Happy Birthday to Me

Posted on by
Reply

34. Wow. As I’ve been telling people: I’ve entered mid-30’s. Kind of a milestone, but what can you expect? I’ve been out of college for 10 years now. I’ve been married for 7 and I have three beautiful daughters. I guess I am “old” now. Funny, I don’t feel old. Here’s to another 34.

I took the day off from work and went to Clerks II. It was a good movie to see since it had me reminiscing about the old times back in college when the original came out. I went and saw it with my friend Erik Youdal at Dobie Mall. It was great seeing the original Clerks in the movie theatre because the movie because such a cult classic and you can always say you saw it in the movie theater.

For my birthday, the girls gave me a new University of Texas jersey and flag that we hung outside, but for the most part it was a pretty normal day.

In other news, I finally got an office at work. If you can believe it. So, we went up this past weekend and hung all the frames of the games I’ve work on that I’ve been collecting over the years.

Clerks II

Posted on by
Reply

What better way to spend your 34th birthday than to go see the sequel to one of your favorite movies. It was a little poignant because it’s been 12 years since the original Clerks came out, but fortunately, my life has progressed further than the characters in the movie. The Quick Stop from the first movie has burned down and Dante and Randal now have jobs at a fast food restaurant. However when the movie opens, it’s Dante’s last day. He has a new fiancé and is moving to Florida. The movie was great for any Kevin Smith and/or Clerks fan. I would stay clear if you aren’t or you may stomp out like Joel Siegel.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Posted on by
Reply

If you didn’t guess, the movie we watched this weekend was the latest in the Harry Potter series. Once again I didn’t think this one was up to snuff. I was wandering around lost, just like Harry and one thing after another led to the ultimate plot of Lord Voldemort trying to re-enter the world of the living. I just felt this movie went back to the previous two movies of not really explaining what is going on. I know it’s tough to condense a 700 page book into a movie (thank God Stephen King’s The Stand was a mini-series), but I wish they would do a better job of it.

Vacation Bible School

Posted on by
Reply

This past week was Vacation Bible School so Jennifer took the girls up to church each day this week. Abby and Emily sang songs, make crafts, and learned bible stories; Isabelle played with other babies her age in the nursery; and Jennifer volunteered and taught crafts. All in all they had a great time and were asking to go back each morning and every night I came home I got to see the craft they had made for the week. On Sunday, there was a special church service where the girls sang the songs that they had learned and they showed a slide show of all that went on during the week.

Also on Sunday, we took a trip to a little stream down in Heathrow to take some pictures of Isabelle. Jennifer is still experimenting with the camera I borrowed from work and she wanted to take some nice pictures of Isabelle. So, we sat Isabelle on the rocks and I stood right off camera to make sure she didn’t take a plunge into the water. Finally the humidity and bugs drove us back home. Here’s one of the pictures that Jennifer took.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight Jennifer and I watched the third movie in the Harry Potter series. I’ve been pretty down on the series so far, but this one was by far the best one. Unlike the first two movies, they established a plot early on in the movie: a person has escaped from prison and is tracking down Harry. In the first two movies Harry just wanders around and uncovers problems. The only problem I have is that they talk about things in the movie that are hard to understand unless you’ve read the books. There are a lot of holes, but fortunately, I have Jennifer there to fill in the gaps.

Crazy Neighbor Update

Posted on by
Reply

One of the questions I get most often lately is, “What ever happened to your crazy neighbor?” Well, right before we went on our Texas Trip at the end May, a rental moving van appeared at his house. He moved away and we haven’t heard from him since. Jennifer has been checking to see if his house has sold and it hasn’t, but we still haven’t seen him.

We had a hearing next week in front of a judge about a restraining order we had petitioned to have against him. But, since we had’t seen him in about eight weeks, we figured there was no way the judge was going to go through with the restraining order. So, we canceled it.

My car is now fixed. We had to pay our $500 deductible, but our State Farm agent says that we may get that back if they end up suing him for the money. I never posted any pictures of the damage, so I thought I would post one showing the damage to the back of my car. You can also see the wine poured on the car as well.

So, it’s pretty much over and done with. Once his house sells, there will be no way he can even get into our neighborhood. We hope every day that his house sells soon.

Borrowed Camera

Posted on by
Reply

Ever since Abby was a baby, Jennifer has always loved having the girls’ portraits taken by a professional photographer. Her favorite ones have been themed portraits, but since we’ve moved to Orlando it’s been hard to find a photographer that does those sorts of portraits. She did find one recently, but she’s almost an hour’s drive away. This gave Jennifer the idea of why not learn photography and start earning some money. To that end I borrowed a Cannon D20 digital SLR camera from work and she’s spent the last two days practicing and figuring out all the different settings on the camera.

Today Jennifer and the girls went over to a friend’s house to swim. Jennifer took the camera and started taking pictures of the girls, two of which are in this entry. I think they are pretty good.

I spent most of the day re-doing Frenchville. Hope you like the new look.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Posted on by
Reply

Since Jennifer just finished reading all the Harry Potter books, we’ve been watching all the movies. Tonight we watched the second of the Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I haven’t really been enjoying the movies. Both the first and second moves don’t seem to have very good plots. Just a bunch of Harry Potter wandering around not knowing what is going on and slowly figuring it out while I’m falling asleep on the couch.

New Frenchville Look

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve updated Frenchville to a new look. I like it and think it’s a lot less busy. Most of the old features are still there. I removed the Google Ads, because they were getting very annoying. I’ve added “Movie Shelf” which is reviews of movies that we’ve seen. Hope you like the new design and, yes, that picture at the top is one of ours. It’s from our fourth of July visit to the Sanford fireworks show back in 2004.

Burnout Revenge (Xbox 360)

Posted on by
Reply

I picked up Burnout Revenge for my Xbox 360 today from the company store. It’s a racing game from the Criterion studios in the UK. What makes this game different is part of the object of this game is to cause the other racers in the match to crash. There’s also stages in the game where you intentionally create a huge car pileup for points. It’s pretty fun so far and I like how you can get in and play a race real quick.