Long time No blog

Well, It ha been quite a long time since I've been here but there has just been a ton going on and really nothing exciting to write about and as far as random stuff, not so much either, my mind has been preoccupied by rebuilding my house so I'll just give a quick rundown of what's been going on. 

House flooded

gutted house and threw everything away

got contractor

had electrical and plumbing redone

contractor quit

found new contractor

old contractor holding money hostage thus delaying new contractor

paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork

I have also been working, coaching and going to college online still. I am probably the worst teacher ever right now since my mind is so preoccupied with the house but I am making it through. 

The best thing recently was that we decided to go to Pennsylvania and stay at the lake house for Christmas. It was cold and we got to see lots of snow. I went skiing but spent most of the day on my A$$, it's been almost a week and I'm still sore but it was fun and I hope to try again sometime. 

Christmas was good, we got to spend time with family, my sister and her fiancee came up to so that was good. Everyone like the gifts we got them and now I'm back home and doing more paperwork but trying to relax a little. 

So there is the quick update, I will try to get back here more often. 

Later

Tuna

Yesterday we went to The Grand 1894 Opera House in Glaveston to see "Tuna Does Vegas", it was so funny I had tears in my eyes several times. It was also amazing that they can change characters and costumes so quickly. I know that yesterday was the last day that it was in Galveston but if you have never seen one of their plays before it is well worth it. This was the first of the Tuna plays that I have seen and definitely plan on going again.

10 on Tuesday

10 Best Movie Villians



1. The Joker in current Batman; Heath Ledger

2. Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York

3. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs

4. Darth Vader in Star Wars

5. John Doe in Se7en

6. Jabba The Hut in Return of the Jedi

7. Voldemort in Harry Potter; I also think that the Dursley's could be in here to.

8. Patrick Bateman; Christian Bale in American Psycho

9. The Green Goblin in Spiderman

10. Santa as played by Andy Dick in The Hebrew Hammer


11. The Orcs in Lord of the Rings

12. Freedy Krueger and Jason Vorhees have to mentioned as well



I'll admit that I could not really remember all of these off the top of my head so I searched movie villians and looked at a big list of them.

Cool or Dork??

I submitted a question to the Astros Mailbag on the Astros website and they responded to it today.

Astros Mailbag

Austin Weekend

We spent last weekend in Austin. It was out last little getaway for the summer before I go back to coaching and teaching. Mostly we went there to relax but we did do a little bit while we were there.

On Friday night we went to the Congress street bridge to see the bats fly out. It is really something to see if you have never seen this. It starts out with just a few bats coming out and then all of a sudden there is a solid black ribbon of bats flying down the river.

I can not take credit for the picture, it was way too dark by the time they came out when we were there.

On Saturday we went to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. I had been once before but I like it, I think it is a very well done museum and well worth the $7 entry fee. If you have time you should go to the Spirit Theater. It has a really good video on some of the historic moments in Texas History.

We also had some really great meals. We actually ate at two restaurants that were featured on Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels: Austin. I must say that she did a very good job, both restaurants we went to were really good. We also went to a McCormick & Schmick's, I had never been to one and the food was really good, it is a little pricey but that's OK every once in a while. What really makes it stand out though is that when they brought out our meals one of them was wrong. They said they would get it fixed as soon as possible, which they did, only a few minutes, so it wasn't really that big of a deal. Then the manager came by and apologized and said that the whole meal would be taken care of. We had met friends there so there were 4 of us. Later he brought out the check to show us that it was taken care of and sure enough it showed a total of $136 with a $0 balance.

It was a good weekend, I don't know if it was good enough that I'm ready to go back to work but it was good. I think we may need to make a few more trips to Austin to see some more that the city has to offer.

10 on Tuesday

10 things to do when it's too hot to go outside

1. Housework -- clean
2. watch a movie -- home or theater
3. Computer stuff -- blog, surf the net, email
4. Indoor house projects -- Last week I installed a bunch of closet maid orgizers in our closet
5. Shopping
6. I do my college work since I am getting a masters right now
7. Read
8. Small things for work that don't require too much effort
9. Make a list of outdoor projects you will do as soon as it cools down
10. Drink sweet tea

Concerts

This weekend we are getting one last littel getaway before I get back to starting school. We are going to go to Austin for the weekend so I checked to see if any of my favorite bands/singers are playing and found that Rusty Weir is playing at the Saxon Pub. I'm a big fan of his and have only seen him play once and have been wanting to see him live again for quite a while. If you are not sure who he is this is the best I can do, he wrote the song "Don't it Make You Wanna Dance" that Bonnie Raitt sang in the movie "Urban Cowboy". Unfortuantely, Rusty is currently battling cancer so I hope this will not be the last opportunity we have to see him play.

Going to concerts is something I really enjoy doing and again being inspired by my sister I am going to give you my concert list. It is possible that i will miss a few because I forgot or they were just not that memorable.

Rock:
Ozzy Osbourne
Metallica (2)
Van Halen
The Scorpions
Dokken (2)
Poison (3)
Cinderella (2)
Billy Idol
Def Lepard (2)
Journey
Kiss
Kid Rock
Sugar Ray
Sammy Hagar
Iron Maiden
Winger
Motley Crue (2)
Aerosmith

Country (Mostly Texas Country):
Robert Earl Keen (3)
Jerry Jeff Walker (2)
Charlie Robison (lots)
Pat Green (lots)
Corry Morrow (3)
Larry Joe Taylor (lots and lots)
Roger Creagar (lots)
Willie Nelson
Ray Wylie Hubbard
Owen Temple (2)
Honey Brown
Reckless Kelly (3)
Blake Shelton
The Kentucky Headhunters (2)
Billy Joe Shaver
Blind Luck
Back Porch Mary
Dwight Yoakum
Rusty Wier
Max Stallings
The Belamy Brothers
Bruce Robison
Gary P. Nunn
Kevin Fowler
Mickey and the Motorcars
Kenny Chesney (I am so embarrassed to admit this)
Hank Williams Jr.

The list is in no particular order and if you are curious about any of the Texas Country guys go here.

10 on Tuesday (32)

10 least Favorite Celebs

I'm not real big on the celebrity gossip stuff but it's hard to be completely ignorant of it in today's world.

1. Andy Dick -- Despite being in the movie "Hebrew Hammer" he really irritates me.
2. Kat Von D -- She seems to have everything going for her but she chooses to create drama instead.
3. Kim Kardashian -- I don't know what she has done other than be born into wealth and fame
4. Paris Hilton -- see above
5. Nicole Ritchie -- Ditto
6. Kurt Cobain -- If he didn't like being famous then he could have easily stepped away like Axl Rose did but instead he left his daughter without a father.
7. Toby Keith -- It seems like it would be tough to build such a macho persona while strumming your little guitar.
8. Hulk Hogan -- I love wrestling, but over the years the Hulkster thinks he has gotten bigger than what made him.
9. Martha Stewart -- She has turned the craft world into rap music since it appears that her time in prison has only given her street cred.
10. Brittany Spears -- she had it all and then decided to throw it away. I guess it's true, you can take the girls out of the trailer park ............................I'll let you finish the thought.

??Technology = Improvement??

So today was a big waste of time. I recently received a letter saying that I needed to do something with my cell phone or I would loose my phone number and be dropped from having service. Sounds weird.

Well, many years ago I went to La Ward Cellular in Victoria to get Cingular service. We all know that Cingular then changed to AT&T and now La Ward Cellular has decided to split from AT&T and do their own thing so I needed to pick who I was going to go with or I would just be dropped from both.

I was told I could come in to the Victoria off ice and get it taken care of, the problem is that Victoria is now about 3 hours away from home. So after 2 phone calls lasting about 45 minutes total and 4 trips to AT&T stores totalling about 4 hours I now have cell phone service again.

So this leads me to my question.....Is advancing our technology really making things easier and better??

I know that usually things are a lot faster and more convenient with today's technology but when you look at today it is questionable. I spent several hours today to have a working phone, my parents had a land line phone at our house that was there for probably 30 years and I would bet that if you added up the entire 30 years they never spent 5 hours trying to make it work right.

When we were all growing up the teachers never believed that your dog ate your homework but now there is never a question when you claim that your computer crashed and could not finish a report.

How many things have you really had lost in the mail? Now, how many times has your email provider crashed or gone down for maintenance?

Have you had your car or your bicycle worked on more recently?

It also seems that the technology causes terrible mood swings. While trying to figure out things at the AT&T store today I saw at least 10 people come in and and become visibly upset that there were no iPhones available.

I'm not saying I'm going to give it all up and move into the mountains or anything, it is just something I had time to ponder while I was dealing with my cell phone.

10 On Tuesday (Belated)

This is a post I've seen my Sister participate in for quite a while so I think I will try it out to.

10 Memorable Vacation Moments (In no particular order)

1. I think my very first vacation memory is going to the Battleship Texas and San Jacinto Monument. I could not have been more than 6 or 7 years old
2. Scuba Diving in Cozumel
3. JB lit his cigarette backwards at the FloraBama. It was really funny at the time
4. The Redwood Trees in Northern California
5. Carrying the canoes over beaver dams in Canada
6. White water rafting in Denali Park
7. Sitting by the fireplace at the B&B in Mendocino
8. The Golden Gate Bridge
9. The Prague Castle
10. The Beer festival in Munich

I think I could have also made a list of Animals I've seen in the wild -- Elk, Moose, Bear, Caribou, Fox, Beaver, Porcupine, Ground Hogs, Lobster, Eel, Octopus, Sharks, Whales..........oh my

The past week

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We spent the weekend in Pennsylvania at my in laws lake house. The Wife was a little emotional since she hasn't been back since her Granddad passed away but she made it just fine and started to make some new memories there. On Saturday we had a little get together for some of the Wife's family that couldn't make it down for the wedding and then we took the boat out that night to watch fire works from the lake. We played around on the boat quite a bit and went driving around to see elk. Over all a really good weekend.

We received one of the coolest wedding gifts at the party, one of the family friends from there is a blacksmith and he made a grill set for us. He used steel cable that be forged into a solid bar the made a fork and a pig tail for us complete with oak handles that he also made. It meant a lot to think that he actually made something for us.

On Monday night we went to watch the Astros play the Pirates at PNC Park. It was my first chance to see a game somewhere other than Minute Maid Park so that was fun. It really is a very nice park and was nice that it was all open. You really get a good view of the city from the stadium. The only downside was that the 'Stros could not hold on to the lead and lost 7 - 10.

One other note I am going to mention is that I have made a full week now in my effort to quit smoking. I wish I could say it was getting easier but it's not, I have actually had dreams about smoking. Regardless though, I have made a week. Woo Hoo!

Day 1.5

It has been a day and a half since my last cigarette. I am attempting to quit smoking again, this is probably the 4th or 5th time that I have tried, once I made it for almost 3 months but for some reason I always go back. I have been chewing the gum but it is just not the same, it does help but part of my habit is sitting outside and sort of taking a break from everything while I have a smoke. The gum does not seem to do the same thing, I really have no need to stop everything while I smack on some gum.

I know it is bad but I have to admit that I enjoy smoking, some of my best freinds smoke and when we are together we tend to smoke a lot, while I was in Germany I think I may have filled my smoking quota for a while since not only do my freinds that I went with smoke but that whole country smokes, you can still smoke in most restaurants.

Normally I would keep my attempt to quit smoking to myself so that if I don't succeed then no one will know that I failed but maybe by letting all of you know that I am trying I will try harder to stick with it.

I'm courious to see if any of you have words of encouragement or advice for this one.

Pictures From Europe

Well, I finally feel like I'm getting back to normal, I guess it was jet lag but I really felt out of sorts for the first few days after getting home from Germany. I guess I'm just lucky that I'm on summer vacation so I didn't have to get back to real work anyway.

I said I would get a few pictures up so here are a few of the high lights from the trip.

View of St. Micheal's Monestary in Bamburg, Germany.

Bamburg Cathedral

Equestrian Statue in Bamburg Cathedral, they said it dates back to between 1200 and 1300 and may be a King.

View of Prague Castle from in Prague.

St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague Castle.



The Apostle Clock in Old Town Square, Prague. On the hour the bells ring and the Apostles walk in circles in the two small doors that open near the top.

We went to a beer festival in Munich, seriously, how can you go to Germany without going to a beer festival.

Well, that's a quick glimpse at the trip, the cathedrals were all even more amazing on the inside but I'd have to put 100 photos on here (for each one) to really give it justice so I'll stop here.

World Traveler Returns

Wow!! What a great trip. I feel like I ran for a week straight. I got back from Germany yesterday and am pretty wiped out today but the trip was well worth it. Getting to spend some time with JB and AW was a lot of fun and getting to see some of Europe was a great experience. While there I went to Bamburg, Munich and Nurnburg in Germany and we spent 2 days in Prague. Prague was such a great city, there is just so much to see there that in our 2 days we really just scratched the surface. The Prague Castle with the Cathedral of St. Vitus is absolutely amazing. We spent 6 1/2 hrs at the castle. Other high lights were Charles Bridge and the Apostle clock in old town square. In Bamburg there was the Bamburg Cathedral and St Micheals Cathedral.

One of the funniest things we say was in Munich, we went to a beer festival that was honoring the apprentice brew masters. It was there graduation. We heard the mayor or Munich speak and then the Brew Masters all pledged an oath to the beer laws. When they finished the breweries all gave out free beer in glass pint mugs. We made sure to get to each of the breweries and get a glass before we were done.

It was such a great trip I could write a 10 page report on it but I'll stop here for now. As soon as I get my pictures on the computer I'll post some of them.

Country Boy Come to Town

I grew up in a very small town in south Texas (probably pop. 400). I would also say that we would best be described as upper lower class. We didn't grow up with a lot of money, so in turn we didn't do a lot of traveling when I was younger. Now that I am getting older and in a slightly better position financially I have been able to travel more in the past few years. My wife and her family have also done a lot to make it easier to travel. In the past year I've gotten to make some really great trips, I went with my wife and her family on a cruise to Alaska, I've been to Pennsylvania a couple of times with her, I got to have a business trip Boston and finally my honeymoon to Mendocino, CA.

It has already been a very big year for me when it comes to traveling and now, thanks to a few things falling into place I will be leaving to Germany on Sunday. It just happens that I have a college friend that is working Germany for a few years and then another friend said that his cousin was getting married in London this summer so why don't we go to Germany to visit AW before I go to the wedding? I thought, "What a great idea".

I'm really excited about the trip and also a little nervous. Even though I have been traveling more lately I'm still not real comfortable on planes.

Anyway, the real point of this post is that after growing up poor and in a very small town I find it strange that I'm traveling to all these cool places. When I was in Boston I was by myself, walking along the Freedom Trail and suddenly, while looking at the Old State House, I thought "How did I grow up in Lolita and end up in Boston?" I know that makes me sound like a total county hick, but deep down that is what I still am. I hope to keep expanding my horizons and traveling to new places but I also hope that I'm able to keep that feeling of amazement and never take these sorts of things for granted.

Hello!!

Well, I have broken down and started a blog. My sister ( http://theittybittythings.blogspot.com/ )has been an avid blogger for a little over a year now, my wife has been an aspiring blogger and I have several friends who blog. I have gotten to where checking their blogs has become an almost daily occurrence, I read them more than the news. Rather often I will read their blogs and feel like I have something to say about their topic but it doesn't really fit in their comment box so now I have my own soap box I can stand on.

Just so you know a little about me, I am a teacher and coach at a high school and when I am not doing that I love doing home repair or building anything that I can find a reason to build. I use lots of wood and recently received a welder as a gift so I am looking forward to learning to weld. I also enjoy working on cars. I am a master of none of these hobbies but that usually does not slow me down, I usually jump right in keep going until I break something or hurt myself but more often than not my results turn out pretty good.

I think what I'm looking forward to most with this blog is a chance to show off some of my handy work, talk about my travels and spout off about my views on the teaching profession. So if any of that interests you please check back in.