top pics

i updated the top pics as you can see. i cropped them and they were still too big so i cropped them more and linked to the big images. you'll note the longer hair i'm donning. i haven't cut it since before jake was born. time for something different i guess... the pic on the left is this past weekend and the pic on the right is back on memorial day weekend at mom's getting ready to go to church.
i also finally added in the 6 month b-day pic below as promised.

only about two more months til kg's wedding (and our two year anniversary) i know y'all're getting excited, but don't let the stress build - everything will go fine and it will be a wonderful day you'll always remember.

we're off to the beach tomorrow and i hope to bring back some more good pics for all to enjoy. see ya!

weekend

after tediously finishing my history final on friday, i headed out to poker nite over at will's house. it was a great time and i went into heads up play up 2500-1500, but made a bad call (? decide for yourself: i had A-Q offsuit, there was 800 in pot, called his all in 1100 after the flop; he had jack's, i didn't find an A or Q on the 4th or 5th streets). with my stack decimated, i ended up all-in on the next hand and lost. great experience and great play by us 4 that were there. it really looks like we'll have at least 8 at my place on sept. 10th. i got home before midnite and rested up for a busy saturday.

i cut the grass and lindsay replaced our house numbers. then i installed a new front porch light that appears to be defective (no it's not me haha) and it looks like i'll have to take it back. we took jake to get his 6 month pictures done (i'll get one up soon and i'll get another good one up from around his birthday in the post below where i promised one earlier). we ate at bennigan's (it was yummy) while we waited for the pictures to develop and then we went home to finish cleaning up before L's friend dawn and her 11 month old son tucker arrived (they're going to the beach with us tmrw, i mentioned this earlier right?). we went out to macaroni grill, i created my own pasta and it was really really spicy. i paid for it dearly, but curiously not until sunday nite. that was rough.

sunday was church, lunch with a bunch of friends, naptime, and then we grilled out and watched the vma's. last nite was similar, we had spaghetti and just watched tv and played some uno attack before hitting the hay.

interesting story

had a good weekend, read an interesting story (ugh - quick registration required) in the washington post magazine about this guy who is trying (and staying close) to have a drink at every starbucks coffee store in the world. the story is very well written and actually focuses more on the social detachment of this philosopher nomad who strikes up an internet relationship via his blog of his starbucks conquest.

always time

it's always a good time for a post. this past weekend i mainly finished up my final paper for evangelism class (that class is over now) and i'm down to just my church history final to be done for the summer. that is good because next wednesday we're heading to virginia beach with one of L's knoxville friends and her 11 month old son (the kids will have fun together) for our only real vacation of the summer. booo! we had big plans to go lots of places, but we just didn't take the time i guess. well, we ditched nyc in view of the republican convention and moved the two hopeful beach trips to just one on this labor day weekend. instead of the first one on mem'l day weekend, we flew to nashville to see my uncle who is still in training to end up going to iraq as a chaplain. cool picture:

and we just never used that southwest ticket. we delayed atlantic city until we were going to go to nyc and then... see above.
anyways, school is done this week and it will be great to have an actual 5-nite, 5-day beach vacation!

Happy Birthday!!

jake turned 6 months old today

weekend before last

alright since the weekend has come and gone, i guess i should give a quick update about the weekend before last when mom, her friend charlie, and his daughter brooke were in town. they got there thursday evening and watched jake while we rushed off to teach vbs at church. we got home and visited and planned for dc the next day.

on friday, we rode the train all the way in to union station and walked a few blocks over to sen. lamar alexander's office for our tour of the capital bldg. he wasn't there of course, but the tour was pretty cool (though we didn't get to see the senat chamber even after they told us on the tour they thought we'd get to). after that we caught a hot dog on the street on the walk over to the int'l spy museum. it was really interesting and now i'm geared up to see all the bond movies. should i do this in order? i'm on netflix now and it's really easy and convenient to get movies delivered to my door. we were zonked from all the walking so we took the first train out of town and ate dinner at famous dave's (mmmmm....) before me and L went back up to church again to teach vbs.

we got out of vbs the next day because mom had also arranged a tour of the white house! there were considerably more people than i thought would be there (i didn't even know they had opened the wh back up!) and it was just the east half (e.g. not the "west wing") of the first two floors, but it was really cool. kind of weird too (i'm actually in the white house.).

after that, we walked over to the holocaust memorial museum (best in town) by way of the washington monument (all the free tickets were gone in two hours so we didn't get to go up). after a long line for a security check (ugh...) we were able to get in. we had to wait a bit longer to start so we went through the special exhibit on eugenics (yeah i've never heard the word before either, but it looks like a combo of euthanasia and genetics which is appropriate because it's about the nazi plan to create the master race). while in the regular exhibit, jake started crying / was hungry so lindsay took him on out. me and mom took the rest at a fast pace and hung out with lindsay and jake on the main level while charlie and brooke soaked in some of the more moving portions of the museum. again, we were zonked (museum is 4 floors!) so we headed home and got things ready to grill out.

we had grilled corn on the cob, steaks, burgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad and we ate outside. oh yeah! the weather on that particular weekend was absolutely beautiful - literally the best weather we might have ever had since i've been there. it was low 70's with just enough chill in the air to make it feel good. oh and it was august not october.

that evening, me and charlie worked on some projects around the house (adding outlets to the bathrooms and patching a big hole in the wall in the bathroom from some plumbing work.). he did all the electrical work and i cut the drywall and lumber and fit it in the hole. felt manly.

on sunday, we went to church and then to red lobster for lunch. we chilled around the house for a bit and then decided to go over to mt. vernon (george washington's home). it was really cool and i'm glad me and L sprung for the one year passes ($15 vs. $11 one time haha). after the peaceful walking, we headed home and finished up the home projects.

a great weekend where me and L were able to do 4 touristy things (out of 5 - holocaust) that we'd never done before.

lance

i love it when i come across something so good that it compels me to make a post that i've been meaning to make anyway. great article about one of the best sports commercials ever. great descriptions and the commercial is about the great lance armstrong. also, when you follow the link to watch the commercial, you'll notice the ad for the $1 "live strong" bracelets. looks like they're completely on back order - if anyone has some or has access to some or knows where else to get some, comment back. i've had a great g-ma die of cancer, a g-pa just survive melanoma, and L's parents are 3 time survivors combined. good stuff and they're only a buck.

busy times coming up...

so yes as kg mentioned in a recent comment (you know, feel free to comment as well), mom is coming into town tmrw with a couple of friends for the weekend. accidently, we also have vbs tonite thru saturday, but we got someone to teach our class (me and L have the 3-5 year olds... scary) saturday because mom managed to get us a white house tour! now i thought these things weren't given anymore last i heard, but if you know the right people... we've also got a capitol tour on friday and then we've got tickets for the int'l spy museum friday afternoon. we'll also be hitting some smithsonians and monuments friday thru sunday before they leave monday morning.

so how about usa b-ball?? them boys better get their act together. they need some defense and a real leader. ai is acting crazy getting suspended for a game even though he's a captain and tim duncan is a captain, but he's the silent leader type. lebron and carmelo just need to take over haha. carmelo won the title with syracuse with that crazy zone defense so he can be a big help against this int'l game. maybe this loss to the italians will put a spark under their butt. we shall see today vs. dirk.

great conversation

this was pretty good so i thought i'd post it. on monday nite at hooter's with L (incidently, my wife likes the place better than i do. for the food of course.), the following interchange could be heard at our table.
smc: (watching braves highlights on sportscenter that also show them ~5 games up in the nl east) you know, the braves are having an amazing year. they were supposed to be terrible and were tied for 2nd-4th about a month or two back and now they're leading by about 5 games...
L: (nods pleasantly as if she cared about sports)
smc: they don't have as many of the superstars as they used to. i mean they had to trade glavine away two years ago because of money and maddux away last year -
L: they traded maddux??!?!!?!!?
smc: haha yeah to the cubs. chipper's not as good as he used to be and they traded lopez to the orioles (nearby) and they got some good young guys getting better -
L: do they still have neagle?
smc: nah, they traded him 4-5 years ago before they traded millwood to the phillies about 3 years ago. so bobby cox is just doing an amazing thing there with not many players -
L: ahem, be impressed that i knew that.
smc: oh wow, yeah you caught me offguard there with neagle - where'd that come from??

lol. "be impressed that i knew that" great line babe.

yeah that was bad...

4 entries in july... it's all a matter of just forcing yourself to blab for a bit almost daily. anyways - no whining.

dad was with us the past week and he had a great time watching jake. we had a good time even though we didn't have much time to do anything during the week. we saw the village on saturday afternoon and it might be jake's last movie for a while. poor kid is getting too interactive. it was hilarious - he just starts blabbing and we can't really make him stop because we want him to talk right? haha so i get up to take him out and as i'm walking out, the kid belches loud enough for many to hear lol - i was cracking up, that's my boy :-)

as for the movie, it was pretty good. it went really fast and it could have used even more tenseness. i partially figured out the reveal in the middle of the movie, so i was more appreciative of the premise the entire movie is set on. that was a better twist for me. i gave it a 2.9 because it wasn't a 3, but it definitely wasn't a 2.5.

this last month of school can't go by quick enough. i've been very laxidaisacal about my schooling, but i should still get an a and a b.