Jeanne Passes Through

Posted on September 26, 2004 by Jason

We survived our third hurricane. Fortunately it went south of Orlando and since we live north of the city, we only got the outer edges of the storm. The local news reported that our area had wind gusts of 64 miles per hour. The end result is that it has been raining since 3:00 last night and the wind has been gusting on and off the whole time. We lost power for about five minutes this morning. The lights went out and then Abby prayed that they would come back on. Next thing you know, they were back on. Surveying the damage it appears that we just had a few downed limbs and that’s about it. I will probably even be back to work tomorrow, even though Abby’s school has been canceled for the day. It’s funny how each hurricane has only hit on the weekend. Jeanne was heading our way about a week and a half ago, but then turned away from us and looped back and headed back towards us. Right now the wind is still whipping outside, but Jeanne has been downgraded to a tropical storm and is just to the northwest of where we live. Hopefully this is the last one of the season. We aren’t holding our breath.

Preparing for Jeanne

Posted on September 25, 2004 by Jason

The day started off with our weekly visit to Peach Valley Cafe for breakfast and then I was off to softball practice. Since both Tiburon softball teams lost last week, everyone thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and have another practice this morning. I was able to get some more batting and fielding practice, so I thought it was good to go ahead and go out. We had about thirteen people show up, which is about half of the people who are on the softball teams.

The afternoon was used to prepare for hurricane Jeanne. My preparation consists of bringing in the grill, garden hose, and wheel barrow and placing them in the garage. It’s been cloudy with occasional sprinkles all day. We are supposed to start feeling the effects of the hurricane tonight around 2:00 in the morning with the eye of the storm getting to us around noon tomorrow. I will report tomorrow on how we faired in the storm.

Just finished watching Texas pretty much roll all over Rice tonight 35-13. Wasn’t really a good match up. Next week is Baylor and then the following weekend, or wedding anniversary, Texas plays Oklahoma. Can Texas beat OU for the first time since the day that we were married?

Here Comes Jeanne

Posted on September 23, 2004 by Jason

Here comes another hurricane. Jeanne is now forecast to hit us on Sunday. It was heading for us a week ago and stalled in the Atlantic. It has now decided to go ahead and visit. I can’t believe that we are going to get three hurricanes in one year. Wish us the best and I will keep everyone updated here on Frenchville.net.

Frenchville.net is now available as an RSS Feed. This is a format for syndicating content for news-like web sites so you can now get updates of Frenchville.net through an RSS Reader. A friend, Tom Carbone, introduced me to RSS Feeds today and I bet him I would have Frenchville.net up as an RSS Feed tonight.

First Softball Game

Posted on September 22, 2004 by Jason

Today was our first softball game with the league that I play with through work. This was the first time I played in four years since playing with Atomic Games. We didn’t up winning, but it was a very good game. We lost 13-11. We were down 8-0 after one and a half innings. During the bottom of the second I had a good hit to kick off our two out rally and we came back and tied it up 8-8. In the third we went up 10-8, but they had a rally in the fifth inning which put them up 13-8. We tried to come back in the sixth and seventh innings, but it wasn’t enough. I played second base and I help turn a good 6-4-3 double play during the sixth inning.

Tonight was the season premiere of CSI: NY. I’m a big fan of the original CSI. I tried watching CSI: Miami, but after a while I just couldn’t stand David Caruso’s character. I used to like him when he was on NYPD Blue, but his character just didn’t have any depth. Anyway, CSI: NY was okay. I really love Gary Sinise as an actor ever since he was in Stephen King’s The Stand and, of coarse, Forest Gump. Hopefully the show will pan out. I thought tonight’s episode was a little slow.

Tonight’s picture is of Abby and Emily giving each other a hug. Just heard today that Hurricane Jeanne might actually be heading our way this weekend. I will keep everyone updated.

Happy Star Wars Day

Posted on September 21, 2004 by Jason

George Lucas finally released the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. Before today you could only get the moves on VHS. George Lucas still isn’t finished tweaking the movies. The ones that are on the DVD are not the original movies. They aren’t even the ones that were released as “The Special Edition” back in the 90’s. They are pretty much “The Special Edition” movies with even more tweaks by George Lucas. One of the tweaks, which is pretty controversial, is the removal of the original actor who played Anakin Skywalker at the very end of Return of the Jedi. He’s been replaced with Hayden Christensen, the actor who portrayed Anakin in Attack of the Clones and the upcoming Revenge of the Sith. Oh, well. I guess George Lucas can do what ever he wants to do with his movies, but it seems a little bit like he is revising history. It’s a shame that you can’t get the movies in their original form.

Buying the Sequoia

Posted on September 19, 2004 by Jason

We decided this weekend to go ahead and purchase, for our upcoming fifth wedding anniversary, the Toyota Sequoia that we’ve been wanting to get. We really wanted to get it before we made our trip back to Texas this Christmas. We figured there was no time like the present. Jennifer did all the research: she found out the Kelly Blue Book value of my truck and the value of the Sequoia with all the options that we wanted. We found this really helpful when we went in to the dealership. We had one of our neighbors come over and watch Abby and Emily while we took my Blazer to the dealership. We were in a little bit of a hurry because the neighbor could only stay for a couple of hours. This turned out to work in our advantage. The salesman didn’t want us walking out without a deal in hand. We went back and forth for a little bit, but we settled in with the car priced a little bit under the Kelly Blue Book value and them giving us a little bit more for my Blazer. So, we figured we got a fairly good deal. The Sequoia is “steel blue” with leather interior. We also had them put a DVD player in with televisions in the head rests so that the girls can watch TV on the trip back to Texas. We don’t have the truck yet. It’s in mid-production and we will be getting it by the end of the month. I will have a picture of it, once we get it. The one pictured is just one off of Toyota’s web site.

Linty Beagle Hair

Posted on September 16, 2004 by Jason

It’s been a pretty non-eventful week, thus the absence of any entries at Frenchville. Today we finally got our clothes dryer fixed. The timer hasn’t been working for almost a year and a burning plastic smell was starting to emanate from the dryer. The Maytag Repair Man arrived today with a new timer and cleaned out the biggest hunk of lint that had ever been seen. Jennifer said the lint had beagle hair in it. Our beagles haven’t lived with us since we moved to Orlando a year and a half ago.

It’s possible that another hurricane is heading our way. Jeanne is currently heading towards South Carolina, but we are still in the projected path’s margin of error. We barely dodged Ivan, which turned out to be a pretty bad storm.

Today’s picture is of Emily being cute while the floor is half ripped up. It’s been a week now since the floor was installed. We’ve started putting our rugs back down and the house is starting to get back to the way it was before.

TOASTY

Posted on September 13, 2004 by Jason

Not much went on today. Just a normal day with me going to work and Abby going to pre-school. There’s a story from Sunday night that I forgot to tell. We went to Quiznos to eat dinner and they had a neon sign which said “TOASTY”, but the first two letters were burn out. We were sitting there and Abby asked, “Mom…Dad, why are the ‘T’ and the ‘O’ not working?” We were floored that Abby actually new those letters in the alphabet. Lately she’s been talking about the letters “A” and “B”. She’s always saying “A” is my letter. “A” is for Abby. We figured they were slowly working their way through the alphabet at school and eventually they would get through the entire alphabet. We were amazed that she already knew those two letters. We told her that they had burned out and her next question was, “Did Charlie do it?” She’s been obsessed with the lights going out ever since Hurricane Charlie blew through. It’s a good thing we didn’t loose power when Frances came through.

Today’s picture is of Emily after eating some Oreo cookies. She’s point up in the pantry because she wants some more. Since then, we’ve learned that cookies right before bed time isn’t a very good thing to do.

Last of Day of Chaos

Posted on September 12, 2004 by Jason

Today was a pretty busy day. It started off with softball practice. I’ve joined the Tiburon softball team. We have so many people we are actually going to have two teams. In fact, the first game is between the two Tiburon teams. I could tell that it had been four years since I had played softball, especially when it came to batting.

While I was at softball practice, the guys working on the floor came and finished off the trim work and helped get the furniture back in place. The floor is finally complete and is looking good. We still need to get all the baseboards painted and Jennifer is currently looking for someone to come in and do that.

After lunch Lucas and Connor’s mom finally arrived and took the boys home. Ahhh, silence. It has been so much more quiet around the house. For the most part they were good, but I’m not looking forward to trying that again.

Tonight was the draft for a fantasy football league that I’m in being run by a friend, Tom Carbone. I usually play in a league for money with an old friend from Houston, Tom Kent, but I decided I really didn’t have time to devote a lot of time to fantasy football this year. Tom convinced me to play when he said that his league was “just for fun”. His two sons are even playing in the league. We are also using the new fantasy football web site being run by EA Sports. We got free accounts since we work for EA.

Finally, Texas narrowly beat out Arkansas 22 – 20 tonight. It was a great game, close the whole time and a nail biter all the way to the end. A fumble by Arkansas near the end cost them the game.

Fourth Day of Chaos

Posted on September 10, 2004 by Jason

The floor is pretty much complete. There’s still some cleaning work to be done and the molding around the edge of the floor still needs to be put down in a few areas. We also need the guys to help us get the TV and sofa back where it’s supposed to go. This evening Jennifer and I put the kitchen table back where it was supposed to go and we reassembled the girls’ playroom so that when the kids get up tomorrow morning they will have a room to play in.

After dinner we went outside to play since it’s the best way to wear the kids out before sending them to bed. I’m amazed at how well Abby is getting at riding her bicycle. We’ve always had trouble with teaching her to pedal backwards in order for her to slow down and stop. Just last week she was screaming as she tore down a hill out of control. Today she was going down steep inclines and weaving in and out of people with no problem and using her brakes the entire time. It appears that she’s finally starting to get the hang of riding her bicycle.

Tonight is the last night we will have Lucas and Connor staying with us. I’m already planning pay back. Our fifth wedding anniversary is coming up in a few weeks and I’ve also bought tickets to another musical for me and Jennifer to go to at the end of October.