off to New Hampshire

Today I fly out to New Hampshire for a few days for United Way training. Luckily for me, I will [mostly] get to miss the fun tropical storm weather.

I'll be back Friday evening. See you then!

Arthur C. Clarke predicts the future in 1964

No, this isn't one of those stupid predictions like helicopters on every rooftop. It is a very insightful prediction of how he foresaw technology becoming a greater role in our lives

busy bee

I've been fairly busy lately, and next week I will be flying to New England for training. The training, hosted by United Way, is for our employee charity fund. My flight arrives in Boston Tuesday night, and from there I will drive to Nashua, NH. I'm back in Austin on Friday night.

Since I am going to be gone for a few days for business unrelated to the program I'm working on, I am working extra hours this week and will likely be working extra hours next week to make up for the lost time.

I have been sleeping normal hours this week, but I've been extra tired at work. It hasn't been that bad working the longer days, but apparently my body disagrees.

maverick has a lot of catching up to do

the end of an era

Travis leaves today for Seattle. It's gonna be weird not living with him anymore; we have been roommates since 2004.

Travis pulling away from the manly embrace

P.S. Look at those sideburns!

papa habibi

Yes, I'm sorry this blog is like a week late!

My dad was in town for this past long weekend, and we had a good time. Here's the rundown:

Thursday Evening
He landed Thursday evening, we went back to the house for him to settle, and then we went to Rudy's. It was good as always. On the way back, we stopped by Spec's and picked up some Johnnie Walker Gold Label. We commenced drinking half the bottle and playing foosball the remainder of the night.


Friday
We woke up, hit up Starbucks as expected — my dad is a raging coffee-aholic — and then went back to the house and hung out for the remainder of the morning. Shortly after noon, we set out for our journey to the fabulous Fraser lake house, but not before picking up a couple frozen pizzas on the way. Once we arrived, we did a fair amount of eating and hanging out while the dock was prepped. At about 3 or 3:30, Mark and Nadia reached the lake house as well, and we made our way to the boat.

The next four hours were pretty fun, but since we didn't get any pictures I will just use random ones from the internet. We started off kneeboarding, and I went second after Kelcey demonstrated. I got it down by my second attempt, and went for a couple minutes down the lake until I got tired and let go of the rope.

Everyone else got their shot at the kneeboard, and Andy even successfully completed a few 360's. After kneeboarding, we turned to water skiing. Once again, I was second after Kelcey, and miraculously I was able to get going on my first try. I went about 30-40 seconds before I accidentally leaned too far back, and then fell backwards.

After Kelcey and I, only Nadia tried. When it was Andy's turn, he switched to the wakeboard. Man, he make wakeboarding look easy. After he did pretty well, I nervously agreed to give it a shot. Hell, I tried everything else, I might as well attempt wakeboarding, too. Andy warned me that getting up was the hardest part, and he wasn't kidding. I failed almost instantly the first time, but the second time seemed more promising. We got going to around 10 mph (my guess), and I finally got up on the board. That's where the fun ended. I'm not sure why, but I had a realization that I was about to fall. As I let go of the rope, the board caught in the water and face planted me almost instantly at what felt like a solid 15 mph.

After I finished huffing and coughing like a pansy, I boarded the boat and called it quits. No one else attempted it after me — I wonder why? We went home and rested up for the next day.

Saturday

Saturday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and head to Wimberley, TX for some ziplining. It was a lot of fun, but kind of on the expensive side. Driftwood is on the way back, we stopped by Salt Lick BBQ for an early, awesome lunch.

After a nap, we went and got food supplies so my dad could make a Moroccan lamb meal. He slaved away for around 2 hours, and me, Taylor, Travis, and my dad ate his delicious meal for dinner.

That night, Justin had some of his friends over, so we hung out with them for the remainder of the night. My dad was a trooper and stayed up until close to 12:30 AM.

Sunday

Sunday was a relatively calm day, and for dinner we went out as a big group to Benihana. The group included me, my mom and dad, Taylor, Travis, Justin, Andy, and Kelcey. The chef was pretty quiet and mostly stuck to cooking, which was fine with me. Moses is my favorite chef, and in my opinion the best one at that location, but he wasn't working that night. The food was delicious as always.

Early to bed.

Monday

I had to go back to work, so I left my car with my dad for the day so he wouldn't be stranded at the house. He met up at my work, which is on the way to the airport, and I drove him the remainder of the way to drop him off.

It was a fun, action-packed weekend!

whattup y'all

I don't have a topic in mind to write about, so I will just let this blog entry be a free flow of thought.

My thumb still hurts these days. It's not in constant pain like it was when I first jammed it, however it's still healing and I hurt it every couple of days using it to do something.

I'm still pretty proud of my reading habits as of late. I'm probably borderline reading too much right now, but I figure it will even out in the months to come. As long as I continue reading I will be content. Since a couple months back, I have finished The Hunt for Red October, Kite Runner, The Road, and Animal Farm. Animal Farm was really short (a little over a hundred pages), so I actually opened and closed it yesterday in one sitting. I am now onto Mark's suggestion, a historical book on the revolution entitled 1776. It will be my first nonfiction (at least in a while), so I'm looking forward to it. You will also notice that on the left side of my blog under the links, I have added a couple of Goodreads widgets to let you know what book I'm on, and what books I have most recently read (with my ratings if you hover over them).

My dad flies in tomorrow, and we have a weekend of mostly spontaneity ahead of us. We have a rough plan of what we want to do — potentially go to Kelcey's lake house Friday, dinner with the roommates, go out to a bar, etc. — but my guess is that we will be playing it by ear most of the time. He will be here until Monday.

Andy almost got a motorcycle, but decided to be responsible and hold off until it makes more sense to him. Lame.

My room is pretty clean right now.

I like this picture and the girl in it.

See you guys in a few more days.