Took her to the vet today because she had this big open sore on her foot and even with it wrapped up she would not leave it alone. They told us that she has a tumor on one of her toes and we have to treat her foot for a week or so to get her skin more healthy before they amputate the toe. Once they take the growth/toe off, they will send it to the lab to see if it is benign or malignant.

So until she can learn to stop licking and chewing her feet and until all this gets healed, she gets the cone…

- peeps

Hopefully sometime in the next half a day or so, I will end up in Almaty!

July went by and we spent some time with Doug and Renee and their kiddos at the lake and at their pool. Was nice and refreshing with the heat this summer.

In August we headed out to the 3rd Annual East Texas Goats Guadalupe River Trip. Most folks camped out, but being late August…in frickin’ Texas, we stayed in the Holiday Inn. We also got to use our new waterproof digital camera for some action shots on the river without having to buy one of those cheesy disposable 35mm water cameras.

September was a busy month. For Labor Day weekend, Tasha had Brandy’s bachelorette party and Lisa’s birthday, for which we met up with Duane, Brandon, Denise and Bryce for a trip to Longhorn Caverns.

Brandy’s wedding shower was later in the month..same day as mom’s birthday and the same day I got to fly back from Colombia into Austin on a Saturday afternoon to catch all the fun. I also got to try out the new slingbox since the UT vs UTEP game was going on while I was traveling back home. Pretty neat technology! Check out the pics from Brandy’s shower below…

Late September/early October was pretty busy for me with work travel. Nothing too exciting, just a bunch of short trips. The weekends have been just as busy though. We had the State Fair Car Show and my dad came up to hang with us for the weekend. Tried all sorts of fried foods…fried butter, fried cookie dough, fried pecan pie, sweet jalapeno shrimp corndog, Fletcher’s corny dog, and a Fletcher’s jalapeno cheese corny dog. Got the car all detailed for the car show (thanks to the guys at Stuart’s since I was traveling too much to do it myself), only to have it rain that night!

The next weekend was Eric and Virginia’s wedding…awesome time, despite the reception place not having the UT vs Colorado game on TV . Seriously, who doesn’t have ESPN?!?!?! I kept everyone up to speed watching the live action via Slingplayer on my phone! Beat that iPhone fanboys! We forgot the camera so no pics Beautiful wedding with a nice Texas (UT) flare!!!

The next weekend we headed out to Mexico for Brandy’ss wedding at the Iberostar Grand Paraiso in the Mayan Riviera. We stayed for 8 days and had a blast. Some nights we (I ) can’t fully remember and some days we will NEVER forget! From catching Britney on fire with a flaming shot, to snoring so loud Tasha slept in the huge jacuzi tub, to a day trip for snorkeling and beachside chilling in Akumal with everyone, to a day trip to drive around Cozumel island to enjoy undistrurbed beauty and oceanside drinks and grub, and last but not least, the beautiful oceanfront wedding of Brandy and Todd. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting and hanging with their other friends and family in such a scenic and fun place! We didn’t even have to miss the Texas-OU game thanks to the wonders of Slingbox and free broadband at the resort. It rained most of the day anyways that day, so we didn’t miss too much resort fun! We stayed a bit longer than the rest of the group to celebrate our 5 year anniversary and then headed back home this past Friday. There are a ton of pics posted up, so have a look…

I think that is enough for now. If I think of more later, I will post. To look at the individual pics if you like, head over to the Photo Gallery…

- peeps

-peeps

The resort was a decent place. We would probably stay there again if a smokin’ good deal came up, but it wasn’t so great we would just not consider other places the next time. I mean what kind of Mexican resort doesn’t have a swim-up bar????

Click on the pic to go to the pictures. Enjoy!

- peeps

All in all, a great, tiresome weekend!

- peeps

I have 1 core ideal while driving…try not to screw things up for the guys around you! This covers most every point of driving courteously and I have given a few examples below, in no particular order.

1. Take opportunities to make maneuvers as they present themself and if they don’t present themself, keep driving until they do…don’t impede traffic because you can’t merge properly.
2. Don’t cut people off
3. Don’t pull out in front of someone and go half their speed
4. Don’t lazily lag behind traffic only to then speed up as you see a light turn yellow…maybe the guy behind you would have like to make it through the light too had you been keeping with the flow of traffic while the light was green.
5. Don’t sit in a right turn lane when there are 2 other empty lanes going straight. What good does right on red do for me now as I sit behind you when you could have been a nice guy and moved over a lane as you approached the intersection.
6. Don’t try to enforce the speed limits by driving slow in the left lane, you are not law enforcement.
7. Occasionally glance in your rearview and if you notice someone coming up behind you…move over! Its the law for slower trffic to keep right!
8. Learn how to work a 4 way stop efficiently!!!
9. Don’t react to stuff that isn’t your problem. If I get an opportunity to pass you because I want to drive faster than you, don’t react to me passing you…my world doesn’t revolve around you! I have no problem with you and could care less if you are driving the speed limit! I just want to drive faster than you because I enjoy it and my car just sped past you like a bat outta hell not because I was irritated with you but because it has 400 frickin’ hp and it CAN speed past you. You give me some smart ass reaction to my desire to drive and my wish to just drive changes to my wish to annoy you for as long as possible.

I’ll give a few examples that happened today…

• 4 way stop, cars on 3 sides, all stopped. I’m sitting on deck to make my move at the stop. Car in front of me goes, I move up. In the time that it took me to move up, the car opposite my direction was turning left and never made a move. The car to the left that was stopped before me never made a move either. As I stopped, I notice their lack of action so I go and receive dirty looks from both of them! Don’t get mad at me because you can’t work a 4 way stop efficiently!!! Use the actions of the other cars as your cue to get a move on. Guy across from you has a left turn signal and you are going straight? Pull out there and let the guy pull along side and turn behind you and vice versa if you are the guy turning left. Guy at 90 degrees from you to the right enters the intersection? Make your move out into the intersection as he passes you instead of waiting for him to fully clear the intersetion….he no longer presents a threat to you!
• 50 mph road…don’t slow down to 5mph and expect to cross 2 lanes to make it to the left turn lane. Continue on down the road until you can move over safely and make a u-turn or turn into a lot so you can wait for traffic to clear so you can make your turn safely. You screwed up by not changing lanes properly! Don’t screw me up in the process because the traffic around us is moving at 10 times your speed and leaves me no option to maneuver around you!!! Maybe partially my fault for not changing lanes quick enough to get around you and failing to follow my rule #1 above, but seriously!!! 5mph in a 50mph zone to cross 2 lanes of rush hour traffic?!?!?!
• A witness to me laying on my horn behind above 5mph guy flips me off! Dude, it wasn’t your problem so stay out of it…but guess what…it is your problem now! So don’t get irritated when I get in front of you now and give you a problem by harassing you. Don’t react to stuff that isn’t your problem. If I get an opportunity to pass you because I want to drive faster than you, don’t react to me passing you…my world doesn’t revolve around you! I have no problem with you! I just want to drive faster than you because I enjoy it and my car sped past you like a bat outta hell not because I was irritated but because it has frickin’ 400 hp and it CAN speed past you. You give me some smart ass reaction to my just wanting to drive and my wish to just drive changes to my wish to annoy you for as long as possible.

Anyways, those are just the ones that happened today…let me know your driving pet peeves by commenting below…

- peeps

I think though if she decides to go any shorter in the future I will think I am married to Sinead O’Connor

Here is the camera phone pic that she sent to me while I was out of town for work this week. Let her know what you think by commenting below…

- peeps

- peeps

And since I can’t stand radio, I get very little exposure to new tunes aside from hunting down new albums from artists I have previously enjoyed. Taking music recommendations now…post ‘em up in the comments below.

-peeps