What the HAIL??

What the hell, hail, whatever?!? August 5, 2009, the day the craziest hail storm I have ever seen descended on our little neighborhood. That's $4700 in damage to the Honda E, $6600 in damage to the Mazda 6, and a new roof on the house. You might ask why the cars aren't in the garage. And that would be a reasonable question. We just had new flooring put in our house and our garage was full of furniture and other crap. Nice timing.




The glass-like material composing the table top is impervious to your puny munitions.













This is the closest of the bigger pieces I could reach. One of our neighbors tried to run out and cover his truck and took a couple icy shots to the head. It was amusing if nothing else.

Also, it should be noted that my hands are very large and manly, some might even say ape-like. Just to give some extra context to the size of the hailstone.









Seriously it looked like snow ---------->
I took a shot of my neighbor's yard but it didn't turn out too well.











Too bad this guy wasn't there. We could have just had a party.

Cancun, Life, et al

So, Jen and I just got back from a lovely week in Cancun. It was much needed, especially for Jen who has been working like a...well...really busy attorney I guess. Me,it seems that I have an uncanny knack to work a 40 hour week no matter how much crap gets piled on me. Either that or I'm going to get fired. Just kidding, I'm just that good.

Anyway, we got into Cancun on 8/22 after a very, very early 6AM flight out of XNA. Overall the trip down wasn't bad. Going through immigration and customs in Cancun is pure torture and takes forever, especially when you've been up since 3AM.

Once we arrived at the resort it was all worth it. We stayed at Secrets Silversands; which is fantastic. 24 hour room service, fantastic restaurants, and top-shelf liquors in all the bars. Needless to say, we barely ventured out of the resort and the most stressful part of the day was deciding which pool to post up at for the day; or, possibly, the mentally taxing exercise of deciding between "drink of the day" or ad hoc'in'it, <-I just made up a new word, I think. We did venture into Cancun for a shopping excursion which ended in sprawling mall. Yay! A mall! But I did pick up some really nice tequila for cheap. Enough gibberish, how bout some pics!!













This is a picture of a bed, with a loveseat in background, and also a sliding door leading out to the balcony.


This picture is from our room's balcony. This pool was pretty laid back and never had more than about 10 or 15 people in it. It wrapped all the way around the spa is a giant horseshoe shape.The little pool just above is the aqua therapy pool that is part of the spa.







Main inside bar area taken from the lobby. This was pretty early in the morning. Also, the other half of the room is on the right and it was too big to get it all in the picture.









Jen and I going out for dinner. I think we went to Portofino that night. 5 course Italian restaurant. Jen had a rack of lamb and I had osso buco.











Photo of the main pool area where my boy Daniel kept the mojitos coming. Even though gratuities are included in the resort price, a few extra bucks here and there really helps with the quick drink service. Also, he kept finding "extra" drinks at the bar. Surely just a coincidence.

Overall, the poolside staff was really good considering the amount of ground they covered and someone was around every 10-15 minutes to see if we needed anything.

The little cabana on the left is the main beach bar. You can't tell from the pic but there is a swim up bar on both sided of the pool. The structure above the pool houses two outdoor restaurants.

Also, I appreciate the complementary robes, but I wish they came in adult sizes. There may or may not have been some tape involved in this photograph.
















My Baby, looking cute. We went to Himitsu. Excellent Japanese food, definitely my favorite.


















We took a tour of a replica of a tequila factory. As the saying goes, when in Rome, act like a moron. So, we did. At least the plastic donkey got a brief reprieve from his lifetime as a simulacra representative of man's struggle against nature.

And also there were free samples. Many free samples.





Post samples. I have no idea what this gentleman's name was or what we talked about but he was really nice and knew a lot about tequila. And he was pretty funny too.

Too bad I had to squish his head!! <- Does anyone else remember Kids in the Hall?

I could think of at least 3 or 4 hilarious subtitles to this picture but I'll leave it to the peanut gallery...And seriously he's not very tall.









That's all for now. Can't wait to go back!!

beer brewing debacle #1

http://jackson-angus.blogspot.com/2009/05/brewhouseharrisducharm.html

Brad's wife Christal stole my thunder and put the story on their blog first. And she spelled my name wrong.

Anyway, read the post in the link and you can see a bunch of grown men with college degrees and professional jobs act like 8 year olds. The blood was mine as a carboy basically exploded in my hands. No stitches or anything, my hand were really pruny (and my blood was likely significantly thinned by the alcohol content) so I did bleed quite a bit. Luckily Brad's wife is a registered nurse so she patched me up quickly so I could get back to work.

Don't be alarmed if you don't know what the hell she is talking about from time to time. She's Austraylyarn, or something like that based on the phonetic spelling of how she pronounces it. They just recently moved back to the US after living in Aussie / Tasmania for about 7 years.

updates and stuff

So, I realize I probably owe some people a bunch of pictures.

Since my last post (the ice one) we've had quite a few adventures and hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get into some details.

In the meantime, I've been to 2 bachelor parties, 3 weddings (participated in 2), still working on the house, and trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up.

My hetero-life mate Brad and I are considering opening a micro-brewery / self-brew establishment here in Fayetteville. Only problem is that we don't know how to brew beer!!! But, we're learning.

Jen is working really hard right now and has over 270 clients, she's my retirement policy.

Last weekend we spent the day on Beaver Lake with our friends that have a really nice 32' party boat. We plan on doing a lot of that this summer and bringing a tan with us when we go to Mexico in August.

Here's a link to my flickr page for some pictures of Dave and Courtney's rehearsal dinner / church and some other random pictures around Eureka Springs plus a whole lot of other pictures of events and friends. If you can't access it I may have to add you because I have the security enabled. Just email me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/26372516@N08/

In the meantime, here's a picture of me (left) the aforementioned Brad (blue shirt) and his brother Matt partying in Matt's ski boat on last Friday, June 19. Yeah, I know, who parties in a boat in a driveway? Well, I guess the answer is obvious plus we were slammed on some Belgian Tripple that we had just finished brewing and the boat has Sirius so we were listening to Hair Nation. Hopefully, I'll be doing some wakeboarding and tubing with Matt / Brad this summer as well. Enjoy!

Working from home. I could get used to this

Pajamas. Unshaven. Unshowered. Laptops X 2, ipod w/ beastie boys-- > High Plains Drifter
gettin' my numberz on dawg.

All this snow weather has me depressed so here's some happier, sunny pictures:

Steel Creek in 2006.


The Clinton Library July of 2007. Hot as balls that day. @100 degrees.



Pops at the "Shablet" (Shack / Cabin / Chalet)


Fishing at Kyle's Landing on the Buffalo, getting my usual luck on this river. CRAP!



Opening day at Reynolds Razorback Stadium Fall 2008. Over 70,000 on hand to watch us squeak by Western Illinois. That's okay, brighter days are ahead in the Bobby Petrino era.



Mmmm, Pat's smoked chicken at the tailgate. He can smoke some mean meat.



Hey Ladies! Courtney, Elizabeth (our very own CA transplant), Jen, and Jenn.


Justin and Dave, locked into a mean game of washers.

What's its all about in the South in the fall. SEC football, tailgates, cold beer, and good friends.



Here you go. Enjoy.

Ice Storm 2009

So, I haven't been exactly diligent in updating the ole' blog but that's just because I'm on a computer all day 5 days a week. As it happens, right now we are in the middle of the biggest ice storm here in a decade and the plant where I work is on day 3 without power so I don't really have anything else going on. Fortunately, Jen and I do have power where we live. Right now in Northwest Arkansas there are over 100,000 homes without electricity. David, Courtney, their 3 dogs, and our friend Sam stayed here last night and we made a big pot of chili and just lazed around.

The top left picture is a view of our street on Tuesday. The picture directly left is about a block away on Wednesday, notice that the streets are actually pretty clear. Up top is our front yard, and our tree that eventually lost about half of its larger branches. We are really sad about that because the ornamental cherries make really pretty flowers in the spring. Hopefully it will survive. What's amazing is that the icing really could have been much worse had the temperature been about 5 degrees colder on Monday & Tuesday.

David and Courtney live right on the edge of one of the historic districts in Fayetteville and their neighborhood suffered extensive damage due to the abundance of really large and beautiful hardwoods (also very old) in the area. I'll try to remember to get some of Courtney's pictures and post them on here as well. They were lucky that their house didn't sustain any damage but Courtney car had limb fall on it and their backyard (about 1/2 acre) looks like a bomb went off.

The below picture is a weeping willow.



One of my neighbor's very pretty oak trees, splintered like twigs.



On the road to Embassy Suites in Rogers where Jen's boss set up a temporary office / living quarters for the firms employees that lost power. Hard to tell in the picture, but every tree is broken in some place or on the ground.



Jen left her briefcase in her trunk and I had to beat the ice off with a hammer handle to get it out.



One more shot a couple blocks away!!!




Bye!