Scrabble Games I've made the effort for several years now to take a picture after each game of scrabble that I play. I'm sure that there are still several missing from the gallery, but hopefully in time I'll find the remaining ones and get them in here. I don't know why I find it interesting to keep up with them, but it's just one more thing worth collecting.

The Austin Rodeo I didn't really even know that Austin had a Rodeo, but it turns out that we do. Louie and Melissa really just wanted to take Bethany there for the afternoon, but Tracy wound up getting us invited for the trip too. Apparently one of the things that was being largely advertised as an attraction to our rodeo was Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. At first I thought that Melissa was just making this up, but as it turns out, there was indeed a monkey, dressed as a cowboy, riding an Australian Shepard, herding sheep. It was quite a sight.

1607 Singleton Ave., 78702 So this just happens to be a little property that I found over on the east side of town, just a mile or so from the Disch-Falk field on east MLK (Martin Luther King). Mr. Graham was kind enough to act as my Realtor and take me for a stroll though the house, and it was too bad that he had to come all the way out there for that. As it turns out, and I only learned this from having a lengthy conversation with one of the neighbors, this was basically a condemned crack house. The woman that had previously owned it apparently inherited it from her husband (presumably deceased). She in turn started leasing the various parts of the house out to other crack dealers, prostitutes, and junkies. Although the neighbor (and probably others too) had called the police many times about the situation, it was never a priority of any sort to deal with the problem. Apparently after many months, APD finally had the S.W.A.T. team knock down the doors, use flash grenades, and arrest the occupants. No word on what actually happened with them. Regarding the status of the house as a piece of real estate, the problems are too numerous to list. Evidently the owner (who was arrested) was allowing people to live there in return for 'building' the place up. As a result, the house has four different levels to it, the impervious cover of the property has to be about 90%, there is a makeshift bathroom and kitchen in each room (thus making this little house a 4/4), and on and on. I was informed by my Realtor that this would probably be a complete tear-down.

2008 Austin Kite Festival Although I didn't actually make it out to Zilker Park for this showing, Tracy snapped a bunch of pics of the festivities. I am told that the giant puffer fish (the picture I used to highlight the gallery) never really made it off of the ground. Nevertheless, it's one sweet looking kite.

My Tama Drum Kit for Sale The one and only real instrument that I have ever parted with... Although I was inevitibly going to have to sell my drum kit when Tisa and I took off to New Zealand anyways (or put it in storage at least), I really sold this so that I had the money to afford her a nice Christmas present in 2002. It's a long story how I ultimately went about getting the thing packaged up and shipped across the country, but it landed me a few hundred dollars, just what I needed to buy Tisa a very simple little emerald ring. The ring was unfortunately lost about three weeks later, never to be seen again.

Some Early E-Bay Sales Just a bunch of junk that I either listed or helped other people to list on E-Bay over a few month period. My favorite items on here are the Girls Gone Wild DVDs. I can't remember exactly how much money we made off of them, but it turned out to be quite a bit. Basically what happened (and no surprise here) is that the company would NOT stop sending them to our house. We tried over and over again to contact them (one time I even left the phone at work on auto-redial for the entire working day) to no avail. I eventually just had to suck it up and explain to the bank what happened. To my surprise, they were very quick to help me with the situation, refunded the money I had been swindled out of, and put a stop payment on any future sales from them.

Mueller Exploration Tracy and I were driving around on the east side one Sunday afternoon and I thought it would be fun to see some of the continued Mueller development. It turned out that her older sister was working at the Dell Children's hospital and so we stopped in for a visit and tour of the NICU and the hospital in general.

2008 A to Z Crawfish Boil My photo collection(s) from the 2008 A to Z crawfish boil over at Tracy's parents house in Cedar Park. This year was even better than last years, thus making it the best one I've ever been to. The crawfish were plentiful, the food was delicious (thanks to chef Louie), there was a great showing of people, and all sorts of fun to-dos scattered throughout the Adam's house. Tracy hired a moonwalk for some of the little kids which turned out to be a huge hit (and gave some of the parents time alone). Volleyball and rope golf were played well into the evening (thanks to Mr. Adams putting up some flood lights). I didn't personally see it, but I'm told there was even some good tug-o-war action. I'll have to start preparing for next years boil. [i]Afterthought: A number of people have asked what the 'A to Z' boil stands for. Though I assumed it obvious, I guess this only works if you know Louie's last name too - Zittrer. So, 'A to Z' boil is the 'Adams to Zittrer' boil.[/i]

Solo Cross Country to Llano A number of snapshots from my first official solo cross country flight. I was originally intending to depart around 11:30 in the morning, but wound up pushing back two hours to wait out some bad weather. I made it to Llano in just around 45 minutes and had an interesting time coming in. As it happened, a Cessna 182 had gotten a flat tire and was parked just off the start of runway 17. I was intending to use 17 as the wind slightly favored the runway when the FBO operator came on the radio and asked me to use runway as a precaution. Naturally I was happy to oblige, but it did make for a slightly rougher than usual landing. I took one of the courtesy vans over to Cooper's BBQ, had some lunch, and got back in the air headed for Austin.

Nice Thunderstorm There was a thunderstorm outside of my house and so I did the best I could to capture some bolts of lightning with my regular Canon Powershot. I found that if I set the camera for a slightly longer exposure, and then took random shots at the sky, I was periodically able to get a bit of the flash. One in particular captured the bolt of lightning perfectly.