I'm getting ready to go see the last UGA home football game of the year this Saturday! Whoo!!

I guess next week's game against Georgia Tech could be considered a home game, since WE OWN THEM. But that's another story (sorry Michael, sorry Chris....oh, wait, no I'm not).

Tonight is "try to make an impossible black bean soup" night. I was gonna make some with some dried beans, you know, go for the freshness, but apparently that's a process that takes a couple of days, and no, I'm not exaggerating one single bit. So I'm making it easier by going with CANNED black beans. Take that, nature.

Got some Little Debbie Christmas Cakes yesterday. Man, I'm so glad they didn't decide to start calling them "Holiday Cakes"...seems like the cool thing to do lately is ignore Christianity. I mean, look - I understand that not everyone is Christian, but there is a lot to celebrate about Christmas even if you're not Christian (of course, the real purpose of Christmas is for the "non" Christians anyways...)

I love Christmas. It's my favorite time of the year, what with all the decorating and togetherness and family. I love my family and all my friends, even more so now that I'm seeing them all less and less. This stuff is important, so people out there need to stop making Christmas illegal. I mean, some schools are now outlawing the word "Christmas" altogether. WHAT? Yeah, you read that correctly, and it's real. Talk about NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH. That's a pretty good lesson for the administration to be teaching, wouldn't you say? Ah well, I'll cut it out for now, but I'm for real....I really do get tired of people de-emphasizing the importance and fun and joy of the Christmas season and holiday.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, the day we celebrate all the money we're about to blow at the mall...nah, just kidding. It's the day we GIVE THANKS FOR all the money that we are about to blow at the mall. Well, anyways, Thanksgiving is actually one of the big holidays that I've never been 100% into. I fully understand the significance, but in a way, it takes away from Christmas, which is more important to me. They should bump it up a week or two, or make it part of a Halloween weekend. Yeah, you could go out, get a bunch of candy, eat turkey the next day, and have some candy for dessert while you pass out in front of the TV watching football. Being with family is nice though, so I appreciate the day. And the food (except I don't like the turkey so much).

That's gonna do it for now I think. I'm gonna go see my wife now.

I had a pretty good birthday/birthweek. Hilary and I went out to The Olive Garden for dinner on Thursday (I had to work late on my birthday) and then we ate so much salad and breadsticks that we had TONS of leftovers from our actual meal. Man, the salad/breadsticks there can hardly be beat. And unlimited? Yes, very good...

Hilary got me a neato optical wireless mouse for my birthday, along with some pajama pants and Christmas boxers. She also gave me the soundtrack to the TV show "Smallville." If you've never seen it, check it out on the WB...Superman is fun.

I got a bunch of other gifts from family. It was all good.

This past weekend, Hilary and I went to a wedding in Nashville, TN for one of her friends from Furman. We stayed at my younger brother Michael's house (he and his wife live just outside of Nashville)...I hadn't seen their house since they bought it. It's pretty nice, and they had it all decorated for Christmas, which I totally dig.

And also on Saturday, UGA beat the $%^&*% Auburn Tigers at home in Sanford Stadium!!! It was a shut-out until 3 minutes left in the game, then Auburn got a touchdown, and the game ended 26-7. Got it on tape (THANKS MICHAEL!!) so I'll probably watch it sometime this week (oh, yeah, the wedding was during the game, so not only did I not get to go to the game, but also didn't get to watch/listen). The wedding and reception were still fun, and I had gotten to know some of the Furman folks over the past few years, so not too many awkward "I don't know you" moments.

Tonight I'm gonna eat so much pizza that I'll be sick tomorrow. Oh wait, that's what I did LAST night....buy one get one free at Papa John's....Hilary and I do this once in a while, where we'll split one pizza one night, then split the second pizza the next night, and then be sick for the next week. We always swear we'll just cut ourselves off early....but man, it is SOOOOOOOOOO good.......I'd eat the whole thing if I didn't think it would kill me.

Headline: "Man eats pizza, dies of overwhelming digestive joy"
Papa John by-line: "Good ingredients, great pizza...deadly in large doses"

I'm young, high metabolism, strong like bull. And I'm getting hungry...

Happy birthday to me...yep, today is my birthday. In fact, I was born about 10 minutes ago on this day in 1980, making me 23 years old now. "One of these days you're going to have to grow up" I've heard....well, technically speaking, that would be today.

In honor of my birthday and the upcoming Christmas season, Hil and I started decorating our apartment last night. We got a new Christmas tree from Home Depot (my mom got it for me as a birthday present). My bass player/old Skapartment roommate/future brother-in-law Graham ran off from my parents house with all the Christmas decorations and tree - a la Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas - except that he didn't do it in spite. However, didn't keep my mom and sister from helping him to load all the junk in his car and head off to Athens. You didn't see Cindy-Lou Who helping the Grinch stuff the tree up the chimney, did you? Anyways, a new tree is nice anyways...the other one was a tree that my family had for years and just replaced after we moved to PTC (or as my friend Mike likes to refer to it, "Your Favorite Town"). It wasn't ugly, just old, but now we have parted ways. Speaking of ways, I need to find a way to get over to Athens to pick off a couple of things that I really can't allow the Skapartment to have, things that mean more than a strand of lights or plastic tree.

Tonight I have to work late, so when I get off of work, I'll be headed home to have some homemade (wife-made) cake and ice cream, and open some presents. Probably gonna do some more decorating and then go to bed. I can't really remember the last time I didn't have to do a bunch of work on my birthday. Oh well, that's the working world for ya.

I just got started finally capturing clips for my wedding video. I've been sitting around with these lists forever, but just haven't really had the time to set up a batch capture. So with that done, the really time consuming part is done. Next, I have to finalize the layouts for everything (the cermony won't be too hard - I just have to blend the cameras together where necessary and then export it entirely). The reception material will probably be the hardest to get done. Either way, deciding which shots to use took a couple of months (over 10 near-full 60 minute tapes to look over). I think I'm ending up keeping about 70% of the material that I have on tape. Gonna be one heck of a project.

Anyways, I'm at work taking my lunch break, but now I've run out of lunch to eat, and so now I must get back to making movies.

And no, it is not weird to be decorating for Christmas already. It is time consuming, and what's the point of starting after Thanksgiving, finishing around December 15th, and then enjoying it for a week or so before you start packing it away again? I like to get the most out of the Christmas season...and besides, its always sort of a neat birthday treat for myself to start putting this stuff up right now and enjoying it until New Year. I think everyone should do it (except people who don't celebrate Christmas (but they should)).

Friday afternoon, looking ahead to a weekend at home...wow, just thinking about the traffic in midtown this afternoon makes me tremble.

I don't really have much to say. I've got a ton of stuff on my "to do" list, but since I'll be away from home this weekend and next, it won't be happening. For one, I've got to get head first into finishing up the wedding video from my wedding. I'm gonna have tons of special features and all, throwing it all on a DVD. Nope, not gonna sell it or anything, but seeing as how it was the biggest thing to happen in my life (since birth...that's also very important), I've got plenty of coverage of the event, and events leading up to the event as well (no honeymoon footage though...sorry).

Alright, everyone (which is possibly no one)....have a good weekend!

Wow....yesterday was scary. I got a call at work from Hilary's supervisor telling me that Hilary was picked up and taken to the hospital after passing out work. I jumped in the car and headed up to Gainesville to see her at the hospital and make sure everything was alright. They took some tests to find out the cause, but nothing came of it - their conclusion was that "this stuff happens," more or less. Everyone kept asking if she had been eating well or if she was pregnant, but neither of those was the case. I guess it's just one of those things that happens.

So I drove her home (left her car overnight, a friend picked her up for work today) and took the rest of the day off yesterday, I guess just to make sure she would be alright. She went back today, no problems. My boss was nice enough to afford me the time to stay with Hilary.

When things like this happen, it really does make you realize how easily life can be changed or even lost. If she had landed the wrong way or hit something on her way down, she could have been seriously injured (there was a person between her and the desk nearby - the person more or less cushioned her fall).

Today's weather is kind of crummy...clouds and rain. This weekend will be another one of those weekends away from home, as I meet up with family to celebrate some birthdays (including my own - next Wednesday, November 12th). I'll be 23 years of age, which of course feels very strange.

Speaking of which, my mom always asks for "wish lists" from everyone WAY in advance of Christmas, and for me I am also supposed to hint at things I'd like for my birthday. Well, of course, I have no such list. It'll be a surprise because my parents don't know what I want (well, at least they can't afford what I want...the nice Panasonic DVX-100 24p MiniDV camera or something of that range of sophistication). So yeah, whatever they give me will be a surprise. It doesn't get any easier than that.

I've been meaning to catch some Atlanta Thrashers games with Chris and Mike, et al. Hilary has wanted to go out and be social, too...of course, being p-p-p-p-poor makes socializing difficult, since it usually means going out somewhere to eat or movie or things of that nature. We both agree though, as soon as we win the lottery, we'll paint the town red (and please, someone tell me what that really means anyways). Of course, there is always the issue of actually finding the time to do the things you want to do.

Alrighty...Sea Island pics are up now in the pics section, and here's a before and after presentation of that disgusting pumpkin that was falling apart on my porch:

 

See? I told you it was disgusting.

I'm putting together some changes on my pics section. Adding ONE NEW SECTION today/tonight with my pictures from this previous weekend at Sea Island, GA. There won't be any GA/FL game pics because there was not much good to look at...

So check that out later tonight. I'm gonna have some meat loaf from my mom (thanks mom, that stuff is delicious) and play on the computer. Hilary is going to do a dinner thing with some other new employees she works with, so I'm on my own for a couple hours. Scary.

Long time no post, I know....

Went to the GA/FLA game in J'ville, FL this past weekend. Of course, UGA lost [again] to the crocs, but what else do you expect? Hey, I support my alma mater, and I've got Bulldawg pride and all that...I just get tired of losing to those suckers from the swamp. New year, same dropped [perfect] passes. No QB protection. Sound familiar? Always does.

Now that I've said that, I did have a good time. It was my first year of actually going to the game, so that was cool. Went to Sea Island on Thursday with my grandpa (dad's dad), uncle (dad's bro-in-law) and cousin (uncle's son). We stayed at The Cloister, which is a super-nice place to go. My grandpa paid for it, so much appreciation goes his way. We ate a TON of food, hung out on the beach, and had an overall good time. It was also the first time Hilary and I have been apart since the wedding, so that was weird.

I have pictures from this past weekend, but I've got very few from the actual game. In fact, I have none. I do have a bunch of pics from the beach - just stuff I thought looked "pictureseque." I'll put them on the site here eventually.

Today is a special day - today is the day I get to scrape the imploded, rotting pumpkin carcass from my porch and launch it into the bushes behind our home to feed all the mutated forest creatures roaming around back there. It is seriously disgusting. In fact, I'll even take a picture of it for you all to see. Turned that smiley jack-o-lantern face into a frown. It smells like roadkill.