Cartoon Tag

I have been tagged by T. Frantz.  Here are some facts that nobody will care about:

1. I love Amy Grant.  No, you don’t understand.  I LOVE Amy Grant.  People always give me a snicker or an odd look when I tell them how much I love her.  But I am not ashamed, not one bit.  I grew up listening to her.  I own all of her albums (pre-1992) on vinyl, and her Collection CD is one of my favorite albums of all time.  I am seeing her in Visalia in October, and I cannot wait.  Besides our wedding in November, the Amy Grant concert is the event I’m looking most forward to this year.  I hope I can meet her, or join her on stage for a rendition of “Stay for a While.” In fact, I think I’ll listen to her right now.
2. I have perfect pitch.  Not relative pitch, perfect pitch.  According to wikipedia (my source for everything) it is the “ability of a person to identify or recreate a musical note without the benefit of a known reference.”  In other words, if I hear any musical note, I can tell you what it is.  If I hear a song on the radio, I immediately start figuring it out in my head, and can play it after about 10 seconds of hearing it.  In jr high and high school, I would sit at the piano with my eyes closed and people would play a random note.  I would then nail the exact note they had played.  I honestly don’t think its that hard to recognize notes, but apparently it is?  It is estimated that one in every 10,000 Americans has perfect pitch.  I try my best to use it to my advantage in my wildly successful and popular band.
3. There was a point in my life where I absolutely refused to wear jeans.  I didnt walk around naked or anything, I just hated the feeling of jeans.  Probably cause I was too fat and they were extremely tight.  This started around 3rd grade, when the weight starting piling on (it was around this time I stopped playing soccer….sad)  So in came the sweat pants.  Boy, were those things comfy.  They didn’t itch, they weren’t too tight, and they were easy to maneuver in.  I seriously think jeans used to be made with shards of fiberglass or something, cause the way they feel now is completely different from how they used to.  Anyone else have feelings like this?
4. I love horror movies.  I think I have the most fun watching a good, scary movie.  More than anything, when I watch a movie, I want to feel something, not just see something.  And having that little rush from watching a good scary movie is the best, because it’s rare.  That being said, I seldom get scared by movies.  That is why I love to find a good horror movie that is actually effective.  I’ve seen my share of terrible, stupid “horror” movies.  But for a genuine, quality scare, I highly recommend these movies:  The Orphanage, The Descent, Les Diabolique, Suspiria, The Eye, Ringu 2, Dark Water, Spoorloos.
5. When I was 10, I sang in the Central California Children’s Choir in the touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Honestly, it was pretty fun.  I remember having a blast and eating a lot of free hamburgers (this was during my fat phase.)  I still know practically every word to that play.  I am not sure if anyone from the cast ever went on to anything else, but the narrator and Joseph, played by Sam Harris, were the best out of any production I’ve heard.  I can’t find any audio or video, but they were very talented.  I think I need to go lift weights or lay some sheet rock now…

I think that’s plenty, I can’t think of any more.  Hmm…now I tag Gene, Paul, and Casey.  Go Go Go Joseph!

I’m crying

This one might outdo the Creed one:

Creed’s Back!

3 Cheers!!!

My wonderful fiance has a job!  We are extremely thankful to God for blessing her with this opportunity.  It really taught us patience and trust.

School starts on Monday, congrats Allie!

Take me out the ballgame…

What a weekend this one was.  Thursday and Friday were spent honoring the life of a great woman, one that will be truly missed, but we are rejoicing cause she is with Jesus.  When Saturday rolled around, I was already pretty beat from the previous two days, but I was excited at the same time.  I was going to Dodger stadium for the first time.  I am no Dodger fan, and I never have been.  But I also could never turn down tickets to see a professional baseball game.  And now that the Dodgers have acquired Mannny Ramirez, how could we say no?!?!  I’m going to tell the story in pictures, cause it goes with today’s theme:

Our good friends Peter and Toni were kind enough to invite us to the game. Allie and Toni spent some time at Ikea on the way there, a place I had never been before. It was pretty cool, and a little overwhelming. After enjoying In-n-Out, we headed to the game. This is Allie and I right before we went in (obviously.)

The view from our seats. We were perfectly lined up with left field (aka Manny Land.) The crowd seriously went nuts every time he did anything.

Representing for my boys in Hotlanta.

The Dodgers were celebrating the team of the 80's that night, so a bunch of players returned for a sort of homecoming. Here are some of them, not sure who that Lasorda guy is...

The Simpsons were also there. They're funny.

Allie's new bomb camera got some bomb pictures from our bomb seats. I love Manny.

This was his 2nd at bat after hitting his first homer in LA. Even though I'm not a Dodger fan, it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

This guy got so much attention. He took a ton of pics with people. It was prettay...prettay funny.

Andruw doing the most he's ever done as a Dodger...I had to get a pic of our former Atlanta star. The Braves suck this year.

We left at the top of the 9th. I still can't belive how fun the game was. Too bad Allie is the only one looking at the camera in the pic. I was getting heckled by some Dodger fans (where'd they come from) for my Atlanta hat, and they were handing me an LA hat to wear for the pic. But I stood my ground. They left battered and bruised.

Yay for us!

Thanks again to Peter and Toni for inviting us.  Hopefully we can do it again sometime!

Go Braves!

Beach Blanket Bingo

Last month Allie and I took a trip to her beach house in Pismo for a few days.  We met up with her parents and spent some quality time together.  I love going to the beach, and I love that Allie’s family is extremely generous and hospitable.  So here is our trip in pictures:

She meant to take a picture of the road, but got so excited and took one of herself instead. She just happened to be smiling

My sunglasses were hurting my head so bad, but I had to put on a happy face for Allie...she can be fragile.

Arguably the best part of the trip

And just like that, we were there!

We decided to walk to Pier Side for dinner. On the way, we saw Gob...or his evil twin with the last name Brooklyn.

Arguably the 2nd best part of the trip

Pam and I are master puzzlers. A long night of puzzling sure takes its toll, so it was time for bed.

Tuesday was filled with sleep, breakfast at Brad's, chillin' at the outlets, browsing the village in Arroyo Grande, and me reading The Kite Runner in its entirety (read this book if you haven't). We went to Old Juan's Cantina for dinner, which is a pretty solid place. Look at the specials of the day. Take a wild guess which one I ordered.

And it was on. Mexican train is more than what happens at my family reunions.

7 1/2 hours into the game. Yes, that is me on the left, with the least amount of tiles. Si se puede!

7 1/2 hours into another game...

"Sigh...I love life, tee hee!"

"I'm gonna walk us down to Portugal...good ol' South America"

We spent a lot of Wednesday in San Luis. I love that city. It's everything I wish Fresno could be. We saw our good family friends the Kliewers at the Apple store, small world! When we returned, we realized the reason why we came: the actual beach. We took a long walk down and back, it was a blast.

I also saw UFC fighter Chuck Liddell in San Luis. Randy and I both recognized him. Surprisingly, Allie did not. Nor did she care.

For dinner on our last night, we feasted on Italian at Del's and walked around a pretty prestigious neighborhood. Here is the home Allie and I purchased on a whim.

"Why did I let Allie talk me into buying that house...."

Thursday morning, we woke up and our faces were like this. There was nothing we could do.

We then remembered we were engaged, and we were only a few hours from seeing The Dark Knight at it's midnight premier!

So we headed home in our new car we won in a gumball machine. It got 2,000 miles to the gallon.

Thanks Randy and Pam for spoiling us and letting us hang out at the beach.  We look forward to next year!