• The Slumber Bear: One of the few calming things for babies is white noise. It’s the shhh noise we all know so well. A tip: Do it loudly. When babies are in the womb, the sound of water running by their ear is akin to white noise, and it’s reportedly as loud as a leaf blower. Another Tip: We took the bear skin off, and just use the noise making guts.
• Boppies: When the kids are little, they can’t hold their own head up. When it’s feeding time, you’ll either have to hold them yourself, or have something to hold them for you. That’s the idea behind the Boppy. It may look like a neck pillow for Big Foot, but it’ll give you a spare hand for that beer of yours.
• Probiotics: Babies typically don’t digest food well early on. This is one of the causes of colic kids. So, just like a wastewater treatment plant, you can help get the pipes working by introducing bacteria in your child’s diet. Some of you might sound appalled, but you’ve still got billions of E-Coli in your belly right now.
• Bouncy Seats: I don’t know why, but a bouncing baby is usually a happy one. If baby has eaten, and has a clean diaper, and is still crying, the bouncy seat should be your next plan of attack.
• Swing: Another great way to chill your baby out is to set them in a swing. The bouncy seats are a great way to soothe babies quick, but it still requires you to sit there and bounce them (we’ve yet to find the automatic bouncy seat).
• The Happiest Baby On The Block: The doctor behind this DVD is a bit odd, but his methods work 100%. I knew nothing about raising kids before watching this (the day before Mason and Charlotte were born). Within a couple hours of using the methods described, I was better at calming the kids than anyone else was. This DVD is definitely a must.

I’m sure there’s some stuff out there that some of you have come to rely on a bunch. I’d love to hear what everyone else is using to get by the hardest times. These days, with the help of the previously mentioned tools, things are a lot of fun.

We’ve done a bunch to the house to prepare. We’ve had the carpets cleaned, moved rooms around, and got the nursery setup. It’s been an interesting process. Anyways, here’s some pics of everything.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corycollier/3870999911/in/set-72157622187046976/

We found out about Charlotte first. In technical terms, doctors are looking for Hamburgers and Hot-Dogs. So, the first thing was a hamburger.

The second was the Hot Dog.

So, I guess I’ll be playing with guns and barbies. It’s great news for Melissa and I.

So, on my first day back home after SXSW, Melissa and I went to the doctor for an ultrasound. While, I thought I saw more than one baby initially, I figured I was crazy. I apparently wasn’t crazy. I can’t begin to describe the emotion when the nurse said (quite technically) “There are two babies”.

My heart started racing, Melissa’s hands got clammy, we were both saying ‘oh my god’ a lot. It’s kinda funny, ’cause I always wanted twins. The thought of getting the whole ‘baby’ thing out of the way definitely appeals to me. Melissa thinks I jinxed the whole thing. It’s especially surprising, since neither of us have twins in our family.

Well, here are some pictures of the awesomeness:

I was warned ahead of time that a costume was an absolute must for the day. I was also warned that the festivities started early and it was unlikely that any work would get done for the day. One of the major take-home points I got from talking to folks who had been part of celebrations in years past, was ‘Go big or go home’. 

I’m an over-the-top kind of guy. The thought of being challenged gets my blood flowing. When I heard there was a bit of competition behind the costume contest, I was pretty excited to be a part of it.

I’m also a really busy guy. Work has been very busy lately and I’ve little time for my side project, Florida Death Metal. Any spare time I’ve got lately I have to use wisely.

So the night before Halloween I got motivated. I left work on time and went looking for pieces to make my costume decision: Leatherface. 

After hours of going from one store to another looking for one item or another, I was exhausted. To make matters worse, when I went to my neighbors house to borrow a chainsaw, I found out he didn’t have one. I was going to have to leave the house early that morning and go to Home Depot to rent one. That decision ultimately cost me $130 bucks, that I’m still pissed about.

I spent awhile taking clothes of mine and tearing them up to make the costume authentic (or at least, as authentic as I could). The end pictures don’t give enough justice to how much I worked on the costume. I should have started earlier. Then again, I always wait until the last minute. 

So, the next day I got my chainsaw and got to the office early. I deployed a sprint’s worth of code to a live server before other folks showed up. I had to get it done before I wasn’t able to do anything.

The custom at Push / Hydra, is to stand in front of the door, and cheer / jeer costumes as people walk in. Since I got there early, I avoided this. However, most everyone else got the full entrance treatment.

There were a myriad of costume ideas. From Domo, Jack Sparrow, and Operation (the game); everyone did a great job of bringing their costume game on. There was even a faux WWDC-type conference by a would-be Steve Jobs. Few things are as funny as a serious conversation about the iSuck.

After that, the partying started. I wound up a little tied down dealing with bugs on the server deployment. My time chasing bugs was limited though; I wound up spending most of my time with a full mug, and a lot to talk about.

We partied _all_ day.

After a full day of partying at the office, it was time to move the party elsewhere. So, we all went to our favorite bar downtown, Lizzy McCormacks. I had a few more Guinness while I was there, but I had already gotten pretty much to my limit before I even got there.

Melissa showed up a few hours later, in full Sarah Palin attire. I was really impressed by how well she pulled it off. Sometimes she still surprises me.

Melissa wasn’t the only Sarah Palin: Kristen came out as Sarah Palin as well. That made for a whole lot of photo-op moments throughout the night. I’ve never seen so many people stop someone to ask for a picture with them in my life.

Our buddies Sarah and Dave showed up pretty late, and by then all I wanted was Motrin and my bed. I wasn’t much fun to be around, and for that, I’m sorry. Melissa and I left a short time after they got there.

So, Halloween of 2008 was a real endurance event of fun. I had a great time with everyone. I’m really lucky to have such a good group of friends here. Thanks to everyone who hung out.

A huge thanks to Push and Hydra for promoting an environment that’s so awesome to work in. I’ve said it before, but I’m really glad to work with these guys.

The Drive There.

Did I mention, we decided to rent an E-150 8 passenger van to get us up there? Well, that was the transportation idea. It seemed like a good idea at the time. There were 6 of us going up there from Melissa’s immediate family (parents, sister, sister’s boyfriend, and us). 

We left Thursday evening, around 6:30 from Altamonte Springs, heading to Savannah, GA for an overnight stay on the way up to NC. That was probably the most fun the drive was the entire time. We played the alphabet game on the way, and that’s always awesome (Thanks Molly for introducing me to it). 

Friday morning, we were up bright and early. We gassed up the van, to the tune of $90+ for three quarters a tank. The price of gas right now is a real bummer. I’m not waiting on our irresponsible government to figure that out. I’m staying home .

So, we got back on I-95 and headed north. We had the occasional pit-stop along the way, but we made decent time to NC. All was great until we got near where we were supposed to exit. I’d been relying on Mike (Melissa’s dad) for directions. Mike and Gail (Melissa’s mom) had been to our destination a lot. It’s one of Gail’s childhood homes. So I figured relying on them for directions was a sound idea.

Well, maybe …

First of all, Mike is a brilliant man. He can talk in depth about topics with the best of folks. He’s a really smart guy, who I have a lot of respect for (even if he does vote for democrats). However, when it comes to directions, locations, and driving; not so much. It’s weird too, since Mike’s been all over the world. If anyone should have a good idea on how to get around, you’d think it’d be him. Nope.

So, after we got turned around a little bit on our way to where some of Melissa’s family was staying in NC, outside of our final destination, we stopped for a late lunch. While they were eating, I did the sensible thing: I bought a map. After a bit of researching, I’d figured out the how and where of what we needed to do.

The First Stop

So, we showed up at where Glenn & Judie were staying, just outside of Bath, NC. It’s a small town along part of the innumerable miles of interior coastline of NC. The place itself was pretty awesome, built up on stilts with huge panel windows overlooking the sound. It’s the kind of place a writer or artist (or me) would go for months to work on some masterpiece.

When we got there, I noticed something wrong with my stomach. I had emergency surgery a few years back to repair my intestines, and because of that I have a pretty large scar on my abdomen, which crosses my belly-button. Well, I noticed a large inflammation of scar tissue surrounding my belly-button. It hurt pretty bad, and I chalked it up to the long hours inside of the van.

The entire Clausing side of Melissa’s family was there. The Clausings are a branch of the Raburns, for whom the reunion is dedicated. It’s a lot to explain, so just follow me here.

Gordon (the patriarch of the Clausings) & Carmen, Gary & Maria, Jeff & Gina, Glenn & Judie, Joe & Gloria, and of course Mike & Gail and all of their associated kids, Jenna & Evan, CJ & Austin & Cassidy, Brian & Allison, Sara & Josh, Melissa & Megan, were all there. It turns out it was Allison’s birthday too. I think she turned 14. She also freakin grew up a whole lot. The last I remember seeing her, she was 4′-6″. She’s about 5′-7″ now. Geez…

As the day faded to night, and the mosquitos started to begin their assault, we all got back the van and followed the caravan of cars to our final destination. We were staying in a double-wide trailer in Fairfield, NC. 

Now, I’m sure the sound of a double-wide doesn’t sound appealing, especially in such a remote area of the world. However, I grew up pretty honky, so I’m generally cool with stuff like that. 

Until I got there …

The Living Quarters.

We showed up at the Hyde-Away Motel around 10:00pm that night. We’d had a pretty long day, leaving from Savannah that morning, staying around Bath, NC for a few hours, and after a 90 minute additional drive, we were at our lodging location. When we finally got inside of the trailer, it was a quick disappointment. The trailer itself was muggy, and everything seemed generally dirty. Not dirty like grime everywhere, but dirty like, this stuff probably had more residual human skin lying around that I care to think of.

Melissa and I had the option to sleep in separate twin beds, or share one. Since she’s pretty squeamish, she made the decision we’d share a twin bed. We picked the one against a corner in the room, so I wouldn’t have to worry about falling off in the middle of the night. 

One of the other things keeping us up at night, was gunfire. It wasn’t hunting season, so I didn’t understand why we’d hear the sound of shotguns about every minute or two. It turns out, that a local farmer had the idea to build a contraption that fires blank gunshots when anything gets close to his crop. The idea is to scare away geese and deer. The result, is that it sounds like your in a war zone.

We woke up the next morning, after a very bad night’s sleep, we got up and got ready for the actual family reunion. My stomach was hurting pretty bad, and it looked like the inflammation I noticed the day before had gotten significantly worse. I don’t have health insurance, so a mysterious medical problem while out in the middle of nowhere seemed pretty unnerving. 

The Reunion

We packed up everyone and headed out to Raburn family house. It’s located just outside of downtown Swan Quarter. Don’t get the wrong idea though, the house was also surrounded by corn fields, and not much else. It’s a very old house, dating back to 1840. The front of the house is an addition added sometime in the early 1900′s. It has that old house smell that’s both charming and unsettling. There’s a lot of history there, and it felt pretty good to see a little bit of it.

After everyone else arrived at the house, we spent the afternoon getting to know each other, catch up with those we already knew, and play a few games. 

One of those games was kickball. 

I’m a pretty big dude. I used to work out all the time, so I’m also a marginally athletic guy too. Playing kickball with the family seemed like something I could do pretty well, even if my stomach was hurting like hell. There was about 70 people there for the reunion, so the teams were split up into 4 different teams of generally equal caliber members.

I was the pitcher for our team, as well as a home-run kicker too. 

And then I got hurt. 

There’s not a lot of dignity in a family kickball injury. I’m not gonna mis-represent the incredible lameness of landing on an ankle and screwing it up. However, when I fell on my ankle, and head snaps, pops, and crackles, I was not amused. It hurt like hell. Compounded with an already bad abdomen infection, I was pretty much worthless. Brian and John were able to carry me to a chair, where I stayed for the rest of the time we were there. It sucked a lot.

We left after a few more hours and headed to the church for dinner. The dinner was catered by a local woman, who apparently knew how to cook very very well. I stayed in a chair the whole time, collecting pictures from people for use on the family website. It was a pretty good time.

Afterwards, we went back to the trailer. Melissa was pretty upset about staying there again. Because of this, she did the best thing she could think of, to get over it: She got hammered. After a while, she convinced me to hobble over to one of the family’s rooms there so we could play Taboo. 

If you’ve never played Taboo before, you ARE missing out. A drunken game of Taboo is about the best value fun you can possible imagine with your friends. 

The next morning, I woke up to considerable ankle and abdomen pain. I checked my stomach out, and the inflammation was black and blue, and leaking infection. I managed to drain a little of it, which was completely horrible. It was blood and infection mixed together, and it smelled horrible. Definitely an infection.

I was able to collect myself enough to make it to church though. We sat towards the back, and I didn’t stand for the hymns. I think some of the folks there took offense to that. To them: I’m very sorry. 

The Beach

Afterwards we drove out towards Nag’s Head, NC. I guess it’s customary for the family to go out there during a get together in Swan Quarter. Well, this time it was just the 6 of us in the van that made it out there. We stayed in a hotel on the beach, which was an amazing step up from the previous place we’d been sleeping at.

When we got there, everyone else went out to the sand dunes around the area. There are sand dunes out there, that are probably 50 to 60 feet high. They’re huge, so everyone drove out there to walk around. 

I didn’t go. I stayed behind, to drain the rest of the infection from my belly. This time, there was no smell (thank god), and much less to drain. I used a heaping amount of hydrogen peroxide to clean it. That turned into a routine which seems to have paid off.

The Drive to South Carolina

The next day we drove to Charleston, SC as a pit-stop on our way back home. The drive to I-95 from Nag’s head is down 64, a 2 lane road though the middle of nowhere. Mike had been driving, on account of my injuries, so it took about 4 hours to get to I-95. We stopped shortly after reaching the interstate for a bathroom break. I was feeling car-sick, so I took over the driving responsibilities.

Downtown Best Western – Charleston, SC

We got to Charleston pretty early, about 4:30pm. We checked in and carried our stuff to our hotel rooms. When we got in our hotel rooms, I think Melissa wanted to cry. They were awesome. It became apparent then, how bad our stay in Fairfield had really been. We were in a Best Western, which shouldn’t raise any eyebrows for quality of lodging. Still, it was the kind of room you’d be stoked to sleep in anytime. They even had granite countertops in the bathroom. 

After re-cleaning the infection and a shower, we headed out to downtown Charleston to do a little sight-seeing. Charleston is a pretty cool place. It’s not the type of downtown I’m used to living near Orlando. Still it’s a cool place, with a lot of history.  

I hobbled around with everyone for as long as I could. Toward the end of the night my ankle was really killing me. It started to rain, and that was the catalyst to get us off the streets and back to the hotel.

The Drive Home

The next day, we packed up and headed home. By this time, we’d all had enough of each other. That’s not to say we were yelling at each other, or rude at all. However, it was apparent that all of our individual personality quirks were starting to stretch thin with each other. Megan’s constant insisting we have the radio on, Mike’s constant direction giving, everyone’s insisting we listen to the lamest music imaginable; I was ready to be done.

We got back to Megan’s house around 3:00pm. It didn’t take long to unpack her’s and Mickey’s stuff. Afterwards, we headed to my place and unpacked Melissa and my stuff, in the rain. Mike and Gail couldn’t stay long, since they needed to return the rental van before 4:45pm that day or be charged an additional day’s worth of rental. 

The left our house around 3:30pm and headed to the Thrifty Rental Car by the airport. It’s about a 45 minute drive out there, so we figured they’d be fine.

Apparently not…

The Rental Car Debacle

It turns out there was a fairly serious accident on I-4, so it took them twice as long to get to the rental location. What’s worse, they waited to get gas until they were close to the drop off. The local gas station there charges $5.49 a gallon for gas. I guess the gas station has been the subject of a lot of controversy, since it’s basically akin to price gouging. Regardless, Mike and Gail paid the extra for gas, then got robbed the additional hundred bucks for not getting the van back in time.

For all of my character differences with Mike, my heart really goes out to him and Gail. They did their best to have a family vacation everyone could remember. I can’t thank them enough for all they did, even if I’m going to remember the trip largely, by how much of a pain in the ass it was. I don’t care, I love you guys.

Also a million thanks to the greater Raburns family. I’ve always been made to feel welcome among them, and I appreciate it a lot.

We almost didn’t go. It took us about 2 hours to get to the area, where we quickly got lost. After about a half hour figuring out where we were supposed to go, we made another 15 minute trip to the campgrounds. When we got there, we were alarmed by a massive line to get into the campgrounds.

A local field was filling up with campers in a modern-day Woodstock type of outdoor free-for-all. A young staff member walked by claiming that nobody else would get inside. We waited anyways, and were rewarded with entry. The dilemma was taxing on us though. Melissa and I were quite grumpy when we finally got in.

Once we did get in, we made a bee-line through the open field mayhem. People stood in the middle of roads, while others (cops even) walked right in front of us. It was like being around a swarm of mindless zombies. When we finally were parked we quickly poured ourselves a well-deserved beverage.

Cell phone reception in Ginnie Springs is practically non-existent. So when we parked (and drank), we didn’t know how to find her sister and company. Me being me though, I figured “walk first, think later”. That worked out pretty well for us. Within 15 minutes, we’d found Megan and the gang. Mickey helped me get some of our stuff from our car that we’d left behind.

We tried to setup our tent once we got our stuff settled. This proved to be an issue. We borrowed the tent from Melissa’s parents for the trip. Nobody had used the tent in 15 years. It turns out, the tent was missing vital components. Enter Dan. A huge thanks goes out to Dan for having a big spare tent for us. Dan, I really owe you.

We hung out for while, before we all made the trip to the head of the springs. The standard procedure is to get to the head of the springs, where you float on a tube to the end of the park. So piled into a large pickup truck with a cartoon-like amount of tubes spilling over the sides of it.

The trip to the head of the river was like being on a roller-coaster ride. The roads at the campground aren’t paved. They’re also only big enough for 2 compact cars to be on at the same time. So, you can imagine what it was like to have multitudes of big trucks driving on it, over loaded with rafts and tubes and drunken people.

Once we got to the top, we made our way into the water. There were 10 of us, with rafts tied togher with cheap twine. One of the larger rafts held a cooler filled with beer. The water was pretty cold too. The whole trip down the river takes about two and a half hours.

After our trip, we made it back to our campsite. I went back to our car to get more of our stuff, which was a reasonable distance away with a barb wire fence, and a chicken wire fence in the way. Melissa helped me out with some stuff a little later in the evening.

We cooked bratwursts for dinner on a grill that Brian brought with him. Everyone had brought something to cook, so there was a sizable sampling of food to go around.

After dinner, the reality of our environment really started to dawn on me. We were surrounded by thousands of kids, probably no more than 21, camping in a place that had public restrooms nearby. Car after car blared gangster rap, which was hilarious given the surroundings. Folks used fog horns, and sirens in off road golf carts. Others lit off fireworks.

The friends we were with were getting super hammered. It was cool, but a little unnerving. The sheer volume of liquor that our friends were drinking was reason enough to be concerned. Add to that however, that we were camping, and the whole thing was a little terrifying. Don’t get me wrong: we had a good time. But the craziness of the event was amazing.

We fell asleep (I don’t know how, it was super loud outside) around midnight. Every so often we’d wake up to some crashing sound, or cluster of fireworks, or fog horn. Around 5am, we woke up to some of our buddies outside trying to get one of our friends to his tent.

The story goes: he was incredibly drunk, and they were helping him walk to his tent. He whipped out his pecker, and started peeing. He was inadvertently peeing on them. They let go of him. He stumbled into my tent. I put my foot up to prevent him from falling into me. He bounced off of my foot, and fell to the ground beside my tent.

Melissa and I heard a few things while that was going on. Quotes that we’ll remember forever. Things like:

• ” … dude, you pissin’ on my leg … “
• ” … shit, his dick is hangin’ out …”
• ” … yo, get his leg … “

So when we woke up the next morning, it was quite interesting to see the rest of the gang crawl out of their tents. One of the couples argued about the previous night’s insanity. Other folks rested late. Around noon, we all piled up in the truck again for another trip down the river.

It’s funny, the kind of things that go on there. We watched one girl take her pants off to pee in front of us, while another group of people threw water balloons at us. That’s pretty much normal at Ginnie Springs on a holiday weekend.

After our second time down the river, we packed up and left. It was a fun time, but exhausting. If any one wants to head out there, let me know. I’d love to go back.

Melissa and I went to Tennessee for a wedding of our friends, Taylor and Jason. We had the chance to catch up with a bunch of friends. We managed to evade trouble. We also nearly died. Overall, it was a really good time.

Wednesday

We headed to the airport on Wednesday afternoon. We got there a bit late, but we still made it on time. The only problem was, our flight crew didn’t make it on time. So we didn’t leave Orlando until 9:15. We were supposed to hang out with friends in downtown Knoxville that night. Instead, we headed straight to our hotel, and to sleep.

Thursday

The next morning, we checked out of the hotel, and headed to downtown Knoxville. Melissa might have been on vacation, but I was not. I had to find a Wifi spot, and she was supposed to go sightsee while i worked. Instead, she hung out with me, while we sat at a coffee shop with internet access.

We left there to pick up some friends from the airport. It turns out the itinerary we had for them was completely wrong. We waited, needlessly, at the airport for 2 hours before they finally arrived.

We all headed back to our new hotel, got checked in, and went out for drinks. The night was fun, though we didn’t overdo it.

Friday

The next day, I stayed in the hotel room and worked, while Melissa and everyone else went out around town.

Melissa got back to the room around 2:30pm and got me up so we could make the rehearsal dinner at the venue in Maryville, TN about 2 hours later. I was reticent to leave my coding duties, but Melissa is coercive.

Funny thing about guys; 1 guy wears nice clothes somewhere, and other guys line up to do the same. Not me. I wore jeans and a hat on backwards (of course). As it turns out, I was the one wearing the appropriate attire for the event. Lesson: “Don’t Follow”.

Go Me.

So, after we got back from there, we went out to the local bar (walking distance) for drinks. We did a lot of horsing around, and I got to meet some cool people too. Scott and Dawn are friends with the former drummer of The Absence, an awesome Death Metal band from Tampa, FL.

On our way back from the bar, Jason showed just how nuts he and his buddies are. They were chasing each other around. One of his friends got in his car, and hit Jason with his car. It was hilarious. It was terrifying, but Jason was ok and it was really funny.

Saturday

The next day was the wedding. It was early in the morning (10am), at Ridge Valley Farms, a very nice venue in a picturesque part of Tennessee. It was a really nice wedding. I’d say more, but hey, it was a wedding. Taylor was beautiful, and we all hung out. Woo Hoo!

So, around 1:30pm, we left there and headed back to the hotel, for a well deserved nap.

Around 5:30, we all got up and got ready to go downtown for the evening. It took 2 vans to get all of us (about 20) to the first bar of the evening. That bar had some pool tables upstairs, and they brewed their own beers. It’s hard to beat that sort of thing. So, I had a few stouts.

I played pool for a while, and was doing pretty well at first. I was doing well, until Dawn, who hadn’t played pool in years, played me. She beat me. Then she played someone else, and beat them. So I went for the rematch, and she beat me again. I was heckled about this, a lot.

We left there, and walked down the street. We walked for a while, until we found an irish pub. It looked cool enough, however, they wouldn’t let us in. The crowd we were with was pretty rowdy, and bartenders were calling around town to let other bars know to not let us in. Our reputation was literally preceding us.

We did manage to get into another bar, where we were about as welcome by the locals as venereal disease. I can’t count the number of rude looks we got from people there. A lot of folks left. It was awkward.

After we got our individual cabs back to the hotel, a few of us met up in one of our hotel rooms. We nearly had the whole 3rd floor of our hotel booked. Anyways, a few of us met up for some Texas Hold ‘Em. It was a smoking room (dammit), and I played poker with everyone until 6 in the morning, when I was defeated. I went back to the room, a little broker, and red-eyed from all of the smoke.

Sunday

Melissa and I got up that morning, with an idea that we should do something fun, before we had to be at the airport (around 5pm). We were carpooling with our buddies Trinity and Hal (recently married), who were also eager to go out and do something.

We decided we’d go to the mountains, since it was a relatively close drive and seemingly well worth the trip. It took a while but we finally got to where we though we’d finish our mountain trip. It was scenic and we marveled at the cool view of the valleys below.

We were on our way back, when we reached a fork in the road. Trinity and Hal had been to this part of the mountains a few days earlier, and turned right at this intersection. A lookout over a dam was to the left. So, we turned left.

After few miles of some of the most amazingly curvy and windy roads I had ever been upon, we wound up at the lookout over a dam about a mile downstream from us. We stopped for pictures. A traveler who also stopped told us, that if we continued on our current path, we’d go through The Tail Of The Dragon, the curviest, and most dangerous stretch of road in the country.

So, we went for it

I have never seen Melissa so scared in her life. The road is, in fact, the most unbelievably winding path I have ever even heard of. I can’t begin to do justice to just how amazing this stretch of road is. What I can say is that it’s awesome.

About a half hour into our trip, we realized that we were going to need to get to a gas station soon. That’s about the time we noticed mile-markers on the side of the road. We also noticed that they were descending in number. We hoped this would lead us to a gas station.

At mile-marker 0, we found out that instead of a gas station, was a sign claiming “Welcome to North Carolina”. We were getting really low on gas, and we were 30 miles from the nearest gas station going backwards. We had to make a decision, and we elected to go back the way we came.

That meant going through that treacherous strip of road again. Melissa was quite upset about it.

About a mile into our journey back, the gas light came on. This was terrifying. There is NOWHERE to pull over if you run out of gas on this stretch of road. Every turn on the road is a blind turn, so anyone could come out of any corner at deadly speeds. Also, even if we could pull over, there is zero cell phone reception out there. Oh yeah, even if someone did stop to help us get gas, we would probably miss our flight too.

So, I made a very conscious effort to not use any gas while descending the mountain. This meant not using my brake around hairpin turns that I should have braked far more than I did.

After 30 miles, we made it back to the main highway. I saw a BP shortly after we got on the highway. We were elated, until we were by the pumps. The gas station was closed.

We drove off, and after a little bit of sputtering, we found another gas station. It had the oldest operation gas pumps that I’ve ever seen, but they worked. We filled up, and we were off.

We got back to the airport, dropped off the rental car (which was heavily used during our mountain trip), and got on the plane home.

The plane ride was hell. Allegiant Air is a cheap airline, but for good reason. Their flights are easily the most uncomfortable that I have ever been on.

Wrapping it up

Overall, our trip was awesome. Taylor and Jason are great friends of ours, so it was really cool to see them get married. Their friends are a great group of folks, several of whom I’m eager to see again. As always, it’s great for Melissa and I to get away, but this time was really, really great.

Melissa and I got away for the weekend to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. After some indecision on our part, we decided to go to Savannah, GA. It’s not too far of a drive, but it’s still far enough to feel like a vacation. We took off Friday from work (thanks dudes!) so we could spend as much time away as possible.

The drive was pretty uneventful. It was about three and a half hours up I-95. Not too much to talk about there.

We stayed at the Windham at Wingate. It’s a budget business hotel right off of 95. It wasn’t exceptionally nice, but the staff was really friendly. They also had free wireless internet, which always makes me smile.

We left the hotel shortly after arriving. We drove to Savannah, and scoped out River Street and the surrounding areas for parking. It turns out that parking on the streets is free after 5:00pm, and on Saturday and Sundays. After we parked, we walked straight to River Street.

We hit up ‘The Warehouse’, which advertised ‘The coldest, cheapest beer in town’. They might have been right. We ate dinner there too, which was pretty bad. I guess you get what you pay for.

We walked up River Street for a while before we went to the ‘Moon Something’ bar. They brew their own beer, of which I had a dark porter. Actually, I had 4 of them. They were really tasty. Melissa mixed it up with a few lagers too. I’m not really sure what they were though.

After that we went to another bar to meetup with a bar crawling ghost tour. Savannah is supposedly one of the most haunted cities in the country, so we were glad to hear some ghost stories. The tour guide was pretty cool. She even dressed like it was 1795. Good Times.

We spent the rest of the night drinking a whole lot. Too much even …

The next day, feeling a major hangover, we got up and drove back into town. Melissa had really wanted to do a Trolley tour of the town, but I was feeling the hangover very badly. Since I’m prone to motion-sickness anyways, there was no way we were going to do a Trolley tour with me a bumpy ride away from seeing breakfast again.

So instead, we walked, and we walked a whole lot. Basically, we walked all day long, trying to see as many different places as we could. We managed to hit Forsyth Park and get a picture by the big water fountain in there.

We also walked through Colonial Park Cemetary. That might sound creepy, except for the history there. I didn’t see any grave markers more recent than 1888. I did see a bunch from 1820, the year of a yellow fever outbreak which claimed more than 700 there. Some of the tombstones are amazlingly huge and elaborate, while some are the size of a dinner plate. It’s a eye-opening sort of place.

We walked through more ‘squares’ than you could count. Every few blocks there’s a ‘sqaure’ dedicated to someone. The story goes that one of these squares was the scene for Forrest Gump. So we found out which one, and took a few candid shots.

That night we ate at the ‘Old Pink House’. The name is not decieving: it is an old pink house. I had the Pot Pie, and Melissa had the pecan crusted chicken. Both were very good. Anyone going to Savannah definitely owes it to themselves to check that place out. Make reservations though, as we heard people were told to wait over 2 hours to get in.

After the we hit up a couple more bars, and called it a night. Actually, I called it a night, much to the despair of Melissa who was feeling like SuperWoman after a few drinks. Still, we walked back to the car, and drove back to the hotel.

All in all, it was a good time. It would have been nicer to stay in a place that didn’t involve us driving back and forth, but our stay was cheap. More time would have been cool too, but I miss my dog.

My dad showed up around 11am. I had invited him the week earlier, but I really didn’t expect him to show. I’m super-glad that he did though. Not only is dad a lot of fun to be around: He’s super useful as well. I was able to get a hell of a lot of stuff done before the party, that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Many thanks to dad!

Bill and Amanda were the first to show up to the actual party. I was a little upset they didn’t bring their XBox360 and Rock Star. We spent some time at their place the week before, and had a great time with that. I even had my buddy Austin bring his drum seat and sticks just for it. Oh well.

Chris and Kiel came after that, then Shandyn and Eric, Greg and his wife Nevin, my buddy Matt, then it gets nuts.

My workout partner Tony came with his wife Mardi. They got us a bottle of Johnny Walker Green Label. I was pretty stoked about it, as the picture shows:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also show the picture of Tony’s wife Mardi, with my wife, Melissa:

I was really stoked that Greg made it out. I’ve mentioned it before, but I feel like I could talk with that dude for days. We’re sorta on the same wavelength with tech stuff. Outside, but sorta in …

My buddy Austin showed up with his girlfriend Jen. They’re easily some of the coolest people I know. Austin was the best man at my wedding. I’ve known him since the 6th grade. He’s a nutbag, and he’s a Death Metal drummer. We used to rock out in industrial parks when we were underage. Awesome times… Jen is pretty much the female version of him. I guess it could also said that he’s the male version of her?

Taylor and Jason made it out as well. They’re a lot of fun to hang with. The only time I’ve ever been maced was hanging out with Jason. You know you’ve had a full night when local cops are telling you how to deal with a face full of mace. That reminds me, I’m supposed to be working on their website.

Of course we were all blessed with the presense of the amazingly talented Bender . I give that guy shit all the time, and I plan to continue. Bender usually tells a joke for us when we’re in a social setting with alcohol. So, after a few rounds, we started chanting ‘Bender’, and demanded either a joke, or shotgun a beer. Bender chose to shotgun Coors Light. Gross. Anyway, I should give him credit for some of the work he’s doing for an upcoming project of mine, Florida Death Metal.

Here are a few more candid shots of the good times:

That one is Melissa’s sister Megan, Kristina, Lisa, and Melissa. The following is a good one of Krista’s baby, Kaydon:

That’s a really good segway to the next part of the story. I had a moderate amount of alcohol to drink that night. However, I guess I didn’t know exactly how much I had.

To say little of it, I had too much. I wound up very sick the next morning., incredibly sick. Austin thought it’d be funny to talk smack about it all, and throw stuff at me. That super sucked, and I wound up starting the worst round of vomiting that I’ve ever had. I even punched a hole in the wall next to the bathroom. Melissa was pretty pissed about it all, so I’ll have to fix it.

I spent all Sunday either throwing up, or sleeping. It was a total waste of the day. Melissa was awesome and stayed around to take care of me. It’s a shame that I allowed myself to get that sick, but it’s great she was around to help me get out of it all.

I shouldn’t let that overshadow how much of a good time I had the night before. There was a great collection of the some of best friends that I’ve had the opportunity to every have.

So a whole bunch of us got together and had a few drinks, a few laughs, and made a lot of good memories. It was really good to see everyone. I’m reminded of why I work so much, and why I love being alive. I have the best friends and family I could ask for.

We left the house around 3:30pm and made the drive on I-4 down there. I had been working all day on my new side project, so I hadn’t eaten anything before I got there. That probably explains why I pounded empinadas and margaritas for the first half hour when we got there.

After we settled in, we took our time to enjoy the cheap booze and food from ‘Around The World’. Our first more leisurely stop, was appropriate for me: Ireland, and Guinness. Then we headd over to China, so Melissa could pick up a Green Tea Plum Wine Cooler.

After that we skipped over most stuff and headed over to Germany. That seems fitting, given that some coworkers at NFi and I are heading to Germany this Thursday. We took our time there, and I asked a guy (supposedly from Munich), where to go while I was there. He was predictably vague, but he did mention some general areas I had an inkling to go to before.

From there we continued on, sampling food and drink from America (ha ha ha), Morocco, France, England, and Peru. When we had gotten ‘Around the World’, we went around again. I guess we just couldn’t resist the opportunity

To wrap up the night, we stayed for the Illuminations show Epcot shows every night. I should be able to recognize the corporate motivations for the show. However, it was so well done (especially after a better than $150 bar tab), that I couldn’t help but be moved by it. We hauled ass to get out of there afterwards, which is tricky with thousands of clueless tourists.

Overall, I’m glad we went to the Food & Wine Festival. It’s easier to be less picky, given we didn’t pay to get in (which is up to $65 for entry). However, we had a really good time, and I recommend it to anyone, who might spend the money elsewhere.

I can’t begin to mention how excited we are about everything. We were pretty lucky that pretty much everyone we worked with was amazing to have around. Our realtor Colleen Offner , lender, parents, and even the sellers were all amazingly helpful.

I’ll have some pictures of everything soon.

Update August 12, 2007 – Pictures

Here are the pictures I promised:

This is the front view of our house. I got a lawnmower yesterday and mowed the yard. It sounds lame, but I can’t express how excited I was to mow my own yard.
The yard itself is 115 x 75. That makes it over 8,600SF, or about 1/5 an acre.
That is stone you see in front as well. There’s also some faux hurricane shutters on the office window in front as well.
The garage is 2 car, though I’m sure my truck will never be parked in there.

Here is a picture of the backyard. It’s not very deep. Most of the yard is in the front and on the west side.
There’s tons of trees on the side though, and that’s always cool.

Here is a picture of the kitchen. It’s the first thing you see when you walk inthe front door. Look at the lower left corner of the picture. That’s stone that wraps around the bar. Hell yes!
We have a cooktop stove, and all stainless steel appliances. We also have a hellacious amount of cabinets.
Most of the house is 18″ tile floors. We intend to change to hardwood, but that’s going to have to wait a while. We’re a bit tight with money right now.

Here is a picture inside of the kitchen looking at the door to the garage. The chandelier is pretty low right now, so we’re going to have to swing it a bit.
The open door you see is to the laundry room. That room also contains the location of where we would install a ‘smart’ system for the house.
Think Jetsons here: You walk in the house and say “kitchen lights”, and they come on for you. If only I could say, “pay bills” ….

This is a picture from inside the living room, looking into the kitchen. The hanging lights over the bar are really nice.
Notice the wood veneer covering the wall underneath the bar. It’s not our first choice, so we’re thinking we might run the stone around the whole under-bar area.
If that prooves to be a bit too expensive, then we might just tear off the veneer and paint dark red underneath.

Here is the master bedroom. I don’t think this picture does justice to the size of the bedroom. It’s a good size room, and the ceilings rake from 12ft high to 10ft high.
There’s already a ceiling fan installed (thank you ceiling fan gods), and there is a cool ledge over the entry way to the bathroom.

Here is a picture of the master bathroom. There’s a good size tub, and a glass shower in there.
It’s nice, though the tub could be a little bigger. The location of the faucet and levers aren’t condusive to more than one person in the tub at a time.
The tile along all of the walls is super-cool though.

Here’s another picture of the master bathroom. Note that there’s only one sink in the master bathroom. :/.
However, it’s hard to complain with the granite counter tops and custom mirror job. The vanity lights are well done too.
The knobs for hot and cold water are a little close together.

And now, a picture heading toward the living room. The stone in the kitchen is more apparent here as well.
This picture also doesn’t give a good idea of just how tall the slider is going into the backyard. I’ve not seen sliding glass doors that tall in my life.
We’re going to have to get new drapses to handle them.
The ceiling fan is controlled via a dimmer switch on the wall. That’s great, since I’m not a fan of pulling chains.

A friend of ours drove us to the airport, after our flight was delayed an hour. We checked our bags with no problem headed to security. After we got in line in security, we noticed an ominous sound coming from the roof above us; hail. We rode the monorail to our terminal, and were amazed to see hail coming inside of our train car.

Of course, our plane was delayed even more, so we went to the bar. By night’s end, we had gone to the bar twice, and arrived in DC 5 hours late. To add insult to injury, there was a technical malfunction at DC and we were stuck on the plane for an additional hour.

Our friend there (who was an amazing host, she’s very gracious) drove us back to her house. It was a long day, and we were ready to get some much needed sleep.

The next morning Melissa and I got up, and was stunned to see that our friend didn’t have a computer. The only computer there was her roomate’s, which she gave permission to use. So I installed Apache and PHP on the machine, and started testing some of the ideas I had brainstormed while waiting to get to DC the night before.

That’s the sort of thing you do when you’re married. You spend countess hours waiting for the woman to get ready, so you might as well keep your mind busy.

After Melissa was ready, we headed out on our first full day on vacation! We went to Smithsonian first. Specifically, we went to the Museum of Science & Natural History. I didn’t realize how much that would be like going to Disney World, so we didn’t stay very long. Aftewards, we went walking around that area. The weather was nice, so it was good to be outside.

We checked out the Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the WW2 Memorial. All of which are really awesome to see. There’s tons of history behind all of them, and it’s humbling to stand in front of the monument’s to our country’s greatest leaders and most somber times.

The next day, I was woken up by my phone. It was a company I consult for, and they were having issues with their Blackberry devices not being able to send. I tried to fix the issue with my phone, which I was able to do with a degree of success, but I needed a computer. My phone was almost out of battery life, so I really needed a phone charger too.

I looked all over for that computer I had used the day before, as well as the phone charger. I hesitantly peeked in the roomate’s room to see if it was in there, and sure enough, both the computer and the phone charger were in there. I grabbed both.

I started charging my phone, while I went to work on the Blackberry issue. I was almost done with the issue when the roomate came home, and began searching for her cell phone charger. I told her where it was, and she was apparently upset that I had entered her room.

My mistake. However, she was awfully rude about the issue.

I looked up hotels.com to see if I could get a good hotel room close by. I didn’t want to be uncomfortable on my vacation. Melissa had me wait to book anything, as not to make a rash decision. Ultimately, we didn’t get a hotel room, but the rest of the time in that house was awkward (at least it was for me). It’s funny how one person can ruin things for you. I should be bigger than that, but hey, I was pissed.

We did a bunch of hanging out after that. We did all the nightlife stuff . We drove up to Gettysburg. We met some really cool people. I don’t think there was anything left of DC that we still wanted to do. We even hit the International Spy Museum. I would have liked it more if I wasn’t so hungover when I was there.

The one thing that got to me though, was the amazing lack of manners by people there. I can’t count how many times I thought “The nerve!”. I guess that’s what happens to a city when it gets to be that big. All I can say is that I hope Orlando never gets that big.

To round out the trip, Southwest lost my luggage on the way back home. So I went to work the next day in an old pair of jeans and the sandals I had worn traveling home. After all of the nasty food and beer we had while on vacation, all I could think of was getting back to the gym. Too bad my gym shoes were with my luggage.

After we got home, I had to drive to Lakeland to get my dog. My buddy had generously watched her while I was on vacation. I can’t tell you how much it sucked to have to make a 2 hour drive after all of that.

Don’t get me wrong, it was good to get a vacation, but now I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. Perhaps that’s why it’s good to be home.

Wow. That show is really cool. It’s different than other
artsy shows, in that there isn’t such a raw display of talent (though
those guys are good on drums). It is overall entertainment. It’s hard
not to feel warm and fuzzy watching the antics at certain points of the
show, and feel real human awe at others.

The premise of the
show is about people being people. It’s humans being human, by watching
people who appear so not-human. I’m eager to mention everything that
happens in the show, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t
been.

Tickets at the show by us start at around $50. I know we
didn’t pay, but I’d gladly pay to have seen it. It’s definitely worth
the hit to the wallet.

We got to the show around 9:00pm at the House of Blues in Orlando. We figured we’d catch the last bit of the last opener, then we’d see Mastodon. We were wrong.

It turns out, Mastodon let one of the openers, ‘Against Me!’ to open for them. So when we showed up, Mastodon was about half way through their set. We couldn’t believe it. We were only gonna see 20 minutes of who we paid to see!

Well, it turns out that ‘Against Me!’ is a really good band. They’re a punk band, which usually isn’t my thing. They’re also politically left of center, which really isn’t my thing. But they’re really good. It’s hard to not like these guys. Their stage presence is undeniable.

It was apparent that most people at the show came to see them. I’d never heard of the band before. Yet, the vast majority of people there were screaming every lyric of every song. The crowd up front chanted it’s fist to every chord, never missing a beat. It was truly something to behold.

I just picked up their live album today. It’s worth your money.

That frees Melissa and I up for a bunch of things. We hung out with some friends today. They’re all really fun people, and I’m glad we got to do everything we did today. They all were smashed, and being the only sober person around, I constantly wondered when we were going to be kicked out of everywhere we went.

Also, we got to hang out with my old roomate and friend Joe. Joe is in the Marine Corps these days, so we don’t get to see too much of him. He has a new lady friend, and she turned out to be a lot of fun to be around as well. The’ve been dating for over a year now.

Joe got me to break my “No Alcohol” stand last night. We had a bit, not too much. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have car bombs with my buddy. I miss him. He might wind up in Iraq. Even though I think he’ll be fine, you never know. So I didn’t waste the opportunity to have a good time.