a;ldjfaetihidadg;l;k ^_^

Ok so yeah im back and wow i am wiped out. Totally annihilated is how I feel. SO much for vacation time. I joked with lisa that I think this whole thing is a consipiracy by my job to make me willingly forfeit vacation time b/c since I have worked for MDECA my vacation time has been either:

1. Impossible to use b/c of how we accrue it
2. used for something other than vacation
3. used on a vacation that blew goats.

That pretty much sums up my "productive" use of vacation time over the past 5.5 years. SO oh well I just continue to live at my desk and rot. Just kidding im not rotting im just tired and not in a the best of moods. Its funny though b/c I got a call today to do a job shadow for a kid in HS and im like ok Ill show him whats what. he he he. But seriously let me try to put together at least a couple of coherant thoughts. Ok Yes I am back from arizona. No gary it was not a retreat and their were no illegal or controlled substances also it was not Sara Baker. WOW guess what their is more than one girl named Sara in the world. Sorry not trying to be harsh its again the tired that is doing this. Anyway Oh and by the way the grass on my berm could still stand to be a little shorter so tell the horse to come back. Oh yeah and Steve let me just say that the prices your rec center charges are insane!!! can I say that one more time they are insane!!! like im looking at it and it would probably cost me more to come and climb at your joint then to go to a real gym. And sorry but most gyms are in the 10-15,000 sq ft range plus another 4-5k for bouldering. I seriously dont know what they are thinking. 30 bucks for a belay class then another 15 for a cert!!! who do they think they are????? Ive been climbing for 6 years now and you want me to take a written test! what so that you know I can write belay on and on belay. Sorry venting. Its just dumb thats all and I swear if I go and steve doesnt let me set a boulder problem im going to scream until he does. SO if you want to see Chris Sparky Knodel or Ruki or whatever you want to call me scream like a little girl till Im blue in the face and get my way just let me know and I will tell you when I am going to Steves wall. ^_^ but be forwarned you might have to skip paying a bill just to get in the door to see this oh so dramatic event.

Sorry I know I went off on a tangent but ya know. I guess I can always go outside for free and thats what I have been doing for the last year. Ok again trying to stray back to some type of coherant thought wave. The trip yesterday felt long. IT felt like we were traveling all day and I guess we really were. Left Sara around 9:45am and got to my house about 9pm so yeah that was a pretty freaking long time. However the flight was made nicer by two of my bestest friends. Mr Gameboy and Mix master Ipod. Ahh its so nice to be able to totally drown out everything around you and kinda forget that you are in a bullet shaped coffin traveling around 450 mph roughly 5 miles above anything safe to stand on. And when you think about the fact that the only thing keeping you in the air is the Bernoulli principle well my friends thats pretty scary. That and the fact that your pilot has a hmm 70% chance of being either: (woot 4 lists)

1. drunk
2. hungover
3. asleep
( i still dont know which is worse. Vote with your comment!)

Is also comforting. So needless to say physics held up and my arch nemisis gravity did not prevail therefore we landed safely in columbus last night and then made the drive back down to drizzly dayton. SO thats pretty much the update. This week is going to be INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE and so im really trying to catch up on rest at work before I go home b/c I think thats going to just as bad as work. Oh well I will try to post again this week something with a bit more perc to it.

Cheers!

More on whats up

Well this post is going to be a little more umm I guess superficial as talk a little about what AZ has been like for me. Well first off It does not feel like I am in the dessert. It feels like im in some controlled and created disney reproduction of the dessert thats in say canada. I say this because its been pretty darn cold here and Im not just talking about at night b/c yes I realize the dessert is cold at night. Im talking about during the day when its getting up to the mid 50's. Not really dessert to me. SO anyway I think the scenery here is really pretty. If you know me then you know I adore mountains and the mountains here I think are really pretty. Also their is lots and lots of good rock around here which is driving me crazy. Im just feeling the itch to get my monkey skills on! ^_^ SO anyway I have gotten to go for one run so far here and It was a good 3.5-4 miler I think. It was really nice and came at the end of a day when I really really needed a run so that was cool. SO now I have run in the dessert. However luke I still kept my shirt on b/c it was that cold and it was during the sunset which was on one hand really pretty but on the other not conducive to tanning. SO I dont think you have to worry about that. We have been to a couple of the local eateries like taco bell / pizza hut (the greatest juxtiposition of a restuarant for me and lisa) and a local mexican place which every one seemed to think was really good. then last night we went to Tastee Freeze and got Ice Cream and I still need to go back and get a pic outside of it so that I can feel apart of that great john mellon cougar camp song. Well I think we are getting ready to shove off so just be in prayer for us the days are long and hard but they are really great at the same time. SO thats me signing off.

Cheers!

yes I am alive

Ok I know it has been like forever since I last posted. What like 2 weeks or so??? But things have been pretty crazy for me. I had a project at work that was asked of me and well yeah its nothing that I have ever done before so I had to spend quite a bit of time in research and then learning that most of my research really didnt do anything for me and in the end I just had to figure my way through it. But my deadline was last friday and yeah at about 3:40pm I finished up what I was trying to do. And GASP it all worked so boo yah. Anyway Saturday was spent packing and cleaning and Sunday the whole gang flew out to Arizona. We got to see Sara quite a bit on Sunday afternoon early evening and then went back to our apartment which I must say is really really nice. Then yesterday we got started at the center. SO far I am really impressed by this place and really really happy that Sara came here. Everything is Christ Centered here and a large majority of their model for recovery is trusting in God at the core and relying on God for strength and not your eating disorder. I wondered a lot about what this week would be like if it would be a lot of screaming and crying a lot of blame shifting but its not. Its been so educational to me so far and I have to say I have learned a lot about myself and its helping me to realize some of the missing components that I have over looked in my own life. SO its really awesome. Its not about blame here and its not about pointing fingers. Its about taking ownership for what you have done and forgetting abougt the things you had no control over and I think thats really great. SO I have to go as we are getting ready to leave for day 2 but I just wanted y'all to know that things are going in my opinion really well and Oh yeah Sara is looking really good as well. Take care

Cheers!

Silent hill update

Ok I have mentioned this before but they are coming out with a silent hill movie and it looks like the release date is now april 21st!! I cant wait for this movie to come out and if its anything like the teaser trailer its going to be really good. If you have played any of the games than you will probably see a lot of familiar sights in the trailer and if you havent then you will probably think its pretty creepy! So watch the trailer and tell me what you think!


Cheers!

Happy B-day to me

Well yesterday was my birthday and well I cant say it was the best one I have ever had it started out kinda rough but ended better so it was not all that bad. Luke and Steve came over and we played some 360 and some regular xbox (burnout is lots of fun) We also played a number of regular games like zonk, apples 2 apples, and scattegories. I managed to lose at everythign we played in true B-day spirit. However I didnt just lose in most cases I was annihilated, yes true oh my gosh you just got spanked by the ownage fashion. SO yes that was fun ^_^ Seriously it was I like playing games and whatnot and am not hung up on winning which is good since I tend to lose a lot. SO quick rundown

Burnout (no one really wins since we were co-op'ng crashes)

DOA 3 -- got spanked by Luke playing Brad Wong of all people. It was so embarassing especially since he was all "I totally suck at this game and have not played it in a few weeks" right before our match started. I think we played 3 - 2 round matches and I won 1 round. Yes 1 round, thats all.

Apples 2 Apples -- Ok I was not in last place but pretty far back. the object is to get like 10 cards. steven and lisa both had 9 and I cant rember which one Won. I had like 5 and luke had either 5 or 6 I think. SO at least someone else was down there with me

Zonk -- OMG spanked. Thats all im going to say. their was point in time where I thought I would not get any points before luke won and it was pretty close to that.

Scattegories -- did ok in this but didnt win.

SO games suck. J/K it was a lot of fun and I got burger king for lunch and Ci Ci's for dinner which was very very nice. Today my body is asking me why I abused it so much by shoving so many calories down my throat and I have no real good explanation cept it was my b-day and thats ok with me. SO what did I get for my b-day????

highlights:

A headset for my cell phone. Lisa got this for me and I have to say its probably one of the best gifts she's ever gotten me. It really choked me up. I know it sounds dumb but its something that I have wanted for a long time but never told her and its something gadgety which she usually shys away from unless I give a specific suggestion. I love the brand name of it (body glove) which means nothing to most of you but was HUGE in the late 80's early 90's and its still cool in my book. SO to me the gift rocks on so many levels b/c the thought put into it was HUGE and the gift scored HUGE as well. SO thanks so much sweetie you take good care of me. It was just really cool and it means a lot to me.

a new wallet. Ok my old wallet was basically a hand me down from a friend. It was new when he gave it to me but I rescued it from being trashed as he was packing for college. No it was not hideous my friend was just and idiot. It was a pretty nice black leather wallet that he got for like christmas or what not. Well after 10 years of service it was time to retire. SO my sweetie got me a sweet new one and I like it a lot. Again she just picked one out and scored big! you go girl!

Perfect dark Zero for x360. Thanks Sue now I have two 360 games and b/c of this steve is now fully on board to house sit for me in the next couple of weeks.

Sony earbuds. Ok I will put more of a write up of these later maybe after today when I get some good time with them. Anyone who has an ipod thinks those little buds are the bomb but if you read around it turns out they are pretty sucky and I have been very dissapointed in the lack of responsive bass that they output and since bass is a key and critical component of the music I listen to I consulted my personal audio engineer (my bro jason) for a suggestion of buds. He told me about a pair of sony's that he said rocked the free world and since I dont live in an oppresive communistic country I said SA WEET! SO thanks to Paul for scoring me the buds. I can not wait for my run today which I will leave for when I finish this post to try them out. Like I said a review will follow.

A big @$$ shot gun style reciprocating saw with blades that are like 8" long. Ok I have to tell you I have no idea what to use this thing for but it rocks. The only time I have ever seen one used was in the old 80's skateboard video "The search for animal chin" In it Tony Hawk and the rest of the Bones Brigade (yeah I have sk8ed forever) used a saw just like mine to cut the roof off a caddy and make it a convertible while they drove through the dessert. SO if anyone would like to have their car magically transformed into a convertible right before your eyes I can provide this service. If thats tooo extreme for ya I can also cut sun roof holes in cool designer shapes like a circle or a kidney bean. Or if you have a little sibling who is troubling you just threaten to have me come over and cut their bike in half and that should get them flying straight in no time.

SO thats the majority but I got other stuff too but this is getting long as it is. Biggest b-day surprise would have to be that headset for my phone but the second has got to be my b-day card from Grampa. It is probably the funniest b-day card I have ever gotten and its just awesome. I think I will have to hold on to it for a long time.

Best day of my life!

Ok im going to take a break from the gloom and doom of my usual posts (j/k) and spend a little time (warning long post imminent!) commemorating a pretty freaking awesome day. 6 years ago today Lisa Noel Branson become my wife, I became complete, and my life got dramatically better than I ever imagined it could be. The path that lead to that day was a long and rocky one that started when I was 13. I met lisa just a few weeks after I lost a couple of friends who were very very close to me and incidentally I should have died with them but the Lord in his wisdom saw fit for me to remain. SO when I met Lisa it was more of a "I noticed that she was there" but was not really in a mood to make new friends so that was our first encounter. A few months later she was my girlfriend and the funny thing about this is that later in life, like when we were married, we were going through some of her old notebooks and she actually admits to manipulating me (her words not mine) into becoming her boyfriend which was toooo funny! SO a few months later she broke up with me (a trend was starting) But what can I say I was hooked. Over the next couple of years we dated off and on (the off always initiated by my sweet sweet wife!) until my senior year her junior year when we dated exclusively for about a year. That was a tough year for me b/c thats when I found out I was color blind and not going to be a pilot like I had always dreamed. Lisa was really great and really helped me get through that. However things kinda went south on us and Lisa broke up with me yet again. I went off to college and she ended up taking my #2 Arch nemesis (#1 is gravity in case you were wondering) to her prom. At that point I was like WHATEVER home girl -- if thats the junk you want then I dont want to have anything to do wit ya. SO for a time there was another girl I was interested in but WOW did she really turn on me. Yes if you are noticing a theme its not just co-incidental. So for pretty much my entire freshman year at college lisa and I didnt talk hardly at all. We were barely even friends in my opinion and didnt really have anything to do with each other. SO yeah things were not so good between us. Well after my freshman year (summer 97) I was really torn about what to do with my life. I had no direction and I didnt like where I was and didnt know where I wanted to go. Well over the summer Lisa and I started hanging out again and she actually made the suggestion that we start dating again. I actually had the hootzpa to say no. I was like ok I have been burned like a billion times by you and now a month before you go off to covenant and I am who knows where you want to get together. It just seemed doomed to me so we stayed friends. Well I ended up flipping a coin and going to covenant in the fall. Really thats what happened. You would think after I described the summer were we had gotten close and the intrest lisa had in me that something might have started up again with us since we were at the same school but SUPRISE she was not interested anymore (woo hoo I dodged a bullet) My time at covenant was really really brief (2.5 months brief) and I was gone. In that time I decided I needed to find my own path and go someplace that had something to offer me school wise so I applied and was accepted at Embry Riddle Aero Univ In florida and I would start jan of 98. SO heres where things start to get more interesting. Lisa's family had decided to move to Ohio to take care of Lisa's Grandfather and they were moving in the beggining of january. My family was staying in Lynchburg. Lisa was going to college in GA. I was going to school in Florida. We basically decided that we wanted to go out one last time before we said good by to each other for what could have very well been forever. since we had no reason to be in the same geographic region as the other ever again. We went out for my birthday to a nice restaurant and saw the movie Titanic (in a first run theater mind you) And afterward we talked a bit and then we said good by. I left the next day for Florida to begin what I thought would be a new life. Well it was new but their was this little thing hanging on in the back of my mind and that was my lisa. I just couldnt get her out of my head so I decided to start pursuing her again. I knew that I loved her and that I wanted to be with only her for the rest of my life and I was determined to give it my best shot. Well She was not so receptive and was downright opposed to it for the most part but over the summer we got back together and then right before she went back to school we got engaged!!!!!!! Then on december 28th 1999 we were married. And like I said that day changed my life for the better in more ways than I ever could have imagined. SO here we are 6 years later and we are still uber happy. Like I said before the path leading up to that day was a very long and difficult one but it was totally worth it. And even though the last 6 years have had their ups and downs I really only remember the ups and I really truly feel that each year has been better than the last. Its been wonderfull to see both of us grow in maturity and love for one another and I am super duper jazzed about the next 10,25,50, 75+ years we have together. Yes I am optimistic about how long I am going to be alive. I have good reason to want to be alive!

SO happy Anniversary Baby. I love you so much and I cant wait to see what the rest of our lives have in store for us!

cheers!

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Real quick post today. Why could I be so excited??? Perhaps its becuase at 8:45am this morning I got my xbox 360!!!!!!!!!! The irony of it is that I did not get it from my pre-order I got it from k-mart. They got 4 in the store last night and I got #4!!!!!!!

Cheers!

Todays entry brought to you in part by the number...

Yup thats right 25. I just called Gamestop and thats where I stand on the xbox 360 pre-order list. 25 its a long ways down and the sales guy said "sorry but I really doubt we will get to you before christmas." Which kinda sucks but hey those are the breaks right. SO ebay seems totally off and me getting one probably still wont happen for quite some time. As of now my store has gotten 12 total units since the 22. 10 for launch and a second shipment of a whopping 2. With the big 300,000 shipment this weekend I think my store might see 10 again but even if they got 20 which is a huge stretch it still wouldnt matter. After this shipment I think its back to 2-4 every other week or so. SO yeah it bites. I think I will still keep looking around at other places to get one since it could be mid to end of january before I would ever see my pre-order filled. Seeing as it has taken almost a month to knock the list down a whopping 12 spaces.

weekend wrap up

Well its monday morning so I thought I would give a wee update on whats been going on as of late.
1st up im still doing the bachelor thing as my wife is not yet back from chattanooga and it could be tuesday or wednesday of this week before she makes it back. SO just a side note if you could pray that she is able to come back sooner rather than later I would appreciate it. I miss my baby : (

2nd my weekend has been crazy busy. I swear I had a honey do list like you wouldnt believe and I am still not done with it. It included last minute x-mas shopping, grocery shopping, cleaning, watering plants, and a score of other things that were very time consuming. All in all I have been working pretty hard this weekend and still feel like I have TONS to do.

3 - I am even more inthe x-mas spirit now in that I spent 3 hours wrapping presents on saturday night (another item on the long list) and yes again I did it all without the aid of one single track of x-mas music. BWUAHAHAHAHA!!! Yes it was another technotrancified night of slammin tracks to get my wrap on.

4 - Now on to me in general. Im in a surprisingly good mood. Its kinda funny how when you are the type of person who does not normally feel pulled to one side or the other on the mood scale to feel particularly drawn to one side. But I am. In a good mood that is. I have been so for a number of days so if you wanna see what im like in a good mood heres your chance! On a related note its very interesting to me to see how much weather affects your body and especially your mental state and its delicate (im)balance. It is truly amazing how God has engineered us to adapt and overcome our environment without us even noticing. However if for whatever reason you have say an imperfection that needs to be supplemented its more easy to see these things. Ok I know im not making sense so here goes. I take a hormone supplement for my thyroid as it is "Hypo" which means underactive. Well in general it works pretty well but unlike the human body it doesnt change and react the way it should since it is a fixed amount. Case in point my mind was a huge washboard of infinity on friday. I swear I could not focus at all on like a single thought. Its kinda frustrating but like I said it just shows me more and more how amazing a design we as humans are and how Amazing God is for what he has done. What really got me thinking about this was a trip to wal mart. OMG I swear I had like 3 things I needed to find at walmart and I walked into the store and I was like. ummm. Why I am here again??? SO I just started wandering around the store in hopes that I would see something that would jog the mind back into sync. Well I noticed a department and was like right I need to go there for x y and z. SO I walked the 20 feet to get there and then was like. CRAP! why did I need to come here again. This happened for each of the three items of which I was searching for and was at times very very frustrating. But like I said im in a good mood! SO go figure

5 - wee game update - Ok I have totally given up on getting a 360 anytime before xmas and it wouldnt really matter at this point if I got one say next week b/c its not like I have any games for it and I hear that block buster isnt renting them yet. SO no biggy in my mind.

xbox - lisa and I started to play fatal frame 2 again and we are digging on it Also DOA rules. I love that game which is weird b/c I have never ever liked fighters. But I really look forward to my 10-15 min fix each day

ps2 - need to get back to god of war and finish that one up.

psone - playing FFIX and loving it. I had gotten a good start on it but then put it down for a number of months during the mistake that was ".hack" but now I am back playing it and really digging on it. More on that later.

Well thats about it for my weekend. Sunday was sad in that it was the last sunday for our pastor to be our full time pastor. He is going to be a missionary in the Ukraine and though I am so jazzed and excited for him he will be greatly missed. It also kinda sucks b/c im on the pulpit committee and we are charged with finding someone as good as Dan. I think the congregation is going to have some pretty lofty expectations.

Well thats it for now.

cheers!

Im getting into the Christmas Spirit!

Well the other day lisa dropped the bomb on me that she wanted to put up our tree this year which we had before agreed to bypass. I know I know were awefull people. WHATEVER! SO in any event she decided she would really like it up and felt that it would be nice. SO I was like oke doke. WELLLLL I decided I would surprise her yesterday and while she was gone I put the tree up myself so it would be done when she got home. IT was a lot of work but it was worth it and it also did manage to help get me in the christmas mood. However my tree trimming was and is probably different from a lot of other peoples in that their was NO christmas music playing at all. None nadda zilch zero. Thats right instead I kicked it up a notch and got my tree rocking to some choice tunes like:

first up was a cd of stuff Jason did a loooong time ago (like 2-3 years) and I have not listened to it in a long time. Or on a system that could thump some decent bass I might add. It was sweet and I still have to say that Jason your version of radio babylon is my absolute favorite. This means a lot since radio babylon is one of my favorite MBM songs and your mix is like I said my fav. Their was also a track on their that was not done by jason but a friend of his and its based around transformers. Now I grew up hooked on those things and I had forgotten a little line from the begining of the show that goes something like this "In the year 2005 the treacherous decepticons have conquered the autobot home world of cybertron." Dang I feel old b/c all the stuff happening in the show was supposed to be happening this year!!! SO watch out people b/c this is the month the Autobots are going to land!

Next up was a cd of JPOP that I have again not listened to in forever. Lots of great songs and was really what got me tuned into Jpop and the likes of Ayumi Hamasaki (ayu) and Boa. Since then I have acquired many Ayu cds and am a big fan.

After that was a really good cd I made of trance tracks that I really like. And thats how I finished out the evening.

SO a tree was assembled and trimmed and not a lick of christmas music was played. I consider that to be a good evening.

On another note the japan trip is now cancelled which means that the prospects for a wild and rowdy dead or alive tournament are now more up in the air as lisa will now be home when I was thinking of doing it. However I will still see what I can do to at least have some people over to kick it.

thats it for now. Oh I ate twice yesterday!!!!! I think im over this thing!!!!!!

Cheers!

Dang that hurt!

Ok so wow as some of you already no I got hit with the insanely cruel stomach virus that has been going around these parts last week. What was really weird was I felt great on monday and had a really good run but nothing could prepare me for how I would feel tuesday when I woke up. I wont go into all the wonderfull details but I felt as if I was being constantly punched in the stomach for about 3 days. Tuesday I didnt eat anything at all and I drank about half a glass of 7-up. Wed I was feeling a little bit better and ate a hot dog and some other stuff. Thursday again felt like crap. Ate next to nothing if anything and tried to drink a lot of fluids b/c I was getting dehydrated. Friday was feeling better didnt eat anything till the evening which was a mistake. I was feeling good and steak and shake really appealed to me. Well it tasted good but It was too soon. Saturday I literally ate 3 wendys chicken nuggets. I couldnt finish a $.99 5 piece on my own! Sunday I ate my other 2 nuggets and another hot dog. sO now we are at monday and im feeling better but I am still really really weak from lack of food so I really need to try and eat something today. SO thanks to everyone who prayed for me to feel better.

Well I still have no xbox 360 so that is something that I dont have to worry about and other than that on the gaming front my recent sickness provided me with gobs and gobs of time to start and almost finish Jade Empire which so far has been pretty cool. will write more later but I have some stuff I need to do for now.

Cheers!

quick updatage (if that is even a word and if it aint then tough)

Ok so like heres the big news of the weekend --



TA DA!!! we got a new car / truck / whatever! Its pretty cool and so far has been a lot of fun to drive. You might be asking yourself what is it??? well let me tell you what it is. A 2005 Hyundai Tucson LX in blue with a light grey / beigy leather interior. It has a moonroof and a v6 engine and most importantly BUTT WARMERS!!!! yeah its pretty posh. It also has an in dash 6 disc cd changer that is supposed to be able to do mp3's but I have not gotten that to work yet. Oh and it it also supposed to have a subwoofer to kick out the freaky bass which I have also not tried yet due mostly to the fact that I have not gotten a chance to drive it alone yet and will not be able to really kick the funky tunage until then. SO thats pretty cool ya. I was able to trade the VW in on it and got a whopping $1000 dollar trade on that. I feal so violated by that car it isnt even funny. However I feel that I have at least "pulled one over" or "gottten even" with the car dealer as there are a TON of things wrong with that car and for them to be able to sell it for what I know they are going to they are going to have to fix a lot of stuff to make the car sellable. SO They may have thought they screwed me but I got them just as good!!!! (insert evil laughter) SO anyway I am happy to be rid of the piece o crap Vdub that I had and its nice to have a brand spanking new car in the garage that is at the moment problemless. SO thats that

Other than that had a pretty good T-giving hanging out with my folks and just chilling out. Lisa and I did do something that we have here to for not done. That being we went shopping friday morning. Ya see we looked through all the pamphlets and flyers and stuff from thursday and discovered that their were quite a lot of things that we were looking for at staples that were either free or dramatically reduced in price. SO we decided to get up early and get their when they opened their doors at -- sigh-- 6am. OITS that was early and freaking cold but it was worth it and we got all the stuff we were shooting for. The funny thing is that we got like I dont know 7 diff items and only two of them were meant as gifts for other people. The others were things we had needed but just put off getting like a paper shredder which we got and will be free after its rebate so it was a worthy trip. I think were getting something like 100 bucks back in rebates so we did save quite a bit or we will I should say. After that we met up with Sue and went to the mall b/c lisa saw a flyer for parisian with some boots she wanted and I gotta say they are pretty hot boots. I like lisa in heels and shes wearing them more and more now and I have to say I think Jeans look really good with heels. I guess im getting older I dont know. SO whatever we then went and grabbed some lunch. went home and then went to go get the car which took 3 hours longer than it should have. I swear it was like hello we are trying to give you money perhaps you could do something slightly faster than you are. Oh well we have it and its done now. Then on Sat. we had Sue and Scott Damerow over to watch Napolean Dynamite which my parents had not seen and I hate to admit it but that movie gets funnier the more times you watch it. That was my second time and I found myself in giddy anticipation over such scenes like napolean $%@^$ slaps kip, or kip runs over the tupperware. Many many classicly good scenes and then other I had totally forgotten about like when the old guy shoots the cow which is PRICELESS. SO it was a good time. Then on Sunday I got to hear my Dad preach which is a very very rare treat for me so that was nice as well. Alas though its monday and Im back to the grind and life is back to normal. At least for the next three weeks until the 16th of december when lisa - sue - and sara (aka max) go to the land of the rising FUN! to get their tourist thing on for a week. At which time their will be a lot of pizza and even more gaming. SO stop by! Maybe I will finaly get to have a real 4 person death match in metal arms!!!!! Or a DOA tournament. Could be cool. Thats all for now

Cheers!

A new dillema

Ok I know I said that I didnt think I would update again till after thanksgiving but hey X-mas comes early this year what can I say! Ok so if you have been following my site you know a couple of things.

1.) I am getting an X360
2.) Their is a high probability I will have it before x-mas

This has now presented me with a new dillema. Do I keep it or do I sell it on e-bay and then buy one perhaps in march when the market is more normalized??? Heres my quandry if you will. Right now I have the big bundle on reserve and that costs 400+ tax = 426 which will be my cost. Right now your going uh huh get to the point ok spunk monkey keep ya knick knacks on. If you go to ebay and check the current prices of x360's the average price they are going for today is $1050.00+ 40 for shipping. Thats close to a $600 dollar profit for not doing anything at all and would more than cover the cost of a new 360 + an extra controller and a few games from my new pal darren (thanks buddy!) Now my mind is moving on to even more enterprising ideas. right now the hype on e-bay is initial launch hype which I would expect to go down. But my friends we live in a land of stupid adults. Adults who are at the mercy of their children and who feel they have one shot each year to appease the little devils just a little bit and that day is x-mas. SO my point is if a x360 will sell for 1050-1200 today what will it sell for the week before x-mas when they are no where to be found???? Most major game stores are already saying if you dont have a pre-order dont even ask until feb. In fact gamestop is now taking pre-orders again for x360 with a ship date of feb 28th!!! The quantities are that limited. I cant even imagine how much they will be going for the week before x-mas but I have to think it will be in the range of $1500-2000 and that people will be fighting for them like moms were fighting for cabbage patch dolls back in the 80's. SO like I said my dillema. Should I get it and hold out on e-bay to see what the prices are like and then sell it if I can clear $600-1000+ or do I embrace the next gen technology and bask in the fact that I have something cool before so many other peopl do. Its a tough call for sure but I gotta tell you I think I might reserve a ps3 right now just thinking about whats happening now.

Cheers!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I doubt that I will get a chance to post up again before wed. SO I thought I would throw a little plug in for thanksgiving and wish everyone well. Its tuesday and I have been very very busy at work which I have to say my perception of time is very skewed b/c I felt like it had only been like this for few months and I just spent some time looking back over old blog entries and this really has been a crapy year for me work wise in terms of volume and stress so hooray for blogs as they help to keep me well seated in the realms of time and space! SO anyway I am very excited about this week as my parents are coming in for a visit which will be nice to have them here. And their is a possiblity that they might be coming to stay with us for a few months which would also be pretty kewl as well. Who knows maybe I can even get my dad into video games! Trying to think about anything else that is happening. Oh I have officially had it with my car. Yes last friday getting up for work I started driving and didnt get out of my sub before I realized I had a flat. GARRRRRR so I changed that and was late for work. double GARRRRR. Now I realize that flat tires happen. Perhaps thats my new t-shirt idea "flats happen" ne way thats now copyrighted so dont even think about taking the idea ^_^ neway I realize these things happen however it was not a simple nail or something like that. No my car had worn off the ENTIRE INSIDE EDGE of the tire down to the steel threads which kept sticking me in my fingers and hurting quite badly. SO I have never seen this before and if you look back to May you can see that I posted about buying new tires and they have less than 15000 miles on them! GARRRRR. SO yes I have officially had it with this car. IT is Wic by definition. Well I have tons to do but again happy t-day and everyone try to get some much needed rest and relaxation over the next few days.

Cheers!

Xbox 360????Where are you?????

Ok so I have some news regarding the whole xbox 360 thing for anyone who cares. Sorry hannah but hey if your reading this you never e-mailed me so there. neway SO back a few weeks when Jason and Momo were here Jason dropped the bomb on me that he was going to cancel his 360 pre-order for what will remain undisclosed reasons. SO of course my first reaction was AH CRAP! there goes my chance to kick around on one for a week. But then my sweet lovely wife said well maybe you can get it. This came as what has to be stated as a total shock and so I said ok we can think about it. Well after a few weeks we talked about it last night and Lisa said it could be my X-mas / B-day present from her! SO WOOT im getting a 360! SO I was all excited and jazzed about that and then I got a phone call last night from Game Stop (which is where my pre-order is) which basically said. YO we aint getting nearly the # of 360's we thought we was gittin so dont expect to see one this x-mas and you might be waiting till the beggining of next year 'click' (ya see I added the click b/c it was a recording). SO I was like DOH! so I called my game stop today and asked for a more realistic status and heres what I got. I am #32 on the list of pre-orders. They originally thought they were going to be getting roughly 25 units a week up until x-mas. SO before they thought I was a 2nd week candidate. However they have been informed its going to be more like 10 units for my store at launch (DUDE!) and they have not been given any promises in terms of shipments after that. SO he said yeah I think we should be able to get yours in by x-mas but Its still hard to say. I basically got the feeling that this guy knew his store was getting 10 units and that anything outside of that, that shows up each week will be a super duper suprise. SO as it stands right now I will be getting one however who knows when that will be. Also some other circumstances are possibly popping up that might make the wifesky say uh no to the whole thing. SO I guess in the end I really didnt have anythign new to say but yet I said a lot. But I take that back. SO neway thats my "big" news. SO this brings up another question what to do with the ol xbox??? I still have a lot of games that I like to play on it and assuming that half will work on the 360 is that enough to keep the old one around? Also say all my games work thats cool but all my level saves and what not are still on my xbox and I dont think the memory cards are cross platform compatible. SO that brings up another problem in that like for example Kung Fu Chaos I worked my butt off to unlock everything in that game. Do I keep it and do that all over again or just say whatever and trade in all my xbox games and xbox. SO let me know what you guys think.

Cheers!

New Phone!!!!

Yes I have finaly entered into a more modern Era of Cell Phone. No it does not have a camera or an MP3 player or a video camera but it does have a color screen and it can do MP3 ringtones and that aint bad. This phone also knows about a little thing called java so I can load some cool apps on it as well. SO how did this come about??? Well my old phone an i60c (which sucked) starting having an issue about 6 months ago that I finally got tired of living with and it got tired of living with me so it just stopped working. SO this morning I went and picked up my new phone!!!! I am still running the stock settings but over the next day or so I think I should have it pretty customized to my liking which will be nice. SO the two new feature that I love about this phone are these.

1.) it has a display on the front that tells the time but more importantly does caller ID. My old phone did not have that and it sucked to have to answer the phone and find out you didnt want the call.

2.) I can add a custom ringtone which might seem trite but hey if you have ever had a generic nextel phone (like an i60c) then you know that LOTS of people have nextel phones and a lot of people have the same ring and that gets really annoying to be in a crowded area think your phone keeps going off. SO that will be a nice change.

quick game update
PS2 Lisa and I finished xenosaga which I dont even think I mentioned we had started but I have to say it was pretty awesome. Really deep story and really good gameplay. Total time start to finish for us was a fantastic 65 hours!!! which for the investment of 14.99 comes out to a rough .23 cents an hour cost for entertainment. Imagine if you could see a second run movie for 50 cents. Other than that I am playing god of war for PS2 as well which should make Jason happy. SO far im almost all the way through athens and the game is pretty amazing. the graphics and speed are really good and really fast. SO far im having fun with it and since its borrowed the cost per hour of enjoyment is $0.00 / hour which is even a better deal then Xenosaga!

Oh did I mention a little thing called Xbox 360 launches next week! I wonder how many my store will get and what wave of pre order I will be. Right now I think I am solidly in 2nd round which would be the following week but I think their is always a chance I could get first round as well. my number is I think 31. SO we shall see.

Ok well their ya go ankle biters I updated. Excuse me for being busy at work and Sick all in the same week!!! J/K

cheers!

Atmosphere is everything

Ok if you have read my blog at all then you know Lisa and I are BIG fans of the silent hill series. In fact after lisa's recent birthday we now have every game in the series which is pretty cool since it spans 3 different consoles. SO far we have played through 1 (on psone) 2 (xbox) 4 (xbox) and just recently got 3 for PS2. SO what does this have to do with anything??? Well they are making a movie out of the game and that has me pretty excited. Now for the most part I think Movies based on video games are pretty weak. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Doom are all pretty much just action flicks that get a lot of negative press and to that I say "what did you expect?" The games are not very story centric and are mostly action and that is why the silent hill movie has me excited. The silent hill games are very deep in story and try to scare you by messing with your senses. For example in most of the games they really promote a feeling that you are alone in what could be considered your own worst nightmare so their is very little interaction with other people. However at times everything will be very quiet and out of no where you will hear screams of horror and pain that arent coming from you or are they? Its very psychological and I think thats what has made these games so good in the first place. SO that being said I feel their is a lot to build off of to make a good movie out of one of them and the edition of the game they chose is ranking up there as my favorite so im even more jazzed. Silent Hill 1 is what started the series and so far imo had the best and most conclusive storyline. And just had a well planned out plot to begin with. SO look for it next april as Im sure it should be pretty good. Providing they stick with the story and the atmosphere that the games try to create and from the looks of the pic above they have it dead on.

cheers

PEOPLE WHO LIE SUCK!

ok thats the gist of my post. Yup that about sums it up they suck big time. I dont know why its so hard to give a truthfull factual answer in some cases but hey if it nets you a sale then its ok right? SO in short I made a very specific request to a vendor. They said yeah we can do that. They sold me something. And when it came it does not do what I need it to do. Not to go on and on so I will be brief but I still need part X and it appears it does not come in the flavor of which I was requesting (so they say, however they already lied to me onces about it) What really sucks is this puts me in a terribly bad place between my customer and my vendor who has now basically shot me in the foot. SO in general work life is all about the suckage for me!

Happy B-day to you!

Well shes probably going to kill me for using this pic but its the best and cutest close up shot I had of her and although I could have done a crop job on the pic and just included her face I think this is a really cute pic of My darling dear wife. SO as you may be guessing Its my honeys b-day and well I think that should be grounds enough to declaring a national holiday. Thats right instead of halloween it can now be International Lisa Knodel day. What you thought I would just limit her observance to the US??? BAH I think shes amazing enough to be observed the world over. Even in Canada and Madagascar. And yes for those of you who think Madagascar is a place invented for a disney movie YOUR WRONG ITS A REAL PLACE!!!! Sorry anyway so I thought I would help celebrate this great accomplishment with a dedicated blog entry so here we go.

Lisa is the most amazing and wonderfull woman I think I have ever known. She ceases to suprise me on a daily basis and I think she is absolutly wonderfull. She can make me happy just by seeing her smile and she always seems to know if something is bothering me or if I need a hug. In short shes amazing and I feel overly blessed to have her in my life.

SO happy birthday Sweetie. You mean the world to me and I couldnt wake up in the morning without you. You complete me and make me so happy. I love you so much and have a great day. Just to be cute I looked up ways to say happy b-day in other cultures. SO here we go with my favs!

Gaelic (scottish) Co` latha breith sona dhuibh!
german Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!
hawaiian Hau`oli la hanau!
japanese Otanjou-bi Omedetou Gozaimasu!
klingon Quchjaj qoSlIj!
latin Fortuna dies natalis!
maltese Nifrahlek ghal gheluq sninek!
swahili Hongera! or Heri ya Siku kuu!
zulu Ilanga elimndandi kuwe!

Again Happy Birthday Sweeheart!

cheers!

The Results are In!

Ok just in case you were wondering the official results are in for the race and I did a little cut and past so you can see my time

Place Div/Tot  No.   Name           Age Sex City     St Time  Pace
===== ======== ===== ============== === === ======== == ===== =====
569   37/69    1158  CHRIS KNODEL   27  M   FRANKLIN OH 26:35  8:35

Ok so like I said before this is pretty acurate of what I was thinking however my guess that there were like 500 runners was grossely underestimated. Lets try a total of 1925 runners and walkers. WOW that was a huge start. If you want to see the results for yourself check em out here.