Screw you.
Love,
Kishkumen

For everyone else, here is a rundown of what has happened with our dear Nexl friends since the last post. July 6th came and went. I called several times, leaving so many messages, and finally got an e-mail back saying they will be shipping my order at the end of August… Seems they’ve decided to quit with their constant two week delays and go for the big time. No doubt trying to see how far they can lure people on…

I did some more checking online, and found this discussion where some other people are also realizing their helmets may never arrive. It also seems Nexl is not too good about giving refunds either. Fortunately, one of the people on that discussion board said that he went through the Google Checkout, and contacted Google about the refund. Google was able to get things taken care of quickly, so if anyone is interested in that, there is an option for you.

Personally, I have decided to give them one last chance of sorts. I e-mailed using their form that they keep telling me to use. I explained that I wanted a refund confirmation by the end of the week, but that if they ever get to a point where they are able to sell me the helmets I ordered that they can call me and we’ll discuss from there. If I don’t hear back from them soon, I will either do a chargeback through my credit card company, or contact Google and suggest Google terminates their relationship with Nexl. As usual, I will post what updates I can here. Best of luck to everyone else who has been worked over by these guys!

One more thing, I’ve heard a lot of people suggest These Guys over Nexl for good light helmets.  If the likely happens, and Nexl never tries to make good, I will probably give them a shot.

Here is what I get for hoping that Nexl would keep their promises spoken over the phone…  Not only did my helmets not ship when promised, I didn’t get any notification about it like I was assured I would.  After a few more days of calling and leaving messages, and sending e-mails etc…  I get an e-mail back with yet another shipping date in July.  So I guess I just say again, if you care about actually getting what you paid for… Don’t bother dealing with Nexl.

So, today I finally got a call back from the folk at Nexl Sports.  They said that their voicemail system has been dropping messages all over the place, so calling them and leaving a message is not a good idea.  They also said that if you e-mail, only e-mail one person.  I guess if multiple people get the e-mail, everyone assumes the other person is going to take care of it…  I finally got my call by submitting a request through the google checkout system.  I explained my frustration and requested a call back.  20ish minutes later…  my phone rings!  They are saying that they are fairly certain that my helmets will ship this next Friday.  And, as a bit of information, the delays seems to have been caused by changing the people who are making the inner liners.  The ‘formula’ seems to have been messed up in the transition, and the liners are coming out too thick or too thin.  They sounded somewhat confidant that the issue has been resolved… And promised they will e-mail me if it doesnt ship.  So, hopefully this information will help someone else out.

So the next chapter in my Nexl Helmet “Review” as it seems is sadly, though not unexpectedly, a sad chapter. It came as no surprise to anyone that they’ve missed the latest shipping date without a word of explanation. Problem is, I am now leaving my current job at the end of the week, and need the helmets shipped somewhere else. So, I called Nexl… Four times. I left four messages explaining I really needed to talk with someone. No one called me back. So, I tried to e-mail again… Sending a letter to both Gil and Gabby, literally begging for some communication. Brace yourselves for this… No reply yet. Only time will tell if Nexl will be able to pull their heads out about this one. Will keep everyone posted!

Edit: One quick update, here is a link for their local Better Business Bureau, seems they are having issue with their warehouse.

http://www.bbbsilicon.org/commonreport.html?bid=226161

I just wanted to take a moment and vent some frustration about Nexl Sport’s customer service.  See, I ordered some new motorcycle helmets about two months ago, after researching and finding that these are supposed to be some very very good lids.  Nice, lightweight, and great protection.  I order away, and the excitement builds to get my new uberhelmets!  A couple weeks pass and I get a notification saying they have shipped.  Sweet!  I e-mail them back a couple days later, asking if they could tell me what shipping method they used, so I could perhaps track it to make sure I’m around to get them.  Eventually, they reply saying they hadn’t really shipped anything, and that there is a 4 week backlog, and I should expect my helmets at a certain day.  Ok, I guess I can accept that.  The promised shipping day came and went with no notification sent to me.  I e-mailed again, no reply for days…  I e-mailed another e-mail address on the website and get a reply saying “sorry, they weren’t shipped, and will be shipped 6 weeks after the order.”  Ok, ok… Annoying, but I can handle this.  They gave me a specific date, and said they’d upgrade the shipping method for free.  The latest date comes… and goes!  I e-mail once again, to no reply…  E-mail the second address again, and am told “sorry, we’re backlogged and the helmets will ship 9 weeks after the order!

So, here we have 3 totally missed shipping dates, terrible customer service, worse communication, and no helmets.  I swear I will never buy from these people again.  And I strongly caution others to keep that in mind as well.  Their site proclaims their customer service is fantastic, yet I have had nothing but “deal with it” replies to my concerns, that is assuming I even get replies.  If I didn’t really need these helmets, I would have tried to cancel my order a long time ago…  I can’t imagine what will happen if the helmets I ordered don’t fit.  I can’t wait another 3 months for replacements.

Anyway, that’s that.  Plenty more has happened, and I will try to give some updates on that, but I just wanted to post this in hopes that I can save someone else the trouble of dealing with them.

Time for updates!!  But where to begin…

The Wii is still fun.  We have 4 remotes now, and the game Wii Play.  Fortunately, I wasn’t expecting much from Wii Play, so I wasn’t really too disappointed to find it’s just a training manual for using the remote.  There are a couple games that are kinda fun, but for the most part nothing I’d actively play again.  Having said that, I’ve played through all the games at least 4 times now playing them with other people.  I really wish they would make a few of the games play with more than 2 players.  I think the tank game would be a blast with 4.  I also got SSX Blur, but alas I haven’t had much time to play it.  Thanks to…

Guitar Hero!  We had been considering it for a while, but whenever we were feeling especially weak to the buying desires everything was sold out.  Then we found a copy at FYE with a $10 mail in rebate and figured “We can but the game now, and just buy the guitars when we find a good deal on them.”  That lasted a whole 4 hours, when we bought a couple guitars online.  I must say, every wonderful thing I heard about the game is spot on.  I played through and unlocked every main song the first night.  I admit, I was worried that I would get bored once I played all the songs once… So not true.  I hate to admit, I might now understand people who play DDR!  We had friends over, and everyone had a blast playing.  Hopefully soon I’ll have family over to do the same thing.  Now they just need to make a 4 guitar version!  Or maybe add drums and keyboards or something.  I’ve also found myself listening to non guitar hero songs, and having guitar hero notes going through my head…  It’s creepy.

This past weekend held a wonderful event, that seems to only come once a year.  That’s right everyone.  We played D&D!  Oh, and it was my anniversary.  But more about the game!  One of my friends who hasn’t been able to play for a long time had an opportunity to get some gaming in, so we decided to do a 2 day session.  As usual, I hoped it would turn out wonderful, and feel like it was a total waste of time.  The players say they had fun, and I guess that’s all that really matters!  I’d give details, but I doubt anyone really wants to hear a play by play of such vast nerdness

The anniversary was wonderful as well.  We just celebrated it on Monday instead of Sunday.  The two of us went out to eat at Ottavios, and just had a nice relaxing day.  I like nice relaxing days.

I think that’s about it, I guess if anyone wants to come hang out and play Guitar Hero or something, just let me know!

So, here is something that doesn’t happen all that often… I’m writing from home! My wife is out at a “girls only” birthday party, so I am stuck at home all alone… Never realized I’d have such a hard time filling my time without her. So here I am, writing to kill some of that time!

So, I went out and did what I had threatened to do before. I bought the golf game for the Wii. So far, I’d say it was quite worth it. My wife’s sister and her boyfriend came by Saturday, and we all played a rousing round of golf. Was quite a bit more fun than I had expected. Hopefully when controller #4 gets here, we’ll be able to try out the “Balloon Pop” multi play game.

Zelda has continued to be great. I am but a few moments away from the end of the game, and really have enjoyed every bit of it. Unlike other “bigger” RPG games, getting all the little side quests, and item collects hasn’t felt like a major chore to me. It all just kinda worked out well.

Wario Ware, I fear, was a disappointment. Sure, the single player was enjoyable, though not as addicting as previous versions… But the multi play was sad, to say the least. For some reason, they decided that none of the multi play games could use more than one remote. So, never do you get to play against someone at the same time… and all the fast paced switching between games is limited by passing the remote around. Anyone who played the version on the game cube where you had one controller to pass along everyone in the room knows what I’m talking about. Sure, it can be fun a couple times, but it just gets old. I guess I have to turn my eyes to Mario Pary to try to recover from the let down of Wario Ware.

In other parts of my life, work has been going well. I fear I don’t get along so well with one of the co-workers, which is unfortunate, but oh well. We are currently interviewing for another position on my team, so hopefully we’ll be able to get someone I can actually talk to without feeling like I’m being ignored! Guess we’ll see. But now, my wife is headed home so I will sign off. Go comment or something!

So we’ve had some more time with our new family member, The Wii.  And as prophesied in post of old, I tried out the golf game and really quite enjoyed it.  So much in fact, that I might even consider getting a full golf based game at some point… I will try not to rush into anything though.

Surprisingly, we had Brandy’s parents come over last weekend to play.  They both enjoyed the whole thing quite a bit.  More than I expected actually.  Hopefully at some point they will join the flock of Wii-ites.  I can’t believe I just typed that…

Zelda has been a lot of fun.  As seems to be common in RPGs these days, it started out somewhat slow.  But, it quickly picked up and has been really good so far.  The controls are definitely unique, though I get the feeling they will be copied several times over in games to come.  It just really feels nice to be part of the game.

We had a friend come over yesterday to make use of the extra remotes we were able to pick up.  Multi play Wii is a blast!  Ironically, the game I think was the most fun was the golf game.  Which can be played with only one remote, but it was nice having everyone with their own.  Rayman was fun, though not an amazing amount of fun.  It’s only somewhat designed as a party game, and a lot of the games involved taking turns.  While that isn’t a huge problem, for the dancing games you have to wait several minutes each time, and hear the same song over and over…  Some of the other games were really great on multi player though, I particularly was fond of sheep shearing.  Now, when Wario comes out, that will be a whole new world of multi play.  I can’t wait!

Tonight we have another friend coming over to try it out, but sadly he wont be able to stay for long.  Once we get our 4th remote, we’ll have like a party or something! I say again, anyone wanting to come play, just let me know.

Fortunately, I didn’t get started on the whole “Wii sucks because it doesn’t have amazing graphics” thing…  Maybe sometime later I’ll delve into that.

Something I failed to mention about the christmas gatherings. My Brother brought over his nice new Nintendo Wii for us to try out. I’d heard that they were fun and all… But I just wasn’t ready for how amazing it was to play with it. The controller just felt right, and it worked without really even thinking. We played a few of the Wii Sports games that came with the system. Very simple stuff, tennis, bowling, baseball etc. But never have I felt like I was such a part of the game than when I played this! In tennis, you just pretend you have a tennis racquet in hand, and the game play comes naturally. Bowling was a bit more game-like as you had to set up where you were standing, but it happens. Baseball was a lot of fun even. Can you imagine hearing that from me? Baseball was fun! Next thing you know I’m going to start enjoying the golf game (haven’t tried it yet, guess we’ll see). Everyone there got to have a go at all the games, and much fun was had by all. Suffice it to say… I was addicted.

So, every day since then, my Wife has been doing a diligent job of calling every store in the county that might get a Wii in stock. That’s a lot of calling. And thanks to her, and her ability to woo an employee to hold onto a Wii for her, we are now proud owners! We got it during lunch yesterday, and have been playing as much as possible since then. Did a couple rounds of Tennis, then switched to some of the new games we’d got. Raymans Ravin Rabbids is disturbing, but a whole lot of fun. And a whole lot more moving than I’m used to in these games… Never had my arms been so tired after playing a console game! I also got Excite Truck. Not the greatest game in the world, but still a lot of fun when you get used to the controls. We are very much looking forward to Zelda which is on order, and Wario Ware which comes out in a couple weeks. Now, all we need is a few more controllers, and some friends to come over and play. Yes, that is an invitation to those who might be interested. No doubt I’ll be raving more about it later, so guess you’ll have to wait and see!

So the great holiday of christmas has come and gone, and what a time it was.  It was very nice and relaxing for the most part.  Kinda wish the break lasted longer, but alas I am back at work already.

On christmas eve eve (Saturday, for those who care) we went to my wife’s paternal grandparents and had a lovely dinner there.  Then there was singing and present opening, and a lot of pictures taken.  Christmas eve was spent with my wife’s maternal family, with another lovely dinner, and a lot of just fun hanging out.  On christmas morning, we went to my wife’s parents house (Guess which one of us has the larger family), and did presents there, had breakfast, and hung out for a couple hours.  Then on to my family, where we had a mass of gift givings and a very nice lunch.  Then, we stayed untill everyone else had left, and stayed some more!  I put on an improptu light show.  Then back home to unload the car.  Speaking of which, the haul:

Other than my monitors, we got quite a few very nice things this year (not that it’s about the gifts).  We now have new bedding, with pillows and comforter and spare blankets and everything.  It’s all a very nice gold color.  A good thermometer, so we no longer have to guess about if we have a fever or not.  We both got a lot of biking leathers, including a coat for my wife, vests for both of us, a nice duffle bag, and I got a leather hat..ish… thing.  Guess you could call it a skullcap thing.  Kinda like a leather bandana.  It seems I look pretty good in it, and for some reason I wore it all night.  We also got a very very nice table, where the base is shaped like a dragon.  Very pretty.  I got a wooden Trebuchet kit, which I am looking forward to building and seeing what I can destroy in my house.  A key ring, with big old skeleton keys on it.  A UFO.  And no doubt some other things that I’m forgetting… But I’m at work and it’s ok if I forget something, right?  My wife got several wonderful things as well, but I’ll let her discuss them herself.  But a great thank you to everyone!  And it was great seeing everyone as well.

And there, my dear readers, is the post of christmas past.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that not only have I failed update this site, but I have already started to not write in my pen and paper journals anymore. It seems that the past couple months time is a commodity I’ve been running in short supply of. Might have something to do with getting used to having all day free for half a year, and actually working a job now… Maybe.

So, speaking of working new jobs, that has been among the biggest events of the past several months. Things are working out well here, and hopefully we’ll be hiring again soon. Would prefer to work with someone I know and trust, but alas I’m running low on those… Anyone who is interested, let me know!

In other news, I should be back into the LAN party scene in the near future. Not that it’s really that big of a scene, and not that I actually go to any anymore… But I have one less excuse! I now no longer have to drag a 21″ CRT monitor around with me. Now I get to carry a 24″ LCD monitor! The 2nd half of my matched set will be here tomorrow. So, if anyone needs a rather used but huge 21″ monitor… I’m the man to see. It’s free, but will be getting tossed in the trash as soon as I get the energy to drag it out of my house. Speak now, or forever deal with the fact that you didn’t get a cheap monitor for free.

Lately, I’ve been addicted to Steam games. I’ve found several wonderful games that didn’t get published by the big names, and just werent as common. My favorite so far has been Psychonauts. The game itself was very innovative, and honestly quite hillarious. Perhaps someday I’ll do more of a writeup about it… But we all know how likely that is.

Currently I am playing Heroes of Annihilated Empires. Also quite fun, and I’m interested in writing more about it, but alas now is not the time. Perhaps soon.

Having recently re-read all of my pen and paper journals with my wife, I started to get a craving to start using them again.  So the two of us went out and got a couple nice leather journals.  I’ve actually been pretty good at writing in them as well!  Hopefully that is a trend that will continue, as I have found that it is more fulfilling to do it the old fasioned way.  And going back and re-reading the past seems to carry more weight when it is in the real handwriting (albiet crappy handwriting).

In other news, a good friend and I have started working on a new pen and paper role playing system.  One based more in science than magic.  We’re planning on using the D20 system, but other than the basic ideas we are re-writing almost everything.  The original idea showed up in one of my common odd dreams, and just started growing from there.  Should anyone be interested in contributing, and possibly testing in the future please let me know!  A firm knowledge of the periodic table is a benifit.

Work is going well.  I’m still kinda getting used to the whole environment, having so few people around.  But, I’m no longer working from 7 am.  Not that 8 am is that much better, but that extra hour can go a long way.  I fear less about getting fired for being incompetant as the days go by.  There was about zero formal training, so I’ve been gleaning info as I go.  I think I have most of the basics down, and am anxious to get access for some of the more advanced stuff.  Now if only I could get a paycheck…

I just wanted to announce that I have finally re-entered the work force.  I’m working for a rather small company, doing phone support and vendor adoption.  Only down side… Work starts at 7 am.  Eww.  But the pay is nice, the atmosphere is nice, all around is going to be good!

While my wife is at work, I’m trying to catch up on my postings.  So bear with me as I might have a lot of stuff to get out.

Saturday in the city was a nice relaxed day.  We lounged about for a while, then went mall-hopping for clothes, and other stuff.  I got myself a new knife!  It’s just plain sexy, nice titanium handle… Sweet blade… It’s a great knife.  Brandy got a variety of shirts, and some letter openers.  Then for both of us, we got a lava lamp!  I’ve been wanting one forever, and she used to have one but missed it.  So when one of the stores we were at was selling them for $19 (for a HUGE one) we couldn’t say no.  We spent half of last night staring at it, waiting for it to melt all the wax properly.  I had no idea it took that long.  And at some point, we’re going to get another lifetime desire of mine, and invest in a fog machine.  But that won’t be for a while, as it’s rather low on my list of things to buy… But she does want it too, which is nice.

After getting back to the hotel, we decided to give the hottub a try.  That was the biggest disappointment of them all… It wasn’t a hottub.  It was a roomtemperaturetub.  Oh well, was still rather relaxing.

Sunday we went to the local zoo for a day of picture taking.  Looking at the prices, and how much we had enjoyed the past trip (and were looking forward to this one), we decided to get the couples annual pass.  Just have to go two more times in the next year to make it pay itself off, and then some.  So, if anyone wants to go to the zoo let us know!  We’ll get you discounts inside

This round at the zoo was a lot more relaxed than last time, as we had more time to get everything done.  I was enjoying all the photos I got to take, but alas I was enjoying them a bit too much… a 1 gig card is just too small for this camera.  Before we were even halfway done with the zoo, I was getting close to running out of pictures to take.  So, we just went to the bird show and took off.  I did get a whole lot of good pictures though!  The best of which are located here.  Also, go look at my flora pictures here.  Please give feedback on the pictures, I want to get better and need criticism to do so!

And here is the promised report of the reunion.  Alas, since it’s been so long, chances are I’ll not have much in way of detail… But there really wasn’t much to detail to be honest.

Saturday morning we head to the “lunch in the park” and I smirk to myself (and Brandy) about the number of mini-vans in the parking lot, and me on my motorcycle.  We get there, and a few people were nice and came and introduced themselves.  Mostly joined with “Yeah, I don’t really remember you much from school,” but that was just about what I expected.  I realized too late that this really was just a chance for all the families to come and show off their kids.  So naturally, we felt a little out of place.  Then, seemingly out of nowhere an actual friend showed up!  Ironically, it was the one I mentioned in an earlier post, with my Led Zeppelin CDs.  Thanks to him showing up, I felt the lunch thing was worth it.  He has a lovely wife, and a adorable daughter.  We spent the whole time chatting, and being avoided by everyone else.  Was just like highschool!

That evening was the big dinner.  My friend and I had planned on sitting together, so we didn’t feel like total outcasts.  It’s a good thing we did too, because no one else came to our table until literally every other seat was full.  Again, just like highschool.  At least this time around I was amused by it, and not depressed   The dinner was ok, mostly just chatting with my friend and remembering all the stupid things we did.  They did some slideshow thing with pictures of everyone to music.  Was rather lame.  Then they did an “open mic” thing for a while, and several people got up and said their speal.  Fortunately, I didn’t have any urge to get up and say anything.  Did think about just showing off my wife… But that would have been without class.  And if nothing else, I have class

The night ended, we sat for a couple minutes to see if anyone came to say hi, then headed out.  All in all, was an ok day, but not something I’d look forward to doing any time soon.  Was nice to get back together with my friend, and we are planning on keeping in touch this time around.  Guess we see what happens in the next 10 years!

There should be more coming soon, but I wanted to post the pictures I took at the aquarium. Feedback is desired!

I will have more pictures up soon, it takes a lot longer than I thought to narrow down 500+ pictures to a couple dozen…

So, we have a little bit of downtime before bedtime, and I thought I’d do a bit of updating.  Today has been absolutely wonderful to say the least.  But where to start…

I made waffles!  Ok, waffle.  The place we’re staying at has a really cool waffle iron for breakfast waffles.  I will admit, it’s almost enough to make me want to have one at home… Fresh waffles are better than I thought they’d be.  After that, we went on a photography tour of the city.  Or at least a couple blocks of it.

Guess I should talk about my new child, huh…  It seems my dear wife took my birthday hint from a few posts back to heart, and actually got me that amazingly nice camera.  So I am now the proud owner of a Canon EOS 30D.  His name is Odin.  And all I can say (without a huge post, that no doubt will come eventually) is WOW!  This camera just makes taking amazingly beautiful pictures easy.  I’ve been using him every chance I can get lately, and am constantly impressed by what he produces.  But more details about that will come.

So yeah, we did a whole lot of playing with the camera.  I’ve been finding myself drawn to taking close up pictures of everything around me.  I’ve done a ton of floral shots, even catching a few bees here and there.  Also played with settings for long exposures of moving water, making indoor shots look good, and other such things.  The accessory we picked up for Odin was a mono-pod for ease of use and stability.  I really like what I’ve been able to do with it, and it compacts down pretty good as well.  Brandy, who is actually better trained in photography than me, has also been making good use of our new baby.  After a couple hours of snapping photos, we ran back here and dumped the memory card (Eventually need to get a much bigger one… The free 1 gig one we got just isn’t cutting it).   Then off to the aquarium!

I fear in general the aquarium was actually quite the disappointment.  It’s currently housed in an old supermarket, and is a lot smaller than I had expected.  Turns out this is just the preview for what they will be able to do, if they get tons of money.  I’m not saying it was a terrible time, just that I had been expecting a whole lot more.  But, there were some pleasant surprises to be had there anyway.  The lighting was quite dim through the whole area, so I was worried that my current lense on the camera wouldn’t be able to take all that great of pictures.  But hey, digital pics are free so I figured why not just take a ton and see what happens.  About 200 pictures later, we finally left.  I expected maybe 1/3 of the pictures to be ok, but when we got them to the computer I was surprised to find that just about every single one of them was tons better than I expected!  There were some crappy shots, as will happen with anything, but there were so many really good ones.  When I have my real internet connection back up, I’ll upload a selection and find out what everyone thinks
After that, back here to dump the memory card again, and off to dinner.  I’ll spare everyone all the details… But we did eat at Benihana.  Mmmmm…  Was simply divine.  Not sure what the plans are for the rest of the weekend, but we might go try and visit the zoo again at some point.  If anyone has any suggestions of what to do in the city, feel free to let us know!

So I know I’ve promised to write about my 10 year reunion… But you get to wait a bit longer for that than I expected.  But for good reason.  See, it turns out my wife has been planning a surprise for me for over three months.  I knew something was going to happen, but nothing about what, when, where, or who would be involved.  I guessed the why, but turns out I was wrong for that one as well.  Turns out just about everyone I interact with has been involved in it as well to some level, so before I go into more details I just want to say Bravo to all who took part.  I was completely blindsided by the actual surprise.  You all did an amazing job!

So, last night (Wednesday night) Brandy and I went to go see Journey and Def Leopard in concert.  I will have to do another post about that, as it does deserve a full post by itself.  After the concert, we sat in the parking lot forever waiting for the crowds to leave, while having a wonderful conversation.  Headed home around 12:30, but stopped to pick up some slurpees.  On the way back to the car, a most unusual event occurred…  She asked me for the keys to the car.  That never happens!  Fortunately, she had warned me weeks before that at some point I was going to be asked to do something odd, and she’d let me know when that was.  Guess that was it.  I seriously had no idea what on earth was going on.  I had expected a gathering of people or something, so finding out that the surprise was happening in the middle of the night… Going further north from where we were (I live 50ish miles south from there)…  Just threw me completely for a loop.  I helped her get back on the freeway (Northbound!) and was told I’d need to keep my eyes closed for a while.  Not trusting myself to do so, I took my overshirt off and blindfolded myself.  That took a lot more trust than I expected… I can’t handle not being able to see where I’m going in a car.  A short drive later, I’m being led through a parking lot.  Good thing I blindfolded myself, I know I’d have opened my eyes when I started bumping into cars.  Then in through a couple doors, and up an elevator?  Where on earth was I?  One more door later and it was all revealed to me.  See, she had gotten us a nice room in a hotel here in town for the rest of the week.  It was a surprise vacation!  Also, we did it because we never really got a real honeymoon.  The plotting and planning for this event had been going on for months, and it went flawlessly.  I have to say I am so proud of her, that she did such an amazing job with everything.  So, now I know what really happened that morning…

During the day, before we left to the concert, Brandy was in “meetings” all day, and I was “helping” a friend at their house with a computer.  I guess what really happened was I was getting lured out of the house so Brandy could run back and pack a bag for the trip without me knowing.  Then, her second “meeting” that was out of the office was so she could run up here and check in to the hotel.  After that, she just got to sit around being nervous that everything was going to fall apart.  Silly girl, it all went perfectly!

Since then we’ve been having a lot of fun here in the city.  Today we got some supplies for my… Umm… new toy (and birthday present, see future posts for details), ate out, then went to see a laser Pink Floyd show.  The show was outstanding, in a way that only Pink Floyd can be.  Tomorrow the plans so far consist of going to some local sites and taking pictures, and heading to the aquarium for fun and more pictures!  From then on, I guess we play it by ear.

Thanks to the free internet here I might be able to post more, assuming I find time to!  Again, thanks from both of us to everyone who helped out.  I know she couldn’t have done it without you.  And back to my vacation!

Near the end of June, I did some “work” as an assistant photographer for a wedding of a family friend. My brother has started getting into higher end photography as of late, and had been doing a couple shoots for engagement photos etc. One of the couples he did that for asked him to do their wedding as well. He knew I was also interested in getting more into photography as a hobby, so he was kind enough to ask me to join in as a second photographer. I was very excited for the chance!

The day went very well in my opinion. I really enjoyed the role I got to play in the whole scenario, being able to be known as a “photographer” but still getting away with a lot of candid shots, and not direct angles. It really got me wanting to get more into photography… And helped me realize that while my current camera is a wonderful camera, it is still very very limited. As is normal for me, I started looking into what I could upgrade to. A lot. Oh, and in case anyone is curious, my birthday is coming up.

Anyway, the event went very well, and fun was had by all. Some of the shots (though probably none of mine) are available at my brother’s website. We did shots at a local temple, the luncheon, and at a local art museum. We were repaid for our time way too much in my opinion… But then again, it’s nice to be appreciated. The only downside being I’m not looking so much into what better cameras can do that I just don’t seem to want to use mine anymore

A couple weeks after that was the grand 4th of July parade. In my city, it’s an event that causes chaos on the streets for days before and after the event, and this year was no different. I live right on one of the streets that the parade goes down, though I’m in an apartment complex and didn’t really have any sort of view of it, but it did mean that if I so desired I could camp out on the lawn in front of the apartment and watch. I did not desire to do so, but fortunately my wife’s family did! We layed out a tarp several days before the parade, and they camped out the night before to make sure it stayed there. Suffice it to say, we had really good seats for the parade this year.

Even though I lament about wanting a new camera so much that I’d never use my current one, I still used it quite a bit. Sadly they weren’t the more artistic pictures I’ve been craving, but it was a lot of fun. Even took a ton of pictures of the giant Hello Kitty balloon for a friend! Guess I should get those to her, huh.

That’s it for this update. Maybe I’ll talk about the giant spider that made it into my house at some point… Sucker was huge, and was a large debate on if it was a hobo spider, or a wolf spider. I know, the suspense is killing you

So yeah… As predicted I stopped writing posts pretty quick there.  But this time I have somewhat of an excuse!  Once again, I am playing World of Warcraft.  My wife and I started up playing last month, and are having quite the blast playing together.  Currently we have two level 33 characters on the brand new Sentinals server.  We also play quite a bit with a couple other local friends.  Looking forward to finally hitting level 60 this round!

The reunion is tomorrow…  Not sure if I’m ready for that, but chances are I’m building too much into it and there will be like 10 people there none of which will know who I am.  But at least it will be a good excuse to get out of the house.  I do promise my attentive readers that I will have a report on it within 4 days of the event.  And if I don’t… well, come find me and slap me or something!

Sadly it’s been so long since I last posted that I don’t remember all the details of the other subjects I was supposed to write on… But I’ll do what I can.  In another post!