Graduation from San Jose State

Arrived in San Jose on Friday night and went out to pre graduation dinner with Tragic’s family at Buca di Beppo, I can tell already we’re going to get along good, we made the decision at the last minute and had to wait an hour and a half to get in, then it took another 40 minutes or so for the dinner to arrive and an hour to make a sizable dent in it. Note to self; don’t pick Buca di Beppo if you’re in a hurry to do anything! Food was great though.

Her graduation was set to go off at 9 the next morning, we arrived at 7:45 and I think there were all of maybe 50 people there, maybe one or two in caps and gowns. The graduation went off without a hitch and I took many many pictures. Then home for a BBQ with her extended family.

Sunday we drove up to see my son Collin in Sacramento, saw Madagascar which was pretty funny then wondered around his town for the afternoon. I’m still someone shocked that Tragic is still so in love with me, considering how many practical pranks that the devil makes me do! Collin had brought a couple of cans of Crazy String and as she was opening the door to the car, I squirted her right as she was about to get in, she yelped and got airborne for a second or two. Later in the day, she did get me back as I was getting in but I was sort of expecting it. She’ll get back at me soon I bet. We had a good time, thanks for the Marble Slab Ice Cream hun!

Today, packing and getting ready for our trip down to SD. Happy Memorial day everyone.

My future bride in Green

pictures by Sean

I’m number one for Dustman!

For my entire existence on the internet, Andy Dustman from Georgia has taken the top slot. And the guy doesn’t even update his site. Sometime in the last three weeks, my fotopage (not this blog) has dethroned him! So if you type “dustman” into google and hit the “I’m feeling lucky button” it will give you a direct link to my fotopage. This guy must be related to me somewhere in the family tree, only a Dustman would come up with an invention like he has for brewing beer. Sorry for kicking you off the top spot Andy:-P

Life, the Universe and Everything

Life has been a whorl wind the last few weeks, moved into my new house, had a house warming party the weekend following, of course there are pictures on the fotopage, just haven’t had much time to write. Have been busy but it’s a good busy. Making arrangements for the upcoming wedding, unpacking the house, spending time with my intended. Not to mention photographing a wedding, going to the Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday concert.

When there is this much stuff happening in my life, I’m starting to realize that the internet is a fairly solitary place. While it is shrinking the world, the computer screen becomes the window that you’re experiencing life through. I was starting to develop tunnel vision about the size of a 17 inch laptop screen. I’ve spent much of the last few weeks disconnected out of choice, stepping back and taking a deep breath. Know what? I’m finding that I like it.

So what have I done the last few weeks…

Back in a past life, I used to work with Rick Burch of Jimmy Eat World and have been going to their shows going on 6 years before they were much more then a garage band, wow, it’s been a few years since I’ve seen him play, he was alright before but now he rocks!

I liked Star Wars and it was a good finish to the series, while not an earth shaking movie, it went well into episode 4. Much better then the last 2 George.

One of my coworkers needed a photographer for his wedding on sort of short notice, so I spent a Saturday afternoon taking pictures and eating his food. Was going to charge him and he was willing to pay then changed my mind and just gave him the pictures for a wedding present. Afterwards Tragic and I went to Torry Pines Beach and I used her as my model for some sunset pictures. I’m still flabbergasted on how much I’m in love with this girl and how much she’s in love with me. Me dorky me!

The new house is beautiful, flowers all around, 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths and now filled with furniture. All of my books are even up, couple of weeks ago I went to an estate sale and the guy running it was practically throwing everything out, he said anything not nailed down was for sale. Found a 10 foot long 6 and a half foot high bookshelf for 40 bucks. Can beat that with a stick. Now I have room for all of my books for the first time in my life.

House warming party was mostly coworkers and wives, went well, they were impressed with the house and my curry. Had Chief on the grill and cold brews all around. Good time all around.

This weekend I’ll be flying up for Tragic’s Graduation from San Jose State and seeing my son who also happens to live up there. I’m sure it’s going to be a great weekend. Have a happy Memorial Day weekend everybody and don’t forget the reasons behind the holiday.

Get an external and use it or suffer like I...

I’ve been preaching for a while that every computer user should have an external hard drive. For things such as, backing up your computer, copying the music that your buddy spent the last 5 years stealing in under an hour or if you can’t afford your own lap top, externals are really cheap and usually work well with your work computer!

Couple of days ago my fairly new laptop decided something was running in the background that it didn’t like and refused to work until I reinstalled everything. Egad! I had busted up the power supply to my external and hadn’t backed up in a month! A month of pictures! Gone… Games of Doom III and Half-life 2 that I was almost but not quite done with! Gone… At least I do have some the lost pictures (small percentage/low quality) on my fotopage. Well, looking at the bright side, my computer is back to being the speed demon that I pulled out of the box last October and I was able to start with fresh copies of all the anti-virus software. I have 30 thousand plus pictures already sitting the external, the future is big, I’m sure I’ll be taking more. Life must be going really good if my computer crashing hard and losing a 1000 or so pictures is only an inconvenience and not cause to panic.

New work crew

It’s been a while since I’ve been with a group of people that worked this close together. For years I had thought that a crew like this didn't exist in the Navy medical field because all of the places I’ve been to lately, not one hangs out together after work, everybody wants to be an individual and get ahead. Sort of like living in California, you're in an apartment for a couple of years and have never even said hi to your neighbors. What kind of life is that? Too many paranoid folk.

Suddenly I’m here at Miramar everyone hangs out and gets along, watching each others back. Not a bad guy in the bunch. Maybe this isn’t such a bad ball club to be in after all.

Remember, hell isn’t a place, it’s the company you keep.

New Digs!

After a long long search we have found our house, pictures here. Moving in on the 15th :)

American Soldier down for the count

Go over and wish him the best, not sure about the type of injury but it doesn't sound good. He's been a milblog buddy for a while now, it's sad to hear him so down. Good luck on the surgery and hope for a speedy recovery!

Hit and miss, house hunting and movies

Went out to see Hitchhiker’s with Frank and James, very old friends from back in my crazy MCAS El Toro days. Frank has been a huge follower of Douglas for a long time but James wasn’t really interested so we vowed to welcome him to the fold. Know what? The tickets were sold out, figures. So we just hung out and caught up on life which was good too.

Most of the weekend, James and I have been house hunting and house hunting is for the birds. This stuff wears me out but it looks like we found a fairly nice place, owners are really nice and the place is gorgeous. Can’t wait to move in (hopefully).

Sunday after a weekend of combing through homes and finally deciding on one, it was time to take a break and a movie sounded good. Since I didn't think James would have got the full appreaciation out of Doug's little project. I wisely chose to take Tragic to see it next weekend, putting it off for a week won't kill me and unlike James, she is a SciFi geek like me. So we watched Sahara and it wasn’t too shabby of a movie at all. I used to read Clive way back in high school but gradually moved away from him. Maybe I’ll have to start again, for an action movie, it was intelligently put together and the director balanced the many moving parts into a seamless whole. Funny at parts, even at it’s most outlandish moments, they pulled it off in such a way to make it seem plausible. The critics gave it mixed reviews but the audience gave it 4 and a half stars, not to bad. I'll have to be a sheep on this one and agree with the latter.

Oh and I posted pictures of my trip to Arizona with Tragic