Sunday, November 25, 2007

Thanksgiving in Colorado

Well, I was planning on leaving for Colorado on Wednesday, but the weather ruined that plan. Instead, I spent the day doing homework and getting some quality "me" time. Thursday, I went with Ashley to the Campbell's Thanksgiving celebration in Greely. There were quite a few relatives that even Ashley didn't know, but the food was great. I got a chance to talk with her grandfather, Bob, and he gave me a bit more of his vast knowledge on guns. It was fun. After the Campbell's, Ashley and I drove back and visted my grandma and aunt. They seem to be doing well. We also visited Ashley's grandmother, and she was thrilled to see me. I really need to visit people more often.

Saturday, Ashley needed to catch up with her work, and it was a gorgeous day, so I decided to get really ambitious and clean our garage and make room for a huge bucket freezer. It wasn't too bad, and just when I started to run out of steam, Ashley's mom and uncle showed up to help put everything in place. After that, we started taking down one of the trees in the front yard. Ashley's uncle was very confident that he could do the job, but after a couple of limbs dropped in odd ways, I wasn't so sure. One of them dropped on the roof of the garage, but there's no damage as far as I can tell. Another one, I had to jump back to keep my feet from being hit. Anyway, interesting time.

Today, I finished the rest of the garage cleaning, and got the freezer in place. The thing is a huge commercial bucket freezer, and maybe just maybe, Ashley and I will get to use it for this new food service that Kelly "recommended." (Actually, she just put our name on a referral list and never told us they'd call. Surprisingly, we're still considering it.)

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Wedding!

Yesterday was Chris and Holly's wedding, and it was absolutely wonderful! Ashley and Jackie left the house early, about 10 AM, so they could go have their hair done. I lounged around a bit longer. Finally, at about 2:30, I drove to the event center. I met up with the girls. Most of them were already dressed and ready. I changed into my tux and helped Chris with his. Pictures started at about 4. At first we were missing the best man, Ed, but he arrived with impeccable timing. We took many pictures with just about every configuration of family members and bridal party members possible. During much of the process, Ashley took pictures with her new camera, and she got some excellent shots. After the bridal party was released so the photographer could continue family shots, we mostly sat around, complaining about the lack of a lunch meal.

As the evening waned and the photos wrapped up, guests started to arrive. After what seemed like an eternity, the ceremony began at about 7. Holly looked absolutely wonderful! It was fairly simple, with a general non-denominational order of rites. After the ceremony, we learned that Holly's dress was a convertable! She removed the shawl and train, the girls hitched up a layer in the back, and suddenly, the dress was a uniform floor length, ready for the party!

We re-emerged from the back room, and the reception began. First was a great buffet dinner, for which the bridal party, and especially the bride's maids, jumped directly in line. After everyone had eaten their fill, the DJ directed the guests through the cutting of the cake, the first dance, the father-bride dance, the mother-groom dance, and finally, the bridal party dance. Chris and Holly directed the DJ to break out The Time Warp! I've only seen Rocky Horror once before, and it was a little bit traumatizing, but the dance was fun.

The dancing lasted well into the night. I think it was about 10:30 when we finally started cleaning up the hall. Chris's "hot" cousin had the groom's men help with candestinely decorating the bridal carriage (Chris's station wagon) with window ink and tin cans on strings. After everything was mostly cleaned, Ashley and I left for home, and directly for bed.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Wedding Prep

Well, last weekend was a bit crazy. Friday morning, Kristen was induced into labor with her baby. Ashley decided it was her job to get Kristen through, so she was at the hospital most of Friday and into Saturday. All that time, I was hastily cleaning the house. Saturday morning, my mother arrived, and I spent most of the day with her. In the afternoon, I received the call that Devin had given his mother some trouble coming out, but after an emergency C-section, mother and baby were both wonderful! Sunday I spent more time with Mom, and she came with me on my bus run to Boulder Reservoir. It was a great time, and she found several opportunities to use her new camera. Sunday evening, I went and saw Devin for the first time. Babies are just so tiny when they're first born!

This week I've been a working fool, but at least this time I'm choosing my hours. I need to get some money together for the holidays. I had a physics midterm on Tuesday night that went very well. This weekend has seen many last-minute preparations for Holly's and Chris's wedding. Jackie flew in on Friday afternoon, Saturday was the rehearsal and dinner. Today, the girls are getting nails and makeup ready. Tomorrow is the big day, and I think everything is ready.

I've spent the last couple of day's spare time setting up a project for Ashley. She would like to transfer her home videos on VHS cassette tapes to DVD. It's a great idea, but it will take some work. I've now set up a VCR and a capture card from Pinnacle, but so far I'm having problems. While I'm trying to capture the signal, the audio is fine, but the video is stuck on one frame, and that one frame only shows the top quarter of the picture. I'm sure there's some setting or patch I'm missing, and when I figure this out, I'm going to be very happy. Until then, this is going to bug me.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Wardriving to the next level

Well, I think I've taken my wardriving to the next level. Currently, I'm in the middle of a bus run to DU, and I'm parked in the bus, nowhere close to anything on campus. (Actually right about here.) However, as I type, I'm connected to the infamous "linksys" wireless access point. Someone in one of the nearby houses did the typical home user thing, and just plugged in their router without setting up any security settings. So now, I'm not stuck trying to walk around south Denver trying to entertain myself. Thank you, linksys. How many people can say they've gone wardriving in a 20-ton bus?

In other news, the online music store that I've been using, URGE, has officially shut down, so now I'm stuck finding a new store. It's like PC Club all over again. So for the past couple of days, I've been trying out Rhapsody. My MP3 player, a Sansa e260, is designed to integrate with Rhapsody, and so far I'm impressed. Instead of the way I'm used to doing business, which is buying one track or album at a time, Rhapsody works best as a subscription service. For $15 a month, I have access to almost their entire catalog, including the ability to sync anything to my Sansa. In addition, they have "channels," which are basically dynamic play lists from a particular genre, which allows you to explore music similar to your current library without buying more music. (One of the main drawbacks of using an MP3 player, according to radio enthusiasts, is that you never introduce yourself to new music.) I'm still not convinced that the subscription is going to be easy to bend over and take, but we'll see how much I use these premium features. Features aside, I'm pretty pissed off at the music player program itself, which seems really unstable and buggy. It will stutter and freeze quite often. Maybe it's just a problem with my computer? Time will tell, since I just "acquired" Windows Vista for my desktop computer.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Serving via Transit

Or this post's alternate title, "Since When Am I an 88M?"

This weekend was my unit's drill, and this time we were slated for weapons qualification at Ft. Carson. Now that I'm the only licensed bus driver in the company, my superiors asked me if I could head down with the advance party on Thursday, one day ahead of the bulk of the company. So, Thursday, I woke up bright and early, and headed over to Fitzsimons to meet up with the rest of the advance party. After a bit of confusion initially, we lined up our three HMMWV's and our LMTV, loaded our personal gear and my radio gear, and set out for Ft. Carson. The rest of Thursday was rather dull for me, since it was just the other members of the advance party, all senior NCO's (and most nearing retirement) getting ammo, ranges, and the like lined up for Friday.

Friday morning, we acquired our bus, and everyone headed out to the range to start setting up. The company showed up earlier than we expected, so we went back and shuttled them out to the range. The company quickly got started on grouping and zeroing. I was called back a few times to shuttle the Command Sergeant Major and the Colonels back and forth to range control in the bus. By the early afternoon, we moved on to qualification. I headed out on the first firing order, and hit 27 out of 40 on my first try, which is passing by a large margin. I would have liked to try again, but time moved rapidly and soon we were forced to close the range for the night. After chow at the dining facility, First Sergeant Bernal gathered all of the enlisted soldiers. He had everyone leave their weapons in the care of the officers, and we trekked out to the bowling alley. Everyone filed into the little watering hole connected to the bowling alley, and then he bought everyone a round of drinks to recognize two outgoing NCO's. SFC Sparkman is retiring after the December drill, and MSG Kanan is transferring to a different unit to be deployed. They're both great guys and great NCO's, and they've both helped me personally during my time with the unit. After 1SG's toast, the karaoke machine was fired up. That was the beginning of the end. Dupio got up several times, as did SPC Justice, the new chaplain's assistant. They even did a duet of "Summer Love" from Grease! Someone volunteered me, Pritchett, and SGT Nieto. I never figured out who, but I suspect either Pritchett was pulling our leg, or it was MSG Kanan. SGT Nieto bailed to the bathroom before the song started, so SGT Mathisen took his place, and the three of us sang a horrible but entertaining rendition of "Old Time Rock-and-Roll."

Saturday morning, we went out to the range and tried to cook off our ammunition as quickly as possible. (It's difficult to turn back in to the depot, so everything you take, you use.) Just for fun, the controllers opened up the long targets, everything from 200m to 800m. I think I may have hit one of the 800's, but it was hard to tell. If I did, it was a lucky shot. After that, we cleaned out the billets, I cleaned out the bus, and was assigned to drive the new company commander, CPT Sherard, in one of the HMMWV's. We didn't get 5 miles out of the gate before MSG Diehl's vehicle ran out of fuel. We went to the next exit for fuel, brought it back, and put it in, only to find that the fuel filter had run dry as well. It took MSG Diehl about 30 minutes to charge the system, and we got back en route. After returning to Fitz, we quickly put away our gear, and called it an evening.

Sunday was slated for a half day, with only one major goal, the PT test. I had been training for 3 weeks, but I still felt nervous. Even so, I was able to get my minimum on the push-ups and sit-ups with energy to spare. But then, once again, the run was out of my ability. I ran 2 miles in 17:28, a full minute and a half short of my age group's maximum time. That's my best time ever at this elevation, but still quite short of passing. I just need to keep pushing, keep improving.

Now, this evening, Ashley and I are over at Holly and Chris's new town home. They've just had internet installed, so I'm working on my Arabic presentation while the other three are playing Age of Mythology. Ashley's been getting into that game recently, and I guess you could call this her first LAN party! Excellent! I guess I'll have to install Age of Mythology and join in next time.