lone.star.livin'

as i sit here typing, the window next to me depicts the serene images of leisurely life at its utmost. the palms gently swaying in the sea breezes, the small song birds happily chirping and flitting around playing a lively game of tag, the hint of saltwater and sand floating on the air, and of course the rousing chorus of the 3 pugs chasing each other, fighting over the most select toy, and all-the-while attempting to breathe through their genetically deformed air passages... [the latter, perhaps less serene...]

yes thats right y'all, im in texas. and on the texas coast to be more specific. home-again-home-again-jigitty-jig.

its been several months since i last updated the ole' blog, and much has changed. most of you that actually read this are close enough that you're already aware of most of the events of my life, however, supposing there are the rare few out there in the entire world [and beyond...?]that might per-chance stubble upon this and decide its worth a read, follow-along as i briefly wrap up the major events of the recent past and set the scene for future-posts.

[the.job.situation]

when last we spoke [er, wrote?] i was embarking on a little adventure of landscaping with my friend from n'awlins and we had completed a few little jobs with some success. well that lasted about as long as you read.

we never ended up getting another job [i think it was really just the seasons changing] even though we bid on a number of them. after a couple of weeks however, i was desperate for cash-flow again and sought some other income situation.

i still had the itt job at this point and was enjoying my first class [and getting the hang of it a bit more as time went on] however the minuscule salary of a new adjunct teaching one class is not something to sustain one's extravagant lifestyle... ;]

so to shorten the longevity of my verboseness in the instance, i posted an ad on the church website boasting my qualifications, and through a series of serendipitous events, i ended up working for jones the florist [the name in florists in the greater cincinnati area] that ended up being a pretty great experience for a few months. i started out doing candy bouquets[if you dont know what that is, just go to their website...] and as it would turn out was quite the craftsman. i picked this little skill up very quickly and in a few days was pretty much the fastest person on production in the place. so i candied for a couple of months while they got through some big seasonal orders and then when the seasonal time was up i inquired about staying on for a bit longer if theyd have me...

meanwhile - in those months at jones, i had been offered and accepted another classes for the following quarter at itt, took up karate in my "spare" time, and then as i looked into extending my stay at jones, was offered and accepted 2 classes for the upcoming quarter and had a couple of promising interviews.

one of the interviews was with one of the biggest architecture firms in cinicnnati [and while i wont play the dropping names game, they're huge and "worldwide"...] and i was very excited about the prospect. this was the dream job in the cincinnati area and since karen and i had resolved to sticking around there, this was a big deal. in conjunction with that, i started interviewing, via the vast world-wide telecommunications network, for a position in a construction firm in houston. [spoiler alert! if you havent yet read the title of the blog.... um.... dont.]

well jones decided to hire me on as a delivery driver because of my mad-skillz and obvious awesomeness and i enjoyed working for them through december. the interview with the b-i-g arch firm was less than fruitful in the immediate present-tense sense of things - although it was a great feeling knowing they were interested and seriously considering me! - and as it would turn out i was offered and accepted the job in houston. [shocker. i know.]

thus begun a whirlwind of activity revolving this drastically life-altering occurance...

[h-t-x]

so... heres the run-down on h-town.

i interviewed for this position for a bout a span of a month's time and on the friday before karen and i were supposed to leave for our annual christmas voyage to the south to see the family, the construction company emailed me the offer letter.

i thought it over [but not for long - this was an amazing opportunity!] and discussed it with family and friends over the weekend, and then first thing monday morning i accepted and we got the ball rolling.

the next day [tuesday] karen and i flew out to texas for our holiday vacation and i stayed in loose contact with my new boss via email - and while we were in texas anyway and so near our soon-to-be-home, we decided to get started on some of the more menial tasks of setting up bank accounts and starting the apartment hunt...

on the 28th of december we flew back to cinicnnati and at this point it had been decided that my start date would be january 10. for anyone not doing the math, thats about a week and a half that i had to be back in texas and ready to start the job with my truck, and any belongings of mine that i would need in texas, as well as helping karen as much as humanly possibly to pack up our house, get rid of whatever we werent taking and generally begin the moving process...

i needed to embark on the cross-country drive by no later than the 5th to have 2 days for the actual driving part and a couple of days to get settled in and ready to start work on the 10th.

so between dec 28 and jan 5 karen and i worked like crazy people to go through our entire house and get rid of anything and everything we could do-without so that we didnt have to move it cross-country.

we sold off furniture on criagslist, had an extensive garage sale to rid ourselves of smaller items, donated a ton of stuff to the church and local clothes-closets, had contractors come in and do some of the final repairs we just hadnt gotten around to yet on the house and now had no time to do and needed to be done before the move/sale, got the house put on the market and worked with the realtor to figure out the best plan of attack, said goodbye to as many dear friends as i could before i left, and in the end... karen still ended up having to stay in cincinnati another 3 weeks after i left to finish all of the above...

of course that then precludes to the ensuing madness of my driving to texas and staying with josh and cassie for the short-term while i searched for an apartment and a place to move all of our crap, started the new job and got settled in, had miscellaneous issues with the truck that needed to be dealt with [for instance i ended up needing to have all 4 tires replaced after the journey south, or the entire engine maintenance checkup i was 10,000 miles over-due on, etc., etc., etc.... ]...

in the end however. we arrived safely. we got everything moved. we found an apartment. i started my job and have settled pretty well into it. karen has since found a temporary job shes enjoying teaching swimming lessons in houston, while still searching for that perfect career job of her own. and last - but certainly not least - we have had quite the rollercoaster of events surrounding the sale of the cincy-house....

but that my friends... is a story for another time.

and with that - im signing off. hope to post more soon-ish, but with life's many obstacles, who really knows?

god bless texas, and have a good-un y'all. =]

another.recap

so i know i havent been quite as faithful as id hoped and promised id be in the last post, but, eh, you know how it goes...

when i last updated we discussed a number of different things and i suppose the best route here would be to update you on the ones that need updating and then subsequently discuss any additional topics.

well first let me say happy brithday to both jeremy and josh [my brother-in-law and brother-in...blood] who've both turned another year older in the last few days. i dont know how old jeremy is to be honest, but josh is now 24 and well, taking stock of his accomplishments so far in life, id say hes doing very well for himself. hes finished school, gotten a good job that pays well and doesnt seem to be too affected by the economics of the present, just bought his first house with his new wife and theyre getting settled in... over-all pretty amazing for 24 id say. congratulations josh! jeremy is back over seas for the time being. hes working contract work out in iraq or kuwait or something or other and only gets to come home to kimber [sister] every so often. she misses him, but seems to be staying busy and doing alright. i hear rumors she might even be going back to school in the near future. so... i think that about wraps up family.

um... ah, yes. workout routine. well... for any of you that cared last time around and still care for an update, theres only good news to report. ive been disciplined and have managed to keep it up even despite having the "mothers collective" staying with me and distracting me, and other weekend adventures and such. ive been going about 4 days a week consistently, although i try to go more like 5 or 6 when i can, but sometimes i just need a day off to let my muscles repair themselves and well, just for sanity's sake i suppose, haha. for the first couple of months i didnt actually see any change in weight although my appearance was changing noticeably. i was getting much leaner, but it seemed the numbers werent really changing, i was just exchanging the bad weight for good weight. which is fine, whatever, the number is meaningless to me. however i got on the scale again last week because, i just hadnt in a few months and it turns out that somewhere along the way i actually dropped 10lbs, so i guess thats good. if you lose weight and youre working out as much as i am, then you know its only the bad weight youre losing, not the good stuff. =] anyway, the workout routine is going well overall. i have more energy and im making plenty of improvement from week to week in my actual workouts, and then theres always the much better mood after working out. so all in all, its all good.

hm, i guess we cant forget the "mothers collective." well when anne was here by herself she got TONS accomplished, the transformation was really just, unreal. but then my mom got here and as a team they accomplished even more. the yard looks pretty spectacular, honestly. i think i can pretty assuredly say that we now have the nicest yard on the block, well, in my humble opinion anyhow. additionally they got some painting stuff, some wallpaper removal, and a little organizational stuff done inside the house as well. overall id say they seemed to enjoy the trip and the result was definitely an awesome and appreciated one. thanks! =] oh and for anyone that wants to see pictures of all the transformation, theyre up on my photo site here and here.

lets see... what else can i update you on... oh, the competition. well we were able to get everything turned in just fine for the competition and then a few days later there was judging and they had a little banquet for the results. well, i ended up having to work late that night, and then just didnt feel like going, but mike (the partner) popped his head in at the end to see what was going on. apparently they had clearly marked a winner, and it wasnt us. however mike said that in talking to some people our project was definitely one of the judges top picks. according to the competition outline there were supposed to be 3 places in the competition, each with a cash prize but so far we havent heard anything about that. he said the winner was the only one marked and that in his opinion their project wasnt better than ours, they just had a "prettier" presentation. which is fine, i dont know that i expected to outright win this thing, especially considering that i wasnt sure how we were progressing a lot of the time. i emailed the guy running the thing after the banquet and he said that they would soon be posting all the entries online and the placements and whetever else but so far i havent seen or heard anything more about that either. honestly, from the way mike described everything its very likely that we placed in the top 3, possibly even 2nd place, and id really like to see the other entries and find out for sure! so yeah... still trying to be patient, but its been 3 weeks, so... im probably going to email him again today, haha.

hmm... what else.... oh, we celebrated mikes birthday on august first and that was certainly something for the history books, lol! he had was basically amounted to a themed party/bar hopping and most everyone dressed appropriately. and what was that dress you ask? well... hahahaha... well mustaches were part of the theme so most of the guys that could grow one had some kind of terribly tacky mustache, haha. i shaved mine into some pretty awful handlebars and it was all pretty hilarious. imagine a really bad 70's cop movie and youve pretty much got the gist of things. honestly, it was pretty scary for me, i hadnt seen my bare chin in about 6 or 7 years i think, and i wasnt sure what it might look like, lol! thankfully, its all pretty much back to normal now a week and a half later, lol! but we had a lot of fun and partied our butts off to bring in mikes #29.

hmm... what else... well this last weekend i took a trip down to tennessee to see my friend/ex-advisor from a&m, james. it was kind of a spur of the moment thing, and i drove down on friday and we basically just hung out all weekend. watched a bunch of horror movies [james is getting a phd in horror cinema or something of the sorts] talked a lot, just had some good fun. also...although im not sure i really want to even add this part...james is now a fairly serious photographer and well, hes been bugging me to let him shoot me for months now [i really cant imagine why, im NOT very photogenic in my opinion...] and so i finally caved and let him. i dont really know how the pictures turned out, ive only seen a couple and im sure nothing will come of it, but yeah, that was part of the weekend too. mostly, it was just nice to get out of the house and our of cincy for a little while, even if it was driving through kentucky and tennessee... [both of which have some of the WORST drivers ive EVER come across... geez...].

so, i guess thats about it. the only other news thats of any significance is that my estranged wife is FINALLY coming home this week. =] shes had a lot of fun out in san francisco, but i think shes starting to get home sick, and hopefully a little husband sick as well ;] at any rate, she flies back on wednesday night/thursday morning and i really cant wait to see her. not to mention, i know shes excited to see all the changes at the house in person! [theres probably one or two that we havent shown her pictures of yet, hehehe]

well, i know its not my usual epic blog post, and i know youre all terribly disappointed about that, but as you can see, the last couple of weeks just havent really had a whole lot to talk about. work is work, its very much the exact same as it has been for months now, nothing to report there. other than that, without karen around its just been working out and hanging out watching movies or tv or something to keep me occupied in my "spare" time... oh, i guess thats one other thing... i did go see the new harry potter movie a couple of weeks ago. honestly, it was a fairly decent movie, but i was pretty disappointed with the ending. and the more i think about it, ive been disappointed with the last 3 endings of those movies i think. they keep building up for the entire movie to this big thing, and then the climax is about 2 minutes long and then it just drops off leaving you feeling very unfulfilled... or me at least. i do want to go see the new g.i. joe movie, but im trying not to get my excitement up too high for that. it looks really cool from the previews, but these things tend to be a bit over-hyped.

alright, well i hope you all have a great rest of the week, i doubt ill be updating again before the weekend. just a thought, but if anyone ever had a suggestion or a request for a blog topic that theyd actually like to hear my opinion or perspective or experience or whatever on, feel free to leave me a comment, id love to entertain the idea.

until next time...

out.of.touch

so yeah, i have been. for a while now, and i am sorry about that. i guess the last time i blogged was probably over a month ago now... life has been hectic.

no, im not going to go back and retell all the stories of everything thats been going on in full vivid color, as i so often have the habit of doing. instead you guys will just have to settle for a brief overview synopsis of current events and a promise that i will try harder from now on.

so what have you missed?

well, on june 20th my brother got married back in texas and that was a whirlwind of travel and festivities for one weekend. CONGRATULATIONS JOSH AND CASSIE! i have a new sister =] the wedding was quite beautiful and a ton of fun. i even met some of joshs friends andthey were all really fun people! karen had already been in san francisco for about a week and a half, so it was good to get to see her at the wedding, but it was over far too soon and then we were back on our separate sides of the continent - with the 3 hour time difference, ugh.

after karen left i really really stepped up my workout and diet routine. not really a big event, but its helped to fill the hours with constructive activities instead of just lying around in a lump on the couch. im actually quite proud to say that after about a month-month and a half of consistent routine, ive gotten into better shape [at least i think so anyway] than i was a year ago when i got married. ive still got my goals set high and hope to see even more improvement and also i hope that this time around i can keep my routine up through the dreadful cold seasons... we'll see how that goes huh? [yeah josh, im skinnier than you again =P]

over the july 4th holiday i went to visit karen out in san francisco for a long weekend. all in all i was there for 5 days and we had a great time. we saw all kinds of cool stuff and i got to see her school and her apartment out there and all the stuff shes working on. not to mention, san francisco is a really amazing city to visit. the public transportation system was just awesome and it was so easy to explore the city and see everything it had to offer. its a very different life-style out there [one i could probably become accustomed to, haha] much more laid back than my seemingly overfilled to-do-list of a life here in cincy. anyway, it was a great 'holiday' and karen's parents even came to visit for a couple of days near the end of the trip so i got to see them as well. on top of all that, i got to see one of favorite people of all time, vena, who i hadnt actually seen since senior year at a&m and it was really fun to get to hang out with her again. shes such a fun person and it was nice to see an old friend again. =]

pictures from the san francisco trip are up on the picture site if youre interested.

the trip back from san francisco wasnt quite as enjoyable as the holiday spent there, it turns out i got food poisoning on my last day in town and had probably the most horrible red-eye flight across country in the history of mankind. [well... at least in my lifetime, it certainly seemed like it could have been the worst ever... yuck.] i definitely wont go into all the gore here, but suffice to say it was not a fun trip and i hope you all never have to experience anything like it.

since getting back in cincy its gotten down to the end of the line with the competition i mentioned sometime back. i hadnt talked about it much between then and now because honestly, i couldnt decide how things really were going as far as progress and i wasnt sure we were going to stick out to the end. however, after a LOT of work in my "spare time" over the last couple of weeks, and a lot of late nights the last two weekends, mike[my partner] and i have successfully finished our design and mike is taking over the final project later this afternoon for submittal. we made it. and it was quite an adventure... i'll post our boards as soon as he sends me the final drafts of them, which should be some time later this afternoon. it was definitely a trying, but learning experience, however im not sure id be willing to jump into it again. it just very very difficult to juggle everything going on in life and still have time to work on a competition project. we're happy with how it turned out and even if we dont win, or even place in the actual competition, i think the outcome was a good one. =]

and if all that wasnt enough, on tuesday of last week, my mother-in-law arrived in town for a visit. she decided that this summer she was going to come to cincy and embark in some landscaping projects that karen and i have yet to tackle, as well as to install all those beautiful stained glass windows i posted pictures of in previous blog posts. in addition to all those, there were also a few surprise stained glass windows and really they are all just gorgeous. since she arrived shes installed all of them in the various locations she designed them for and the house just feels more alive. and if that alone wasnt enough, she has been kick serious ass in the landscaping arena and the yard looks amazing. i dont know where she gets the energy, but shes worked everyday all day on the yard and the transformation has been surreal. i have a handful of before and after pictures ill post when i finish blogging here, but we'll have to make sure to get more as the visit continues. and speaking of the visit continuing, my mother flies in tonight to join the party. yep, thats right, me and two mothers at my house for the rest of this week... exciting? or scary? you be the judge of that one, im keeping my mouth shut. ;]

so when mom gets here they plan to keep working on the yard and then i guess theyre going to team up on some projects inside the house as well. i dont really have all the details, but im sure whatever they decide to do will be greatly appreciated.

and with that, all the big stuff has been summarized for you, and thats where we are at the moment. karen will be getting back from san francisco in a few weeks, august 12th i believe, and it'll be fantastic to have my wife back. then i know we have a wedding in cleveland on the 15th for our friends cae & emil [who i may or may not have mentioned before] and who knows what all other excitement is in store over the coming weeks and months.

stay tuned, and im sure you'll find out =]

i.need.a.holiday...[part.two]

[sunday day.two]

id say we were all pretty wrecked from the work of the day before, but again everyone was up bright and early around 8am getting their coffee buzz and revving up for the day. obviously we were quite ambitious in our planning the day before [if you'll recall the list of anticipated projects...] and we didnt quite get to cross everything off our list on day one. so while we casually put some finishing touches on the projects from day one we discussed the "revised" anticipated projects for sunday and monday and assembled our lists for the store.

per revision our was starting to look as follows:

sunday. we were anticipating finishing the crown molding up for good after getting the little remaining additional length of crown from the depot, and then the girls were going to start caulking, filling, and painting all the crown. after the crown was finished for the guy part, we were going to move on to bookshelves. we werent entirely sure how quickly they were going to go, the first attempts that karen and i had made towards cutting and assembling the face trim had been very slow and very rocky, and i was expecting much of the same. given the lack of estimation, we werent sure how fast it would go, but we were sure we could get it done on sunday and move on to bigger and better things. additionally, karen had done some searching online both the night before and that morning and had found a few different options for fill for the planter and we were going to attempt to get a truckload of dirt to unload into the planter on sunday as well. then, after we'd finished those projects and still had all this energy pumping [hah. hah. hah.] we were planning to install the first of the two doors that needed replacing and that we were going to pick up at the home depot today - and at some point we were going to have to go to home depot obviously. then add in a few meals, and that should pretty well round out sunday.

monday. well the folks-in-law had to leave for the airport a little after noon if they were going to make their flight, and since we were going to get most everything finished on sunday anyway, it should be a pretty light morning anyway. so we were anticipating for monday to just be finishing up whatever painting still needed to be done and then installing the other door that needed to be replaced, piece of cake, no biggie. after we'd conquered that freaking crown molding, how hard could it be to install a few doors anyway? and allan had plenty of experience installing doors after ike's rebuilding, so this should really be smooth sailing. we were set.

so after looking at the anticipated projects and deciding our course of action and after karen made a few phone calls to dirt people we decided the first thing on our list was going to be picking up a truck load of dirt, then home depot, then to the house to unload everything [which included the dirt and filling the planter with it] then on to all the inside projects for the day. so after a coffee refill and checking the directions we loaded up and headed out to pick up our dirt. can i just take a moment here to say again how awesome craigslist is? free dirt, can you beat that? haha, anyway, so we arrived 5-10 minutes later at this guys house and he was out in the front yard working and waiting for us and waved us in. after briefly telling me where to back the truck up and after a couple of tries to back it up without destroying the guys yard [he had nice grass, but the curb was pretty tall and the yard was inclined so the truck needed a little coaxing and tlc to accomplish this little task...] we were unloading the shovels and making our way to his backyard where he had a HUGE pile of dirt. apparently hed been cutting the front yard of his house for some 5 or 6 months now and where it used to be sloped up to the porch level hed been cutting it down to the base of the stairs and planting garden and bedding all the way around. so if thats too abstract for you, just imagine an "L" shaped area about 6 ft wide around the corner of the guys house and about 3-4ft deep. thats... a lot of dirt. he said he must have moved at least 50yards over the last 5 or 6 months, lordy... anyway he had tons of dirt free for our taking and luckily a few buckets and a wheelbarrow we could borrow to load with, so we dug in. well, it turns out this particular person was quite the gabb-er and quite friendly, so while we worked he jabbered our ears off about his house, his landscaping, his trees, his kid, his dog, his current lack of work situation, and im sure about a dozen other things i didnt overhear. i feel for anne... wow... she was doing the "easy" [as she put it, not me] work of shoveling and this guy was on her hip the whole time, while the other 3 of us took turns shoveling, and lifting the full wheelbarrow and buckets into the back of the truck for dumping. i cant say for sure how long we were there, but it didnt feel toooo long by any stretch. maybe a half an hour to an hour? i dont know, i was concentrating on sweating and getting dirty, not the time. so anyway after oh, 20-30 trips i guess, we'd pretty well filled the bed of my 8ft long-bed truck pretty well and i decided it was time to stop. i didnt want this dirt spilling out in an avalanche when we opened the tail gate at the house, so we'd hit our threshold for the load. after thanking the nice man and his son we loaded up and decided it was time for a quick lunch break on our way to home depot.

at this point karen and i knew where we were in the area and pulled over a few blocks away in a little shopping center with a half dozen food options and we decided on wendy's for lunch. as always it was a pleasant little meal [although they must have screwed up our order 5 times... lord...] and when we finished we had satisfied bellies and were ready to get a move on. next up was the depot, so we headed in that direction. although, before we got there we decided to take a quick detour to the home emporium to see about what the had to offer in the way of salvaged cheap doors. they did have quite a selection of doors although the vast majority of them were fixed doors [not operable isnt really what we were going for...] and the few non-fixed they had were about 8ft tall, about 6 inches larger that our opening so.... not so much. so we left there and made the short 2 black trip to the depot and got started on our list. this time around the home depot trip took a little longer, even though we split up into teams to try and cover more ground, faster. oh-well... seems thats just the way trips to the depot go. so at least an hour later, probably more, we finally departed the depot with both doors and necessary accessories [like hardware for instance - although they were pre-hung, so it was just doorknobs and locks for the most part], a replacement vent cover that wed had to remove to put the crown in, our additional stretch of crown, and a few other odds and ends [like some flowers that the girls decided we needed to pretty up the planter... dirt aint pretty enough for em??]. so we made our way homeward bound and before long arrived. at first there was someone parked blocking our unloading spot, so we temporarily parked elsewhere and unloaded as much as we could [home depot stuff] and then luckily the people with the vehicle showed up and relocated it for us [and we met some new neighbors apparently] and then i was able to back the truck right up to the planter. with the tailgate open we were about a ft from the edge of the planter so unloading should be pretty simple.

although things that should be simple, rarely are. not that the unloading and filling of the planter was overly difficult, just not as easy as we'd have liked. there was only room for 2 people to shovel at a time without hitting each other so at first we took turns doing that, then after filling the lowest tier of the planter the in-laws had a spark of genius. they decided that since the dirt was going pretty quick [although the whole process was going much slower than id hoped. filling the truck went pretty quick, but unloading was taking much longer... weird...] that we better come up with some other filler for the bottom back half of the planter so that we'd have enough dirt to finish the job [or at least get us close]. so in a stroke of brilliance they decided we should make a few trips to the backyard and fill the bottom of this thing with rubble from our still large pile in the back. it really was a fantastic idea, i dont know why we hadnt thought of it before! so we took a break from the dirt and started making a few trips to the back yard with whatever containers we could find to haul with [i.e. trashcans and our recycle bin, lol] and started filling the planter. well after about 10-15 heavy loads wed filled about a third of the back of the planter and decided we were done and it was back to the dirt. so for a while karen and i shoveled while the folks got to take a little rest, then anne started doing other yard stuff and soon allan relieved me and i got to take a little break. haha, and then the rain started.... at first it was just a little then it was a pretty good downpour of fat rain, but they were so close to finishing unloading that they didnt stop so i got quite a show from the porch as they shoveled the remaining mud into the planter, lol! well, by the time they were finished the planter was about 95% full had even planted their flowers in the mud, and mostly they were all very wet. so after rearranging the truck they washed out the back for me and soon enough we were all headed inside where they all found dryer clothes and we got started on phase 2 - the interior.

well... at this point, it was starting to get pretty late in the day, id say it must have been around 3? so allan and i decided to start with the remaining crown molding. after our experience from yesterday we were hoping it would go much faster today, but the last bit we had included the stupid rounded corner of our stairs and that was quite a pain in the arse to work around. after trying a number of splicing options and trying to figure out some way we could segment around the corner we gave up our attempts in sullen failure and decided to just make it a square corner and hope that the gap created by the rounded corner wouldnt be too unsightly. well, after we got it on there and finished the rest of the second piece of the crown all the way around we were frustrated as hell with all the pieces that didnt go our way, but we were very relieved to finally be done with the crown! woohoo! and while we had been working on that, the ladies had been busy painting the window trim for the two diamond windows in the stair and they were looking very nice [and im supposed to mention to my mom that they WERE able to clean the bottom diamond window from the outside and it looks a million times better now!] as well as finishing second coats of paint on the shelves and letting them dry and whatever other odds and ends they busied themselves with [im really not entirely sure, allan and i were just a touch distracted...].

by this time it was getting late and it was definitely time for dinner. so we started working on that. we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and the girls made annes famous baked beans and some potato creation of karens, and we had a very satisfying dinner indeed! i might be a little biased, but i thought that everything turned out quite superbly and i was very pleased with my dinner. =]

well after dinner we were all pretty exhausted but there was still daylight so we felt a little guilty not working and started working again pretty soon. the girls started doing their caulking, filling, and painting of the crown molding while allan and i got started doing the face trim for the shelves. after figuring out a few tricks to measure and cut these things we got ourselves in quite a pattern of assembling them and before we knew it wed gotten the entire left half done and a pretty good start on the second half for tomorrow. but. it was getting late, and we were all wrecked, so it was off to bed for all the workers and we'd tackle whatever we could monday morning before they had to leave for the airport.... and with that, day two is concluded. and since i promised i would, heres a few pictures for you to show off just a little of the work we finished on days one and two. ;]

...crap.... my internet is being stupid and its not letting me put them on here... so youll just have to go to my picture album website to see them... sorry =/

dc[part.thrice]

[sunday | 5.2.09 | day.three]

sunday morning was another groggy morning, but we managed to get up at a similar hour to the day before. after showering and getting ourselves ready we headed down to breakfast again. as with saturday we werent disappointed, although i think we both had a little less breakfast overall this time around. they didnt have the burritos, but there were scrambled eggs and sausage and most everything else from the day before.

after breakfast we quickly grabbed our stuff for the day, plotted out our stops and were on our way. well, no sooner did we hit the lobby door than we realized today was going to be a little different. it was lightly drizzling out and we didnt have an umbrella or ponchos or anything else to protect ourselves with. so after exchanging glances we pressed forward and made our way to the metro stop. luckily, the rain wasnt heavy and the temperate outside was moderate enough that we werent getting soaked and frozen, but we were getting damp and chilled a little, oh-well.

soon enough we were on the train and headed to our first stop, federal center s.

as we got on the escalators and slowly rose out of the depths we were a little disheartened to find that the rain hadnt magically ceased during our 15 minute subterranean reprieve. so after glancing at our maps and trying to find our bearings karen grabbed a free newsprint of some kind from a nearby dispenser and we set out in what i thought was the right direction. as i mentioned before the subway maps vs. street maps are a little difficult to rectify from scale and abstraction, so it turns out we were heading a little off course at first. soon enough though we realized my mistake, corrected and before long we were across the street from our first museum of the day - the national museum of the american indian.

id seen pictures of it at some point before so i knew what the building looked like, but it was definitely cooler in person. from what i remember the idea behind the design was a symbolic representation of the cave cities in the southwest so its got some really fun geometry. inside is a huge domed atrium space with an oculus and there are various different exhibits and gift shops on all the levels. we visited a couple of the exhibits which were pretty interesting to see, and then did a little research on my native american heritage. im some very small part potawatomi and am officially registered with the tribal rolls, and was curious to see what the national museum had on my tribe. well, sadly, they didnt have a whole lot. it took quite a bit of digging but we did find a few pages in one book in one of the bookstores that gave a brief synopsis of the tribes origins and then in one of the displays there was an actual artifact about beading, but other than that, ziltch. but i thought my parents would get a kick out what we did find, so theres a few images in the albums. thats alright though, the main center for the potawatomi is in oklahoma now and while i havent made it to see what theyve got yet, i plan to someday and im sure its much more in depth. anyway, we spent quite some time at the american indian museum - hoping it would stop raining, however, by the time we were ready to go... it hadnt.

so we headed back out into the rain and soon found a vendor with umbrellas so we bought a small one - probably should have gotten a larger one in retrospect - and huddled together as we made our way to our next stop a few blocks away, the smithsonian museum of natural history. i was really looking forward to this one because wed seen some posters of an imax film about dinosaurs that looked pretty cool and also something about a giant squid on display. so after getting ourselves thoroughly dampened and our feet thoroughly soaked after sloshing our way over, we made it inside and found ourselves in the midst of hundreds of people, a large majority of which were children who were having a good time but were definitely a little obnoxious. anyway the first thing i wanted to check on was the imax times and prices and as it turns out they were charging like 10 bucks per person and we really werent prepared to pay that price. so we decided to just see most of the exhibits instead and made our way through the museum. the first area we went through was the ocean stuff and got to see all kind of cool artifacts. they had huge lifelike models of different marine life, and a ton of real skeletons and stuff that were preserved for study. we really enjoyed ourselves and took a ton of pictures.

after the marine stuff we went on to the dinosaurs section and looked through all the fossils and skeletons of the dinosaurs they had on display - again a lot of pictures.

after the dinosaurs we went through the space exhibit and then the geological formations and saw all kinds of crazy rocks and gems and stuff. they even had rocks with hair! it was pretty crazy. the last stop we made was to see the hope diamond which was currently on display - karen REALLY liked it... hah, she wishes! after another trip through the ridiculously-over-priced gift shop we were getting hungry and had seen just about all we wanted to that day, and with the rain and all... we decided to call it a day and go find some food.

so we found the nearest subway station and headed back to the hotel to see if we could find a dining guide of some kind and figure out lunch. well... after consulting the internet and our brochures we found that not much was open on sunday in the area we were in and settled on a little deli/bakery - au bon pain - just down the block from our hotel and had a nice little lunch. they had some really great macaroni and cheese that we shared as a side and all kinds of little pastry goodies for dessert. after lunch we were both pretty exhausted and since it was already about 3pm and still raining we decided to head back to the room for a little relaxing, some tv, and a nap. well... the nap ended up being a little longer that we expected i think, and around 8 we woke up and decided to have a quick order-in dinner before calling it a night. we had a very very early morning on monday and it was going to be a loooong day, so we decided it was better get our rest. after confirming our shuttle pick up to the airport [because really who wants to change trains a dozen times at 3 in the morning?] we drifted off to sleep before getting up again at 2am and making the trip home.

as for the trip home, it went just as planned, was very uneventful, and after napping on the plane and landing back in cincy we got the truck from parking and were on our way straight to work and school. and thus, our trip [and the story] is complete. its actually been a pretty short week by comparison to our "vacation" but im looking forward to the weekend. we dont have any real plans yet for whats going to happen this weekend, but if we do anything fun or exciting ill be sure to fill you in next week.

hope you all have a fantastic weekend and a happy mother's day!

dc[part.two]

[saturday | 5.2.09 | day.two]

so we got up at about 8:30am [although quite stubbornly and with much difficulty given the night before...] and got showered and dressed and then went downstairs to the continental breakfast around 9:30am. it was actually a pretty sweet breakfast, they had just about anything you could want and the best part was the breakfast burrito fixins! i had a burrito and a bagel with some oj and diet coke while karen sampled just about everything there was, lol! i think her eyes were a little bigger than mine, but she tried everything and seemed to enjoy it all.

after breakfast we visited the little brochure kiosk in the lobby and got some free maps and then headed to the room to gather whatever items we'd need for the days excursion and then soon headed out. the short 3 block walk to the metro was nothing this time around and we were feeling much more confident as we purchased our tickets from the machine and routed our trip through various stops and train switches. maybe 15-20 minutes later we were on the escalators at judiciary square and were delivered directly to our first stop, sweet! we knew we'd be close from the map, but theyre a little abstract and difficult to gauge exact location proximity to anything, and we were lucky enough to emerge from the subway directly at the front door of the first museum on our list for the day - the national building museum. well before we went in we took a second to look at our surroundings and it turns out judiciary square is a pretty cool little plaza with some fun landscaping features and statues. at the present time there was some kind of ceremony going on in the center of the plaza but we decided to walk around the extremities in the in the tree-lined paths to check things out for a few minutes as discreetly as possible. well, as much action as was going on center-stage and the fact that the city seems pretty used to tourism, no one paid us any attention as we looked about and snapped a few pictures before heading into the museum.

so when first we entered the museum what struck us both was the grandiose of the main atrium space. this thing was effin huge! it must have been at least 5 stories high with these huge columns that went all the way up to the clerestory [er... little windows near the ceiling, in layman's...] in addition to that there was a pretty huge fountain in the middle and the width and breadth of this thing... lets just say you could have probably but a few of our house's [which is pretty huge to be honest] in this space and still have room to spare without batting an eye.

anyway, we went to the information desk to inquire about tours and whatnot and then decided to just start visiting the exhibits on our own [the next tour didnt start for an hour and a half]. the first exhibit we saw was called detour and it was about all these popular tourist spots in the norway countryside. it basically chronicled 17 or 18 spaces that were designed as lookouts or viewpoints in a video presentation and then after the video there were a series of architectural models and boards of some of the places from the video. the models were freakin sweet. as someone who has built a number of architectural models in my day i had a serious appreciation for how well built these things were and was a little enamoured with the different techniques that were used. it was a really cool first experience for the museum and i was looking forward to what was next at that point.

so the next stop was a photography exhibit by some architectural photographer that was geared towards 9/11 aftermath in the form of a juxtaposition and comparison of interrogation spaces, worship spaces, and government spaces from all the various cultural viewpoints. it was an interesting collection, although after a little while it all started to look the same and the clever ironies started to get less and less clever as you saw more of the work. but maybe i was just distracted by the random gallery attendant who took an interest in my tattoos and decided to ruin my experience by talking to me for most of the duration of my visit while i was TRYING to concentrate on the artwork. at some point i just started nodding while he was telling me stories about his cousin the marine who got in trouble all the time and was kicked out after 6 months, yadda, yadda, yadda. karen totally abandoned me while this guy chewed my ear off for 15 minutes. punk.

anyway the next exhibit we saw was about architectural detailing in different materials - stone, metal, brick, etc. and it was kinda cool, but a little boring. at this point wed already been there a good hour and i was getting antsy to see all the other million stops on our list for the day so we made a quick trip through the gift shop to see if anything jumped at us [nothing did, hah, not for those prices...] and then we made our way to the exit. so the next stop on our list was "the mall" where there are tons of museums, monuments, landmarks, memorials, and what have you. its pretty much the tourist hot spot of d.c. where the smithsonian and all the famous stuff is. well, it was either back on the subway for a couple of stops or just walk the 6 or 7 blocks over, and considering how nice the weather was out [overcast and cool - perfect for site seeing!] we decided to walk. well it was actually a nice walk and we went through some nice garden plazas and government buildings [which make up like 75% of the downtown area from what we saw, lol!] until we got to constitution ave.

at this point we were a little awestruck by the mall. at one end you could see the capital building, directly in front of us was the national art gallery, in the distance the washington monument towered over the treeline and there were a half dozen other museums within eye-shot. it was a cultural enthusiasts dream come true, haha, and being the nerds karen and i are, we were basking in all its glory. we decided to venture towards the capitol building and then around the national art gallery to its entrance to kind of get a full view of the area before going in to the art gallery. it was pretty cool seeing the capitol building, even from the distance we were at, and i was really digging the architecture of the national art gallery as well. by the time we made it around to the front of the gallery we both got distracted by these awesome triangular shards jutting through the adjacent plaza and had to investigate them further.

we took a bunch of pictures and came to find out there was actually a restaurant or something under the plaza that these shards were skylights into so we took the long way into the museum by going underground, through the restaurant to check the shards out from the inside, and then through this really freaking cool l.e.d. installation before actually arriving inside the lower level of the art gallery. and right there in front of us, a serra! awesome! this was really an enjoyable day so far! we floated around the gallery for a little while before deciding we wanted to take the tour of the sculpture garden about an hour later and decided to grab lunch at the garden pavilion before it started. so we walked over there and had a really delicious lunch at the pavilion before trying to find the tourgroup. well as it turned out we asked an official looking woman where the tour started and she was the guide so we were in the right place! and if that wasnt cool enough, it turns out we were the first people shed actually given the tour to in almost a year and we were the only ones that showed up that day, so we got a very one on one personal, and casual tour of the sculpture garden and karen got to ask all kinds of questions for a project she had in her museum studies class. it turned out to be a really fun tour and she was extremely knowledgeable of the sculptures.

by the time we finished the garden we were both starting to feel a bit tired. it was around 2:30pm at this point and we'd been on our feet for hours already, but there was still so much to see! i wanted to try and see the washington monument, the vietnam veterans memorial, and the lincoln memorial while we were in the area that day, so we got started walking - not sure if we'd make it. the first one we saw was the washington monument. it was really freakin huge and everything youd expect - although in a much less immaculate condition than you always see in pictures. up close you could see that there was some history to this thing and it had been around for some time. well, being the nerds we are, we took the opportunity to take a bunch of fun shots of karen with the monument - like you do at the leaning tower of pisa or the like - haha, it was a lot of fun.

knowing how much we still wanted to see we made our stops short for the rest of the day and tried to just get to everything as quickly as possible. so after circling the huge block that the monument was on we came across the wwII memorial and checked it out, then were on our way again towards the vietnam war memorial. eventually we arrived but it was absolutely overrun with tourists, kind of a bummer and pretty typical of the day so far - there were so many people there!, so we tried to take a few pictures before getting out of the people soup and making our way over to the lincoln memorial nearby.

well after seeing the lincoln memorial, which was pretty cool, but again CRAZY crowded, and making a quick pit stop - we were done for the day and decided it was time to head back to the hotel. well, at this point we were pretty far from any of the metro stops so we could either walk to the closest one, or about equa-distant, just walk back to the hotel - so we decided wed just suffer through and walk back. luckily we were in pretty close proximity to the white house at this point so we were going to make sure to go by it on the way to the hotel.

on our way to the white house we actually just happened past the AIA headquarters in d.c. which was kind of a cool random accident and then sure enough we saw the whitehouse. and wow, that was an experience, it was pretty cool.

we also saw an armed guard carrying what must have been a freaking grenade launcher/assault rifle/rocket launcher or something. ive never seen a gun that big in my life, he could have taken out a tank with that thing! we definitely didnt mess with him, haha!

anyway, after the white house it was only another 4 blocks to the hotel and soon we were relaxing and resting our poor feet for a while, and while we were doing that i got in contact with my friend lauren who lives in dc and i havent seen since senior year at a&m and made arrangements to go to dinner with her. well, not long after talking to her we saddled up and trekked back to the metro for another ride on the subway. this time we went down to alexandria virginia to meet up with lauren and ended up having a pretty great time with her. we had this authentic-y spanish meal with these little snack sized portioned meals [the name of them escapes me... tapas?] and a lot of catching up. it was really fun to see her again, but by the time we were done eating we were EXHAUSTED and ready for bed. lauren actually volunteered to give us a ride back to the hotel [only about 5 miles away, the area is pretty dense] and after a couple of wrong turns we eventually got home and crashed for the night.

- end of day two. and again, im out of time, sorry!! -

dc[part.one]

so when last i left you all, dear readers, we were about to embark on a little adventure. well it was quite the adventure indeed! we had a blast on our excursion but damn did it ever wear us out.

[friday | 5.1.09]

so the trip started promptly at 5 o-clock when my beautiful wife picked me up from work with the car fully loaded and anxious to get the weekend started. well the first stops we had planned were to the bank to deposit my paycheck and then to dinner somewhere for a quick bite before heading to the airport. well we decided on buffalo wild wings for dinner and i had a pretty decent blackened chicken salad. it was no where near the best ive ever had, but its definitely a wing place, and they do have good wings, so i can cut em some slack on not having the best salads ever. it satisfied my hunger and that was enough for the time being. after dinner we got on the road and 15-20 minutes later we arrived at the airport and found the long term parking lot. luckily, there was a shuttle just waiting for people when we parked, so we got right on and were at the terminal only minutes later. after a quick stop at the automated ticketing kiosk and an uneventful trip through security, we were boarding the tram to the concourse and then before we knew it we were waiting at the gate. it seems everything went pretty quickly on the way there, so we actually had to wait around for about a half an hour before we were boarding the plane and then the customary half an hour sitting on the plane before we finally took off right on time around 8:20pm.

the flight to dc was actually really short, only an hour and a half, and we arrived at the baltimore airport after some moderate turbulence but all in all an enjoyable flight. [personally, i love the turbulence, but i dont think im in the majority there...] well, when we got off the plane the fun really started. karen had gotten some very limited instructions on transportation from her cousin who lives in dc which basically said to take the shuttle to the marc station and theres a train every half an hour. well we didnt know where the shuttle was, or what marc was, lol, but soon enough we found where the shuttle was picking up and 3 or 4 stops later we were at the train station. however, the marc trains [apparently the cheaper brand] were not running every half an hour as we were expecting. in fact there werent any for the rest of the night according to the board, so we had to suck up the extra cost and got tickets for the soonest amtrack into downtown [about twice as much as the marc from what we can tell]. well by this time it was already 10:30pm after all our traveling so far, and we were pretty anxious to get to the hotel and pass out for the night. well the journey wasnt over yet. about 15 minutes later the amtrack arrived and we boarded the train, both having flashbacks of our time in europe - it had been some time since id been on a train and it brought back all kinds of memories. well we sat pretty quietly on the train and eventually we arrived at union station in downtown dc, but at this point we really had no idea what we were going to do next. it was probably 11:15pm by this time and we ventured out to the street to see what the situation was with taxis - a line about a mile long of people waiting - and then back inside to investigate a metro sign that karen thought shed seen and a trip to the atm in case we ended up having to take a taxi after all. well after doing a few circles inside the station we finally found the correct route to the metro, which until this point i had thought was a bus situation like every other metro i was accustomed to. well as we got on the escalators going down to the station i soon realized it was actually a subway system, awesome! i love subways! i dont know why, but i just really love them! anyway, we had no clue how to decipher any of the maps or ticketing machines, but luckily the guy manning the info station wasnt too busy and was able to walk us through the process and help us find the stop nearest to our hotel [only about 3 blocks away] and get us going in the right direction.

so we went down another escalator and found some benches as we waited for the next train to arrive. at this point we were both feeling much better about the rest of our journey to the hotel, however we were both sweating like pigs! it was supposed to be cool from the weather reports wed checked, but it had to have been in the 70's and we were lugging around all our luggage, so we were pretty hot and gross at this point. well anyway, i took a moment to break out the camera for the first time on the trip while we waited for the train and took some pictures of the tunnel - i was enamored with the subway, haha.

before long the train arrived, and after a quick switch at the metro central station and a few stops later we were at our destination and after a short walk were at our hotel! finally! so after checking in and trudging our exhausted bodies up to the room we finally arrived in our room, and it was only 12:30am, lol! well the room itself was awesome. this was probably the nicest hotel ive ever stayed in. it was a studio style room and had all the amenities of a really nice studio apartment - with stove, refrigerator, and dishes supplied! anyway, at this point we were both ready to pass out, but i was disgusting so i took a quick shower before getting in bed, and then before long we both drifted off in preparation for a long weekend yet to come.

and with that. um, day 1. haha, we havent even started the "vacation" part yet, hahaha! but im out of time, lunch is over and ive gotta get back to work. so... for now i'll have to leave you hanging on the story, but feel free to check out all the pictures from the trip at my web albums.

hope youre all having a great week, ill try and update more soon!

recovery

so its been almost 2 weeks. and no, im not dead, but it was touch and go for a little bit there, heh.

anyway, last week was pretty stressful. i had that bad day monday and then the rest of the week was a blur at work. i was working all alone on a project for my boss and it was getting to me. im not used to doing projects completely alone, and while this was fairly small scale, there was a lot involved. anyway, the week went by very quickly and by the time i got off work on friday i was ready for a break. little did i know... be careful what you wish for right?

well friday as the day neared the end of work i started feeling that pinch in the back of my throat. oh no... yeah, thats the way it always starts. that little pinch every time you swallow that makes you feel like clearing your throat for hours until whatever it is finally just goes away. but it never does. and so began the saga of this week.

friday night i was started to feel pretty crappy by bed time and decided i better take something because i definitely was starting to feel sick coming on. so i took some bedtime cold medicine and drifted off to sleep, hoping that the morning would bring better things. well, thats not exactly what happened. instead, i woke up saturday morning feeling like i was swallowing razorblades. my head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds and i was sweating because it felt like it was 150 degrees in our room. so i took more medicine and after taking karen to school for her personal trainer class i got comfortable on the couch and flipped on the tv. and so it went for the remainder of saturday.

sunday - see saturday

monday - see saturday. however, monday morning i decided it was time to call the dr. so i called the closest dr on my insurance and the earliest appointment they had was for tuesday at 11:30. so i scheduled it, skeptical that id be feeling much better by then anyway, and returned to the couch.

tuesday - the morning went pretty much the same and then when the time came i headed to the dr. filled out the forms, waited, got moved to an exam room, talked to a nurse, waited more. eventually the dr. came in and asked me all the same questions the nurse did, so i repeated the entire story [what exactly is the point of the nurse asking you all those questions anyway?] and eventually he came to the conclusion that i had one of a half dozen things floating around right now that all had very similar symptoms and on top of that a sinus infection. so he prescribed a z-pack and decided that i could be contagious for a few more days and recommended i take off work until the antibiotics had a chance to kill the infection and get me feeling better. so with a prescription in one hand and a legitimate dr.s note to take off the next 2 days work in the other, i went back to my post at the couch after a brief trip to the pharmacy.

wednesday - i was starting to get a little stir crazy, but resumed my post at the couch and decided it was best to count my blessings and be thankful for the reprieve from the stress of work while i had it.

thursday - see wednesday. although, i was actually starting to feel a little better by midday after my third dose of the meds and decided to do the list of chores my wife had left for me. so i did the mountain of dishes, took out the trash and recycling and then, resumed my post. however, by the time i went to pick up the wife from school i was definitely feeling better and was satisfied in going back to work on friday morning.

friday - well, thats today for those of you keeping count. and im at work. and well, i feel much better. not completely 100% just yet, ive been having coughing fits the last two nights and i can assure you that my chest is trying to rid itself of unwelcome visitors. but im definitely feeling better. so im back at work and while i was gone one of the architects took over my project and well, fundamentally changed every aspect of it, lol, however i could really care less, im glad someone else is shouldering the burden now and im happy to help out however i can. the office has been having a nice time harassing me about the swine flu and thereve been plenty of jokes all morning, but at least no ones seriously afraid to be around me.

as for the rest of the day, its work as usual and then after work the fun starts. this morning karen and i packed our bags and after a quick dinner we'll be on our way to the airport. at 8pm our flight leaves and we'll be on our way to washington d.c. for the weekend. we're pretty excited about it actually. theres not anything special going on, but a couple of months ago when we got our tax return in we decided that we were both in need of a short vacation, even if it was just for the weekend, and since neither of us had ever been and both wanted to go, we decided to venture forth to our nations capital for a little sight seeing. we dont really have any strict schedule planned out or really even a non-strict one for that matter. weve got hotel reservations and we're basically just going to play it by ear - be tourists, see the monuments and museums, have some nice dinners, hook up with a few friends and family that happen to live in the area, and take in a little r&r. now obviously ive had plenty of r&r this week, but this will actually be more of the fun type and less of the miserable sick type. its going to be a rough monday though, i can tell you that much. we fly back into town just before work and ill have to go straight there and probably be a little late. it should be a lot of fun though and hopefully we'll have a nice time and ill get some pictures.

so anyway, thats about all for now. im alive and getting well. if you havent done so recently [or ever] you should check out my brother's blog. theres all kinds of excitement going on in houston for josh and his fiance cassie. theyre in the process of building their dream home in north houston and hes been on the edge of his seat through the whole process. since hes in construction and used to work for a home builder hes been pretty hands on so far through the construction and hes been more chatty than usual on his blog so theres plenty of reading and tons of pictures over there if youre interested in hearing about their house.

alright, hope you all have a safe, happy and HEALTHY weekend, but for now i bid you adieu.