Category Archives: Jason

Wastin’ Away Again in Margaritaville

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I did end up having to send my new Treo 750 back, but they were able to get me a new one just in time for my birthday. I spent most of the day trying to get my work e-mail transferred to the device and finally just gave up.

On Monday, we went to Typhoon Lagoon to continue using our annual water park passes. We had fun and actually got Emily to go on one of the water slides. Last time we got all the way to the top and she refused to slide down. Around 2:30 they shut down the rides because a thunder storm was heading our way. We had already been there since 10:00, so we took this as a sign to get going.

On my Birthday, we headed down to Universal CityWalk because I wanted to waste away in Margaritaville. I had a Cheeseburger in Paradise and downed a couple of Margaritas (which were very good). We were going to do some shopping around the CityWalk, but once again those pesky late afternoon Florida thunder storms scared us away. Overall, a nice birthday. As you get older, it gets harder and harder to get excited about birthdays. It’s just another day.

Today we headed to church mainly because we had to teach Emily’s Sunday school class. It’s always tough to do this because Emily clings to us the whole time. At one point I refused and walked away. This just caused her to become a puddle on the floor, refusing to participate. After church, we headed to Five Guys hamburgers. I had been there a couple of times for lunch, but this was the first time I took the family. They have very good hamburgers and French fries. I really recommend them. Because we had nothing else to do, we headed over to the Altamonte Springs mall. This mall we don’t get to as much since we moved up to the Lake Mary area. We had two missions: find a new camping cookbook and find some school shoes for the girls. Four pairs of shoes later, I can say we were successful in one of those missions.

The rest of the day was a lazy day around the house with most of us electing to take a nap. Me and the girls finally cleaned up their play room. The summer has been long and their room has become a mess. Neither Jennifer or myself have the energy at the end of the day to make them clean it. We are always ready for them to head off to bed.

NCAA Football 08

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For my birthday coming up I ordered a new phone, a Treo 750. I haven’t gotten it to work and I’m assuming that I have to get it fully charged. I’m going to let it charge up over night and hope for the best. Otherwise, it’s back to AT&T for another one. We also upgraded Jennifer’s phone to a Razr, since it was free.

I also played NCAA Football 08 at home for the first time tonight. It’s much better playing in at home than at work. It was the first time I got to sit down and play the Campus Legendmode. This is really cool. You get to create a player. I created a free safety #37 who played for Lindale High School (this is the position & number I played in junior high). The mode starts out with you playing through the state high school championship tournament. How well you play in the tournament determines the school you will play at in college. It was fun although the position of free safety isn’t all that exciting.

First Day

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Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School for Jennifer and the girls. Even Isabelle got to go now that she’s two. Almost 400 people are attending and Jennifer said it was a sea of kids in the Family Life Center gymnasium up at church. Fortunately, Jennifer only sees a hand full of kids at a time and only for around twenty minutes until the next group comes in. Today’s picture is some of the decorations that were put up this weekend.

At work, I conducted the first team meeting for my new team. It was pretty much silent as I explained the plan for figuring out the type of game we were going to build. I also had to give some bad news to some guys who were going to moving off to a new team. Of all the things I don’t like about being a manager, it’s delivering bad news. It’s a fact of life that it’s part of my job and I know I have to do it and I don’t have a problem doing it. I just don’t like doing it. I guess no one really does, unless you are sadistic.

NCAA Football 08 comes out tomorrow and the Marketing department had some extra Xbox 360 Faceplates, so I snagged one for my 360. The requests for copies of NCAA from some of my friends started coming in this weekend. I plan on picking up my copy tomorrow. A pretty good commercial featuring the Texas Longhorns was sent around work today as well.

Setting up for Vacation Bible School

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Today was a lounge around the house day with the kids while Jennifer went up to church to set up for vacation bible school. Jennifer is teaching crafts next week at our church’s vacation bible school, so she had to spend the afternoon up there getting ready for almost 400 kids to show up. They decorated nearly every room in the entire church. Jennifer was originally expecting around 325 kids and it kept increasing over the week. There was a mad dash this afternoon for some extra supplies, but they found what they were looking for and they should all be set.

Abby and Emily pretty much played on Jennifer’s computer while I watched TV and did the laundry. I also spent some time updating the look for Frenchville.

Plaques & Racks

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We started out the day by heading up to where I work. I recently moved to a new project and, thus, moved to a new office. When ever that happens, that means that I have to re-hang all my game plaques. Now totalling eight, it’s not an easy project. I try not to do it during the day, because I never have enough time and I don’t want to be banging on the walls with a hammer. So, it’s a family trip up to the office to hang the pictures. Jennifer did most of the work arranging them in a pattern. Because there’s now eight and I had a smaller area to hang them, we went with a double stacked approach. It also left some room for a new plaque when I finish the project I’m on a year from now. The girls ran around the cubicles and found some Nerf darts that some of the guys on the team sling across the cubicles. Abby was actually pretty good at firing them.

After that we went to pick up the camper. We bought some bike racks for the top of the camper. We noticed after we bought it that it had a Yakima rack system on top. So, I visited the web site and found some bike racks so that Jennifer and me could take our bikes. We didn’t buy four because we didn’t know if Abby and Emily’s bikes would fit. However, once we got them up on the camper, we tested their bikes and what do you know, they also fit. I’m going to go and buy two more so that we can fit all the bikes on top of the camper.

End Of School Camping 2007, Day 2

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After dinner we headed over to the campfire sing-a-long to eat some s’mores and watch Hercules on an outside movie screen. Unfortunately right as the movie was going to start, it started to rain. We hopped into the golf cart we had rented and headed back to camp as quickly as we could as the sky opened up on us. It’s going to end up being an early night since we are about to head to bed.

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End Of School Camping 2007, Day 2

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Abby and I gave up on Isabelle falling asleep and headed back to Typhoon Lagoon on our own and I think we did a lot more heading out by ourselves. We stood in the wave pool and jumped into the giant tidal wave that would periodically get whooshed out. Abby and I would hold onto each other and try to jump over the wave and would just end up getting water up our noses. We also rode two other rides we hadn’t ridden before: a tube ride and a water slide.

We kept going until it was almost closing time on the park and then we headed back to camp for hamburgers on the grill.

End Of School Camping 2007, Day 2

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The morning started at 6:50 a.m when the kids started to stir. Overnight rain started to fall and we could hear it pelting the thin roof of the camper. We got up and started cooking eggs & bacon on the outside stove.

Afterward, we headed off for the other water park, Typhoon Lagoon. The campground is considered a resort and we were able to get in 15 minutes early and get a prime spot for our “home base”. We were also able to ride the family raft ride a few times with no line. Jennifer doesn’t like the ride because they make you work for your fun. You have to roll a giant inner tube up some stairs before you can start you ride. Isabelle started to get chilly so we decided to go back to the camp for some lunch.

Back at camp we had some sandwiches and now we are laying in the camper waiting for Isabelle to take a nap.

End Of School Camping 2007, Day 1

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It’s been awhile since I’ve written on Frenchville and I apologize. Work has been super busy (as it usually is) and I just haven’t had the chance to write. I will try to change that habit moving forward.

Today was the first day of Summer vacation. Abby successfully navigated kindergarten and will be moving on to the 1st grade. To celebrate the end of the school year, I took a week off from work starting today and we pulled out the pop-up camper and headed to Disney for four days of camping.

This was the second time we took the new camper out. Our inaugural camping trip was three weeks ago on a long weekend. We wanted to take baby steps and it paid off. We had the camper fully put up with beds made and awning out in just under an hour. It took us twice as long last time. Jennifer has also won the job for pulling the camper in. She picked up the camper last night and pulled it into our driveway unassisted; then today, she pulled it into the camping slip in one try (I can’t say the same when I tried pulling in a couple weeks ago).

After setting up camp we headed out for a few hours at Blizzard Beach, one of Disney’s two water parks. When we were here a couple of weeks ago, we decided to get season passes for the water parks. The plan was to come camping several times over the summer and visit the water parks.

Last week I was at the book store and I picked up the book Campfire Cooking. It looked like a pretty cool cookbook with chapters entitled “On a Stick” and “Wrapped in Foil”. Tonight’s dinner came from the chapter “In a Skillet” and was called “Cowboy Casserole”. It wasn’t too bad. It consisted of ground beef, bacon, and beans. You placed biscuits on top and shut the lid. When it was done you remove the biscuits and ladle the concoction on top. Our charcoals didn’t seem to be very hot and the biscuits didn’t get all the way done, but it was still good.

Right now we are trying to get the girls to settle down and go to bed. In the distance you can hear the fireworks going off from either Epcot or Magic Kingdom. I will report more tomorrow on our adventures.

Take Me Out to the Camp Ground

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Well, I was pissed a few weeks ago when we got a ton of money back from the government for our taxes. You’re probably re-reading the last sentence. Yes, I’m pissed. I don’t want my money at the end of the year. I want it in my pay check every week. I have my W4 set to the maximum number of deductions, but EA continues to take too much out of my check and gives it to the government as a interest free loan. The best tax year would be when you don’t owe anything and you don’t get anything back (in my opinion).

Anyway, since the money was burning a hole in our bank account, we decided to do something with it: we bought a pop-up camper. We’ve wanted one for some time. Just the thought of being able to go away for the weekend and drive it up and boom, we are camping is quite appealing. Jennifer found a couple on craigslist and we out and looked at them this weekend. We found one that was barely used and we bought it.

We were under the mistaken idea that we were going to be able to store it in the garage. We spend an hour Saturday night trying to roll it up the driveway just to find out that it doesn’t fit by one inch. We had to shut the garage about half way down. Jennifer is going to start looking into places where we can store it this week.

Today I took my annual trip to see the Astros play a Spring Training game in Kissimmee. The difference this year: I took Emily along. She had a great time. We bought her a kid’s Spring Training shirt and a hat with a pink Astros star. We sat right in front of the bull pin where the pitchers warm up. When Roy Oswalt, the lead off pitcher was done warming up, the catcher tossed Emily the ball. Of course, when we got home the ball became a chew toy for Austin, which upset Emily quite a bit. She wanted me to get a new one and I told her that wasn’t possible. Oh well, we had a good time and I’m looking forward to taking her again next year.