Happy Birthday Unca Randy!

We headed out Saturday to Senoia so we could celebrate Randy’s birthday at his place with one side stop at Mike Fitzpatrick Ford, Kellie had spotted something she wanted to look at online. To sum up the trip to Ford without using creative four letter word combination they had us wait a very long time without really presenting us with what they said they would. In the end Kellie’s ire was riding high and we left, not a good day for Mike Fitzpatrick Ford as she and Randy have both all of their vehicles there since they came to Georgia six years ago. After the “Ford Fiasco”, we bolted for Randy’s thankfully we arrived both the eats and got to sit down to great b-day spread of wings, pizza, and Publix cake (mmm cake!). The wings came from Big Joe’s Wing Shack and the pizza was from Small Town Pizza. I have to say that Big Jim’s makes some tasty wings, crisp and wet without being soggy, sauce has a good heat while being full of flavor too, really tasty. Now we had pepperoni pizza from Small Town and normally I don’t do pepperoni cause of the feedback I get from my tummy but they nailed a cheese to pepperoni ratio that seemed not to upset my belly, which is awesome cause I love pepperoni but usually have to pass. Kellie and Barbara took Ripley and coerced got Randy to dial up Myles and Uncle Tom on Skype so they could see the wee one and tell Randy Happpy Birthday! Afterwards Randy and I sat around talking about pistols and computers. Geek Gun nuts what can I say! Randy also sat down and showed me how to disassemble and clean a Glock 22, I honestly think that’ll be the pistol I go with: good weight, easy maintenance, commonly carried rounds, my grip fits just right too. It was a great time and certainly educational, I’ll have to take Randy up on his shooting practice offer sometime soon. So once again Happy Birthday Randy!

Me like Grimlock.

Mommy & Ripley

We when got home from Randy’s we tried to settle Ripley down but she just wasn’t having it. Fussy, fussy, fussy… FUSSY! She was still fussy when Rob & Kristen came over to visit and meet Ripley. Luckily my wonderful Kellie worked her soothing magic and the tiny but fierce Ripley was once again back to normal! Rob and Kristen both got to handle the more sedated less fierce Ripley. I’m glad they stopped by and we’ll have to figure out how to keep up with each other better so it ain’t so long between get togethers!

Sunday we spent out doing some shopping at Target where we found a sad A-Team Hannibal figure from the new movie, he was really sad as he had already been marked down to $4.98 on Clearance, uttering a few lines from the movie there was only one that really stood out “I love it when a plan comes together.” it was so slurred that he honestly sounded like he was drunk! Drunk or gnawing on the cigar of his, any hoo. After we found the few items we remembered to get we headed home and John Wallom came over to visit and have lunch. We ended up having lunch at HJ Wings & Things down the street which is always delicious! Then we sat down at the house to relax and yack a bit. Kellie got on the PC and wanted to go to Nalley Honda to test drive a CR-V she had found that she liked. So she headed out while John and I looked after Ripley and played some Xbox. Ripley really is a keen kid, I mean she just likes being talked too and played with so John and I just took turns playing Red Dead Redemption while Kellie was obviously taking a serious test drive of that CR-V… which we now own! Yep, my hunny got a car that she really loves and well it doesn’t really change anything we weren’t already paying for. It’s a Honda so taken care of I’m sure we’ll have it for a long while. It’s a great looking car and is a really great shade of blue of course! After Kellie came home with her car with all took a ride to pick up a few odds and ends we forgot at Target and so John could get him a copy of RDR to boot! After we got home John headed home to start leveling on RDR to get his niffty horse over his burro. So Kellie and I sat down to some TV before she headed to bed and I sat up playing RDR with John once he got home as part of my sit up late routine. Going to nights I knew I had some adjusting to do.

Monday I woke after Kellie had left for work and sat up with Ripley, our day was spent trying to nap, eat, and watch Sid the Science kid or Sponge Bob when possible. Ripley had a regular on and off kind of napping and eating schedule that is more humorous than anything else. We wasted the day away til Mommy got home and we sat down to some supper and television before I cranked up RDR with John again into the late evening…

Going to settle into a new schedule going Tuesday through Saturday so these weekend updates might start having some odd dates, we’ll see. The weekend wasn’t over in a flash but was certainly packed with a lot of great moments with some great folks. Thanks to everyone who came by the house it was a blast having company over!

“By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.”
- Robert A. Heinlein

New job starts next week, excitement is trending up.

“One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.”
- Robert A. Heinlein

The loots from Domonation prize @ Geek Dad

Now Ripley hasn’t been properly introduced to Domo-kun so we took the time and tried to shoot some photos with her playing with items or sitting with them. Tip for would baby photographers grow some patience like you have never imagined! Ripley was interested more in what things felt like than actually paying attention to camera or what was around her, but we did get a few photos that were pretty nice and definitely high on the cute scale…

We will just have to wait and see if she and Domo-kun will be long term friends or not, but this is the best possible start we could hopeful for our little Geeklet!

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
- Dr. Seuss

I’d love to say that all that weekly excitement bled into our weekend but honestly we played it really low key with a small trip out Saturday towards Perimeter Mall to stop by Jake’s House (a Life is Good store) where Kellie found an adorable shirt and we both pounced on some stuff for Ripley. It was a great day to just get out and drive, Ripley was a doll and of course garnered her fair share of attention. We ended the day back at home though with some chinese take out from Dragon House before settling in to catching up to stuff on the DVR.

Sunday arrived with me heading to Wallom’s place to help him move into Hansen’s place. Arrived about 9:40 and got started. It didn’t really take that long but thanks to the July heat it definitely felt like forever. I even got me a nice ‘pinken-ed’ tan while I was out, but with his family’s help it was really done and over with in no time. Hansen’s place looks real nice and I think Wallom will settle in over the next couple of days. His family’s job was far from over though as some of the furniture and stuff had to go to Augusta for storage and what not. Long day for Wallom’s folks for sure! It felt good to be able to lend Wallom a hand but man I think if someone is moving in the next month I’m going to keep my mouth shut.

Was a great weekend and things are really just starting to fall into place for a change.

“To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy – and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.”
- Robert Heinlein

We had celebrated our 1st Anniversary a few weeks ago and as a gift I presented Kellie with tickets to ‘Breakfast with a Biologist‘ so we headed downtown early in the morning and arrived a bit early. Turns out that was just fine so we got to tour around the sitting area watching with uninterrupted pleasure the Ocean Voyager tank which was breath taking! Finally we got to enter the ballroom and sit down to breakfast by the staff of Wolfgang Puck catering which was absolutely amazing! The lecture in question was in regards to Sea Turtles and the Georgia Aquariums involvement in Rehabilitation and Conservation projects around the Southeast. We learned of the turtles that have visited and stayed with the aquarium prior to release into the wild as well as some of the conditions that effect these wonderful creatures. It was a very informative experience and honestly a lot of fun for us, but while this is certainly a family friendly event I couldn’t imagine small children sitting still nor enjoying such a discussion except in some very rare cases. After the lecture and questions we were allowed to enter the Aquarium and explore as general attendees. I had never been so I took a lot of pictures (badly) and put the new Flip to use. We plan to go back with hopefully a little less crowd but until I’ll just share videos I threw together…

Sunday we didn’t have much in the way planned except my Grandparents coming to visit us and see Ripley. They brought her some gifts and stayed for a while visiting. It was really nice to have them over to the house and have them meet Ripley and just spend some time together. They got to meet Barbara and I do believe everyone made good impressions and we’ll have to do it again sometime.

After my Grandparents left we settled down took care of Ripley before watching the new Clash of the Titans… can’t say that it was the best choice but for a review and spoilers see the block below…

****** WARING POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD ******

Clash of the Titans – 1 out of 5 Krakens

While I like some of the twisting of the tale they took from the Original this reboot/remake/rehash had the very plot and cohesive story line ripped right out of it. The acting is mostly sub par with a few one line exceptions sprinkled through out the film. Liam Neeson plays Zeus hungry for devotion, Ralph Finnes plays Hades out to take power and get even with Zeus, and Sam Worthington is Perseus a demi-god who wants to just be a (hu)man by doing things a (hu)man cannot do. Perseus is so tied up in his efforts of being just a (hu)man that he refuses aid given freely by the Gods to him this of course costs him when everyone, EVERYONE but Perseus dies on their long mission to defeat the Kraken and defy the Gods. So they want to defy the gods, only Zeus wants to help Perseus and his fellow travelers encourage him to accept this aid, so they can defy the gods… wait what? Yeah that what just happened. Perseus is also told if he defeats the Kraken and fulfills his destiny he will die, only he doesn’t everyone else does. The rest of the original film is draped around this film for merely having the parts from the original still in this remake, they don’t offer any real value and often are just in the way. Wait til you see Andromeda simply tossed off the tower and Perseus is shown going after her minutes later, when he honestly has no reason or purpose to do so… I guess he just digs diving after people. Egh.

The plot and points of the movie becomes so muddled that you can’t really walk away from it with a clear picture of what it was you were suppose to have really gathered from the movie. It was a bunch of pretty scenes and great effects but really what was the point? Sadly there wasn’t one so the story veers off in what seems to be almost three different movies spliced together to make one workable film before the production deadline.

Had higher hopes for this title as the original is a classic and a much loved favorite of my wife. It just wasn’t meant to be a I guess and this movie sadly strengthens the thought that sometimes you don’t mess with a classic, that’s why it’s a classic.

I had some folks ask me about prints of pictures for Ripley as well as when I might put some on the blog so while all of our images are mainly digital I’ve put them on Flickr and here, but on Flickr you can order prints if you so desire. I also updated and tweaked some other pages as well, check out the links below:

• Ripley’s Photos on Flickr: View & Get Prints if you want
• Family Photos Page Added
• New Calendar
• Chris Bio Update
• Watched & Played: TV & Movies Updated

Thanks for checking in on us and we hope everyone out there is had a great weekend too!

“A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain—then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?”
- Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein

Saturday arrived and after we awoke we got ready to head to Johnny’s place and meet up with him, Anna, and Ben. Ben is a good friend of ours who moved northward to Massachusetts. He was visiting and we were lucky enough to catch him for at least lunch over at Doc Chey’s in the Virgina Highland’s area. It was a good meal and great company! We had to head south bound for some Ripley supplies and other shopping errands then we ended up at Taco Mac before heading home. I got to play with my new camera as well and it takes some good video, we posted this video on Facebook, you’ll have to be my Friend to view it but it’s the best I can do til I find a good way to host and display video… well here it is from YouTube, thanx Mr. Wallom!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sunday we spent the morning relaxing and finishing up some of our DVR’d programming before heading out to visit my folks and my Aunt Cindy and her family. It was a good time out and it seemed like Ripley really enjoyed getting out and meeting some of her extended family! We’ll have to try and figure out how to get by more often. It just seems like you never have a free hour much anymore much less hours to travel around all the time, but we’ll make the effort.

Having the extra day off Monday we choose to use it wisely and did much of nothing except some house cleaning, TV catch-up and when the evening of the day came I got out to do some basic yard stuff. We have some out door improvement plans time and cash permitting, but just cleaning up helped a lot.

It was a great weekend and we got to see a lot of people without feeling too rushed to be everywhere at once. I hope it can stay that way!

“I’ve never understood how God could expect His creatures to pick the one true religion by faith—it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.”
- Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein