Next week, I will be in training/orientation at the Redmond campus. This means that not only will I be traveling again, but I will be able to add a new airport to my list. My first trip itinerary was to pass through my home town of Houston on Sunday. That’s not going to happen now – not with a rather large storm hanging offshore at the moment. Now, I’ll be going through Newark – much less fun, but actually a shorter flight.
Bad thing is, though, I lost my upgrade…
I have finally added some of our pictures of Chicago. You’ll find a good sample of some of the city’s sights there – including the famous Buckingham Fountain. I know Laura and I had fun there for our anniversary in May of this year, so I’d like to share some pictures of one of my favorite cities with you as well.
All I know is that I have a long way to go before I’m done with our picture backlog.
[Update: I like the bigger pictures – I think I’ll do this from now on.]
A friend once told me “I never trust a man without a limp…” Well, I’ve got my limp now. The road rash on my knee is hurting pretty good and hindering me from walking smoothly… Not only do I have a limp, but now my left hand is in a splint – makes it kinda hard to type, but I’ll manage.
The sad thing is I didn’t get pictures of the bike yet – undamaged that is. Now, all of them will have the “scars” showing…
My wrist/hand is fractured… it’s not a good feeling. We’ll be going to the doctor’s again tomorrow morning to get a more thorough check and some instructions on care and feeding. Laura has no breaks, but we’re both feeling more sore today than we were yesterday. I guess the adrenaline is wearing off…
Now, I’ve went and done it.
Today, after Church, we went to a baptism. All in all, it was a great time. That is, until we left. Right after we left (riding the motorcycle, of course), we were riding down the street nice and slow when a little girl jumped out in front of us on a bicycle – not even looking. So, I slammed on the brakes… which is something you shouldn’t do on a motorcycle. We fell and slid a bit. Fortunately, we have no broken bones, but we are bruised and scraped and we’ll be hitting the doctor’s office tomorrow.
Oh, and the little girl is probably just scared a little – and hopefully will think twice about not looking before she goes into the street.
Today, the remnants of hurricane Katrina are supposed to pass by: we’re hoping for a bit of rain to water the plants. I’m hoping that I didn’t drive the car for nothing – if it was going to be this nice, why not have the bike instead? Of course, radar imaging shows no rain anywhere nearby… In fact, it looks as if the bulk of the storm passed in the night with only the trailing edge left to affect us.
I suppose we are much more fortunate to live quite a bit further out of harm’s way than we did before in Houston. Had the storm hit Galveston/Houston dead on like it did New Orleans and Gulfport, were we to still live there, we would most likely be without power. Not flooded, certainly, since our place was on the third floor, but we would most likely not be able to get anywhere outside of our complex as it was surrounded by very low-lying areas. Up here, though, there’s little chance of that happening. Snow and ice storms, maybe, but not large-scale flooding.
This year, there will be no officially sanctioned “Dive Turkey”. Next year, however, will be time enough to get ready for our trip to Curaçao. By next year, there will be a Continental flight to Curaçao which will make getting there much easier for most of the parties involved.
I suppose it’s a good thing: we can’t really afford to go diving this year due to our costs that have come from the move. It may have been an “all-expense-paid” move, but upon arrival, there are many things we need and do not have – and the cost of living here is more. We’ll have to save up a little longer to make sure we have enough money to cover the trip. Not to mention a better underwater camera and strobe…
One of my difficulties dealing with obtaining a new phone [not that I’m yet ready to do this, but I usually keep track of what is available for when the time comes] is that I DON’T want a camera in my phone. There are many reasons why I don’t want one [such as: 1) they cost more, 2) I can’t bring them into the office most times, 3) the quality sucks, 4) I would never use one even if the phone I wanted came with one…] but these days, most phone manufactures and service providers seem to offer two types of phones: super cheap crappy phones and phones with cameras [which can also be crappy and cheap…].
Why can’t I get a high-quality smart phone without the camera? Or, a Bluetooth-capable phone without the camera? I don’t want a camera, so why should I have to pay for it? Why should I have to buy a phone that I have to leave in the car or swap out when I go to certain customers?
Does anyone else have any thoughts or opinions?
For those of you who don’t know yet, I have recently purchased a new mode of transportation: a motorcycle. I have long desired to own one for myself instead of just borrowing my dad’s and now that dream is a reality. It was not the “dream bike” BMW K1200S that I had planned on, but a much more fiscally wise compromise bike – a used 2002 Honda Interceptor that won’t bankrupt me. It’s bright red so I can be seen from afar – not that there are those drivers out there who still won’t see me.
Anyway – I have been riding to work constantly for the last three weeks and am really enjoying it. I put saddle bags on it so Laura can now send me to the store for small objects… I don’t have pictures of it yet, but I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as I do.
We will soon be back up with more bandwidth than ever before. On August 17th, we are scheduled to have our new line installed so we’ll be back up then. But this just isn’t any old broadband connection. Oh no. This is Verizon FiOS [Verizon’s version of FTTP – fiber to the premesis]. What this does for us is provide us with a connection that is about 10 times faster than our old DSL link. Once it’s up, it’s supposed to provide us with 15mbps download speeds and 2mbps upload speeds. What this means for you is that the pictures in my photo gallery will load much much faster – almost as if you’re in my house.
I’m pretty sure we’ll be the first to have this kind of service in our neigborhood, so we’re pretty excited. It will certainly be worth the extra stress it took to track the service down once it’s up and running.
In other news, I’ve upgraded the web server to Fedora Core 4 and the Gallery software to version 2.0 RC1. Go look at the pictures… oh, wait. You can’t. At least, not yet…
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