Memorial Day - I am proud of our soldiers who have defended our freedoms in the past and today. People say journalists give us freedom of press, but I say veterans help us keep our freedoms more than just about anyone.

I am enjoying the day off. I need to go out and mow the lawn though. It's a rainy day, so it's probably ruining a lot of the cookouts and lake trips. We grilled out last night because of a 70% chance of rain today. We also have Shadow for the weekend, so that is fun. He is out exploring the backyard. I think he likes it because he can explore at will. It is all fenced in, so we don't have to worry about him running off or getting run over.

Today marks the last day of May. June starts tomorrow. Which means I am just one month from the Peachtree, and I haven't done hardly any running since the Valentine's Day 10K I did with Chrissy, Sarah and my mom.

Well anyway, I should get my day started. Adios!

Food, friends, and a six pack of socks...

Chrissy and I went out to last night with four friends: Anit, Chris, Jamie and Trey. We hit Doc Chey's for some Chinese Black Bean with Chicken, and then Jake's for some ice cream and some usual freaky artwork. I had Rocky Road which was good, but not as firm as I would have liked. Then we were deciding what to do. Trey suggested bowling, but we looked down and I was the only one of the six of us that was not wearing sandals. That's when I had the idea...

Imagine this... six people standing at a Target checkout, looking down at the one item: a six pack of socks. Each pair is a different color, so each person is pointing and arguing for the color they want. All the while, the check-out girl is looking at us incredulously. Never in my life had one six pack of socks been used to cover six pairs of feet.

Everyone went to the bowling alley, and proudly wore our socks and bowling shoes. We divided into two teams. Chrissy, Anit and myself versus Trey, Chris and Jamie. The first game their team did poor, and we tied exactly. The second game they blew us out of the water, but regardless it was fun. Trey commented that it felt "like college all over again". Good times.

Finally Chrissy and I watched SNL... every few years some people leave the show, and you wonder, "how can this show go on?" but somehow it is still funny. Some years worse than others, but it keeps coming back. Pretty funny.

Just had a laid back evening. Ate out at the Olive Garden. I don't know why everyone gives the Olive Garden a hard time. Sure it's a big chain, but when you want a lot of cheap Italian food it's hard to compare. I eat out so much with work, I would like to eat at home more. But it's not fair since Chrissy eats at home a lot more.

I'm trying to work out more when I'm on the road. I have access to great easily accessible workout equipment, so that's my new push. I need to train for the Peachtree as that is only a month away, but I'd really like to build more muscle mass in addition.

In other news, Randy is having a BBQ luncheon at his house the day after his wedding and he asked Chrissy and I to host it. Should be fun, and right up our alley as we will likely know most of the guests. All the catering is being taken care of, so he says it won't require too much work.

Today the WWII memorial is being dedicated. Fortunately, my grandfather was not killed in WWII. He was drafted while working in NYC, and worked in engineering support of the planes. He was eventually stationed in China to support the air raids on Japan. Fortunately those air attacks, and the bloody invasion of Japan were never needed due to the decisive end of the war with the dropping of the two big bombs. He was pulled home from the war shortly after Japan surrendered because my great-grandfather had died. He arrived home one day after the funeral.

This is a repost, because my first post was killed by Internet Explorer! Egad!

Had a busy week up in D.C. which is why I haven't posted. I am up there on a new project, but I do like my old project too. The old project has interesting subject material, but due to the small team there may not be as much recognition for my skills. The new project the subject matter is not as interesting to me, but the role I am being asked to do is quite interesting. In addition because the old project keeps me home, that is the major factor for wanting to stay involved through the summer since Chrissy is closer.

I flew into the wrong airport (Dulles), so I had to catch a bus into the city. It was only $3 though. They have a good bus/metro system. I had lunch at Union Station and it was crawling with high school and junior high tour groups. I stayed in the hotel where Reagan was shot, which was interesting.

I met up with a high school friend Justin who lives nearby, and he took me out to a good Mexican place. He used to work for one of my company's competitors, but has switched to an interesting government job. It was good to catch up with him - I hope his wife, another high school friend can meet up with us soon.

I couldn't catch Kent as he had just gotten in town, but it looks like I will be up here for the next two weeks.

General thoughts about D.C. - There are a lot of young proffessionals walking around in business attire. Maybe just my imagination, but moreso than Atlanta. Perhaps because all the young people take the Subway like me, so you see more of them. The WWII memorial was opening this weekend. I don't understand why they didn't start that project until recently. Many more people died than in Vietnam, so why should Vietnam get one first? It's too bad because a lot of the veterans are quite old now.

I am being pulled four different directions at work. Managing two projects, one proposal, and trying to wrap up all my end of year stuff we are at our fiscal year close. Gotta go.

One other update. I came into work to find out I had three more holidays in the next fiscal year. Woohoo! :-) Apparently, enough of our clients are taking these days off, that we decided we wouldn't lose much revenue to take them ourselves. They said we would offer a "more competitive" vacation schedule. I now get a four day 4th of July, and a four day Labor day weekend, getting both those Fridays. I also get MLK off. I kind of like working that one because traffic was so light. I'd rather have another pre-Holiday day off like New Year's Eve.

But anyway... I can't complain about more vacation days. I wonder if their expectations about the number of hours I have to bill will change. Probably not. Just less time given to me to make my hours. C'est la vie. :-)

It was a good weekend. Saturday was relaxing. We rented a couple of movies, "The Last Samurai" and "Paycheck", so I watched a movie every day. I had just read the huge tome "Shogun", so watching The Last Samurai was very intriguing. I was explaining to Chrissy why everyone was doing what they were doing. Both stories were similar, in Shogun it is a captain of an English ship, in The Last Samurai it is a Civil War Captain.

Sunday was a clean up day. After church we cleaned out the garage. The garage is supposed to be the place for all your junk, but we reorganized and threw out some junk. I cut up a bunch of torn down 2" by 4"s and threw those away. It's funny because we have a big pile of trash, and every week we fill up our huge trash can. We even borrow a trash can to dump our trash. At this rate we should have all our trash out by August. :-)

We also cleaned out the bookshelf, which was great. I put 9 books on half.com for sale. Two of them have sold already... pretty funny. So it was a cleanout weekend. I like dejunking - I tend to be a minimalist. Something feels better about having less stuff.

You know, I'm just not as excited about the weekends as I used to be, but it is actually a good thing. I used to be excited about the weekend, because in addition to not working, I got to see Chrissy. But now that I've gotten to see her during the week, the weekend (particularly not working) is still cool but not something I'm counting down to anymore.

Anyway, we met up and saw Shrek 2 today. First let me say, have you seen the price of movie tickets lately? Matinee tickets are $6.50 a piece! Ridiculous! I don't know why people pay that much. I will continue waiting to see movies in the $1 theatre or on DVD, unless it's a movie I REALLY want to see right away.

Anyway, Shrek 2 was good, but not as good as the first. Parts were really funny, but it had more slow parts. With the original I had heard it was good but I had low expectations going in. CNN.com and a couple of places had said this sequel was better than the original. IMHO, it is still well worth seeing, but not as good. The first five minutes were particularly good, and the cat was quite funny. Shrek just isn't as funny when the two ogres are together as a couple. Also something about Fiona as an ogre still doesn't fit right. Female ogres shouldn't look that feminine, imho.

Anyway, I am supposed to research flights to D.C. next week, so I think I will be up there for 2-3 nights next week. Should be good. Also need to work some plans for Memorial day. Should be fun.

Also, a Capital Hill intern got fired today, because of her blog. She was saying how her bills were paid by richer older men. Essentially she was sleeping with a married chief of staff, or some important people. She was saying it was pretty common place, "Who can live on $25K a year?" Probably true in D.C., but still kind of sad.

OK, I'm out!

Just call me... when you need a friend

To start, I randomly got a call from my sister Claire on Monday morning at 8am. She was getting out of work, where she works like four hours a day. It was good to hear from her, since we hadn't talked live since she arrived in Slovenia. She sounded very happy with life. Very friendly coworkers, boss, lots of freedom, ability to live rent free, free access to a car, and they even gave her a mobile. All this for knowing how to speak English, and being willing to teach them. Pretty crazy how badly people want English. I'm sure she'll do great over there despite her spelling and grammar.

I called back JR Monday night just after 8 (when I was on free minutes again), as I got a message from him late the night before. He is coming back to upstate New York again this summer. I got to hear the update on his ladies, and then we updated each other on who was doing what. It was good chatting with him. I felt I got more time to talk to him last night than when he came to town for New Year's. That was fun, but it was always group time, and he had his Mexican chicas with him who had ridden 15 hours on a bus to come visit. A guy from his company wants to work at my company, so JR put us in touch, and I may get a refferal fee from my company. This guy passed his phone interview, and gets an on site interview this Friday. I was quite surprised at how fast my company was moving.

Finally I also got a message from Anit last night. She was returning my call, and gave me an update on her next rotation. She talked about how she didn't have a life, and seemed to be working long hours. Poor Anit.

So nothing too exciting, just getting back into the work groove after a week of vacation. I may be in D.C. some next week, but we shall see.

Chrissy is enjoying her internship she started yesterday. We are staying with Chrissy's parents for now. Long story, but we get along well so it works out. Chrissy's dad cooked us salmon cooked on a cedar plank tonight. It was good, except for the thick center that was not quite well enough cooked for me.

Anyway. Time for bed. More sleep is good.

It's Sunday evening and I have begun to catch up from my vacation. Unpacking, laundry, sorting through the barrage of emails, mowing the lawn, watering the plants, outdoor house maintenance, etc. All in all, a very busy day. But still after a week of vacation, I am relaxed.

I now weigh in at 172.5 pounds, which I believe to be the most (or at least very close to the most) I've ever weighed. I gained 3.5 pounds in one week on the trip - pretty impressive. But not at all unexpected with the constant buffet grazing. They had a 24 hour pizzeria, 24 hour free room service... they really try to stuff you with food. They have really nice buffets... Chrissy really enjoyed the all chocolate buffet. The food was good, and there were copious amounts of it.

The trip was awesome. We left out of Port Canaveral, FLA. We had a day at sea, days in Costa Maya, then Belize, then Cozumel, then Progresso, and then another day at sea before returning home. Some quick memories... there was a very funny obviously gay social host on the ship who had the name Butch. He would help lead the party, and would be dancing on stage. I think he picked the name Butch to be funny.

I had my worst karaoke experience ever. I picked a Frank Sinatra song (how could you go wrong with old blue eyes?) but the lyrics of the song were like 15-20 seconds off from the music, so the lyrics on screen were two pages behind. I got a little off track and the crowd tried to "help" me, by singing along, but they were singing the words that were currently on screen, which were WAY off. I wasn't particularly embarrased, but it did take away my desire to do any more karaoke on the trip.

Another one of the social hosts, Ronaldo, was particularly funny. He is this Latin guy with a clean shaved head. He taught the "Crazy Latin Dance Class", and every time he would say, "Ay ay ay" with his Latino accent it would make me laugh. Every time he would leave the stage he would say, "Kissey kissey, bye bye." Very funny.

A recap of the stops:


Costa Maya is a new port in Mexico, and it was not very developed. There was a super touristy village, and then nothing for 45 minutes. There were planned excursions you could buy, but we just decided to hang on the beach by the pier. It had large rocks, but nice hammocks and straw umbrellas where you could relax in the shade.

Belize is the only English speaking country in Central America - a former British colony that went by the name British Honduras. Belize City is pretty run down, but we went outside the city to a great stop. You take a hike through a rain forest, and then you hit a river. You ride in a tube down the river, and it goes through a cave for about 30 minutes. It was a lot of fun, and a good break from the usual.

Cozumel - the whole island is commercialized, but it has a lot of fun things to do. We caught a small boat (8 person) and did snorkeling. It was fun. There is a crashed plane about 20 feet underwater that was neat. It was crashed for filming during a Mexican movie.

Progresso - this is a relatively uncommercialized vacation spot for wealthier Mexicans. We didn't do anything in town, but caught a bus to Chi-chen Itza which is the capital of the ancient ruins of the Mayan people. The culture is quite mysterious, because there are so many unanswered questions like how did they get there? They have carvings showing people in Roman and North American Indian dress. So you wonder if they had contact with those civilizations. They also knew a lot about calendars. Their pyramid had 91 steps on each side, and one step on top. If you add those steps together you get 365. Coincidence? I think not considering their calendar knowledge. They have the pyramid so it is lined up with the sun on each equinox so that only two sides are in the sun. And there are some neat shadow effects on those days. Pretty smart people, all in all.

The whole trip was quite awesome. And we found a great deal, so we were very pleased. Two thumbs up.

For those of you who are thinking, "James really has stopped blogging" I have goot news! I was only on vacation! Today Chrissy and I got back from a seven day cruise through the Western Carribean on Carnival Glory. We stopped in Costa Maya, Belize, Cozumel, and Progresso. It was awesome and I am very relaxed. I had only very expensive email access (phone calls were even $6.99 a minute), and very little news access. But that is not such a bad thing for a week. I did have a strange sensation when we'd walk into a show, and I would reach to turn off my cell phone and realize I didn't have it and that we were miles away from a cell tower anyway. It's a little strange being suddenly unwired.

I have lots of vacation recap to give, but let me first talk about a few notes once I got back.

We came back to our house to find dead mother's day flowers on our doorstep (via next day from Federal Express) for Margaret Thomas and our address. We don't know who that is. Chrissy called FedEx, and they seemed to have never had someone call to tell them this scenario. They advised we throw the flowers away, but we decided to keep the vase. Thank you Margaret. :-)

I saw Baucom in Macon on the way up from FLA, and he seems to be doing well. He was out working in the yard with his dad laying sod. We may need to do a little of that here. Chris, I meant to tell you at the time, but your forearms looked bigger. Have you been working out? He may be going waterskiing soon with friends. That is one area I have totally missed out on recently. I really need to meet a friend with a ski boat. Hmm. I'll work on that.

Finally, God help the Slovenians. My sister Claire is there in Slovenia (Eastern Europe next to Hungary - about the size of New Jersey) on a marketing internship for the summer. I think this quote from her update email to 30+ people sums up my concerns: (sic, by the way)

"My job is to talk to the slaes people. I am helping them work on there presentations in english and fitting our customs. I aslo help review our marketing materials and I teach an englsih class once a week. I have to tech grammer and spelling and I am not very good at this, so if anyone can send my some materials from there mothers who are teachers this would be good."

I think I now know where those "We talk English here" signs come from.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! I have had my fajitas and magaritas tonight, so I apologize if my spelling is off. God bless the Mexican people for their wonderful food. My only regret is that I erroneously thought we already had refried beans, so my fajitas were missing one of their vital ingredients.

It seems hard to believe that three short years have passed since graduation from Tech. Chrissy has moved to Tejas (Mexican spelling) and back, 9/11 happened, and I got married. Friends went and came. It has been quite a happy three years. And just like three years ago, I will be on vacation in a week. This time in Mexico and Belize. Three cheers for Central America. Did you know English is the official language of Belize? Who would have guessed?

I'll have to recap the notable moments of the last three years, but not now. I have to go pack. Vacation is good.

Easy like Sunday morning

What a few days it has been. Thursday was killer, but I found that I would not be going to Chicago. It looks like it will be Atlanta, with the potential for a little DC sprinkled in for good measure. I'm telling you the results of all this, but in figuring all of it out there were a lot of senior level people fighting it out over me. Fortunately I ended with the project of my preference.

Friday I didn't even check my email all day. I was down in Macon for work for a four plus hour meeting. That, a 7:30 am meeting beforehand, plus the drive down and back made my day. My Senior Manager invited Chrissy and I and the rest of the team over for drinks and dinner. It was interesting meeting his wife, who was very outgoing compared to how laid back he is.

Saturday we were staying at my parents because it was close by. Chrissy helped my mom finish putting up curtains which took 4-5 hours while I put up a US flag on the front of my parents' house. We had a nice dinner on the way up to Athens.

Now is the time to get ready for church!