our way back with good stuff in hand. Everyone crashed pretty quick once we were back in the room. Exahaustion was catching up! Saturday was going to be a big day. Falling asleep though, wasnt so easy for me. My assigned bedding would be the fold out couch in the hotel living room. Sometimes you get lucky and they are comfy. Not this one. My head and legs were facing downhill, and my back elevated up about 6 inches. I joked with the others saying I didnt actually fall asleep Friday night, I passed out because of the lack of blood flowing to my head. LOL I eventually got comfortable and fell asleep.

Saturday morning came and the sun woke me up as it shined in our sliding porch windows. As I got up I noticed Mike and Cheryl had not left yet to go apartment hunting. They were just too tired to get out of there by 8am. It was now 10am and we were all just getting going. I walk out on to the porch to see our room overlooks not only the pool and courtyard of the hotel, but a nice view of the ocean. We were on the 3rd floor, so I can see probably about 10 miles out to sea. I find myself mezmerized by the distant oil drilling platforms barely visible on the horizon. Are they starring back at land, wondering the same? Ha! Anyhow, we all eat breakfast (cereal from Walmart), then Cheryl and Mike head out to look at apartments. Emily and I now have a few hours to kill while they are out, so we decide to get cleaned up and head down to the beach. Now, for those who have never been to Galveston, the wind is a constant 30mph gust at all times it seems. Also being that it is still only May, the water was quite chilly. So we decided to go down in just shirt and shorts rather than swimsuits. When we got down to the beach, there actually were a lot of people swimming. Although, mostly kids... which will swim in the waters of the arctic circle if you let them. There were a lot of fishermen on the piers and others walking the beach just taking in the scenery. First thing I noticed was, unlike other beaches ive been to, the Galveston beaches have a lot of washed up seaweed. There were also a lot of Man-O-War jelly fish lying around. This is something Emily took an interest in. Each one we found, she would poke with a stick and step on until their big clear air sack, popped. Not so mean i suppose. They are already washed up and doomed, why not finish the little poison buggers off? LOL We walked the beach for about a mile. Then got a call from Mike and Cheryl saying they were on their way back. Turns out they had'nt had much luck apartment hunting. Or at least finding what they were looking for. From there we ventured down into the tourist distric of Galveston called "The Strand". Its full of open doored shops, horse carriage rides and things to do. It was a lot of fun!

With the evening coming up on us and everyone getting hungry, we decided on a Mexican food place called Tortuga, located across the street from the beach. Good food! We left there stuffed and decided to find a bar, or somewhere to hang out. We stopped at a place, which i cant remember the name of. It was alright, but we were practically the only ones there. Slow night? We had some drinks and left. We decided to walk the beach sidewalk and look thru some of the stores still open. One we came across was very cool. They sold all kinds of coastal city type souveniers, like giant shells, hermit crabs, full shark jaws, etc. It was very intersting. We got back to the hotel close to 1am. We were beat from all the walking, and decided to crash and prepare for our last day.

Everyone got up really early on Sunday, I think it was at least 9am. We cleaned the room and gathered our stuff. Checkout was at 11am, so we couldnt be too lazy. We ate our cereal breakfast and headed down for checkout. Of course, on our last day there, it was perfectly sunny and warm. The wind was still whipping, but it was more bearable. As we headed out of town, we decided to make one more beach stop. We took more pictures and took in the sights, then it was time to start our long drive home.

Nothing too eventful during the drive. It was a slow 5.5 hours. I wish I had more time to spend in Galveston. There is more I would have liked to done. I will definatly go back when Mike and Cheryl move there in August. Hey, there's nothing better than having someone to stay with at a great vacation spot! Perhaps I'll just fly down next time though. Haha! Check my site soon for pictures!

Thru the Five Hole!!

Just got home from playing 2 hours of pick up in-line hockey. Wow, I had forgotten what a workout that is! It has been almost 4 years since I played roller hockey. What a blast! I was a little slow on my skates at first and my stick skills weren't as sharp as they once were. But with each shift I played, I got a little sharper. That is until an hour had past and my legs felt like wet noodles and I was flat out exhausted! What a great workout. I keep this up, combined with soccer... I should be in great shape in no time. The only down part about it is pick up hockey is from 10pm to midnight, on Thursdays. Could make for a tough Friday morning at work. Oh well, its worth it! Despite my slowness of getting back into the game, I did have one really nice shift where I scored 2 goals and got an assist! He shoots.... he scores!!!

Tunes

If you're into downloading MP3's and actually want to do it legally, I hav to recommend the Music Match Player and service. Like all the others, their songs are all .99 cents and they come in Windows Media Audio (WMA). This is fine for listening to them on your pc, but if you want to take them on the go-go you'll need to convert them to MP3 format. Easily done. Burn all your recently purchased songs to a cd. Then, in Music Match, click on "Rip From CD". Make sure you choose your default Rip format as MP3 and badda-boom, your songs are now MP3's.

Batter Up!

After not going for almost 2 years, I finally took in a Texas Rangers baseball game with a few good friends. The day started at around 3:30pm when Mike cheryl and Emily picked me up in the hooptie (mikes boat like car) and we all headed south to Arlington. We found out that the Rangers game from Friday night had been rained out and it would be a double header on Saturday night so our game would start later. We headed to Brian's parents house in Arlington, which was practically across the street from the Stadium. His parents were awesome and provided us with a full dinner of bar-B-Q, and side dishes with dessert. That was great stuff! We watched the first game on TV and just kicked back waiting till it was time to get our tickets. At the bottom of the 7th, we walked over to the stadium, got our tickets and found our seats, now accompanied by Brian and Mandy. I should have known we were in for a climb. Our tickets were only $2.50 each! Turns out, we were 4 rows from the top of the stadium!! Can we say nose bleed? haha But, we still could see everything very good. So we watched the 8th and 9th innings of the first game then our game started. There was only one home run by the rangers, but it was cool to get to see the fireworks go off when they hit it. The Rangers ended up winning the game 8-6! I took some pics, so i'll try to get them posted soon.