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2010-05-20T14:13:00.002-06:00

I would like to officially call this joke mine: a.k.a. "I so made that up".

If you don't like mom jokes, dont read this.

Your mom is so fat that if they threw her in the Gulf of Mexico she would stop the oil leak.©

Juliette's First Christmas

2010-01-29T11:39:00.003-06:00

Juliette had a great 1st Christmas. Amanda and I waited for her to wake up on Christmas morning and then we all got up. Juliette had some presents from MawMaw Kitty and MiMi JC.

This picture is most likely my favorite from the day. JC gave Juliette her first Cabbage Patch doll. Amanda still has hers from when she was a baby. I had CP doll too! I had one that was a football player and one that was an astronaut. I haven't gone into my parents attic to track it down yet, but I think that I still have mine.

Great day... Always good to remember the God gave his only son to come here to Earth to save us from sin.

Mexico 2010

2010-01-29T11:14:00.004-06:00

We started off our new year in Mexico. Actually I spent my new year's morning with Carlos and we went cull/management buck hunting. It was a great time. I ended up shooting a buck that they had been wanting to harvest for a while. So its always good to be a helper out there. My favorite part about the Mexico trip was bow hunting. I was sitting in pop-up blinds with my camera and tripod. I was told that I should harvest all of the female lettuce that came by me. I shot 3 lettuce, but only retrieved 1. :-( I absolutely cannot stand it when I lose a deer. I learned that one of the bad things about hunting on the ground is that it takes a while for a deer to start bleeding a lot (arrow is not shot at a downward angle) so following a blood trail is not the easiest thing.

Juliette came with us this year. It was a first out at El Gato. She pretty much held the attention of everyone over there. Tina was such a HUGE help for Amanda. She was always willing and ready to do whatever. So thank you very much for that Tina.

I think, not quite sure, but I think that Kristen has a new found joy in babies. Juliette was able to prove to her that babies can be fun. I think that her being quite for the 10 hour drive down there had something to do with it.

One of the things that was different this year was an extra friend came. Shawn was able to take off of work and come down. I was very glad about that. We had a lot of fun with him being there. He should go during Christmas break more often.

My favorite meal of the trip: New Year's Eve!!!! WOW WOW WOW, that was soooo goooood. We had all of the traditional American fixin's. I don't even want to talk about how good it was anymore because I am going to get sad thinking about it. (And hungry)

Amazing hunter of the year...not me. Cleon. Really nice guy. He spotted a really nice buck that he wanted to shoot. So he hunted it for 3 days before he got him. And that's not morning hunt/evening hunt...no he stayed out all day long with a sandwich for lunch. He hunted and hunted hard. Came out with a DOUBLE main beam on each side (4 main beams). Nice 10 pt frame that scored in the 180's.

Thank you very much Baker family for having us over there! We enjoyed it.

First Kill of the year

2009-11-17T15:40:00.002-06:00

So before hunting season started Justin and I agreed to not clean shave our face until we had our first bow kill of the season. I was so pumped about bow hunting again this year. I just knew that I was going to kill a deer (head of lettuce) on the first weekend that I hunted. So October 1st was the first day of bow season. I finally got my harvest on November 14th. I had to keep the beard a lot longer than I wanted to, but it was worth it. I am so hooked on bow hunting. That was my third kill with my bow since last season.

I would like to thank Wildlife Energy Drink for giving me the stamina to stay energized for the morning hunt.

Juliette and I

2009-11-17T15:37:00.003-06:00

This is going to be Juliette's favorite picture of her and I. Most likely one of those pictures that she always carries around to brag about her dad.

College Football Bowl Predictions

2009-11-13T15:16:00.003-06:00

I just don't understand the way the BCS and AP think. I will be the first to admit that when LSU first started off the season I thought that they were going to go 7-5 again this season. But obviously they are getting better and better as the season goes. They have two loses that come from playing against #1 and #2 in the nation. That's not too bad. I hope that they can win out the rest of the season and see what happens there. But here is what really bothers me. And I would love for someone to explain it. How does USC land a spot in the BCS bowl against Boise State? (prediction) USC lost twice...one of the teams we beat before they played them. Washington was an unranked team when they played USC. Really, its so frustrating to think that USC is constantly in the higher rankings even when they cant prove themselves against weaker teams. I would love for USC to be ranked #1 in the nation just so I know that they would go play either Alabama or Florida in the championship game. I am sure that everyone in the SEC is so sick of hearing about USC and their "bought" rankings that if there were a match up between the two FL or BAMA would make it a point to shut out USC and make them feel pain.

USC is not a great football team. Why does the BCS and AP polls think differently?

Happy Birthday to someone I know...

2009-10-30T07:14:00.002-06:00

Today is the birthday of a very special man. I have learned a lot from this person, and I am still learning more. I hope that people see Jesus Christ in me like I do in him. I hope that my children will love me as much as his children love him. I hope to be as good of a husband to my wife as he is to his wife. I hope to have his physical health when I am his age (you buff man you). I hope to be as successful in my career as him. I hope to be as much of a friend to him as he is to me. I hadn't even known this person but for a couple of days and I knew that there was something great about him. I am so happy for all the times that we were able to spend together. All of those lazy Sunday lunches after church. All of those times hanging out at the pool. All of those times of playing some driveway hockey, and some hockey on the ice. The time that he watched me "hang" off the back of the boat and chum the water! All the fun times on the sled (with that totally awesome drop off point). All of the fun times snowboarding together. So many great times together. I could go on and on. I pray that God blesses him on his Birthday today.

Glenn you deserve to have the best birthday a guy can ask for. Happy Birthday. I love you like a brother, like a father, like a friend. You are all around great to me!

Expert

2009-10-30T06:11:00.006-06:00

About a month ago I was visiting with Stephanie. She was showing me all of the cool stuff on her new iPhone. One of the games that she had on there was Minesweeper. At that moment I remembered that I LOVE that game. So I started playing it some here and there. I do not know if I ever attempted the expert level, but I knew that I was good enough. So after MANY MANY games here are my results...

As you can see, I have two question marks in the top right corner. Those were the last two blocks that I came to. I was so nervous about choosing which one, I just flipped a coin.

As you can see here, my coin toss was a winner. I was quite pleased with myself. Now I am an expert. The one thing that I do not like about this game is that there are times that you are going to have to guess which block. They should have more thinking and less guessing going on here. After all, it holds the title of EXPERT!

Nice Picture

2009-10-21T13:41:00.004-06:00

Too Cute

2009-09-24T07:42:00.003-06:00

Sometimes my daughter is so cute I have to take a picture of her. Even if its with my not so good camera on my cell phone.

Bow Season

2009-09-24T07:31:00.003-06:00

Bow season is approaching quickly and I have a problem. Can you guess what it is? My problem is that bow season opens on THURSDAY October 1st. I have to work, as many other people do. What are they thinking when they present a temptation like this.

Anyway, I am looking forward to having a great season. I think that I am going to be able to put plenty of "heads of lettuce" away for the season. I look forward to having many more home cooked "heads of lettuce" now that Amanda is taking care of the food at the house.

Not much time

2009-09-14T10:27:00.002-06:00

I am thinking back to the days when I was still in college and I had all kinds of time to do things like writing blogs. I feel so bad about not having anything posted on here. Now that I have a daughter I should have all sorts of pictures posted and stories to tell. I am not sure if it is a matter of time, stories, facebook doing the job, or just lazy. I hope to do a little more posting from time to time.

Life today: Hunting season is only days away. With bow season starting (deer) October first I am in a hurry to make sure that my house is in order. I have a little bit of construction going on. I am trying to redo my ceiling in the living room and kitchen. Once I get that done then the house should be in much better order. I am hoping to be done with upgrades for a very long time. And Amanda and I are ready to invite more people over to the house. We cannot do that when I have all of the furniture moved out for the construction.

I do have a new job in Lafayette. I am working for Neel-Schaffer, Inc. Its only a couple of miles from my house so I have been able to spend MUCH MORE time with Amanda and Juliette (El Gato Nacho Cheese Margarita). With traffic it sometimes takes me about 9 minutes to get home. Mostly its only about 7 minutes though.

I will try and get some pictures up on here soon. Only the really good ones though.

Juliette Stars in her first commercial

2009-07-14T09:01:00.002-06:00

See if you can pick out which one she is...

I PASSED THE FE EXAM!!!!

2009-06-20T06:09:00.002-06:00

First of all I would like to tell you that I have super powers! Let me tell you about my dream....

Amanda and I are sitting around as she is going through the mail. She pulls out a letter from ELSES (the FE exam people). She opened the letter quickly. I kept telling her to tell me what the results were. She just kept ignoring me. Finally she looks up and tells me that I passed. So I then wanted to she the letter. I wanted something that I could read and know for sure. When she finally gave me the paper I started unfolding it. After unfolding it I noticed that it was covered in oil. I couldn't read anything on there. When I went to open the second page it was gone. They had people around me picking up trash. I asked one of them if they had seen my paper. Nobody would talk to me. I was getting so frustrated. Finally I decided to just go check my email....The dream ended.

Why do I have super powers? That dream took place the night that I received the email notice from ELSES. I knew that I had gotten the email before even checking my email!

Anyway, I passed the FE. I am now an "Engineer Intern" and on the road for my PE soon!

God's GREATEST Gift

2009-06-16T09:22:00.003-06:00

Juliette Elise Andrepont
8 pounds 5 ounces
21 inches
June 14, 2009 - 12:33 PM

Work Update

2009-06-16T09:15:00.002-06:00

I know that most of you already know, but I am not working on the Jackson Barracks project anymore. I am now working on a flood gate in New Orleans. They are driving the piles for the foundation right now. So for the next month or so I should be down there doing pile inspections.

Some of you have requested to see pictures of my "home away from home" while at Jackson Barracks. Here are some pictures.

The Wilsons

2009-05-06T09:08:00.002-06:00

This weekend we were blessed with being able to hang out with the Wilson's. I am so glad that I was able to have some time off to visit with them.

I came home from work to find that Glenn mowed my grass, Vivian planted some flowers, and the boys enjoyed some movies on my new TV. So they literally made themselves at home!

Papa Bear came in on Friday and made sure to take us fishing over the weekend. That was really fun, even though the weather was not good at all. We were still able to catch a good bit of fish. Gotta love getting some red fish in the freezer. Of course we ate pretty much everything we caught, so there wasn't much left over.

It wouldn't be any fun if I didn't get hurt, right? Friday night I was trying to jump from the boat to the pier. That didn't go the way I thought it would. I nearly knocked myself out by breaking my fall with my head. So I look up to see Justin laughing his tail off. I would have laughed too, I am sure that it was funny to see someone trying to jump two feet and falling on their head.

Lately its not fishing with me and Justin unless there is boat trouble. There was nothing different this weekend either. We got PawPaw's boat and went to put it in the water. Before putting the boat in we noticed that there was no key. We put the boat in anyway and I used the troll motor to get from the launch to the camp. Shortly after leaving the launch I remembered that we did not take off the motor brace (from the trailer to the motor) so I reached down for it, but it was too late. It had already fallen off into the water. So I continue on my ride to the camp and the troll motor goes out. Completely "cu-put". Justin had to get the other boat to tow me to the camp. So now we have a boat with no key and no troll motor. When we got to the camp, that's why I fell on my head. Oh, and my Chaco flip flop fell in the water. They float, but the current was moving. So we took about 5 minutes to find a flash light. Luckily I was able to find the flip flop about 100 yards down the bayou. We all worked on the troll motor to get it up and running again. We found a key at a boat shop, drove all the way there to find out that they did NOT have a key. We finally gave up on the idea of going fishing in PawPaw's boat.

Its a good thing that PaPa Bear had his boat up a running. At least some of us were able to go fishing.

Oh yeah, and the cooking! We ate super good all weekend. That had a bit of an affect on tightening my belt for work on Tuesday. I have got to slow down on the blackberry cobbler!

Maybe I will have some red fish pictures to add to this post later on.

What a great weekend!

She is SOOOO Beautiful!

2009-04-01T07:24:00.003-06:00

I love these two so much! I am looking forward to June 11th - ish.

Do not do this at (your own) home!

2009-04-01T06:59:00.005-06:00

If you want to try this make sure its at friends house and you are not around to help clean up!

All over the ice maker.

All over the frozen goods.

It did taste good, the perfect coke icee. Yes, I know, I am bald.

Coke all over the top of the freezer.

Monster Truck Show

2009-03-14T07:08:00.004-06:00

I know that my parents took me to a show when I was a kid, but unfortunately I didn't quite remember everything about that. So, Amanda and I went see the Monster Trucks last weekend. I was just like a little kid when I walked in there and saw those trucks. I couldn't wait to see what they were going to do.

I was very impressed with the show, with the exception of the "commercials".

Here is what happened:

- Wheelie contest. The trucks went up to a row of three cars, popped up the front end of the truck and gunned it. Which made the back tires spin fast enough to bring the truck into a mad wheelie. AWESOME!
- Race off the line. The trucks would start about 10 feet from the other side of that row of cars. They had a dirt ramp leading up to the cars, so there was no dramatic front end wheelies. Anyway, they raced off a red/green light. Would ever made it over the three cars and across the line first, won.
- Freestyle. Used the entire course in whatever way they wanted to. 60 seconds to impress the crowd.

Pics...

This guy actually rolled his truck over doing that wheelie. It was awesome! He was still able to compete the rest of the night too.

YOU HAVE TO READ THIS!!!

2009-03-12T10:21:00.002-06:00

FULL ARTICLE!

Please read this article, I think that everyone should be aware of this. Make sure that you read all of the comments at the bottom.

Kristen, make sure that Russell gets a copy to the link. He would love it!

Am I missing something here?

2009-03-12T08:39:00.002-06:00

Full Article.

The article is talking about the money loss from the world's billionaires. Some interesting facts about the billionaires..."The collective net worth of this year's 793 billionaires is $2.4 trillion, down $2 trillion from the total wealth of last year's 1,125 billionaires."

This is a clip that I have taken out from the full article (above). This is what I found to be extremely interesting. I have never heard of the person, so I don't know what the situation is. Just read the comment:

"So is there anywhere one can still make a fortune these days? The 38 newcomers offer a few clues. Among the more notable new billionaires are Mexican Joaquín Guzmán Loera, one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the U.S."

Funny Kids

2009-03-11T10:54:00.002-06:00

I have no clue what I would do if that were my kid...(punishment?)

A 5 year old's Birthday Cake

2009-03-11T10:51:00.003-06:00

Mishaps in nature

2009-03-06T08:04:00.002-06:00

Here is a link that shows all of the animals.

If you ask me, it looks like someone boiled half the lobster.

Soda Restriction - FAILED!

2009-03-04T14:22:00.003-06:00

As you know, I had an Energy drink at the begining of February. That was for needs of staying awake and it was something that I could justify with breaking my rules. Since then I have failed again, and again. Another time with driving home from Houston, and time staying up really late while working on something with Justin. And again today. We had a Shaw lunch and there was Coke. I drank some. I could have had water, but I gave up. I am going public with this to let everyone know that I am a failure.

Big Cats Need Big Food

2009-02-19T07:49:00.003-06:00

Taken from a trail camera in East Texas.

Body in Motion!

2009-02-18T08:32:00.002-06:00

Ummm....THANK YOU! Even though that really doesn't express my gratitude I have to say that. I am so grateful to have Dr. Shawn there for me.

Yesterday I woke up with a pain in the neck. It was bearable in the beginning. By around 1:00 pm it was down right HURTING. So I drove all the way from New Orleans to go to my trusted doctor. It was totally worth the trip too! Within about 45 minutes I was back on my feet with hardly any pain at all.

Thanks to Body in Motion I can actually turn my head now!

How I lost $40

2009-02-18T08:10:00.003-06:00

Yesterday when I went to work I decided that I have entirely too much money. So the only solution that I could find was to waste $40. I decided to pump some money into the economy locked my keys in the Shaw truck. Then I called Pop-A-Lock to come unlock the truck.

Colorado Trip: The Drive/Flight

2009-02-11T07:54:00.004-06:00

I guess the first thing that I have to do is confess that I drank something on my restricted list!

Here is the reason: My flight is out of Houston, TX at 6:30 am on Friday... So I left New Orleans around 4:00 pm on Thursday. I got into Baton Rouge and got into my personal truck. My lovely wife wanted for me to get a couple of things from the Baker house, so passed by there. I was out of Baker for about 6:30. Because of the I-10 construction I made sure to take HWY 190 to I-49. So by the time I got into Lafayette it was 8:30. From there I had to print out my e-tickets and pack up. Long story short, I was packed and ready to go at 11:30. Of course I still had to go get gas and groceries. I needed something that was going to keep me awake for my four hour drive to Houston. This was my answer to that!

So do see what restriction I had? I will give you a hint, it says Wildlife on it! I know that I only said that I could have carbonation/energy drinks if it were a Jr.High lock-in. But I knew that I was going to need some juice in order to make it to Houston on NO SLEEP. So I had to have it. That stuff is GOOD too!

I got to the airport in plenty of time. No mishaps while on the road. So I was able to get on the plane on time and I was in Colorado at 7:30 in the morning!

Colorado Trip: The Arrival

2009-02-11T07:53:00.004-06:00

I was picked up from the airport in this really fancy BMW. The best part about that is we took a toll road where there is NO SPEED LIMIT! Shawn was nice enough to take me 150 mph. It was pretty fun. Once we slowed down to 100 mph it was like we weren't even moving. So maybe I wasn't telling the truth about the no speed limit, neither was I telling the truth about how fast we went. But that was still a cool story. Shawn does have a fine little BMW though!

We stopped off and got some Breakfast Burritos and then headed to the house for some relaxation! Which was nothing but practicing for the Wii tournament.

Then we went to Kristen's school. That was fun, we got to help out. Since I am so tall we used my height to hang the kids' art work. They had to make a poster with 100 things on it. Well this one kid made a poster with 100 "lost socks". None of them were the same. It was 100 random socks. Maybe Kristen can take a picture of it for me and I will post it later.

After all of that excitement we went home for more Wii practice. Then we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. It was really good. We also thought about going dancing at a club with Hippies (right Amanda?).

Colorado Trip: The Hike

2009-02-11T07:52:00.001-06:00

Kristen and I went for a hike at Mount Sanitas (I think). It was really fun. It makes me want to live somewhere that I can drive 20 minutes for some mountain hiking.

It was about a 2 hour hike. And we practically ran up the entire way, oh wait, never mind...I sucked wind the entire time!

Kristen was trying to hold her car from the top of the mountain.

Colorado Trip: The Dealer

2009-02-11T07:52:00.000-06:00

Shawn has been working at a VW dealership for a long time now, too long! He is just too good at his job. If I only needed a vehicle right now, I most likely would have driven one home (especially if he showed me the car at night). I really like a lot of the features that this van has, the Routan. I have always been a Toyota guy, but Shawn has me considering the Routan!

Colorado Trip: Rock Band/Wii Sports Tournament

2009-02-11T07:51:00.000-06:00

So Kristen told me that we were going to have a Rock Band party with a bunch of her Colorado friends. By the time it was within a couple of hours of the party everyone started to cancel on us. It was almost like Kristen wanted me to think that she actually had friends. I personally thought that she was paying people to call her and make up these excuses, just to make me think that people really were going to come.

In the end she did have some friends over. Due to a really good guilt trip! So we had some fun that night. We all grew moustaches!

**Thanks for coming over Adam, Katy, Reily, Regan, Leum, and Reese. (I most likely did not get the spelling correct on those names.)**

Colorado Trip: Snow Day!

2009-02-11T07:50:00.000-06:00

Oh yeah, SNOW DAY! Kristen on skis, Scott and Shawn on snowboards. We were carving up the entire mountain! It was a small mountain that packed a HUGE amount of fun. We had a blast. I am getting better with the snow board, but I still had my moments with falling.

Oh, and I wanted to go sleding too. Since I would be getting into the car, I had to make sure that I didnt get my clothes all wet.

Colorado Trip: Snow Day - WATCH OUT!

2009-02-11T07:49:00.002-06:00

This was my attempt to be funny...did it work? In the last seconds of the video you can hear a bystander..."Oh my God!"

Colorado Trip: Snow Day - Sledding!

2009-02-11T07:48:00.001-06:00

This is a trick that a Canadian taught me...thanks for the trick Glenn! I had to go in my swim suit to make sure that everyone knew it was'nt that cold out there.

Best of the season!

2009-02-02T17:50:00.005-06:00

Click on the picture to see it bigger.

I am pretty sure that this picture gets the award "Best of the season". Never did I expect to see something like this on my trail camera in the back yard. It took almost a whole year, but it was totally worth the wait to see.

If I had to guess I would say that this is an 8pt and a 6pt. The six point is much older and much tougher (if you ask me).

Now if I could only extend hunting season a little longer...

Air Travel

2009-01-29T07:36:00.004-06:00

This is a video that Jacque sent to me through email. The video shows the air travel of the entire world for 24 hours. It has been compressed into 1 minute, so you dont have to take a day of vacation to watch the video. I thought that it was interesting, hope you enjoy.

Lancelot Encore

2009-01-28T13:21:00.003-06:00

This was a story that I was very surprised to see. I really didn't think that this kind of stuff was going on with a public price tag. This couple some how won a CLONE AUCTION. So $155,000 later they get a double of their (dead) dog.

Read story here.

Food in the freezer!

2009-01-27T08:45:00.002-06:00

This weekend I made my second Bow kill this year. I was fortunate enough to go to Rusty's place and do some bow hunting. Due to the wonderful weather I got to see some awesome sights. In the morning I saw 8 bucks all walk out at the same time. It was really cool, something that I have never seen before. At least 5 of them were within bow range, but none of them were "shooter" bucks. They get to live longer because of their good genetics.

I have to give a huge thanks to Douglas, who helped me find the deer after running for a very long distance. I would guess at least 1/2 mile. Thanks to the 2 bladed Rage broad head there was a nice blood trail to guide our way.

Thanks Rusty and Douglas!

Still Difficult

2009-01-27T08:41:00.002-06:00

Last night was a GREAT food night. Caroline cooked for all of us and it was some kind of wonderful! I absolutely loved it. I will most likely make her come to my house and show me how to cook it. Yum Yum...

Well Grandma came and she made a BLACKBERRY COBBLER!!! So of course since it is still January I was not allowed the sweets! I was so not happy about that. But, as Justin reminded me, I came this far. So I am going to finish strong with one more week of no sweets.

I do not think that not eating sweets has made any difference in my weight. I think that I just eat more of the real food instead of the sweets. Oh well, at least I know that I can give it up if I need to.

Difficult

2009-01-09T08:43:00.002-06:00

As you all know, I have my restrictions right now. Well, I still have half a roll of cookie dough in the refrigerator. That is killing me. I tried to tell myself that if I waited until February that it would go bad. There are starving people all around the world and I am not eating it. Shame one me...but I still resisted. Then I found some candy canes in the cabinet. Grrr...its so hard. Not to mention all the candy and cokes at work.

2008 College Football/National Championship

2009-01-09T07:05:00.004-06:00

It wasn't as crazy of a year as last year's season, but it still had a lot of entertaining moments. Poor LSU wasn't able to hang on for a great season. but they sure did look good in the bowl game. Only time will tell how next year plays out. I sure did like the way Jefferson played! Shows some promise for a good quarterback next season. Although, I hear that LSU has recruited another great high school prospect.

I wont say this much, but GO GATORS! What a game last night! I got a little worried when I saw how well OU was moving the ball. I think there is something about the red zone that really pumps up UF. They man handled OU on that 4th down. And they came up with some great interceptions to keep OU from scoring. It seemed like it was tough enough for Florida. This wasn't there normal dominating kind of play. Fortunately they never get tired. Obviously OU's D couldn't handle an entire game with the SEC players!

Gotta love the "unsportsmanlike conduct" called on Tim Tebow. I think that Gator Chomp on the other OU guy was totally worth it! Being the good man that Tebow is, I would assume that the OU player wasn't being nice to him and that was the only response that he could think of doing.

How did you bring in the New Year?

2009-01-07T14:34:00.008-06:00

I am sure that most of you know by now, but I will post it anyway. Sean had some pictures on his blog, but he didn't want to show anything too graphic. Lucky for me, I have a disclosure at the top of my blog.

If you don't know what happened: Long story short...Popping fireworks at Sean's parents house. I drank a Jones soda (in a glass bottle). Sean used it to shoot bottle rockets, I used it to shoot bottle rockets. Car ran over the bottle, it broke into pieces. Last fireworks of the night, five sparklers, approximately 1:00 a.m. I lite two sparklers, I raise my hands and start running like a kid. Glass crunches under my foot (wearing crocs). I go to hospital and get 6 stitches.

Thanks to Tim we had a first aid kit in the house. Tim did a fine job getting me cleaned up and prepared for the doctor.

Ironic quote of the night: I really did ask this question to Tim around 10:30 p.m. (before the accident ever took place) while discussing his nursing school. "Hey Tim, do you think that you could give me stitches if you wanted to?"

Do not look at pictures if you cant handle the blood!

It has been a while

2009-01-07T14:07:00.002-06:00

Well, what a busy holiday schedule. It has kept me from so much over the past couple of weeks.

Thanks for the 4 people who supported me in my restrictions for the next couple of months. As for the 2 people who dont think that I can do it, I appriciate the motivation. So far, so good.

Time Warp - Discovery Channel

2008-12-24T10:07:00.002-06:00

Last night I was able to watch a show on the Discovery Channel called Time Warp. This show is quite an awesome one to watch. Basically they take a SUPER DUPER slow motion camera and show you the video in slow mo. It allows you to see things that are just plain awesome. My favorite video is with them shooting three water ballons. I cant find the video on YouTube, but here is a similar video. I look how when the ballon pops that water is still in the air in the shape of the water ballon.

Snow Pictures. Baker, LA. December 11, 2008

2008-12-19T13:10:00.003-06:00

These were all taken by Amanda. She did a wonderful job taking pictures.

206 lbs!

2008-12-18T14:14:00.007-06:00

(I did not post this picture to make fun of people with weight problems. I just thought about what it said and couldn't stop laughing.)

So last year around this time I told Jessica that I weighed 205 lbs. Her reaction was enough for me to lose weight. Since I have been down in New Orleans I have put on a little weight, ok, a lot of weight. I think it has something to do with the endless supply of soda, candy, snacks, and eating out on the companies dollar. So recently I have been looking at my belly and thought that I should weigh myself. What I was thinking was "I have never been this big". From the title you can see that now I weigh more than ever - 206 pounds. This past Monday I think that Rebekah was making fun of me in her own way. She kept lifting her shirt and patting on her belly.

I am posting this because I am going to make a bet with myself. I am not setting up an amount of weight that I have to lose. I am going to set up a change in diet that I have to stick to. In order for me to keep to this diet I need your help! If you see me doing any of the following please punch me in the gut seven times. Then point at me and say "HAHA".

Here are the following conditions of my diet:

1) From January 1, 2009 - June 30, 2009 I am not allowed to drink carbonated beverages, lemonade from a can/bottle, tea from a can/bottle, Hawaiian punch, and flavored water from a can/bottle. This comes with the exception of a junior high lock-in. In this case I am allowed to drink carbonated energy drinks with a HIGH caffeine dose.

So pretty much I am going to be drinking water, Gatorade, Powerade, and my own tea with LITTLE sweetener. I am going to try and stick to this for even longer than the six month period, but for now it's enough.

2) From January 1, 2009 - March 31, 2009 I am not allowed to eat at the following fast food joints: McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Checkers/Rally's, Sonic, Whataburger, Raising Cane's, Dairy Queen, and Arby's. In the even that it is a burden on many people or a life and death situation I may eat something from one of these places.

Example of being a burden on other people: I am on a road trip and the group decides to eat at Burger King and there is no other place around for me to eat. Rather than telling them I cannot eat there, or I have to stop at another place I will just go with the flow.

3) From January 1, 2009 - January 31, 2009 I am not allowed to eat anything classified as CANDY, COOKIES, CAKE, BROWNIE, PIE, and ICE CREAM.

Obviously you can see by the dates shown that I believe this particular restriction is going to be the hardest one of them all. I think that I am going to be able to manage all of them relatively easy except for CANDY!!! That is going to be nearly the hardest thing that I have ever tried to quit. Some people have their cigarette addiction or drugs or alcohol. My "cigarette/drug/alcohol" is CANDY. And I am going to give it up. I am curious to see how I will do it. well I know how I will do it, COLD TURKEY.

**If you read through the three restrictions that I have and see "loop holes" please let me know what they are and I will make the appropriate changes to my contract.**

Snow across the south!

2008-12-11T07:29:00.010-06:00

I woke up this morning around 4:30. I immediately checked to see if it was snowing outside. I saw rain drops, but no snow. When I went to leave the house at 5:00 the snow was coming down BIG TIME! I rushed to the get the camera and wake Amanda. When I told her that it was snowing hard and sticking to the ground she responded in a very sleepy voice "You promise". So we went outside to take some pictures.

I wish that I didn't leave for work. I should have stayed home to enjoy to view of the snow all over the place. I really want to see my house covered in snow. Amanda is on a picture mission right now. Hopefully I can update tomorrow with a bunch of pictures of the snow filled yard.

I was able to take one picture of me with the snow. It's a good one too!

My favorite color to wear

2008-12-10T08:47:00.002-06:00

If you said BLUE, you were right! I think that my next favorite is becoming brown. Amanda likes when I wear brown shirts/jackets. So I guess that's why I like it.

GET OUT OF MY WAY!!

2008-12-10T08:43:00.003-06:00

Click here to read an article about what some states are doing to get rid of the "left-lane slow pokes".

I can think of a couple of times that I got mad about someone in the left lane.

Now this is FISHING! - BOWFISHING

2008-11-25T14:07:00.008-06:00

Don't get me wrong. I am a huge fan of throwing my line out with some artificial bait at the end luring big fish in for a "meal" (they think they are getting the meal, but really, they are MY meal).

This is just another addiction to add to my list of REALLY REALLY FUN things to do.

First of all I have to send thanks to Jeff for taking me on this trip. I am very glad that he called and invited me. I would also like to thank Patrick (aka "Abe"). He was generous enough to take us out on his nicely setup boat.

Basically there are 6 lights off the front of the boat. We drove around the marsh until we saw fish. We aren't really waiting for them to come to the light. We are just trolling the banks hoping to come up on some fish. This particular night was kind of crazy at first since we didn't really find many fish. Patrick was eventually able to get us on some good spots.

As you all know, when looking at something that is in the water its not really in the spot that you are looking at. Because of the refraction of the light, the object we see under the water is actually in a different spot than what we see. That is what makes shooting fish underwater so difficult.

I really thought that I was going to get the hang of it really quick. But for some reason I think that it took me about 20 shots before I actually hit a fish. From there it got a little easier but really every shot is a different situation. Sometimes the fish is deeper, further out, swimming fast, swimming slow, etc... So its really difficult to get in the groove with shooting. BUT IT IS SOOO FUNN!!!!!

Here are some pictures from our trip. Jeff shot 3 red fish and drove the boat a lot. I shot 2 flounder, 1 red fish, and 1 big black drum (15 lbs). Patrick shot 3 red fish and drove a lot. Wayne shot 3 or 4 red fish.

I think Jeff shot the first fish.

Shooting the flounder was a lot of fun! My mom cooked the flounder for me, that is a very YUMMY fish!

When I got home I weighed it with my fish scale. It was right at 15 lbs.

Packed Deer Meat

2008-11-25T09:59:00.010-06:00

My brother sent me this.

The driver of the car was traveling at 140 mph when he saw a deer in the road. The deer disappeared. The driver got out of his car to find this...

Hey Sean, isn't that a really nice car?

Wasting 5 minutes of your life!

2008-11-21T19:01:00.001-06:00

Untitled from Scott on Vimeo.

This should be the biggest waste of 5 minutes. I hope that you have absolutely nothing better to do.

When it rains it POURS!

2008-11-20T08:04:00.003-06:00

It use to be that when I got a flat tire on my truck or my bike, I would have at least two or three more flats within that month ("when it rains it pours"). Now that I am a homeowner this kind of stuff happens....

This weekend I got a call from my maw-in-law. She told me that the tree in the back yard fell down. It fell on top of the power line running to the house. The pole on the house that holds the line bent over, breaking the decking on the roof. The utility company came out and took the meter and left a note for us to call an electrician. EASIER SAID THAN DONE! Anyway, I started to look at the damage outside and it didn't seem too bad. We would have to fork out some money to get the electric panel back up and running.

With no power at the house I had to make sure to bring a flash light with me. When I turned on the light in the house I saw more damage. There was something leaking in the attic. There was a big water stain on the ceiling with some of the tiles on the floor. The carpet was pretty wet too! So I go in the attic to see whats going on. Its the water heater. So I have to call a plumber to come fix that. Its covered under the home warranty so at least I don't have to pay too much. It ended up being the flex hose for the hot and cold water. They both lost their gaskets.

While I was up in the attic I was looking around at everything and saw that there was a wire that caught on fire! Yes, in the attic, a wire was burning away. Thankfully God was watching and didn't allow it to burn the entire house down. When I showed the electrician how the wire burnt he pointed out that one of the breakers was messed up. Guess which wire burnt! Oh, and the wire was running to the dishwasher. Which means that most likely the dishwasher is FRIED!

Total loss: Electricity, wiring, breaker panel, insulation (in the attic, due to fire and water), water damaged ceiling tiles, ceiling fan within the water damage, dishwasher, phone line, pecan tree, and my pocket book!

Worst part about all of this is that I have been calling electricians since Monday. For some reason there must be a deal right now where they are NOT allowed to call people back. I was able to get one out to the house yesterday morning. He was going to send me the bid to send in to insurance. HE NEVER CALLED BACK! Grrrr....what is wrong with people! I need to have my house fixed.

**The title of this post was thought up by Justin.**

It's only fair.

2008-11-13T08:04:00.003-06:00

Two days ago I was working at the Shaw corporate office in Baton Rouge. I had the Shaw truck parked in the visitor’s lot in front of the building. For some reason during the day I noticed that I didn’t have my computer bag with me. So I figured that I forgot it at home. When I got off of work I got in the truck to go home, my bag wasn’t in there so then I knew that I left it at home. I got home, looked for it and it wasn’t there either. Things started to click while thinking about it. When I left the office that evening the truck was telling me that the passenger door was open, so I had to close it before leaving. Then I noticed that the passenger door wouldn’t lock. So I checked that out from the outside of the truck and noticed that the key hole was all messed up. YEP, someone most likely stuck a screw driver in there and just forced the lock open. Then they just reached in there and took my computer bag.

So now I am out an iPod, a TI-82 graphing calculator, a nice Shaw pad, and a computer bag. Luckily I didn’t have the laptop in the bag at the time.

It’s so aggravating that people do this. So I have to sarcastically tell myself that its only fair that if I have an iPod, everyone should have an iPod. To me that’s exactly what our new government stands for. Take what I have earned and give it to those would didn’t. GGRRRRR.....

I heard that there might be a way to track the iPod through iTunes. Something about if someone goes to use it online it will recognize the serial number on there. Anyone know about any apple theft programs?

How much they make.

2008-11-13T07:53:00.003-06:00

So, I am not so sure that I agree with this. They are posting the salaries of all of the "teachers" at LSU. I know that its a public university and they have to post this kind of public information. I am sure that this is how it has been, but I never thought to look it up before.

I personally think that it would be just as good to post the money given to each department for salaries. That would still show me where the states money is being spent and I dont have to get into peoples personal business. As most of you know, I wouldnt want for people to know or ask how much I make, much less be posted to the world. BUT, I am going to have to admit...I am a hypocrit for this. I went on there because I was curious. I went on there because I thought about all of the teachers that I didnt like and compared their money to the ones that I did like.

So, if you are at LSU, or you went to LSU and you wonder about the pay click here.

Nice t-shirt

2008-11-06T08:12:00.003-06:00

I wish that LSU could have beaten Georgia so we could have made a shirt like this.

Disclosure:
I am not a fan of Florida (with the exception of them representing SEC in a BCS bowl game).

I have one thing to say about the presidential election...

2008-11-05T10:18:00.004-06:00

Stephanie gave me this card a long time ago. I thought that it was appropriate for the presidential election.

Wonderful Weekend

2008-11-05T09:08:00.002-06:00

This weekend was a perfect example of me no longer being bound to a school schedule.

Friday afternoon I was at the camp bow hunting. Of course after the hunt I was about to hang out with Justin and Papa, which is always fun. Even more so since we were hanging out around the camp fire. Saturday morning, I was in the bow stand again. Nothing ever came by, but I still had fun. Saturday night Amanda and I were off to Pineville, LA. We went over there to celebrate a birthday with our friends. Kristen came in from CO, so I figured we could make a short drive over there. I ended up staying over there to do some deer hunting. I hunting Sunday afternoon, saw some deer but nothing was close enough. I spent the night and hunted again Monday morning. I saw a lot of action, but again, nothing was close enough to shoot. I hung out for the day and decided to sight in my new rifle. So I hunted with my rifle Monday evening. Which ended up being a SUCCESSFUL hunt! I was so happy. I killed a 130 lb doe. That thing was FAT. So that was a good end to my weekend.

Special thanks to Justin and Papa for once again allowing me out at the camp. And also a special thanks to Rusty for letting stay and hunt at the house. All of you guys are awesome!

What a week!

2008-11-05T07:25:00.003-06:00

I cannot believe how crazy things can get sometimes. Last week was one of those weeks that I am REALLY glad to see go by. As most of you know already, Amanda and I closed on our house last Thursday! YEP, WE ARE HOMEOWNERS! Well, there were so many "scares" going into the buy. For starters the sellers had some outstanding issues that the lawyers wanted cleared up before we made the purchase. This particular mix up was possibly going to cause our closing to be delayed to this week. The problem with that would have been the fact that our interest rate was good through the 31st. So with today's interest rate, I would have had to pay more. BUT, that all got cleared up and we were back on track for a closing on Thursday. So I went to the bank to get a certified check for the down payment and closing. I called the mortgage company to see if it would be a problem that I increased our down payment some. My loan officer wasn't there so I had to ask someone else. They said there would be no problem with that. So I did it. Then I get a call back asking who told me it was ok to do that. Basically it created more paperwork. But in the middle of that conversation something came up about the price of the house being dropped. I didn't think that it was an issue because lower is better. Well nobody ever told the mortgage company about it. Why is this a problem? - The loan may have to be re approved because the price was lowered due to repairs needed on the house. Fortunately I had a great crew (Realtor, Loan Officer, etc...). The sell is complete and we have a house now.

So our first home purchase summed up...CRAZY AWESOME!

To see pictures click here.

Great Birthday!

2008-10-23T08:07:00.003-06:00

My birthday was GREAT. I wasn't thinking that I could still have a good day like that with being at work all day.

The fun started early on. As you know I made my early drive to NOLA. When I got there my office-mate wished me a Happy Birthday (he was the first one, because Amanda was too sleepy to tell me when I kissed her goodbye). He also brought sausage biscuits from Burger King for my birthday. That was pretty nice! Then as my computer is logging on, my IM starts up. Immediately people starting chatting with me to wish a Happy Birthday. Once Amanda was up and on her way to work she called wishing a good one. Throughout the day everyone in the office told wished a good day to me. One of the people in the office even made me some cupcakes! That was nice to add the my cake the Kim made me the night before! Which I was able to eat shortly after it was baked with a huge glass of milk, AND my mom made a dump cake for Amanda and I, YUUUMMMMMMMMY....I AM SO FAT!!!

My boss had me run some errands in Baton Rouge which was a great excuse to get me in town early enough to go home at a decent hour!

Amanda wasn't feeling well so she was at home sleeping when I got there. Later in the evening we went to Mestizo Mexican Restaurant. That place was SO GOOD. It was Mexican food with seafood in it! That was a good twist to it.

So many calls, so many emails, so many loving friends...thanks to everyone for being a part of my life. It's awesome to be me!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOTT

2008-10-22T10:38:00.003-06:00

So for it has been a good birthday. I am very please with how "MY DAY" is going. I am wondering if I am going to get to go out to lunch for MY DAY. A lot going on with work though. We shall see.

Birthdays

2008-10-21T16:25:00.002-06:00

I would like to start off with Happy Birthday to Amanda.

I was thinking just now...when we were young kids, a birthday was so exciting. It was pretty close to being the best day of the year, since it was all about the birthday boy (or girl). On Sunday - Amanda's day - I asked her "How was your birthday?" She responded with "It was ok, didn't really feel like my birthday though."

As we getting older, I think that we still have that itch for OUR day to come along. Unfortunately OUR DAY might turn out to be just another day of the week. I kind of felt bad about it. Honestly I think that her birthday was absorbed by the "news" that we spread around this past weekend. I wish it could have been different but it wasn't.

Tomorrow is my birthday! I was really looking forward to it, why, same reason...IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!! YAY!!! But looking forward, I am going to be waking up at 4:45 am. I am going to start my two hour drive to New Orleans around 5:30. I will stay at work all day long. My boss has called a meeting in the afternoon that could potentially put me here long past 5:30 pm. That means that the earliest possible time to get home will be around 8:00 pm. Now what? - Time for BED!

Ugh...where did my birthday go? I have been waiting an entire year for this.

First Deer With A Bow

2008-10-17T09:02:00.007-06:00

It only makes sense to go ahead and make a post about killing a deer right after I raved about Cabela's. Thanks to them expediting that shipment (my new climber) I was able to kill a deer while sitting in it.

It was my first time ever shooting at a deer with a bow. Before this, I had only killed cotton tail rabbits with my bow. So I am going to go ahead and use that as my excuse for not hitting the deer in the right spot. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was so excited that I completely forgot to go through my repetitive anchor position and all of those other important shooting methods.

I am going to have to credit my broadhead for this kill. I was using a two blade Rage Broadhead. That thing did its job! As you can tell from the picture, we had no problem finding and following the blood trail. Even though it wasn't a perfect shot Justin and I found blood from the point of impact all the way to the deer. She traveled quite a ways, but thanks to lessons learned (the hard way) I knew to give her an hour to die before going look around.

Here is my very first kill with my bow!

Look at the size of the entry hole.

Cabela's is NICE!

2008-10-16T07:04:00.004-06:00

I went to Cabela's on Monday of this week. I was going over there to buy a climbing stand. They have one listed in their sales paper that is on sale. So I decided that I was going to go with that one. When I went looking for it, I could not find it in the store. They were out of stock! BUT, I talked with a manager over there and he offered (I didn't even have to ask) for the climber to be shipped to my house free of charge. I asked him how long it would take. He suggested that I get it expressed shipped. So I did. I bought it on Monday and it was at my door last night! How about that service. I really couldn't ask for more.

THANKS CABELA'S!

If you didn't know...

2008-10-09T12:29:00.005-06:00

Click here.

Continuing to amaze me.

2008-10-09T12:12:00.008-06:00

There is something about being able to see deer in my back yard. I absolutely love it. Its really fun to be able to see what is walking around out there. The only bad thing is that I really want to go buy more cameras to put out in the woods.

Here are some pictures of two new bucks in the neighborhood. Click on the pictures if you want to get a better look.

Oh, looky there, what is that on the right side?

I was really excited to see this buck. He is impressive for my back yard.

What kind of engineering?

2008-09-30T08:49:00.004-06:00

As you know I had to take my freezer to my parents house because of the hurricane taking out power for a week in Baker. Sunday I got my freezer back. My dad and I lifted it into the back of my truck. No problem with two BUFF men handling it. But, getting it out of the truck once I got home, different question.

I am trying to figure out what kind of engineering this is. I know that I have a back ground in structural engineering, but I also have a back ground of growing up in south Louisiana.

Is this the engineering of a southern boy or the engineering of an LSU engineering student?

I personally think that its a little bit of both. The first thing I had to ask myself is what is the easiest way to get the freezer out of my truck so I could go run errands - roll off onto an even surface. Second question where - garage counter top, nope...umm...down a large piece of plywood. So I put the ply wood on my truck and noticed a little too much deflection when I stood on it, needs a middle brace. ICE CHEST! Perfect height. Doesn't that seem like its a little of both?

More Trail Camera Pics

2008-09-30T07:16:00.009-06:00

I always love getting to see new stuff on the trail camera. Especially when I can see the differences in animals. Kind of like the two fawns in these pictures. They are a bit older than the fawn in last weeks post.

A while back I got a picture on the camera of what I thought to be a coyote. It wasn't clear enough so I never posted about it, but this was plenty clear enough to know that it is indeed a coyote. Unless its some savage beast that I don't know about. I think that I need to kill it before it tries to kill those baby deer.

I think that this fawn is older than the other one in last weeks post.

1...2, nice! I like knowing that I have at least two babies out there. I think there are three though. Its hard to tell with its' butt facing the camera, but I think that both of these fawns are older than the first one that I saw.

BEAUTIFUL BUCK, best that I have seen in the "messed up" department.

The coyote.

Is this not an evil look? I think that the second set of eyes off in the back are those of a deer. If you look at the babies eyes glowing you can see that they are yellow. Look at the coyote's eyes, they are blue. Hmmm.....

The Upsets Continue!

2008-09-26T06:56:00.007-06:00

Last night I was watching ESPN as they talked about all of the college football games. Suddenly I realized that they were not showing a replay of a USC game, it was actually a Thursday night game at Oregon. So I continued to watch, in AMAZEMENT! Oregon literally ran all over USC in the first half. Now me being the paw paw that I am, I have to admit something. Half time came around and I just couldn't stay awake for the 30 minute break. I fell asleep quickly. The good thing about it was that I slept well and I got to the see the best part of the game. USC tried to come back in the second half but they didn't quite make it. USC lost 27-21 to a unranked team.

Can this happen to LSU? Sure, it can happen to anyone...and it will happen to more teams this season. But its always fun to see Pete Carroll look like this...

Why does he look like that? Because of this...

Congrats to their little man, #1 Rodgers (Mr. Touchdown was his name in High School since he set the Texas state record for most touch downs in a high school career. This 5'6" 190 lb kid can play some football!) and his brother #8. They really played well..

FINALLY!!!

2008-09-24T19:20:00.003-06:00

This is what I have been waiting for since I bought my trail camera. I am so excited. I wish that I could keep it as a pet. The only way to do that would be to kill the mom....hmmmm....just joking. I would never purposely kill the mom. BUT there is a reason that deer season starts next Wednesday. Its because biologist believe that their young can and will survive in the wild without mom.

Can you spare a nickle?

2008-09-19T07:09:00.003-06:00

Two trucks collided on I-95 in Florida. One of the truck was carrying over 3,000,000 coins. It was approximately $185,000 in nickles. The truck was carrying the nickles from Miami to the US mint place in Philadelphia.

Click here for pictures of the wreck.

Cop Car Deer Hunting

2008-09-18T12:41:00.005-06:00

A fellow Brother sent this to me. I prefer using a gun, but you get the same results in the end.

Only difference is, I have food when I kill a deer.

Guest Speaker

2008-09-17T14:16:00.002-06:00

This is most likely one of the funniest sermons that I have ever heard in my life. Bill Cosby needs to see this for his old show "Kids Say The Darndest Things". Was that Bill Cosby?

Getting Serious

2008-09-17T08:00:00.002-06:00

Amanda and I are getting closer and closer to buying a house. There are a lot of important decisions to be made. For me I am looking at it from so many different angles. I just don't want to make the wrong decision. Yesterday I noticed that the interest rates on mortgage loans went as low as 5.325%. Of course I would love to have something so low. But its just one big gambling game, this morning they are back up to 5.625%. So who knows what we will get. Timing is everything!

Amanda has been awesome with doing a lot of research on the houses that our in our price range, hopefully we will find something perfect!

Please pray for us as we go through this time.

Hurricane Gustav Update

2008-09-16T08:53:00.012-06:00

Hurricanes are so different when you are not living in an apartment or your parents house. There is so much more to consider when its your place that's in danger.

We may not own our house, but its still home. The main thing that I was concerned about was our freezer full of great food. I had lots of redfish, deer meat, elk meat, sausage, and more. I didn't want to lose all of that. The other thing that I was very concerned about was the water oak near our kitchen window. The wind was blowing in the perfect direction to put it on our house, but that didn't happen. Actually, neither of my fears came true. I was able to keep my freezer cold with my neighbors help. They were nice enough to let me use their generators for a couple of hours a day to charge up my freezer. And the water oak only dropped one or two limbs throughout the storm.

We had electricity through most of the storm. Since our road has been cleared to make room for the new road we actually didn't have many problems with trees on the lines. I was actually the first person to mess up electricity. I had one of my cedar trees fall on the service line going to the house. Some how that knocked out half my houses' power and half the neighbor's power. It broke the connecting line from the road to our service line. About thirty minutes later a tree fell on the line across the street from us. It was a tree that was far from the road but it fell on a service line and pulled the line down from the road.

Seeing this storm come through was something that I had never seen. I didn't know how strong mother nature could be. It was incredible to see/hear the gust come through. We were standing outside watching the backyard mainly. Unfortunately we saw a lot of trees go down. Especially in the neighbors yard. Poor Mr. Benny had a lot of great oaks go down. I actually saw an oak tree pretty much explode when a gust of wind hit it. That was unbelievable. The guy on the side of him lost around 9 oak trees in the back yard, all of them up rooted.

After all was said and done we were all safe. No house damage around us, just a lot of trees to clean up.

Here are some pictures from the storm:

This is me walking around in the storm winds. I was running around to see trees fall.

Two cedar trees fell in the drive way.

This oak tree took one for the team. It was pretty much the only one with damage out of all of the live oaks in the front yard. It was able to shield the other trees from the bad wind.

The sycamore tree in the back yard just lost a lot of limbs.

Here is a distant look at Mr. Benny's trees.

Me cutting our way out of the drive way.

I will try and track down a picture of the size of my burn pile. It was the biggest that I have ever made.

Backhoe Flat

2008-08-27T07:03:00.005-06:00

A while back I got on the backhoe to pull some stumps out. When I backed into the spot I wanted to be I heard the tire get punctured by something. I had to hurry to go park it before the tire had no air at all. By the time that I parked it, only 100 feet away, it was already almost completely flat. I called a place to see if they could come out and fix the flat, that was a mistake. They wanted $85 just for the travel. I could understand that if I lived a ways out, but this place is about a mile from my house! That doesn't even cover the charges for fixing the tire.

So I decided that I needed to get it off of the backhoe and bring it in somewhere. Of course I have to call on my neighbor Chris. He has all of the proper tools. For a while I thought that I might have to call a service truck. Chris was struggling to get any of the lugs loosened up. Then he serious! He grabbed the "cheater bar" and started going at it. He got 4 lugs loose and one twisted up extension for his socket. The rest of the lugs came off just fine with another method of leverage.

Thanks for the help Chris!!

Doesn't it look like the bed of my truck was made for that? I just thought that it was funny because that tire is HUGE. We literally just rolled it into the back of my truck.

Your are not having fun until someone is BLEEDING!

2008-08-26T11:55:00.006-06:00

We were at the camp in Lake Bruin and we had a little disagreement that lead to the following picture.

I am pretty sure that you want to know the story behind the picture. Pictures might be worth a 1,000 words, but its still not enough if it doesn't tell you why.

Kristen and I were sitting at the breakfast table watching every one else clean the dishes since we cooked. When Kristen got up and started to help I extended my glass to her and said "Here woman". She then asked what she was supposed to do with it. So I told her to do what she was put on this earth to do - "Wash it". So she politely came around the table and dumped a glass of apple juice on my head. From there it was on. I grabbed a bottle of syrup and we wrestled our way outside. That was when Kristen over powered me, took the bottle of syrup from me and whacked me in the nose with the bottle. No, she didn't purposely do it, at least I don't think that she did. I was behind her and she tried to dump the bottle on me from over her shoulder. I knew that it hit me, but was unaware of the blood. As I felt the dripping I started rubbing it in her ear, thinking that it was syrup. I didn't even know I was bleeding until Amanda came out and told me that I was bleeding. When we stopped I noticed that Kristen had my blood on her. Not a good thing for someone who doesn't like blood.

Anyway, point of that long story is that you shouldn't mess with Kristen.

Once in a lifetime?

2008-08-20T19:45:00.009-06:00

What was I doing today? On Monday I got an email that the President was coming to Jackson Barracks. Yes, as in the President of the United States. President Bush came to Jackson Barracks to talk about the recovery of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes. I was fortunate enough to sit on the third row. All around me were very important people. Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Bobby Jindal were about five feet from me.

Here are some pictures from the speech.

This is General Downer and President Bush. We (Shaw) work for General Downer at the Barracks.

President Bush giving his speech.

President Bush looking at me while I take a picture! How nice of him to do that.

Two of my co-workers shaking hangs with the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana.

Me standing at the President's podium.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you...After the President finished his speech he walked around and shook hands with people. I was on the second row so I was able to shake his hand. We looked eye to eye and I said "Pleased to meet you sir" and he said " ? ". I don't remember what he said. I was so excited that I was able to shake his hand and I completely forgot what he told me. I think that he was telling me that he would call me later to discuss my future, I don't know.

This was a wonderful experience for me. I was honored to have been included in this event. I hope that I am able to get a picture of the hand shake at some point. There is a rumor going around that we are going to get some pictures from the president's photographer. I hope so, I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Sean and Tory Walker!

2008-08-19T18:46:00.004-06:00

This weekend was a very very special one for me. The greatest red head in the world got married to a wonderful women. She is a very lucky woman. I had the honor of being one of the groomsmen in the wedding. We had a blast for the bachelor party, we had a blast for the rehearsal dinner, and we had a blast for the wedding itself. We were able to keep busy before the wedding with a couple of games in the youth end of the church. That's always fun.

I would like to to take this chance to tell Tory that I am so thankful that she found Sean. You two look so good together.

I don't have any good pictures of Sean and Tory from the wedding but you can go look at some here. They were taken by a VERY talented photographer, Jason Cohen.

Here is a picture of me and my BEAUTIFUL WIFE! I love her so much.

Wii Fit

2008-08-19T18:33:00.004-06:00

This weekend I was able to experience the Wii Fit game. It was pretty cool. Mainly I am amazed with how they are able to make a game like that.

This is a video of me taking a balance test or something like that. I am using a hula-hoop.

I miss Prissy :-(

2008-08-14T09:07:00.004-06:00

I APOLOGIZE FOR THE FOUL WORDS (Crazy......com) ON THE VIDEO. THIS WAS SENT TO ME IN AN EMAIL AND I HAD TO POST IT, ITS JUST TOO COOL TO NOT SHARE.

Segway "Scooters"

2008-08-12T08:30:00.004-06:00

Baton Rouge water company has a new way for the meter readers to get around. They started off with 2 Segways to try it out. They have 17 total meter readers. As you know, most of them are in those little pickup trucks. The 2 meter readers have improved the amount of meters read from 750 per day up to 1,000 per day. So, just with two people they have increased to 500 more meters per day. I think that it is saving them $1,000 per truck per year. They cost $5,000 to purchase, and 12 cents per day to charge.

Read full store here.

What am I looking at?

2008-08-07T07:54:00.004-06:00

Click on picture to enlarge.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-06T07:41:00.004-06:00

Here is something that I heard about on the radio that was quite surprising. So far The Dark Knight has made around 391.4 million dollars. That's only after three weekends. That puts it in 8th place for the most money made on a movie. What is the #1 ranked movie? - Titanic! Yeah, how crazy is that? It made around 601 million dollars. I personally think that it wont be in the number one spot for long.

If you saw the movie, what did you think of Heath Ledger's acting? Some people are saying that he will get a "pity" nomination for an Oscar. I personally think that he will EARN an Oscar nomination, possibly even EARN the award.

NOTE: After research I have found that adjusting for inflation "Gone With the Wind" would be in the number one spot... ~ 1.3 billion dollars. Back in 1939 it made 199 million dollars. CRAZY!

Go see The Dark Knight if you haven't seen it.

Tree Goes Down

2008-08-06T07:29:00.005-06:00

This is right across the street from my house. About the only reason that it is cool to have a Monday off is because I was able to watch this tree work being done. What this trackhoe has been doing is going around the tree and digging up the roots. Basically just losening up the soil and breaking the roots away so he can take out the tree.

4 - Day Weekend

2008-08-05T11:40:00.003-06:00

Since the project that I am working on is through the Louisiana National Guard we have to follow their work schedule. This week they are starting a 4-10 work week. But their day off is Monday. So instead of me working M-TH and having a wonderful Friday off, now I get the not-so-wonderful Monday off. Who takes off Mondays? Now I am going to have to tell people that I have a "case of the Tuesdays". That makes no sense at all.

Since this week was the start of this crazy schedule I had last Friday off and I had yesterday off. So it was a nice 4 day weekend. I was able to stay home for most of it. I did some work out in the yard mostly. As much as Amanda would have appreciated it I never did make it in the house to clean in there. Darn. On Saturday I went to Lafayette to mow grass and celebrate Rebekah's first birthday. Sunday I went to EBBC for church. Its always nice to be back on the student side down there!

When I get to my camera I will have to post a video that I took of the tree work across the road.

The 2nd Annual Rigolette Bayou Wakeboarding Championship

2008-07-30T08:03:00.031-06:00

For the second year now there was a professional wake boarding championship tournament in Pineville, LA. It took place on the Red River ox-bow behind Lake Buhlow.

I decided that I was going to go ahead and make myself look pretty for the competition.

I also have half of a beard.

There were many different categories in this competition starting off with: Best Toe-Side jump, Best Grab, Best Technical Run, Best Free Style, Best Modern Free Style, and many more sub-categories were within those.

For the toe side jump each of the competitors went out for 6 jumps or 2 falls. Kristen has been practicing her toe side jump all summer long. She looked pretty good out there.

For the best grab each person was given a warm up jump, with 6 grabs to follow, again 2 falls were allowed. I tried the hardest thing for the grab. I let go with my lead head and grabbed the front of my board, well, maybe I just touched the front of the board. That was a very hard thing for me. The picture was taken just before my grab.

The technical run was a mixture of everything. It was basically the length of the ox-bow there and back, unlimited falls. I took that to mean that I needed to try anything and everything. I started off with a quick run including out of the box, heel side jumps, toe side jumps, butter slide attempts, and a DOUBLE UP FLIP! Once I fell on that trick I just started trying everything. I tried a 180 jump, I tried more butter slides, and I tried a TOE SIDE FLIP! First attempt ever! That was pretty cool.

Heel Side Flip

Toe Side Flip

BIG AIR!

180!

BIG AIR!

DAVID GOT AIR!

He landed that!

BIG AIR!

For the free style I was wearing a suit. Under my suit I had a Mardi Gras Tuxedo shirt, and a "circus" shirt and pants. The circus shirt and pants were very bright with sequence on them. The suit pants that I had on were "break away" pants. I had Amanda cut the length of the pants, then sew them back with a light stitch. That way I could grab them out on the water and rip them off! That was fun!
Kristen was wearing a dress and had music to a Mrs. America song. She had a singing contest and a swim suit contest, she ended up winning Mrs. America. David had an old Knight Suit. He went out and rocked the water with that. Charles was sports a one-piece long john suit. He had a golf club, a tee for hitting the ball, and a cup holder for his drink.

The modern free-style was supposed to be anything you wanted to do on the water with whatever equipment you had. Kristen was the only one prepared for that, see costume below. David was semi-prepared. His knight costume was reversible. So he switched sides and went "Superman" on the knee board with the song "Kryptonite". I attempted a barefoot ski, but cramped up and quit. Charles then went out and tried the barefoot. He did it on his back too. He wasn't so successful in getting up on his feet though.

She wore that when she was 11 years old!

As for who won what....

Kristen: Modern Free Style, Most Enthusiastic, Best Run and some other stuff...

Charles: Best Toe Side, Best Technical, Most Props, and some other stuff...

David: Best Fall, Most Gutsy, and some other stuff...

Scott: Best Free Style Performance, and some other stuff...

Sorry that I cant remember everything that we all won.

A special thanks to our judges Amanda and Renee. We couldnt have had this competition without you two. Thank you for your honest opinions!

Tree Work

2008-07-28T06:41:00.008-06:00

For the first time the tree work at the house was NOT me. The city/parish (I think) is straightening the road that we live on. For some reason people don't know how to follow the speed limit with the curves in the road, so they are going to straighten it so people can go even faster down the road. The speed limit right now is 40 mph. I am sure that people will be going at least 60 mph once they finish the road. They are changing out the two lane (20 ft wide) road to a three lane (2-12 ft driving lanes with a 10 ft center turning lane) road and its going to have side walks.

Here are some pictures of the mess they are making.

Photos taken by Kim, thanks Kim!

Same Job - New Work

2008-07-24T07:28:00.011-06:00

A change in my work schedule has occurred. I am now working in New Orleans just about every day. I am still working for Shaw, but I only get to go to my Baton Rouge office every now and then.

I am working in the 9th Ward at the Jackson Barracks. Shaw got the contract to manage the project. So we are not doing any of the design or construction. Here is what I am responsible for. I am a “Project Manager” and I oversee a couple of different projects. I am mainly working with other people, but there is one project that is all me. Basically when the architects and engineers turn in their work, I look over everything and make sure that they have included everything in the scope of work and nothing more. The way that these projects are funded is through FEMA money. There is what they call a project worksheet for each building. If the scope of work is not on the PW then we don’t have the money for that work. In order to protect the client Louisiana Military Department, LAMD, we make sure that the contractors are not building anything that they are not supposed to be building. Right now we are mainly in the design stage. We are writing up a lot of scopes of work for different areas. Once we we’re done with the design stage then we will move on to be a site manager. Again, making sure that they are doing things right. As an engineer I am not allowed to say something doesn’t look like its designed right. If I think that something is wrong, then I just tell our client about it. Then they decide on what to do. It seems like something that I will learn a lot from!

Here are a couple of pictures from one of projects that I am working on.

This shows how high the water was in this house, ~6 ft.

There are about 15 houses like this in the "Historic Garrison". For those of you who didn't know this, a garrison is a group of housing for troops. Usually meaning a place were they are staying to guard the area. I just learned that myself.

Here is me with the short door way. I don't know why it was so much shorter than all of the other doors. That was the only one like that in the house.

This is an old bee hive. They are the "Africanized Killer Bees". They had someone come out to take them away. They are already rebuilding the nest though. This shows the nest after they took a huge chunk out of it.

Graffiti from the early 1900's.

I will try and keep you updated with the cool stuff going on over here.

Advertising on my Blog

2008-07-22T08:02:00.003-06:00

So as some of you may have noticed I took off the "password only" for my site. That was about a week ago. Last night I had someone make a post to my Sea World pictures. It read: "Wow, I am going to plan my next family vacation there!!" I had no idea who it was, so of course I clicked on there user name. That lead me to a web page with Sea World coupons. I don't know how that got past the word verification, but it did!

Oh well, I deleted the comment.

San Antonio Riverwalk

2008-07-21T09:13:00.004-06:00

I didn't know what to expect for the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. It was a lot of fun though. Really cool to see how the river runs through the city like that. I would love to see the drainage study for the city!

We took a boat around on a tour. The tour guide was annoying, but it was a fun sight seeing trip.

More Sea World Excitement

2008-07-21T08:57:00.003-06:00

Our trip was wonderful. I really enjoyed everything about it. The shows were all really good to watch. I have some pictures to show you from each:

We will start off with some water sports pictures. This was one of my favorite shows to watch. I was very amazed with their talents.

This was there big salt water tank. There are over 3,000 fish in there.

Amanda had fun feeding the sea lions. They are quite the vocal animals when it comes to food! Of course she made sure to feed to lonely quite sea lion.

And last, BUT not least: SHAMU

This show was something else! I am so amazed with what they are able to do with the animals over there. The training is unbelievable. I wish that I could work with whales like that. At least I know how to speak whale, thanks to Finding Nemo.

Prissy's Last Night

2008-07-15T07:30:00.003-06:00

For the past 14 years I have been hanging out with Prissy. She was a great dog. There are so many memories with her. She is really the first dog that I remember from being a puppy to almost 14 years old.

Mom and Dad called me last week to let me know that Prissy was not doing well. She was starting to have a bad cough that seemed to be a discomfort to her. So they made the decision to put her down. Amanda was nice enough to come with me to Lafayette to see her one more time!

In memory of Prissy:

Sea World in San Antonio

2008-07-14T11:37:00.002-06:00

Amanda and I went to San Antonio over the 4th of July weekend. I have been slacking big time in the blogging department so I thought that I could try and get something out there with this picture.

Hopefully I can make some time to tell you about the rest of the trip, for now - enjoy this picture.

Lifetime Hunting/Fishing License

2008-06-18T22:12:00.003-06:00

I will NEVER EVER have to purchase another hunting or fishing license for the state of Louisiana. There were many gracious people who gave me some cash for graduating with my Masters in Civil Engineering and that cash went towards a lifetime license here in Louisiana. Thanks to all of the contributors.

Thanks to Stephanie and Dustin

2008-06-08T06:49:00.002-06:00

On our way to Mexico last week we stopped in at Stephanie and Dustin's house for a sleeping spot. We didnt really sleep very much though. We had a wonderful night playing the Wii. Dustin is the guy to beat! I couldnt believe his driving, seriously.

Thanks for letting us stay there.

NEW EL GATO SUMMER 2008

2008-06-07T11:50:00.002-06:00

The trip has been divided into seperate post, be sure to read all of them!

The Mexico Trip never fails. It was another great kick-off to our summer. We had a couple of new people with us this year. Kristen had some friends from Colorado with their four kids. One of the kids was in her class this past year and an older kid was in her class a previous year. Renee was also able to make it this year. You would most likely know her as the producer/manager of The Harmonizers.

Every time that I tell someone that I am going to Mexico they always ask the same questions: Are you going to Cancun? Are you going to Cozumel? My only response to them is “Nope, Better!”

There are many different things to do on the ranch. Such activities include: fishing, hunting, shooting plants (mainly cacti), taking afternoon siestas, swimming, and eating cheese nachos. Sleep at night is a rare thing.

This place really is better than any beach resort that I could ever go to. I hope to show you all of the fun things to do with some pictures.