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My Stuff

About Me (pics)
Everything you never wanted to know about me.

My Car
I'm a little nuts about my car!

My Family

Mom
The lady who went through to trouble of my gestation. She calls me George for no particular reason.

Dad
The guy who had the fun part of my being in the world.

Carrie
My oldest sister.

Katelyn
My 'lil sister.

Alex
personal blog
Not blood-related, but just as close.

Annie
The lil sister I never had. I actually have one, but still.

Kenna
Surrogate mother.

Bob
Quasi-dad and maker of the greatest ribs in history.

My Friends

Rachel
personal blog
My fiance.

Johnny 5000
My best friend since the sixth grade.

Gortho
My friend and roommate for the past few years.

Niccole
Friend originally through Katelyn.

Fun Kristan
Her name is Fun Kristan, 'nuf said.

Bish
personal website
The Great Bish. The best programmer I know.

Kurt
personal website
The Intern.

Dan
personal website
Co-worker.

Tall Kristen
personal website
Friend through Katelyn.

My Favorite Sites

Slashdot
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.

The New York Times
All the News Worth Wrapping in Markup.

Google
I hope no explanation is necessary.

The Jargon File
Dictionary of techy slang.

Fark
A daily collection of all the truly odd news on the net. Very funny stuff.

HowStuffWorks
The most fascinating collection of articles about how things work.

Wikipedia
The best encyclopedia ever written. And it's all free!

My Journal - February 2006

2006-02-19
It's about 8:00 am on my last day as 28 year old. I'm sitting on the balcony of our 9th floor hotel room overlooking one of the bays in San Diego and beyond that, the ocean. Pretty good day, I'm thinking.

Our flight on Friday was good. We sat next to a girl from Chisago (sp?) Minnesota who was coming out for her own weekend vacation. She's even taking the exact same flight back on Monday. I don't remember her name, but I'm sure Katelyn does. Did you know that they have rocking chairs all over the place in the San Diego airport? What a great idea. If there's any place where you'd need the relaxation of a rocking chair it's in an airport.

We had booked a convertable at Hertz, but when we got there they didn't have any available. I'm not sure how that works since they knew we were coming for weeks. Anyway, the lady said we could either downgrade to an SUV or Catalac or something else cheeper. Our other option was to upgrade to a sports car at a deep discount because of the mixup. Well, suprise suprise I took the sports car. So, we pulled out of Hertz with a brand new Nissan 350Z. This thing is pretty much loaded: leather heated seats, info displays galore, and bright blue (Katelyn's choice). It had 16 miles on it when we drove away, so we must be the first people to use it.

In the morning it's been in the low 50's. In the afternoon it's warmed up to the low 60's. Everyone around here who knows we're tourists have been almost appologetic about how cold it is. According to the TV it was -20 with a -60 windchill in Minnesota yesterday, so we're not complaining at all. Either way, with the weather the way it is I'm glad we didn't get the convertable. I don't think it's warm enough to use it.

Yesterday we went to Tijuana, Mexico. We parked a few blocks in on the US side and took a bus accross the border. No way I'd take a car down there. We shopped for a few hours which was fun. I bought two ceramic vases for Rachel since she always has fresh flowers on the dining room table. I also picked up a t-shirt for myself and a few other trinkets. Katelyn bought a vase too and a poncho-style blanket and miscellaneous other junk.

Almost every merchant we passed said, "Honeymooners get half price!", even though niether of us have wedding rings and we could be twins we look so alike. Katelyn is incredible at haggling with the merchants. She totally plays up that the wares aren't exactly what she wants and she'd only pay half what she would if it was perfect. It almost always works out that they cave as we're walking out the door. She got a purse for half what was asked. Her poncho negotitation was a thing of beauty too.

So after shopping for a while we were both hungry and thirsty. Both of us were a bit nervous about eating down there because the retarants are pretty questionable as far as cleanliness. So, we sat on the roof of this place and drank Coronas with limes and ate rock-hard tortillia chips and watery salsa. Fast forward a few hours and 8 beers later and we sort of stumbled out of the place. Since we had to drive back to our hotel we decided to sober up a bit by shopping a little longer. After a few more hours we took our new goods and headed back to the bus.

Going through the border to Mexico is a snap. I don't think our bus even slowed down much as we crossed. There wasn't a line or even any border patrol people that I saw. Coming back into the US was a different situation. Our bus stood in line to go through customs for more than a half hour without moving before Katelyn had a conversation with the driver. He said going across on the bus would take at least 3 hours! Our other option was to get off the bus and just walk accross. That line was blocks and blocks long, but anything is better than sitting on the bus, so we got off.

The line went pretty quick. We were up to the customs official/border patrol people in not much more than an hour. When it came to my turn I walked up to the guy and gave him my passport. He said:
"What's in the bag? What are you bringing into the US.", referring to the shopping bags I was holding.
"Pots.", I said. Then he got this strange suprised look on his face. "Pot?!?", he said.
"Yeah, pots.", I said, not getting at all what he was so suprised about.
"Pot?", he said holding his fingers to his mouth like he was smoking a joint. This is when I realized that he thought I was declaring drugs.
"Oh, shit, no!!! Like pots...ah..."
"Ceramic pots?", he said with a little smile.
"Yeah, ceramic pots.", I said.
I was pretty freaked out but he just smiled and handed me back my passport. Katelyn said it's a good think I didn't also have a bottle of Cocacola in my bag. :)

By the time we got back to the hotel we were just pretty much dead to the world. We mustered up enough energy to get dinner at this fancy joint which is in the hotel complex here, which was really good.

So today we're going to hit up Old Town, try and see some aircraft carriers and walk the boardwalk. Tomorrow we're heading back to Minnesota, but I think we'll go to the zoo before we leave.

2006-02-17
So I'm writting this update from 36,000 feet, flying hundreds of miles an hour away from the fridged weather that's moved in to Minnesota. This morning the temperature was -8 degrees and -35 degrees wind chill. That's cold. Oh, that's really cold. That's really fscking cold especially when your dog just refuses to do "her business  for 15 minutes. I mean come on, what smells so damn interesting in the snow?!? No, I'm not bitter. :)

Anyway, all that's over for me for a few days. Katelyn and I will be in San Diego in a few hours enjoying light jacket weather and great mexican food.

2006-02-06
Wow, it feels like a really long time since I've posted anything. I guess it's been just over a month, but it definitely feels like longer.

So, what's been up? Well, January was ok. It's been really, really warm here in the normally fridged Northern Midwest. Hell, for a lot of January the snow was melting. I think we may have even seen 50 degrees!

The playoffs were good. Overall I think it was a pretty darn good football season. It's kind of sad to have the season be over, but like every year I think it's lasted just long enough. I know I'll be jonesing for next season to start in a few months.

I'm home sick today, which is why I've got time to do this update. I spent most of the day in and out of sleep and watching movies. I took a nap in the sun with The Dog. I'll tell you, she really does have the life.

Enough of this, on to some pictures...

Rachel and Chewie in bed.

Chewie laying next to my new camera bag.

Rachel.

The livingroom. I'm not sure why, but I'm on this out-of-focus kick lately.

Chewie.

One of Rachel and my favorite things to do lately is to find a dog on the TV and get Chewie all confused about it...

Chewie trying to touch the dog on the TV. She's a little retarded.

So, I guess that's about it for now. I'll really try to get this updated a little more often. :)

Go to entries for January.