Aaron's Wedding

Here's the wedding on the beach in San Juan January 3rd, 2007. The wedding went well in that it rained before and after but was perfectly clear during the planned time. Once we got done doing post ceremony photos it started to rain as we walked inside. Donovan was also the ring-bearer and brought me the rings with Vanessa's guidance. Figure this is about Donovan's 5th wedding and time for him to get involved. Even though it looks like the officiant (the Bride's brother) is going to grab the ring pillow Donovan stopped him and said "No for daddy!".

El Yunque

The start of my brother's wedding festivities included a brunch out in "El Yunque" rain forest in Puerto Rico. We had our brunch then proceeded to hike almost a mile down a steep river until getting to this waterfall. It was humid and warm but the waterfall was ice cold. It was very powerfull too. The water felt like a powerfull massager bearing down on our backs. That's Me and Aaron in the photo.

Another HDR image

Just thought I would post another HDR I put together from jpg images I took with my canon Xti while I was in Mississippi. This picture was taken at night (see the stars) and all the lighting is from the house's lights.

Thanksgiving Week in Mississippi

Our trip started out with some emergency on the airplane. The crew asked if their were any nurses or doctors on board. We think a lady up-front was having some kind of heart or panic attack. We were close to landing when this happened.
Donovan adjusted quickly to being at grandpa's house in Mississippi. Thats Donovan with his Grandpa Jack and cousin Mckenzie.Grandpa had aquired a battery powered Jeep for the grandkids to drive around his property. Donovan was getting pretty good with the pedal but not too great on the steering.
Donovan was constantly after Cleo the cat when he found her outside. Luckly the cat was very tolerant and would mostly run away when handled too much.Donovan constantly wanted to go for walks outside. He loved the shrubbery , leaves and trees. I don't know why the Mosquitos didnt bite him up (they certainly ate me alive).His cousins Mckenzie and baby Ely were there only for the first weekend but Donovan maxed out any available play time.Here's Dman and his little cousin ElyTowards the end of the week I cut Donovan's hair. He looks like a little soldier starting boot camp in the woods. This is Vanessa's Dad's house in it's current state. The Bay area where this is located has just a handfull of houses rebuilding where there were hundreds.The park next door to Granpa's house had a fresh coat of paint and wasn't seeing much use at all. There was also a TON of mosquitos that weren't much worried about the DEET I hosed onto myself.This is an example of some of the damaged but not cleared out properties that were to be found around the area.
The bridge across the bay was knocked out. They had just started a free ferry service in lieu of the bridge. We took the ferry accross.
Across the bay there was more of the barely surviving trees with a noticeable lacking of houses.Across the bay they did have a nice new park. Im not sure the purpose of the ball thing im climbing. I think it's just for climbing into/around. I couldn't fit inside the rope area so I tried climbing ontop of it.Donovan was very excited about both plane rides. Im not sure if he understands that he's actually flying up in the air vs the window being like that of a TV. We tried to give him the full flying experience by showing him the window take off/landing.

HDR - High Dynamic Range Photography

I've just started creating HDR photos with my Canon SLR digicam. The picture on top is an HDR photo created by merging three various exposed shots. The picture on bottom is what one would normally get from a single point and shoot picture.

Oh, btw this is where we are staying at right now in Mississippi.

Dusk Shooting

Some good pics from shooting tonight. These are of my SP101 snub nose .357 revolver. Lots of flame that you don't even realize during the day.

Donovan's The New Sheriff

The Sheriff was in town last night. Vanessa got him this costume last minute (because we couldn't find the spider costume prior). turned out pretty well. Everyone on the street kept commenting on how handsome the gunslinger looked.
Donovan did manage to get the hang of knocking on doors and saying "trick or treat" then thanking the person. He also kept pulling candy out of his bag and asking me to open it for him. Eventually he figured out how to unrap the candy himself.

Donovan seems to have lots of fun at his daycare. He now starts singing and dancing a variety of songs he learns there. Twinkle Twinkle LIttle Star, Wheels on the Bus Go Round, ABCs, and Itsy Bitsy Spider are his main favorites. He just got a new teacher that seems to be a foriegn national. I hope language is not a barrier for her to continue the songs.

Voting Time

Here's the ballot questions:
http://www.co.clark.nv.us/election/2006/GEN/Quests_06.asp


I plan on voting on them as follows, anyone have insight on why I should vote differently than this?


1. Amend constitution for legislature to fund schools before rest of budget.
No, just a complete waste.

2. Amend constitution to on public use of emminent domain/
No, added too much crap to this and will hurt our city and prop values

3. thrown out

4. Preserve right to smoke in casinos, gaming areas, bars etc.
Yes, keeps our freedom to smoke

5. Prohibit smoking in restaurant bars and other places
No, takes away our freedoms

6. Raise minimum wage
No, as much as I like inflation, this would just push me closer to earning minimum wage instead of causing inflation.

7. Amend statutes to regulate, sale and tax marijuana
Yes, will reduce crime, move drug profits from criminals to state income, and increase our freedoms (prolly boost our tourism)

8. Allow full tax credit for Vehicle trade-ins and allow credit for farm machienery
Yes, less taxes for those who trade in... kinda on the fence on this one (I dont like the farm part)

9. Convert the Board of regents from 12 elected to 9 appointed
Yes, either appointed or elected we're gonna have the same bucnh of clowns. At least this way we'll have less of them.

10. Allow special sessions of legilature be called by the legislature instead of just the gov.
No, less special sessions the better I'd think

11. Pay legislators more for the 120 day session
No, Come on, like paying these bastards any more will get us better lawmakers.. puhleeze

strange night

today started out normal enough. Got a reluctant donovan out of bed and off to school and myself to work. on my way home I see a car on the craig/95 off-ramp engulfed in flames as the firetruck is arriving.

so then around 7:30pm as I'm getting ready for LOST, we get a call from vanessa's mom who had just been attacked by a couple of pit bulls while she was walking her dogs. So instead of a night of relaxing TV, we transported one of her heavily wounded dogs to the animal ER. her other dog "Little bit" a dachshund, was killed. Some good samaritans helped get the pit bulls away by shoving a broomhandle down the lead dogs throat. In the scuffle 3 people got bit by the dogs.

Now we're here in the people ER where V's mom is being checked out. gonna have to download lost. anyone want to watch it this weekend?

Balloonapalooza!

We missed the mass balloon lift-off this morning but did manage to catch this tethered balloon ride. Donovan was excited until he got up close. The gigantic size and flames got him scared and he didn't want to ride.
We went on to the carnival side of events and Donovan began to tantrum because he didn't understand he had to wait in line to go. As soon as he got to the bottom he was ready to go right back up again. He went through the wacky-house that ended in a spiral slide about 5 times before we could take him to the bumper cars for a ride with Vanessa.






Donovan then got to admire the ducks and pond since the event was being held at a golf course.

Last night while I was re-arranging my garage to accomodate a play area for donovan he got interested in "daddy's chopper" He was afraid to touch it and backed off when I told him he could touch it. So I put him on it and he was quite happy.

My workplace

just thought I would share the place where I'm spending my workday at. I sit in an uncomfortable chair infront of these two monitors. I do have a window behind me.

Bathroom Completed

Vanessa and I took on painting stripes in our downstairs bathroom. This is the first time I've tried painting a pattern on a wall. Turned out pretty well but was a lot more laborous than just painting one solid color.

Donovan the Jumper

Donovan started jumping from this cardboard box when we brought it home. He did end up scuffing his knee on the carpet and got his frist scab.

red rock stay

stayed at the red rock again last thursday. the rooms seem bigger this time. probably because of all the crappy hotels weve stayed at since our last stay at red rock. they should have their pool open past 7pm. that was bogus.

Donovans Donuts

Pics explain it all.

New Phone

Finally got myself a phone that will ring. Replaced my Treo 650 with a Cingular 8125. Besides being able to ring this phone runs windows mobile 5.0 and has Wifi. Hopfully ill be able to dial up network with my laptop using bluetooth.

Channel 8 news, las vegas

In case you missed it here's the interview from channel 8 at my suprise birthday party. Thanks for the press Claudia!

Hello computer... Shut up computer!

Over the weekend I got a giant copper ZALMAN cooler for the CPU on my desktop. Wow, that sucker keeps my CPU 20 degrees cooler and makes no sound. Now I run my machine 10% faster (3.3gHz). My brother told me how much better it is to have a quiet computer. Now I realize how unpleasant my old noisy fan was. Peace at last!

Car Stereo work

Finally got enough courage to crack open my titan now that it's a couple years old. My college friend James came over and helped me install a subwoofer box under the rear seat with two 10" speakers. Also put an amp under my drivers seat. Im also *Almost* done hardwiring in my GPS/MP3 player to the center dash.

24th International System Safety Conference

I spent last week in Albuquerque attending the conference. I presented a paper on the safety change control for the Krakatau sub-critical experiment. The photograph is of Jeff, Martin, chuck, and myself just after Chuck and Martin accepted the award for Krakatau which won the group scientific achievement award.

I asked Martin (who lives just outside London) if they had casinos in england. He said they are almost non-existant there and nothing like the ones we have in the US. Seemed the discussion went to the value or damage to the economy that casinos cause. I thought that although gambling is a zero sum game, it does serve as an economic engine pushing people to work more. Casino patrons get some playtime enjoyment and in the course lose their money and need to work again (and end up gambling some more). Ends up being a perpetual work cycle for the poor laborer. I know of a few people who were in retirement who took a trip to vegas and had to come out of retirement after gambling away all their savings. Sucks for them, good for getting them back to work.

So what do you think? Casinos good, casinos bad? and for who?

Dirt Avalanch in Albuquerque

This was some video I caught while we had some record rains here in Albuquerque New Mexico. Just to give some reference that dirt wall is about 40 feet tall. Some people had come up and walked up to the edge. Lucky they didn't fall to their death.

Red rock

Stayed at the redrock sunday night. The pool was a litttle warm but otherwise a real nice place. I was impressed with the rooms