This weekend Tammy and I visited my cousin Shelli and her newborn Quade. We also visited with her husband Scott, and my aunt Nancy and uncle Melvin. Quade has a very nice tan going for him, and his toes are long. Nancy thinks he has a Fowler nose perhaps.
Jackson celebrated his 5th birthday last week with his friends, and this weekend Jackson and the rest of us celebrated his birthday with family, in Shawnee Oklahoma. Jackson got even more Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, as well as a bike with trick pegs! Looks like he may have to get training wheels for it before he can put it to use. I also did a considerable amount of workon Allen's PC, as well as help him assemble one for his daughter Jennifer. As it turned out, Allen unfortunately was the victim of a computer virus, which we had to eradicate. He now has a new OS install, and can dual boot debian Linux if his heart so desires. Teresa fixed a fine meal on Sunday, and then we all headed home.
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My nephew Jackson had a birthday earlier this week, and he had a party with some of his friends on the weekend at McDonald's. He got a lot of cool stuff including some Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtle action figures. Tammy was the photographer on this run. Jackson is now 5.
This case will be $18 after a rebate, and it came with a 400w power supply. It also came with an LED case fan, that glows red, blue, and green. This I managed to affix to 2 5.25 drive bay covers. I wanted to put it on the inside, but this was a crude hack until I get the right tools, to do it right with my remaining 2 5.25 covers. I had 2 additional tri-LED case fans ($4 each from Fry's). So I put one inside the case as well. It blows air out the back of the case, while the one I stuck on the front brings air through a very crude hole I cut into the 5.25 front slots. This lowered my case temperature by almost 20 degrees F.
In times past, the Fowler and Blair families used to get together at
Lake Buchanan, every July 4th holiday. My late, great aunt Marie Matush had
a house on the lake, and we all had a great time eating, boating, skiing,
fishing, and visiting. Well, that house was sold many years ago. Most of
the Blairs have started their own families, which will soon include Shelli
as she is with-child. So, while I've managed to see my aunt and uncle, Nancy
and Melvin Blair, the rest of them have to balance things with their own
families. This trip however, it was Blair free. So, a Fowler family reunion
ensued, and we had a grand time. Tammy and I stayed with my grandmother in
Temple, as well as my father, and Andy and Christie. We spent much of our
time in Morgan's Point at my uncle Guy's place, which is very close to the
water at lake Belton. We got the boat out Saturday afternoon, Jason and I skied some. Next
we tried to take some people out for a boat ride, and the propeller hit
a stump in the water, and we had to abort. Later we did get the prop
straightened out, for the most part. So, we watched a movie or two, relaxed,
and visited. My dad brought out his new kitten that some coworker had
given to him. I believe his name was Clyde, but I don't think he was firm to
that name. We also got to try out dad's new toy, a tennis racket that
zaps bugs, you can see him holding it in one of these pictures, it's yellow.
Curious as I am, I touched it with a charge. I wasn't sure how much punch
2 AA batteries were have, but let me tell you it is quite a lot. It felt
like 4-5 needles stuck into my finger all at once, as well as a sharp burn.
But the experience brought me courage, haha. Anyway, I also had a stash of 3-4
year old firecrackers that I blew through during this time, man it was good
to get rid of those things.
It seems that all the pics are in Temple, but most of what I'm using these
days is video, and not still pictures. I'm in the process of making
VCDs out of all this stuff, and some day soon hope to procure a DVD burner
and start down that path. For now, all I have is a few stills, but hopefully
I can figure out how to take some 15-30 second movie samples, and make them
available here on the web, it's on my to-do list, promise. I have some
excellent video, that Tammy shot, of Jason and I skiing.
We do this every year, and recently it's been in Stephenville. They moved it
from Mineral Wells many years ago, because they had better accomodations, but
mainly because Stephenville is where they had it when many of the baby boomers
were kiddos. Self is my Grandmother Lila Reed's side of the family, and my
siblings and I originate from Jerome and Tott Self. Overall the reunion was
a success. Tammy and I arrived Friday night, so that I could play in the
scramble golf tournament the next morning. We had 2 teams playing, and this
year I didn't play with my uncle Mike, but instead with my slightly more
distant uncle/cousin Jimmy Self. We struggled a good bit, I don't think a
single shot of mine was used, but fortunately the rest of my team was doing
okay. We had TJ (who is married to Mandy McMeans, pardon the use of her
maiden name), and he had some excellent drives to keep us in the game. Jimmy
was hitting his drives well, and Alvin Self was a big help too. We had a
young girl on our team as well, who did nicely. Forgive me but the name
eludes me at the moment. The other team was my uncle Mike Reed, he had with
him his daughter (and my cousin) Mary Reed, Jenny's husband Kyle, Jessie's
good friend Chuck, and their ace and go-to guy was Eric (last name eluding).
So, our team struggled, but we did very well. We were -7 under par, and Mike's
group set a new reunion record with -9 under par, very very difficult to beat.
That afternoon, we had some barbercue, then later got together to play some
softball. This year we had it on a baseball field instead of a softball field,
so no one planned on hitting it out of the park. The game went pretty well, I
ended up pitching the game, as I've done in the last couple of reunions. We
had a very good turnout. Amy and her good friend Eric played as well.
I also got to meet Matt McMeans' fiance Jessica, although I did not get a
chance to meet her young boy. His wedding is very soon, and I believe
his mother Jerry McMeans will be using the same lady who catered to my
wedding, and Andy's wedding.
The next day we got together for some lunch, catered by Chicken Express.
Unfortunately, for some reason this year the Self's didn't do a good job of
hanging around afterwards, and sharing with everyone else the trials and
tribulations that went on in the past year. This has been sort of a tradition,
and for some reason we had a lot of people just up and go, bad bull. Not everyone did
so, but it was unfortunate. So, after eating we cleaned up a bit and
headed home.
Since my last update, quite a few things have come to pass. I've turned a year older, celebrated Christmas with several different families, and was privy to the wedding of my good friend Arthur. I posted some pictures from Christmas, but they are in the archive. For now, I'll focus only on 2003. I'll begin with Arthur's bachelor party. We went to Houston for this and had a great time. Shown are pictures from Jose's apartment, Oskar's house, and Marti Gras in Galveston.
Oskar's House
Arthur gets ready to leave to Galveston, at Jose's Apartment
Marti Gras at Galveston
Back in Houston, near Jose's Apartment