here we go again...

i say it every May/June...I am ALREADY set for Fall to get here. I really dislike the Summer period. ANd yesterday and last night reminded me of Fall.... Time for October....

musing....

I saw the American Idol final 2 guys on the Today show this morning singing. I am not even sure how some thought it was even close. The Older guy blew away the teen singing this morning. It was obvious he is far more polished and his voice mature. I am not even sure how it was a contest in the first place between these two. Perhaps there were others on that show better than this teenybopper guy?

whole lot of shakin goin on...

Dude...like...Is there going to be anything left of China still standing by the time the Olympics arrive? Seems like everyday there is a major earthquake or aftershock....

tis sad, but true...

Yesterday at work we were talking about how we had to constantly be aware of where our children are, and how so different that was from when we were young. Back in the day, our parents would let us play outside all day long by ourselves. Now, we dont let out kids walk out the door for 10 seconds without us. I was reminded again last night as while I want to leave the windows open on the road side of our house (which in our configuration is on ground level), I am paranoid that someone might view this as an invitation to enter the house... so ...I make sure the windows to I-Mans room are closed and locked as well as the hallway window. It sucks because that changes the cool airflow thru the upstairs at night. SO...with the temp set to reach 87 or 88, I will power up the AC and set the timer/schedule for all that. It just sucks because I remember growing up and having all the windows, as well as the doors open growing up during the summer 24/7.

I've reached the 90's..

..upgraded the lapper from 1992ish (256mb) to 1997ish(512mb) and boy, there is a definite difference. While I'm not doing anything serious on my machine other than remote email or websurfin, i do see a difference...

...went down to help Aunt Ellen move to her new apartment in Lexington. She didnt tell me that she was moving into a 4th floor apartment, but we got it done... but she's got a pretty slick new pad.

...Still no Obama T-shirt....

...but hey, Clinton seems to be putting her foot in her mouth daily now...

Looks like it is going to be time to fire up the AC. I still havent upgraded our heat pump yet and it aint going to get done this summer again, it seems. But I think we are going to try to run at about 75 degrees this summer instead of the 73/74 we have in the past and supplement with small fans in the bedrooms...especially Ryles, who seems to be hot at any temp over 36 degrees...funny, I-Man sleeps with all sorts of blankets/sheets/wool Symphonic Band blankets and duvets every night while Ryles is all sprawled out at the same temperature. Funny how twins can be so different.

...and I still aint falling for the "deer meat chili" ruse again, John....

an update

..tried it again...lay down for a moment this morning, and it felt entirely different than last night. i think it has to do with temperature....

...watched the UEFA Cup Championship yesterday. Manchester United, the soccer team of my childhood...(notice a theme here?)...won in Penalty kicks over the dastardly Chelsea Football Club in Moscow. It was definitely interesting watching and hearing John Denver blaring from the loudspeaker in Moscow at 1:30am!!! their time. "Country Roads, take me Home" is kinda not something you would expect to hear from a soccer match of two teams from England playing a match in a driving rainstorm in Moscow at 1:30am. Yes...they started the match at 10:45pm local time in Moscow and it didnt finish till almost 2:00am. And people complain about the start times for games at Clemson when they start 7:00pm...imagine a 10:00pm kickoff...

...Downloaded Def Leppard songs for Guitar Hero and am going to get the Muse songs tonight. The Def Songs are pretty good, and I was surprised that I knew them as well as I did...

...Gas now at 4.60 a gallon for diesel for the Jet. this is not making me happy. Oh, and I posted on the Barack website about how I hadnt gotten my shirt, and there a whole lot of other people who have had the same thing happen and they are posting too, and stating that this makes them wonder as well.... I am going to dispute the charge soon and get my money back.

why is it...???....

...and I have said this before and I'll ask again....why is it if I lie down in bed at 8:30am and I absolutely must be somewhere in an hour, it feels SOOOOO good, but when I get into bed at 11:00pm, with nothing on the horizon till 9:00 the next morn, it just doesn't feel as good?

the weekend that was...

It was a great time for me in Charlotte this weekend. Saw the truck race on Friday night then the AllStar race, where my guy didnt really ever contend, but it was fun seeing Junior and the fans reacting to him being in front and/or in contention. Harwood got in a scuffle with some dumbasses behind us who had no hometrainin and were slinging beer on him and his wife Jessica. Brandy and Aj arrived on Saturday from some sorta magic wormhole (they just materialized...not sure how they knew where we were parked out of thousands of campers, but...well...it all worked out good)... I am always struck by how I now feel after these types of weekends...I am sad a little bit because I mentally look forward to having a good time, and it seems to go by so fast and then I am all of a sudden back at work... Much thanks for all the Birthday wishes from the FRAT bruhs...and of course Lynn, Kristen, Ellen and Ashley. Brandy gave this card that I thought fit my mood perfectly... It said "Celebrate friends...Celebrate fun...Celebrate joy...Celebrate love...Celebrate life." I think that I do try to do that and I mentioned this weekend that these times grow more and more fleeting. Our budding families and those more important demands make finding time for these types of events more and more problematic. Jessica got me a pretty slick outfit, AXE and tickets to a Greenville Drive game in June. And my Mother/Uncle got me a 500gb external hard drive which should pretty much end any issue with storage space for a long while... next up... headin to Columbia to assist Aunt Ellen moving this weekend...then 2 weeks after that is the Drive game then The Poconos for a race...oh yeah...and a visit with Kristen.

I did not take any pix of the weekend. I am not sure why. And that makes me sad.

Charlotte!!!!

headin out to Charlotte this morn... Harwood and I will be setting up camp midday, and the wives are joining us this evening. Then the Fords are dropping in tomorrow... I plan to get in Qualifying and the truck race tonight and tomorrow is the big event. I still say that if you have never gone to a NASCAR race this is the one to come to... I am going to try to break out the camera a lot this weekend...

well...

..did I mention that I went on Ebay and ordered the exact same Obama T-shirt for 1/3 the cost and it arrived in 3 days?...while there is still no shirt from the Obama camp? I sent them an email and I got this genuine, personal, well thought out reply...

Your item(s) are currently on backorder. As soon as the items arrive we will ship them out to you. We do apologize for the wait.

No signature...no mention of ANYTHING I said in my email....nothing.... despite the fact they charged my card a month and a half ago....And there was NO mention of the item being backorder at the time of my order. I deliberatly waited till that backorder notice went away before ordering... Now...I wonder several things... I wonder how many people who voted for Obama during the Hysteria 2 or 3 months ago would vote for him today if they were voting again (and will they cast that same vote come November?)Wonder if those people in Iowa and other places would cast the same vote again knowing what they know now from what they have seen over the longer haul. This primary thing where people are voting over the span of 6 MONTHS seems very, very flawed. Wouldnt it be better to have 1 day where all the states have their primaries? That way people in Iowa are voting with the same info as those in Oregon? I dont know...It looks more and more that I will be looking at a scenario again like last time where I am looking at who is the best of a sad lot of choices. While Clinton shows some balls and seems to have a better feel for standing up and leading, I have reservations about the underpinnings of what her administartion would have...definitely a more ruthless person...which might actually translate better for that position... MCCain will lose my vote if he goes with Huckabee as his VP. No way I vote for that. Period. That will leave me with Obama. This is starting to look like Bush/Kerry where I simply thought Bush was the better of 2 sorry choices... Will Obama ever show me any sort of hint of masculinity? Is Clinton going to always seem more of a man than him? I just have this mental picture of Obama sitting in the WHite House during a crisis biting his nails whining about wanting to "talk" to everyone and "work things out" while his wife is standing behind him in a leather corset and whip. Yeah..I know...I am probably way off base...but...It all seems to boil down with me that Obama seems..."weak". I guess I gotta decide if I can live with that for 8 years (presumably). I probably can given the other sorry choices I am left with. Sadly, I have no other choices because the system lets a few people in a few states decide who I will get to chose from come November.

By the way...at the race in Darlington, at the souvenir tralers all drivers have a trailer. Dale Junior has TWO trailers, both of which had 10 lines of people 15 deep at them...kinda funny was that Kyle Busch had his souvy trailer parked next to one of the Junior trailers...(crickets chirping...)...I did Ryles a Racegirl shirt and I-Man an M&M shirt (with no mention on the #18 on it, heh..heh..)

Spending the day finishing my project of flipping our bedroom. We have moved the bed to look out over the creek in the backyard. I just have so much crap...

WHew...

Ok...Darlington was a blast...the new track saw far faster speeds and virtually every car had all types of damage from run-ins with the wall...up next?...the All Star race... I still get a rush when the cars fire up for the first time, they roll by on the parade laps and the ground shakes as they roll by and then on the first lap...the sheer sound and power is pretty slick...

Sometimes all this stuff going on EVERYWHERE in regards to the weather makes me a tad leery. Earthquakes...Monsoons.... Cyclones...Tornados...Floods.... What in the world is going on? And we havent even gotten to hurricane season yet....

I thought I was going to be on Dateline or something when Harwood bit into a piece of plastic at lunch on Friday at Texas Roadhouse in his baked beans...

Headin out...

Headin to Darlington today, hooking up with Harwood and Aunt Ellen for the race tonight, then doing the race by myself tomorrow night. Looks like rain will miss us on both evenings so it is all gravy today....

wait a second...

Why do I suddenly see/feel as though Clinton is positioning herself in a place where the DEMs MUST place her on the ticket with OBama if there is to be any hope (hey, isnt that Obama's word?) of the Democratic party coming together to knock off McCain come Fall? And by the way...STILL no T-Shirt after Obama charging my card over a month ago. I might start blowing up his website with negative stuff.... wonder how NewsCenter 4 would like a story during some dead time if I dont get my tshirt. I dont like the fact that they have charged me and used my money but no shirt. Perhaps trivial to some...but 25 dollars "CAN" be used elsewhere...

Frizzy hair day...

Ok..So Ryles was coming off a frizzy hair day on the left...but here are a couple of recent pics. She is wearing her new favorite Hanna Montana dressone the left and is in typical school day fare on right.......