Probably not my worst day ever...

But it's not the best either.

The day started off just like most Thursdays. I don't have to be anywhere until 9:30 so sometimes I sleep in, (sometimes I sleep late) sometimes I get up when Johanna does and I get some things done around the house. This morning the birds were making a little noise and I had some stuff to do, so I got up around 7:30 and I cleaned up the kitchen a little bit, I even got a chance to fold some laundry in preperation for our trip to the beach next week.

With all of that done, I took a shower, threw some bikes on the car (one headed to the shop, one for the ride later) grabbed my iPod (with some fresh podcasts) and started to drive to my Java class. This was one of the few times that I wasn't in a rush.

So, I am about half way there (and I almost took a different route) I am headed eastbound on Elloit Ave. and a car on my left starts to roll from the stop sign. I can pretty easily see that if this thing keeps rolling that I am going to get T-boned. There was a slim chance that I would get through the intersection before the other car got the me. So, I kept driving, tried some evasive maneuvers and held on tight.

Well...I managed to not get T-boned but I didn't come out unscathed. I am fine but the Honda took a beating. The woman hit the rear drivers side panel and she must have hit the wheel as well. She sent me spinning 180 degrees and I skidded to a stop basically in a parked space, facing the wrong direction. Fortunately, there is no parking on the street or I would have been bounced around like that Plinko game from The Price it Right. I am also lucky that she didn't pull out just a little faster or a little sooner because I would have been testing the strength of whatever bracing the Honda engineers decided to put in the drivers side door.

All said and done, I am ok. The woman was insured, two witnesses stopped to wait for the cops to show up. The other driver was charged. The court date is in two weeks. I am glad I was wearing my seat belt. I am glad that I saw it coming and I could brace for it. I am glad she was insured.

I don't really know how much more I should tell but the story continues. Maybe I should just give you some facts.

When the woman gets out of her car, she isn't wearing any shoes.

She had a passenger in the car when she hit me. Once she got her car out of the middle of the road, the passenger gathered his things, and walked away never to be seen again. I never got a good look at him so I can't tell you what his deal is. I can only assume that the passenger had his reasons to cut out before the police arrived.

When the woman got out of the car one of the first things she said was that she just got her license a month ago. She looked to be about 40 or at least 35 with several years of hard living. She was also worried that they woudl take her kid away. Who I can only assume was the child in the back seat.

I don't know what her deal was. The cop made her leave her car and walk home. She was obviously compromised and I don't know how or why.

A Quick Test and a Couple of iPod Comments...

So, I am mostly doing this to test out the email functionality that I enabled.  I actually stumbled upon it when checking out the Bolog on fixpert.  I poked around Blogger for a couple of minutes and I found it.  So, I am in Gmail right now typing an email to my secret Blogger address. 

Anway, if this works, I want to ask all of you out there about iTunes 4.9.  I haven't upgraded from 4.7 because I figure, it it ain't broke...

But they seem to be trying to draw everyone in with this Podcasting thing.  I am just wondering if it's any good.  It seems like a neat idea.  If anyone has any experience, please leave a comment.  Does this mean I will need a bigger Pod?

This actually brings me to another point.  Since I got my iPod (only 7 months ago) I have become increasongly impressed with Apple and their product/pricing structure.  It seems that they are always adjusting their available products to hit certain price points and remove redundant products.

When the 20 Gig iPod came out, they discontinued the 15 Gig...and now that the 60 gig is the same price that the 40gig used to be, instead of pricing the 40 gig in between the two, the got rid of it.  I also guess that their market research told them that the whole color thing is taking off so they are done with the 30 gig and our only options for a new iPod are a 20 gig iPod photo or a 60 gig iPod photo. 

It's a race to see who will take over the world first, Google or Apple.  Apple is doing well, but I still have my money on Google.

-peace.

Last Wedding for a while

Chrissy and Devan are now somewhere in the British Virgin Islands. After over a year of planning, they pulled off what I would consider a flawless wedding. It's really hard to manage an event, centered around yourself (but not really about yourself) that includes 150+ guests and 30+ vendors. There are bound to be some oversights. There is no way the schedule is going to stay together. Someone is going to go crazy and have a complete meltdown in the middle of the ceremony.

Well. None of that happened. If you know responsible, organized Devan and his new wife, you aren't surprised. They managed to pull off a dual (Hindu-Christian) ceremony in style and grace. I am pround of them.

Pictures are coming soon, I accidentally published this post. I am such a noob.

Edit: So I looked through my pictures from the weekend, they are mostly crap. but there are a couple of good ones.




The first one isn't actually from the wedding. It's from BWI airport. Did you know they had cyborgs at the B terminal?

Wonderful Weekend in Vermont

Johanna and I came back from one of the coolest weddings last weekend. My buddy Ben got married to a really cool woman Mollie that he met our senior year at Brown.

I think every wedding that I have been to has had somewhere betweeen 100 and 200 guests...ours was.

Ben and Mollie broke the mold and had a 45 person gathering in the hills of Vermont. Several close friends and lots of family gathered at the Wildflower Inn and spent the weekend hiking, swimming, making smores, playing badmitton and throwing horseshoes. There was also a little bit of airhockey and fooseball but I think almost everyone spent most of their time outside.
I think this post would be better served by more pictures and less commentary.

Here are a couple of shots for everyone.

Here is Ben awaiting his bride...

How many people get a rainbow on their wedding day?

I really like this shot. I was just playing around with the camera and this just worked.

If you would like to see more check here. You may need to be a member of imagestation to view the album but you can check out bugmenot to get a login if you don't want to be bugged.^*


* Thanks to DGanes for that link.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's been almost two weeks since it happened but it was cool enough that I still feel I should share it with everybody.

My B-day was June 10^th which I spent most traveling to Boston by way of Burlington, Vermont. The Tuesday before we were planning to have dinner with some friends of ours (fixpert and barfington) or at least that's what I thought. I cam home on Tuesday ready to go for a little road ride before dinner and I saw a familiar bike on our lawn, but not one that I was expecting. I didn't really think much of it...I just didn't know how she found out about the ride. Then another mystery rider shows up and I am really confused.

Johanna let's the cat out of the bag and informs me that this is a pre-celebration ride.
"It's a celebrationBitches!"

It turned out that just about everyone we know in town was coming over for Beer, Bar-B-Q, Nerf guns and balloon animals. I had a great time and it was good to see everyone at once.

A couple of days later one of these showed up in the mail.



It's a portable speaker system for the iPod. It can be run off of batteries or off of an AC adaptor. It's also a docking station, which is a bonus because I was thinking of getting a second USB cable anyway and this already fits the bill. It's definitely small enough to travel with but the sound sis big enough for a backyard BBQ or anywhere around the house.

If you are lookingfor something to broadcast your pod, this thing is where it's at.

I know I know

It's been a while since I have provided you with a worthwile post. Some might say that I haven't even done that once.

Anyway, I have been crazy busy with work, weddings and this Java class that I am taking. Actually, I just finished my first quiz and now I am going to bed.

When I do have a minute, I can tell you all about my friends' new dog, Pizza, an awesome wedding that I went to last weekend, and maybe even a thing or two about my birthday last week.

For now...you will just have to wait.

Stupid birds

Since my last post I have made pretty good progress on the puzzle. I pretty much matched all of the water pieces and I have been working steadily on getting the rocks to match up. All in all I would say that I have gotten through about 40% of the puzzle.

It's pretty fun and it's something that I can just do a little of and walk away from. It's also nice because I can sit in the living room, where the birds are, and they like it when I just hang out.

Every once in a while they will fly over and try to get in on the puzzle action. It would be a problem if they just stomped around on the loose peices but they usually head for the parts that are together and try to take the puzzle apart. It's not really a problem because I just pick them up and put them back on my shoulder and they get the idea.

Well, I think they were just waiting for the right time. I was pretty tired on Sunday so after lunch I decided to take a nap.

That's when they struck

I was asleep for about 45 minutes, when Johanna woke me up, I sat up on the couch, looked over towards the table and there were 3 cockatiels feverishly disassembling the puzzle. Not 1, not 2, but all 3! They never do anything together. Sometimes you think they hate each other...

Not on Sunday, I think as soon as I fell asleep they went to town. They got the entire puzzle almost completely apart.

GAHHHHHHH!!!!