My boy is starting to be a real kid. He's starting to get upset when he doesn't get what he wants. This morning he wanted vanessa's new phone and didn't get it so he threw himself into high speed wobbles, crying up a storm. After a bit of crying and never getting the phone he has decided to take a big nap. Grandma had fed him a big breakfast. So he should be ready to go this afternoon as we are taking a behind the scenes tour of th Ka theatres at MGM.
We were at lonnie hammargrin's house last weekend. Man that place is huge and a huge mess. Thought this lightswitch was funny.
Now that I have my new phone i'll be able to post better pictures on my blog. Here is one of my desk at work.
That's me and dick's pumping gas behind me. We just got done with a two day long training session in los alamos national laboratories. Man that training was long and lecturous. Plus I got sick the first day here. By the end of todays trainimg I was feverish and delerious. Hope I passed the test. It did seem overly simple training, so I prorba ly did pass. Can't wait to get back home.
So one of my half-brothers randomly contacted my sister about getting some artwork done for him. Turns out he's planning to cycle across the country in an effort to lose weight. It's weird to see the videos on his website fatmancycling . He looks like a mix between my full brother Aaron and myself. I think it's great he's going for this ride. Hopefully he succeeds and gets some kind of recognition. I think i'm going to buy one of his Tee-shirts from his website.
From left to right vanessas dad jack, his wife glenda, vanessa and myself. Were standing on his slab at dusk. We got through about forty percent of his house in the time we were there. Now we are heading into oklahoma to see vanessas grandma before comming back to dallas for our flight late tonight.
This sign was still standing amongst the rubble here in waveland. Once again this place has been wiped out.
This street was full of houses on both sides. Now just slabs and debris. The camera doesn't really do a good job of showing the whole picture. I think an arial photo might. We are able to drive around for miles on streets that look like this.
Vanessa, her dad Jack on his house. We tarped the gap between his cracked roof in an attempt to keep out tonights rain.
Well the moisture got to my phone last night and messed up all the keys. I managed to dry it out overnight. Luckly we're now holed up in a house with air conditioning. The electricity is wacky however and most things don't work. We tarped up vanessa's dads house of rubble since we will be getting about a foot of rain tonight thanks to gods little angel named rita which is coming to slay thousands more tomorrow night.
vanessa, myself and another lady judy (who is a volunteer postal woman) are keeping updated on the new hurricaine and thinking about leaving if it comes much closer. As it is we will definately be getting tropical storm winds and a small chance of hurricaine winds.
we've taken lots of pictures of the destruction with my camera. If I get more time ill try to shrink and post them using my treo. The devistation is massive here in bay st. Louis and in waveland. We have traveled into LA and over to gulfport where the damage doesn't seem as bad. ... Ok well more to come later...
Here's the place we're staying. It was so damn hot all night. I woke up with pools of sweat over my eye balls and went out in our rental car to sleep. Turns out god's a real bitch, he not only sent in a massive hurricaine to take out the power. But now he's got record high temperatures here. I watched all night on the cars temp guage, never dipped below 94 deg.
In mississippi now, about 40 miles from our destination. The woods along the freeway are getting more and more knocked down trees... Its kinda creepy. Its also getting dark now so I can't get a good pic.
We are about 25 miles west of baton rouge. Just went over this funky tall bridge. Should be at vanessa's dad's area in 2 hours. So far we have been seeing lots of FEMA trucks driving in portable home/shelters. There have also been several lumber trucks carrying small tree truncks piled up. Other than that there's plenty of bugs here (96F 90% humidity)
So we left poor d-man with his grandma. We will be in dallas in 2 hours. From there we will be picked up by uncle yogi and get ready for the drive to mississippi.
Kitchen almost done tiling. Gonna have to wait for my trip to mississippi to get done.
welcom to Nat's master bathroom in his condo. Just got done tiling this bathroom. Im getting good at this tiling thing. Maybe I should reconsider my career. I like being cheap immigrant labor.
Well my sparkling personality won me a spot on contestants row just a few minutes ago! Unfortunately I only had the chance to bid twice and didn't get past contestants row. I'll be on TV november 4th when the show airs.
I saw some more "Test" cars on Highway 95 today. Again there was some kind of air flow sensor on the roof. There are two people per car. This time instead of sedans there were two SUVs. you can see the matt black concealment tarp more clearly in these pictures. So now I want to know more about this testing going on in Vegas and how I get in on this. Looks to me like they are testing new cars for fuel performance.
As I was on highway 95 I passed a series of cars (about 5 sedans) which had some type of metal cylinder located on the rear of the roof hooked up to some electrical equipment and possibly other sensers. Now I assume the tube was somekind of Venturi air flow sensor. Most of the cars like the one in this photo had black matt tape around much of the car.
Anybody know what kind of testing they might have been doing?
Got my cast off today. Well also had it put on today. It's a sizing cast of my knee area for a custom ACL brace. I should get the brace in a couple of weeks. This way I can get back to playing B-ball without juking my knee again.
Im just waiting for my sons doctor. Donovan climbed up on the chair and trying to reach what he thinks is a balloon. He even has a word for balloon but it sounds more like "mooon". Anyhow now he's discovered its not a real "mooon". He was also all over the elevator buttons here.
Holy cow, I came here just before 5pm and im still waiting 2 hours later. These bastards shut down half the windows at 6 pm so the last 50 of us have to wait twice as long. I think I am the very last person to be served here today.
At least now i'll be ready to ride on the streets.
Here's some pics of my new RoadStar. I found the ad in the Cycletrader.com website and called the owner. Turns out he was a Corrections officer for Metro. I fell in love with the bike right away. He was asking $8,000 for the bike. The next morning I called him up and offered him $7,500 for the bike as I did really like it. He accepted the $7,500 right away which really burned me up. I hate it when my first offer in negotiations is accepted. Anyrate I got the bike I wanted at what I think is a good price. The sound on this machine is wonderful, and it has torque for days. I can't wait to really break this thing open on the highway. I'll be insuring and registering it this week.
So I just bought this bike today. Its a yamaha road star. I'll post better pics later. This is just one I took with my phone so I could identify the intake filter.
hope J's ready for a ride.
The Journey concert was about 3.5 hours long with an intermission. They played a lot of their new stuff which wasn't nearly as thrilling as the 30 minutes of classic Journey songs they played. Vanessa and I think that the band must have a sore spot for the Steve Perry classics and didn't seem to want to let the "Perry Imitator" out to use his great voice except for their obligatory classic Journey songs. The music was VERY loud at the Aladdin both times I've been there. Journey did sound pretty good, way better than the Spellbinder we saw there a couple of weeks prior.
Vanessa and I are at the journey concert at the alladin. Waiting for the show to start. Oh its starting now.. They're raffling off a motorcycle designed by arlen ness. Nice bike except all the journey airbrushing on it.
So I'm at meadows mall and Donovan is enjoying the gymboree playground here. This is the first time he's climbed the airplane. He's getting very mobile. He loves to play here but I need to constantly watchout for him. There are so many big kids (well over the under 42" max height) that jump around wildly. I've also noticed a lot of other kids like to hit and push. It must be learned from siblings and/or parents. Maybe Donovan is just too young.
Yay! Donovan's Mural is finally completed. Celestia came over this morning and back again tonight. As of 10:30pm the mural is completed. She put in a LOT of work. Vanessa and I both are very impressed. Even Donovan has been admiring the mural yelling "CAUURRR! CAUURR!" and pointing.
This photo shows the closet side of his room including the Pig policeman holding his Starbucks and donut. We got some wood letters from wall-mart to spell his name out as seen in the second photo. We'll probably be adding somthing to each side of his name like his hand-print and foot-print.
