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Ziferius!

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happy birthday! [Dec. 5th, 2009|03:30 am]
My sister is the big three oh today.

I've got the crud.... still have a scratchy throat and such. No energy. uh.

So I'm writing a letter to my future ex-wife.
Basically just super long emo blog post.
A way to get the what I want to say off my chest without having another fight.

On a different subject, right now, for me, this is my favorite song.

Another Holiday: Pouring Them Out

Zzz
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Hi again :) [Nov. 7th, 2009|08:59 pm]
Again, it's almost a year. So much has happened.

In February, I had another stroke. I was in the hospital for 28 days.
Rehab and all.

Apparently I have a blood disorder, Factor V Leiden, the caused the strokes.
The arm surgery I had 'awakened' the condition.

My mother and my sister has it also.

Apparently it was the reason she a stroke in the 90's.

The test didn't become available til 2003 or so. They mix your blood with the venom of a pit viper. Really wild stuff.

My wife left 5/8. The divorce is supposed to be final Dec 17th.
So that will be a good thing. She didn't take care of me...... she can barely care for herself..... and definitely can't keep the best interests of her daughter in mind.... it is just better they got out now.

Of course, I can't tolerate as much as I used to. It took an act of God to reaslize..... you aren't supposed supposed to tolerate things I was doing...... from someone that loves you.

Anyways, I was having a lot of dizzy spells, and my doc thought I was having TIAs. After an MRI and comparing it to the ones I have had in the last few months, the radiology determined it was a swollen sinus pushing or pinching my middle ear. :) Expensive exam to undergo for the docs to tell you, your allergies are BAD.

So I got some nifty steroidal nasal spray and thats it :)

I'm moving to Addison the week of Dec 21st.

I'll try to post more often :)

ZZzzz
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Do people even use Livejournal anymore? Hah - kidding [Dec. 23rd, 2008|12:24 am]
A year since my last post. Ouch. Oh well things have been terribly busy.
I"ll admit most of it has been since August or so.

Broke my arm in Mid-August.
Future Mother-in-Law passed away the following week.
Surgery for arm.
Got Married.
Moved new wife into her new home with me.
Had a stroke.
Recovered.
About to celebrate 2nd Christmas with my wife.

Been busy. I'm doing great health-wise now.
Home front, it has taken a bit to get used to being married ... but it really has been great for me. I've learned so much about myself I never knew.

Hope you folks out there have a Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it!) ...otherwise.... enjoy the Holiday season & festivities!

Zzzz
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How to pick a Candidate [Dec. 12th, 2007|10:22 am]
Over the past several months -- I've talked to several people who have grumbled about the poor choices of candidates in the running (almost 20 contenders...) for President. The trend I with these friends were that that looked at someone who "felt right".... a very subjective test on who to support. They ended up dropping this candidate a few weeks later after reading something about them that totally turned them off.

My suggestion to them was to change how they picked a candidate. Instead of going for something intrinsically subjective, with no real goal..... make a list of the most important 3 or 4 issues.... and find a candidate that agrees with you. Between those couple, narrow it down by adding issues until you find one that mirrors you the closest in your views.

For me, the biggest issue is the war in Iraq.

My roommate and I have gone on and on about how horrible it is we are there. We got there on lies. I will admit, I voted for Bush the 2nd time, knowing full well -- but at this point we both really thought we were there for justified reasons. I still DIDN'T LIKE being there, but if they were helping Al Queda, had WMDs and all of this jazz... then yes we should go over there and kick butt, etc.

That has all changed. That none of those reasons were true. People may argue with me, but heck - the then, Secretary of STate has now indicated he pretty much lied tot he UN about the war... and he regrets it. There are SO many people that have come out and said, it was a lie... much more reputable folks than the ones lying it seems... are saying we're over there via fallicy. It comes to the point that when pointed out the lies, they just say, "But our troops, support our troops, etc"

It seems that the neo-conservative movement believes you must support the war to support the troops. How stupid is that?
This isn't Vietnam (yet) in which troops come home and civilians vandalize them. Most people know, that these people were reservists, called up and were forced to go over there. It is generally common knowledge now that most of the troops there don't really want to be there. It's been written about in the news a million times. Sure there are counter articles out there, but it still is pretty much known that they don't want to be over there.

So.... I'm against the war.. I'm against PRE-EMPTIVELY NUKING IRAN. This.... is what cinched it for me. I was not going to vote republican, they all said they would NOT take off the table... of nuking Iran first.. before a war if they felt it was justified. What would justify that? Nuking Iran before they attacked us? Nuking them is a big thing folks. It's only been done to one country 62 years ago. You DON'T NUKE SOMEBODY just because you are scared of them, or scared they might do something to you, you don't NUKE A COUNTRY if they talk shit about yours.

That... is inherently EVIL. At least in WW2, the use of Nuclear force was somewhat justified. There are tons of arguments about that -- but for now, lets assume it is justified.

You take all of those arguments that it was a justified action..... none NONE of them apply today.

Even nearly all the Democrats supported PRE-EMPTIVELY NUKING IRAN. How insane is that? The most important issue to me... pretty much all the candidates opposed my world view.

Out of the few that were left... there was only one clear choice. Ron Paul. He's my candidate. People think he's a kook. That's fine. He has a questionable voting record on some items -- that's fine, do your research and you'll find out why he voted the way he did. Most candidates are that way. They will explain why they voted this or that for an issue...... if the explanation is still retarded..... then yes its an issue.

Case in point -- on one of the debates. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee spared about the war in Iraq. Huckabee's response on why we shouldn't leave IRAQ...was simply put, to save face, to save our honor.

This was such a bullshit..... non-answer. Remember the War is my biggest issue and will decide who I vote for in the primaries..... not Huckabee - ever. We may agree on other things, but we have to agree on the War to talk about _anything_.
What kind of shit answer is "for our honor" -- this is why we stayed in Vietnam for so long. Guess what that got us? No where. Yes IRAQ isn't Vietnam (yet) but there are enough similarities it is silly. There IS NO EXIT plan... no goal set.. "we are done". It's just another one of those N/S Korea things that we stay there indefinitely.

Anyways, I've run off and started a rant basically but anyways.... pick your candidate - support them. Don't be apathetic. We're really at a crossroads here. Go vote.. don't absentee vote, don't early vote, vote. Admittedly - the others don't get counted unless the race is too closed to call statistically. If you don't know what that means then.... well learn some math, get educated and understand you aren't being cheated. It's a numbers game -- but regardless, vote.
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(no subject) [Oct. 11th, 2007|02:43 pm]
Click here... and hover your mouse of the image after you read the comic. Funny Shit, eh?
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This made me laugh so hard I cried....... [Sep. 7th, 2007|01:46 pm]
Lookie here
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Yet Another Sleepless Night [Aug. 28th, 2007|04:33 am]
So I found out that my Great Aunt passed tonight.
I believe we are making the trip to Kentucky -- leaving Wednesday afternoon.... not sure on times and whens and all that yet. We'll be returning probably Sunday... but more definite in the next day or so.

Dan isn't back yet from the hospital -- he had his gall bladder removed... he had a few complications with it (liver issues.. gall stones blocking things, etc, etc) He went into the hospital Friday Morning... so it's been a fairly drama filled week already.

School started! I'm taking Stats..... and Studies of Genocide as my capstone.... which I'm fairly certain with Dr. DiGeorgio -- it will be an extremely interesting and educational class... I have that in the morning. I'm going to be so dead on my feet tomorrow. *sigh*

But I did get a good cheer up from [info]blondieoubre ........ thanks girl :)
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Project research [Jul. 12th, 2007|04:11 am]
So I've been doing some research on the project I mentioned the other day.....
Project Find Fun. Yeah corny as hell - but geeks have to have project names for their ideas.

Anyways -- been doing some legal eagle looking uppers on the whole data aggregation business, and it doesn't bode well. Two court cases, eBay Inc. vs BiddersEdge.com and Register.com vs Verio refer to a very similar activity. The eBay court case seems more relevant, in that BiddersEdge.com was a search engine that allowed someone to search multiple auction sites with one query.

Basically eBay used the age old logic of, you are trespassing on my website to stop the data aggregators. Since they were in effect -- potentially taking business away from eBay (or potentially giving eBay business if they had a slew of cheap auctions going on...) -- [[note: my cat's tail is deadly. When he's happy -- it goes all over the place.... with force. He just knocked over a glass... and he's purring so loudly!]] ..... so that is some of the legal crap I'd face in this endeavor.


The main site for data aggregation? mySpace.com
It's definitely the armpit of the internet -- but as far as event listings, it has a very basic and readable event listing piece to the site.

After that -- the usual suspects, ticketmaster, frontgatetickets....

However, my *target* would be the venues themselves. However coming up with a very quick.. and fast way for a venue to enter in a schedule... makes me stop and think -- of all the complexities behind the scenes. It would have to be freaking easy.. lightning fast and indexable. Picture a web site where you go type in "Dallas, TX" .. and virtually all the venues around give you their calendars. I mean.. all of them.

From the library, to the Curtain club at Deep Ellum, to Home Depot's "This Old House" lectures, to some crazy guy wanting to play flag football somewhere.

Sounds impossible right?

It almost is. Everyone out there is doing some variant on this -- but no one is concentrating on location, location, location. Trying to aggregate that kind of data is an extraordinarly enormous undertaking.

I'd like to start small -- just one small section -- music. And to lure people to the site, plugins to itunes, rhapsody and the lot to get their playlists (with their permission of course)... to find what they like muscially close by.

Anyways -- off the cuff, at least with myspace, I'm sure something in their user agreements or terms of service it says that you aren't allowed to use robots to acquire information. However, linkbacks to myspace (artist information, etc) would definitely be done. I mean, being bored, and seeing a concert that costs say 5 bucks (they exist! I promise you!) ..... and you want to see how these fools sound so you click on them and there is myspace playing their stuff. You go back, click on the link -- get directions to the venue or a link to buy the ticket online. That's all I'm really looking for.

Am I asking for too much?
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Vacation [Jul. 11th, 2007|01:40 pm]
So I'm going on my first "family" vacation with the soon to be new family. My FSD (future step-daughter) went with her aunt to Missouri last weekend, they have a lake house with a boat and jet skis and such. She's staying there til the end of the month.

I'm looking forward to spending time with them and that side of the family. It's kinda weird, this whole melding of families and such. I seem to be 'easing' into it okay ... just seems very alien :)

Anyway, I'm off to take the cat to the groomer's today. He needs a haircut! (Mass hair removal before he swallows it all and coughs it all up again... eeww)

ZZzz
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Lots of stuff..... [Jul. 4th, 2007|08:40 am]
Well.. for those that have asked -- the user pic of of the Z machine. It's an experimental fusion reactor/x ray generator/tritium maker all in one.

Anyways -- lots of stuff going on these days.

For one, I'm getting married. Close friends have known for awhile, I figured I'd tell those folks out there that I don't talk to much that do read the blog.

And to the woman that calls from PRIVATE NUMBER and hangs up when I answer... Mandy -- give it up. Go away. Your drama isn't wanted. Anymore. Find someone that wants your attention.

I haven't slept -- due to the drama from my Fiancee's daughter. She "snuck" out of the house and got high. So young to be destroying brain cells. So her punishment was losing all her stuff. Sounds harsh but its been building up to this for awhile... no respect for anyone or anything, disregards the law & house rules (ie Mom & Grandmother), regularly lies about what she's doing and where she's going, etc.... tonight was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

So I have about 6 or 7 garbage bags of her crap. Belts, purses, books, diaries/journals/notebooks, stuffed animals, CD's, movies, etc, etc.

She'll have to earn them all back. If she screws up again, she loses her posters. Again, we paint her walls and loses her artwork. Again, she loses everything that is left in her room except her mattress.

So she lost the 6 or 7 garbage bags of stuff, cell phone and access to her computer (i.e. myspace) .... this is going to be so much "fun" the next day or two!

~
Anyways, so I had a new software idea... and it is pretty do-able. Perhaps a small project that could grow over time and something
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<lj-user=blondieoubre>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Well.. for those that have asked -- the user pic of of the Z machine. It's an experimental fusion reactor/x ray generator/tritium maker all in one.

Anyways -- lots of stuff going on these days.

For one, I'm getting married. Close friends have known for awhile, I figured I'd tell those folks out there that I don't talk to much that do read the blog.

And to the woman that calls from PRIVATE NUMBER and hangs up when I answer... Mandy -- give it up. Go away. Your drama isn't wanted. Anymore. Find someone that wants your attention.

I haven't slept -- due to the drama from my Fiancee's daughter. She "snuck" out of the house and got high. So young to be destroying brain cells. So her punishment was losing all her stuff. Sounds harsh but its been building up to this for awhile... no respect for anyone or anything, disregards the law & house rules (ie Mom & Grandmother), regularly lies about what she's doing and where she's going, etc.... tonight was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

So I have about 6 or 7 garbage bags of her crap. Belts, purses, books, diaries/journals/notebooks, stuffed animals, CD's, movies, etc, etc.

She'll have to earn them all back. If she screws up again, she loses her posters. Again, we paint her walls and loses her artwork. Again, she loses everything that is left in her room except her mattress.

So she lost the 6 or 7 garbage bags of stuff, cell phone and access to her computer (i.e. myspace) .... this is going to be so much "fun" the next day or two!

~
Anyways, so I had a new software idea... and it is pretty do-able. Perhaps a small project that could grow over time and something <lj-user=blondieoubre/> and I could work on as a team. It's a slant on something I've wanted to do... a small subset.

Basically I've wanted a website where you can just go and find out all the entertainment (museums, open-mic nights, concerts, street hocket, plays, etc) in your local area for the coming week... a MASSIVE events calendar. There are tons of sites out there promoting things like this but it requires CRAPTASTICS loads of $$$ for advertising... and getting those folks to post the event information ..........

Anyways, I'm sure I can violate a few TOS's from Myspace.com, Trig.com, Facebook.com and the like - but basically just concentrate on music. I go to a lot of concerts, so I figured... man would it be nice if iTunes would just tell me who all in my playlist is going to be doing shows in my state (or near me).

There you go.

What do you say Steffers? :) Up for some HTML grazing, Windows COM experimentation and some MySQL freebasing ???

This is definitely something I am going to pursue... and with it tons of other ideas that springboard off this simple little plug-in. If only myspace had and used RSS feeds.
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Yogurt [May. 30th, 2007|03:15 am]
Damn this shit is nasty.

Thanks... antibiotics for killing the nasty bacteria that was giving me so many problems.
BAD antibiotics for killing the bacteria in my digestive system -- ...... because I hate yogurt.

I don't care if it gives me the power of the Schwartz..... that shit just nasty.

I'm trying this YoCrunch Oreo thing.... damn it is making me gag it is so bad.
I hope the other flavors I got aren't this horrible.

The chocolate mint mousse wasn't so bad.
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Critter Caught! [Updated +2] [Apr. 7th, 2007|01:22 am]

This girl was living in my attic.


The Babies!!



Holes she made.


This is my cat! :)
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I survived...... [Mar. 19th, 2007|01:16 am]
So I'm back.

After hanging upside down on rope, on a 15 foot "cliff" while practicing..... rope moving on me while I'm on it... and other such shenanigans.... I'm home. A bit weary.. a bit sore... and well very happy. Had a great time.

So... going to have to work on the physical aspect of myself so I can be better at my hobby.
Finally, a real excuse to get into shape ;) More like a real... "want to"...

It's interesting how people will say, you should do it so you feel better about yourself. Well you know, overall, I'm pretty happy with myself. I'm far from perfect, and I am making improvements to myself. I try and pay attention to the little things that get on my friends' nerves.... like my almost obsessive need for factual information to be.. um factual. Does it **really** matter? No... not really. Should I be a bit more clean around the house and keep things more tidy? yeah. So that is priority 1 on spring break. Do I need to work on my procrastination habit? Yeah, it's a constant battle everyday. Should I tell the truth.. even if it may hurt someone? Yeah... I get to be too passive at times -- and I am working on it.. believe you me.

Even those couple of many flaws I contain within myself... I have been satisfied for the most part. Oh I may wish I had the body of Gerald Butler in 300... Women have never been much of a motivator for me to get into shape. Really.. I've done fine in that department, as it took more than looks for me to enjoy a woman's company in the first place, it's more of a personality thing anyway.

So... my spelunking hobby is driving me to want to improve the physical me..
So we'll see how it goes ;)

This is going to be hard.

Really tough. But if it was easy, I'd done it years ago I'm sure. ;)
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New Cat :) [Mar. 15th, 2007|04:05 am]
Hmm, so I think I've used this exact same subject before. I know I have, since Firefox did auto completion... but of course this could have been in an email--whatever.

Anyways, my Mom has Dusty, the white cat pictured before. She had mice issues so I volunteered his services -- seeing as the lump sleeps 20 hours a day, a challenge was in order. Pops agreed to let the rascal stay there a bit and see if he'd catch the mouse. After two weeks, no evidence of mouse caught, or mouse in the house anymore, my mother thoroughly attached to stinker, I let her keep him.

Normally my father would have never allowed it. But Dusty isn't like most cats, he isn't normally attention seeking, he doesn't get in your way when you are going somewhere, he doesn't crowd your feet, doesn't rub up against you or any such things that my Dad finds eternally irritating about felines. He said the cat wasn't going to bother him -- I figured this was the only time Pops was going to allow Mom to have a pet in his house so... I let her take advantage of it.

My plan was to get a couple of kittens this summer. Like usual -- good plans are foiled by friends. Jennifer's sister is having a baby, and dumped her cat off on her mother. So Jennifer knew I was going to get a couple of kittens later, offered Phebe to me.

I love her already :) Not that surprises anyone that knows my love for animals, especially felines, but the fact she's.... um much more friendly than Dusty :) Sheds less too. She's solid black except for a small patch on her lower belly. Oh yeah, she talks. A lot. You can almost have a meowing conversation with her. She's extremely vocal. Not necessarily bad -- Dusty was the total opposite. He might have meowed a dozen times the 6 months I had him.

Phebe is about 2.5 years old... very soft coat - and is never still. I've yet to get a descent photograph of her. Whenever I snap the picture she moves and the camera has a small delay -- long enough for her to ruin the shot. I haven't caught her unawares or asleep with the camera yet... but when I do, I'll post them.
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The Super Polyphonic Spree [Mar. 11th, 2007|05:12 am]
So I've written about this awesome 20-something member band before....

Their show at NXSW wasn't just a concert, it was a near spiritual experience. Aside from the extremely high teens floating around, aside from the would be heckler who demanded the band play her song... and almost starting a fight... aside from the small crowd there... the performance was manic, majestic, a swayingly feel good time as your smile wrapped around your head -- begging to join in the dancing fun.... from the sheer goodness of the musicianship and everyone on stage being into IT and on the same page.... and being so very into the moment of the music.

It was breathtakingly beautiful.

I can't wait to see them again in two weeks in Denton.

If things go my way, I'll be there to witness wonderful moments on Fry Street as the Spree weave their tapestry of symphony. Wow, I love them. Hands down the best concert I've ever been to. The energy and excitement from the band was reflected by the audience ten-fold.

~
I'm seeing 300 tomorrow.
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Music Festival GOOOODNESS [Mar. 2nd, 2007|02:05 am]
Okay so Music Festival season is upon us -- a sign that it is indeedie doo.. spring time.

I'm going to the Irish Music Festival -- THIS WEEKEND.
More info on it is here.

Also.. I'm seeing the Polyphonic Spree twice....
Once in Denton at a Fry Street concert.

The other is at North By Southwest.
I feel like a kid in a candy shop :)

I'm only going on Saturday for the NxSW ...... I can handle only so much. :)

Toodles.
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Weekend Update [Jan. 29th, 2007|07:19 pm]
So Friday was interesting. I was all ready to re-install Windows on my "Gamer/Workstation" here at the house, but plans changed since my eldest brother showed up with his woman. We had a long visit... was good to see him. There were a couple of tense moments when his girlfriend and he brought up stuff about my parents -- after making a couple of very sour faces, they shut up about all that drama. Thank God, because I really didn't feel like getting bent out of shape over something that happened a few months ago between them and the folks.

We ended the evening off with dinner at Tony's Kitchen in Greenville. Absolutely the BEST Tiramasu I've ever had -- the best dessert in the world. :) I promptly crashed and burned when I got home.... so I actually slept late til about 10:30am the next morning. That... is Late.. for me these days! Heh.

Saturday -- I go visit my other brother & sister-in-law. We go to a concert, Bob Schnieder there in Ft. Worth at a yoga studio. Pretty rad venue. Tammy did mention Bob's a bit better with a band. (I sooo absolutely adore alliteration!) Came home Sunday afternoon ... and THEN did my Gamer windows install. After 4 years... I'd finally had enough crud build up that it was slowing everything down :) Weee..

Zzz
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The Polyphonic Spree [Jan. 21st, 2007|07:01 am]
So I was reading Digg this morning and happened upon this link of a flash game with amazing music. So apparently it was an advertising type game to showcase the incredible sounds of the band. The game in of itself is resembles the visual puzzle game Samorost. So I clicked happily along solving the couple of puzzles in Quest for the Rest. (Yes I'm link happy this morning!)

After doing a myspace and google search -- it's a DALLAS BAND. WHERE HAVE IVE BEEN?? I've missed like dozen of concerts of these folks... so anyways -- I can't wait to see them live :)

Their Myspace place is here and their flashy website is here.

Go listen to a track... your ears will love you.
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Finished Finals...... [Dec. 14th, 2006|11:45 pm]
Wow. What a crazy week and a half I've had finishing up projects and then finals. I really miss dead week. This term wasn't quite as bad as previous ones, but with work impeding... its had its own set of challenges this go around. Plus, I'm not getting any younger either, doing 20-30 hour stints w/o sleep... my poor brain just can't take it anymore like it used to.

So I finished my last program about 8:30am ...

So it's been really rough. Lack of sleep... behind at work -- but at least I have next week to put my all into it.
Also, when I was finishing my physics research paper for my technical writing class, I had a few new insights on things to look at on the data analysis side.... So I'm really looking forward to that :)

Arun just informed me that I have a horrible professor for my capston.. Psychology of Death & Dying..... ugh. So I could probably take the other capstone that ISN'T about cultural diversity -- Politics in literature, etc. I was really debating on taking that one.. or the Psych class... so I'm going to switch.

I have so many things going on this weekend. Today (Thursday nite) I came up to Dallas, spending the night w/ Arun & Soobie, have an allll day long meeting tomorrow. After that, I get to go hang w/ my brother. Saturday, we're going to my aunt's house to visit w/ family that is coming in from DC. I haven't seen them since 2001 -- that'll be really cool.

Sunday.. the plan was to go see the Buzz Oven concert because ~!*~ EISLEY ~*!~ is doing the closing gig again there... 10 pm! But I bought tickets for my roommate and I.. and well, I think the show starts at noon or something. Anyways, the tickets are in will call in my name... so we have to agree when we're getting there, some other firends of ours are going to that as well.

The delima entered when my brother wanted me to go rappelling with him and my sister in law Sunday afternoon. I opted out since... well, I have to fix the roof in the sunroom. I was going to do it Today, but finals, work and packing for the weekend -- I didn't get a chance to. And it's supposed to freaking rain on Monday, so I need to put that other coat of roof patch on. So bummer.

Well I'm rambling a lot, sleep deprived... so I'm going to beddie bye now :P

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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Killing time I don't have. [updated] [Dec. 6th, 2006|10:56 pm]
While eating marinated chipotle chicken breast baked with potatoes, onions, carrots and squash.. I figured I'd post these. Yum Yum.















I didn't take this picture, but it's my imaginary meditative spot. The photograph was taken in Sweden somewhere by 'back' -- a very nice fellow. He titled the picture "Ever Secluded"...




ZZ
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