October 28, 2001 (pre-Halloween Party)
I'm writing this in March of 2002, so my memory is a little loose. We threw a Halloween party on the weekend before. Thai surprised us, coming down from Lubbock. He is here dressed as Darth Vader (and yes that's Wal-Mart that we stopped by in costume). Chris (Arthur's brother) was dressed as Shrek, and Tammy borrowed some of Wendy's old cheerleading stuff.
Again, this I type on March of 2002, so my memory isn't perfect. This was a trip to Shawnee Oklahoma to visit with Tammy's parents. I did play about 9 holes of golf with Allen, her step-dad. The pictures that are here, they are mostly from OKC.
Thumbnails shown, actual images are 1024x768
I got new lenses for my camera! They were a bit more than what I wanted
to pay, but I made good use of them this weekend, the wide angle and
the telephote lenses. However I'm still not use to the optical lenses
for close and detailed shots. Here's my first attempt in Tammy's apartment
with the wide angle. Notice how I get more picture on the sides.
Andy has season tickets, but thought to give Tammy and I at least 1 go at an Aggie game: either OSU or Baylor. We picked OSU since it was close to home for Tammy. We headed down to College Station on Friday, to make sure we made it to midnight yell. My dad also decided to go to the game as well, since he had a 125 year corp reunion to attend. We stayed with Jenny and Kyle Friday night, and took a few pictures while we were there.
Naturally at midnight before the game, we went to midnight yell practice. Tammy thought the Rock Aggie stories from the yell leaders were a bit blunt, but then this was her first trip to Aggieland. She managed to "hump" it okay, and even got to recognize the yells a little better. She insisted she was neutral, but you can't help that Aggie spirit from taking over. Anyhoo.. yell went fine. We parked on southside, in a parking garage that wasn't there when I was a student. I was glad to see not too many things like yells and traditions had changed since when I was in attendance.
Saturday morning we got up early, and Jenny and Kyle made some breakfast.
After a brief visit, we headed out to park behind the Zachary building,
north-east of campus. I decided to walk to the stadium (I think Tammy
might have preferred a shuttle bus), and we arrived at the MSC (Memorial
Student Center). The theme this game wasn't the usual Maroon Out (where
everyone tries to wear maroon) but a blue-white-and-red out. I think
they sold 70,000 tshirts (proceeds used for families affected by
the WTC disaster). As we were on first deck we should have had blue, but
blue was all sold out. So we grabbed white (what was left, we already
were wearing blue) and headed on in. First deck was blue, second white,
and the third deck was red (or Maroon might be close enough *grin* ).
The Corp were having their 125th
reunion, so there were a lot of events around this on campus. Rick
Perry (Texas Governor) was also in attendance. Former band members (I
assume) were on the field with the current band, they were in the maroon
shirts. The game turned out like I would have hoped, here's some shots
and captions.
After the game, we visited a few places on campus, myself giving the guiding tour. There is some fish living in my old Hotard room, had a quick peak at my old hole; pipes are still there, it felt very nostalgic. We then drove to Freebirds, home of the world famous burrito. We picked up 2 to go, and headed to Temple. In temple we visited a good while. The next morning Guy came by, and flushed Butch (as in needle to shunt to Butch). While in Temple, I did show the pictures I had taken on the tv, I also tried out a few more shots with the wide angle lens.
Didn't do much this weekend, and no pictures this time. Everyone well knows of the events happening north east of here, very, very tragic. Jose (one of Arthur's close friends) came up for a visit, and we did get some 3-way action on Unreal Tournament. We also had some really good volleyball play Friday night.
Tammy and I went to the Cowboy game, the defense played well but they lost to Tampa Bay 10-6. Everyone who went with me got a free hat, traffic was real bad; my mother and Don didn't get there until almost half time!
Well, Thai decided to make a road trip to Big D. We ended up doing more things this weekend than a very long time, Wendy and Arthur including, Tammy as well (naturally or course). Not to tell every little thing we did, but we did all go up to the Four Seasons. Apparently Aerosmith and Backstreet Boys were having a small contest to see who could sign the most autographs. We got there late and no one was there. So Thai and I did a small excursion to scope the place out, and Tammy was around when one of the guitarists from Aerosmith arrived. There were a handful of "fans" there waiting around. They probably got a room at the Hotel just because the band was going to be there.. maybe. We did get a nice view of the restroom, very classy. This weekend we also went to Cafe Brazil (pic shown with Arthur and Wendy), and tried to go to club Seven. But because Thai and I were wearing jeans we couldn't get in, so we went to Club 1 instead. I also ate at a Japanese restaurant for the very first time. We got there early so we could get the cheap buffet (if you call $16 cheap). Tammy feasted on Wendy's or Burger King (I forget which), so had no room for Japanese food. It wasn't too bad, I even had some Sushi.
Last Friday, the 17th, we celebrated Andy's birthday at Zios in Ft. Worth. About a day or two earlier my grandmother's sister Imogene passed away, so we attended the funeral on Saturday in Mineral Wells, where they grew up when they were younger. So this was some sad news to report.
On the Sunday after, I had to go into work to do a pretty big change to Vought's external Internet server. This included moving www.vought.com, as well as their DNS and FTP servers from PSI.net to sprint.net (since PSI is on the verge of dropping like a rock). Aside from a couple of bumps, this move went real smooth. Friday was my alternate work week day off, but it was good that I had it off.. as I was expecting my matress to come in that day. About an hour before I was to get it, it occured to me that I did not have a queen size bed, but rather a full size (how often is it that I shop for bed items? not often). I called the matress store and had them resize it lower (about a 7$ price difference) and they scheduled the delivery for the next day, Saturday (today). I got the matress in, and they took the old away. What I have now sits much higher, so I'll have a little adjusting to do later. Its firm, but soft.
After the matress arrived, Tammy and I went on a little shopping trip to the Valley View mall and Galleria (neither of which she had been to). I returned a remote control car I had earlier got from kbkids.com for another (it was defective), and we had lunch at La Madaline's ([sic], also a first for Tammy.. maybe). Weekend is still going strong, still need to shop for a MiniDV video camera. I've got my eyes on either a JVC 501U or Panasonic DV400.
