writ. dodging classification

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

040807_16411.jpg, originally uploaded by iammikes.

Puppy out cold

1. I GOT ENGAGED! oh my god! — sure sure i know people want to see a ring picture on here. I’ll get to it. I will i swear. I’ve been neglecting my blog lately, so don’t think this post means I’ve suddenly stopped neglecting, I’m sure it’ll stay slightly neglected for a while, till i have more free time to post.

2. Got a cute puppy named Stella. Laurie and I don’t really know her breed, but the current idea is some sort of long haired chihuahua, Shiba Inu, and Terrier mix. DISCLAIMER: On any given day our ideas on what breed of Stella is may change completely.

3. I’ve had a full calender year working a regular job, not in the military. Rock on. I’m totally content with my current career path. It was a great change of direction. Not to devalue my military time or anything, because I feel it was a very valuable experience, but i did need a change.

4. I’ve had a full calender year living in my own house.

5. Got new windows and storm door for said house.

6. Did a lot of painting in said house.

7. Hung out a lot with cool neighbors of said house.

8. Found a big-ass spider in my basement.
Is that all? Well its all I can think of right now. Yes finally.. the Spider picture is not the first post on my blog anymore. You happy? ok good.

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

CIMG0833, originally uploaded by iammikes.

I saw this bugger in my basement today. Had to be at least 3 inches from the end of its back legs to the end of its front legs. Ewww. Creeps me out. Maybe i need to call a bug exterminator or something

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }
.flickr-yourcomment { }
.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }
.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }

100106_13271.jpg, originally uploaded by iammikes.

Stella the puppy

So over the past few weeks Laurie and I have been looking for a puppy.  Yesterday just before I was to head off to a bachelor party, we got one!!

 Here’s a link to puppy pictures.

She’s sooo cute, and sooo well behaved.  She is still, of course, very much a puppy.  Right now she’s sleeping in her puppy bed across from me in the living room, because we had a tiring walk, in which she was trying to sprint everywhere.  She definately tired herself out.

I ended up taking one of those Toyota FJ cruisers for spin.  I was underwhelmed… Really nice ride for the type of truck it is, but 1. the toyota dealership in clarksville, basically only had ones that were loaded with crap and alloy wheels that kinda of took away from the go anywhere beat the crap out of it image that Toyota is trying to create on their website.  Plus it made it 31K instead of 25k.. bummer.  Plus i realized even if i got the more barebones one, it’d be way too much than what i need haha.  Also the visibility out the back and even through the front windshield kinda was sucky.  oooh well.. satisfied that curiosity though.

Then I was over at a Subaru dealership and took an 06 Legacy GT for a ride.  I liked it, although the only ones they had left, had this horrid looking wood trim interior and the dealer guy wasn’t very helpful in seeing if they could actually find any that had the non-wood trim.  Pretty much a dissapointing day of test drives honestly.  I got them to give me a call when the Spec.B’s and the 07 legacy GTs come in though.. so that may bring some life back into it.

Plus, i sort of am a little interested in that STi limited that will be out some time.. cause honestly i’d love an STi but i really hate the wing of a spoiler on the back.  But who knows how much they’ll be charging for that, considering its a limited run. 800 vehicles.

But that got me thinking .. the base mitsubishi Lancer Evolution comes without a big spoiler as well .. hmmm maybe i need to look at them.

Lately i’ve been looking at cars.  Here’s a few that have caught my eye.

 FJ Cruiser - Cause my brother said i should look at these, and they’ve grown on me.
Legacy GT - Cause i do love Subaru’s and the current gen of the Legacy is pretty damn sweet.

A half hour or so ago I wrote a post about my addiction to battlestar galactica, not thinking much about what today was. I was ramping up to watch the first monday night football game of the year. I took time to get some signatures for the application to my HOA, for a new storm door to match our new windows.

Around this same time my mom was writing an e-mail to family and friends reflecting on September 11th. I had thought of it earlier today when I was listening to a radio show, and they mentioned it. Overall though I haven’t thought about it too much today. I guess i hadn’t realized on some level. Its been 5 years. Thats a bit of time. But I guess my mom’s e-mail has pulled me back a bit, and pushed me towards my own reflections. 5 years ago, I almost feel like i was almost a completely different person, but at the same time, i feel the same. I definately was in a completely different place to say the least. I was 3 months new to the Air Force. A fresh 2nd Lt, butter bar. I was working in Minot North Dakota, in the communications squadrons network operations flight. Now, I’m out of the Air Force and I work as a Software Engineer, a career I think I was built for. Being an officer was a wonderful experience, and I’m extremely proud to have served, and very very greatful for all that I learned being an Officer. Its definately made me a stronger better person, able to handle a great amount of situations i may never have had experience with if i had just started being a software developer right out of college.

I was sitting there at my desk. It was almost 8am, CST, as I remember. I was checking the e-mail. I was an LT, still wet behind the ears. My commanding officer Capt Adams, came out of his office, after a quick call from his wife, and said, “Mike come with me, into the Network Center, we have to turn on the News, there’s some thing we have to see now”. We walked into the network center, to find the news was already on, and the first building had already been hit. There was smoke billowing from it. We all couldn’t believe it. We were trying to justify, maybe somebody got off course and accidentally hit it. But then we got word it was a pretty large plane. The feeling that this was an accident began to fade from our minds, and the graveness of the situation befell the room. It wasn’t very long after this, that the second plane hit the building, while we were all watching on the news. With this Capt Adams made the sobering statemant, “Well, todays going to be a long day guys, lets see what the commander needs us to do”. Yes It was a long day. Its a blur. I think i went home early and got some sleep, because i was coming in to work the night shift, so our communications center always had an officer on call for the Wing Commander, in case they needed something.

What followed of course we all know. A month later I was on my way to my communications officer school, and was stopping at my Uncle Dicks house on the way. I got there just in time that day, to see the first bombings of Afghanistan.

As for today, the world, is a different place but its the same, as am I, and as we all are.

Ok yes I am a big dork.  Ok, thats over with.  BSG season 3 is coming out on October 6th i believe.  I’m so psyched about this series.  Its probably one of the best works of science fiction to come out in recent years.  I’m a late starter to the series, since i only started to watch all of the series last march, and its been going on for about 3 years (if you count the mini-series that started it all).

Anyway, none of thatmatters.  Whats cool is if you go to scifi.com right now, you can start seeing webisodes, that fill in the gap between the last episode of Season 2, and the first episode of season 3.  There’s going to be 10 of them, and currently 2 are up.  THey’re only about 4 minutes a piece (in the end it’ll make about a full episodes worth of content).  So far the first two are very intrigueing and leave you wanting more as any good BSG episode does.  Go check it out.

Geek - off.

Wow uh where’d that come from .. did i black out?   Ok back to photography and golf lol

So it came.  Monday.  The first day back from being on vacation in Ocean City, MD for the week.  I got through it.  Thats about all i can say.  What made it ever so much harder was the fact that the previous week contained perfect beach weather, much fun with Laurie and my family, as well as hanging out with Laurie’s fam in the beginning of the week.  Peppered throughout were fun times, like going to Seacrets and playing skee-ball on the board walk.  [Aside] Coincidentally i scored my highest skee-ball score of the season with a 440.  Which i followed up with a 370 and 380 and 410.  Of course these scores were much to Laurie’s chagrin considering she was able to score in the upper 300’s but did not surpass my 440.  hehehehehehe I win. [end Aside].  All this was wrapped up in a lot of great days on the beach, and fun times in the surf.  The ocean was fairly calm, which may have been the only complaint of the week, since its more fun when its a tad bit ruffer.

Lastly I had my best round of golf for the whole summer, last Monday, shooting a 106 at Deer Run Golf Club just over the bridge from Ocean City.  That was a whole lot of fun, playing golf with my two uncles, my brother, and in the group in front of us, Laurie’s Dad and her Uncle.  The pinnacle of my game was birdieing the par 5 17th on the course.  I was about 6 inches from an Eagle, but that didn’t matter, cause the birdie was just as gratifying.

True to form with a good week, Laurie and I ended it by taking our own sweet time driving back from OC, walking on the boardwalk in the morning, to getting lunch at the Green Turtle, in Salisbary.  Then stopping at a farmers market to get some verry verrry good corn on a cob, and finishing it up with stopping at the outlet malls on the eastern shore, before the Bay Bridge.

So that was my week, don’t mind me if i’m day dreaming, about being on vacation again, i sure as heck didn’t want to leave last week.