My new speaker stands!

More once I get the entertainment center straightened up & then you'll get to see them in all their glory!

It's the little things...

Can I tell you what a JOY it is to get a prime directive from The Boss telling me to drop whatever it is I'm working on & to assemble a couple of computers? After sitting almost all day in front of my computer yesterday, my boss told me and Co-worker Buddy to "get busy" putting together a couple of computers that were needed desperately in our Baton Rouge office.

Yessir. On the double, sir. You don't have to pull my arm, sir.

Whereas 15 minutes seem to drag by when I'm working on flood mapping, the two hours it took to assemble the computers went by lickety split.

There's nothing like ripping the pull-tab off of a brand-new, retail, Pentium-4 3.6GHz processor, I tell ya! I just LOVE the smell of circuitry in the afternoon.

Yep, it doesn't take much to make me happy. Just give me a computer case, a box full of computer parts, hand me a screwdriver, and I'll be entertained for a little while.

Off with a bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

That's the sound of the new year starting off for me. We're now twenty-six, err.., twenty-seven days into '05 and I must admit January has shaped up very nicely so far.

Productivity at work has been at an all time high.

Jen graduated from The Andrews School and got her certficate of graduation for Medical Transcription. Even better, she was hired by Transolutions a few short weeks after graduating, and is now working part-time from home!

Co-worker buddy & I swept our opponents during our last league match, going 5-0 in singles and our doubles match.

Using some of my Christmas money (thanks to my in-laws & Mom & Dad!), I have some Sanus Steel Foundations speaker stands on order and they should be arriving on Friday.

I have weekly birthing classes to look forward to starting tomorrow! Jen is at 31 weeks, leaving only two short months to get ready for the baby. And no, we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl. Already having one of each, we thought we'd let this one be a surprise! Only this time, if all goes as planned, we'll be having a home birth, assisted by a midwife from Birth Works Midwifery Services.

I also have the Arkansas Closed Table Tennis tournament to look forward to on Sat. February 5th.

The Kiddos had a wonderful Christmas having been surprised beyond all expectations with the new Gamecube. We've been enjoying that as a family as well!

I must conclude by saying that shopping malls are evil, horrible places. Either I'm getting old or I'm getting even more antisocial because after having to go to the mall over the weekend for Jen to exchange some maternity clothes, I couldn't care less if I didn't set foot in a mall ever again. I felt severely uncomfortable, and felt like any minute I was going to run screaming out into the parking lot. Mostly I felt like I didn't *belong*. It was a very foreign, strange world to me. I felt like I was surrounded by people I had *nothing* in common with - mostly punks. Or at least that's how 80% of the people acted. Sure there were other families like ours, but we were definitely in the minority. Ugh. I don't have a problem going to Target or Best Buy or Walmart. But the mall literally scares me.

This year has also seen a revival in movies - that is, watching all the "blockbuster" hits of '04 that I refused to see/missed in the theater and chose to wait until they came out on video. In no particular order:

Garden State
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Troy
I, Robot
The Bourne Supremacy
The Village
Dodgeball
Spiderman 2
Napoleon Dynamite
The Terminal
Taking Lives

Busy busy busy. That's me. That's good, right?

More photos...

Cutie kitties!

LR "blizzard" of '04

Kiddo #2 & moi!

Ariel & kitties!

Ariel's pottery

Twice is a charm...

For those who don't know, I attended the Lord of the Rings movie marathon (now showing in local theaters) last December when The Return of the King was released as documented here.

Yesterday - I was able to partake of yet another marathon, this time from the comfort of my own home. However, I swear that the forces of Sauron were conspiring against me to even go through with it. Co-worker buddy couldn't make it (sob!) and my friend Joshua was only barely able to make it because his wife was ill. My initial plan to start the Fellowship of the Ring at 9am was pushed back to 10:15am as Joshua was taking care of his wife.

All was not lost as I took that time to clean and start preparing the food for the day. On the menu:

Homemade salsa
Homemade pizza
Homemade wontons
Other assorted snacks

As you can see, we had a nice food table set up:


And here is the setup in all of its big-screen Goodness (TM)


We finished the first of the trilogy by 2:00pm or so - that called for a break for lunch!


We immediately launched into The Two Towers in order to try to finish it by dinnertime. At some point, we were joined by the Kiddos:


After the conclusion of The Two Towers (~6pm), Joshua had to take a break and go home to care for his wife. Our ETC (estimated time of completion) was now being pushed to the very limits of Staying Awakedness. While he was gone, we made dinner for everyone. He returned around 7pm to eat with us. Mmmmm...yummy homemade wontons:


By the time we started The Return of the King, it was 9:45pm - but it was sooo definitely worth it. Watching the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was simply incredible. It made for a long, but YUMMY day.

Fingers crossed...

Rain, rain, go away, come again during the weekday....

The influx of rain sure has dampened my plans for some RtR training this weekend. I was HOPING to get my potential female teammate out on some offroad mtn bike trails but it looks like that will have to wait for another day. :( Not having had rain for almost a solid month, it started pouring last night and hasn't hardly let up all day. It's supposed to be much of the same for the entire weekend. It's not to say we won't train - in fact, it would be good to get out & do some hiking in the rain, but it just makes it less fun.

Having gotten the Adventure Racing (AR) bug, I've been looking for other races to compete in since there was the possibility I couldn't do Raid the Rock this year. Some that look like good candidates for next year include:

Ozark Challenge
Ozark Greenways Adventure Race
Southern Tour Adventure Sprint Races
Lewis & Clark Urban Adventure Race

The sprint races are half-day mini adventure races, and the cool thing is that they are open for kids 8 & up! Something to think about with Ariel or Jen next year.

For a list of AR races for the entire US, click here.

One thing I didn't realize until recently is that one of my co-workers, who has been racing with Team Traveler, who also gave the AR clinics, and is in charge of the race this year - they won the National Championship in 2000 & 2001! How fortunate it is for me to learn AR from one of the top teams in the entire nation. :D

T-minus 2 weeks & counting...

Training, training, and more training

Autumn once again is almost upon us, which in the life of Cliff means a return to a more active lifestyle. Of course, right now, my main focus is on training for Raid the Rock, set to take place on Sat. October 23rd. My teammates from last year couldn't do it this year for personal reasons, but I didn't find out until a week ago. So right now I'm DESPERATELY scrambling to find people who might be interested and to put a team together. The most difficulty comes in finding a female individual who is interested, motivated, and willing! I have a couple of leads still left out there so keep your fingers crossed!

I've managed to get out approximately every other day for the last several weeks either biking or hiking. Over the weekend I biked 16 miles Friday night, and then hiked about 5 miles yesterday followed with a 16 mile ride. That probably explains why I was so exhausted when I woke up this morning.

Co-worker buddy & I will also be teaming up for the fall table tennis league, which officially starts on Sunday. It should be a blast! That will start preparing us for the Arkansas Open which will take place Sat Oct 30th this year. I'm hoping CWB will compete!

And if that wasn't enough on my plate, I'm also interested in doing 100 min of CARP again this year (a mountain bike race to the uninitiated). That takes place Sunday Oct 31st.

In the meantime, I'll be a hiking, biking fool...