i went to a suunto clinic this morning at work. while there, it began to snow outside. it was a welcome sight. i knew it wouldn't stick, but i'm one of those people that is thrilled by the fluttering of white ice crystals. i probably wouldn't feel so warm about snow if i had to live with it for several months out of the year.

then again, maybe i would. it beats the hell out of several months of 100+ degree temperatures. do you think the people in siberian wastelands would be as thrilled with a couple of 102 degree days as i am with 45 minutes of light snow flurries?


it's starting to warm up again.

happy birthday josh!

wedding photos!!

i only took a few photos with my digital at the wedding reception. damn thing eats batteries.

anyway, these aren't as good as the real pictures will be, so don't freak out. kristan's having the real photos developed and i might post some here if i get a chance to.

enjoy.

wow!

how quickly sci-fi becomes reality. the first sheep clone was done only 5 years ago. how quickly will we get here?

happiness is...

...getting to work at 10:40 on a beautiful sunday morning and finding out you're not supposed to be at work.

happy thanksgiving everybody.

this weekend is going to be rather crazy. kristan and janine get married saturday and i'm one of the event photographers. that also means that i will be booking from work tomorrow afternoon to hit the rehearsal dinner to take pictures of people with food in their mouths.

that also means that saturday morning i must fight post tg shopping crowds for the typical-mark-last-minute-wedding-gift-shopping. this is one male stereotype i fit quite well into, thank you.

so, over at bLuiSh_orAn6e, they are discussing car wrecks. in high school, when i first started driving, i would imagine myself driving the car into an abutment or off an overpass. it wasn't so much to feel something physically. but i did wish to feel emotion.

the last five seconds before impact.

that's all i was looking for. it was the moments, days, and years after that prevented me from taking any action.

i wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that i was actually in an accident my freshman year of high school. my head went through the windshield of a 1970 plymoth duster. the crunching metal and shattering glass echoed in my ears for months after. perhaps when i stopped hearing the chaotic sounds of collision, i started to crave their return.

new pictures!

well, i had some time today so i redesigned the photos page. it's not quite as pretty as it was before, but it is much easier for me to update now. i'm sure i will be tweaking things in the coming week.

while i was at it, i posted new pictures from the dfw bloggers happy hour last night.

enjoy.

update on the birthday weekend

friday
after a lovely dinner with matt, leia, and dave, we met a bunch of my friends at the xpo lounge. billy gave me a teambilly hat which he tried to give me at the halloween party, but which i left behind out of guilt over it being his last one. so now i have a teambilly hat just like dave. josh gave me a copy of eddie izzard, which is fun... which is fun-ny. my friend jeff gave me a new digital guitar tuner. erica and karen brought balloons and a party hat to make it an official birthday party. everyone bought me a drink. stoli vanilla and coke. jav bought me a double tall vanilla stoli, then, after i laughed a good bit about it, took it back and had them put coke on top of it. i have never felt so lucky to have so many friends as i did friday night. it was definitely the best birthday gathering i can remember having. thanks again to everyone that was there!

saturday
i hung out with erica all day. we were somewhat lazy. we hit breakfast at ihop, then went to see the worst jet li film i've ever seen, the one. i donned the new threads erica picked up for me at the gap, plus this ultra cool jacket which she let me borrow, and we headed to the sugarbomb show at the bass performance hall. it was strange seeing them in a large venue where everyone was sitting down. it felt like the atmosphere sucked some of the energy out of the band. but it still rawked as they were quite fired up for the show.

sunday
sunday i had to work. blah. but...
...after work i went to new amsterdam where billy and dave were finishing up their third game of chess. billy talked me into sitting down for a game as dave headed off on something that may or may not have been a delta alpha tango echo. honestly, i didn't ask. i had never played a full game of chess before. to tell the truth, i've always been intimidated by the board. but after a couple of coached games ala billy, i felt much more at ease taking my own initiative in the game. the third one eventually fell to me. i guess now i have to keep playing since it seems i might have a knack for it.

overall this has been the best birthday i could have hoped for. i didn't get a vespa, but christmas is just around the corner. i'll keep the wishlist up just in case any of you missed out on the gift giving this go around.

it's really difficult to express in this forum how much it meant to have all of you there celebrating my youth. thanks again to everyone!

here's the rumpus, folks.

i have a lot to say about my birthday weekend. i had a great time friday night at the xpo with great friends. i spent saturday with erica and had a blast. we went to see the one and to cool yule to see sugarbomb. i plan to go into much detail about all of it, but right now i am tired and have a headache, so i can't think clearly enough to do so. so tomorrow, i will post my massive birthday weekend update as well as some additional material that's been brewing in my skull.

huge thanks to all of you who came out for the get-together friday night. i feel truly blessed to have all of you as my friends.

i know it's last minute... but really i just found out about it myself.

we will be getting together tonight at the xpo lounge in celebration of me being older. you are all invited to meet us there around 9 pm for conversation and libation.

hope to see you there....

did you know that lincoln logs were invented by frank lloyd wright's son, john? i found this fact out a few weeks ago. i'm sure half of you already knew that though. (that john lloyd wright invented them, not that i just found out.)

as if at some point the circle that i drew found a way to squeeze me to the outside of itself, not excluding me from it's geometry, but reinventing it's properties to make it difficult for me to be a tangent.

i learned several things at a great party last night:

- your second gin and tonic is always deceptively stronger than your first.
- your third gin and tonic should not be made by someone that thinks it's only your second.
- if you can't remember if you had a fourth gin and tonic... you probably did.
- gin and tonic plus runts equals tasty goodness.
- no matter how many times you see eddie, it's always funny.
- some people that live in houston are great to talk to.
- leaving a party at 5 a.m. might not prevent you from getting to work by 10:30 the same morning, but it will hinder your ability to stand up while there.

it was good to see everyone that showed up last night.

thanks billy and jess!

ouch.

my head hurts.