The Holtonian

More boring Dribble about my life, don't feel obligated to read it

The wife and I had a busy day today. We made a birthday run down to my grandfather in law's in Atlanta to celebrate his big 80th birthday. It was a nice little surprise for him and it was great to see his smiling face to see all his friends turn up to wish him a happy 80. It was sort of awkward for me as I know just my wife's imediate family and a lot of the neighbors and out of town friends of Papa I had no clue who they were. Also its sort of weird because you're like, "Hey nice to meet you, though I'll never see you after today, its nice to meet you." But I tried my best to be the good little grandsoninlaw i could.

We got back around 9ish and we had made a short stop at Wallyworld in Ft O. See the thing is, we sort of sold one of our TVs without having a replacement for it. We took our old TV in our bedroom (a 19inch that I bought my freshman year off a friend who won it as a door prize--it was a rather lame sort of tv nothing special about it). Well we had noticed the picture had started to go and we'd be watching basketball or baseball games in bed and couldn't even tell what the score was. So we picked up the cheapest flat screen we could find for a 100 bucks. It looked nice, I set it up and we also bought the cheapest DVD player we could find (about 40 bucks for a magnavox progressive scan). So for a 140 bucks we got a 19inch flat screen and a dvd player, not a bad deal. The wife asks me to go get something to prop the TV up so we can have the TV on top of the DVD player, basically two 2x4s so the TV wasn't resting on the DVD player. I do her one better and go down and start to make a little shelf type thing.

I find some good pine boards down in the basement, who knows where they came from, and cut two pieces at equal length 20 inchs, that'll be the top. Then I decided to try out our stain that we bought for the Armoire, just to get some practice. Now mind you I have no clue what I'm doing, wifey was going to do the staining on the Armoire since she watched the instructional how to video at the store. But I proceed to stain and notice the stain is rather darker than anticipated. I figure oh well, its still a decent color. I call the wife to the basement and ask her to see if she likes the tint of the stain and she remarks, "Have you wiped it off yet?" I didn't know you were supposed to wipe off the stain after you applied a coat on it. So I wiped it off with a T shirt and to my astonishment it looked pretty good. So I got a nice little practice with the stain, a nice little project I should wrap up tomorrow, and got the satisfaction of building something with my barehands. Hopefully the assembly will go well. My previous attempt at building furniture didn't turn out pretty.

But here's the before picture of the Armoire, hopefully by the end of the week I'll have an after picture, if the weather clears up enough to stain it outside at least. I may do some of it in the basement if its raining, but the big piece will have to be done outside due to the sheer size of the armoire and fumes of the stain.

I've also updates some side blog stuff, pics and other info

Armoire Adventures and Future home Improvements

The wife and I spent a good long time shopping for some new furniture the past two days. It started on Friday when after a date to Outback we went to Target and saw a few entertainment centers we liked. We didn't love any of them and thought they were nice but not for our living room. One in particular was really cool but was too rustic for our house, and another was ok, but upon closer inspection looked pretty cheapy. So we decided to sleep on it and hit a few real furniture stores in the morning.

We got out early and hit Factory Direct. They pretty much had two to three that we liked. One was really nice for about 600 but was way too long. At one time we wanted one that would take up an entire wall, but since then we've redesigned our living room and now we need one that could fit in a corner. So they had two that would fit in a corner, a black little one that was pretty nice at 400 bucks though its depth was the exact depth of the TV, so no room for error, which I didn't like. Plus it was black and we were just not really sold on the black furniture in our house (everything else we own in that room is white or a dark wood finish). They also had a corner piece that was perfect but was 800 bucks and was just too too expensive .

So we zipped over the Unfinished Furniture. We really liked this place and found about three pieces that were good. One was 200 bucks and was literally just a box with two doors. You opened it up and it had one shelf that wasn't adjustable and nothing else. But I could easily add another shelf. The price was really tempting as we could get that and possibly a new TV with it. The problems with it were it had rustic wood look that after staining would still be rustic, rustic hardware (not hard to replace though), and the main thing the only shelf in it was in a bad spot, too low for a TV. But it was a front-runner because of the price. Then there was a similar piece that had a drawer and an adjustable shelf, that piece was taller too and was about 300 bucks. Then in the back they had exactly what we wanted, a corner piece. It was amazingly cool. It was 488 though and it was hard to pull all the money out for that one. But it was what we wanted, but we figured we should look around some more.

We drove to Badcock Furniture to check it out, went in looked around for nearly 10 seconds and walked out, it was pretty terrible prices and furniture. We to Best Buy, more to look at TVs, but they also had a few entertainment stands and what not. Then we went over to Inside Outside a sort of miscellaneous junk store that has furniture. They didn't have what we were looking for but did have some intriguing stuff. So we drove all over Chattanooga and ended back at Unfinished.

But as we go to ponder over the decision some more we find another piece that we hadn't seen before. This one was 388 so a bit cheaper, pine, and was a six feet tall (the others were about chest height), had two doors on top and two on bottom, two shelves one on each level and room for more. This piece was by far the best buy as it has the potential to be used anywhere in the house. See the problem with a corner piece is it will always be in the corner. And if we move to a house where we don't want our TV in a corner then we're screwed, so this piece gives us some flexibility on where it can be used and just seemed to be the best buy. WIfey watched the how to stain video at the store and will probably get to work on it on Monday, she likes doing stuff like that and is more exact and perfectionistic than me so she'll do a better job. So we're pretty excited about it. Hopefully the stain will go on well, I've heard sometimes it doesn't, but the guys there told us all the tricks and we'll probably practice on the inside of the piece and the shelves before we hit the outside. So we got another project.

Another project that I might start on soon for the days its rainy and I can't work on the fence is some built in book shelves up stairs in one of the bed rooms up there. We plan on moving the office, currently downstairs, when wee ones start to show up and have it be in the bedroom upstairs. We already sort of have cheap "built in book shelves" in the downstairs office now, basically boards with brackets. I'll take the boards, finish painting them (the prior owners only painted half of the them---they were so lazy) and then screw them together to basically some outer planks and fasten it to the walls upstairs. It will require some work but thinking about it I think it can be done with not too much hard work. The hard part will be setting them up, not putting them together. The problem I'll run into is carpet upstairs and may have to do some research on the best way to handle the carpet situation.

So as usual there's no shortage of projects. Its fun though and helps the old equity. Plus keeps us from wasting money on other things like food and water.

SAAAAAAN ANTONIO BASKETBALL

Well, it doesn't have the same ring to it as DEEEE TROIT BASKETBALL, but hey the Spurs are champs yet again. Gotta love the spurs, gotta love the pistons too. Larry Brown is just great, no matter what Bud says. Great series too, man I really didn't think the SPurs were going to do it, but I'm always wrong so its ok.

PCUSA Figures something out 85 Years after the OPC and 28 Years after the PCA

So apparently some in the PC USA are starting to realize their denomination has some problems.

Apparently some in the PCUSA have started to notice that their church is widely divided between liberals and conservatives, this being in the more extreme fashion. In other words Liberals in the church wanting same sex marriages recognized and the conservatives wanting them not. The article also stated: "A second issue erupted when a minister told a denominational conference that God brings salvation through various religions, not just Christianity, after which Presbyterian leaders affirmed that such discussions are proper." You know that's a pretty big problem. "Yeah you can get saved by Budha or Hindu, heck even Frank down at the Drug store..." Yikes! Catholics have gone through this struggle too. ITs almost like a denomination/relgion's desire to fit in. "Yeah you can bring whoever you want come on please just hang out with us, sure you can do that we won't mind, we'll just look the other way...."

The new conservative group is called the New Wineskins and is seeking the Presbytery to clean up or they're leaving, or something like that. I wonder if they should be told this has already happened? Hello OPC 1920s and PCA back in 1973. I wonder if someone from our respective denominations should call them and invite them in?

My wife is almost Famous

If you caught the 6 o clock or 11 o clock news tonight you might have seen the wifey. On the first story of the night, Win Dixie closing its doors, my wife was interviewed outside of Win Dixie. She was very embarrassed as she was staring strait into the sun and in her words not mine, "Not looking very cute." Frankly I thought she looked cute, but she claims i have to say that so it doesn't count.

It is sad the Win is throwing in the towel due to Walmart, but frankly Win through in the towel along time ago with Chattanooga, at least down in Stelmo. That dix was pretty sad and never had decent produce and lacked a certain style, it had this stuck in the 60s style and never updated, nothing like my good ole Shnucks back home. Plus the prices were higher than a lot of other places. I mean I can go to Walmart and buy their milk for 2 bucks or I can buy win dix's for over three... it makes no sense. The problem however isn't with walmart its more with Win Dixie, I think its a chain that just didn't have its act together and the Chattanooga market was just too far out of its reach of Florida (its main area). I'd say I'd hope something new came in but we usually go to Georgia Walmart anyway to save on taxes and overall groceries.

Father's Day and the day after

We went to Atlanta to celebrate father's day with the grandpa in law and grandma in law. It was fun, good eating, and then got to spend some times with the Crabb's on the return trip. I finally gave Crabb his birthday gift of Zelda for gameboy sp. I had it for a week or two and beat it for him, but hopefully he can get to it, though he still has Metroid Fusion which I lent to him a while back. I'm sort of the guy who lets everybody borrow his games. Strow has my Metroid Zero right now, and I'd let roe borrow a game but he'd never have time to play it.

This weekend was a whirl wind, stayed busy but I enjoyed it. I took tomorrow, Monday, off so I can relax and not be tired tomorrow from traveling. I was supposed to go to Connecticut for work but the trip was cancelled and since I'd planned on not going in Monday anyway I figured I'd just take a vacation day anyway. So we'll probably make a good will run and take everything that didn't sell on Saturday to the GW and get our future tax write off. Other than that we may go out and see Batman since GW is right next door to the Rave. I've heard nothing but great things about Batman, Ebert and Roper gave it two thumbs and Mesh and Roe said it was good---mesh and roe are the chattanooga versions of ebert and Roper... I'll let them fight over who's who.

Sports Talk

Man o man that was one intense NBA game tonight. We got back from Atlanta just in time to watch the end of the fourth quarter. My heart probably didn't beat from 4 minutes left in the fourth to the end in OT. It was huge and from what I saw a great game. A few calls were pretty lame and a few non calls were pretty frusterating, but in the end it was just great basketball. I hope the Spurs can close it out and can have a dominating game 6 otherwise game 7 would likely go to the Pistons, I think if the Spurs can't close it out in 6 they might not have the intensity to match the Pistons.

Also I was watching the baseball ticker at the bottom of the screen and saw Matt Clement won tonight. I love how the only loss he has is at the hands of the Cardinals... heh heh. The fact is the national league teams should know how to hit him, I'm surprised Pittsburgh didn't know him better, but then again Pittsburgh's pretty much a different rookie team every year.

Long Day: Garage Sale

Its been a long day... we had our first garage sale ever today. For not putting up any adds in the paper and putting signs up the day before we made out ok. I mean we had some decent stuff, lamps, nick nacks, clothes, video games... etc but none of that stuff sold. What sold was the most random crap you could think of. We made a decent amount of money though and the rest of the stuff will find its way to good will on monday so we'll see something from uncle sam whne the time comes.

I tried to sell my Sega Nomad which is basically a portable Sega Genesis that plays sega genesis games. The thing is basically a gameboy sp but 10 years old and no rechargeable battery. It didn't sell, so I took it down to a new game store i found called Rhino Games. They gave me 40 bucks store credit for the games and the Nomad. I figured that was good enough. Then I took said store credit and bought four games:

Madden 2003 Gamecube for only 6 bucks. I thought about getting 2002 for four bucks but realized I should spring for 2003 since it has Marshall Faulk on it and they probably worked the bugs out of 2002.

Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes Gamecube. This is basically a remake of the original Metal Gear on Playstation. They took the original story and did the graphics up> I never really got into the original so I figured I could try with this one. I kind of wanted a Splinter Cell game but they didn't have it.

Zelda Wind Waker Gamecube. I figured this was one of those games I should own, just because I own a gamecube. It won game of the year and its a Zelda game. I never could get past the cartooniness before but I figured I'd get over it.

Mega Man and Bass on Gameboy SP. This game has intrigued me before. Its a classic type Mega Man (No X upgrades or anything) but you can either be Megan Man or Bass (No idea who bass is). The graphics look good so I thought I'd try it out.

So not to mention all these but I still have the ones I got on the anniversary. I probably won't play the gamecube games I got because its no fun getting in the middle of a million games. So I'll probably stick to Need for Speed, which I'm enjoying a lot, and then move onto another. I'll probably play megaman when the wife goes shopping or other key momements of boredom.

The wife took her much deserved moolah from the garage sale and got a pedicure.

It was a long day but thankfully its over and our basement is clean.

GARAGE SALE SATURDAY AT THE HOLTONIA

Hey we're having a huge garage sale this saturday at 304 McFarland, up the road from the handy andy and down the road from the Covenant College, or in between Lulu and Scenic. Its the house with the Picket Fence (not painted), next to the plummers building that's been for sale for 20 years. IF you're a psycho please disregard my address. Whatever doesn't sell is being donated so you might as well come, bring your nickels and dimes.

Going Underground

Well I finally busted out the Need for Speed Underground tonight for the gamecube. Its pretty cool, all the dorky things people like about car games. Personalize your car, and make it all "pimped" out as the kids say these days. Its pretty good, I pimped my car out quite nicely, its actually pimpilicious. I put all the shizzle and fizzle on it and some neon, though I refused to put the decals on it because that's just plain tacky. Its not too tough and works on much the similar way that all the other car games do, race, get points, unlock stuff. Though you always get points for racing so if you race enough and play the game enough eventually you should unlock stuff. I like how sometimes you'll do a sweet move, or take your car "off some sweet jumps" and it will do a cut away of your car doing the move. So its fun, and for 18 bucks I can't complain. Maybe now I won't drive my real car like a maniac.

In other news we haven't been able to make it to General Assembly this week. I'd been looking forward to it, but all the seminars are during the day and its a worship type service at night which is cool, but I think I'd rather go to the seminars. Its frusterating because its one building over from where I work and I can't go. I've been so bogged down at work i couldn't even spare a long lunch. I'll try to make it tomorrow but no promises.

~

Movie thoughts, updates on life as well

Well I've seen two new release movies... well three if you count Star Wars 3. I saw Cinderella Man on our anniversary and it was a great movie. It's quite a shame it's being overshadowed by Crowe's temper tantrum. He's a superb actor; oddly enough his worst acting job was the one he was rewarded for, Gladiator. Well, its not his worst but he's been so much better in so many other movies. He really seems to blow me away. I mean The Insider, Master and Commander, This, and a Beautiful Mind. I really like also how Ron Howard makes me feel. He makes me feel good; he makes me feel real good. He made the great depression look fun... well not really at all, he made it very grim. He's a good director/movie maker though his slant towards sentimentality kind of gets him in a rut, though I like it, its a good rut. You can't blame a guy for wanting people to feel good.
   I recommend the movie, I love boxing, its such a struggle. I really love golf too, because its a struggle with yourself, but Boxing is great too because you can only rely on yourself. Team sports are great for teamwork themes but a boxing movie; you got you, yourself, and the people in the stands. This movie did a good job of having a supportive wife and promoter in your corner helps a lot too, a long with a little luck. Its a great little true story, Jim Braddock's is a story that embodies the American spirit and all that jive. Its pretty much Seabuscuit for boxing, but I like boxing more because horse racing to me is a sport for horses. I'm not saying I'd be a good jockey, but to me it's a lot like car racing, you're relying on something else to do the majority of the work. There was a good bit of blasphemy in the movie, something that was hard to tolerate and took a little away from the story.
      I've never understood blasphemy. I mean before I was a Christian I used to say the Lord's name in vain, but I don't know why I did, I think it was a social thing. I pretty much stuck to the word "God" never went for the JC or GD or anything like that. But as soon as I became a Christian, the words just were never used in that manner again; it was weird, totally not of my own intention. Instead of the word "God" coming to my mind other things came to my mind, "gosh" mostly, which I've heard the argument why that's bad to say too, because it sort of means the same thing as "god" and is just as a substitution, which I don't think I really give that argument much credit. I mean if that's bad to say then I guess I can't say "shoot", or "bumblebee" because I use those instead of "gosh." I dunno know.
         To continue this ramble, I've also, looking back, never understood why non-Christians use the Lord's name in vain in such an overt way. Especially JC. Its like, you don't believe in this guy, at least not in the true sense, this word has really no meaning for you, why use it? Why not just use something else like 'Allah' or 'Rah,' I mean its about as absurd as saying 'JC' in an inappropriate way. I don't know, language is weird.

      The other movie we saw this past weekend with the Roes and Mesh was Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I didn't really want to see this movie, as I generally just didn't think it looked that great. I thought it looked too Hollywood, which in the end it is. But it's pretty darn ironically funny. It encapsulates so much of married life, the tension, anger, fighting, bickering and then instead of verbally trying to kill each other and tear one another down; they just try to kill each other literally. It was pretty darn funny, and had one of the best comical car chase scenes I've seen ever. Brad and Angelina don't really make the movie, they could really be I think any two ultra attractive people and the movie would probably work. I recommend this if you're in the mood for a good laugh, its not worth 7.50 or whatever outrageous cost you pay, but it is worth about a 5.50 price on a rainy day. The scenes aren't as steamy as the previews would make you think either, so ladies don't worry about your man too much.

      In other news, life is good. I nearly killed myself running today. I didn't drink enough water for starters, had tons of diet coke and coffee, it was outrageously humid, and sprinted twice in my run. Once was across a soccer field, length wise, and then a 40 yard sprint to my car. I got back home and had to get in the tub to cool off, it was intense. But it was a good run in the sense i pushed myself but a bad one because I didn't go that far. I got a pedomoter now, came in a cereal box so its gotta be good, so I can tell theoretically how far I run. It was pretty dang depressing to find out how little i ran. I figured I was running around 4 to 6 miles and came to find out I was running 1.5 to 3 miles. Sad... but i know now so I'm pushing myself more to get more distance. The mountain makes it tough too, the trails I run are rocky and steep so that's good. Not much else, housework is sort of at a stand still since its been raining so much. Most of the stuff i need/want to do is outside so I'm at the weather's mercy. I'm also heading back up to the home office next week for a few days which will be hard for the wifey. I won't be gone as long but will be in meetings for 10 hours a day or so. I wish I could get a new gameboy game for the trip but I got one last time. I'm sort of in debt as far as game purchasing goes. The wife's looked the other way a few too many times so unless I trade some in, I'm stuck with what I've got. Which stinks cause I've already beaten what I've got. I'd like to trade some in, but they're great games and I know in the future some day I'll want to play them again. I'm lame.

NBA Finals

So the wife and I have been watching the NBA Finals. She's a huge Spurs fan, and I'm a fan of good basketball, which is being showcased by the Spurs as of late. I really am impressed with the Spurs, I bet against them in the office pool picking the Suns over them. I still stand by my pick since the Suns were the best in the NBA this past year, but I would like to redo my pick seein the Spurs get better with every game. The Spurs have pretty much matched the Pistons and played their game better than they did. The Pistons last year were amazing Defensively, but they also played a Laker team that was sick and tired of each other. Probably the only Laker on that team that wanted the ring badly was Karl Malone.

This year the Pistons lack the intensity they had last year at least the past two games. They came out strong in game one, but I attribute that more to the Spurs being rusty with all the time off. I see a coach (brown) who's frusterated with his players and somewhat tired of coaching. I really think the Olympics took a lot out of Brown and he hasn't been the same coach since> He's still one of the greatest coaches ever but he seems to getting more frustrated with age.

That being said, I just think the Spurs have the great defense that the Pistons have had, but they also have a more amazing offense. They have a big man that can shoot in Duncan, and a mad Argentinian who reminds me of Steve Nash the way he draws the defenders in then dishes out to the outside for the easy three. My problem with the Pistons has always been they lacked a true dominating offensive threat. They've had a well balanced threat, but the spurs seem to have a better balanced threat. Though if Duncan or Ginobli were to go down then the series could very well be over, where as if one of Detroit's starters would go down they could still be in it.

I did get really annoyed with all the white guys on the Spurs team, they were pretty awful. They couldn't defend worth much and would never take an open shot. They'd be wide open and wouldn't shoot.

I think the Pistons played awful tonight, it looked like they were just a bunch of bodies standing around. The game was called tight but it went both ways. Detroit can tend to be more physical so of course they're going to get more foul calls called on them. They just never had an offensive threat for San Antonio to worry about.

So its good basketball for the third year in a row. I've watched the NBA finals the past three years and the past three series have been very enjoyable. Hopefully the Pistons will put up a fight at home and won't blame this loss on the officials, cause frankly its the players that didn't put the ball in the hoop not the refs.

And here's to the cards taking two of three from the wanks... er the yanks.

Mowing

I made a mad dash out in the yard today to try to mow my yard before another rainy day comes our way. It seems like its been raining for a month now. I was doing good, got the back yard done, though the mower kept dying for some reason. I started on the front when all of sudden the push bar breaks at the mid hinge (where you can loosen the screw and fold the handles up). So i did what any male would do in my situation, duct taped it up. That worked but my case for a new lawn mower grows with every passing day. I had thought about getting a new mower instead of a pressure washer, but my desire to paint the fence like Daniel Son was stronger than my desire to mow my yard in a decent amount of time on one tank of gas. Between the gas guzzling mower, the broken handle bars, and the lack of self propulsion my patience runs thin with the mower. Not to mention it taking 10 pulls to start and unexplained engine stoppings.

The wife and I just hung out and watched the NBA Finals Game 1 tonight. She's grew up in San Antonio and is a huge Spurs fan. I'm a fan of both teams really and sort of side more with the Spurs as I Popavich's coaching, its like Larry Brown but he doesn't leave once a team does well. That's my big beef with Brown, I understand in some ways, he's a fixer upper type guy and once a team is fixed up he once a new challenge, but come on man just finish up your season and then make a decision.

Well i just downloaded what I've been looking for all night so i should go to sleep. I was searching for a free download of the Empire song from Star Wars. Its sort of an inside joke at work, basically when me and a buddy went to the home office we sung the "Bum bum bum... ba ba bum ba ba bum." Wow that probably doesn't convey what the heck i'm talking about... basically when the empire shows up its the song in the background. Well now I got the Mp3 of it and will put it on my ipod, and if i can swing it i'll buy the radio tuner so that next time i go up there (in two weeks or so) i can do it in style. Yes dork equals me... i know.

Driving by faith and the force

So on my way home I start hoping that the rain comes so I don't have to mow my lawn, something I generally loathe as it takes a good three hours to do it right. So my hope comes true and the rain comes much to my joy....

Or so I thought... so I turn my on my wipers and they make one last valiant swipe at the rain... then alas they could wipe no more. They conked out in the heat of the rain storm while I'm on broad street. So I can't see where I am, can't see whats to my right, left, or strait ahead. I see the liquor store and turn in. Inspect the wipers... and they're dead...

So i turn the car to the Penzoil next door and ask them to check it out. Their mechanic is out, so they check the fuse, its fine... so the motor or something else is busted and they can't help me.

So I thank them and figure to go back roads to the mtn and figure once I get to the mtn the trees will cover me from the rain. Well turn on the back roads... flooded.

So i get on Broad and make my way slowly... I can't see a thing out my window, luckily most people had their lights on. I make my way to the road up the mtn and sure enough I'm in a huge train of cars. I'm trying my best to go the speed of everyone, but with people behind me, people in front of me, and zero visibility. I try to pull off numerous times but can't see if i'm pulling off into a ditch or a pull off. Finally I recoginze a big turn and remember there's a pull off after the turn, i make a turn on faith and providentially i made it.

I sit there trying to decide to call the wife to come pick me up or not... a bunch of a cars pass me, the rain lets up a bit, and a single white SUV with its lights passes me... I make my move and follow him up the mountain. As my guide the SUV helped give me a good guide... the only problems were when idiots were coming down the mtn with out their lights on... but i stayed in my lane and made it up.

It was intense, the most scarry driving experience I've ever had. I'll try to get the wipers fixed but until then I have some rain away stuff I can put on there that might help for the mean time. I had a friend in college that used the rain away religiously and never used his wipers even in the heaviest of downpours. Its a good thing I know the mtn as well as I do because I couldn't have made it up with out the familiar turns and the grace of God.

Anniversary Activities

We celebrated our two year anniversary today. I took a half day at work, came home and had lunch with the wife. Then we proceeded to open presents. ITs fun doing anniversary presents, we kind of treat it like another birthday, something that may go away when kids show up. I gave the wife a set of luggage and two pairs of shoes. I bought the stuff while at work across the street and thus had all the luggage and shoes at my desk. Needless to say many questions were asked and i informed them the purpose of the items. Most thought they were good gifts, mostly women, but most of the men laughed and told me they'd know the gift didn't go over well if i showed up the next day with my bags packed. Somehow that was funnier in real life... oh well. But anyway she loved the luggage, not the perfect color but it was really the only color they had so hopefully it won't bother her too much. The shoes were ok, I must admit I have some odd desire to buy my wife shoes for presents, this is the second time. The first time I failed to buy comfortable shoes, granted they were 2 bucks so i got what i paid for. This time i got some birkenstock nock offs that looked really good and she claims are pretty comf and cool and I also got her some white "mom shoes" basically plain white keds type tennis shoes. She said they were a little too mommy for her, which i guess I can see. But she liked the thought and 2/3's of the gifts which is good enough for me.
      She on the other hand did better... she usually does. She got me Dark Forces 2 Jedi Knight, which is about a 10 year old computer game, but she got it for 2 bucks and heck its star wars and i've played all the star wars games but this one which happens to be one of the most famous of them.       She also gave me a sense legitamacy.... she bought me the U2 cd How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which is great. She got me the one that has an extra dvd with some extra stuff on it so its pretty cool. So no longer do i own an illegal copy of it which is always good. I also got a polo shirt and watch band. So a good haul. And I some how managed at walmart to talk her into letting me buy Need for Speed for gamecube... it was 18 bucks so its not like i broke the bank.
      We went down to the water front and walked around the newness down there, its amazingly great and if the weather had been nicer it would have been perfect. Then we headed towards the mall, did a bit of shopping, without buying, and then saw Cinderella Man. I loved the movie, both of us did actually even though the wife traditionally despises the violent sport of boxing. I'll review it in my next post. We then hit up our favorite Carabas for dinner. It was good we split everything a calamari and Rigatoni Martino. The calamari was off and really sort of queezed me out, not sure if i'll ever get it again there. I've liked it in the past but tonight it was just off and made me a little sick. Then the rigatoni was magnificent as always.
      Now we're home and pretty dog gone tired.
      it was a great time and I'm just so thankful to be married to such a wonderful woman. She truly makes me happy a 100% of the time. She brings so much joy and excitement into my life and i just know if i didn't have her i'd be playing video games 24 7 and would never venture outside my home. She makes my life so much more meaningful and I'm so thankful for the many blessings God has given me through and with her.

Blah blah

So my brother found some stupid school newspaper that has my name... those jerks! I probably could sue for copyright but I don't have any money. Plus I looked and there's is older than mine dating back to 2002, so they'd win. That's so weird they came up with that name. Mine came from a homage to Conan the Barbarian, I'm Holton the barbarian, but i got tired of saying that so I shortened it to the Holtonian. I mean random.

We had a good weekend, though most of it was in the car. We went to the crabb's shower up in South Carolina. It was good, though showers aren't really a guys domain, it was fun to watch Crabb squirm and be the center of attention when they were opening gifts. Though food and beer were good treats... and his inlaws gave me some roadies... just jokin.

Guh, another week of work. Hopefully it will go well. No traveling next weekend is something to look forward to, as well as hopefully some good weather. I'd like to bust out the pressure washer some more. WE turned the AC on, the earliest we've ever done that, granted we've only had two years of living here. But it was just too muggy in the house. We can stand heat but sticky heat is just not fun. Plus we never had high AC bills last year so hopefully that trend will continue.

I bought two gameboy games this weekend> Its Crabb's birthday june 9th and i decided to get him a gameboy game. So i bought two and thought I'd give him a terriblely hard choice. Super Ghosts and Gouls which was one of my childhood favorites, and Tiger Woods golf.... but I thought I'd play them before i gave him one of them and played both of them and realized they both were awful. I let him play them, but gave the caveat that I wanted to take them both back and get him something else. Super Ghosts and Gouls was just kind of annoyingly hard and not fun. And tiger woods only had Augusta on it as the only course, which if you can only have one i guess that's the one to have, but it wasn't terribly complicated and looked pretty simplistic and not that fun. I have an idea of what I'll get him, just gotta make a return trip to mckays.

Baseball, cards updates

The Cardinals have been playing consistently lately.. They're still not the offensive power house they were last year. I think a lot of it has to be the juiceless MLB. I'm not sure if any of the birds were on the juice last year but there are a lot of good hypothesis that the de-juicing has given pitchers in the mlb more confidence. Basically you're not seeing the check swing homers and broken bat homers of last year. There was a comparisson of homers this time last year and this year and it was almost a quarter as many homers... part of that is Barry's hiding from the world.

A buddy of mine at work asked me why the cards were struggling against Colorado and all I have to say is "Mile High" I mean its a crap shoot when one plays in that stadium. You can put the best pitchers on the mound and if the air is thin enough it won't matter if you're Cy Young, the balls will find their way to the stands.

I think the Cards will have a good chance to win the NL. They need some more consistency but I think the more they play good teams and the more some of the sub par teams get better it will challenge the cards to become better. Like the Cubs are getting better some how lately and that will cause the cards to rise to the challenge more. The cardinals have only struggled really with the Phillies and the Braves... the phils makes no sense they're terrible, but the Braves are good so it makes sense. The East is strong, especially Florida, they're tough to beat with that pitching staff.

Traveling Thoughts

So I'm hanging at Coptix till Roe gets done with work. I'm bustin this blog on a super sexy G5 Imac... hopefully my slobber won't ruin the keyboard.

I'll resist the urge to blog about video games.... but man the urge is there, screw it, i'm blogging about gaming...

On my recent trip to Contitceticut, I don't know or care how to spell that state, I made ample use of my game boy sp. I know people think the PSP is where its at but hey 300 bucks for a game system that is so restrictive and proprietary just seems rediculous to me. Even the head of Sony's playstation division said they were shooting themselves in the foot by being so restrictive. Like say I buy a psp, which i won't, I have all these dvds that I want to watch on it but I can't, I have to go out and buy the UMD version... how lame.

So for 220 bucks cheaper I get super nintendo quality games and games under 20 bucks (if you buy used which I always do). Street Fighter 2 remains the best buy b/c its so great to pick up and play real quick. I'm looking into purchasing a racing game. Need for Speed 2 looks pretty good, so does Mario kart though, but its 28 bucks or so. I'm just not into these new fangled machines, its just so much money, that's money i could put towards hard wood floors and a new lawn mower.

But if you travel a lot i think a gaming device is worth it. I mean I took my wife's laptop too, but its so slow and heavy that it was more of a nuisance. It didn't play dvds either without a plug powering it. So the gbsp is where its at. I'm traveling up to CT again in a few weeks. Its pretty cool, made some good contacts/friends up there last time and hope to see them again. I'm hoping Ugly Head can go with me as we have similar taste in food.

The guy I went with this past time was a good old southerner, and most of the food up there is St. Johnseque, aka pricey and overly fancy. We walked out of one joint because my buddy hadn't heard of anything on the menu. Which is cool we stuck to more Steak type places, which was cool with me.

I must say though, traveling's not all its cracked up to be. Airports are a pretty big pain, not as much as people make them out to be, but it does take a while to get in, well not the Chattanooga airport. ITs amazing how much more $$ it is to fly out of Chatt, it adds a good 400 bucks to the price of a ticket to CT. Though the Chatt airport has a few good deals to DC and NY sometimes. OK, i'm done with this topic onto another post.

Back In action

So after weeks of not blogging, I finally get the blog on last night... and then my cable goes out so I couldn't post this...
SO i'm back after a brief Hiatus. I needed to take a little break and wanted to just rest the Holtonian for a bit.

A lot has happened in the past two weeks. I went to Bloomfield,CT the homebase of my company. I went up there with another guy to help the team up there catch up. It was pretty good, really nice to eat on the company dollar everyday. I ate some good lobster up in Connecticut, what one must do when one is in New England. It was a hard trip though, being away from the wifey is just not fun and it can get kind of lonely on your own. Though as it turns out the Gameboy was a good investment as that's what I did with a lot of my free time, especially on the plane. I played Metroid Zero and if you have a gameboy and like metroid games its by far the best you can get for a few bucks. But I won't bore you with the details.
      I saw Star Wars 3. I liked it a lot though i got over stimulated and couldn't fall asleep after i saw the movie that night. There are complaints and praises for the movie but pretty much everybody said it already. My only thing was I was kind of depressed, which a friend reminded me, "Why you know the happy ending..." which I do, but it takes a long three other movies for a happy ending. Its just kind of a bummer, a guy with such potential squandered. I blame Mace Windu... if he wasn't such a putz maybe he could have helped keep Anakin on the good side.
      I've been anticipating the Narnia movie coming out in December, so I re-read the first two books: Magicians Nephew and Lion the Witch and The Warddrobe. I really like the Magicians Nephew as i find it a really engrossing story... but oddly enough I didn't really dig the LWW. I mean I dug the Christian allagory and all that. Which on a side note I wasn't really a Christian when I read them the first time and missed the entire thing about Aslan being symbolic of Christ and all the Christian imagary and symbolism... which is kind of sad really because its so blantant, but picked it up this time around. I must say though the LWW to me just doesn't seem to have the depth and breadth to make a full length movie, or at least one to have enough action and punch. I think part of this is due to CS lewis toning down the action and suspense of the novel with little phrases like, 'and I could go into more depth but....' or ' to describe all the creatures present would make this story unsuitable for you...' he says something similar to that in the story and leaves a lot up for the imagination. Which is good, don't want to scare the kiddies. I mean I'm going to go see the movie but can't really picture it being that great now that I read the story again... i mean the story is just not that long. I often complain about how books that are made into movies often cut out some great stuff... but this might not have enough stuff to even put in the movie. Hope they have a good screenplay writer.
      The inlaws came up last weekend and we did a lot of house work. I purchased a pressure washer 2500 horsepower.. its very manly. I pressure washed some siding in the back and have done some of our picket fence. The goal is to pressure wash the entire fence... which there is a ton of, and then paint it white to get that classic white fence look. Then farther down the timeline we'll pressure wash the deck and restain it and pressure wash the front porch and do something with it. Plus not to mention finishing washing the siding. The wife and the mother in law priced things in the basement for the Holton Garage Sale which should be in a few weeks. Father in law put down 1/4 round around the floor to give our flooring that completed look and also put in an outlet in the kitchen.
      So a lot of house work is going on and work is keeping me pretty busy. We're going to see the crabbs this weekend but not in atlanta, they're having a baby shower up in Carolina so we're going up there to share in all that fun.